The second chapter of this fic is dedicated to the Rabbit Heroine, Miruko, Happy Unbirthday to you!
In more relevant news, after rereading The Last Ronin:The Lost Years I decided to include the ages of some of the main characters of this fic, starting with the titular Ronin.
Michelangelo: Approximately 30-31 years old (he stopped counting when his brothers died).
Endeavor: 45 years old.
Himiko:15 years old.
Hawks: 22 years old.
Miruko: 26 years old.
Midnight: 30 years old.
Nezu:?
More ages will be added as characters are added. Additionally this version of Mikey is a mix of the Last Ronin, TMNT 2012, IDW and a small hint of ROTTMNT Mikey. This is because I believe this particular mix of continuities best exemplify Mikey's role in the franchise going past the Mirage Comics and 87 cartoon: He's the goofy heart of the team, but pushed too far and he can become the worst turtle to face in a fight.
Chapter 2: Curiouser and Curiouser
Hosu City Police Department, Holding Cells.
"Well, isn't this a fine mess you've gotten us into, eh Mikey?" a voice full of a brother's mockery and a barely restrained temper broke the silence of the room the ronin found himself in.
Hamato Michelangelo did not open his eyes as he meditated on the cold hard bench of the cell he had been thrown into following the ride to the police department. Apparently the detective that Endeavor had called to facilitate his arrest needed the heroes to fill out paperwork regarding why they had arrested him, in spite of the fact that he had all but admitted to being the vigilante that had embarrassed more than a few heroes and a lot of police these past few weeks. So, after collecting all of his weapons and getting his fingerprints to run in a domestic and international criminal database (oh how he wished to see how that task was going), he had been left alone in a holding room with nothing but his thoughts to keep him company.
"Playing the 'strong, silent type' won't work on us little brother, eventually you're gonna have to answer." A second voice joined the first in tempting him to recognize their existence, this time tempered by logic and sarcasm, but still he kept his eyes closed and attempted to meditate. The voice sighed, "Alright, fine, be that way, just don't expect us to bail you out when your plan backfires."
"Knock it off you two, right now it's better for him to ignore us like he usually tries to do instead of answering us out loud." The third and final voice made its appearance, calm and collected in a way its owner had never truly achieved in life no matter how hard he tried. "With that said, It would be nice to know why you're still here playing the role of the prisoner instead of the agitator, we broke into and out of places with much better security when we were kids."
Michelangelo finally spoke, no longer able to stand hearing the fragments of his memories and sanity questioning him in the voices of the dead. "Half of those times we just charged right into a place and pretended we had a plan, this time I wanna try and actually think before I leap." The sound of footsteps echoed through the halls, and the ronin knew he needed to wrap this up, "Besides, if they actually look into the bit of information we gave them, then that bastard Hiroto will be too busy trying to hide whatever schemes he's involved with from the heroes to bother looking for someone he considers beneath him, so I'm still fulfilling my role." With that said he finally opened his eyes to an empty room, tired enough for audial hallucinations, but apparently not enough for the visual ones that usually accompanied the voices of his brothers advising and mocking him from beyond the grave. He sighed as he rubbed his hand across the bare skin around his eyes, having his black mask taken alongside his belt and jacket as part of his "vigilante costume," and the strange feeling of nakedness that he had felt since he was a teenager whenever he went without it "in public" still hadn't faded with time.
Two minutes later, two civilians(?) walked down the hall, briefly stopping to check in on the blonde girl sleeping in the cell next door (Michelangelo didn't know what the kid did to get locked up, only that the officers who had brought her in had slapped a Hannibal style muzzle on her face before locking the door behind her) before arriving at his cell.
The first civilian was a woman, roughly 5'9'' tall with dark purple hair tied up in a loose ponytail, with just enough of it hanging out to frame the annoyed look in her blue eyes behind a pair of red glasses. She wore an overly large dark purple wool sweater with the sleeves bunched up to her elbows and a pair of comfortable cotton pants. Blotting out the illusions of his brothers mocking Donnie for falling head over heels for her, Michelangelo focused on the other civilian who had stopped outside his cell, or rather the other creature.
