Chapter Ten: Reunion

Midoriya was led out of his room in quirk canceling cuffs that were attached to his wrists and ankles. The ones on his wrists were connected with a heavy chain, while the ones around his ankles were also connected with a slightly longer chain to allow him to walk normally. The cuffs themselves had the appearance of oversized, metallic doughnuts and were silver in color. While he was still wearing his signature black slacks, dark grey dress shirt with a black sleeveless vest, they were slightly ripped and stained from the fight where he was captured.

As he was led through the hospital corridor, flanked on each side by two police officers, various medical staff and patients alike stared at the well-dressed man wearing cuffs. Some people that recognized him because of the way he dressed, gave him small smiles, while others glared at him hatefully. The vigilante just took a deep breath and continued his journey towards the back of the hospital.

At least they made it to a long corridor that led outside. At the end was a police transport van with two more police officers. It was nighttime at that point and the rain had not let up, still pouring down heavily. Due to this, the police waiting outside of the van wore high visibility police ponchos. The vigilante and his companions walked out in the pouring rain, water quickly soaking their clothes.

As the vigilante walked out onto the rain and approached the van, he suddenly felt a wave of intense pain as the police officer on his right struck him on the back of his knee with his baton, making Midoriya shout in pain as he fell on one knee.

"That's for my brother, you damn vigilante!" the officer yelled with a hateful glare as rain water dripped down his face. No sooner than he said that, two of the other officers quickly pushed him against the side of the police van.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Takashi?!" One of the officers yelled while pinning the attacking officer's arm against the vehicle. The second officer was doing the same with his other arm.

"Fuck him! It's his fault that my brother lost his leg!" The attacking officer, now identified as Takashi, yelled as he struggled against his fellow officers.

Midoriya hissed in pain as he struggled to get back up, rain dripping down his angry facial expression. He could feel that anger radiating to the surface once again. As he finally managed to stand straight, he leaned towards the officer being held, "Fuck you and fuck your brother." He said in a low threatening voice.

Officer Takashi's eyes went wide and then he struggled even harder, "God damn it! Let me go!"

"That's enough!" Everyone stopped at the sound of the new voice. All those present turned around to see detective Daiki standing there in the rain just outside the corridor. The detective made his way to the group and opened the back doors of the van. "Get him inside." He said as he nodded toward Midoriya.

The two officers that had just been standing around stepped forward and guided the vigilante into the van and then got inside as well. The other officers released Takashi and he quickly straightened his uniform in one swift move. He then started making his way toward the back of the van before being stopped by detective Daiki. "Where do you think you're going?"

Takashi stopped and just looked at the older man waiting for clarification. Daiki nodded to the other side of the van, "you sit in the front." The officer sighed and walked in the other direction. Just as he opened the vehicle door, detective Daiki called to him, "Takashi." The younger officer turned to him, "don't you ever do that again, do you hear me?" The cop could only nod in return, before getting into the van.

As the van started to move, Midoriya leaned his head back, water dripping down his neck and into his soaked clothes. He looked at the roof, trying to avoid making eye contact with the other two officers in front of him. He then closed his eyes and tried to push down his anger, but the intense pain on the back of his knee was making it difficult. Nobody could say he had it easy this last couple of years, but at least he was free to do as he pleased. Now, he wasn't, and it was almost guaranteed that he wouldn't be for the foreseeable future.

'This is going to suck.' He thought to himself as he pondered about what awaited him once he was charged and sent to prison to await his trial. As he started to think about his limited options, which included trying to escape, whoever unlikely it was, his thoughts were interrupted by one of the officers in front of him.

"I'm sorry that officer Takashi attacked you." Midoriya opened his eyes and then lifted his head to make eye contact with the officer. A young man with dark blond hair and brown eyes. The vigilante didn't say anything while waiting for the young officer to continue, "he's actually a pretty good officer."

Midoriya huffed and turned his head to the side, "yeah, great cop." The rear portion of the van was sealed from the front, so it was unlikely that those in the front could hear unless they talked louder.

"I know he's not acting like it now, but he likes to help others." Midoriya turned his gaze back to the officer once again. "He…" the officer thought for a second, "he and his family were pretty devastated when his brother lost his leg in that villain attack. They were really rooting for him to go to college and become an athlete."

