Chapter 6

The Missing

The envelope of money had also had a note with a phone number, presumably to a burner phone. Tenko had shoved the note in his pocket, never intending to use it. But now. Well. If this was one of Hawks' kids, he wanted to know about it. He sent a text with a picture of the poster Midoriya had received. "Do you know this girl?"

Almost immediately, he received a response. "About time whoever's running your youth outreach checked their DMs. I told her friend to send that to them two days ago."

"So that's a yes?"

"Yes. She's a good kid. Parents are assholes, kicked her out because her power's creepy. So far as I can tell, the last time anyone saw her was over a week ago."

Tenko sucked in a breath. If she hadn't turned back up, it might not be the snatchers. Metahuman rights activist had debated among themselves for years, if the snatchers sometimes took the kids and kept them, for unknown purposes, or if cases where the victims didn't return was the work of other actors. Just because the snatchers existed didn't mean that metahumans were immune to other varieties of monster, after all. Either way, it didn't seem like good news for Toga. "I have a block of time in thirty minutes. I'll be calling, I need everything you know about when she was last seen, where she was, whatever you can give me."

"Thirty minutes works for me. You think we can find this one, Shimura?" Tenko had never heard him sound so vulnerable. He did care about these kids. Not that he showed it, having them robbing banks and vandalizing police stations and other nonsense.

"No, but I'm going to try."

He started by calling the hospitals and morgues he knew would talk to him. Some of them were sympathetic. Thankfully none of them had an unidentified teenage girl, let alone one matching Toga's description. But there were many that wouldn't talk to him. He needed help from the police.

Talking to the police, as usual, was like arguing with a brick wall. "How do you know the young lady is missing if her parents haven't reported it?" the woman he was speaking to asked. She didn't even try to put any concern or even interest into her voice.

"She wasn't living with her parents, they turned her out."

"So how do you know she's missing?"

"I've established a timeline with her friends who were in regular contact with her. She was last heard from eight days ago, which is out of the norm for this young lady."

"I'm sorry but we'll need the parents to file a report before we can investigate. With a teenage vagrant, who knows when they might just decide to leave it behind?"

Tenko cursed very harshly under his breath. "Fine. Thank you for your help, your concern for a vulnerable teenage girl is noted and appreciated," he said, with as much bile as he could possibly put into that sentence.

The calls to the girl's parents didn't go any better. He called them multiple times over the next several days. The first time, they picked up, but hung up as soon as he identified himself. After that, they wouldn't pick up. He left voicemails, in his gentlest, most diplomatic voice, saying he didn't know what had happened between them, but he was sure they still loved their daughter enough to want to help, and there was only so much they could do to find her without police resources, so he just needed them to file a report, he'd send a counselor to help, he'd send instructions, whatever they needed.

The fifth time, the mother picked up and answered. "Please stop calling. You don't know her, you don't know what she was. If she comes back without that wretched power, she's better off." Assholes hadn't been strong enough a word.

"Ma'am. It's been over a week. At this point, that's probably not why she's gone. She'd be back by now if it was. She could have been taken by traffickers, a serial killer, anyone. Please call the police and …" She hung up. Coldhearted, hateful woman. Her daughter could be in another country locked in a sweatshop or brothel, or dead in an unmarked grave, or God only knows what, and her mother didn't care.

He wanted to throw the phone across the room. He wanted to throw everything with any weight at all on his desk to the floor and smash the walls. He wanted to dissolve something to ash like he hadn't been able to do since he was ten. He did throw an empty water bottle, just to vent some of his rage.

And then he called back, one more time. It went to voicemail. This time, he wasn't nice. He didn't raise his voice, he didn't tell them what he thought of them. But his tone was hard. "All you have to do is call the police and report her missing. Then I'll leave you alone. You'll never hear from me again. If we find her, we'll take care of her. Out of sight, out of mind, that doesn't have to change. But I will keep calling until you get a restraining order or you do one last decent thing for your child. And a restraining order is a pain in the ass to get."

They finally reported her missing twenty minutes later.

