Midoriya wakes up slowly, eyes fluttering open and close, open and close. His retinas trying to adjust to the light. His brain feels foggy, like he's thinking in slow motion. The feeling is foreign, and if he had anymore capacity for thought he'd say the feeling was an unwelcome one. The room he's in is pretty dim, and the leather couch he's laying on is just a tad uncomfortable.
He rouses his head into motion, looking down at his body. The only thing preventing him from being completely bare chested is a set of bandages wrapped around his upper torso.
"He really packed you full of painkillers, probably a little too much."
Midoriya slowly pushes himself up. It feels a little hard to breathe and he reaches up to tug that mask from his face, but Giran quickly stops him with a hand.
"Don't do that. You'll hate yourself for it later. I made sure no one took it off despite the doc's insistence." Giran looks him over as the boy carefully pulls himself into a seated position. "Whoever you were messing with certainly did a number on ya."
Midoriya lifts a hand to his head, feeling another set of bandages beneath his fingers, still not having said a word to the man.
"A mild concussion, gash on your side, and quite a few other scrapes and bruises." The fifteen year old finally croaks out a, "Why am I here?"
The broker's glasses glint in the dim lighting of his office. "You called me. Though, I assume it was meant for someone else."
The vigilante groans, stumbling up onto his feet. "What time is it?"
Giran watches him carefully to see if he'll actually stay up. "It's about thirty minutes till midnight."
"I need to go."
The man sighs, walking back towards his desk and tossing a t-shirt at the kid. "At least put that on. Your other one was covered in blood you know." The man nods towards one corner of the room. "Your backpack is over there, both of your phones are waterlogged though."
Izuku curses as he pulls the shirt on over his head, the stitches in his side stretching. "If you're going to meet someone you better take care of that head wrap as well."
Midoriya mutters a few choice words under his breath as he yanks the bandage off his head, stumbling towards his backpack in the corner as he slowly sobers up. The bag is still wet, drenched in rainwater similarly to still dampened shorts.
"You know I had to call in quite a few favors to patch you up," Giran says from behind him, "Someone to trace you, someone to pick you up, not to mention having to call that old geezer in. He put up a real fight about it, but he still owed me for putting him in contact with a certain
someone."
Midoriya slings the bag over his shoulder, shivering when the cold of it starts seeping through his new shirt. "I've got two hundred thousand yen saved up, so if it costs anymore than that you'll have to wait."
The broker waves his hand casually, dismissing the statement. "Consider it a favor," Giran says. "I'll call it in when the need arises."
Midoriya side eyes the man. The last thing the boy wants to do is owe someone like Giran anything. "You know what's on my ethics card. If you ask for anything that's not on it then favor or no, I won't do it. If that's not something you can deal with then I can get the cash."
Giran watches him with a knowing smirk. "I wouldn't have expected anything less from Musutafu's esteemed Pied Piper."
Midoriya makes his way back to where he'd last seen the girl, looking for traces of where she might've been taken. But, whether or not there had ever been anything for him to follow, everything that had once been has been washed away by the night rain. He spies the last of his blood stained water disappearing down a drain and it feels like the last of his hope slipping down his throat to dissolve in his stomach acid. There's a weight in his chest that he's not used to.
There had been many times during his run as a vigilante where the boy had found himself lacking, many times where he'd been unable to stop something bad from happening, especially when he'd been starting out. And though he'd sometimes found himself unable to help, he'd always been able to find someone who could do something.
But, here, now, he had undeniably and irrevocably failed. Failed to save the girl, failed to get help, failed to do anything other than find himself injured and indebted to a villain. Midoriya tugs violently at his curls, tears threatening to slip down his cheeks like rainwater.
He wants to scream, wants to punch something. Instead, he cries. Izuku presses back of his hand against his mouth to prevent any sobs from escaping as he leans back against the alley wall, staring up towards the narrow strip of sky to see the dark, monochromatic clouds rolling above him. The fifteen year old doesn't want to leave, doesn't want to move, even though logic tells him that the girl, Eri, won't return here.
She'd left because of him.
She'd gone silently because of him.
