"I'll warn you ahead of time, so far every interrogation between Stain has been a failure. No one has successfully pulled any useful information from him, including me."
"You couldn't read his mind?"
Kimura shook his head, "no. It's rare, but there are certain minds I can't read. Sometimes a mind has too much information I can't fully comprehend, like yours. But in Stain's case, he has a resilient mind and refuses to give any relevant information. The only thing he thought of was All Might, it was actually pretty creepy." Kimura scratches the back of his neck and frowns as he thought back to it.
"Hmm... I'll keep that in mind."
Right now, it's just moments before his interrogation of Stain is about to begin.
Stain had already been interrogated a few times before, but as Kimura explain none of them were successful. The police wanted to know if Stain had more victims or if he had any accomplices. The only thing Stain did was mocked the interrogators and made a bunch of remarks about how hero lost their meaning and blah blah blah...
Susumu heard his philosophy a bunch of times already and it's honestly started to annoy him.
Originally, Suki wasn't allowed to question Stain whatsoever. The interrogation was only made possible thanks to Kimura. Susumu doesn't know he did it, but Kimura managed to convince the warden of Tartarus. As a form of thanks, Susumu allows Kimura to be present beside him during the interrogation under the condition he stays quiet.
Susumu is sitting with his legs crossed on the floor while sipping on juice with his laptop and mic facing in front of him. Kimura also sat on the ground behind him, watching intently. The camera is on, and it shows an empty interrogation set up in Tartarus. His eyes gleam in excitement when he saw Stain enter, he was guided with a wheelchair and escorted by a single nurse with serval security guards.
From what Susumu heard, Stain's injuries were so bad that he was on the brink of death in the hospital. After he was treated, Stain was immediately moved to the medical facility in Tartarus. He will stay in custody within Tartarus until the court decides his fate, Stain is guaranteed to either receive a life or death sentence.
Stain is wrapped in bandages from head to toe, he's strapped to the wheelchair making mobility even more limited. And his head is hanging low refusing to make any eye contact with anyone.
Just looking at his appearance alone, Stain appears very miserable and pathetic. Just days ago he was Japan's most feared serial killer but now turned into this small crippled state.
What a sight.
"I told you all already... I got nothin' to share. You're wasting your time, go out and make yourself useful instead of talkin' to me," he spoke with a heavy gruff voice.
"I'll decide whether or not if the information you provide is useful on my own Mr. Stain, or do you prefer if I call you Akaguro Chizome instead?" Stain slowly lift up his head and made contact with the camera, Susumu smiles as he continue, "my apologies I forgot to introduce myself. I am Suki."
Stain scowls, "so you're the detective those bastards are so worried about? I don't see why they should be so concerned when you're a coward who won't show their face."
"By those bastards, I assume you are referring to those petty villains called Shigaraki and Kurogiri, correct? I'm glad to hear they're afraid of me."
Stain glares at the camera, "didn't you hear what I just said? I'm calling you a coward."
"Yes I did hear you correctly, you don't need to repeat yourself. Concealing my identity is for my safety, and if that makes me a coward, then so be it. We have more pressing matters to focus on, I have a series of questions I need you to answer."
Stain clicks his tongue in annoyance, "go ahead, ask them, I won't answer any of them."
"I don't think you realize we have a common goal, Stain."
"As if I share a goal with you."
"You're a smart man, I believed you realized by now you were used. Your arrest was publicized, and someone even managed to record your final moments before you fell unconscious. You've now gained a cult-like following who recklessly follow your beliefs. It'll be extremely easy for Shigaraki to claim you were friends, then all of your followers would flock to him."
"Tch. You give that brat too much credit."
"But doesn't it anger you? Shigaraki sent those deadly creatures to kill you and then proceeded to take your followers as his own. You were used before you were thrown away. If you refuse to answer my questions then you'll only be letting Shigaraki win."
Stain's face scrunches up in anger, "letting him win...? So that's what this all is to you, a game. In that case, you're no different than Shigaraki."
"I don't quite understand-"
"You have no conviction and view everything as a pathetic game, like a child with no purpose. Exactly like Shigaraki," he growls out. "People like you disgust me the most, I'm done talking to you." His head turns away, refusing to look at the camera.
Susumu immediately knew how poorly the interrogation was going, at this rate he won't get any useful information before time runs out. He'll make a complete fool of himself, and guessing from Stain's happy expression, it's exactly what he wants. To make the famous detective Suki a mockery of himself.
He's also behaving like a child, what a hypocrite.
