Chapter Text
Naomasa Tsukauchi should have taken Sansa’s offer to get coffee before arriving at the scene.
The area was secured before he got there, and now he was standing in front of a worn apartment door at the end of the floor with a very large spot of dried blood that had leaked under it. He was being debriefed by an officer on site who led the process of making sure no threat was present before entering the crime scene. Very old ceiling lights lit up the hall as the shadows from the already dark sky nested themselves in the corners. And it was fucking cold.
“A neighbor called around an hour ago reporting a blood stain that leaked under the door. From what she told me there is a couple with their son living in the unit, and the witness said that she has evening tea sessions with the woman living here every Tuesday night. She arrived at the door at around 5:15 in the afternoon for said tea session when she noticed the blood. Then she knocked on the door and after nobody answered she called us,” the officer said as everyone finished moving around waiting for Tsukauchi to give the go ahead for entering the scene.
From the looked of the blood on the ground, it had definitely been more than 24 hours, which raised the question of why nobody had noticed before. But the apartment was at the end of the hall and the unit beside it has been empty for months. No wonder nobody noticed.
“We have secured the fire escape into the unit for us to enter. The door appears to be sealed shut and there’s definitely a body behind it.”
“Okay. Listen up!” Naomasa shouted getting everyone to look at him. “We are going to start moving into the unit! If you are non-essential, then stay where you are! Can someone please make sure forensics gets here soon?!”
Everyone dispersed around as Naomasa moved outside and towards the fire escape. He shivered as he moved, he truly hates winter. Looking around he made sure the selected officers were in position before going up the fire escape. The unit’s window was cracked open, and the darkness of the unit made Tsukauchi take both his gun and flashlight out. An officer stepped beside him and with a nod the man opened the window all the way. The metallic smell of blood escaped the apartment which didn’t bother him but the officer beside him and those behind had a different opinion on it.
“This is a two-bedroom unit, so as soon as we go in you and the other will sweep the area.” the officer nods at the instructions.
When Naomasa fully stepped through the window and into the unit the first thing he noticed was the alcohol bottles scattered on the living room table. This was probably another drunk altercation that went wrong, nothing that he hasn’t seen before. There were other things on the table, but what caught his eyes was a notebook with burn edges and splatters of dry blood with the title Hero Analysis for the future.
“Detective, the area is clear.”
Without picking up the notebook he turned the pages. It was clearly written by a child considering the messiness of the handwriting and the use of crayons, but it was the content that made him stop for a second. There were details on some heroes… too many details. Names didn’t matter as he skimmed through the pages, but he stopped when the weaknesses started getting too detailed. It was talking about how to kill each of them with efficiency. A shiver crawled up his body, who wrote this? It was a child no doubt, but had someone told him what to write?
He might need Nezu to look at it… ‘what the fuck.’
“We have located the body blocking the door,” another officer said, making Naomasa close the notebook.
“Make sure this is taken for evidence and brought to me after this. And bring it straight to me. Don’t let other people go through it.” He ordered, making the officer nod as his radio crackled telling him that forensics had arrived and were ready to work.
The entire apartment was pitch black. From the little information he gathered the lights should have been on, but as he moved his flashlight around, he noticed blood stains on the light switches around the place. Without much thought he flicked the lights on to then spot the body at the end of the living room space where the large body of an adult male was slumped against the front door.
Blood had pooled and dried around him, torn clothing indicated that he was stabbed several times. A slash on his throat was the cause of death. The man was built with black curly hair and tanned skin, lifeless grey eyes stayed open as they stare at something beside him. Melted metal seemed to seal the front door shut as it clung from burnt wood.
A sharp intake of breath made the detective turn around.