Deku was glad to have a full schedule for once on a Thursday. He'd been in this reality for several weeks now, and he'd given up on hearing from Leto, either his or her counterpart, but he tried not to think about it too much. Every time he thought about how worried his mother must be, he'd get so heartsick. It was harder not to think when he had too much time on his hands.

But today, he knew what he was doing.

If he timed it just right, he could catch this universe's Toshinori Yagi as he left for work. Then, at lunch, he was meeting with Emi to discuss the possibility of illustrating more of his world. And in the afternoon, he was hoping he could see his counterpart and sister on the way home from school.

He rose early and took the winding bus route to the address he'd found in a directory for a construction company. While he went, he kept an eye on the social media feeds in his charge. Toga's missing poster had spread like wildfire, with a lot of people sharing it, with speculation on what had happened to her. Most of it was respectful, some of it was cruel or wild. He saw people blaming everyone from the "shadow lord," which he'd figured out was what some people called All For One, to aliens to slavers to yokai. He didn't see anything useful, frustratingly, but of course if anyone had seen anything, hopefully they were reporting it to the tip line and not posting about it online.

He got to his stop and made his way to the apartment, and with nerves very high, he knocked on the door.

A woman answered, a middle-aged woman that … reminded him a lot of his mother. They even wore the same hairstyle, though this woman's hair was reddish brown. "Oh hello there, can I help you?" she asked.

"Oh hi, I'm here to see Mr. Yagi?" he asked, trying not to let his voice shake.

"I'm afraid you just missed him, Young …"

"Midoriya. My dad used to work with him," he said quickly, hoping the lie he'd practiced didn't sound too much like a lie.

"Oh well, I'm sure he'd be glad to see you another time. Sorry you missed him, my Toshi does like to keep early hours. Do you want to come in for some tea?"

He shouldn't. He'd probably already over-stepped, and he'd missed his chance. "I wouldn't want to trouble you, Mrs. Yagi."

"It's no trouble at all, I was just putting on a pot for myself. I insist, you've come all this way."

Deku stepped into the home and immediately felt like he had crossed a line, but it was too late to take it back now. Miserably, he followed as she ushered him into the apartment. She told him to take a seat on a sofa in the living room, and he did so, looking around while trying to not be obvious. Every inch of space seemed to be decorated with photographs of two children at various ages, a blond girl and a boy with his mom's reddish-brown hair. The photos where they looked the oldest, presumably the newest, showed the girl at a university graduation and the boy, who seemed to be slightly older than the girl, posing in an apron by a food cart. Some of the pictures featured their dad, who wasn't nearly as muscular as a fully-powered All Might, but significantly more so than All Might after losing One For All, always smiling and clearly very proud of his two kids. In the center of the mantlepiece above the television, in a place of honor, there was a photo of the Yagis' wedding. They had a Western ceremony, and Mrs. Yagi had been very beautiful in her white gown, and Mr. Yagi was so taken with her he didn't look anywhere near the camera, just at her. Deku couldn't account for why those photos made him feel heartsick, so he put his eyes forward and tried not to stare.

Mrs. Yagi returned with two cups of tea. "What did you need to speak to Toshi about?" she asked.

"Oh I …" Deku had a lie ready, and it just fell apart in his mouth. "I've been through a lot of changes lately, and I just wanted to … your husband reminds me of someone I used to know, I wanted to speak to him and get some guidance. I'm sorry to have imposed."

"That's all right, as I said it's no trouble. I hope they're not bad changes."

"Some of them are," he said honestly.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Without meaning to, Deku's eyes kept going to the pictures even as he drank the tea. Probably partially because there weren't many places to look that didn't have pictures. "I couldn't help it, I took so many pictures of Yoshi and Kiku all their lives, and it's so hard to choose which ones to put up," she said apologetically when she noticed him looking at a picture of the two kids, then grade school aged, burying their dad in sand at the beach.

"I don't mind," he said quickly. "My mom has a lot of pictures of me, too."

"I think we, mothers I mean, know how short the time with our children will be, so we just do our best to hold onto it," she said after a moment's contemplation. And now Deku was heartsick for his mother, who probably thought the worst had happened to him, and he couldn't stop himself from crying. "Oh dear, are you all right?"

