Chapter 4: It was only the tip of the iceberg, they realize

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present."

― Bill Keane

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Readers can probably tell by now, this story is not told by traditional means. I, the narrator, is trying something new. Personally, I think it's pretty fun, jumping all over the place.

Never exactly tried it before, but I think it's going quite well, even though only four chapters in.

And speaking of time skips, this chapter is set exactly 7 days after the Hawks Vanishing, featuring one Aizawa Shouta and the public's side of things.

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"Shouta?"

"Hmm?"

A week after the High End incident and the disappearance of Hawks, Aizawa Shouta found himself in the UA staffroom, quietly grading papers at exactly 2:51 in the morning.

If he couldn't sleep, might as well be productive.

"Shouta, it's almost 3 am, what are you doing here?"

Glancing up, Shouta's gaze met with a certain blonde-haired loudmouth, who, ironically enough, was currently not being very loud.

"I could ask the same to you."

Still leaning against the doorframe, Hizashi yawned. "Couldn't sleep. You?"

"Same reason," Shouta replied, turning his attention back onto the papers before him. Ugh, paperwork. The bane to all humankind, far and wide.

"Have you been here all night?"

Pausing, Shouta blinked. Had he…? Eh, didn't really matter. He shrugged.

"So that's a yes, then."

"Pretty much."

"Gosh Shouta, at least have the heart to deny it."

"No thanks."

Rolling his eyes, Hizashi half stumbled, half walked over to him, each step weighted down with undisguised sleep dispersion and blatant laziness. Pulling out a chair next to Shouta's, he all but collapsed into it

"Can you at least tell me what's bothering you?" He asked.

"Why do you think something is bothering me?"

Hizashi raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "You're gripping the edge of the table so hard your knuckles are white, your hair is even more of a mess than usual, and the notes and feedback on your student's work are starting to look like essays. Besides, you aren't drinking any coffee."

"It's three in the morning, why would I be drinking coffee?"

"Never stopped you before," Hizashi pointed out.

Shouta opened his mouth to refute, but no words fell out. Dammit. Why did Hizashi have to know him so well?

"...it's about Hawks," Shouta admitted, muttering. "That's what's bothering me"

Hizashi's brows pinched. "What do you mean?"

"His disappearance. It's been a week, and we still have no leads on him. I know it's strange, but I'm worried, Hizashi. It's just… I know he's a pro-hero and all, but he's still not much older than the students here. And what has happened to him? Why can no one find anything? It doesn't make any sense. Did he go willingly? If so, why? Why at a time like this, and why go in the first place? We don't even know where he went. It's just-" Shout cut himself off mid-rant, taking a breath. "I'm worried, Hizashi."

Hizashi, after glancing over at his friend, let out a deep breath. "You've given this a lot of thought, haven't you?"

"Everyone has," Shouta replied easily. "Let's just say for a moment, Hawks didn't go willingly. That either meant someone took him, or his hand was forced. And if someone took him, that means they went against the Number 2 Hero, and won."

Shouta shook his head, tapping his pen nervously against the desk. "And that would lead to the question of why he was taken. Was it a personal grudge? Was it to eliminate him? If that's so, are they going to have another target? What is going to happen to my students? To Eri? To Hitoshi? Or-"

"Shouta."

The teacher could feel his pen crack in his hand, but continued nonetheless, "Are they going to strike again? Hizashi, Japan is on edge. All Might is retired, Endeavour is on injured leave, and Hawks is gone. Not to mention Best Jeanist is still recovering from the Kamino nightmare. That's our Top Four Heros, Hizashi. And it's already been a week, there's still nothing-"

"Shouta!" A hand, gently gripped his wrist.

Then, realization crashed upon Shouta who looked down at his ink stained hand with daze.

Oh.

Shoot.

He did not mean to say all that out loud.

"I… didn't mean to say all that out loud," he voiced. Usually, he wasn't like, well, this, but combined with sleep dispersion, stress from his overprotectiveness for his students, and stress from the drama of the Hawks Case he was roped into, ah. Shouta was slightly borderline hysterical. Slightly.