The body of a young woman laid on the cold marble floor of the kitchen, an extensive pool of dried crimson under her. It looked like she was stabbed as well and had died from it, but what made him freeze was the trembling child clinging to the body while staring at him with his only non-swollen eye. He was pale and frozen in place with dull green eyes that were filled with what was evident fear, like a deer in headlights that stopped in the middle of the road. The child was not older than six with dark green hair similar to the woman who Naosama assumed was the mother. A blood stained kitchen knife was held by his small bloody trembling hands.
‘Oh god.’
His left eye was swollen shut with a deep cut going from the bottom corner of his eyelid across his eye and up his eyebrow, blood stained his face in many concerning ways and almost terrifying. Another cut, around an inch long, sprouted upwards from the corner of his lip. Other than that, there wasn’t any concerning visible injuries that the detective could see, only the fear that radiated from the kid, who whimpered and flinched away.
Naomasa then realized he was pointing his gun to the kid. ‘Fuck.’
“Detective–” an officer approached but then froze.
“Tell EMS that we have an alive witness that needs medical attention.”
The officer immediately spoke to the radio on his shoulder requesting for medical assistance into the unit before leaving to make sure things got done.
“Hey kid,” the child flinched aggressively at his voice, making him strengthen his grip on his dead mother’s blood-soaked shirt and knife. Naomasa crouched as he put his gun away, putting his hands out to make sure he isn’t a threat. “You are okay… we are here to help. You are safe now,” There was no response, but the kid seemed to be eyeing the body slumped against the door like it would come back to life at any moment. “Is that your dad?” The kid nodded stiffly. “Did he hurt you?” another nod. “Did he hurt your mom?” The kid wasn’t frozen anymore; he was almost vibrating with how much his body was shaking. “Did you… hurt him?”
Everything seemed to stop for Naomasa when the kid nodded at his last question. His mind started piecing together the evidence he had at hand: empty alcohol bottles, an analysis notebook, dad hurt mom and child, child hurt dad in return. But that’s just the visible evidence, what was the thought process behind it? How long has the kid been clinging to his mother’s dead body? Why didn’t he call anyone?
‘Fuck.’
He really should have gotten that coffee.
(--)
“Under Japan’s law he cannot be legally hold accountable for what happened, not like I want him to be. But finding a placement for him will be a pain. Has he spoken?”
It’s been two days since Naomasa found the kid, whose name was Izuku Midoriya according to the registry, and was taken to Musutafu General Hospital to get treated. The kid was doing the best he could considering his situation: quirkless, both parents dead, and now a healed eye injury that made his left eye blind and deep lip cut, as well as a tree bark-like third degree burn scar that wrapped from the right side of his back to his ribcage. At least he was alive.
Older scars littered his arms and legs with the most prominent one being a hand-shaped explosion scar on his right upper arm. Naomasa felt bad for the kid, he really did, but there were equally concerning things about him, such as his Hero Analysis notebook they found.
An unknown amount of trauma waiting to flood out was clearly simmering in Midoriya’s mind.
Sansa shook his head making Naomasa sigh. Looking through the one-way glass, he spotted the kid sitting behind the metal table inside the room with a blanket wrapped around his body, a psychologist was sitting in front of him trying to make him say something but to no avail. The woman nodded to herself in defeat and left the room to join the Detective in the observation side. The kid’s eyes followed her as she exited.
“He won’t speak. From his preliminary assessment we were able to determine that he is fully aware of his surroundings and understands the situation he is in… he is just choosing to ignore everyone,” she paused for a second before continuing. “Have you talked to him yet?”
“I have not.”
“Maybe that’s why,” the psychologist said to then explain. “Kids like Midoriya, who have been found in situations such as his, tend to not speak to anyone but the person that rescued them. You were the one to find him first, right?”
“Yea. I was able to convince him to- oh,” realization hit him as his shoulders dropped with a groan. “I rescued him and now he won’t talk to anyone but me.” He needs more coffee.
“It seems that’s the case,” the woman seemed a bit more relaxed. “I will be in the hallway if you need me. I have to make some calls.” The door clicked shut behind her, leaving the detective and officer Sansa in the viewing room.
