Chapter 4: The Disappearance of Izuku Midoriya
The morning following the school's cultural festival came rather slowly for the students of UA and it felt odd to those of Class 1-A. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was suddenly raining when the day before had been bright and sunny. Or maybe it was because everyone was still exhausted from the festival and it took them more energy to leave their beds than normal.
Or maybe it was because Midoriya hadn't been seen yet, which was highly unusual as he usually was up and training by six or seven. True, it was the weekend, but he always got up before the sunrise to train, no matter what.
Since everyone was feeling a bit sluggish, no one was immediately worried, coming up with logical reasons for the green-haired teenager being oddly absent until they couldn't help but grow concerned. To ease everyone, Iida offered to check on Midoriya.
Iida went to Midoriya's dorm to check on his friend, only to not get any response. He tried a couple more times before giving up and returning to the common room alone. He reasoned that maybe Midoriya was exhausted from the festival and that he might come out later, but that never happened. They waited and waited; Uraraka tried to go up and check on him, but Tsuyu managed to divert her attention elsewhere until it was impossible to pretend that everything was okay. By eleven, Bakugo broke down Midoriya's door, finding the room to be empty.
"He's not here?" Kirishima asked, poking his head into the room after Bakugo entered.
"Bed's not made and the sliding door is closed," Bakugo noted aloud and carefully glanced around the room. It felt wrong for him to be in there, but he easily pushed away those feelings as he inspected the room. "If he ain't here, where the hell is he?!"
Kirishima only meekly replied as he texted Iida, informing him that Midoriya wasn't in his room and that there was no sign of him leaving, either voluntarily or by force. His shoes were still by the door, none of the doors were unlocked; they had nothing to go off of.
"Iida's informing the teachers, we should probably wait outside the room or…" Kirishima looked up from his phone and saw Bakugo rummaging through some of the things Midoriya left out in the open. "hey, what are you doing?"
While Kirishima had been texting their class president, Bakugi had taken it upon himself to look at one of the notebooks that Midoriya had left out on his desk. It was one of his many observation notebooks and, under normal circumstances, Bakugo wouldn't have bothered with it. However, he had the slightest suspicion that if there were any clues regarding Midoriya's disappearance, it might be in that notebook.
Picking it up without much regard for what Kirishima was saying, he opened it and read it. For the most part, most of what he found related only to their classmates and a few new strategies and whatnot. Nothing out of the ordinary until he reached the middle pages.
From there, he found a handful of pages dedicated to Gentle Criminal, La Brava, and finally, Eveline Liones. Why did it bother him to see her name written down? And why did he clench his teeth as he read about every intimate detail that Midoriya thoughtfully jotted down about the woman he supposedly barely knew?
Thinking back to last night, Bakugo realized how much Midoriya kept to himself and what made him angrier was that Midoriya managed to keep his cool as he lied to them. Midoriya said that he and Eveline only had a telepathic connection, but that fight with Gentle suggested otherwise. He didn't know much about her, but she dropped hints about herself through nostalgic slips that Midoriya caught but kept to himself. However, Bakugo couldn't say that the information was all that new to him.
When they met as children, Eveline told them both about how she was the daughter of the Demon King and Supreme Goddess, making her a princess. She told them about the Seven Deadly Sins, the Holy Wars, her family; she was quite the unrestrained chatterbox back then so what happened to make her so reserved? Not to mention that Eveline seemed to never allude to knowing Midoriya; such an important detail should have been brought up by Eveline at least unless maybe she didn't remember Midoriya. His voice had changed since childhood, but Eveline should have seen Midoriya during that fight and the teen hadn't changed, he just got a little taller and buffer.
Irritated as he was, Bakugo was beginning to notice something that he didn't want to admit; Eveline had some sort of link or connection to Midoriya and it might have been that link that caused Midoriya to vanish. What sparked this hypothesis was the fight between Midoriya and Gentle Criminal; Obviously, Eveline's involvement in the fight raised some questions and considering that Eveline had come to their world before (admitted through unknown means) there was the possibility that she could have taken Midoriya. The only question would be how she managed to do it.
"Hey, Shitty Hair," Bakugo called to Kirishima, "I need you to do something for me."
"What?"
Bakugo peeled his eyes away from the pages and gave Kirishima a hard glare, "Make me an account on Reddit or something and start asking for information of an Eveline Liones."
"Huh? Why?" Kirishima was about to enter the room but Bakugo was already making his way out as he shoved the notebook into the red-haired teen's chest. "Uh.."
"Because she might have something to do with this, so get moving." With that, Bakugo was out of the room and gone.