"Fascinating" Donnie said as he kneeled down next to the creature with his sci-fi specs lowered and zoomed in on the white-furred creature smiling at Mikey in a way that reminded him of a M.O.U.S.E.R. that had locked on to its target, no longer caring about trying not to shatter his sole living brother's mental state in favor of fulfilling his scientific curiosity, "His baseline DNA's obviously rodent based, but just off of his outer appearance alone I'm willing to guess bits of canine, feline, and even ursine strands woven into his genetic code."
"But he's not a Mutant," Raph scoffed as he leaned on the bars of the cell with his arms crossed, glaring at the creature before them with a glare that would make gangsters and cops alike flinch. "Or at least not our type of Mutant; He's too perfect, and the fact that he's walking so casually out in the open doesn't make him a Yokai either."
"Wow, way to be an ass, Raphael." Donnie snarked as he stood up, "although I do agree with you, the casual way he walks about in public doesn't make him a resident of the Hidden City and barring the scar on his eye his physiology is too symmetrical to be the result of Mutagen exposure, and." He then wiggled his fingers in front of the woman as part of an old joke he liked to make, "After all, look at us, turtles and humans both have five fingers, but we're stuck with three." He paused for a moment, and then added "Though his sense of fashion is definitely mutantesque, who the hell wears bright orange sneakers with blue dress pants?"
"As fun as this conversation is guys, it needs to stop," the spirit/hallucination of Leonardo appeared in all of his martial glory, sporting the armor and cape he had worn when he lead the Strikers to purge the Foot Clan from New York City's Underworld as the Jounin their trials had molded him to be, one hand on the katana Michelangelo had managed to recover from his corpse. "Mikey, I know you don't like it when we talk about this, but the way you try to keep us in your line of sight when we show up? The Rat's noticed."
With that all four turtles locked their gaze onto the small white-furred rodent who had never stopped smiling at the sole living member of their quartet even as his human compatriot had gotten marginally impatient in regards to the collective silence. "Well now, it's nice to see we finally have your full attention young man."
"...Forgive me sensei, my mind was somewhere else." It was times like this that he wished he had paid more attention to his father's lessons on etiquette and manners, "I assure you, you have my full attention."
"Oh? And how did you guess that I was a teacher?" the rodent asked, a predator's curiosity written upon his face.
"The way you're dressed, it screams a teacher trying to be relatable to his students." Michelangelo answered honestly, and then thought to himself 'And you reminded me of my father, he also got upset when my brothers and I weren't paying attention.' That wasn't the only way in which the man/rodent before him reminded him of his father, but he wasn't going to give that information away willingly.
The rodent chuckled as he pulled out a pocket watch from one of his waistcoat pockets, briefly checking the time before looking up at the turtle, "My what an accurate guess! I'm actually Nezu, the Principal at one of Mustafu's finest highschools if the Board of Education is to be believed! Though admittedly when most people meet me for the first time they seem to think I'm its mascot."
"The burden of being considered cute, no one actually takes you seriously." Michelangelo sagely nodded his head, then gestured towards the purple-haired woman, "I take it she's the librarian?"
"I actually teach Modern Art History, though with the way I dress I can see where you got that idea from." she corrected the turtle without a hint of annoyance, "My name's Kayama Nemuri, since Principal Nezu just introduced himself, how about you do the same for us?"
"I plead the fifth." The response was short, swift, and a huge clue that the vigilante wasn't from Japan, and his three spectral brothers groaned once the realization hit them.
"Unfortunately, the Fifth Amendment only applies in The United States of America," The rodent principal beamed at the mistake, "Though rest assured under Article 311 of the CCP you still have the right to remain silent, but it would make your upcoming interrogation a lot easier if we had something to call you besides 'vigilante,' wouldn't you agree?"