Midoriya felt a little sympathy for the officer's brother as his anger subsided ever so slightly. "That's pretty unfortunate, but that's not an excuse to attack me like that." The vigilante said without adding anything else. He then closed his eyes and rested his head back. The officer hummed in response but didn't say anything. After a long moment of silence, the officer spoke again.

"Umm, I know I probably shouldn't say this…" Midoriya opened his eyes but didn't make eye contact with the officer, "…but I would like to thank you."

The vigilante raised an eyebrow, "for what?"

The young officer looked down, avoiding eye contact with the vigilante, "A couple of years ago you defeated a villain with a fire quirk that attacked a grocery store downtown." He lifted his gaze and made eye contact, "you saved everyone in that store, including my younger sister and her friend." He then gave him a small smile, "so thank you. I know what you did was technically illegal, but at least you did the right thing."

Midoriya hummed in response, acknowledging the officer. He didn't say anything, but at least he could feel his anger subsiding even more. After Detective Daiki accused him of being responsible for that officer's brother losing his leg, and the same officer attacking him, it felt good to finally have someone thank him for fighting villains and saving people. After all, unlike heroes, vigilantes didn't get paid, were interviewed about their deeds or were offered lucrative sponsorships. No, they did it because they wanted to help others without any kind of reward.

To be honest, this was all kind of new to the vigilante. After years of working in the shadows, his only contact being those that were on the wrong side of the law, the vigilante grew accustomed to only care about what needed to be done, not about people's opinions, or those that were affected by his actions. And now he got a front row seat to the story of at least one person affected by his actions. Now, to be honest, he didn't feel particularly guilty about what happened to officer Takashi's brother.

After all, every time there was a villain attack, people were hurt and sometimes killed. It was one of those things that was just mentioned in the news, but never expanded upon. Those unfortunate victims became only numbers to be mentioned in the evening news or to be part of a report explaining the incidents. Nobody truly went deep into the details of who were those affected by a specific event and how they were affected. But sitting there, in the back of a police van, with nothing but silence to accompany him, it gave him time to reflect on those little details. Details that he had either ignored or conveniently forgot during his time as a vigilante.

The rest of the trip happened in complete silence. Eventually they made it to the police headquarters and when they got out of the van, Midoriya eyed officer Takashi, who made eye contact with him but quickly looked away and then started walking to the building. The vigilante kept his gaze on the departing officer for a second. He was then quickly and expeditiously guided by the other officers to the processing area to get his fingerprints and mugshot taken as well as filling all the paperwork of his arrest. After that, the vigilante was moved to a holding cell where he would wait for detective Daiki for his questioning the next day.

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The rain had finally cleared out the next day, but the sky was still overcast and gloomy as Uraraka and Psytempest walked through the front doors of their agency. After they both met at a local café for a small breakfast, they headed to the agency to start their workday. As they walked in, Uraraka had a serious expression while Psytempest had her normal happy go lucky expression.

The gravity hero was trying her best to look normal, but inside was a whole different story. Her heart was beating a little faster than normal, and as much as she tried to calm down, she couldn't. Because today was the day, she would hopefully be able to finally see Deku face to face. No masks, no fights, no attempts to escape. So obviously, she was a little on edge. Psytempest took occasional glances at her companion, as she now knew what all this really meant to Uraraka.

Finally making their way to Ryukyu's office, the two heroes stepped in while the dragon hero was on the phone in silence, obviously listening to the person on the other line. She silently motioned the younger heroes to come in and sit down while she continued the call.

"…okay. Do you think the information is reliable?" she said to the other person on the phone.

"…"

"Well, Psytempest is in the office today. I can send her to assist. Me and Uravity have to be somewhere else." She looked at the gravity hero after saying that. Uraraka swallowed nervously, knowing what her boss was referring to.

"…"

"Great, I'll send her your way." The dragon hero ended the call and started writing down some information on a piece of paper. After she was done, she offered the paper to the telekinesis hero. "Here you go. Longwhip needs some assistance verifying some information about a warehouse that could possibly belongs to the league." Psytempest took the paper and scanned over it. "Just go to Longwhip's agency to get briefed about all the details. It should be the standard information gathering, but be ready for anything, alright?"

