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Chapter 6: Chapter #6 | From Outside the Storm

Chapter Text

It wasn't long before the crowd started gathering around the Deli. Be it from the excitement of something happening in the sleepy suburb of Musutafu, or that the area was now being barricaded by police and first responders. The shattered glass of the doorway was spread across the ground inside the deli as if an explosion had forced the doors off their hinges inwards. Jiro sat anxiously in one of the chairs to the side while the paramedics argued with Izuku. Her parents had been allowed to come out of the store and wait for the police to take Kyoka's statement with her.

"I'm telling you. I do not need to go to the hospital. The bullet skimmed the lateral head at most. Put a few stitches in my arm and I'll heal fine as long as I keep it disinfected." Izuku had been having this argument for a few minutes now and his patience had already been wearing thin before the paramedic's overenthusiastic treatment of his flesh wound. Izuku had managed to keep Death Arms in his line of sight since the robbery ended. First, he had been giving his report to the first on the scene. So at least he had done part of his job. But then, directly after he got done shoving the poor robber into the back of the police cruiser, he had immediately gone over to talk with the media who had managed to come crawling out of the woodwork at the mention of a 'villain' attack.

The paramedic finally relented, "Fine. You just want stitches and not any of the dozen healing quirks that could help you along? Fine. I'll leave it at that and let the police have you." The first responder, who had become just as aggravated with Izuku as Izuku had with him, signaled to the waiting officers before storming off with the signed release forms. Izuku took in the two men that were approaching Izuku's little group in detail. If Izuku wanted to get his story across and help the man who'd had the chance to stand down stripped from him, then he'd have to play this carefully. One was a lean man that clearly had some form of cat quirk in him. He was lithe with yellow eyes and the, for the most part, body of a ginger tabby cat. Beside him was a tall man that was about as plain as they came. He, like his partner, wore a tan overcoat and matching hat that made the two look like they would have come from some noir film were it not, of course, for the furry ears poking through the hat of the cat.

"Hello there." The plain man spoke first when the two stepped up in front of Izuku and company. "I am Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa. This is my partner Detective Tamakawa Sansa. I was told that you were the witness to the villain attack? Also, be aware that anything you say I can verify as true with my quirk." Izuku quirked his eyebrow at the detectives.

"You have a lie detector quirk?" Izuku asked, curious. It would certainly be useful in his profession.

"Indeed I do. I always inform victims of attacks. It helps to make them believe we'll take what they tell us seriously." Tsukauchi nodded his head at Izuku's question. "I'll be needing to get statements from both you, Mr. Midoriya, as well as Miss Jiro."

Izuku smiled, because for the first time during all of this, something was going very right. "That makes this easy then, Detective." Izuku's smile turned sharp with just a hint of his underlying rage seeping through into it. "Let me be the first to inform you at the scene of this villain attack that the man was not a villain at all. Quite to the contrary, I saw a man scared for his family, driven to commit a crime by desperation and not ill will. Despite, " Izuku practically spit the word, "the complete opposite being told to the media right now." Izuku jerked his thumb at Death Arms standing in front of a news camera and allowed the smile now to drop off his face and the disdain to come through. "In fact. The only damage that was incurred during this attack was inflicted by Death Arms slamming himself through the door." Izuku gestured stiffly to the shattered remains of the front entrance to the deli. "Or by the man's handgun," Izuku gestured to the bullet wound in his right arm, "which would have never gone off if the supposed Hero in this situation hadn't punched the scared, anxious man who was about to surrender his weapon to me."

Both Detectives had stiffened during Izuku's recounting of the events, and Detective Tamakawa looked to his partner for verification regarding Izuku's statement. "Everything he's said is true so far. What do you mean he was about to surrender his weapon to you, Mr. Midoriya?" Naomasa asked him this follow up. A knot was forming in his stomach, as was the feeling that this was about to turn into a massive headache.

Jiro spoke up at this before Izuku could respond. "Of course everything he said is true. He managed to almost talk down an armed gunman and would have without the interference from Death Arms over there. Even then, if Izuku hadn't acted how he did, I-" Jiro cut off and shuddered slightly, wrapping her arms around herself. It was just catching up to her that she had almost died back there. She had begun to shake and her breathing was becoming hitched. Her parents gave her a worried look, but before either of them could do anything, a hand was placed on her shoulder and she could hear a soft voice calling her name. When she looked up, she found herself staring into the deep emerald eyes of the man that had literally taken a bullet for her.