"More like the police would have a name to run through some database, since I doubt they've found anything on me." the ronin rolled his eyes at the ploy, "Besides, why does a principal and a teacher at a highschool in another ward care about a lowly criminal such as myself?"
"Actually, Kayama-san is here to check on the young girl in the cell next door," The principal informed him, "She had saved Kayama-san from being mugged roughly three weeks ago."
Something wasn't making sense here, "So why is the kid locked up?"
"She thwarted the attempted robbery by tearing into my would-be assailant's carotid artery with her teeth." The purple haired woman answered with a sigh, "When I tried to approach her, she panicked and fled into the night. I wasn't able to track her down since I was trying to keep the suspect alive, so I notified the local police and ."
"Well, that explains why the cops were treating her like her last name was Lector," Raph joked, meanwhile the ronin commented "That doesn't answer why this conversation is taking place."
"Well, when I received a call from one Detective Tsukauchi that one of my school's most prominent Alumni alongside two of his colleagues had managed to capture one of the most prolific vigilantes since The Naruhata Trio, my curiosity was naturally peaked, so I tracked down young Nemuri here and asked if she could give me a ride down to Hosu Station." The grin the white-furred rodent had been wearing this entire time turned absolutely feral, his black eyes bulging in their sockets as he happily bruxed his teeth. "After all, Endeavor was never one for teamwork during his years at U.A., and its safe to say that the habit has largely carried over to heroes outside of his agency''
The pieces fell into place, and the last living Hamato realized he had been tricked into talking with two heroes instead of two curious civilians. "Well in that case, let's just say my name is Kame."
"A turtle named 'Turtle?' My what an interesting choice for an alias," The rat had the gall to chuckle.
"Says the mouse named Nezumi." Michelangelo countered, his brothers nodding their heads in affirmation.
"Ah, but am I truly a Mouse? Perhaps I'm a Dog or a Bear?" Nemuri rolled her eyes as her employer responded to the vigilante's retort with a variation of his near-catchphrase question, only for the now named 'Kame' to answer the question with a grin of his own. "No, you're definitely a rat, you just have a very good tailor."
The grin briefly fell from Nezu's face, replaced with a look of shock and repressed fear, before it returned with a savage ferocity. "Well then Kame-san, I hope to see more of you in the near future."
Usagiyama Rumi wasn't one to regret her decisions, and that held true even as she watched one of her costumes be burned to a crisp on top of the roof of the Hosu City Police Station while she wore a cheap white t-shirt and baggy sweatpants and sneakers she had Hawks purchase for her at a local store. The bastard owed her big time for this mess, and as far as she was concerned this was only a down payment.
"Was this really necessary?" Endeavor grunted as he finished incinerating the stained leotard and rabbit boots, the smell of burning sewage and faux fur irritating his nostrils.
"There is not enough bleach in the world to get the smell and stains out of that leotard," Rumi answered as she ran a hand over her ears, "Besides, it's not like I don't have spares."
"I still think it's rather wasteful, but I will concede your point for now." The fire based hero responded in a fresh version of his own uniform he had one of his assistants from his Agency send over while they were in the police van with the bastard that had caused the both of them more than a few sleepless nights (the perks of working in the same district as your agency). "But I still think you should be at the hospital instead of staying for the interrogation."
That annoyed Rumi to no end, "And let you and Hawks have all the fun? No thanks." No way in hell was she going to a hospital unless it was absolutely necessary.
"Stop acting like a child, Usagiyama, it's unbecoming a hero of your rank and a woman your age." Endeavor's response was as blunt as a sledgehammer, "You essentially bathed in raw sewage in your attempt to apprehend the vigilante, who knows what kind of diseases and parasites were in that water. I'd rather have to deal with the winged-idiot by myself for a week then have the country lose one of its top heroes for a few days due to an illness that could've been avoided if said heroine had been prescribed an antibiotic."