The cat heteromorph seemed slightly uncomfortable at the sight of the kid by himself inside the cold interrogation room, who was fidgeting with the edges of his blanket. He might be new to this side of policing and he was expecting things like this to happen, but one thing was expecting and another was experiencing it. The door is knocked to shortly being open. A flash of white fur entered the room, making Sansa tense as Naomasa sighed in relief.
“Principal Nezu,” the detective greeted the dog, mouse, bear(?) as he entered the room with a calm smile but curiosity in his beady black eyes.
Yuuei’s principal, Nezu, was someone nobody dares to mess with. As the only known animal to develop a quirk he was already an enigma, but his quirk was what made him terrifying… well, that and his animalistic and sadistic behavior masked behind measured kindness and constant calmness. But he was respected and recognized by everyone, as well as fear and at times avoided. If Nezu was in a room, it was a fact that he knew everything about you and was always two steps ahead. But behind that air of hazardous knowledge there was a kind person that deeply cared for his students and the future of society—even when he does dislike humans without really saying anything about it.
“Detective Tsukauchi!” Nezu greeted him with his usual up-beat behavior.
“I am assuming you went through the evidence I sent you.”
“Indeed. I must say that it was a fascinating read! You said a child wrote it?” Naomasa nodded at the question. “And I presume said child is the one sitting behind the glass?” yea, Nezu knows every aspect of what will happen so Naomasa nodded again. “I also saw the file you sent. It says he is quirkless, but I differ from what’s on the paper with those hideous red letters.”
The detective’s interest raised over his uneasiness from being around the quirked animal. “You are saying he does have a quirk?”
“We’ll found out when we ask him!”
“We?”
“I will take part on the questioning, of course! I have been intrigued,” Nezu’s eyes glinted with something between manic and dark making the room feel slightly colder. Showing him that file and notebook was a mistake.
Naomasa sighed with frustration before heading towards the door and stepping into the interrogation room, Nezu hot on his heels. And for the first time, the kid looked right into Naomasa’s eyes…
Yea no, this was a bad idea.
(––)
When Nezu received a message and mail from Detective Tsukauchi he wasn’t expecting it to be a file alongside a rather beaten notebook.
The thing had burnt edges and dried blood on the cover that leaked into some of the pages. Messy handwriting with pens and crayons seemed to expose every person written about within those pages. The file that came alongside the notebook was for a Izuku Midoriya, a 6-year-old quirkless child that has recently lost his parents to domestic violence, but it didn’t explain further. The notebook’s content was fascinating: names of both limelight and underground heroes, quirk analysis too detailed for a human child’s mind, and what Nezu found most interesting was the sections of weakness and how to get rid of them.
Endeavor was one of those heroes.
Professional sketches of the flaming man stood out from the pages as they were surrounded by arrows, bullet points and information boxes. It talked about his physical strength, inflated ego and arrogance; Hellflame was discussed for around three pages and that’s where the fascinating things started picking up.
‘Hellflame, a fire-based quirk, depends on the user’s capability of wielding it efficiently. The subject seems to present two quirks: fire wielding and fire resistance, but both are the same through the theory of Quirk Adaptation. Despite being a powerful quirk, the drawbacks can be life threatening. His body’s core temperature raises as he uses his flames, therefore heating up his cells and using the oxygen within them to feed said flames that start depriving his body of oxygen.
To fully defeat Endeavor, one must be patient enough till he overheats while luring him in combat, keeping him on edge. Enji Todoroki is a man driven by his heightened ego and an unmeasurable grudge towards All Might. Attacking either of those two factors will be forcing him to raise his body temperature to generate fire till he starts presenting physical impairment is the best course of action before striking. Aiming to dislocate knees will make the hero desperate enough to possibly use his quirk erratically, exponentially raising his cells temperature…’
Nezu closed the notebook as he looked back at the file. Something was out of place. This kid, Izuku Midoriya, wrote page after page with such detail a regular person would think it came from a professional analyst instead of a child, which brought the question if this kid was really quirkless.
