Izuku POV
The moon shone down brightly as I made my way through the shadows of the night. The sounds of the city were a quiet trumb in my ears as I ran through the night city streets, keeping an eye on every movement around me.
Most nights I ran aimlessly, not actively looking for trouble, but letting it find me instead. Typically, I kept to a populated city area that became something of a patrol route for me through the months, but tonight my running wasn't aimless or just for stretching out my sore limbs.
Tonight had a purpose.
I was the one looking for trouble for once.
Tsubasa, it was a name still fresh on my mind even after a few days of hunting with it. I'd been roaming the streets at night, looking less for crimes being committed and more for the missing teen these past few days. I'd been roaming around, looking into the area surrounding the neighborhood that we'd grown up in and surveilling the spot that the other boy disappeared from, along with the area around it.
Knowing Tsubasa the way that I did and knowing quirked peoples' tendencies despite not having one of my own, I knew that it was somewhat probable that the boy hadn't been taken at all as I'd originally thought, but was just messing around with his friend and their quirks like he did when we were little.
But at the same time...
I couldn't get the image of the way that the winged teen stood there that night, glancing around the street like a man being watched out of my head. Something about that scene made it hard to believe that what happened the other day was just mindless juvenile crimes like what he and Bakugo used to do in the park with the other quirked children.
So here I was, canvassing the areas again for any trace of the other teen or the person that took him, knowing that criminals normally come back to the scene of the crime sometime after it takes place to cover their tracks.
Not that it was helping much.
I'd been bouncing back and forth between these areas for days now, but nothing out of the normal had turned up.
Not that I was really expecting it to.
With teleportation type quirks or quirks that act similar to them in some way, the people involved had to all but try to leave any evidence behind for others to find. It was one of the reasons that the government tended to keep a good eye on those with these quirk types.
A silent sigh escaped my lips as I walked away from the area that Tsubasa was taken from, finding nothing yet again. But I could still feel my heart rate speeding up with each step that I took going back towards the apartment. Probably because I wasn't going back to the apartment complex at all.
I was going to the neighbor just by it.
Walking quickly, I snuck through the rows of houses, looking for the one that I could just barely remember from my early childhood. It was a decently nice house, one near the Bakugos', in the back corner of the neighborhood, something comfortable enough to fit Tsubasa and both his parents with two of them having wing type quirks.
It was late in the night by the time that I found the house, late enough that any normal citizen should be in bed asleep by now unless they worked the night shift somewhere else. However, almost all of the lights were still on in their house despite the strangeness of the hour.
One of the kitchen windows was cracked open, letting the early summer air into the home, and letting the voices floating around inside out.
Creeping closer, I crouched down below the kitchen window, pressing myself as close to the wall and as deep into the shadows cast by it as I could. I could hear the conversation going on inside, hear Tsubasa's parents talking inside at their dining room table, concern lacing each of their voices.
"...Okay," his mother spoke, her voice cracking in what sounded like barely restrained tears, "just call us if you hear anything." There was a small beeping sound like someone hanging up the phone that followed.
"Nothing?" Another voice asked.
Tsubasa's father.
I could imagine his mother shaking her head while sitting at the kitchen table, but I didn't dare to look to see if my assumption was right.
So, they don't know anything then.
I'd been hoping that the teen was just asleep in his room, but it seems that he truly is missing.
I left the building, truly heading home for the night as the sun was due to come up soon.
"We'll find him," Tsubasa's father spoke reassuringly to his wife, the words floated into my ears just before I moved out of earshot of the conversation.
He didn't sound very convinced.
—-
Eri hummed lightly as I did my best attempt at braiding the young girl's light blue hair, failing miserably as I didn't have any of my own long enough to have practiced on before.
"How was your day today?" I asked her lightly, separating the girl's hair into two halves, tieing a light pink ponytail around the left half while I went to work on braiding the right.
"Good," the child said, true emotion seeping into her tone. "The doctor said that I might be able to leave here soon."
"Really?" I asked, a healthy amount of surprise taking over my normally monotone voice.
Eri had been in here for close to six months, long enough for most children with quirks to get some type of grip on their powers, enough that they didn't accidentally activate when the child didn't want them to. But the kids in this facility had temperamental quirks that made finding that control so much harder for them. I really was surprised that Eri could find her balance so soon, but felt a small burst of pride take over me nonetheless.
She hummed softly, nodding her head lightly so as to not mess me up.
"That's great," I told her earnestly.
And it was.
Mom and I had already painted the spare room a bright yellow color, buying the needed furniture whenever we came across some on sale. There was even a small collection of stuffed animals taking over what would become the girl's bed when she finally came to claim it. For all intents and purposes, we were ready for her to come with us.
To come home.
I switched to the other side, listening to the little girl telling me about the children's story that she read almost completely on her own today before I had to get home as closing hours had come about ten minutes ago and the nurses were getting antsy.
Getting up from the bed, I turned around to tuck the girl in, but a small hand gripping my sleeve with as much strength as they had was faster.
I looked at the small girl, sinking back down onto the bed slowly as I took in the serious look in the child's eyes.
"Izuku," she said carefully, all joy gone from the child-like voice from earlier, "are my scars bad?"
I pulled my legs onto the bed, facing the small girl completely. She looked sad as she stared down at her covered arms, her finger subconsciously picking at the sleeve. She was wearing the long sleeve night dress that we'd gotten her when we'd gone shopping, the note that she'd been so proud to pick out herself like all her other clothes.
Where the hell did this come from?
The girl's mood had changed as fast as the sea, but it was a change that I was all too familiar with. Sometimes I'll be fine all day and then I'll get a glimpse at what was beneath my own sleeves and my face would all but mirror her's.