"I miss my mom," he said honestly. She didn't have to know why. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come, I didn't mean to make any trouble …"

"Young Midoriya, I'm sorry for whatever's going on," she said gently, and patted his shoulder. "Is there anything I can do?"

"No ma'am, you've already been so kind," he said. "Thank you."

He managed to excuse himself despite Mrs. Yagi's continued concern and quickly left, making his way back to Emi's school to meet with her, feeling guilty for having crossed a line he should have realized was there, more homesick than ever, and generally just trying to untangle the knot of emotions the visit had left him with.

He had time to kill, so he checked his phone, including the DMs. He only had to delete one hate message before he saw a message from Togata, less than day old. He opened it to find it was a series of staccato messages, clearly typed stream of consciousness style. "This is Midoriya running this right? I hope it is, if it's not, oops, sorry haha. Do you have friends? Sorry, that sounded rude. Do you want more friends? Some of us are going to the movies on Saturday night. Us being some meta kids that have met through the center. Tsu will be there! That's Satsaki's big sister. Anyway, you're welcome to come, if you don't have to study."

"I can take a study break," he typed back.

The Todoraki law office filled Tenko with a feeling of … was nostalgia the right word? Was there a word for a something like nostalgia but for something that never happened? Probably. The Germans probably had a word for it.

The girl who'd brought him here today looked very small in the enormous leather chair across from Todoroki's desk (all of the furniture in this office was like that). Yuri was small for her age, and brightly, wonderfully purple, with fins and gills that gave her the advantage in swimming that had caused the trouble. She toyed with the hem of the skirt of her middle school uniform, not looking up at anyone, until Tenko walked in. "Tenko! I didn't know you were coming," she said, standing from the chair to run to see him. He hugged her, knowing she could probably use it. Todoroki was a great lawyer. He wasn't a great comfort to be around.

"Mr. Todoroki said he got a settlement offer he needed to show you. I wanted to be here to see what you decide."

"What I decide?"

"It's up to you what we do next, just like we've always said. Mr. Todoroki works for you, don't forget that."

"That sounds so weird," she protested.

"It's true, honey, we're all here to support you," her mother said sweetly. Her mother's mutation wasn't as dramatic, but there were visible slits on the side of her neck and her hands were webbed.

The door opened, and the girl looked up apprehensively. Todoroki entered with one of his paralegals, Ms. Himura. She was a beautiful woman with long, all white hair, always smiling just a little. Tenko had the impression there was something going on between her and Todoroki, but he never cared to know any more about it. "How are you doing today, Ms. Yuri?" Ms. Himura asked as she sat across from the girl, while her redheaded boss was silent. Tenko already knew – it had gone badly. His heart sank, but he kept his countenance up for Yuri's sake.

"I'm doing okay, I guess," the girl said uncertainly.

"The school's offered a settlement. I wanted to concur with you before I gave them an answer."

"Okay," Yuri said uncertainly.

"They've offered to pay all legal fees accrued so far, and to let you swim at meets." Yuri's eyes lit up. Tenko knew the however was coming long before Todoroki went on. "However, you'll be swimming for exhibition only, after the rest of the meet is completed."

"What does that mean?" Yuri asked.

"You won't be timed. You won't be racing the other girls, even non-competitively." There was an element of fairness involved – they'd always known, even if they won, the best result was for Yuri to share first place with the next fastest girl, and that wasn't unjust. But they at least could have timed her, and allowed her to share a pool with the other girls. (Part of the justification for keeping her off the team was the swim coach's assertion that Yuri might secrete a toxic chemical that would harm the others, a theory that had no basis in reality and that they'd been prepared to disprove. Was that still in play with the stipulation she only swim after the others?)

"That's okay, at least I'll get to swim," Yuri said sweetly, and she seemed genuinely happy. "And we won't have to worry about the money."

"Don't worry about the money regardless," Tenko reassured, but he already knew Yuri was settling. And it wasn't a bad settlement – the main object had been to get her in the pool, and that had been achieved.

"What about that horrible woman?" Yuri's mother asked, referring to the coach that had barred her daughter from even trying out and had stated her toxic secretion theory to Yuri's face in front of other students. Among other things, apparently, but that was the worst incident, and the most relevant to the suit.