His mic is muted as he thinks to himself, kimura approaches, frightening Susumu when he spoke, "I can try to arrange another appointment-"
"I told you to be quiet." He huffed, "and I don't need it." Suki's smile stretches across his face, "he's going to answer all my questions right now."
He unmuted himself, "you're right Stain. I am childish. This is all a game to me, and I hate it when I lose. I get angry and throw tantrums whenever I don't get my way. But you're wrong when you claim I have no conviction, unlike Shigaraki, I want to see heroes win. Because it means that I won. And I love winning."
True to his word, Stain hasn't said a word, but he's listening and that's all Susumu needs him to do now. He plays with his hair as he speaks, "let's see now... that boy you saved on the night of your arrest is an inspiring hero, he's currently a student at U.A being taught by All Might, it'll be a great shame if he dies before he has the chance to start his career." That got his attention, his head snapped back to the camera with looks that could kill.
But Suki isn't afraid.
No.
He's excited.
"Unfortunately Stain, by saving him, you placed a dangerous target over his head. As I mentioned before, you were recorded before being arrested, they also caught you saving that student. As you famously said in the video, only All Might is worthy. And by saving the hero in training instead of letting him die sends a message to the world, that this child is the same level as All Might."
Stain's eyes widened at Suki's implication, and Suki' got more excited seeing his reaction.
"Normally, your followers would accept your word and leave the boy alone. However; under Shigaraki's rule, someone who despises All Might and wishes for his death, that boy's safety isn't guaranteed. His death would not only be a loss for me, but for you as well."
And there it is. Stain's breaking point. He's so obsessed with the concept of an ideal hero, so when he finds one that suits all his qualifications he views them as a god. It's why he holds All Might in such high regard. Somehow, even Stain saw the similarity between All Might and Midoriya. There's no way he would allow Midoriya's death on his hands. He must admit defeat to Suki.
Stain grits his teeth, "I already told you all... I have nothing to say. I don't know Shigaraki well, I've only recently met him."
"So you weren't collaborating with him in any way?"
"They seek me out to hire me but we couldn't come to an agreement. He introduces himself as the League of Villains and claims his only goal is to see All Might dead. I could never agree with such an outrageous group. Our goals and conviction were too different."
"Did you upset Shigaraki in any way?"
"I attacked him, I wanted to test his motives, the only thing he could talk about is killing All might and destroying society. I'll admit he's got the drive, but right now he's like an immature child. He'll be dangerous if he grows."
"I agree. When did you meet Shigaraki?"
"I first meet Kurogiri shortly after I attacked Ingegium, but I didn't meet Shigaraki until later, on the same day I was arrested."
"Does that mean you meet Kurogiri in Hosu City?" Stain nods, and Suki hums, "Do you remember the exact location he met you?"
"No, but it must've been on the roof."
"Do you frequent the rooftops of Hosu City?"
"No, that was my first time at the city."
"How curious," Suki chuckles and Stain raises a brow. "This isn't confirmed but there's a theory about how Kurogiri's quirk works. Kurogiri must know the exact coordinates in order to create a portal, it's a good explanation for why he hasn't created a portal in All Might's home and killed him in his sleep."
"So I was being watched this entire time." Stain growls out.
"Correct. Did you not notice anything abnormal before?"
"Nothing that I can think of."
"Hmm... then it's hard to determine how long you've been watched. It could be possible you've been watched since the very moment you debuted." Stain doesn't look disturbed or surprised at the new revelation, if anything, he looks angry. But for once, his anger isn't directed at Suki. "Let's move on to another topic, did Kurogiri teleport you to their base? Can you describe it?"
Stain scoffed, "It's a poor excuse for a base, he took me to a rundown underground bar."
"And do you know where this bar is located?"
"No. Never bothered askin'."
"Then do you know how long you were there and what time it was when you left?"
"I wasn't there for long, ten minutes at most. It was late in the night when I left."
"I see. Is there anything else that happened that can be important to the investigation?"
Stain stayed quiet for a moment as he tried to recall, "when I was about to attack Shigaraki, Kurogiri asked their master if he should intervene. He told Kurogiri to leave Shigaraki alone so he can think and mature on his own to reach his full potential."
"Did you see their master?"
"No. There was a monitor in the room that projected his voice, hiding his face behind a screen like a coward. Just like you."
Susumu ignored that last comment and absorbed all the information in. By now, all of Suki's questions have been answered, he still asked a few more questions for clarification and information the police wanted. By the time he was finished, the interrogation was over.
"If I find out that you failed to capture Shigaraki or if that child dies, I'm going to hunt you down and kill you," Stain said threateningly.
