They want to take him home originally. They introduce themselves as police officers after they arrive, a tiny woman with blonde hair and a man with long droopy ears that lay unattended against the collar of his uniform.

He figures, in between collecting himself and the now, that they don't understand his reluctance. Honestly, he doesn't either. But he is resolute. Certain. The compound has always been where he lived but he is tired of living with this bone-deep exhaustion. He can't explain it either.

He isn't suicidal. He knows with a certainty that makes him want to sleep forever that this is going to be temporary. His father will deal with whatever incident caused a servant to disobey him. He will be retrieved. Even if he leaves the country. Even if he runs to the ends of the earth, and hides as hard as he can for the rest of his life. He has always been aware of how substandard he is in comparison to his father. Not bright, not strong, an incomplete inefficient product. The best of a bad bunch, as the man called him frequently. He would never be able to evade for long.

That doesn't matter right now though.

Since he took his first steps outside of that alleyway, he has been hungry, starving for the things that he had never been allowed to see while under his father's control. He wants to know what Christmas is. He wants to see more bookstores. If bookstores exist do shoestores? Do pantstores? He wants to see those too. He wants to see everything.

Unfortunately, the police are less focused on his blooming ambition and more focused on finding the father they believe he wandered away from. From the moment he ascertained that they wanted to send him back, he has shut his mouth and refused point-blank to speak another word. He's good at being quiet. It doesn't impress the on-duty police officer though.

"Sweetheart, we need to find your dad." The woman with blonde hair tucked up into a tight bun tries to convince him. "Please tell us your name?"

All she receives is a very very cold glare.

Finally, sighing loudly she glances back towards her partner who is chatting with the bookstore employee who called them. "Koseki, I don't think we are going to get anything out of the kid tonight. How about we take him back to the station and give social services a call. We can wait a few hours for the missing children's report."

The small boy doesn't like or trust the police. He remembers the few words his father had to say on them, and none of them were very flattering, to be frank, but the woman seemed alright outside of the fact that she kept wanting to send him back to his father. He knows his father is very particular, so it is possible that these police haven't done anything wrong. There have been days before where he had been locked in his room for no reason, servants that had simply disappeared from his life, and offenses that he had been accused of by his father that, as far as the little boy knew, had never occurred, so his opinions on things outside of his immediate experiences were to be taken with a grain of salt, but never protested upon.

He has learned to take All-For-One's insults in stride since they slipped from the man's mouth like water spews from a faucet and reacting in front of the man is asking to be punished.

So he decides to allow the woman in front of him to guide him back outside. She leads him forward up to one of the vehicles with large letters across the sides reading 'POLICE'. He's seen these before, on his walk down the sidewalk this afternoon and during his brief waits between hospitals and being retrieved, though he has never ridden in one.

"Put your seat belt on, please." The man says as he gets into the driver's seat.

He stares forward blankly.

"Did you hear Officer Sato, sweetheart?" The woman asks.

He nods, but since he honestly has no idea what the two are talking about, he opts to continue remaining silent. The woman sighs loudly. He watches her open her car door and come around to the door beside him attentively. Snapping the door open, she reaches across him and he flinches minutely as the coarse fabric of her uniform runs lightly against his face. She pulls a long belt out of the seat and pushes it firmly into the metallic catch beside him.

Click.

"Leave it on, alright." She looks at him concerned so he gives her yet another perfunctory nod as he looks at the device constricting him.

Having never been inside a vehicle before, he is rather lost as to the reason he is wearing the seat belt. He turns towards the seat opposite him slightly and is quite delighted to see another one of the strange metal pieces the woman had guided into the catch hanging beside him. He peers forward, trying to determine if either of the officers are paying him any attention, but the thick mesh between himself and the front seat obstructs his view significantly. He decides the risk isn't worth a possible punishment, not when his father isn't there to determine the significance of his misbehavior or to prevent anyone from going too far in their enthusiasm to discipline him properly.

He shivers at the sudden recollection and closes his eyes, determined to force the memories away.

He is going to see new things, he tells himself resolutely. He is going to learn about televisions and seat belts. He is going to know about things his father calls filthy, because from what he has seen of the outside world so far it is in no way filthy. He thinks everything is beautiful.

He falls asleep at some point. The rhythmic gyrations of the vehicle makes him snuggle back into the cushions, and his eyes somehow managed to drift closed of their own accord. Even as his eyes slip closed he reaches out distinctly to caress the warmth of the two quirks in front of him, familiarizing himself with their flavor.

He knows it's already much later in the evening, perhaps ten o'clock when he is startled away by the gentle touch of the female officer. Despite his best attempts, he recoils violently despite her soft touch.

"We're at the police station, Sweetheart. Let's head inside."

They're an odd pairing, as Officer Sato has apparently elected to pull up to the entrance so they can head inside immediately. Instinctively, he shifts his attention toward Consume, trying to ascertain exactly what this police station is like.

He counts nearly thirty people inside, though many of them, if not all, have quirks as small as the width of his thumb. During his noninvasive perusal, he finds the largest light sitting nearest the entrance. Though he knows this isn't a good idea, he steadies himself. Using the faintest thread of Consume, he reaches out with whisper thin projectiles and touches the light.