Kirishima stood there with the open notebook pressed against his chest, unsure of what he had just witnessed and heard. Did Bakugo look...angry? Sad? Hurt? He wasn't sure what that look was but he wasn't about to go figure it out. Besides, what was in this notebook that caused that strange reaction?
Curious enough to read it, Kirishima learned a valuable lesson in not always following through with his curiosity.
By the end of the day, everyone came to accept that Midoriya was missing. All Might hadn't seen him that morning and had been the first person to assume the worst as he texted and called his protege almost a hundred times in thirty minutes. He had gotten ahold of Aizawa before Iida did, expressing concern and asking if maybe Midoriya had been serving some punishment for his fight yesterday. When Aizawa denied such a punishment, Iida had arrived to tell them that they couldn't find Midoriya either. The day had been spent carefully searching the campus for the teenager whilst not alarming the other students. When they couldn't find any leads or the slightest hint of the teen's presence, they had to admit the undeniable truth.
As the sunset, the teachers all gathered in their conference room and discussed what they should do. First, they had to establish what they knew for certain and what was only a potential lead.
Midoriya had disappeared at some point during the night; footage of last night's surveillance showed that no one ever left 1-A's dorm and, as Midoriya's veranda happened to be filmed during the robot's scanning, they saw that his lights were out. The timestamp said 21:45 or 9:45 pm, which was unusual as Midoriya usually was up studying until one in the morning at most. Given everything that had happened the day before, the teachers all agreed that Midoriya had to be tired and went to bed early.
"Do we happen to have any later footage of the night?" Midnight asked as she nervously twirled a pen. "Maybe we can see something unusual?"
Snipe, who had been looking over the footage with Hound Dog, nodded and put up the next video they had. "This one focuses on his window for a moment, we couldn't figure out why though. It's stamped at midnight, right on the dot."
The video played, at first, the camera was casually scanning the area, doing its usual rounds, until it quickly jerked to the right and focused on Midoriya's closed curtains. There was nothing unusual from what they could see; no lights, no movements, so what caused the robot to look there?
"A malfunction?" Power Loader asked.
Ectoplasm shook his head, "No, those robots are checked every day, we would have noticed if something was wrong before the festival."
"Indeed…" Aizawa tiredly stared at the projection until he felt his eyes go dry, "what causes the robots to do that? Movement?"
PowerLoader shook his head, "No, movement is one thing that could have gotten its attention, but there's also sound and heat signatures."
"I didn't hear anything unusual," Present Mic noted with a sigh, "Is there a way to check the infrared?"
Snipe messed around with the settings until he got the video to show the infrared version. Starting from the beginning, there was nothing unusual until the camera panned to Midoriya's veranda, this time they say that room was several degrees hotter than the other rooms, which should have been impossible as the rooms didn't come with individual thermostats. The area of his room was a bright reddish-orange while everyone else's room was a yellow or purplish-blue.
"What the…" All Might stood up from his seat as did Aizawa, "What is that?"
The other teachers sat there in awe as they observed the video, noticing details that they wouldn't have seen with the original version of the clip. They watched the video several times, trying their hardest to see if there was something else that could have missed with this new perception. It took them a while until Present Mic noticed something a little strange happening behind those curtains.
"What is that?" He asked as he pointed toward the curtains. "Are they moving?"
"What do you mean they're moving?" Midnight moved closer to see what the loud blonde was talking about. "Where do you see that?
"Go back a bit, it's subtle but I swear I saw it move."
Snipe rewound the video, stopping when Present Mic suddenly shouted for him to stop.
"There! Right there!" Mic jumped out of his chair and pointed at the curtain, "Try it without the infrared! I bet it's something!"
Before Snipe changed the video, the group did see the curtain move or, maybe, it wasn't the curtain. When the video switched, they watched the clip again and did notice something moving, this time they were able to see that the curtain did move with what looked like a person standing by it. A person that didn't look like Midoriya.
"Who is that…?" Midnight turned to Hound Dog and asked if he had sniffed out Midoriya's room.
Hound dog growled and barked, which translated to the following statement. "I smelled Bakugo and Todoroki in there but nothing unusual. There was a strange burnt smell but I could never pinpoint where it came from and it was gone before long."
"A burnt smell? Like smoke?"
Hound dog shook his head and growled again, "No like something metal was burning hot."
"What could that have been?" All Might mused aloud, "And what about Young Midoriya? You never said you smelled him."
"His scent was faint, almost as if he hadn't been there in a while." Ectoplasm said, having already had this conversation with Hound Dog earlier in the day. "I would say that the metal scent must have overpowered his scent, which might be why it's so faint."