"Hey there, Jiro. Focus on me now. What you are feeling is scary, but it is not dangerous. You're alright, you're here with your parents. There is nothing that is going to hurt you anymore. Focus on breathing. One, two, three. There you go. Deep breaths." Izuku looked away from Jiro, away from where he was now kneeling in front of her, helping the poor girl through a panic attack, and into the two Detectives eyes.

"I do think that you can get her statement later, yes? You can allow her parents to take her inside their shop here. She only came in at the end, and I can explain what happened from my perspective. Which should be more than enough for the moment, yes?" Izuku's voice was still soft and calm, but there was a bite to it now. A threat for the detectives that there would be hell to pay if they didn't go along with his very reasonable request.

"Yes, that is fine." Detective Tamakawa said as Tsukauchi nodded along with his partner. "You're free to go, Miss Jiro." Jiro's father helped his daughter back into the shop before anything else could happen. But her mother waited for a moment and approached Izuku instead before folding herself into a bow.

"Thank you so much. Thank you for saving our daughter. Please come back tomorrow or the next time you get the chance. I'm sure Kyoka will want to thank you herself, as well as my husband." Izuku gave her a smile before telling her not to bow.

"I didn't do anything special, Ma'am. I couldn't have lived with myself if I let her get hurt, after all." Mrs. Jiro gave him a concerned look before Izuku turned back to the detectives. When he did so, he stood at parade rest, the soft, caring expression he had used with Jiro melting away like the spring snow. "Yes, sir, as I said, the man was about to hand over his weapon when Death Arms ruined everything. I had been negotiating with him for several minutes to deescalate. He was just about to surrender and hand over his weapon when Death Arms came crashing through the door, spooking the man into raising his weapon again. Unfortunately, he also decided the correct course of action would be to punch the man pointing a deadly weapon at an innocent civilian. Which of course-" Izuku was cut off when Naomasa sighed out, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Caused the weapon to go off when the man clenched from the impact, resulting in you saving Miss Jiro from the bullet and Death Arms nearly killing an innocent civilian." He had been right. It was about to turn into a massive headache. "I'm going to need you to come back to the station with me please, Mr. Midoriya. If he was willing to surrender to you, then he's more likely to open up to you than me or my partner. You already have the rapport established with him."

"I'll be honest with you, Detective, I thought I was going to have to fight you on this matter. I still think that the man is a criminal, don't get me wrong, he broke the law. But he certainly is not a "villain." But I wasn't quite certain that you were going to see things the same way considering. Well." Izuku didn't need to gesture this time for the two Detectives to understand what Izuku was getting at.

"Yes, well, I'm afraid had I not heard your side of the story, I may very well have let this slide, as what it appears to be on the surface. However, neither of us are in the business of overcharging criminals, either. Come on, we'll head over to the station now and you can give us a full briefing on the negotiation on the way there. Then we'll go from there." Naomasa stopped and realized what he had just said. He was talking to a civilian. Why was he acting like Midoriya was one of his men?

Before he could say anything, Izuku nodded with a yes sir, picked up his things and began to make his way to the two detectives' vehicle. Naomasa was only able to stare at his back, confused for a moment, before following him to the vehicle.

…

It wasn't even half an hour later that Izuku was sitting in the office of Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa, thinking that no matter what world it was, people were fucked up. The detective had left Izuku in his office to go convince the prosecutor to hold off. That the case wasn't quite as cut and dry as it seemed. Meanwhile, Izuku was left to wait in the detective's office. As Izuku was waiting for the detective, two things happened.

The first was that his mother had caught news of the villain attack, as well as his involvement in it. The panicking woman had taken a few minutes to calm down, to assure that he was fine and would be returning home as soon as he was no longer needed at the police station.

The second was that the case board set up in the corner caught his attention. A series of photos were pinned across it. Different scenes, different victims, different methods of execution. The only thing that was readily apparent that linked the three cases was that all three victims were professional heroes. But there was something there, it was perplexing because Izuku was sure of it.