… The man is an asshole, but that didn't mean he didn't have a point, Rumi mused as the two of them watched the ashes of her costume drift away in the wind, besides, no one should have to deal with Hawks by themselves. "Alright alright, I'll go to the vet the moment we're done with mister Slow and Steady downstairs, I promise."
"...Good." Endeavor nodded as he made his way towards the door, "And if you were worried that either Hawks or myself would take credit for your part in this case, don't be. I made sure to put down in my report that you were the hero who actually made the arrest ." The Flaming Hero lowered his flames until they were simply covering his mustache and beard as homemade his way towards the stairs leading back down into the police station, holding open the door for her while adding "Though next time wait for backup before engaging a dangerous suspect."
She felt the blood flow to her ears and her cheeks as the elder hero chastised her like she was back in middle school. "... I'll do that." Rumi muttered sarcastically under her breath as she walked past the hero, having already decided that this 'team up' was a one time-only deal unless the world was ending or All-Might retired, whichever came up first. "Come on Old Man, the sooner we get to the observation room the sooner I get to Hosu General."
Endeavor grunted something about 'disrespectful youths' under his breath, but was quickly following behind the rabbit heroine as they made their way to the observation area of the interrogation room where they would watch their suspect be subjected to questioning by a man it was nearly impossible to lie to. Rumi hadn't actually met Detective Tsukauchi before today, seeing as how she normally didn't stick around for this kind of stuff unless it was absolutely necessary, but she knew his reputation and couldn't wait to see him make the turtle-bastard squirm! Especially considering the feeling that she hadn't been able to shake…
"Hey Endeavor, you've been doing this job for what? A quarter of a century?"
Endeavor looked at the younger heroine for a few seconds, and then answered her question "Twenty seven years and five months as an Officially-Licensed Hero, thirty if you include the three years of Provisional Herowork I completed while I was studying at UA." It was one of the longest careers in modern heroics, behind only Yoroi Musha and (of course) All-Might. Honestly, Rumi could understand why people liked Endeavor in spite of his attitude: It took a lot of effort to stay standing in this line of work, even if you had a whole agency dedicated to heroics in your corner like most of the other Big Ten Heroes did. That wasn't factoring in the fact that fire-based quirks came with their own unique bag of injuries and medical conditions that saw most heroes linked to the element burn out like fireworks. Hell, even Rumi was starting to feel the wear and tear from her cross-country escapades in the way that no matter what she did her legs felt sore in the morning. Then there was her parents' worries about her ears and her own growing fear of tinnitus… making her regret not packing her noise-canceling earphones when she had the chance. "Right, so in your three decade run of kicking ass and taking names, have you ever known a crook to just give up like our guy just did?"
"... Not unless they wanted to be caught." Endeavor admitted, his discomfort at the idea evident in his voice. "This vigilante is nothing like I expected him to be: based off of his modus operandi and available evidence I initially thought he was just a thrill-seeker, then the interrogations revealed his apparent crusade against an organization I had never even heard of: Then when he surrenders to us he admits that he's known where the Foot Clan has been all along, and that these past three months have been him toying with us in an effort to distract them." she felt the increase in temperature as the flame-wreathed hero's mind went into overdrive. "Honestly if that carnivorous idiot was even a quarter of the slacker he pretends to be, we would have probably spent another month or two chasing after what has essentially become a ghost, all the while playing into the vigilante's plans." And this was Endeavor speaking, the guy who Hawks had made a career out of one-upping and mocking during interviews.
"Yeah, Kentucky Boy's alright when he's actually focused on the job." Rumi admitted with a shrug, having been friends with Hawks since she made it into the top ten. "Though I swear to Kami I wished he'd stop with the cannibal jokes." Speaking of the devil, Hawks was waiting for them at the entrance to the observation room, typing something on his phone with a dopey grin on.
"Hawks, why aren't you inside the observation room?" Endeavor's mood did a near one-eighty as the bird themed hero finally looked up at them.