"She stays, unless the school decides otherwise. Even in the best case, we never had the power to force the school to take any action on her."

"But you made me repeat all the nasty things she said about me," Yuri protested.

"I'm sorry you had to do that, Yuri, but we needed to be prepared to show the school's decision was based on anti-metahuman prejudice," Todoroki explained.

Yuri's eyes were wet with tears, all her happiness from just a few second ago drowned out by reality. "Can we still take the settlement, if I don't swim?" she asked timidly.

"Yes," Todoroki answered. "But we have a solid case, we can win this one."

Yuri was quiet, looking down at her hands. She wanted to fold, but she was scared to say it.

"She'll probably be nicer, after this," Yuri's mother said reassuringly. "She'll be scared by what happened." That was optimistic.

"Regardless of whether you decide to go through with swimming or not," Todoroki said, forcibly re-railing the conversation. "This could set a precedent for other metahuman students. I think we should proceed."

"But if we lose, it would be a bad precedent, right?" she asked.

Todoroki was quiet for a long moment. "Yes," he said honestly. "But as I said, the case is strong, we can …"

"No," Yuri said, shaking her head. She was almost crying now. "No. I don't want to make it worse for everybody if I lose, and I don't want to keep doing this. Everything about this has been awful. No offense, Mr. Todoroki, you did your best to not make it awful, but it was. And she won't be nicer, Mom, she'll be worse, I know it …" she clutched the hem of her skirt and the tears started to fall. Her mother wrapped an arm over her shoulders and took one of her hands in hers.

"I think that's our answer, Mr. Todoroki," Yuri's mother said softly.

"I'm sorry Mr. Shimura, I know you told me I was brave and I could help other kids …" Yuri said, without looking up at him.

"You are brave, Yuri. Don't worry about me, you have to do what's best for you, just like I said." For a kid as sensitive as Yuri, even if they'd won, it would have been a Pyrrhic victory to swim under a woman that had already been so cruel to her before this even started. He'd been a fool to think this would go any other way.

"Well. I'll let opposing counsel know we accept, then," Todoroki said, and just once Tenko wished he could have kept his impatience out of his tone. It was like this any time they settled.

"I'll have the paperwork to you for signature tomorrow," Ms. Himura said, in a much kindlier tone than her boss. "There won't be a bill."

Tenko walked with them as they left the building. "I'm sorry …" Yuri started to apologize again.

"Like I said, don't be," he said with a smile. "You got an excellent settlement. Who knows? Maybe the coach will move away. Or get in a bad accident while riding on her broomstick and have to miss coaching for a while." Yuri smiled a little at that. By then they were at the bus stop.

"Thank you, Mr. Shimura, for everything. I wish it had worked out better," Yuri's mother said.

"Thank you both, for coming forward with this. We're making it better day by day." It didn't feel like it today.

They parted ways on that note, and Tenko went around the corner of the office building and pulled out his vape pen. He heard Todoroki approaching, but ignored him until he spoke. "I thought you were quitting?" the lawyer asked as he lit a paper cigarette. He held a lighter up, but it had run out of gas years ago – the flames came from his body, redirected around the lighter so it wasn't noticeable from more than a couple of feet away. It was still a stupidly reckless thing to do, but he'd gotten away with it all this time.

Tenko held the long drag he'd taken from the pen for a second longer, before he exhaled and answered. "I did. Then I had to call a fifteen-year-old girl's parents thirty-two times just to get them to report her missing. She's been gone over a week."

"Runaway?"

"Worse. They turned her out."

"Damn."

Tenko wanted to complain more, to vent about the system and the parents and everything else. But he didn't. "You know a settlement isn't a loss, right?"

"It's not a win, either."

"I'll write it up like one. No one has to know she's not going to swim – the news will have forgotten by the time it's relevant."

Todoroki grunted, unsatisfied, but didn't say anything else.

