hero's shadow // mha

49) fear and other drugs

(cw: light gore)

There is a woman buried in Naomasa's living room.

She's there, stuck in between a stack of newspapers and a few coupon books, silenced and hidden. She was on the news for a few days a long, long time ago, and then she was forgotten. That's how it usually goes with a missing person's case. But that time... it was almost unfairly fast.

To Naomasa, it was unfair how quickly her story was brushed aside, swept under the rug.

Her face and name were in the papers, along with a number to call for tips or questions for the police, and then she was gone forever. Just like that.

Everyone knew her for a moment and then in turn forgot about the woman who went missing and was never found again. The woman who left her barely six year old son behind to be taken in by an absent father.

It happens all the time, really, so why would anyone care? Why would anyone remember? No one ever does when it comes to these sorts of things.

But Naomasa does.

He kind of has to, but not just because it's his job. He cares because whenever things don't go right, or when something bad happens, he's always the one who has to take care of it. He's the one who has to call the parents of a missing child and tell them that they found their child... but not in the way anyone would've wanted. He's the one who has to call the partners of young adults when another fatal car accident happens on his time. He's the one to break the bad news to families, and while it happens all the time it never actually gets any easier.

It never will.

So maybe that's why he's still stuck on her. Maybe that's why Midoriya Inko, the one case Naomasa couldn't solve, has been plaguing his thoughts again years after he was first assigned to her.

He sighs to himself, swiping his hands slowly down his face as he tries to wipe the sleep from his eyes. He doesn't remember the last time he took a break, but he's surely not going to stop now. There's too much to do. Too much to look into.

He—he should really be taking another look at the photos in front of him. The ones taken at the scene of the Abandoned Building Burnout, as the press has so kindly dubbed it.

Naomasa, however, has taken to calling it Rabbit's Reveal, just so the event is easier to sort in his mind. God knows he needs some organization around here. Especially now.

The details and pictures of all the victims are spread out before him, and Aizawa's notes are scrawled on the sides of them. The man dropped them off this morning, where Naomasa was then filled in about what's been happening recently with Midoriya. They're going to meet up again at Aizawa's apartment instead in a couple days to finish talking and to go into depth about some things (Naomasa needs direct answers from Midoriya, even though he knows Midoriya won't like it).

But even as he tries to distract himself with these thoughts, Naomasa eventually caves and reaches forward to take Midoriya Inko's old file from the stack.

He promised himself, after the case was forced close by his superiors and the board, after he attended Midoriya Inko's funeral (one of thousands he's been to, although this time the grave was empty) and saw little Midoriya Izuku standing beside the Bakugou family all sad and confused while watching the service, that he'd take care of her son.

He promised to look after him as payment for failing her. For not being able to figure out what happened, for not being able to see.

Midoriya Hisashi was not at her funeral. And that should've been enough to tell Naoamasa what was going on. Usually you have to be missing for around seven years to be labeled legally dead, but they pushed for this. Midoriya Hisashi and the others... they claimed that all the blood at the scene proved she couldn't have survived for long. The man tried to say that they couldn't drag on the search because it would harm his son mentally. That it would traumatize him further.