"Well hello to you two as well big man," Hawks' grin seemed a bit forced this time around, but not enough to be concerned. "I was inside the observation room, just minding my business, doing simple things to pass the time like answering work emails, reading the news, texting my girlfriend-."
"You have a girlfriend?" Endeavor quirked a flame lit eyebrow at the wrong part of that sentence.
"And I'm only now finding out about this?" Rumi didn't bother hiding the shiteating grin on her face. "Heh, didn't know you had it in you, Birdbrain, congratulations."
"Is that really the part of my story that you're gonna focus on?" Hawks' grin was gone now, replaced with a rare look of annoyance.
"I'm just surprised that someone who constantly complains about heroes being 'overworked' has enough free time to pursue a romantic relationship." Endeavor shot back with a vengeance for all the dinners and interviews where Hawks has used him as a punchline. "I'm even more surprised that someone actually wants to spend time with you once they get past your playboy antics."
"It helps that she thinks I'm a detective, and not the Number 3 Hero," Hawks admitted, "Anyway the reason that I'm ou-"
"Okay you can't just drop a line like that and not explain it! How does she not know you're you?!" Rumi couldn't believe they were talking about this, but Hawks' love-life was quickly becoming a tale worthy of a soap opera, and Mama Mirko had raised her daughter on soap operas, cooking shows, documentaries and rabbit themed cartoons. "Have you guys not been going out that long?"
The Number Three sighed and his wings visibly drooped, "Sometimes when I'm off-duty and I don't want to get stopped in the street for an autograph I hide my wings underneath a large trench coat, and I guess she just doesn't follow Hero/Celebrity gossip that much cause we've been going out for nearly six months at this point and she still hasn't figured it out." He ran a hand through his featherlike hair, "Which is nice and all, but she's been trying to get me to meet her family so who knows how long that's gonna last." It was at that moment everyone in the hallway knew that Hawks had said too much and that their teasing had gone too far. What started out as an exercise on unintentional team bonding had quickly descended into a level of awkwardness that was near inescapable, which is why it was all the more awkward when Endeavor actually looked at Hawks with something akin to sympathy. "My apologies, I should not have pried into your private affairs."
"Nah, it's alright, I shouldn't have dropped that Little Boy of honesty on you two." Hawks answered with a feigned indifference, brushing past this conflict in the way men who would deny they're friends often do, "Mind if we get back to the reason I'm waiting out here?"
Endeavor nodded, eager to put that round of unpleasant business behind them. "Please do."
Hawks nodded his head, "Right, so there I was, minding my own business when another Pro-Hero comes into the room. A Pro-Hero I might add, who I have been told by my P.R. team to avoid being alone in the same room for a variety of reasons… with the biggest being that he's scared of my namesake eating him alive"
Endeavor's shoulders relaxed just a centimeter, but for Rumi and Hawks it was as if he was slumping. "Ah, I was wondering when Nezu-Sensei would arrive."
"Hold up, what do you mean when?" Rumi knew of the vaunted Principal of UA, and could understand why Hawks' PR team didn't want Colonel Sander's Favorite Hero anywhere near the white-furred mouse/bear/dog thing unless he wanted to be covered in herbs and spices. Unlike the vast majority of modern society, Nezu was not a human with a quirk that made him look like a rodent, instead he was an animal that had a quirk that made him sapient and hyper-intelligent… But that didn't mean that the old instincts that told him to hide when a bird of prey was nearby disappeared, if several humorous (and possibly staged if certain heroes are to be believed) online videos recorded by UA students over the years made the rounds on social media were to be believed. Honestly she couldn't blame the poor Mouse, her own quirk made her do strange things whenever the rabbit instincts and inner cavewoman ganged up on her. Hell, when Rumi was younger she was so afraid of dogs she would jump five feet in the air if she heard one barking. But while she got over that fear eventually (no matter what her parent's neighbors liked to joke about when she visited them) and was fairly certain Nezu had done so as well, she was more concerned with how the white-furred rodent knew that they had captured the vigilante and were about to interrogate him.