Midoriya curses, pushing himself away from the wall. He fishes in his pocket for the new phone Giran had handed him before he'd left the man's warehouse. The vigilante paces the length of the alley as he dials 110. "Put me on the phone with Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa. What do you mean, is this an emergency? Of course it's an emergency," Midoriya snarls, angry tears building in his eyes. "Just put him on the damned phone before I decide storming the police station is a faster method!"
Naomasa stretches in his desk chair, arms thrown up over his head as he tries to unwind some of the kinks in his back.
Sansa watches him from his own desk, chin perched on his paw. "Long day?"
Tsukauchi lets his arms fall, turning towards the officer with a sigh. "The only prints we got from Piper's glorified glitter bomb were Haya Yuyu's, the UA student Piper came into contact with. What she told us matched Piper's description pretty well. She said she couldn't see his hair, and he had blue eyes this time, but he was evidently wearing his gloves. So, if there was ever any reason to doubt that it was Piper that we're dealing with, then the gloves certainly dispel it." Naomasa leans his head on the back of his chair. "Evidently Piper only asked her to bring Snipe out to meet him, and she was the one who offered to take it up to him. We brought in a specialist just in case so we could see if they were able to sense if any quirk had been used on the girl. But, they said that they couldn't detect any outside quirk usage so that's yet another dead end."
Sansa offers the man a look of sympathy before the phone on the detective's desk lights up with an incoming call from dispatch.
Naomasa answers it with his standard greeting.
"Detective Tsukauchi, there's someone on the phone that's asking to talk to you. They very addamently explained that it's an emergency."
Naomasa switches the phone to his other ear, sending a look towards Sansa. "Patch them through."
There's a few seconds of dial tone before a rustling noise filters through the speaker. "Musutafu Police, quirk crimes division, Detective Tsukauchi speaking."
"Detective."
Naomasa freezes, immediately recognizing the voice from the countless audio recordings he'd recently listened to from 110 dispatch calls. "Piper," the man releases the name like a breath as he leans back in his seat.
"District six, block seventeen. There's an alley between building thirteen and seven. Four or so hours ago I ran into a little girl. She had long white hair, red eyes, a small horn protrusion on her forehead, and she was terrified. She was in a plain dress, but she was barefoot and had bandages wrapping both of her arms and legs."
Midoriya steps out of the alley, pausing at his reflection in a building's window. The pain in his side has grown, the meds that'd been in him slowly wearing off. He hadn't thought to check the wound after waking up and does so now, lifting his shirt. "She was running from a man who referred to her as Eri. He was tall, bald, muscular, and had some sort of crystallization quirk. When he first arrived he was wearing a beak like mask on the lower half of his face. I believe he could be a possible member of the Eight Precepts of Death." Midoriya presses the phone between his ear and his shoulder, holding it there while he unwinds the bandages covering his wound. "I don't know what kind of relationship he had with the girl, if they had any, but she was..." the boy pauses momentarily, eyes widening as he stares at the wound on his side, "terrified of him..."
Midoriya stares at the wound in the reflection, eyes widening. "It's in the same spot." No, he thinks, it's the same wound. It's surgically stitched this time around, but it's the same. His mind roars, remembering the spark of power from the girl's horn, the pain. He lets his shirt slip from his grasp, and his eyes fall upon is left hand. The boy studies it in the streetlight, looking for a wound that no longer exists, and his foot too. He glances down at it in awe.
"Piper?"
"Did she?" The vigilante murmur quietly to himself. He quickly looks for his other stitch worthy scar from his encounter with Death Arms, he strains his neck, looking back at where it should be. But, it too is gone. He scours his body for scars he knows should be there, but most of them he finds have been erased. "Did she rewind me?"
Tsukauchi's brow furrows in confusion. "Piper?" "I lost," comes the vigilante's whispered reply.
"Lost what? The girl?" The detective asks, waving at Sansa to grab his attention. The feline looks up, walking over as Naomasa slides him the address the vigilante had given him. He pulls the phone away from his face by a few centimeters, covering the speaker as he drops his voice to a low whisper, so the vigilante can't hear, "I need you to send two patrol cars to this address, tell them to be on the lookout for Piper. I'll follow as soon as I can."
"The fight," Midoriya murmurs a few moments later, clarifying himself. "I injured my foot and the man put a gaping hole through my hand with his quirk."