I shook my head sadly at the child, at the little girl that was much too young to be bearing these kinds of emotions already.
"Did someone say that to you, one of the other kids.?" I asked.
The girl nodded slowly at me, not explaining any further. I didn't press.
Sighing heavily, I pulled my jacket off of my arms slowly, catching the other child's attention. Eri's eyes went wide at the sight that I was revealing to her.
Underneath the jacket I was wearing was an old short sleeve T shirt of mine that still fit well, worn soft from age, but it showed off a sight that no one else had really seen since mom had walked in on me changing before.
Scars.
They covered my arms, littering them like a story that could never have untold. Small explosions decorating my skin for eternity in all the spots that I was touched by someone else, forever in the company of the neat lines that disappeared beneath the sleeve of my shirt.
My finger snaked up my body, undoing the collar at my throat, betraying the sight that I hadn't seen since Hitoshi gave the piece to me all those months ago. The area around my neck had scared in these past months, something permanent that would never fade with time.
Scars... they're not pretty, they're not a work of art telling some beautiful story like some books would have you think. They're permanent, a cold truth betraying a gruesome reality that can never be erased.
They don't tell beautiful lies, but scream a thousand ugly truths.
Whisper them in the dead of night.
But with all that, they say something else as well, they whisper the thing that makes people turn them into beautiful stories that they have no right being:
'I survived.'
"How you got them can never be erased," I told the girl, trying to convince her as much as I mean trying to convince myself, "they're proof that you went through something terrible, but they're also proof that you're strong. Proof that you survived. How could something like that ever be ugly?"
Eri looked up at me, tears staining those red eyes of hers, making them glisten like rubies, but a smile was on the girl's face. It was small, so slight that you would miss it if you didn't know her, but it was there.
I got up, patting the girl's head lightly as I moved to the door, leaving her to find her own peace with herself.
Stopping outside of the facility to make sure that everything was covered again, I felt like a hypocrite, but I didn't stop or take my jacket or chocked back off. I was fine with being labeled a hypocrite, I'd been called worse before after all.
I've called myself worse.
Being out there, taking that moment, it was the only reason that I caught the sight across the small walkway.
An older man was wobbling slowly away from the main children's hospital, heading towards the street instead of a car like his mobility would suggest that he should be.
Dr. Garaki.
Tsubasa's grandfather.
I waited a moment before walking slowly, following the man from a far as he walked away from the hospital. At worst I would just be following him home and feel somewhat awkward about it, at best... I didn't really know what that would be, but something was telling me that this was the right choice.
The sense of danger filling my gut with each step told me this
Falling into the shadows out of habit despite the fact that I still looked like a normal teen walking around at a somewhat respectable hour, I followed the doctor a few blocks, waiting at the turns to give him space so he didn't think that he was being followed. But after about ten or so minutes of playing follow the leader, the leader was gone.
I was in the middle of the more rundown part of the city, a part that I went to frequently during my night time exploits. There was no where here that a doctor should've gone to, even the homeless people avoid this area because of the crime rate here, but despite that, when I turned the last corner I was alone.
Just... what the hell is up with this family?
—-
Dr. Garaki POV
I hobbled slowly away, cursing my quirk inwardly for how slow it made me as I walked away from the hospital.
There was a brat following me.
For the past few blocks, maybe since before the hospital all together, there's been a small teenage boy tailing me, purposely keeping a slow pace despite the fact that doing that only made him stand out more.
An amuture.
Picking up speed just a bit, using what little energy that I had stored up, I turned the corner as quickly as I could, taking the moment that the kid foolishly waited to duck into the building that I'd been heading to all along.
It was an older base of my boss, somewhere that we were planning on moving out of in the next few months anyways. It used to be a small hotel before the area fell into villain hands well over a few generations ago. Something that my boss saw to during that time, before the incident.
Walking over to the still functioning elevator, I checked over my shoulder before moving inside. The kid wasn't there anymore, probably still lost outside.
The elevator creaked loudly as it took me down to the lowest level of the building, something much more modern than the outside of the former hotel would make you assume.
There was a remote controlled chair waiting for me at the bottoms of the elevator ride, something that my boss was kind enough to put in here for me so that I wouldn't have to walk anymore after coming all the way here on foot each day. I sat down, moving the chair farther into the loan room.
Machines dangled and rumbled around me as I moved to the only other breathing thing in the room, though he too was connected to enough machines to almost seem like one himself.
All For One.
The most powerful villain in this strange society despite the fact that not many even knew that he existed at all.
I got to work on the man, checking his vitals and the everlasting damage from the man's fight with the blond oaf. The machines were not for show after all.
"Sir," I said, fixing a wire. The villain only hummed in response, acting as strange as ever, "someone tried to follow me today on the way here."
"Oh?" The villain asked, a drop of interest entering his tone. "I lost him on the way, but I thought that it was still worth mentioning."
"You thought right," the man confirmed, a gruesome smile taking over what was left of his face. "What did our friend look like?"
I told him about the child, describing him as best as I could.
"Very interesting," All For One decided, nodding as best as he could.
I almost felt bad for the child, but I would need proper emotions for that to be the case.
"How is that grandson of yours?" The villain asked as I finished the routine check up.
I sighed tiredly, thinking of the work that I still had to do tonight.
"His body is taking well to the treatments and the beginning of the modifications," I reported, my own gruesome taking charge of my face. "He should be ready in about five or so months."
I knew that the boy's quirk would be perfect for what the boss had planned, the perfect gift for the villain's little protégée.
The villain's smile deepened. "Good."