"Why that's because I'm always listening in on the police channels whenever I'm not overseeing the education of the next generation." A way-too cheerful voice answered from somewhere near their collective knees, causing Rumi to nearly jump as her internal monologue was inadvertently answered. "Especially when one of my former star pupils is involved."
Rumi and Hawks were then treated to the rare sight of Endeavor respectfully bowing to another living being, a day which would forever be etched into their memories. "It is good to see you again Nezu-Sensei, I was wondering when you would arrive."
The rodent chuckled as he pulled out a fine wooden tobacco pipe with a steel bit from out of nowhere,and placed it in his mouth "Oh come now Enji-chan (Hawks nearly died of shock at that honorific), it's been over three decades since you were a student in my homeroom, you've more than earned the right to drop the honorifics when you talk to me."
"And I have respectfully told you sir, that teachers deserve respect from their students no matter how successful their former pupils have become." Endeavor countered, bending down onto his knees in order to not look down at his former teacher any more than he had to by default. "Though I take it you are not just here to congratulate us on a job well done?"
"No, admittedly I would have come to Hosu regardless of your recent success today, though for a completely different reason," the rat had filled his pipe with his own personal strain of tobacco, and held it up above his head for Endeavor to light with a flame from his finger, "Kayama-san has gotten involved in a potential child-abuse case regarding a young girl with a blood-based quirk, and I always enjoy the chance to inflict my own brand of "justice" on humans who most likely deserved it: after all children are universally agreed to be the future, regardless of species." The white-furred principal gnawed on the steel portion of his pipe for a few moments, letting everyone else in the room process that bit of information then decided to continue on as if he had just commented on the weather instead of ruining someone's life. "But after having a brief discussion with your vigilante, I hope it wouldn't be too much of a bother if I sat in on the interrogation?"
In Michelangelo's honest opinion,the two different sets of handcuffs keeping him strapped to the table were a bit much. He had worn gloves instead of the old wrappings he and his brothers had favored when they were young and naive, so it wasn't as if the turtle had hidden any lockpicks on his person, and the way his physiology functioned he couldn't have slipped out of the cuffs via dislocating one of his massive thumbs like they did in the movies (they found that one out the hard when they were young and Donnie and Casey had been debating movie logic). But he had essentially chosen to agree to this nonsense, as his psyche/brothers had pointed out, so it's not like he had anyone to blame but himself if he was uncomfortable. With that said, he was wondering whether it would be a detective or one of the heroes who would be leading this pointless…. He shouldn't finish that sentence, that would tempt fate.
"Head's up little brother, looks like it's showtime." a distorted voice that sounded like Raphael whispered in his ear as the single door to the room opened, and a middle-age Japanese man who managed to check every box of a stereotypical detective barring the fedora and… Endeavor walked into the room, instantly raising the room temperature by at least five degrees. He held back the groan the spirit-hallucinations of his brothers let loose freely at the fact that they hadn't been able to stop the Gods from flipping them onto their backs. The detective brought out a handheld recorder in addition to the larger model built into the table.
"Good Evening, my name is Detective Tsukauchi, the hero beside me is Endeavor, we will be conducting the interrogation of the vigilante known to the press as Thirty Minutes or Less, who was caught today, Saturday March 2nd 2XXX at approximately 5:45 PM." The detective then read Michelangelo the rights he supposedly had, then asked if he wanted an attorney present, when he declined, the detective then asked if he could use his quirk during the interrogation, to which Mikey nodded his head.
"Alright then, please answer the following questions truthfully: What is your name?"
"Kame." Michelangelo replied at the insistence of one of his brother's ghosts, warning him to stay calm.
The detective frowned, "Sir, please answer the question truthfully."