Someone else was approaching. Tenko glanced in the direction of the footsteps, and saw a uniformed police officer. They weren't in a non-smoking area, were they? The officer had a visible mutation – metal steam pipes that extended from his arms – so it was unlikely he was being that petty even if they were, unless he was really going for pick-me points with the other officers. "Tenko Shimura?" the officer asked, and if Tenko wasn't mistaken, he seemed nervous.

"What can I do for you, Officer?" he asked in his most respectful voice, killing the pen.

"I'm Officer Iida, and I'd like to talk to you about the day you went missing."

It should have been a hopeful moment. Maybe the police were about to get off their collective ass, after weeks of protests. But Iida wasn't a detective, and he was meta himself. This smacked of a one man crusade. But it was something. "Of course, Officer."

Emi ran down the sidewalk towards him. "Izuku! I'm so glad so see you again!" she shouted as soon as Deku was even remotely in earshot.

"It's nice to see you again too, Emi," he answered as calmly as he could as she approached, coming to a stop just short of running right into him.

"You said you wanted more paintings?"

"Well … not really." She looked crestfallen, so he explained quickly. "I was thinking something … more like a manga." She frowned, but put a hand to her chin thoughtfully.

"I don't know. Manga are usually drawn, it's a totally different medium from what I normally work with."

"I wouldn't mind if it was all painted, but I imagine that takes so much time, maybe you could only do paintings of the most important scenes, and do the rest in something quicker."

"Right, I'd make sketches either way. But instead of doing full paintings for most of them, I could just clean up the sketches slightly. I still don't know though … why a manga, Izuku?"

"I just thought it would be the …" he groped for words to explain. "The most efficient way to tell a story."

"Tell a story? To who? I thought your being here was supposed to be a big secret."

"It is, and if we aren't careful it could make trouble for people. I'd write the text, and I'd change the names, I might need you to change some people's appearances and quirks …"

Emi cringed. "I've never done that before. I'd feel like I was … lying. I've never used my gift to lie before."

This had been a terrible idea. Deku was zero for two today. "I'm sorry, forget I said anything. I don't want you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable."

"Wait. Tell me why it's important to tell the story. No, show me."

He knew what she meant. He only had a moment to choose which memories to dwell on, but once he started they flowed naturally. He thought of how odd it had been to walk through a park where no one was using their quirks, and pushed his mind to childhood summer Saturdays in the park with Kacchan, with people all around freely using their quirks. He thought of racing with his friends in the school swimming pool, of his mother casually, publicly helping a neighbor that had misplaced her keys, of Shinso's excitement to use his quirk to help people. He thought of the most inspiring rescues he'd witnessed, directly or on the news – from Mt. Lady tenderly catching a would-be jumper and setting him safely down while promising he was loved and needed, to All Might pulling the young boy from the vinegar river and humorously reassuring him, to Mr. Aizawa saving Tsu from Shigaraki even while he was bleeding and broken, to Togata wrapping Eri in his cape, to Gang Orca towing a damaged fishing boat to shore without losing a single sailor after a typhoon. By the time a few minutes had gone by, Emi and he were both in tears. "Okay, Izuku, I'll do it. I'll do my best. Figure out what story you want to tell from your world and how you want to tell it, we can meet again after school," she said, fumbling in her backpack for a sketchbook.

"Are you sure?"

She nodded. "I think it's the most important thing I'll ever do with my gift," she said seriously.

Tensei had worried about Shimura's response to the looks from his fellow officers, which ranged from confused to hostile, but the younger man didn't even seem to notice. He'd probably gotten very good at not noticing that sort of thing. He opened the door to the interview room and let him in, and Shimura took a seat across from him at the interview table and looked as comfortable as if they were in a coffee shop.

"So, you think you can solve it, after all this time?" Shimura asked as Tensei sat down, the skepticism apparent in his voice.

"Yes. I want to establish a timeline, for your case in specific and for these cases in general …"

"We have pamphlets with the general timeline," Shimura snapped. "The fact you're the first police officer to think to put it together is frankly pitiful."

"Believe me, I know," Tensei said softly, not letting the harsh tone get to him.

Shimura sighed, and his expression softened. "I'm sorry. My tone wasn't called for. Let's go over it then."

"Let's start with what's been put together by the SDMR, no need to reinvent the wheel."

