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Chapter Three
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Kazuya had been sitting in the same uncomfortable chair at the police station for an hour now. Her parents were off in a room talking to an officer, who called them at some ungodly hour in the morning. She was still in her pyjamas for Pete's sake!
The cranky girl jumped from her seat, spilling her vending machine chips when a pitiful cry filled the room. She looked through the window and scrunched her eyebrows in worry at her mother violently sobbing into her father's chest.
"What's going on?" she asked a group of passing police officers. They gave her sympathetic looks, then simply walked away without a word. Kazuya huffed, peeved by the lack of information she was given. Kagami wouldn't stand for this, she thought with a sullen pout.
It wasn't until ten minutes (and another vending machine snack) later that she was invited to join her parents in the interview room. Upon entering, she was pulled into a lung-crushing hug by her teary-eyed mother and met the desolate eyes of her father as he tried desperately not to cry. Even the detective sitting across from them looked like she was about to cry!
"Kazuya," Elena tried to speak but the words got caught in her throat. Taigen slipped an arm around his wife and gently squeezed her.
"We have something to tell you," he sighed, the bags under his eyes more apparent than ever.
"Are you getting divorced?" Kazuya cocked her head to the side, "There's a kid in my class with divorced parents and he gets double Christmas. I'd prefer two birthdays." The uncomfortable silence that followed told her that wasn't it.
"It's your sister, Sweetheart." Her father explained in a broken whisper.
"We saw her last night. Maybe she got called out for work. She did say she was running errands…" Kazuya explained with a shrug. Kagami had always been the type to suddenly pack up and leave for a few days. She had hero duties and whatnot.
"We found her cellphone, her singed jacket, and surveillance footage of her before she was taken," explained the law woman softly. Kazuya sceptically stared at her then eyed the sobbing Elena in her peripherals. Kagami wouldn't just let someone take her, she knew that much.
"She's probably on the couch. Come on, you might have missed her," Kazuya hopped out of her chair and made her way to the door. The adults shared a troubled look.
"Where are you going?" Taigen asked with a sigh.
"To show you that she's probably just being a lazy bum." The silence was so thick that it was as if a noxious gas filled the room. Her mother's trembling figure, the look of pity in the detective's eyes, and her father's tense glare made Kazuya hesitate. Something wasn't adding up. Kagami wouldn't just leave her phone, even if she was on a job, and she always informed her family before leaving.
"No," the young girl furrowed her brows, pushing the negative thoughts to the back of her head, "Kagami's fine, we saw her last night. She's just at home." When she opened the door, Taigen used his quirk to slam it shut and snatched up her free hand.
"Kazuya, stop it," he sighed while gently pulling her between him and her mother. Elena pulled her child's gloves off and held her trembling hands despite the glowing points of contact. Kazuya's random quirk activation and strong emotions led to the family being squished together for a tight group hug.
"No, I've gotta go get her," she huffed, panic slowly setting in. Her eyes darted around the room, searching for an answer that would never come. Instead, the possibilities of what could be happening to her only sister ran through her head like a swarm of angry bees, "She's not…She's not gone, she's at home! Please let me go get her!"
"It's all gonna be okay," her father whipped away silent tears she wasn't aware she had shed. The crushing weight of her emotions caused Kazuya's knees to buckle in as she collapsed into her parents' grips. She had yet to cry.
"Find my sister." Her milk chocolate eyes hid a stone-cold ferocity behind them. The blonde nodded sharply.
"I'm Detective Yamane, but you can call me Riza. I'll do everything in my power to bring her home. My son is a fan and after all she has done so much for the community, it's the least we can do," her answer satisfied Kazuya, though she made no indication of it.
"I want to help," the pre-teen demanded. Yamane Riza pulled a few photos out of a folder and slid them to the Imai family, expression hardened.
"Do you know this man?" Taigen and Elena shook their heads while their daughter examined every microscopic detail of the stranger in the picture. If this was the man who took her sister, she would burn his face into her mind. Even if it was just a blurry CCTV screengrab. "Alright, did you notice any strange activity before Kagami left the other night?"
"She was texting someone right before she left, someone who made her upset, I think," Kazuya was the first to speak up. She had saved that bit of information to interrogate her sister about when she got home. Only now did it hit her that she had a crucial piece to this puzzle.
Yamane scribbled her words onto a notepad, "Angry upset or sad upset?"
"Angry, I guess. She left without her keys right after," She paused to glance down at the security image again. Dark spiky hair, tall, with cerulean eyes.
"Do you think she was talking to this man?" Elena unknowingly voiced her daughter's thoughts.