"But that is my name," Michelangelo retorted, "Just ask Principal Nezu if you don't believe me, or that Kayama lady who was with him when they were visiting the little vampire girl you got locked up downstairs."
"So you want us to believe that your name is the Japanese word for turtle." Endeavor's attempt at a question was more of a statement, and a blunt one at that. "Forgive me if I find that hard to believe."
Michelangelo shrugged, wincing as something shifted in his left shoulder, but otherwise not caring about what the hero thought of him. "Doesn't matter to me, I'm not the one wasting the taxpayer's yen."
"Please state your legal name sir." the detective stated again, his hand reaching for a cigarette.
"Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni." He couldn't help the grin that formed on his face as the detective seemed to glitch under the strain of his quirk registering the partial-truth in his lie.
"... Moving on," The detective took out the cigarette and lighter and took a long drag of the former once it was lit. "What is your date of birth?
"September 28th, 2XXX," He decided to throw the man a bone.
"Favorite Color?"
"Green."
"Please lie on the next question," The detective gave him a look, "What is your favorite Sporting Franchise?"
"The Red Sox." He swore he heard the ghost of Casey Jones groaning in agony alongside his brothers at that line.
The Detective nodded, "With those questions (mostly) answered, I have now registered a baseline for my quirk, Lie Detector, to determine when you are telling us the truth or a falsehood."
Now the real questioning could begin.
They asked him questions about a variety of questions, most of which he answered truthfully unless advised by his instincts and his ghosts to say otherwise. When they questioned him about how he found the various criminal hideouts he targeted, he told them he simply watched them until he was certain they were doing something suspicious. Then, he would simply call the police and go about spreading the word about the Foot Clan to the various gang leaders. He explained that he hoped that by making it seem like he was searching for the Foot, the heroes and 'proper authorities' would investigate them as well (he managed to hold back the "for once" that they all knew was intended).
When questioned about the Hamato Clan and his connection to it (he groaned when they pulled out the remnants of a wax paper sealed from one of his smoke bombs, he thought he had gotten Donnie's recipe right after all of these years), he switched back to half truths. He claimed that Hamato Yoshi was his sensei, and that he had taught him his clan's ancient history and techniques (which was true in a sense, seeing as how Master Splinter often referred to his past life as if he was another person entirely). When they questioned him about his father's fate, he told them the simple truth: He had died fighting the Foot Clan. Finally, they asked him about the Mutagen.
"There's not much to tell you beyond what I said to you and the other heroes in the sewers: It's a powerful non-addictive form of Trigger."
"Yes, but how come a drug that is apparently able to, "give quirks to the quirkless" if I have your quote correctly,has remained largely unknown to the public at large?" The Detective double checked the notes he had gotten from Endeavor's report, as well as Miruko's and Hawks'. "Could you explain how this came to be?"
"You just had to be dramatic, didn't you Mikey?" Leo squatted next to him, annoyance written into every part of his body. "Well little brother, you're gonna have to answer them."
Michelangelo nodded his head and took a few moments to craft an answer that had just enough truths to pass the test, but not enough to get caught in a lie. "Let's say you were at your home, hanging out on the balcony with your pet dog or cat-I don't know whichever you prefer-when suddenly a glowing green canister falls from the sky." He could see the gears turning within their heads, "The canister shatters, covering you in a glowing green liquid."
"At first nothing happens, then the ooze soaks through your clothes and makes it onto your skin, and maybe along the way it picks up some stray follicles of dog/cat hair on your clothes… that's when the pain begins."
"...The pain?" The detective asks with a tone filled with professional and morbid curiosity.
Mikey nods his head, "I don't remember it all that well, seeing as how I was maybe two or three months old when I was exposed-" The look of horror on the detective's face as his quirk confirms what his mind wished wasn't true is priceless, but he's getting off course. "-but my father said it felt like his nerves were dipped into a nuclear reactor as his soul was being flayed by demons; his dna forcibly spliced with strands of the last animal he had touched with his bare skin… his human mind warring with that of a rat… honestly it was a miracle he kept his sanity, most people who mess with Mutagen outside of a controlled setting don't do so well when a whole new set of instincts are imprinted upon them."