"Day one, the person, usually but not always a child, is taken. Usually when they're alone, not always. Sometimes a child or adult with the target child is distracted using various methods. Given these methods are pretty standard 'I have a puppy in my car' nonsense, we can assume that's used on the target as well, but they forget everything so we don't know for sure. They may just be snatched by brute force. In a few especially harrowing cases, children have been taken from their beds at night, presumably because an effective opportunity to snatch them during the day failed to present itself. In my case, I was walking home from school with my friend, Yuzuru. A man pulled up and told him he was his mom's coworker and she'd been in an accident and he was sent to take him to the hospital. He did take him to a nearby hospital, and then just left him there. Yuzuru gave a description to the police, but no one was ever identified as a suspect." Shimura was unflustered by all of this, even the description of what happened to him. Of course, he'd probably told the story about a hundred times.

"The … forgetting. I've always been curious about that. Is there any evidence it's drug induced?" Tensei asked.

"No, we think it's done with a metahuman ability. We've had chemical analysis done on the hair of returned victims, there's not any evidence of any drugs in most cases. Some of them have sedatives in their systems, but most don't."

"So, day one, the kids are snatched. What happens next?"

"We don't know the exact timeline on their side of things, obviously, but we're pretty sure the following happens in order. Their ability is removed first, then their genetics are tampered with to prevent them passing on their ability to their children, then their memories are wiped. Then they're returned on day four," Shimura answered.

"Why do we think that's the order?"

"Taking their ability first makes the most sense from a security perspective, they're easier to manage without their ability and while they're in shock from losing it. They usually have ligature marks and defensive wounds, but nothing severe which suggests the captives don't have any powers to even out the playing field, even slightly. If they're unmanageable even powerless, like, say, they're the odd adult that gets taken or a teenager, they're drugged. And the memory wipe being the last step makes sense given that it seems to have a time limit. I don't remember anything from Yuzuru going with the man to six hours after I woke up in the hospital. That's consistent with other cases, new memories start to be retained around five AM on the fifth day."

"And the … genetic tampering. I've never understood what happens there. Is it like gene therapy?" Tensei asked. He didn't know if anyone knew, but it was worth a shot to ask.

"Sort of, we don't think it is though. Gene therapy can be targeted to certain tissues, but not this precisely, and none of the therapies currently on the market or in testing affect the germline. Which this does exclusively. Also, gene therapy generally adds something, this deletes it. Not to mention there's no evidence of any kind of viral vector we can isolate."

"So, probably also a metahuman ability."

"We're almost certain." Shimura didn't look as comfortable as he had before.

"So why does it cause birth defects in some of the returnees' children?"

"For the same reason gene therapy had to go back to the drawing board in the nineteen-nineties – you can't just insert or delete things in the genome without risking disrupting adjacent genes. The first therapy attempted cured a severe immune deficiency, but almost always caused leukemia. Apparently, that's true with the means used by the kidnappers. When they excise the genes related to the ability, they sometimes take other material with it. In this case, part or all of a crucial gene involved in neural development, and unfortunately one that requires two copies from both parents." Shimura didn't have to elaborate on the defect it caused – Tensei had seen the pictures and the videos of kids slowly wasting away on life support systems as their nervous system failed to grow with the rest of them, until they either died or their parents let them go. If they were born at all – the worst forms of the defect apparently only lead to miscarriages, not live births. "If it only needed one copy then it wouldn't be so bad, odds-wise, but … well. Wishing doesn't do any good." Shimura's voice was so full of sorrow – personal sorrow? If it was something that only needed one copy, then the only risk would be if two returnees married. Assuming Tensei's admittedly limited education in biology hadn't failed him. But since it needed two copies of the gene to function properly, half of the children of any returnee with the damaged gene were doomed, if they got the chromosome that had been altered. "For whatever it's worth, the risk for all categories of Okazaki's Defect has gone down overtime."

"Like they're getting better at using the ability," Tensei said thoughtfully. The thought of how often they must be using it unsettled his stomach more than a little.

"Exactly. I don't have any hope that this is out of any great care for the targets, it's either to limit the outrage generated to ensure the government keeps looking the other way, or just a natural consequence of using the ability twice almost every week for almost sixty years."