"We won't know until we trace where those texts came from. Luckily, a security guard managed to grab her phone before she disappeared," Investigator Yamane explained while reaching for the photo evidence, only for Kazuya to hold her hand on it. The two stared at each other for a beat.
"Can I keep this?" she finally asked, rosy cheeks still tear-stained and eyes reddened from the extra moisture.
"Sweetheart, I don't think — " "It's alright, Doctor Imai," Yamane pulled her hand back and smiled down at the girl, "If you find a good use for them, then it's fine by me."
Elena cleared her throat and stood up, "If that's all, I'd like to go now."
"Yes, we're done here. Just remember to call if anything comes to you," Yamane nodded in understanding and allowed the disheartened couple to take their leave. Kazuya lingered behind for a few seconds to pocket the photo of the abductor. Before she turned toward the door, she noticed the analytical gaze of the detective was still transfixed on her.
"That wasn't all, was it?" she sighed internally.
"I think this is meant for you. I hope you don't mind that we went ahead and printed it out," Yamane pulled an envelope out from the evidence folder and passed it to her gloved hands. Earthy brown eyes scanned the paper inside a few times before narrowing in uncertainty.
"A letter of recommendation? For what?" Kazuya thought aloud while retaining her thoughts about the several informalities she spotted in the letter. Her sister was never good with professionalism.
Yamane folded her hands on the table and smiled supportively; "It's addressed to Principal Nezu, the headmaster over at UA High School."
Kazuya recognized the number one heroics school in all of Japan as Kagami's alma mater, although they never talked about whether or not she would attend. From what she could remember, her sister was a great student and further proved that the school could produce great heroes. Even so, was following in Livewire's footsteps really what she wanted?
Adding that to the mountain of questions she had acquired over the last hour, she thanked Detective Yamane and then scurried off to catch up with her parents. There was so much going through her mind that she didn't speak for the rest of the evening and even opted to skip dinner. Sitting in her room, she reread the letter and stared at the surveillance print until her eyes could barely stay open.
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Hitoshi warily glanced over his shoulder. It was the last month of eighth grade and the teacher had given the students some free time at the end of class. Even though many of their classmates immediately got up to talk about which High School they were hoping to attend, Kazuya had yet to move. Being the good friend that he is, Hitoshi turned in his seat and attempted a conversation.
"Did you put in any applications yet?" It was like talking to a rock. He watched her snap out of whatever mental rut she put herself in. She shook her head and then blinked away the haze in her eyes. Her mouth opened but the voice that came out was not her own.
"Why would any school want you and your stupid family curse?" came the barely audible whisper from the back of the class. Hitoshi glowered in the kid's direction but stopped when Imai shook her head.
"Ignore them," she sighed, unaware of the sudden tension in her posture. Her best friend gave her an unconvinced stare
"This is getting old. Nothing that's happened is your fault," he grumbled while shoving his hands in his uniform's pockets. From the firing of her father to the disappearance of her sister, the juvenile jerks of Kazuya's class often mocked her by saying bad things happened to her because she was cursed.
"Hey, you should be glad," she lightly punched him in the shoulder, "You're the only person I can tolerate. How does it feel to be number one?" Hitoshi paused to stare at her incredulously for a few beats. Eventually, however, he caved.
"Pretty good, I guess," he couldn't hold back the dumb smirk that spread across his face. Imai returned it with one of her own, although it was so obviously fake.
"I'm thinking of turning in that recommendation. We'd get to go to the same school, so that would be cool," she hummed as if her mind had travelled elsewhere. Hitoshi didn't have the heart to say anything.
"Maybe you should work on finally accepting that your sister's not coming back."
This time they both turned to glare at the boy in the front of the class. Hitoshi went to stand up but a glove on his shoulder pulled him back down.
"Don't," Imai interrupted, fists clenched so tightly that she made indentations on the leather. He cast his eyes to the ground, cheeks heating up from aggravation and embarrassment.
"You don't deserve this." He wanted to protect her from these idiots and their single brain cells.
"Do you really think picking on me makes you a big kid?" she raised a brow, brushing off Hitoshi's worry.
"Yeah, actually, I do," the boy in the front shrugged with a taunting smirk that made him look oh so punchable.
Imai's lips twisted up into a wicked smile as she wordlessly stood up from her desk. Watching her scramble towards the front of the room and pull her glove off, Hitoshi's mind quickly turned to panic. Whenever she slapped her hand onto the shoulder of the bully and rested the other on his desk, he understood exactly what she was doing.
By the time he snatched the fallen glove off the ground, it was too late. The bully's shoulder and desk as well as Imai's hand glowed an angry red, and before anyone knew it, the kid was sent flying through the back wall and into the next classroom over. Hitoshi slipped the leather mit back onto her raised hand while everyone was distracted.