The blond girl nodded and as she stood up, she gave Uraraka a quick look with a smile. "Good luck." She whispered and after getting a smile in return, she stepped out. Uraraka's smile disappeared as she locked eyes with her boss and gave her a thigh, forced smile.

"Are you positive about this?" the dragon hero asked in a soft voice.

The brown-haired girls took a deep breath before answering, "Yes, I have to do this."

Ryukyu gave her a once over, "Uraraka, you haven't seen him in five years. This is probably going to be very tense. Are you sure you want to be there?"

The gravity hero gave her a serious expression, "you know the answer as well as I do, Ryukyu."

The dragon hero sighed, "yeah, you've been waiting for this moment for a long time, haven't you?"

"I was hoping for it to be under better circumstances, but at this point I'll take what I can get."

The older hero silently nodded her head in understanding.

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Midoriya was in a room that had no windows and only one door. He sat with a serious expression, still wearing the quirk cancelling cuffs. The only furniture in the room was a medium size metal table and three other chairs. He looked at the walls and roof, noticing that they were made of some tough looking, reinforced material, obviously an extra layer of security in case someone managed to break out of their cuffs.

After sitting there for a small eternity, the door finally opened revealing detective Daiki, who seemed to only wear the same dark blue suit and black-tie combination. The older man sat across the table from the vigilante and put a thick folder and a holographic recorder on the table. Opening the folder, the detective started.

"All right, let's begin. Suspect name, Izuku Midoriya, also known as Darkmask. Date of birth July 15th, 2175. Age, 21 years old…." As the detective continued to read some basic information about the vigilante, Midoriya sighed and blinked slowly at the detective in front of him. "…believed to have started his alleged actions as a vigilante about a year after arriving in Asaka. During this time, he's attributed to have defeated various villains to include HandyMan, Dark Pegasus, Ravenous among other wanted villains and criminals…`` After another minute of this the detective finally stopped. He looked at the younger man in front of him with a serious expression.

"So, is there any information you want to add?" Midoriya didn't say anything at the obvious attempt to get him to admit something. The silence stretched for what seemed like minutes until Daiki spoke again. "Don't you want to say anything?"

The younger man gave it a second before answering, "I shouldn't be here."

"But you are. You can't deny that your actions were illegal, no matter how much you want to justify it."

Midoriya bristled at his words, "Justify it? How do you justify using information that I supplied that led to arrests? You seem to have no issues using information that came from a vigilante."

Detective Daiki frowned at that, "What are you talking about? I never spoke with you."

"Really? You think that makes a difference? You know I gave people that work for you information in the past. Just because I didn't give it to you personally, doesn't mean you didn't receive it or put it to good use." It was true and the detective knew it, but he wasn't going to admit that to the vigilante. Daiki was aware that the vigilante had passed information to his office in the past, but he just couldn't admit it. He also couldn't say that it was Asaka's mayor that pushed for his arrest no matter what. He needed to maintain control of the situation if he wanted to succeed and if that meant withholding information, so be it.

"Whatever. Look, I don't have to remind you of the serious charges against you." He leaned back and crossed his arms, "you could be spending the next five years of your life in prison."

This dug deep into Midoriya and he could feel his anger starting to surface. He opened and closed his fist multiple times in a futile attempt to calm down. Daiki gave him a minute to process that last bit of information. He was trying to make sure that Midoriya understood the seriousness of his situation, making him feel vulnerable. Now, he needed to create the appearance that he was on his side and was trying to help him. If the vigilante took the bait, he would hopefully confide with the detective.

He leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, "Midoriya, help me help you." He lowered his voice, "Off the record, I agree with a lot of things you did and that you helped defeat some dangerous villains. So, give me something and I'll see what I can do to help you."

The younger man gave him a scowl, "Well, off the record, I like to get kissed before I get fucked."

The older man frowned seeing that the conversation wasn't going anywhere. "What the hell is your problem? Don't you see how serious this is?"

"My problem is that I learned a long time ago to not trust people, especially those that used me only for their own advantage."