"I'll keep that in mind. Oh, before I forget, I have one last message. Well... it's more like advice." The guards were preparing to escort him, Stain however still paid attention to Suki. "Next time when you insult a child's intelligence, try not to behave like one."
And just like that, the interrogation was over. Susumu watched the nurse and security guards lead him out of the room and the camera was shut off shortly after the room became empty.
Susumu sat still for a few seconds before he cheered and excitedly jumped around the room. His monotone demeanor was quickly replaced with a rare cheerful smile.
"Did you see that Kimura!? I did it! All me!" This was the first time he conducted an interrogation, he received plenty of lessons on how to properly conduct an interrogation. And to have his first successful interrogation be Stain, felt soooo satisfying. And it was definitely a big ego boost knowing he accomplished something adults failed.
"I saw the whole thing, you were amazing Suki." Kimura said, looking extremely proud.
Susumu bounced around the room one last time before he jumped back to his laptop when he started to get tired, he already became busy rapidly typing something.
After a few minutes of him typing Kimura got curious, "can I ask what are you going to do now?"
"Right now, I'm researching and trying to track down that bar."
"Already? What if that bar was only used to meet with Stain?
"I doubt it, Shigaraki doesn't seem that smart. And Stain explained how their master used a monitor to contact them, very outdated, but it implies they have been using that bar as a hideout for a while."
"So, how are you going to find them? There are thousands of bars in Japan."
"I know. I won't be able to find that bar easily, but I can narrow it down and speculate on the city. The countryside and smaller cities will be ruled out since Stain described an underground bar which is more common in larger cities. And I assume that the bar is a hotspot where villains will hang out, so it has to be accessible and hidden well from the public eye. I wouldn't be surprised if that bar turns out to be abandoned." He pauses his typing, "but it'll take a while until I figure it out..." he pouted.
"And you wanted it to be solved as quickly as possible, right?" Susumu nodded. Kimura thinks to himself, "hm, wait for a moment, I'll be back."
Susumu said nothing and watched Kimura leave the room, he returned ten minutes later holding his own laptop. He sat down on the floor next to Susumu and opened his laptop. "What are you doing?" Susumu asked, confused.
"What does it look like? I'm going to help you research."
"Oh... you don't have to-"
"I know."
Susumu's breath hitched, "then why?" His voice almost wavers.
"Because I want to."
A memory flash to Susumu about his older brother Shouto, he gave the exact same response when he gifted Susumu that All Might plushie. And Susumu cannot understand why. 'Because I wanted to.' That wasn't an adequate answer. It makes no sense. It drove him crazy, he had to hide the plushie away for his sanity. And to make matters worse, Susumu couldn't understand Shouto's sudden shift of behavior. It made him uncomfortable, which later caused him to lash out at Shouto to leave him alone.
Kimura immediately saw his confusion and started chuckling, "y'know, I originally thought you had an answer for everything. But it looks like I was wrong."
Susumu frowns, "you read my mind," he stated as fact.
"Sorry. At that moment when you remembered your memory, I could finally understand your mind. Your mind is like a dictionary filled with an endless amount of information that I can't comprehend, but for the first time, I saw a picture."
By now, Susumu stopped researching and was focused on something else. He hasn't talked to Shouto since Susumu lashed out at him, and for some reason, he couldn't properly work. Any little thing would remind him of Shouto and it'll send him into a spiral of confusion and questioning.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Does he? It's hard to say. Something like this has never happened before, he isn't sure what to do. "Uhmm..." Susumu twirls around his fingers, where should he start?
"Start from the beginning."
Susumu paused for a moment before he started to play with his hair, "I have three older siblings. Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Shouto. But, Fuyumi and Natsuo are more like my guardians. They have a responsibility to take care of me, and Shouto doesn't. Growing up, he would ignore me and focus on his training, it's always been like that, until recently... he's been trying to spend more time with me and it doesn't make any sense."
"Despite being a detective, his behavior is confusing to you, right?" Susumu nodded. "That's the thing about being a detective; we can study people's emotions, motives, and so forth, but in the end, we can never truly understand their thought process. Despite my quirk, I can never understand how the thought process works. So if you want to understand why your brother is behaving this way, the best thing to do is to spend more time with him and learn more about him. Avoiding him won't help anything."
"I'd rather have him continue to ignore me, his sudden change of attitude makes no sense."
"Maybe something happened to him that made him change. Can you think of anything?"