"But that still leaves the question of what happened and why was it you smelled Bakugo and Todoroki in there? Wasn't the two who went into the room this morning Bakugo and Kirishima?"
"Indeed…" Aizawa lowered his head, the headache that this was becoming was going to kill him. There were so many unanswered questions and worst of all, they had nothing to go off of. "For now, what can we do?"
"We have to inform his mother," Ectoplasm stated matter of factly, "we need to also involve the police in this."
"Yes, we must do that first and foremost, but I have some concerns about the general public knowing about this." Nezu sighed, "Learning of a breach in security could hurt us in the public's eye and put our students at risk."
The teachers all agreed but that also put a strain on the thought of telling Midoriya's mother about the disappearance of her son. She had been strongly against the idea of Midoriya continuing his studies at UA and this wasn't going to help anything, but neither would hiding this fact from her.
"We don't have enough to work with, perhaps we can hold off telling Mrs. Midoriya?" All Might nervously suggested, "All we know for sure is that he's gone and that there's no evidence that he left his room at night. With only that, she'll be a hysterical mess."
"But not telling her-"
"We'll tell her, just not immediately." All Might reasoned softly, "We could say that the police needed to do their job first before we could tell her anything."
That didn't help ease anyone, but even Aizawa understood All Might's perspective on the matter and added his opinion on it. "It's not a bad idea; perhaps not the best choice where morals are involved, but we should let the police do their part before anything is shared."
Naturally, the teachers argued about it for a moment more before Nezu finally decided to give his choice on the matter.
"I suppose it isn't morally correct to withhold this information from her," he said in low voice, "but we can't always be on the moral side of things when that could put everyone in danger. As it stands, we don't know where he is or how he disappeared, though we have something to suggest that it happened in his dorm room. With only that, we have nothing to ease her nerves and then we must think of the students and their parents. News like this travels fast. And therefore, I will only allow for two days for the police to see what they can find. After that, we must tell her no matter what."
The teachers reluctantly agreed before asking what they could do to help the situation as it stood. For now, they thought up of a way to inspect the other dorms without arousing suspicion and the security bots were programmed to carefully observe students' rooms. An additional three boys were given orders to only watch Midoriya's room and to give notice if anything unusual happens during the search for him. From there, however, they were at a loss; with so little to go off of, this was all they could think of.
The meeting promptly ended without any comforting resolution reached, not that they expected to reach anything satisfactory. Still, the teachers were forced to leave feeling as if they had failed in some way. They all wondered what could have been done to prevent this. Was there anything they could have done to prevent this? Possibly, but how? Midoriya wasn't acting suspicious or like he was in any danger; as much as he might try to solve problems on his own, the poor kid was terrible at lying and they would have caught on to any ruse of his. So, what happened?
Aizawa, as he left the faculty room, thought back to Eri and Mirio and how they might react to the news. The young girl had already been given to the school and her room was all set up for her; to help her with the transition, he planned to have everyone involved in her rescue to greet her but now that wouldn't work. As much as Aizawa didn't want to hide anything, he couldn't imagine how Eri would react to learning that the boy who helped her was now gone. Would she blame herself? Most likely. Might it cause more issues for her mental health? Who was he kidding, this would just hurt her because she still held onto some guilt. But really, this had nothing to do with her so maybe he could talk her out of that mentality.
And then Mirio...He's already lost his mentor, and now a friend? True, they were certain that the first-year student was still alive as they had no reason to believe otherwise, but they didn't know where he was. Mirio was struggling with the loss of his quirk and not being able to help with this investigation was going to add to his growing sorrow.
He thought about it while he made his way to 1-A's dorms. He had been giving special instructions to inform the class of what had been discussed and decided in regards to what was going to happen from here on out. Luckily, (once it became clear that this was an emergency) the class already imposed their own rules toward the matter; no one was allowed to share the event with anyone outside of 1-A, including with their parents and they were to try to assist with the investigation however possible.
It was moments like this that reminded him how devoted these students were toward each other and their future hero work. With Iida and Yaoyorozu organizing them, together these kids could accomplish so much and this showed it. However, they were still teenagers, not exactly seasoned heroes who have faced a plethora of cases like this, so it was only a matter of time before they cracked under pressure. He wanted to alleviate as much of the strain to keep the students from emotionally overexerting themselves, but, like Midoriya, they would take everything on and that's the one thing he was going to have nip in the bud if he was going to allow them to be of any assistance.