The detective looked at the vigilante for a moment before continuing, "if it benefits you, what does it matter if we get something out of it?"

Midoriya's anger was starting to get to him as he didn't feel he could trust the man sitting across from him. He slammed the side of his right fist on the table in anger. "Why the hell would I believe anything you say?!" he narrowed his eyes at the detective, "you used me and now you're acting like you're trying to help me."

Detective Daiki frowned at his words and as he opened his mouth to say something, there was a knock on the door. He stood up and opened it to see the two heroes that helped capture the vigilante standing there. "Ah, you're just in time." He said with a serious face as he moved to the side to allow them entry into the small room. The first one was Ryukyu with Uraraka right behind her. As she entered Midoriya looked at the gravity hero, slightly surprised to see her. Uraraka was trying to keep a serious face but the nervousness was there. They kept eye contact for just a second until the vigilante frowned and looked back to the older man as he sat back down. "What the hell is she doing here?" He thought at the sight of the two new people in the room.

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Ryukyu and Uraraka walked side by side down the main corridor of the Asaka police headquarters in their hero uniforms. The place was fairly busy with different people and police officers walking in different directions. As they walked, various police officers and other people around the place gawked at the number 10 and 25 heroes as they walked with serious expression on their faces.

The place wasn't as big as the police headquarters in Musutafu so it was a lot easier to reach their destination. As they approached the investigations section of the headquarters, Ryukyu approached a random detective with long blue hair sitting at her desk drinking coffee and going over some documents.

"Hello there, detective…" she looked at the officer's nameplate, "Hanna." The officer looked up from her work and her eyes went a little wide.

"Oh, Ryukyu and Uravity! The detective said with a smile. "What can I do for you?"

Ryukyu replied with a small smile, "Is Detective Daiki questioning the vigilante captured yesterday?"

The blue haired woman nodded her head, "Yes, he's in interrogation room 201." She stood up and pointed down a hallway. "All the way down and to the left."

The dragon hero nodded once and started to walk down in the given direction with Uraraka close behind. As they approached their destination, Ryukyu stopped and looked back at her companion.

"You ready?" Uraraka took a deep breath and nodded her head.

The older woman put a hand on her shoulder, "remember, we don't know what's going to happen in there, so be ready for anything, ok?"

The gravity hero nervously put a strand of hair behind her right ear, "I'm kind of expecting the worst, honestly."

"You don't know that, Uravity."

"I can't expect the best either, right?"

The dragon hero shrugged her shoulders, "hey, who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky." That brought a small smile out of the younger hero, who just nodded. Ryukyu gently squeezed Uraraka's shoulder and then turned to knock on the door. After a few seconds, detective Daiki opened the door.

"Ah, you're just in time." He stepped back into the room allowing the two heroes to walk in. As Ryukyu stepped in, Uraraka walked in right after and quickly looked to her right to see Midoriya sitting there with a seriously pissed off expression. She swallowed dryly as her heart rammed inside her chest so hard that she was sure the others could hear it.

As the older man took the seat directly in front of Midoriya, Ryukyu took the seat to the vigilante's left. Uraraka, deciding that she didn't want to sit close to her long-lost friend, stood in the corner of the room behind the detective. The first thing that she noticed was that Midoriya broke contact almost immediately. The second thing she noticed was that he didn't look happy at all. That would be expected since he was now under arrest, but he looked pretty freaking pissed. And the third thing that she noticed was that his hands and arms had a lot more scars that she remembered.

She then took a good look at his face now that it wasn't smeared with blood and sweat. Gone were his boyish looks, replaced with a manlier, hardened face with small scars. His hair was very short on the sides, with the top shorter than how it was in school and it was stylized toward the front, missing the curls he previously had. His eyes had lost that trademark innocence and instead looked unsympathetic, calculating with dark rims around them, giving him a menacing look. The left cheek had a fairly big scar she had noticed before, but she could see it better now. She also noticed a small cut on the right side of his lower lip. Probably a well-placed blow to the face did that. Like the scar on his cheek, it looked like it happened some time ago. She really missed the old Deku now, with his gentle eyes, smooth face and bright smile, but she didn't know how to feel about this new, darker Deku. It gave him a dangerous look that left her oddly confused and slightly attracted to it. But at the same time, she was sad that the old Deku seemed to be gone, probably forever.