Intelligence quirks were hard to proof, and places like Musutafu had the tendency to label people as quirkless in a reckless way just because some doctors believed that if the quirk wasn’t noticeable or can’t be use externally or be proved therefore the person is quirkless. A shameful situation due to the number of bright minds out there that fall victim to the statistics.
The kid definitely possessed an intelligence quirk. Not that a quirkless person couldn’t be this smart, but something instinctual told Nezu that this was the case.
He had personally dug into Midoriya’s files and previous academic records. Before being diagnosed as “quirkless” at the usual manifestation age his mind was sharper than any of his classmates as well as being written as a “academic prodigy.” However, his record dropped significantly after being given his quirk diagnosis.
An obvious case of quirkless discrimination through labels. They disposed of such a marvelous mind.
The drive to the station wasn’t long. Officers froze on their spots as the principal moved through the halls while being guided by a somewhat shaking man. Reaching the interrogation rooms, he located what appeared to be a psychologist, who also froze at the sight of him and almost rushed out of the hall. Nezu savored every fearful bodily reaction from humans. It was satisfying.
“We’ll found out when we ask him!” he wanted to meet the kid and pick at his interesting brain.
“We?” Detective Tsukauchi’s eyebrows furrowed with confusion.
“I will take part on the questioning, of course! I have been intrigued.”
Nezu almost laughed at the detective’s exasperation. Almost.
The door opened as the detective enters first, Nezu on his heels and he noticed how the child’s eyes automatically latched on Tsukauchi and briefly glanced towards the principal with some acknowledgment before going back to the detective.
“You are Izuku Midoriya?” Tsukauchi started with softness in his voice. They were talking to a traumatized child after all. The kid just stared at the detective. “I will need a verbal confirmation.”
Silence stretched in the room. “…yes.” The kid’s voice was flat and small, like he wanted to disappear from the room but pretending to not care.
“Perfect. My name is Naomasa Tsukauchi; I am a Detective with the Musutafu Police Department. My quirk is called Lie Detector, and as the name implies I can detect if someone is lying as they speak. I am here to ask you questions about two nights ago when we found you,” he spoke calmly and clearly, and Nezu noticed the kid scanning every movement on Tsukauchi’s face trying to detect a lie. “I will have to record our conversation, is that okay with you?”
“Yes.”
A recorder was placed in the middle of the metal table and came to life with a subtle wiring noise. “Okay. Can you tell me what happened?”
Midoriya paused to think before he spoke. “Dad got drunk again,” his voice still flat. “I was on the living room working on my analysis. He saw it and got mad.”
“True. Why did he get mad?” the detective was writing as the kid spoke, taking notes for future reference.
“He said that it was useless… that I should stop wasting my time on stupid dreams because I am quirkless.”
There was a glint of resentment on the kid’s unharmed and dull green eye. It was there, sitting and waiting for it to be fed but remained quiet.
“True. What happened next?”
“Dad gets scary when he gets drunk. I tried to talk to him, but he got really mad and ended up grabbing a knife from the kitchen to try and hurt me, and he did hurt me,” the kid’s freshly healed scars seemed to twitch, his eyes stared at the recorder rather than at the man in front of him. “So, I grabbed an empty bottle from the table and hit him in the knee, after the bottle broke, I cut through was I think was his hamstring. He fell and I grabbed mom… he didn’t stay down for long.”
“True. What else?”
“He got up and burned me before I could reach the door. He tried to hurt me again, but mom protected me…” Midoriya fidgeted with his nail cuticles, eyes burning into the recorder. “I guess she wasn’t as indestructible as she claimed to be.”
The comment came out as factual rather than a thought. Nezu stayed quiet on his spot by the door, watching.
“Then I–” his lips pressed on a thin line with hesitance as the fidgeting started to pick up.