"Breathe," he barked out in a hushed voice, noticing the way her eyes watered when her taunting smile fell. They turned to look at the bully who was now slumped against a desk, unconscious and bleeding from his broken nose. She frowned when the opposite classroom's teacher glanced through the preteen-sized hole in his wall.
That wasn't going to be easy to explain to the teacher or her parents as Kazuya found out that afternoon.
"You put a hole in the wall?!" Her mother shouted when she came to pick her up from school. She gripped the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles turned a ghostly shade of pale.
"I probably gave a kid brain damage and that's what you're worried about?" Kazuya scoffed, somewhat insulted by the woman's priorities. Her remark earned her a pissed-off glare through the rearview mirror.
"I mean, it's good you're learning to control your quirk…" her father meekly added from the passenger's seat. Elena made him the next unfortunate subject of her burning gaze.
"Don't encourage this!" she pointed an accusatory finger at him, "What would even possess you to beat up that poor kid?!"
Kazuya's eyes fell to the floorboard, "He was talking about Kagami." The car fell silent. Her parents shared a knowing look. "She's not dead like everyone thinks, just missing."
"And this brat said she was?" Her mother asked with a defeated sigh.
"I've seen the camera footage, I've heard the witness statement. I know she's alive…I just don't know where," she mumbled, crestfallen as she stared out the window.
It had been nearly six months since Kagami disappeared and Kazuya was still holding on to the hope that she was alive. Her parents didn't want to admit it, but they were growing less and less certain that their eldest daughter would return. Detective Yamane said the first twenty-four hours were the most important, but those just flew right by.
"Obsessing over the case isn't going to bring her back, Sweetheart," her father hated to say it but it was true.
Kazuya's head whipped up and glared at the back of his seat; "What do you want me to do, then?! Bury myself in work like you? You don't even have a job anymore, you just sit in the basement!"
"It's called self-employment, actually," came Taigen's muttered reply. As the vehicle pulled into the carport and came to a stop, she scurried inside before her parents could even get a word out.
While storming her way upstairs, she passed Kagami's bedroom. She wasn't sure why, but something made her stop and stare at the high-voltage sign on the door. Out of pure compulsion, she snuck inside.
Kagami's bedroom was in the same state as when she left; chaotically messy. It was covered in band posters from her teenage years, some work documents, a framed hero's license, and a few stuffed animals collected over the years.
Kazuya carefully rummaged through the dresser, closet, and anywhere else she thought someone could hide a message. When her search turned up no leads for the fourth time this month, she flopped onto the unmade bed, soaking in the angst of the room as if it would help her.
In some philosophical soul-searching bullshit kind of way, it did.
She caught a glimpse of a scrapbook their mother had gifted to Kagami on her eighteenth birthday. Elena was never the arts-and-crafts type of mom, but she took photos of the family every once in a while and hoped her eldest would keep doing the same. Much to Kazuya's surprise, she did.
The first ten pages or so were filled with photos from before she was born. Then, around age eight, the pictures shifted focus: baby Kazuya eating her first birthday cake, Kagami at age fourteen trying to help her six-year-old sister build a sandcastle during a trip to the beach, both of them arguing immediately after it fell. It was all good family memories up until the last page.
A photo printed off her phone depicted Kagami and a somewhat familiar stranger. Kazuya rushed to her room, locking her door behind her as she pulled a box out of her closet. Inside was the CCTV picture the police let her have, a journal of case-related notes, and a handwritten transcript of Kagami's text messages.
After putting the two evidence photos side by side, she was able to spot some resemblances. It was hard to tell because of the quality, but she was ninety percent sure it was the same guy. Dark spiky hair, tall, cerulean eyes.
The selfie was closer and showed more detail of the man, especially the gnarled, wrinkled skin that ran across his jaw, neck, and under his eyes. Holding his face so that he was forced to look her way was a beaming Kagami still in her hero costume. Because she was shorter, she had to tilt her head up to plant a quick peck on his jawline. "I think Firebug likes me ;)" was written by her on the back of the print.
It was uncertain if they were friends, judging by the uninterested look in the man's eyes and the rushed blur, but they were acquaintances at least. Was he a hero? A jilted lover? Some random dude who Kagami bugged for a picture because of his "cool" appearance? Only the madwoman herself would know.
As she stared at the photo, Kazuya found her mind wandering back to the UA recommendation letter. The police had already given up on finding her sister, maybe it was time she did it herself. She had clues, all she needed was the power to act upon them. The power that came with being a hero.
"I'm gonna find you, with or without anyone's help."