When Naomasa returned to his office only a few minutes later, he found Izuku standing in front of his case board with a face of dread. "Those three cases have all occurred within the last month. We're working on tracking down leads, but for the most part, they've gone cold. There just isn't anything that seems to point to the killer except for all three victims being heroes, and in that case, there could be any number of people that could want to target them." Izuku turned slowly, looking Naomasa directly in the eyes when doing so.

"Three cases? There's your first problem. This was all done by the same person or group. This is one singular case with multiple victims." Naomasa was about to dismiss Izuku's words when his quirk told him that Izuku was telling the truth. He at the very least believed what he was saying, and going with his gut, Naomasa asked him why he thought so.

Izuku pointed to the board. "Everything lines up. First of all, all three were killed in sequential weeks from each other. Each exactly a week apart. While that could be a coincidence, the other little details say otherwise. Each one was taken down with a different weapon in an isolated location, and each has small cuts and scrapes on them which would indicate each was in a struggle of some kind before their death. That, in and of itself, isn't surprising, especially in the case of a hero fatality. Where it starts to get suspicious, however, is here." Izuku pointed to each of the coroner reports and their lab results.

"You have three separate coroners from different parts of the city sending you lab results where each victim has incredibly high counts of Ca++ ions in their sarcoplasm." Izuku looked back to where Naomasa stood with a puzzled expression on his face. "This means that before their deaths, each of the victims' bodies would have completely tensed up to the point of their muscles practically locking them in place. They would be effectively paralyzed until their body stopped signaling and their sarcolemma and T-tubules repolarized." Izuku let those words sink in and could see the realization dawning on Naomasa's face as it gained the same serious look Izuku's had.

"What you're telling me is that all three victims, while being killed by different methods, were effectively all paralyzed before their deaths?" Naomasa calmly asked his question of Izuku, even if his mind was racing with the implications.

"That is indeed what I am saying, and it doesn't stop there. Each of these heroes had come up with controversy of some kind in the weeks leading up to their deaths." Izuku began to point to each in turn. "Bright Shadow recently had a report come out regarding the number of civilians blinded by their quirk when they used it on villains. Nightowl was recently criticized for his seeming inability to bring in criminals without maiming them with his talons, and finally, Thornhead here was recently mobbed by a group of civilians and was startled. This wouldn't have been a major incident worth mentioning if, in his surprise, he hadn't shot his spines into half a dozen civilians, injuring them. What you have is someone or someones targeting heroes because they aren't up to standard. In the case of an organization, maybe they've come up with some kind of chemical cocktail to do this, or in the case of an individual, maybe a quirk that can somehow broadcast the signal to their victims' bodies. Regardless of how and why, whoever is doing this is incredibly dangerous and knows what they're doing."

Naomasa plopped down into his desk seat with a bone-weary sigh. "Shit. That isn't good. Alright, I'll have to verify what you just told me regarding the paralysis, but if that checks out, it's all sound logic, and a damn good theory, if not an ugly one." Naomasa looked up at Izuku from where he had his face in his hands. "I don't suppose you would be interested in an analyst position with us? I've been staring at that board for a week, and you just managed to link those three cases together in under forty-five minutes."

Izuku shook his head at Naomasa. "Sorry, sir, I'm almost out of high school, and while it is true that I would have more time during my degree programs, I am also working on several technologies to aid me in getting into a Hero program. If you could use my help, I have no problem working as a civilian consultant occasionally. But I simply don't have the time to commit to a full-time position as an analyst."

"Just my luck, I find a damn good analyst and he's already set on his path. Oh well, just the offer of occasional help if we need it is better than I was expecting to get. I'll deal with this issue later. Come on, we have an interview to do."

…

"Detective Tsukauchi entering interview with civilian witness Midoriya Izuku." The detective recited the pertinent data, and after reading the man his rights, sat down across from him.

"For the record, please correct me if I am wrong," Naomasa began, "you are one Fujii Nao, age thirty-four and born in the Fukushima ward. You moved here some seven months ago for work with your wife, who passed away a month ago. Was any of that incorrect?"

"What does it matter?" The man sounded sad, bitter, and defeated. "You're just going to throw me away in jail as another villain anyways. Take my daughters away to go into some system."