The sudden influx of information is startling, and he nearly falls on his face as it overloads his brain. He isn't very good at doing this yet, seeing as his main focus is typically simple extraction, but he has known for a while that Consume was at least capable of something like this.

The man seems to at least realize something is happening to him, at least from the look of confusion evident on the man's face. He doesn't like that. He also doesn't like the low level pain ripping through him. It's increasing minutely the longer he stays connected, but it's also obvious that the longer he stays connected the more specific the information Consume can mine from the officers quirk.

37. HoST likEs blueBeRrrrRiEs. CaNnn use mUuuuScle LIgaaamENts tO FoRrrrTIfy SeLF. HOst -

He terminates the connection. Swallows another mouthful of blood since he knows he won't get away with spitting it out here.

"Here, sweetheart," the officer says, her concern still evident in her tone. "You can sit here and wait for social services. Officer Sato should be in in a moment, and until then, we are going to have a little chat, alright?"

He just stares at her.

"Well, to start my name is Officer Tanaka. Can you tell me your name?"

He considered her carefully, "I don't want to." He finally responded.

"Why not?"

He wondered if he should be honest. He couldn't tell her everything, even if he wanted to, but he could tell her he had decided not to go back.

"Because, you said you could send me back if you knew my name."

"Don't you want to get home?"

"No, I like it out here. I want to see more before father comes to get me."

"Before he comes to get you?" She asked, confused. "What do you mean?"

He sat back firmly against the chair, running his fingers against the coarse grains of the upholstery as he stared into the woman's brown eyes. "Have you ever lost something?"

"Yes. Of course I have. People lose or misplace things all the time, but what does that have to do with finding your father?"

"Well, when you misplace something, you want to get it back or get a new one, right? And if you can't just get a new one, you gotta find the old one. Father can't just get a new one of me. Not easily. That means, eventually he's gonna come looking."

"I… I see." He decided that she very much did not see, from the expression of confusion on her face. "But don't you want to go home, honey? See your mommy and your daddy?"

"I don't have a mommy or a daddy. I have Father, who will find me when he wants to. And I want something too, right now. I want to see things outside."

"You want to go outside?"

"No. I want to see outside. I'm gonna do it, and nothing you say or do is gonna make me tell you anything to make it easier to send me back." He folded his arms across his chest and gave her the most poisonous glare he could manage.

"Alright, alright." She stood up and he saw she was gesturing towards Officer Sato who had a small woman trailing after him.

"Hey, Erena, sorry it took so long, but everyone is adamant no missing children's reports have been filled in the last week."

The blonde sighed and gave him a pitying look which he ignored. "We will have to get him placed in a home then. I see you already have Ito-san already."

"I got the call while you two were on the scene." The younger woman interjected lightly. "It's always hard to find a placement at this time of year. I wanted to be here as quickly as possible so he didn't slip through the cracks."

"We still don't have a name for him."

"That's fine," the social worker responded. "He's young enough that we are allowed to give him a new one."

"I don't need a new name!" He said from where he was seated.

"Well then you have to tell us what it is." The social worker responded jovially. "We won't be able to use it if we don't know what it is. And I have to put something down on the paperwork, you know."

"Fine." He sighs. "Father calls me Consume."

Three frowning faces peer back at him. "Are you sure," Ito-san asked, the small amount of enthusiasm having vanished, replaced with something he didn't recognize at all.

"Of course I'm sure." He remembers the day his father gave him that name even. The day he stopped being No. 21.

"I don't think I like it." Ito-san announces.

"Me either." The officers agree.

"Well, since that's the case," Ito-san grins widely, "We need to find something suitable."

"Hey! Wait!" He protests, but is evidently ignored. He can feel his stomach tightening. He's never liked the name Consume after all, but it feels odd to discard something so intrinsically tied to his quirk. It's one of the few things he had been given by his father.

But apparently the occasion is enough to drag the entirety of the police station into the fray. A large number of people are calling out suggestions before he can stop them. In fact, the only thing he can do is reject the ones that he thinks are flat out ridiculous.

"Yuske."

"No."

"Ginta."

"No."

"Sasuke."

"No."

"Kenshin."

"No."

"Houjou."

"No!"

"Ranma."

"No."

"Akira?"

"No."

"Jounouchi?"

"No."

"Kioshi?"

"Are you kidding? No."

"Azuma?"

"No."

"Ekiken."

"No."

"Goku?"

"No."

"Utamuro?"

"No."

"Miroku?"

He catches Officer Sato staring at him from the corner of his eye and turns to give him the fiercest glare he can imagine to demonstrate how aggrieved he is that he has to endure this indignity, before the quiet man calls out, "How about Izuku?"

"Ooh, I like that one," another officer says. Before too long a number of people are in agreement about how the name just seems to fit for some reason.

He considers it for a moment. Tosses it back and forth in his head, rolls the weight of it across his tongue. Braids the name into his memories of the days, grounding it into himself before he has even realized it.

"I like it," he says before he realizes his mouth is moving.

"Good," Ito-san smiles down at him. "It's nice to meet you, Izuku."