"Only sixty?" Tensei asked. The disappearances had been happening for at least two hundred years

"Before then, the returnees were sterilized by tubal ligation or vasectomy, depending on sex."

Tensei swallowed. If it was getting better overtime, that meant the party or parties responsible knew they weren't invincible, they cared about not bringing the full weight of the law to bear on themselves. He just had to make the system move – as difficult of a task as that was.

Shimura's countenance had grown almost stormy during this part of the conversation.

"I'm sorry to ask, but …" Tensei started.

"Yes, I'm a carrier. I found out just a couple of months ago. They don't like to do the test if you're not the age of majority, so it's sort of a rite of passage for returnees. Turn twenty, get your germ cells tested, meet with the genetic counselor for results, decide what to do about it if you don't like the results." Shimura seemed simultaneously so much older than twenty and so very, very young in that moment.

Tensei didn't ask what he'd decided, he'd already overstepped. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"I never really wanted children so it wasn't as bad news for me as it is for many others."

Tensei didn't know if that was a coping mechanism or the truth, and it wasn't his business to know.

So he plowed on. "So, day four."

"On day four, barring a few exceptions which I want to discuss with you, the children are returned. This was once done at the victims' home, but it has since changed to neutral territory where the children will be found safely in the morning such as hospitals, schools, temples, and community centers. I was left at the same hospital where Yuzuru was taken. This change was probably made because wealthier families can hire private security and sometimes the police can be roused to give enough of a damn to at least have a presence at the home … sorry."

"It's all right, it's pathetic we haven't done more before now." Tensei said. He really didn't mind the resistance, he'd honestly expected more. "And the exceptions?"

"Every now and then, they don't come back. Sometimes eventually we figure out it was not the same actors – that there was a custody dispute, or something more sinister. Sometimes the investigation shows another cause was likely. In some cases, we never get any indication one way or another. It's possible those are also the work of other actors but …"

"It's possible that whatever force is targeting metahumans for power removal and gene alteration keeps them," Tensei finished the thought. The first possibility he thought of was horrible enough he hesitated to suggest it, but Shimura had probably already turned it over in the dark hours of the night. "Is it possible those instances are ones in which the victims died of complications from the procedures they're subjected to?"

"No. Because in the case of the only known fatality we know of, her body was dumped on the doorstep of a community center on the night of day two. She'd been dead for hours when she was found, she likely died during the initial kidnapping."

"And it's unlikely she would have been an exception. So, if we assume these long-term disappearances aren't the work of other actors …"

"They're definitely being held somewhere, presumably alive," Shimura said gravely.

"And the young lady that was just reported? You think she's an instance of this?"

"Yes. Also a young man that's been missing for …" Shimura paused, presumably calculating the time in his head. "Over six months now." Tensei couldn't imagine if someone took Tenya away for that long, or what it would be like to be kept by the kind of horrible organization that could do something like this to almost two kids a week. "And of course they go back further than that. There are cases that were opened decades ago where the children were never seen again, that otherwise fit this framework." Terrifying thought – and to what end?

But he had to focus on the cases where they came back, that was the most likely avenue for capturing suspects. This doubtless involved dozens or hundreds of people, but the lowlifes would have information about the people right above them, if they could get them to talk. They could peel the layers back. Hopefully that would lead to putting an end to it once and for all, and to the return of the long-time captives. "So, when they're brought back – do we know how the kidnappers are avoiding security cameras?"

Shimura gave him a look that was almost amused. "You really don't know?"

"No. As you've probably noticed, I'm not a detective. I would think that would be a valuable set of leads," Tensei said, not letting himself be defensive.

"They don't always avoid them. In about forty percent of cases for the last thirty years or so, the cameras were killed, once again, probably by a metahuman ability. In the other sixty, either the returnees were left just out of view of cameras, the property owners were unable or unwilling to provide the footage, or, in a few particularly upsetting cases, the footage was given to the police and we never heard anything else about it."

Tensei's entire body went hot with anger. It wasn't new information that way too much of the force was crooked, but the thought that the crucial information might be something someone was sitting on out of laziness or worse was blood boiling.