Hizashi snorted. "Figured. And you're wringing yourself out with worry. Remember, if any new information comes to light, we'd be one of the first to know. We are a part of the case, after all."

"I know that. It still doesn't stop me from worrying."

Hizashi laughed. "Get some sleep, Shouta. It's late."

Shouta hand loosened around his broken pen throwing it in the trash before looking at the clock.

It was pretty late.

Meeting Hizashi's eyes, he could see him giving one of those looks.

Shouta sighed. Well, there was no arguing with Hizashi when he started giving out those looks.

Besides, the grading could wait until tomorrow.

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Shouta was in the middle of his lunch break nap when Hizashi burst into the room, effectively waking him up.

"Shouta! I've been looking everywhere for you!"

Shouta, who did not like being woken up in such a manner, did not answer his friend verbally and instead opted to glare a hole through his head.

If anyone was wondering, it didn't work. The whole 'glare a hole through his head' thing, that is.

"New information has been found about the Hawks case."

Needless to say, that woke him up completely.

Five minutes hadn't even passed before a text was sent to Nedzu explain the situation, and Shouta was rushing out of the doors to UA and towards the local police station, Hizashi at his heels, haste in his steps and that burning feeling at the back of his tongue, because they were finally going to get some answers.

The worry didn't cease, though.

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The car ride was possibly one of the longest in Shouta's life.

He and Hizashi were roped in on the case because of plenty of different reasons. Hizashi, because of his platform as President Mic, with his radio and influence over the media.

Originally, Shouta was recruited because of his status as one of the most successful underground heroes around.

His job was to keep an ear out on all the underground networks, and the criminal world by extension, so to speak.

That was all he was supposed to do. ('Supposed to' be the keywords.)

But after reading a little of Hawk's file, he could help but worry.

Hawks was 22 years old, his quirk was Fierce Wings, he had the highest approval ratings of the Top Ten, and there wasn't much else public information about him.

That had already set off alarm bells in his mind.

But then, when he had looked deeper, digging up years-old files and closed cases with the help of Detective Tsukauchi who he had explained his worry to, things started getting even more strange.

For one, there was no mention of his civilian name anywhere. He was simply known as Hawks, and nothing more.

There was nothing with his school records. According to the papers, Hawks hadn't attended a single school, public nor private, in his entire life. But then again, that could easily be explained away by being privately tutored and such.

He didn't have a hospital record or any kind of medical history anywhere. That- that was just unreasonable.

Then, looking even deeper, they couldn't even find a trace of his birth records.

The only real lead to him they had found was one fifteen years ago when a child with red wings from the slums of Fukuoka had saved a truck driver and a civilian from an out-of-control, possibly manufactured, speeding truck.

And really, that was pretty much it.

The more Shouta looked into it, the Hawks case just got more and more strange. Did their Winged Hero appear out of nowhere?

And if so, how?

So yes, the moment the car pulled up at the Police Headquarters, Shouta had opened the door before the car could come to a full stop.

(Hizashi had paid on the way there, with a quick 'keep the change' to the driver.)

Shouta tugged at the hem of his shirt, stepping through the sliding doors of the station. There better be some good, informative leads to the case, the hero thought. After all, they already had bare minimum to go off in the first place.

Entering the main meeting room of the building, Shouta swept a gaze across the other occupants of the room.

Ah, they were the last ones to arrive.

All gathered in the room was Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa, Police Officer Tamakawa Sansa, a government official who Shouta thought was one of the HPSC, and Pro-Hero Mirko. Shouta vaguely recalled Hawks and Mirko being friends or something of the like.

"Eraserhead, President Mic," Detective Tsukauchi greeted them.

"Detective," Shouta replied.

"The call said there was new information on the Hawks case?" Hizashi asked.

Tsukauchi nodded. "Yes, there is. Now, since everyone is here," he said, clapping his hands together. "We can begin. As everyone knows, there was new information found about the Hawks case. Which, by the way, is a big deal, since there wasn't much on Hawks in the first place."

He paused, taking a deep breath. "The new evidence was...particular, in a sense."

"Detective, what do you mean?" Mirko spoke up.

