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Mitsuki and Inko sat in the back of a police car holding one another’s hands like young children fearful of the dark. Mitsuki held her head high, her eyes searing with a defiant rage. Inko kept a handkerchief pressed to her cheeks, catching the waterfalls of tears that broke free from her eyes. The police siren atop their car screeched incessantly, not that Inko could hear much beyond the ringing of her own ears. Mitsuki didn’t say anything. Not that this came as a surprise to Inko. Ever since they had received the phone call from Aizawa of her son’s kidnapping a mere three days prior, Mitsuki hadn’t said much of anything at all. Inko wanted to envy her. After all, her son was presumed alive.
If their driver heard Inko’s crying beyond the plastic screen divider between them, he didn’t make any note of it. He just kept driving, weaving in and out of traffic like a sparrow in a hurricane.
Inko caught a hiccup in her mouth, trying to mellow out her racing heartbeat. She forced a deep breath to balloon within her chest. She felt the blood flow in her hand constrict, as Mitsuki tried to comfort Inko, or maybe herself. Inko couldn’t tell.
“He is gonna be okay, Mitsuki.” Inko’s breathing quieted, although wetness still choked her words. “Katsuki is a strong boy. He is going to make it.”
The noise that erupted from Mitsuki was inhuman and Inko momentarily lost feeling in her left hand. She looked up, hoping to catch the fiery red eyes of her closest friend in the whole world. She only found fear. Mitski’s eyelids scrunched together, as precious few tears dripped from them. Deep divots of fear and anger and shame carved themselves into Mitsuki’s face. “It’s just so fucked up”.
The words scratched both of their ears.
“It is”, Inko agreed readily. “I know but-”
“No, not that. I mean, obviously yes-” A shaky breath escapes Mitsuki’s vice like grip on her own tongue. “You. Comforting me.”
The sirens wailed all around them. The car sailed through another intersection, all the lights twinkling red. The whole world froze around the two women in the back of a police car.
“Oh Mitsuki…”
“Don’t ‘Oh Mitsuki’ me. You are here, holding *my* hand because my superhero son caught the attention of some bastard villain group and your son is dead.”
Inko felt hot tears spill onto her shirt, staining it with grief. Mitsuki’s eyes stared straight forward, refusing to meet Inko’s own. Inko lifted a steady hand, not the one still gripped to Mitsuki’s, to stroke the woman’s cheek. She pressed her thumb gently along Mitsuki’s cheekbone, cupping her jaw until Mitsuki finally caught her gaze.
“I know I am small, but I can still fit enough tears in me for both your son and mine." Inko paused to grimace at her own self deprecation. "Besides, Katsuki takes after you. He is strong enough to survive this; he has been training for hero work his whole life.”
Mitsuki exhales shakily, but her eyes stay glued to Inko as a drowning swimmer tracks a lifebuoy.
“Maybe it’s not about strength. Izuku was strong, in his own ways. He braved a world full of discrimination and harassment foreign to both of us. And he fought every day to survive. He was strong and that still wasn’t enough to save him. Maybe being able to survive is about chance. And Izuku just got unlucky.”
Mitsuki plowed through Inko’s silence, shattering her to her core.
“You raised Izuku to be strong, just like you. You raised him to be caring and thoughtful of others; he had so much love in his heart. You didn’t fail him.”
The two women held one another, both forgetting how to breathe, overwhelmed by grief that riddled their bones like rickets.
Inko was the first to break eye contact, not wanting to face Mitsuki as she lied next. “Katsuki will be alright, I just know it.”
She repeats this, as if chanting this prayer three times will not only bring back Mitsuki’s son, but her own.
Their police escort pulls the vehicle into the police station, and the two women are swarmed by detectives. Inko feels Mitsuki pull away and instantly regrets the cold clammy sweat that sticks to her palms. Detective Tsukauchi leads Mitsuki away, both nearly sprinting into the building. The driver who escorted both women to the station directed Inko to the station’s lobby. In the waiting area she was offered a lukewarm cup of water, a scalding hot black tea and a mostly lumpy cushioned chair while she awaited for the news of Katsuki’s fate.
Inko accepted the tea, though mostly to have something to hold in her hands rather than to actually drink. She blinked a few times, staring pensively into nothing at all. The world flashed around her and the black tea, still filled to the brim, felt cool within the palms of her frozen hands. The cracked clock on the wall above her read half past three in the morning. The lobby was still crowded with armed uniforms, though less so than when she and Mitsuki had first arrived in a flurry of sirens and yelling.
A disheveled man looking as exhausted as she felt took the seat across from Inko.
“Bakugo Katsuki has been rescued. He is now with Mrs. Bakugo, being monitored by our doctors.”
At least one of the boys she had raised had survived. Inko nodded to Katsuki’s homeroom teacher, Mr. Aizawa.
“Thank you for bringing our Katsuki home Mr. Aizawa. Thank you for keeping your promise.”
Inko felt so detached from the world around her. She could not even feel the words as they left her lips, her voice speaking the words she was expected to produce. Inko wondered if her spirit had already floated away, leaving behind her shell of a body seated in a plastic cushioned police station chair. Aizawa steepled his fingers. The eyebags under his eyes bruised his unshaven face, making him look even older than she felt.
“It was actually due to the efforts of a handful of Bakugo’s classmates. They ignored my orders to stay home and safe- instead they succeeded where half of the police task force and hero units of Musutafu failed. They rescued Bakugo from the League of Villains.”
Children saving children. What had this world come to?
“Katsuki made friends?” Which seemed like an odd thing for Inko to fixate on at the moment. But perhaps this was the only thing keeping her grounded.
Aizawa did not smile, his face unaccustomed to such movements; but his eyes softened, barely. “I would say so. The group of students that went to save him are the same ones he spends lunch with and completes group activities with. The group included: Kirishima Eijiro, Ashido Mina, Uraraka Ochaco, Sero Hanta and Yaoyorozu Momo.”
Inko nodded, more to herself than in a response. She had seen these students at the Sports Festival earlier on in the year, and had upon occasion heard their names in conservations with Katsuki. Inko was so glad that these students shared such a friendship with Katsuki, though vehemently wished that they would have prioritized their own safety as well. No child should risk their life so freely. They didn’t yet understand how much of the world would miss them.
The buzzing of Aizawa’s phone caught both their attention. He looked up from the text message to meet Inko’s pleading stare.
“Bakugo Katsuki has been released by our medical team. I can take you to see him now.”
“Please.” Inko breathed desperately.
The two stood, and Inko rushed to the infirmary, leaving behind only the last guilty thought, that Inko wished it was her own son that had been found alive.