"In other news, still no sign of Izuku Midoriya, the young boy who disappeared without a trace this time last week. Authorities are looking at all possibilities for where he could be, but they're beginning to lose hope of ever finding him. The police chief issued a statement earlier this evening stating that they would not give up until the boy is found."
Through puffy and sore eyes, Inko switched the TV off, watching as the reported faded to black and the small hiss of static filled the room for a split second, before the only noise that could be heard were the woman's muffled sobs.
It had been a week since her Izuku had disappeared, and there was no word from the police or any of the heroes that were searching for him. He had vanished without a trace. When he hadn't come home from school one day, Inko began to worry. Izuku was never late home for dinner, so when he missed it entirely, Inko phoned up Mitsuku Bakugo, young Katsuki's mother to see if Izuku had turned up there.
"Sorry, I haven't seen Izuku anywhere. I can ask Katsuki once he gets home, whenever that ends up being." Mitsuki had said.
Inko had sat up all night, watching the front door to see if Izuku would walk through, but he never did. Maybe he was staying over at a friend's house and had just forgotten to tell her? She had a feeling it wasn't true, Izuku would never do something to worry her like that, but it was what she had deluded herself into believing.
When she got a call from the school the next morning telling her that Izuku hadn't turned up to his class, that was when she finally realised something was wrong and went straight to the police station.
Talking to the officer at the front desk, she explained that there had been no word or sighting of Izuku since he'd left school early the day before. The officer said that they'd get someone on the case as soon as possible.
Another day goes by, and no word whatsoever, so Inko decided to take things one step further and go to the news station with a photo of Izuku. Immediately, the producer told his anchors to get the picture of the boy out there, and asked Inko if she was prepared to give some kind of statement about it. She had to admit, she didn't exactly look like she was camera ready, but her son was missing and that was more important, so she agreed.
The anchors made the announcement of Izuku's disappearance, giving a detailed description of him even with having only taken a quick glance at a picture of him that she had given them, which impressed her. Granted, she didn't know many other people in their area that was a short teenage boy with green hair and a freckled face.
Once they'd flashed the picture on screen and given his description, the camera panned to Inko and they asked her the same kind of questions that the officer in the station had asked.
"When did you realise that your son had disappeared?"
"Have you taken this matter to the police?"
"Give us some kind of idea of what your son is like. Personality? Hobbies? Favourite places?"
These were just a few of the questions that were asked in the fifteen-minute-long interview, but the last question caught Inko off guard. One of the news anchors, an older man, perhaps in his mid to late fifties asked, "We hear the stories about kids Izuku's age running away from home. You know, kids get older and become more rebellious. Have you considered the possibility that your son has been kidnapped?"
Kidnapped? Izuku? It couldn't be true. However, the more Inko thought about it, the more plausible it became. He had disappeared without anyone seeing what had happened to him, so it was becoming more and more possible that the outcome was someone had kidnapped him.
The temperature in the room dropped considerably from that point on, with the mention of kidnapping causing everyone else to avert their gazes from Inko, everyone besides the anchor who'd asked the question that is. "I understand this is a difficult question to answer, but do you think there's a possibility your son might be, gone?"
The way he phrased that question bothered Inko. It was obvious to everyone what he meant, that her baby boy was dead and in some kind of ditch somewhere, but she refused to believe that. There was absolutely no chance that Izuku was dead, but again she found herself questioning her resolve. She had never been through this before, as Izuku had never gone missing or even been late for anything, so Inko didn't know how it felt to lose your child.
Until then of course, as she sat there, the realisation settling in that she may never see her darling son again. Inko broke, burying her head in her hands and sobbing loudly. She didn't hear the anchor calling on the weather man to give his report. Her mind was blank as she felt two pairs of hands help her to her feet and lead her away and into another room off set.
The producer from before sat with her until she'd calmed down slightly, handing her a cup of water. "Mrs Midoriya, I don't think you're in your right state of mind to be left alone, is there a friend or a family member you can call to come and get you?" he asked.
She shook her head, not wanting to be a burden on anyone. Believing it would be better for her to walk instead, she stood up and got ready to leave, only for her way to be blocked by the producer. "Mrs Midoriya please. At least let me call a cab for you, I don't want you walking around the city by yourself, especially in this state."
