MUSTAFU POLICE STATION
A thin line of smoke scarred the center of Detective Tsukauchi vision as he sat heavy in his chair, cold clinical eyes glaring daggers at the man in front of him while the man in turn looked back at him impassively. Those reptilian eyes betraying no human emotion. His name was Hanzo Suiden; a fish faced mutant villain with a water manipulation quirk and a rap sheet a mile long, he had been one of the villains from the USJ. His villain costume, a shredded thing of air tanks and rubber had been taken from him during his arrest; the idea of such a man being bested by children would have amused him had he not been attempting to kill them. And there in lied a problem that all police had faced were they to last long enough. Why, why a person with such a powerful quirk become a villain, to stoop to such a level; was it simply money, with a quirk like that men like him would make far more on the right side of the law. Some among the force though, whether through callousness or resentment had come to believe that perhaps…unfortunately it was simply the natural by-product of every generation; that villains were just wrong on a fundamental level, the natural dregs that made the world worse because they were incapable of doing anything else. The lives that would have been better of cut short before they ever had the chance to hurt others or themselves.
Pulling his thought away from such philosophic thoughts he refocused his mind. Hanzo along with the others had been taken in for questioning and for the time being he had been the most…co-operative with his fellow officers. He watched the man take a long drag of his cigarette and object earned for his good behavior and the one thing he had asked for. The light of the burning tobacco glowed like a bonfire as he exhaled a slow plume of smoke that danced across the table and hung like morning dew.
"You wanted to talk" he asked, impatience eating away at him as the villain took another long look at him.
"Uh-huh" he hummed; nodding his head as he slowly laid his cuffed hands on the table, the metal rasping against the wood as he tapped the end of his cigarette on his ashtray and letting the loose ash fall away in a smoldering pile. "But I need to have some assurances first."
Tsukauchi suppressed a look of disgust; asking for assurances after what he's done "Why don't you tell me what you know first and then we can get you a lawyer and discuss…" he tried to say before the fish man shook his head, giving the detective an almost tired look.
"No." he said flatly, not even bothering to entertain the thought as he lay back in his seat.
"Been in enough rooms like this, done enough things to know where I'm going. And I don't need some prissy lawyer to tell me what I already know; attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, assault, unlawful usage of a quirk with attempt to harm, aiding and abetting… and breaking and entering" he rattled off, each crime punctuated with a sharp tap of his clawed finger against the table.
He was right, with everything they had done and with the country in the shape it was the lucky ones would spend the rest of their lives in a six by ten cell and the unlucky ones would have to face a short drop and a sudden stop.
"I'd be lucky not to get the rope so that's exactly what I'm going to be. I'll plead guilty to everything except trying to kill those kids and in return I tell you everything I know or I go back to my cell and you get nothing." He stated flatly, his slit eyes watching him intently.
Tsukauchi's skin rippled beneath his uniform, a shiver of restrained fury at the arrogance of this villain of the way he spoke and the manner he conducted himself with. If he any better option he would tell this slimy rat to get back in his cell and rot… but he didn't have a better option.
All the villains had come from different cities, different area's in those cities and without any knowledge as to the limitations of Kurogiri's warp quirk it was impossible to gauge where they had been organized. But each one of them told a similar story.
"Alright…we have a deal" he said through his teeth, having to force the words out while the fish man gave a small smile as he flicked off some more ash.
Taking that assurance as all he was going to get he leaned in close "What do you want to know first"
"Let's start at the beginning" he informed.
"I'd heard about somebody offering the job of a lifetime; aiming to take down the symbol of peace." He chuckled, shaking his head in bemusement. "Should have told them to piss off but hey hindsight is 20/20."
"Who gave you the offer" Tsukauchi pressed.
"Couldn't tell you, I went to the meeting spot and the next thing I knew I was standing in this big room with dozens of others, some looking even more confused than I was."
That had not been the first time he'd heard that, every other villain they had interrogated had said the exact same thing. Perhaps the villains contact had some sort of amnesia quirk.
"And what about them?" Tsukauchi continued; pulling several pictures of the remains of the black skinned villains and placing them on the table.
"Freaks the lot of them." he dismissed, his lips curling in revulsion. "They were there before I got there and I got a bad feeling about them from the moment I saw them."
"Why, be specific" He pushed; those villains were another mystery to all of this, they had run DNA tests on all the bodies they recovered and had come to a terrifying realization. That they had the DNA of multiple people inside of them which went a long way to explaining their apparent use of multiple quirks.
"They weren't normal" he told him, a clear look of uneasiness permeating his features. "In my line of work you need to learn when people are lying or how they feel, as you can no doubt relate"
Tsukauchi remained silent there was nothing he and this villain had in common.