"Sensei!" A young woman's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. He looked up and found Uraraka and Iida sprinting his way. The brunette looked hopeful while the class representative appeared to feel the same, if not a bit more on edge.
"What is it?" He asked quickly, unsure of what could have encouraged these two to come out like this. He was grateful that it was late enough that the other students were back in their dorms so there weren't any onlookers as far as he knew.
"Sensei, Bakugo says he knows what happened to-!" Before Uraraka could continue, Iida caught up to her and quickly covered her mouth. "Mph!"
"Forgive me, Uraraka, but remember what we said earlier about keeping this under wraps." He said as he gently released her. "But yes, Bakugo has a theory."
"What..?" That was, perhaps, the most uplifting thing he had heard and he quickly squashed it to avoid getting hopeful. He followed the two students back into the dorm and found all of 1-A in the common room; some of the students were crowding around Bakugo as he was looking at something on his laptop while the rest were scattered around, probably pacing.
"Where is he?" Aizawa demanded as politely as he could, "Tell me."
"I never said I knew where he was, I said I had a feeling," Bakugo growled as he pulled up a discussion forum for the teacher to see while Kirishima opened the notebook and handed it to Aizawa. "But I think my theory is the best shot we got."
"Okay, but what is it then?"
"Just read."
Aizawa, though annoyed, read the forum. It was a Reddit post made by Bakugo, asking if there was anyone familiar with the name Eveline Liones. Two replies followed.
The first was by a user called BritainHistorian09 and they said that Eveline Liones was a mythical figure within British myths, just like King Arthur. She was the daughter of a powerful goddess and demon and she was a protector of the human race. The user linked several sources and said that there were theories that Eveline did exist but in an alternate universe as someone with a powerful warp quirk had visited her once. They linked that article as well.
The second user, merlinsapprentice, provided something different.
Eveline Liones, as in the granddaughter of King Bartra of Liones and daughter of Elizabeth and Meliodas? I never met her, but I met her cousin, Zelda. Apparently, they were playing near a lake and when they fell in, they were separated and Zelda ended up in my neighborhood. She told me about Eveline though; really pretty, light blonde hair, emerald eyes, fair skin, dressed in a plaid red/white dress with matching red shoes. I think she was also supposed to have a hat on her head too. Anyways, my grandpa was the man who had that Warp Quirk that the first user mentioned. I have pictures that he took of her if you'd like to see them. Here's the link.
My Grandpa has journals of his trip in Britannia, if there's anything you need to know, I can help.
Aizawa pulled away from the screen and looked at the notebook that Kirishima had given him. The first thing he saw was Eveline's name and he carefully read the notes that Midoriya left. His blood boiled as he found the small mention of the ringing in Midoriya's ear being a coverup for his communication with Eveline. And then a detailed part about her entering Midoriya's body? This boy was getting put on cleaning duty for three weeks when they find him.
"Here," Bakugo held out the old photo he shared with Midoriya while simultaneously clicking on the link merlinsapprentice shared with him. The pictures showed the same little girl that was in his photo. "It's the same person. I saw her...ghost or spirit during the concert."
"What..?" Aizawa squinted his eyes in frustration, "What do you mean you saw her? I didn't see her anywhere."
"I saw her as well," Todoroki added, "Kirishima as well, but we both thought it was a trick of the light at first."
"Yeah!" Kirishima nodded eagerly, "I saw what looked like a sort of glowing mist around Deku, but I was shaving the ice so I thought that was what it was. Todoroki and Bakugo confronted Deku about it last night."
Aizawa was taken aback by that, "Confronted him? Why?"
"He had been acting strange lately and we thought that maybe they would be able to get him to be honest about it," Uraraka cried softly, her head lowered as she spoke. "I mean, he was spacing out a lot and sometimes he'd say something that didn't make any sense to whoever heard him."
"So we cornered him in his room and he told us what had been happening," Todoroki turned to Bakugo, trying to see whether or not the explosive blonde would help elaborate. Luckily, Bakugo was in a helping mood.
"That idiot said that Eveline had been singing or talking to him and that he had been keeping her company. She started talking to him sometime after that mission he internship crap."
Aizawa clenched his teeth, "Why the hell didn't he say anything?"
"Said he didn't want to worry anyone and he didn't want you to think it was because of Eri," Uraraka said rather suddenly, only to realize that she had spoken out of line. "At least, that's what Todoroki said…"
"And he did say something," Bakugo growled again, "He told the nurse it was ringing in his ear when he passed out that one time."
"Yes, he lied." Aizawa groaned as he straightened himself, already feeling the beginnings of a headache. For all of Midoriya's achievements, his greatest faults put him into this situation. Even so, there was a lot given, but it still didn't answer the main problem. "This tells me what's been going on, but not where he is."