Sighing, Inko agreed to the offer of a taxi, and the producer called one of his staff over and asked them to phone the local taxi company to send someone over as quickly as possible. Inko sat in silence, lost in her own erratic thoughts whilst she waited for the cab.
Eventually, after around fifteen minutes of waiting, the taxi finally arrived and the staff member who called them led Inko outside to make sure she actually got in. The producer had to return to set to finish the news broadcast, but not before Inko thanked him for both his hospitality and for giving her the time of day to get the attention of the public about Izuku's disappearance.
After getting home and being helped in by the cab driver at the request of the staff member, Inko collapsed on her sofa and passed out immediately.
The next few days consisted of talking to people on the street and hanging up 'Missing' posters anywhere she could find spaces. Her bosses allowed her to take some paid leave until she was able to find Izuku, and she wasn't going to waste any more time with the police.
She was astounded at the lack of effort the police appeared to be putting into searching for him, the last straw being when she saw a policeman walking down the street and looking inside some bushes. She asked what he was doing and he replied "Looking for a lost dog, ma'am."
She couldn't describe in words how infuriated she felt at hearing those words. Sure, it was selfish of her to think this but surely her missing son took priority over a dog. She stormed away from him, even dropping a few of the 'Missing' posters along the way, the wind picking them up and blowing them through the air.
Deciding what she was doing was getting her nowhere, Inko began checking around what would be considered the more dangerous parts of town. The idea was quickly gone when she heard gunfire in the distance, running and hiding herself inside an alleyway.
Peeking out, she watched as two people, kids really, ran through the alleyway ahead of her. One of them was a short girl wearing what appeared to be a school uniform, and the other in a mask so she couldn't really even make out if they were a boy or another girl.
Inko began to back away out of that alley and into the busier street that she had entered from. The gunfire and yelling continued, which made Inko concerned for those children's safety, imagining Izuku being in a situation like that and being caught up in some kind of gang gun war.
Once the timeline reached six days, Inko had exhausted both herself and her expenses trying every method possible of finding Izuku. She had put up the posters, gone to the police even though they hadn't been any help at all, gone to the news station to get the message out there, made posts on various social media posts online and searched high and low in every backstreet corner she could find.
On day seven, a full week since Izuku's disappearance, Inko had all but given up hope that her son would be found. Lying on the sofa, having recently turned the news off she continued sobbing into the pillow.
She barely heard the lock of the front door click, causing her to jolt in shock and sit straight up, staring at the door as the handle began to wiggle. She had a small knife next to her in case she needed to defend herself, but hoped it wouldn't have to come to that.
The door opened slowly, a tuft of green hair being the first thing that Inko saw, her eyes widening in shock at the person standing at the door. She stood up from the sofa, slowly shuffling and tripping over various things scattered on the floor. "I-Izuku?" she asked, as if she were imagining the boy standing in the doorway was her son.
She made it to him, hands reaching up to feel his face, to make sure he was in fact there and she wasn't dreaming. Realising it wasn't a dream, or her deluded imagination, Inko's eyes welled up once more as she wrapped her arms around Izuku's neck and pulled him in for a tight hug.
Izuku stood there in stunned silence for a moment, before returning the embrace, neither of them saying a word to each other. He felt his own tears begin to fall, devastated at the state his mother was in, and it was all because of him. She didn't deserve any of this. For all she had known for this past week, Izuku was lying dead somewhere she'd never find him.
Seeing her like this, he never wanted to put her through something like this again. "M-mom. I'm so sorry." he said, but it only made Inko grip him tighter.
"Don't be sorry. I'm just glad that you're safe." she replied when she finally pulled away from him. "What happened to you?"
Izuku thought about what to say, trying to think up some kind of lie, then felt a pang of guilt that the first thing he thought about doing after returning home after a week was lie to his mother about where it was, he had been.
"I was attacked, by a sludge monster. I lost consciousness and when I woke up, I was in a room with a couple of people that nursed me back to health, then they brought me home." Izuku told her. It wasn't the complete truth, but he wasn't really lying either.
It didn't make him feel any less guilty, however. "Who were these people? I want to make sure to thank them for looking after you." Inko said.
Izuku wanted to tell her, he really did, but for the sake of her safety, it might be best if he kept her away from them as much as possible. "I don't remember, I was unconscious for most of it." he replied, which again was basically the truth as he had spent most of the last week lying in a bed having been knocked out and injured multiple times during his week stay with the League.