"Well," he said. "First off, the evidence doesn't exactly help us find Hawks, but it's important nonetheless. The evidence was actually left on the police headquarters doorsteps."

"What? That's—" Mirko cut herself off. "Why?" She settled on.

"We don't know. A metal briefcase containing various items was left right outside the front doors of this building, but there was no recorded evidence of how it arrived. According to the security camera's tape, one moment the space was empty, and the next, the briefcase was there."

A pause.

Then, "so the cameras were messed with," Shouta concluded.

"Erasershead's right," Tsukauchi said. "But the problem is, we can't find how, or even when our code was breached."

"...so what your saying is," Mirko spoke up. "Not only is this case getting even stranger and we still have no leads on where Hawks is, but we also have either someone with a powerful technology base quirk or a highly-skilled hacker to worry about?" Despite how it seemed, Mirko's tone held no sarcasm whatsoever and only the blunt truth.

The room was silent after her words. She, on the other hand, unconcerned about the looks being sent her way, pursed her lips and breathed out. "Just checking," she mumbled.

"No," Officer Tamakawa spoke up. "Mirko here is right. This evidence is only bringing bad news. Tsukauchi, please continue."

"Right," the detective replied, sending the cat-man a look of thanks. "For obvious reason, I cannot physically show the evidence, nor pictures of the evidence at this current time. Though later, I will be, after the forensic team is finished with the basic analysis."

"So what was inside the briefcase, Detective?" Mirko asked.

Shouta was curious as well. The detective did seem quite nervous, and he was clearly putting off the actual telling of the news. What exactly did the briefcase contain?

Tsukauchi's jaw clenched, swallowing. "Inside the briefcase, there was a post-it sticky note, with the words 'Don't worry about me, I just needed to catch up with some old friends and acquaintances. Signed, Agent Hawks,' written on it. We compared the handwriting to Hawk's previous writing, and it matches. But that's not all. If the note was the only thing present, then the case would be closed with a perfectly good explanation."

Pausing, he took a deep breath. "Alongside the note, there was a very suspicious computer chip-like device, broken in half and seemingly crushed, currently of unknown origin and use. And, it was covered in days-old blood."

A wave of shock and surprise hit, leaving everyone in a stunned state.

Blood? That.. doesn't add up at all, Shouta pondered. If anything, that was just blatantly telling them Hawks was taken captive, not him being there on his free will.

"After tests were conducted, we can conclude the blood that covered the chip indeed belonged to Hawks. There were no fingerprints on the briefcase, and the only DNA found belonged to Hawks."

"Wow," Mirko breathed out. Silently, Shouta agreed with her. 'Wow' pretty much everything up.

"'Catch up with some old friends,'" Hizashi suddenly spoke up. "Mirko, out of everyone here, you're the closest to Hawks. Do you know what he means by 'old friends?'"

Almost immediately, Mirko shook her head. "No. Hawks never talked about his past, and I never pried. It was one of those things I knew he was uncomfortable talking about, it was pretty obvious, so I just never pushed the topic."

"Well," Tamakawa said. "At least we have something to go off of now."

Inwardly, Shouta nodded.

Did they have something to go off of now?

Yes.

But is the likeliness of actually finding some answers with the evidence high?

Yeah, no.

Aizawa Shouta, despite his lazy, uncaring portrayal, was frustrated. When the call came, he was eager to finally get some answers, or at least to have some new doors open. But now… it seemed as if the number of questions hadn't decreased, but had only grown. And it was frustrating.

This case, the underground Hero thought. It just keeps getting stranger and stranger… We have some evidence now, but that evidence doesn't help the solving the slightest, nor reassure us at all. The note and the blood, what does it mean? Is it in code? Is it a call for help? Or is the note legit? Then why the blood?

Shouta didn't exactly miss how the government official was silent during the entire exchange, but he did dismiss it.

After all, the Hawks case was a priority here. Whether or not people chose to speak at meetings or remain near silent wasn't his business.

Right?

(Hint, he was wrong.

But Shouta didn't know that.

All he knew that this case was turning out to be more of a headache than he signed up for.).