"Right, well here's my theory," Bakugo said with a humorless grin, "I think that shitty nerd is in another world, read the rest of that thread."
Aizawa gave his student a confused glance before returning and reading the thread.
LORDEXPLOSIONMURDER: Actually I do need your help. You said you met Eveline's cousin when you were a kid, I met Eveline as a kid a few years back. Do you know how they got here?
merlinsapprentice: Past what I first wrote? No, sorry, but I know how they got back. They were being watched by another goddess named Mael and he came and got Zelda. I asked her how they were gonna go back home and she said that Merlin must have made a portal between the two worlds. I should add that in their world, Merlin is a woman and a sorceress, not the wizard that the Arthurian legends we know describe.
LORDEXPLOSIONMURDER: Do you know if it's possible for them to freely travel between worlds?
merlinsapprentice: My grandpa could but it caused him a great deal of pain. His notes say that Merlin could make a portal, but she needs an exact location and the proper supplies. The supplies are hard to come by so she can't just make one willy-nilly. She made one once, I saw it. It doesn't leave any traces except for a weird smell. Kind of like burnt metal, which is weird.
LORDEXPLOSIONMURDER: Do you think Merlin might want to take anyone from our world?
Merlinsapprentice: Experimentation. She loves to do that kind of stuff, even on people. Did someone you know get taken? They must have been super interesting to her. She'll give them back when she's done so don't worry too much. But if you want to go after her, you'll need a warp quirk to get there. My grandpa's passed away so he can't help you and neither can I pass this. I didn't inherit his quirk.
Aizawa pulled away a second time and sighed, "You think this Merlin abducted Midoriya?"
"Most likely, given that he was talking Eveline." Bakugo pulled back his laptop and sighed, "It's a stretch, I know but it syncs up with what was happening."
"It's better than what we had," Aizawa begrudgingly admitted, "But that doesn't help us much either. We have no way of getting him back if that's where he is."
Before Bakugo could agree with that statement, a loud squeal erupted from the couches where Mina and Jiro had been sitting with the pink girl's laptop. The two girls had been, during this whole time, doing a background check on merlinsapprentice as well as on their grandfather. It was because of them that anyone had hope in finding Midoriya as all the information shared could be verified thanks to their research. And now, they might have found a solution.
"That's where you'd be wrong, Sensei!" Mina cheered as she brought her laptop over. "That old man was making a machine that allows people to go to other worlds, and what do ya know! The schematics are available for download on this website!"
Mina showed them the page, finding that the detailed blueprints were available, though a small footnote added that none of the plans ever worked. The old man died before making any progress on it so there was no way to know if his plans could work even with improvements. However, that didn't faze Mina.
"Hatsume should be able to build it, she's super good with this kind of stuff!" She said as she looked around the room, hoping that everyone might jump on board with her idea. "That user on Reddit could help us, surely they know coordinates or stuff like that from when the old man went."
"I doubt anyone from the support department would agree with you…" Yayaorozu chuckled softly, "but maybe it could work; it's something and Hatsume always finds a way to make the impossible possible."
"Yeah! This could totally work!"
Everyone in the class cheered as the gloom that formerly fell over them dissipated. Aizawa was almost impressed with how easily they switch from hopeless to hopeful. They didn't even have proof of this Merlin's involvement and even with the mention of burnt metal, Aizawa couldn't bring himself fully to the idea. However, at the same time, he felt that this was something.
"Come on Sensei, what are we waiting for!"
And now he had to crush those hopes, despite, for once, not wanting to. Aizawa knew that, deep down, Power Loader would be furious if he allowed Hatsume to develop such a machine so he was forced to quiet the students with a promise that he'd present their idea and theory to the other teachers.
"If they agree, we'll start on it immediately. If not..."
"I think they will!" Denki cheered in his usual airheaded manner, "We'll wait for the results!"
"Yeah!"
A/N: Hello and sorry for the long wait! With all the chaos going around, I've just not had the motivation to write, plus I still had classes to attend until this week. (I should also admit that I hooked onto Toilet Bound Hanako-kun so my attention has been dedicated to that too.) However, now, with the lockdown and classes now being online, I have to write or I will lose my mind.
I'm currently fixing chapter 5 so Chapter 6 might not be coming soon, but trust me, I need to fix 5 because I didn't do a great job on it.
Anyway, I was just thinking of how I've not explored the other characters from SDS, so if you feel like there's a character from that roster that I should dedicate a chapter to, please let me know.