The small moment of silence was broken when detective Daiki spoke, "As you probably know, these are pro heroes Ryukyu and Uravity from the Dragon Hero Agency. They're here as part of the investigation." The vigilante didn't say anything as he decided to just look at the center of the table where the holographic recorder sat. "I need to tell you that if you don't cooperate, the district's attorney and the prosecutor are going to ask for the maximum penalty on all charges. I hope you understand what that means." Once again, silence.

Uraraka's eyes went a little wide as she looked to the others in the room with a little fear. Even though she technically knew that Deku could spend time in prison, the way the detective worded his comment made it sound as if he would spend a long prison sentence. She then realized that she was so concentrated on her personal issues with Deku, that she didn't take into account that she may lose him all over again. All of the sudden her personal struggles paled in comparison to the real issue at hand.

As the gravity hero struggled with this new realization, Ryukyu gave the vigilante a once over before speaking, "Midoriya, there's dozens of charges against you." After another moment of silence, she continued. "I…we know you have information that can help us make arrests and reduce your sentence. Depending on your level of cooperation, you may not even have to do much prison time if any."

"Let's not make promises we can't keep, Ryukyu." The older man said with a serious tone.

The dragon hero looked at the detective with a small frown, "If he provides enough information, we can convince the prosecutor to push for a very short sentence, yes?"

The detective shook his head slightly, "there would have to be some pretty substantial leads for that to happen." The dragon hero's frown deepened at his words. She didn't have time for this bullshit. Maybe a little more forceful approach would work. She turned back to the vigilante.

"Midoriya, stop acting like an idiot and start talking!"

The vigilante turned to her with a frown as he felt his anger starting to get worse, "what makes you think I trust you, huh?"

Uraraka finally found her voice, "We're just trying to help you, Deku."

He immediately turned to her with an angry scowl, "Don't call me that." The gravity hero blinked a few times after hearing his venomous tone.

"Why don't you trust me? Because I captured you?"

Midoriya turns back to Ryukyu, "Let's just say I've seen and heard a lot of things about heroes."

Uraraka couldn't believe how angry Midoriya sounded. It's like he was a completely different person. "Deku, we were just doing our job."

The vigilante slammed the side of his fist on the table, his anger finally eroding his patience. "STOP CALLING ME THAT!" The room went deadly quiet as everyone present looked at the vigilante, surprised at his outburst. He pointed a finger at the gravity hero, "don't you dare use that name around me."

Uraraka felt as if his fist had slammed into her gut instead of the table. Her eyes started to get suspiciously shiny as she felt the sting of tears threatening to come out. No, she would not cry, not here. Not in front of angry Dek…no, he wasn't Deku anymore. Deku was gone and she would not see him again. Uraraka stood in silence, finally accepting that the old boy she loved was gone, replaced by a completely different, angry man. As much as it pained her, she found herself oddly at peace with it even though her lower lip trembled a little, showing a small crack in her emotional mask.

The sadness, guilt and regret were still there, but she finally accepted them as her punishment. But with that came another realization. She would keep trying to help her friend, no matter how different he was. She had made herself a promise and she will keep it. She will try to make it up to him. She will ask for his forgiveness, and even if he hates her, she will say the words 'I'm sorry' at some point. As a suffocating silence enveloped the room all the cellphones of those present, started to vibrate at the same time with various text messages. They all pulled out their phones and read the messages. Daiki and Ryukyu weren't surprised, they knew this was going to happen. Uraraka however, was a little more apprehensive.

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Jiro woke up to the smell of...something. She blinked a few times, rubbing the sleepiness out of her eyes, she looked to the side to see that she was alone in bed. Looking at the time she realized she needed to get out of bed and start her day. After making her way to the bathroom and getting cleaned up, she walked to the kitchen of the apartment she shared with her boyfriend.

There she found Kaminari watching tv, eating some burnt toast and some mixture of, well she didn't know what that was. But it looked like her boyfriend had just invented a new breakfast Jam. He turned around and looked at her, "hey babe." He said with his mouth full then turned back to the tv. She stood there in silence for a few seconds seeing all the empty beer bottles he, once again, left around the living room. She then looked towards the kitchen seeing the mess her dear boyfriend had made with his breakfast experiment.