It suddenly clicks, the sports festival. Shouto went through a tirade of emotions thanks to Midoriya, he was no longer the same angry teenager and started to change for the better. Susumu thought Shouto would focus to better himself as a hero, so why would Shouto try reconnecting with him? Simple. Because getting with him means Shouto is improving himself as a person, and thus improving himself as a hero as well.
In Susumu's eyes, he fully believes a person always has an interior motive in mind. His father married his mother to have a child with the perfect quirk to become the hero to surpass All Might. Teachers treat children with powerful quirks better in hopes those students will prosper as a hero. The HPSC recruited Susumu for the benefit of heroes.
In Susumu's mind, there's no way Shouto would try to become close to him without an interior motive.
"I might be overstepping boundaries; but, it sounds to me like your brother always cared about you, it's just he didn't know how to express it or he could be afraid. You should try reaching out."
Susumu doubts it, growing up, Shouto never once spoke to him until very recently. When he was extremely young, Susumu had no idea Shouto existed. Shouto would always be on the opposite side of their home, and Susumu and the rest of his siblings were forbidden to enter. He thinks the first time he saw Shouto was on his sixth or seventh birthday, he doesn't remember.
"It doesn't matter, we're both very busy anyways." Susumu tries to dismiss what Kimura recommended and tries to focus on his research.
Kimura joins him, both were trying to be busy researching, but the subject still lingered in the young boy's mind.
"I know this might be weird to say, but your brother reminds me of myself when I was younger."
Susumu furrows his brow in confusion, "you've never even met him."
Kimura chuckles, "I know. But by looking at the sports festival and hearing the things you said, I can tell there's a lot of anger in that boy. And I can relate to that. When I was younger, I was completely obsessed with the idea of revenge, and in my conquest, I accidentally ignored my younger sister. By the time I became a police officer, she was a complete stranger to me."
"I didn't know you have a sister." Over the past few weeks, Kimura has basically been trying to tell Susumu everything about himself in hopes they'll get closer. Susumu won't ever admit it, but it worked. Although, now that he thinks about it, Kimura rarely talks about his past.
"I used to have a sister." Susumu completely froze, he didn't know what to do with this information, luckily for him, Kimura continued. "She passed away eight years ago in an accident, and to this day, I regret not getting to know her better. Just give your brother a chance, I bet it'll mean a lot to him."
"I'll... think about it." He looks back to his laptop which has turned itself off, he turned it back on and fully focuses on the screen. "Ok enough with the whole brother stuff, we have work to do! Kimura, can you search for abandoned bars across Japan? I'll look for bars in cities that have a higher crime rate."
Together, they spent the next few hours researching and speculating the possible hideout. Susumu would never admit it, but he appreciates Kimura's help. Although they're not anywhere close to finding the location, they were able to narrow the possibilities. Kimura would force Susumu to take several breaks, he would either eat a snack or walk around the room. Unfortunately, it's almost time for them to go home.
Kimura has already put his stuff away meanwhile, Susumu is checking his emails. He bites on his nail as he intensely reads the email. Despite not being on good terms with the police force, he manages to bribe a few corrupt officers to send classified information. Money is power after all.
He was just sent information about the Nomus that attacked Hosu. After the lab results, they managed to find the identities of all of the Nomus, and that was all the information Susumu waiting for. Now, he has all the nessacary information needed to make an arrest. The only problem is that the criminal will most likely be non-compliant and would refuse any sort of interrogation. Susumu knows this situation isn't like Stain, Suki will be useless. However...
He looks at Kimura who's currently checking his phone for any missing messages, Susumu starts smiling.
"Kimura," he puts away his phone and looks at Susumu, "I'm going to need your help again."
"I already told you, I'll keep helping until you find-"
"It's not about the bar, I recently got info that'll help me for something else." Kimura raises a brow. Susumu turns his computer around to show Kimura the screen. There on display is an old man who's wearing a doctor's uniform and is completely bald, he has a very large bushy mustache and wears an odd set of goggles.
"We're going to confront him for all of his despicable crimes." Susumu smiles widely.
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A/N: So sorry for the long wait! I have finals approaching 😰 The next few chapters shouldn't take as long since most of them have already been written :)
Something I want to introduce to this fic is the legal system. As in villains going through the process of receiving punishment from the court. I don't know how the legal system works in Japan and I'm definitely not an expert in this field, I'll just be using pre-existing knowledge I have about the legal system in my country. I'll talk further about it in the future and I'll also introduce an attorney oc.
Fun fact: After a successful workout session, Kimura would award Susumu with a toy, he mostly gives Susumu lego sets or stuffed animals.