On the other end of the line Naomasa freezes, hand unwrapping from around his speaker as Sansa gives him a brief nod and takes off.
"Eri, the girl, jumped in and grabbed my hand. It must have been her quirk that activated." He lets his hand go limp, bandages hanging limply between his fingers as he locks eyes with his reflection. "A type of rewind button?" He mutters the thought to himself almost offhandedly. "Her quirk," the vigilante starts, more confident in his theory now. "I think it has the ability to rewind a person's 'clock' so to speak." Midoriya turns away from the window, pacing again as the cogs in his head turn. "Both of the major wounds I got from fighting that man are completely gone, no scars, no nothing, and all within meer seconds."
Naomasa taps his pen against his desk. Couldn't that just be a high powered healing quirk?
"But, the thing is, she didn't just heal my wounds. She brought back old ones, months old ones. We may not see eye to eye on how things need to be done, but... you're a good man Tsukauchi-san. That's why I called you."
Naomasa pauses, the grip on his pen slackening.
"Please be on the lookout for her," Tsukauchi can hear the desperate tone in the boy's voice. "If I'm able to find out any information on her or her whereabouts I'll inform you. I hope you'll be willing to pay the same courtesy if you're able to find her first. I just... I want to know that she's safe, that's all."
Naomasa opens his mouth to respond, but is cut off by the dial tone of an ended call. The man whips the phone awake from his face, merely able to stare at it for a moment. He grimaces, setting the phone back on the receiver and quickly pushing himself up to follow Sansa's path.
"Detective?" Midoriya glances down at the phone in his hand, a little bewildered. "Ah, I didn't mean to hang up yet," the boy breathes out a sigh, tucking the phone back in his pocket. He looks around the area once more, searching for anything he might've missed. But, there's nothing and Izuku heads towards home with only the added sense of dread and guilt hanging from his heart, weighing it down.
He makes it home within fifteen minutes. The boy midway through pulling his house keys out
when Inko swings the door open wildly.
"Izuku!" His mother storms up to him, immediately throwing her arms around him and enveloping him in a bone crushing hug. He tenses at first, the move sending bright sparks of pain flying through his side, but he eventually relaxes into her hold. "I-I tried calling so many times and it just kept going to voicemail," she sobs. "It's almost one, where have you been!"
"Sorry Mom," Midoriya clings tightly to the back of his mother's shirt, hugging her back. "There was a big hero, villain fight. Everyone went into a big panic and I lost my phone in it. I was there when it broke out and stayed to give some officers a statement." He breathes out the lie, acid burning in throat. "There ended up being a big crowd and the police had a bunch of streets blocked off and everything was just an absolute mess and I got lost."
He lets his head fall onto the woman's shoulder, eyes open and staring down at his feet. His whole story is a lie this time, the story boiling like tar at the back of his throat. He lets his eyes fall closed, clinging tighter to the woman when he starts thinking about the truth of what happened.
Carved into the back of eyelids rests the image of the little girl, red irises flooded with such a deep hurt that made his heart clench with pain so intense that it felt physical. Tears build in his eyes, splattering unnoticed onto his shoes.
Inko slowly unwinds herself from him, grabbing him by the shoulders as he shoves his tears back. She searches him for wounds, and upon not seeing any visible ones, pulls him into another quick hug.
"I'm just glad you're okay," she whispers in his ear before letting go and ushering him through the door.
The fifteen year old can feel acid crawling up his throat. Because even if he's okay, even if he's alright, she isn't.
"Sorry Tsukauchi-san, there wasn't anyone on site when we got here."
Naomasa sighs, running a hand through his hair. "It's fine, it was only a hunch, it could be that he hasn't been here for hours." The man looks around the area, searching for any clue of what had gone on here. But there's nothing.
Just ahead of him Naomasa watches as Sansa's mouth parts slightly. "I definitely smell copper," the feline reports, turning towards the detective. "It's faint, but it's there. If it hadn't rained the crime scene would probably be in better shape. We might've even had DNA." Tamakawa's tail twitches in agitation. "I feel like we're always close, biting at his heels. But, we're never able to draw blood before he disappears again."