“It’s okay, take your time.”
“He hurt mom… so I killed him.”
The kid’s eyes looked up into the detective’s face with no traces of remorse or guilt, just a pure and intense look of what looked like twisted satisfaction.
“…True.” Tsukauchi looked like he had bit into a lemon but did his best to hide it even though the kid noticed and tilted his head slightly to the right, looking for something else. “Do you regret it?”
Without missing a beat the kid answered.
“No.”
Silence spread in the interrogation room as the confession settled.
And as a gavel that struck the sound block the detective said, “True.”
Nezu saw the opportunity, and he took it greedily. “Tell me, Izuku Midoriya, are you really quirkless?”
The kid stared at the principal for a moment, trying to find whatever he was trying to previously look for in Tsukauchi. “No.”
“Thank you, Midoriya. This session is now wrapped up.” With a single click the recorder stopped, the wiring noise came to a halt.
“Wonderful! Can you please lift me to the table?” Nezu pressed his paws together, and the detective just sighed as he put the recorder away and lifted the principal to place him on the table. The chimera was now standing right in front of the kid, both looking at each other with different levels of intensity. Midoriya was confused, while Nezu was curious. “Did you really write that analysis notebook? The writing is very detailed for someone of your age. I am impressed.”
“…yes, I did.”
How many of those analysis notebooks did he have? He will have to get access to those evidence boxes.
“From what I read from your past academic files you have a really sharp mind even before the label placed upon you. Do you have an intelligence quirk?”
“The doctor said that my quirk wasn’t real, so they labeled me as quirkless.” The kid’s wording and awareness was different from his same-age peers. His eyes also looked somehow sharper for a kid.
“Tell me, do you know what I am? I presume you are already aware of my quirk; I saw the recognition in your eyes the moment I walked in.” He always said that he was a mix of a dog, mouse and bear, but that’s what the public knows and latched onto. The detective tensed to the corner of his eye.
Midoriya scanned him with quick eyes but precise categorization. “A stoat. Possibly biologically altered… and experimented on. I can see the faint scars under the fur of your neck.”
Nezu’s mind lit up like a city in the night as his eyes shone with the same twisted satisfaction Midoriya had when he said he didn’t regret killing his father. The kid guessed– no, he laid out what almost nobody could in just a couple of seconds. This kid, Izuku Midoriya, truly had the sharpest mind Nezu had ever seen in a young human child. He smiled at the kid with soft warmth and determination; the kid returned it with the same sentiment. A silent praise was exchanged.
The first of many.
There were many things Nezu wanted, and one of those things was to have a kit to call his own. He wasn’t human therefore he couldn’t have any offspring, not like that was an actual possibility with the amount of experiment ran on him when he was still on the hands of those cruel demonic hands. Still, he remained kind to those that deserved it and kept every human at arm’s length.
Now, he found someone that he could call his own with sprouting cleverness that had so much dangerous potential if properly nurtured. A child that had been failed by humans in a similar way as Nezu.
Both held by hands that should’ve been kind but were intentionally used to break and degrade; hands with the purpose of twisting and separate each one of their vertebrae.
A kid, a pup to call his own.
The principal turned around with a smile to find a really pale Naomasa Tsukauchi who looked like he wanted to disappear entirely.
“Since he can’t be charged with any crime due to his age, I am certain you are trying to find a placement for protective custody, correct?” his wide smile and shining eyes made the man shiver.
The detective swallowed thickly. “Yes.”
“Splendid! I would like to take young Midoriya home with me.” You have no option but to comply, was disguised under those words.
––
Naomasa’s heart essentially stopped beating at the words of Nezu, the feared Principal of Yuuei.
Nezu wanted to take the kid in for protective custody. Permanently, his brain said.
The world was not ready for someone raised by Nezu.
‘Fuck’
The principal’s smile took a path of silent insistence. Naomasa gave in.
“I’ll bring the paperwork.”