He straightened out his expression. "Thank you. I'm going to use this to bring a proposal to my superiors."

Shimura looked deeply cynical of this, but he bowed his head in appreciation. "Thank you. Hopefully you'll succeed."

"Will you let me know if there's a missing metahuman that hasn't been reported? I want to act on the next instance, if at all possible." One more child being subjected to this horror was too many, but they would do what they must.

"I will, but I doubt you'll get your superiors to move on this that quickly," or at all, Tensei heard even though Shimura didn't say it. "I'll send you everything we have to help you build your case, good luck."

Tensei hesitated, but he knew he should speak, to close out the meeting on a note that conveyed how seriously he took this. "My dad was the officer that responded to your mother's call," he said softly. Shimura's eyes widened, but he said nothing. "I was an officer-in-training, and I was riding along with him." He stood just so he could bow, deeply. "My family failed yours, but I swear, I will do everything in my power to bring these perpetrators to justice, and I'll do anything you ask if you ever need help from a police officer."

"I'll hold you to the former, but … just forget about the latter. Your dad's hands were probably as tied as yours, and anyway, you're not him," Shimura said, putting up his hands in a hesitant gesture.

"If you change your mind, just reach out," Tensei said, standing.

"Honestly if you can get the chiefs to do anything more than the bare minimum they've been doing I'll count that," Shimura said with a shrug. He wasn't impressed with the offer – why should he be? Tensei had a lot to do to live up to his vow, and that started tonight.

Deku pulled the hood of his sweatshirt down so low he could barely see as he got on the bus, and he made sure to sit several rows back from his counterpart and little sister. But he could hear them talking, and he could just make out the back of his own head (a deeply disconcerting sensation). "I can't believe I have so much homework," Tamako said dramatically.

"It's not that bad, wait until you get to high school," Izuku said, but good-naturedly.

"I don't want to go to high school."

"You have to go to high school to be a veterinarian."

"I know I have to, but I don't want to."

"That's fair. But you've got time before you have to worry about it."

They seemed close – she confided all her little problems to him, and he listened patiently, and she listened to his advice with rapt attention – and that made Deku feel the same sick, anxious way he had looking at the pictures of Mr. Yagi's kids.

He followed behind when they got off the bus, hanging back so he wasn't that close. He wasn't sure why, he hadn't planned to, but he just needed to be close to them for a little while longer.

Izuku tripped, and his bag fell to the ground, scattering its contents. Deku kept walking, not wanting it to be obvious he had stopped to watch, knowing he'd have to turn his head as he passed. "Are you okay?" Tamako asked, kneeling to help her brother gather his things.

"I'm fine, just clumsy," he answered cheerfully. He looked around. "Ah shoot, do you see where my ID went?"

In the periphery of his vision, Deku saw Tamako extend a hand, and his counterpart's school ID hopped into it. She had Mom's quirk!

Izuku grabbed her wrist, none too gently. Deku risked a glance at his face – fear and anger was etched in his expression. "Tamako! Never do that in public again! You know what happened to Kacchan!" he said in a harsh whisper Deku barely caught just as he passed them by.

His heart dropped into his stomach. He kept moving, he had no choice.

"Izuku, the snatchers aren't going to care about my dumb little …" He shushed her.

"Let's go," he said, some of his gentleness returning but fear still crept into his tone, and now he held his sister's hand tightly as they walked, more quickly than they had been.

Deku turned off onto a side street as soon as he could, eager to find a place to weep for a boy he didn't technically know and full of profound regret.

Next up: Inertia. Officer Iida attempts to get to the bottom of the missing children, Deku starts publishing Emi's manga.

Author's Note:

For clarity, Himiko was kicked out before she snapped and attacked her classmate, and since she was taken in by other meta street kids many of whom were in a similar situation, she had more support and acceptance before it reached that point.

Originally what I wrote was that the returnees were sterilized, but I thought that was too dark for the setting and a little bit in bad taste so I changed it to "just" having their germline tampered with, and then that became me airing all my trauma over being a carrier for a genetic illness so not sure I actually made it that much more light-hearted.