Izuku spoke up now, his voice soft and comforting. Inviting the man to look at him and trust what he was saying to him. "Mr. Fujii, like I told you back at the deli, you are in trouble, but not to the degree that you seem to think you are. We are simply trying to ascertain the exact events of what went down for the police record. Detective Tsukauchi here is very good at telling if you are lying and will be able to tell that you are giving an accurate account of what happened."

The man's head jerked up at Izuku's voice. His mouth hung open for a second before stuttering out a surprised croak that it was him. "Why would you go this far to help me? I tried to rob that store. I shot you!"

"Did you mean to shoot me? Did you mean for anyone to get injured at any point during your actions?" Izuku pressed the man now, and Naomasa allowed him to take the lead. If the man was willing to cooperate with Izuku, then he would gladly be sidelined and verify the information.

"Of course not, God no." The man choked out. "I never intended to even fire the weapon. I was going to give it over to you before that man punched me." The man returned his head to his hands before croaking out. "I just wanted to get enough money to feed my kids." Naomasa nodded his head and gave the camera the signal that everything that had been said was the truth, then tapped Izuku in a signal to continue. And continue Izuku did.

…

By the end of an exhausting half an hour interview, Izuku had grilled the man from every angle Tsukauchi could think of and then some. Where the hell he had learned how to do that was beyond him, but it was more than evident to himself and everyone involved by this point that the man was just as much a victim as everyone else. There was a quick rap at the door before a tall woman in her mid-thirties came through. She was all business from head to toe, and both her wardrobe and demeanor showed it.

"Hello, Mr. Fujii. My name is Miya Kimi, and I am one of the assistant prosecutors for this area's local prosecutor's office. Contrary to popular belief, not every villain caught by our illustrious heroes is the same. That's where our wonderful police department comes in to weed out the cases actually worth the time and effort to prosecute." Izuku quirked his eyebrow and looked over to the detective. Naomasa only gave a small smirk.

"Right now as it stands, you would be charged with attempted robbery with a deadly weapon. This will confer onto you a minimum sentence of sixteen months, plus any time you would await trial." Fujii's face drained of blood as his life flashed before his eyes. Miya sighed, toning down the aggressive tone. "That being said, I'm going to offer you an alternative option. In all honesty, this is not a case I, or I'm willing to bet anyone in this room, has any interest in prosecuting. This is your first offense, and as such, the court is willing to offer you a sixteen-month probation, instead. You will be assigned a position with one of several companies we have an agreement with. Should you be fired, you don't check in with your probation officer accordingly, or perform some other action to violate the terms of the agreement I am going to outline for you, then you will be immediately remanded into police custody to await trial for these charges, as well as any additional ones that may be brought against you."

As the prosecutor continued her explanation, Izuku and the detective slipped from the interrogation room and back into Naomasa's office. Both sighed, one happy with the outcome of the day's work, the other knowing that this was just the start to his night. Izuku spoke up then.

"I do believe that completes my role in this, yes? If it is alright with you, I have a very worried mother back at home and would like to get back to her. If for some reason you need to get into contact with me or are wanting to request assistance, you can reach me here." Izuku handed Naomasa a piece of paper that had come from the desk with his contact information on it.

"Yes, it does. Thank you for your assistance in this matter, as well as the insights on the… the case that I'm working." He gestured to the board with all of the photos. "Your help in these matters has been invaluable.

…

Izuku laid in bed that night with images flashing across the back of his eyes. Variations of what could have happened that day. If he hadn't been able to talk the man down, if he had had to hurt him or worse to stop someone else from getting injured.

The image of Jiro bleeding out on the concrete flashed unbidden into his mind. He hissed and sat up, rubbing his eyes. There hadn't even been anything they could do about Death Arms outside of submitting a complaint to the Hero Commission. For all the good that would do. He was tired, but he didn't know enough to satiate the feeling lurking in the back of his gut.

He needed an information network in place. He needed to make sure he could at least reasonably see these things coming in the future, and for that, he needed to get back to work. So he did what he did best. He slid out of bed, situated himself in front of his computer with some coffee, and got to work.

Notes:

Looking into the Japanese law system made me realize. For all the similarities that the Japanese law system shares with the United States? The Japanese are way scarier.

Besides that though, has anyone noticed canons complete disregard for mental health awareness?