CW: crime scene (graphic), blood, murder, talk of manipulation
But I crumble completely when you cry
It seems like once again you've had to greet me with goodbye
Shouta Aizawa was looking down at the body, not quite sure how he was supposed to feel about it. Seeing crime scenes was never fun, especially when it was a murder. It was pretty gross, actually. But this? This was a really bizarre crime scene. And it was a really brutal murder.
All of that made it especially gross to be here right now, but that wasn't the only thing that irked him. The way the victim's throat was cut, the way there were strange symbols carved into the skin, the way everything around the victim was arranged - it looked way too familiar. Too familiar and too similar to a huge case a few years back. Shouta didn't like thinking back to it.
But unfortunately there were enough people that had remembered his involvement in those murders back in the day and now they had called him to the scene for this. There was one more person that he had been close to, one more person that was even more involved in all this than he ever was. But they apparently were reluctant to go to her and ask her for help. They wanted Shouta to do that.
He sighed and finally managed to tear his eyes away from the bloody corpse that was still lying in the middle of the room. Shouta already knew that he wouldn't be able to get the smell out of his nose for weeks. He looked up at Detective Tsukauchi who was taking notes and talking to crime scene technicians. The poor man looked like he had been up all night because of this.
"Eraserhead! I'll be with you in a second." he said to him. Shouta sighed. He had told him that fifteen minutes ago. Shouta shuddered as he saw the corpse again. This was way too much like back then. Why had they called him and not her? She should know much more about this than he did.
Maybe they thought he knew where she was? If that was their reasoning then he'd have to disappoint them. He hadn't seen her ever since the last day in court. He hadn't even heard of her. And it wasn't like he hadn't gone looking for her, but it was almost like she had disappeared off the face of the earth. It took Shouta so long to come to grips with it and now he was back here.
Back here in a horrible, decrepit apartment, blood smeared on the walls, blood pooling on the floor. He could feel it sticking to his shoes and Shouta already knew he'd have to throw them out as soon as he got home, because he couldn't stand being reminded of all this. It made him shudder.
He wondered whether it was actually him again. He had been sent to prison, hadn't he? There wasn't a lot of evidence and it was mostly circumstantial which was annoying. It meant he was getting a very light sentence. Everyone knew that he had done it, that he had murdered around seven or even more people, but there was just close to no evidence connecting him to it.
How many years had he gotten again? It wasn't many. Had he already gotten out? Maybe if he had been acting all regretful and was being nice to everyone in prison... Shouta was sure that they had let him out early. He was good at faking all that shit. Everyone had fallen for it back then, which was probably why there was so little evidence that he was responsible for all these murders in the first place. Shouta knew that a lot of evidence had been 'lost' - and he was happy not knowing how it was lost.
It was no wonder that she had disappeared. That she was hiding away somewhere ever since she had done her duty in that case. Shouta would have probably done the same in her situation. She had believed every single word of that lying bastard. She had been standing up for him. Just to end up with all kinds of accusations hurled at her. It wasn't her fault, no one had seen it from the very beginning and she was close to him back in the day. It took her almost dying to see the truth.
"Sorry for the wait, Eraser. Are you okay? You're looking a little pale." he heard Tsukauchi say to him. The detective walked over to him, stepping over the dead body as if it was nothing.
"That's... that's just what I look like." he told him, not wanting to admit that this was hitting closer to home than he would have thought.
"Right. So does this look familiar to you?" Tsukauchi asked him nodding towards the murder victim. Shouta was aware that Tsukauchi probably saw stuff like this and worse on a regular basis, but it was still odd to him how he managed to deal with all this so matter-of-factly all the time.
"Somewhat familiar. Do you think it's him again? Is he out of prison yet?" Shouta wanted to know. Tsukauchi sighed.
"We can't say if it's him again or not. Obviously, it's a new knife he's using and not the same old one that he had for the first murders back in the day. And the cuts seem a little awkward, but that's maybe because he's not had a lot of practice, so to say. He has been out of prison for almost a year now, so it's strange he'd only start killing again now. Either way, we'll have to look at the evidence we got from here in the lab and see what we can find. But I doubt we'll get a lot." Tsukauchi told her.
"So why did you ask me here?" Shouta wanted to know. He didn't really need to ask, but he wanted to hear it from him.
"We need her for this." Tsukauchi said, looking at him expectantly. He looked like he was holding his breath. Shouta knew that this was about her, he had known from the beginning when he had been told a few details about the case. But he really had hoped this would be about something different.
"I don't see what that has to do with me." Shouta replied.