"You learn their tells; their little micro movements that are completely subconscious from crossing their arms, a shift of weight or a twitch of the eye. But these things…" he said trying to form the right words to explain it.
"They were still; cold like a corpse they didn't so much as move a single muscle. I didn't even see them blink, they did absolutely nothing. All they did was stare blankly at the wall, till the warp guy showed up." He explained, the man shifting his shoulders in discomfort.
"That is interesting" Tsukauchi added "but is that all your trying to buy your life with"
"You wanted the whole story, you're going to get it" he answered back quickly, more offended by the detective's apparent blasé attitude than the fact his life was hanging in the balance. That offence though was quickly snuffed out as Tsukauchi pulled out another photo.
"What about him and if you don't have anything the deal is off" he said, watching as the villains eyes went wide for only a moment.
"Yeah…yeah I remember when he came in" he grumbled, tapping a taloned finger on the picture of the former pro hero wash. They had barely found enough of him to identify, only the twisted hood of his costume and the charred tip of a finger.
"Caused a real ruckus when he got teleported in, thought it all been one big set up by the pros to get us all in one place… until the guy behind him told us to calm down."
"Who was with him" Tsukauchi asked with urgency.
"Tall guy, maybe seven feet tall and thin as a stick; wore a ragged white hood with a skeleton decal on the front, couldn't see his face though. Told everyone it was alright and had that warp guy to vouch for him too."
"Wait… are you saying wash was working with the reapers" the detective said noticeably louder, invested in the story now but still wary that it could be a lie.
"Sure looked like it, you know anyone else that dresses like that?" Hanzo shrugged.
But why, why would one of the top ten heroes in all of japan could be working with that gang of drug peddling psychopaths? It didn't make any sense.
"Just sat in the corner afterwards and the reaper left as quick as he came" he continued before a more concerned look flashed across his aquatic features.
"And if you ask me… there's something wrong about that gang" he told him. "I've been in the game for a long time detective, and I can tell you as a villain they're something else. And I think you know that to."
Tsukauchi couldn't deny that even if he wanted to. The reaper gang had been a nuisance before the blast, something to stop but not something worth immediate action but now they were unlike anything he had ever experienced. Most gangs usually kept their presence to a minimum, hiding in their festering little hideouts and crawling along back alleys. And while they still mainly kept to working at night their behavior was disturbing. They walked around brazenly at night almost begging a hero to come and try and they fought with the viciousness of a cornered animal, they didn't run they didn't hide. Half the time they wouldn't even steal anything, content to only cause destruction and they would fight until either you or they were dead. And their weapons; where were they getting their arsenal, his fellow officers had found everything from RPG's to AK-47's and even lost two officers to a guy in a god damn suicide vest. And every single one of them were untraceable, no stamps, no markings nothing. It was as if they had simply popped into existence; and all of this while the number one hero in japan was teaching nearby. They were completely bereft of fear or self-preservation.
And that was only what could be seen on the outside.
"I remember back before the reapers got organized, there had been talk on the street about someone trying to get all the drug gangs to work together, called themselves 'the mistress'. I smelled trouble and for once I listened to my instinct… and nobody I knew who went to see them ever came back the same." He continued, sounding almost fearful.
That admittance helped put into place what the coroners had been telling them. Every reaper body they had taken, their blood streams were filled with some sort of substance. They had no match for what it really was and were forced to send the data to a toxicology expert in Tokyo.
"Are you trying to say that Wash, the number eight hero in all of japan was in on the drug trade" he said, not ready or willing to believe the connection the fish man was weaving.
Again he shrugged "maybe he was a dealer, maybe he was an addict. Maybe he owed the mistress a favour or maybe he just had something to hide." He rattled off before stifling a small chuckle.
"What is so funny about this" Tsukauchi hissed, not understanding the villain's sudden shift.
"Hehe; it's just… you wouldn't think the walking washing machine would be the dirty one"
Tsukauchi's brow furrowed at the joke, people had died and a pro hero was working with villains and he was laughing. Suppressing his initial reaction he continued on.
"So you're saying to find the truth about wash and the league of villains we need to find out more about the reapers."
Hanzo nodded once more "More or less and I've saved the best for last. There's more to my quirk than just manipulating water, I can also sense water sources around me. And I know where they held us."
ASUI APARTMENT
Tsuyu repeatedly clenched and unclenched her fist, her mind tense like a bow string as her eyes stared upward at the building in front of her. After her sister had finished her lunch she had said her goodbyes; a dense and heavy ball formed in her stomach, weighing her down as she watched her go. Knowing that in a few hours she would be right here.
Slowly releasing a breath she didn't know she was holding, she focused herself. Her first order of business would be getting in. Her parents wouldn't be home and in her haste she had left her keys in her room. She knew she has the strength to simply break the door down but she didn't want to leave any evidence she was here, one less thing for her parents to be mad about and take out on either of them.