"Oh well, no matter. The important thing is, you're home now, and you're safe." Inko told him, embracing him once again. "Come on, I'll go and make us some dinner."
She led the way inside, kicking various bits of rubbish out of the way, she'd tidy all that up later. For now, however, it was time to focus on Izuku. She realised she'd have to let the police and the news station know that Izuku had returned home, although she was more reluctant to tell the police about it considering they never seemed to care in the first place.
"I'll go and put something on for us, so if you want you can go to your room for now, Izuku." she said, heading into the kitchen and disappearing from view.
Slowly, Izuku walked down the hall to his room, his door still having the red, blue and yellow block letters 'IZUKU' hanging on it. Pushing it open, he entered his room. It felt strange, given the week that he'd had, coming back to this room again.
It had all started on that day when All Might had told Izuku he could never be a hero without a quirk. It had eaten away at him for most of the week. As he looked around at all the All Might merchandise that was littered about his room, Izuku almost began to feel bitterness toward his childhood hero.
A voice in the back of his mind began nagging at him to tear everything down, to destroy it all and get rid of it. 'He rejected you. He told you that you'd never be a hero. That you could never become anything great without any power.'
He was trying to ignore it, but the more it spoke, the more he began to listen. It was right, All Might had rejected him. He had told him that without any powers he couldn't amount to anything. Izuku had poured his heart out to the man, practically begging All Might to give him some way of becoming a hero even if he didn't have a quirk.
Before Izuku realised it, one of his golden limited editions All Might figures had been sent flying through the window, shattered glass falling onto the street below, snapping Izuku out of his thoughts. He blinked a few times in a daze, not even completely sure what he was even doing.
He spotted the hole in his window just as Inko came in to investigate the smashing sound she'd heard from the kitchen whilst making dinner. "What happened, are you okay?" she asked frantically.
Izuku looked from the broken window, to Inko, then back to the broken window again. "I-I don't know." he replied.
For once, he was telling the truth. One minute he was lost in his own head, then the next he had a hole in his bedroom window. Suddenly, he remembered what Kurogiri had told him about his newly acquired quirk, which he'd also completely forgotten about. The man had told him before he left that the quirk required absolute concentration so as not to spiral out of Izuku's control.
He had also been given the pills for when he went to sleep in order to keep it under wraps without having to stay up all night in order to maintain control. Obviously, there was still the possibility of it not working and Izuku losing control of his quirk in the middle of the night, only to wake up in the morning to find that he didn't have a house anymore.
Deciding he had to at least tell Inko something, Izuku opted to explain to her that he had developed a quirk of his own, something that absolutely delighted her, but at the same time confused her greatly. Whilst it had happened before, children didn't tend to develop quirks so late, or have a quirk that didn't have anything to do with their parent's quirks.
Izuku explained about the tablets that one of the "people that nursed him back to health" had given him in order to control the quirk whilst he slept. He also asked her to remove most of the metallic objects from her own room, as he didn't want her to end up hurt should the medication fail which luckily, Inko agreed to do.
Once he was finished, Inko seemed satisfied. "Alright, we'll get the window fixed at some point, but for now you'll have to cover it with something I think." she told him, before leaving him to return to making dinner for the both of them.
Izuku felt glad that she hadn't questioned him as much as she probably should have, given the idea that neither her nor his father (as far as he knew) had any kind of metal manipulation quirk similar to his.
He spotted some small shards of glass laying on his bedroom floor, so thought it best to clear them up before he ended up hurting himself on them. There was something that bothered him. He had obviously lost control of his quirk, given that he was nowhere near the window when it smashed, but he had absolutely no recollection of the events leading up to the moment it happened.
It was a strange occurrence because the couple of times it had happened that day, he just didn't know how to stop it and panicked, causing the quirk to go out of control. "Izuku! Dinner's ready!" he heard Inko calling him from the kitchen, so determined it was probably a good idea to leave the matter alone for the time being, perhaps even speak to Kurogiri about it the next time he saw the man, whenever that would end up being.
It had been an eventful week for him to say the least, but he was dreading the next day, when he'd have to go back to school. This time though, he would stand up for himself, and even be able to fight back for once.
"Izuku! Come on, your dinner will get cold!" Inko called out to him again.
"Coming!"