"Come on, Eraser. You two were really close, especially back when the whole thing happened." Tsukauchi said.
"Well, sorry to disappoint you, detective, but I have no idea where she is. I haven't seen her ever since he got sentenced. And trust me, I have been looking for her." Shouta told him with a sigh.
"Oh, we know where she is. We've been trying to talk to her, in fact." Tsukauchi told him, rubbing the back of his neck. Shouta raised his eyebrows and looked up at him, wondering why the hell they had asked him to come here. He did have an idea of it, but he really hoped he wasn't right.
"What the hell do you need me for then?" he asked.
"Well, we've been trying to talk to her, but we really haven't been very successful. We need your help, Eraser. Yours and Mic's and the help of anyone you can think of who might be able to convince her to help us out." Tsukauchi admitted. Shouta sighed. That would never go well.
"Why do you need her so badly? Her involvement in the case hasn't been very helpful the last time around." Shouta muttered. Not very helpful was an understatement. She had been one of the very last people to lose faith in him and she was probably responsible for getting rid of a lot of evidence. She thought she was doing something good, trying to help him out, because she was absolutely convinced that he couldn't be the same guy that killed at least seven people.
"She knows how he works. She knows him like the back of her hand. She knows the way he manipulates people, she is so familiar with him... we need her. We need her insight." Tsukauchi told him.
"What if the same thing happens again?" Shouta wanted to know. Tsukauchi had seemingly been distracted, because he gave him a surprised look.
"Pardon?"
"What if she gets lulled in by him again? What if he manages to manipulate her again? Don't you think it might be a bit of a high risk?" Shouta asked again. He knew her, he knew she was strong, but it had happened before. She had been manipulated into covering for him before.
"It is a risk, but I doubt it'll happen. She feels incredibly guilty about the whole thing. Still does. I'd say it probably completely broke her. If we take good care of her and keep an eye on her... as long as she doesn't come under his influence all on her own anymore... she should be fine."
"So you're going to make use of her trauma to keep her under control? Use her guilt against her?"
"Of course it's not nice, but I don't see any other choice. And that's also why we have you. You go to her, convince her to work with us and take her in. You make sure she's safe and you make sure that he doesn't get his hands on her. You make sure she's not a risk." Tsukauchi told him.
"So you can blame me if something goes wrong?" he wanted to know with a raised eyebrow. Of course that's what it was all about. They just wanted to use him, so they could have a scapegoat if things went south. And they wanted him to use her guilt and her trauma to convince her to work with them. Great. So he was no more than a puppet for the police in this.
"I'm sure nothing will go wrong. You're very capable of taking care of her." Tsukauchi told him with a smile. Shouta sighed. What could he do? This was his job, this was how he made his money.
"Fine. I'll do it, I guess. What are you offering her for this? I don't think I can convince her unless it's a good amount of money." Shouta said. Tsukauchi smiled widely and nodded confidently.
"We can offer up to 3 million yen if she decides to help us and she can get her hero license restored if she sticks with us until we finish the case. We're also open to additional negotiations." Tsukauchi explained. Well. That was a lot, depending on where she was at the moment.
"Alright then. Where is she and until when do I have?" Shouta wanted to know. He really wasn't sure how he was going to convince her of this, but maybe the money would be enough.
"She lives in some rundown apartment complex in Kabukicho, Tokyo. Pretty bad area. From what I've heard that building regularly has trouble with getting proper clean water and electricity. High crime rate. She'll hopefully be glad to get out of there for a while." Tsukauchi said. Shouta nodded, taking the page that Tsukauchi had torn out of his notebook. It had an address scribbled on it.
Tokyo, Kabukicho, Asahi Shinjuku-ku, 2F, Y/N L/N. Shouta read the address over and over and over again. He couldn't believe that he had been looking for her for so long before giving up and now he was just handed her address. Under the condition he'd make her go through all the same stuff again. Why was this all so fucked up? Shouta sighed and folded the paper, putting it into his pocket.
"Is that all you needed me for?" he asked Tsukauchi. He nodded.
"Yes, that would be all for now. Thank you, Eraserhead. We appreciate you working with us." Tsukauchi said with a smile. Shouta just nodded and gave him a quick wave goodbye, before turning around and heading outside again. He couldn't wait to get some fresh air into his lungs again, to be out of this horrible, horrible place. Why did corpses always have to smell so bad?
Once he was outside the building Shouta got the note out again, checking that the address was still there, thinking that maybe he had just imagined all of this or that he was dreaming somehow and none of this was actually real. But it was right there and it still had her name with it.
Y/N L/N. Former pro-hero Fever Dream.