She then remembered how Izuku had gotten in that fateful night and she had her answer. Or at least that's what she hoped as she slipped into the alley between the buildings and used her new abilities to full effect.
"Itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout" she thought, the sung intruding in her mind as it and the rest of her transformed into water. Quickly she surged her liquid self seamlessly up the gutter of the adjacent building, bursting through the cheap plastic at the top and reforming herself on the roof, the whole event taking only a few seconds. Had she been in a brighter mood she might have been pleased with her new abilities, no doubt Izuku would go into one of his enthusiastic bursts once she showed it to him.
But now her mind was drawn to less pleasant things as same as ever, she looked to her window and found the same plastic bag rustling in the breeze. For once she was happy for her father's utter laziness as she took a few steps back and took a running jump, transforming once more into water. Her form carrying with it enough energy to punch through the cheap tape that kept attached to the wall as she splashed onto the floor.
As she reformed once more, she made sure to not leave even a drop of water behind and as she finally reformed she was struck speechless. Not by what she saw but rather, what she didn't see. Her eyes darted around the four corners of her room in utter disbelief, her eyes acting like frantic spotlights. Her entire room had been cleaned out; every scrap of what she had was gone.
She looked under her bed and found nothing, her vanity was barren and as she pulled open the drawers of her dresser she again found nothing.
The sting of betrayal sunk itself into her as she walked towards her closet, the only place left and ripped it open. But this time she saw something, but it wasn't hers. In its place were her mother's clothes and the words of Samidare filled in the gaps. Her mother was living in her room now, after she had revealed how exactly they had managed to pay for schooling at U.A.
Her arms hung limp at her sides, her jaw clenched like a steel trap and eyes closed into wrinkled furrows. Why would she expect any less, why did she expect at all? She berated herself in her mind; her parents had made their feelings known but even still, after everything that had happened. There had been a piece of her; some innocent, stupid hope that maybe they still cared about her. That absence indeed made the heart grow fonder.
"Maybe it's still in the house" she thought to herself; practically dragging herself to the door and opening it. If it was it would be easy to spot a pile of trash bags would be difficult to miss. The hallway looked the same at least, no holes in the wall at least. As she rounded the corner into the living room where several empty beer bottles lay strew across the table and the TV on, its channel set to the same news channel they had been watching before she left.
"And they knew" she sighed feeling that weight press down even harder as she turned to the kitchen and saw that someone 'almost certainly her mother' had done them. But as she moved through the house she couldn't find her stuff which left only one other place. Walking back to the hallway she stopped as she passed her siblings room she couldn't stop herself from going inside.
Toys strewn about on the floor, their beds unmade; the room was split between Satsuki on the right and Samidare on the left. A sad smile spread across her lips as she stepped further in; falling into habits and practices she had done for years. Tucking the sheets to make them nice and flat, flattening the blanket. Picking up Samidare's books and little cars, his favorite being a little red mustang he had won at school and putting it back in its proper place.
"He was smiling all day, the day he got it" she reminisced, the dour boy rarely smiling for anything.
Moving to Satsuki's side was much the same, but as she made her bed she felt her pillow, the fabric stiff from dried liquid.
Sucking in a breath she removed the casing and replaced with a fresh one. And as she flattened the bed she noticed something squished between the bed frame and the wall. Pulling it free she immediately recognized the lime green plush toy.
"Froppy the frog" she whispered, she hated the damn thing but her sister loved it to death, slept with it every night and played with it so much she'd had to sow both of its eyes and arms back on.
Gently placing the frog on the bed she gave the room one last look over before she left. She didn't know if there was a god or not, that girl Shiozaki seemed certain there was so silently she asked that god to look out for her siblings and keep them safe as she closed the door and moved back to the window.
The air whipping by her face was a welcome relief from the stuffy apartment, the icy sting of a stray tear flying of as she landed with ease even as the sound of her feet slamming the ground reverberated through the alley. Walking only a few short steps she looked at the large dumpster, not looking forward to it in the slightest. Throwing the hatch open she suppressed a gag as the rancid smell assaulted her nostrils. The only silver lining being that the bags would be near the top.
She shifted through the garbage bags and trying to feel for the correct one, she finally felt one that felt soft but not…mushy.
"This is beyond disgusting" she growled to herself as she tried to suppress her feeling of revulsion, every hair on her body standing on end. Pulling bags aside she first attempted to find one that felt soft but not…mushy. It seemed though that it would be easier than that as several bags stood out. Ribbons, gymnastic ribbons had been used to tie them shut. Pulling the bags free she hopped back onto solid ground and lightly pulled open one of them.