'Why the fuck am I still living with this idiot.' Was the only thing that came to her mind. She was finding it hard to believe that she still loved Kaminari or at least she thought she still loved him, but every day he made it more and more difficult to want to stay with him. The guy really wasn't a great boyfriend. She was getting especially tired of his wandering eyes and low-key flirting with other girls. He also liked to spend a little too much time with Sero and a couple of heroes from his agency and inviting them over for some 'game time'. What a load of crap. Maybe Mina was right. Maybe it was time to test the waters somewhere else.

The sound hero sighed. As much as she wanted to scream at him to clean up his mess and call him out on his daily bullshit, she was just too tired to get into another argument. Those were getting too frequent now. To make it worse, he didn't even make her any breakfast. Well, she was going to remember that next time she woke up first.

Kaminari changed the channel and the sound of the morning news theme music came on the tv as Jiro started to make herself some waffles. 'Good morning. I'm your host, Akiho Yoshizawa. Heroes in Asaka city had quite the busy day yesterday after what some people described as a scene of total chaos.' Jiro stopped what she was doing and turned to the tv, surprised to hear some news from the city where Uraraka had moved to.

'After five years on the run, the powerful vigilante known as Darkmask was finally apprehended by a combined effort of Asaka's police and the city's heroes. According to the Mayor of Asaka, Eito Tanaka, most of the credit goes to pro hero Ryukyu and Uravity from the Dragon Hero Agency and he thanked the heroes for their efforts to arrest the dangerous vigilante.' A picture of Ryukyu and Uraraka came on the screen. They both seem to be talking to police officers.

"Man, that's great!" Kaminari said, once again with a mouth full of food as he turned to the purple haired girl. "Uraraka did it." Jiro looked at him briefly but turned back to the TV without saying anything.

'But that's not all, folks. In a bizarre turn of events, the vigilante was later identified as missing UA student, Izuku Midoriya, who went missing from the prestigious hero school a little over five years ago…' the sound of a metal spoon clanking on the floor was heard from the kitchen as Jiro heard that last statement.

"What the fuck?! Midoriya?!" was all the sound hero could say once the initial shock passed. Kaminari, who was now standing in front of the tv with an expression of complete shock, turned back to his girlfriend.

"This can't be real, right?" Kaminari asked, but Jiro couldn't say anything. She kept her gaze on the tv as the news anchor continued talking and a picture of a completely different Midoriya was shown on the screen. Kaminari's eyes went wide after seeing the picture, "Damn, he looks…dangerous."

'What is going on?' the sound hero asked herself as she looked at her previous classmate's picture on tv. Her eyes wandered around his face and she noticed his prominent scar and dark eyes. 'He looks…hot.' After a second, she realized what she had just thought and was a little surprised at herself, 'what am I thinking?' She then heard her phone ringing from its place back in her bedroom. She quickly ran to get it and saw that it was her pink friend calling. She quickly answered the call.

"Jiro! Did you see the news?!" the pink hero quickly asked. As the purple haired girl opened her mouth to answer Mina continued, "they found Midoriya, and he looks like a freaking hot villain!" Jiro blinked a few times at Mina's words. She was right, he did look like a villain.

'Damn, Midoriya is going to have a hell of a time coming back from this.' The sound hero thought to herself, realizing that the media exposure and the guaranteed charges of vigilante activity and illegal quirk use was going to make his return to normal life almost impossible.

A/N:

To all my readers that have stuck with me until now, thank you. I know I'm not the best at updating, but I want you to know that I will keep going with this story and my future ones. Just a quick heads ups, I probably won't be able to update for a couple of months since I'm going through real life events. I'm in the process of moving to another state, and buying a house. I will be in a new job position on top of the stress of moving my family, my dog, my cars and motorcycle. My daughter will have to get in a new school as well, so, yeah. Anyway, I'll probably need a few months to get my life together, so please, be patient with me and wish me luck. Once again, thank you for all the kind comments and for those that took the time to give me constructive criticism.