The ronin rolled his shoulders, feeling all of the aches and pains he had collected in his thirty years of life, the scars both visible and mental, and wished he was anywhere but here. "You asked me, Detective Tsukauchi-san, how such a drug could exist yet be hidden from the public eye? The answer is simple: most of the people who "overdose" on Mutagen are no longer human in the common sense of the word, and the police juke the stats so that they read like someone with a mutant-quirk has gone on a rampage." He wished Leo was truly here, being interrogated alongside him, they would've believed him. "Honestly, you should thank whichever God you believe in that the people that do know how to make stuff want to keep it for themselves…. Or rather they did, since there's that truck heading to Deika City in about three hours with enough ooze stored within to mutate a small army."
The silence in the room was not quite as intense as the one that had deafened the world since he had found Leo's corpse rotting in the woods of Hokkaido, but it was close enough.
Todoroki Household
It was nearly one in the morning when Fuyumi heard her father finally arrive home. A not too uncommon occurrence in the Todoroki Household-especially after Touya's death and Mom's "Incident"-since pro-heroes were expected to keep odd hours. This was especially true for her father, to the point that the Number 2 Hero had spent more than a few nights on a cheap futon in his office then the one in his home (and even then he hadn't used the one he shared with mom in over a decade). But usually he called Fuyumi to let her know if that was the case. Instead tonight he had called her saying that he had to stop by the port to break up a smuggling operation, and that she shouldn't stay up waiting for him…. A promise they both knew she wouldn't bother trying to keep. "Hi dad…" she yawned as she heard the familiar footsteps make their way towards where she had begun to fall asleep on the couch.
"...Good evening Fuyumi," Her father was looking down at her from behind the couch, a strange glint in his eye. "I thought I told you to not wait for me."
"We're both old enough to know that wasn't going to happen." she retorted, shifting into a sitting position and grabbing her glasses from their place on the coffee table. "So, how was work?"
Her father sat down on the other side of the couch, and the two fell into the routine they had established when she was five and wanted to talk about anything other than the boys in her class bullying her for having "granny hair" as a kid. "Work went well: I worked alongside two other pro-heroes to capture the vigilante that has been in the news these past three months." Her father took a few seconds to crack his neck and dim his flames and temperature before adding, "That led us to the smuggling operation, and if the information we acted on is accurate we might've prevented another Villain Factory incident."
"That's great dad!" Fuyumi's large smile was genuine, sure she didn't follow hero gossip all that much (she didn't like it when people pointed out her father's negative traits, she knew they existed and heard about them enough from Natsuo), but even she knew how much of a nightmare the Trigger based organization was for Naruhata. "Guess that's one more step closer to beating All-Might huh?" It was a bad joke, but one that usually got a morbid huff out of her father (and sometimes she needed to hear him laugh).
Tonight, it seemed that all that joke did was cause Endeavor to stare at the family shrine, where a picture of Touya sat besides the urn that held his ashes.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, Endeavor stood up, and offered a large hand towards his daughter, "You should get some sleep Fuyumi, your mother will be worried if you look like you're about to fall asleep during your visit tomorrow."
It took a few seconds for Fuyumi to realize that it was the first time in years that her father had actually acknowledged the fact that she and Natsuo visited their mother on the weekends. Instead, she simply nodded her head, stood up and gave her father a hug and made her way to her room. She was halfway there when her father called her name again, asking her not to take the train to work for a while and to pass a similar message to her brother and then heard him march back over to the family shrine.
She didn't hear him walk to his bed.
I know I changed the order in how the turtles died in The Last Ronin, but this is largely because of the fact that this is supposed to be 2012 Mikey. Rest assured I promise to deliver a heartbreaking death for Leo and the others.