It was her clothes and several other of her possessions and her dartboard but even as she was thankful that she would no longer need to wear Inko's hand me down's. It wasn't that that she was not grateful, she certainly was…but it would be good for her to wear what was hers. But it was not the clothes that had brought her here, not what had driven her to enter into the home of her abusers or shift through festering trash.
As she reached the bottom of the bag she found it; a piece of paper folded neatly and once more she was happy for the small mercy that her father hadn't torn it to shreds. Peeling it back she was greeted to the picture her sister had drawn of them, same crayon smiles and sprinkler hands. She had promised that she would keep it with her and she would not break that promise.
Stuffing the picture in her pocket and re-tying the bag she hoped back onto solid ground and was about to leave this place before she heard a ring from inside her other pocket. Instantly she thought of Izuku, who else would call her? But as she looked and the numbers flashed across her eyes, every muscle in her body tensed as if she had been struck by lightning. It took all her restraint to keep those very same muscles from crushing her phone.
The phone continued to ring once…twice…thrice. Tsuyu's mouth felt dry, swallowing hard she almost chocked feeling as if she had tried to swallow her own tongue. She answered the phone, slowly raising it to her ear.
"H-hello" she wheezed.
"Tsuyu are you okay" the voice of her mother said, sounding both desperate yet hesitant. "We…I saw on the news."
Why…why now?
"I'm…okay" she answered back, confused as she tried to keep her breath even.
"Honey, after what had happened I was so worried about you" she said, her voice beginning to crack and Tsuyu could feel her anger begin to boil, her eyebrows narrowing into a scowl. How dare she, how dare she call her and play the part of the worried mother after everything!
"I bet you were" she hissed.
Her mother took a while to answer, her words chocked as she took a shaky breath. "Tsuyu; what happened…"
"What happened...what happened!" she exploded with rage, cutting her off as her voice echoed through the alleyway. "Was it watching him hit me and you defending him! Was it you letting him lie and say that I hated Satsuki and Samidare, that I abandoned them! Or was it me finding my room cleaned out as if I was dead!" she berated her mother, more and more venom dripping from her mouth even as tears streamed from her eyes. She slapped her forehead in frustration; "stupid, stupid Tsu" she cursed inside her mind. She had revealed too much, she didn't want them to know she had come.
"Honey please" she wheezed, sounding like she was about to break down. "I tried to make him to stop b-but…" she choked out a coughing sob, trying to take in heavy breaths. Not even caring to ask how she knew what she did.
"He…made me throw out your things. I put your ribbon…" she choked again on her words and Tsuyu looked down at the bag in her hands. Had she tied it there for her to find.
"Why" she had to know, she had to know "Why now, why didn't you call sooner, why didn't you come for me!" she practically begged.
Her mother remained silent and the silence was deafening. Tsuyu had known, she had always known. Pathetic, so fucking pathetic she wanted to scream.
"I-I'm so sorry Tsu. I'm just so happy my little girls alive" her mother said, her crying returning in an instant.
As she heard her mother breaking down; the despair in her voice, all she could feel was her rage at this woman. For years she had allowed all of this to happen, never helping, never standing with her and always taking the side of her father. She did not deserve forgiveness; she did not even deserve to hear her voice again… but even still, she was her mother a woman that had allowed herself to be defaced, defiled and played with like a toy… all for her so that she could have the chance to be a hero. And she was the only one now between her siblings and their father.
Tsuyu stood like an immovable statue, her jaw tense as the string of a bow. She wanted to just run away, to throw the phone away as if it was hot coal. She just wanted it to end, for this whole thing to be just one long horrid nightmare. But she couldn't, because this was the real world.
With one long, hiss of a sigh she forced her rage down.
"Are you… safe? Did you find a place to sle…"her mother tried to ask before Tsuyu cut her off.
"If you want my forgiveness, be a better mother to them than you were to me" she told her, keeping her voice even, even as she would have liked nothing more than to slap her across the face. But the truth was that this wasn't about her anymore, her time with those two had come and gone. Now all that mattered was that her siblings were safe.
Her mother was silent for a long time after that, the only thing keeping her from hanging up were the shallow breaths on the other end.
"Okay" was all she said, was all she could say before Tsuyu hung up and let out another deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart and focus her mind.
"Are you safe" the words of her mother repeated in her mind and the image of Izuku came to her. She was not some weak damsel in need of a knight to rescue her but she had bared the burdens of her family alone all her life and for the first time she had allowed herself to be open; he had seen the emotional walls she had built around herself crumble, he had seen her… and he had accepted it. No more than that he wanted to help shoulder that burden… he didn't want her to bare that burden alone anymore.
And with that; that feeling of rage and frustrated indignation began to melt away, slowly bit by bit and replaced with warmth that spread from her chest and through her veins, something she could only describe as a new fullness to her being a feeling that was so hard to explain yet so easily understood by those lucky enough to feel it.