Tsukauchi glances at the surrounding buildings. "Spread out, check to see if there are any security cameras that might've caught what happened."
In the end they come back with only one set of footage from a building across the street from the location Piper given them. The video is a little grainy and there isn't any audio, but it's the best shred of evidence that anything had even happened there outside of the vigilante's testimony.
Naomasa sits at his desk, rewatching the footage as his brows twists up in confusion. "So the girl
runs out scared," Tsukauchi states, "Presumably the bald quirk user he mentioned. Piper fights him off, gets beat up. And, then the girl willingly leaves with the bald figure."
Tamakawa hums in acknowledgement, "Since Piper was fighting to defend her it's possible she went with the man to prevent anything worse from happening to him."
Naomasa sighes, pinching at the bridge of his nose. "Did the facial scans bring anything up on the bald guy?"
Tamakawa's whiskers twitch. "No, we got a pretty clear shot of his face, so whoever he is he's not registered in any police databases."
Tsukauchi grimaces. "What about the quirk database? Is there anything similar to his that pulled a match?"
"There are a lot of registered crystallization quirks, unfortunately it'd take a long time to go through all of them and match names to faces."
Tsukauchi's headache grows. "What about the guy that picked Piper up after the fight?"
The feline nods, sliding a file he'd pulled across the conference desk they'd set up at. "We did get a match, but I don't think you're going to like who it is."
Naomasa flips it open, quickly scanning through all the information. "You're telling me fully fledged villain grabbed him?"
Sansa shifts in his seat, offering the man a solemn nod. "Unfortunately. From the footage we can't actually tell if the villain was there to help him or because the bald guy called him to clean up his mess. But, either way Piper called you several hours after everything had taken place, and he was seemingly fine. So, that points to the possibility that Piper was working with him. He was on the phone before he passed out as well. The best conclusion we can make is that Piper called the guy to pick him up."
Naomasa props a hand on his chin, staring tiredly at the folder in front of him. "That just doesn't fit Piper's m.o. he'd be more likely to turn the guy in than work with him. And, just looking at this file, it doesn't fit this Lui guy's m.o. either. He's more of a loner. So him working for either of the sides in this just don't fit."
"Piper was bleeding and unconscious when Lui picked him up, so there's no way he'd have been able to fight the guy off either." Naomasa rubs at his temples. "None of this end part is making sense. Bringing Lui in is the only way I can really think of to help us figure this out. Knowing what side Lui was working to help, and whether he was the one Piper called last night or not. I don't know if it would help in the long run, but it's information we could use."
It'd been a little less than twenty-four hours since Piper's call, and he'd spent a good majority of time he could've used for sleep watching through different surveillance footage. He'd crashed on Misaki's couch since it was closer than his own home and had woken up at six to do it all over again.
Tsukauchi gently lays his head down on the table. "Not to mention that we know for a fact that he's seen an unconscious Pied Piper up close. If he could give us a better description that alone could end up being a game changer. Piper wasn't in his usual vigilante clothes, so..." Naomasa groans, tugging at his hair. "It's so hard to think on only four hours of sleep."
"If you're not careful there you'll be going bald before too long," Tamakawa teases.
"I already found a gray hair last week," Tsukauchi murmurs, the off handed comment drawing a small laugh from the other man. Sansa offers the detective a small smile, watching as he slowly unravels his fingers from his hair.
"You've been working hard Tsukauchi-san, take a break, go home, get some actual sleep. I'll have someone to send out an alert to bring Lui in if anyone sees him."
Tsukauchi finally sits back up, sliding the folder back toward Sansa as the feline stands, picking it up. "Get pictures of the little girl and the bald guy as well, have them sent to all the officers doing patrol and have them on the lookout. And, email some copies to the local hero agencies as well."
"Of course," Tamakawa assures him. "Now, go get some actual sleep Detective. The rest of us can handle this until tomorrow." The two of them pause at Tsukachi's desk, waiting for him to gather a few of his things before they head towards the elevator. "From here on out most of what we'll be doing is just another waiting game after all."
The duo waits from the lift to ascend, watching as the number on the floor indicator slowly changes. "I hate waiting games."
The officer glances over towards him, softly bobbing his head in agreement. "We all do."