Chapter 3 - Nickels
Tsukauchi sighed as he finished filing the report for the incident last night.
He hates suicide cases, not just because they’re tragic and horrible for everyone involved, but also because there’s just so much paperwork, and then he feels bad for feeling annoyed about the paperwork for something so serious, and all around it’s just one big horrible cycle of absolute awful.
So no, not a fan. He doesn’t know anyone who is and wouldn’t want to know anyone who is either.
He’s starting to especially dislike this case though.
Shinsou Morie. Quirk: Dominating Gaze, the ability to control anyone she makes eye contact with. So not a paralytic quirk, but a puppeteering one, and since death wasn’t likely to be the natural way to break out of her quirk, then Shouta really could be suffering from some kind of negative effect.
(He forcefully does not think about how the last person he’d known that had been under the effects of a brainwashing quirk when the brainwasher had died was still in a coma.)
To make matters worse, the kid was in the foster system, and he’d have to investigate the home she was placed in no matter how her guardians reacted when he went to inform them of her death later.
Considering there hadn’t been any kind of missing persons report filed recently, he didn’t have high hopes, but it was Saturday, and it’d been very late last night, maybe the kid just didn’t spend a lot of time in the house. He was willing to give them the benefit of doubt at least.
And then after that he needed to work with her social worker to track down the brother she apparently had, and her father. According to the social worker, who had gotten back to him incredibly fast, (apparently she didn’t need sleep, he was a tad jealous), their mother was dead and their father was in prison for murdering her because he claimed she was trying to hurt their children. Clearly the court had either not believed him or not believed it enough of a justification to let him get away lightly after murdering someone.
Tsukauchi was more concerned with the fact that there were exactly three prisons in Japan that were legally allowed to hold villains with puppeteering or brainwashing type quirks, and he dearly hoped that he would not end up needing to visit Tarturas to tell a murderous father who probably hadn’t seen his kids in who knows how long that his daughter had committed suicide.
“You alright Tsukauchi? You look even more exhausted than usual!”
God he was so tired.
“Hello? Earth to Tsukauchi?”
“What? Oh, hi Kaniyashiki, do you need something?”
Kaniyashiki Monika, who was one of the best undercover cops Tsukauchi had ever had the pleasure of working with, and whose hair color seemed to change every time he saw her (today it was a bright neon red that made his eyes hurt), narrowed her eyes and frowned at him.
“Well I was going to ask if you wanted to join me and Emi and a few others for dinner and definitely not karaoke tomorrow, but you seem unusually tired for a Saturday,”
“Definitely not karaoke?”
“Well we wouldn’t want to scare off anybody we may happen to know that has sworn to never be so much as near us if there’s any kind of singing involved…”
“If I had a nickel for every time that happened, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice,”
They both grinned at each other.
“So what’s going on?”
“Suicide case, one that keeps getting more and more complicated,”
“What kind of complicated?”
“Foster system and a villain parent that may or may not be in Tartarus complicated,” Kaniyashiki let out a low whistle as he grimaced. “What about you, anything you can talk about?”
“Not really, I’ve got a trip soon, I’ll be gone for at least a month so long as things go well, maybe more. That’s why we’re having the dinner,”
“A trip huh? Where to?”
Kaniyashiki clicked her tongue,
“Afraid that’s classified,”
Tsukauchi nodded. He hadn’t really expected an answer, because unless she was just fucking with him, they both knew she wasn’t really going on a trip.
“I’ll see what I can do, Sho got hit with a quirk yesterday so as long as they didn’t find any problems with that today it should be fine. When’s dinner?”
“Around seven, he ok?”
He shrugged, Shouta didn’t know Kaniyashiki that well, outside of Fukukado’s presence, the two only ever interacted if they happened to run into each other while on the job. He wasn’t about to spill his worries about his husband’s mental state to her.
“He’ll be fine. I’ll see what I can do, are you going to try and convince Takagi to come too?”
“I’ll leave him to Emi, he doesn’t trust a word I say,”
“Entirely fair,”
“Rude!”
He stood from his desk with a smile that quickly faded and a forlorn sigh.
“I’ll text you about that dinner once we figure it out, I’ve got to deliver some bad news though,”
“Good luck,” she gave his shoulder a light pat before turning to head back towards her own desk.
“Thanks,”
Aizawa appreciates the work of doctors and nurses and surgeons and everyone and anyone else who chooses to work in the medical field. Truly he does.
To be around people who are constantly sick, constantly injured, to save a life even amongst so much unstoppable death. It’s something that seems taxing on a level even beyond anything in heroics, and he has a deep respect for medical professionals because of that.
He also really hates hospitals.
Hates the uncomfortable chairs and the strange smells and the walls and the lights that are either too bright or unpleasantly dull and muted.
The wait times that shouldn’t be a big deal because he could just nap, or at least close his eyes and rest, but he just can’t relax. Can’t help but quietly tense, can’t help but stay distressingly vigilant and try to ignore the heavy feeling of foreboding settling like a stone in his gut.
His phone buzzes in his pocket. He flinches.
Nao: QuirkDominantGaze.pdf
Nao: Details of the quirk from last night, only what’s available on the quirk registry, minor privacy laws
Shouta: thanks
Nao: Let us know that everythings alright?
“Aizawa Shouta?”
He gets up with a sigh, already resigned to having to wait at last another thirty minutes, but this time in a tiny room with colorful and mildly horrific infographics plastered to the walls as he awkwardly sits in a chair in the corner of the room and wonders if he should be sitting on the crinkly plastic of the foam cot instead.
Hagakure Toru was currently doing what a lot of teenagers tended to do on the weekend, sleeping in. Sure, it was almost one in the afternoon by this point, and sure she had some summer homework that needed doing and also really ought to do her laundry sooner rather than later, but right now she was enjoying laying in bed, half asleep and basking in the sun.
She also needed to eat, preferably soon.
Someone knocked on the door.
Now, considering her parents had left early this morning for a work event, she was inclined to just ignore the knocking until it went away.
It did not go away.
The door was locked, right? She should probably check. Just in case.
“Hello? My name is Detective Tsukauchi, I’m with the police, I’m here about Shinsou Morie?”
Oh fuck, had Morie gotten arrested!? Mom and Dad were totally going to kill her.
“Hello, is anybody home?”
What was she supposed to do in this situation??
“Um- Sorry my parents aren’t home right now, is Morie in trouble?”
There was silence for a moment, shoot, should she have pretended no one was home?
“No one is in trouble, are you able to contact your parents?”
“Uh, I probably could?”
“I see, do you know when they’ll be back?”
“No- they had some kind of work thing, so they left early this morning,”
Wait a moment, she should be double checking that this is actually a detective right? Or that he’s actually working with the police.
…
How is she supposed to do that though?
“Would you be willing to give me their contact information? Or call them yourself and ask them to come home?” there was a pause for a moment, like the detective was debating whether or not to say more. “You can tell them it’s an emergency,”
“Is Morie ok? Did something bad happen?”
“Why don’t you call your parents first and then I can tell you all at once,”
Toru stared at the door, that was not a good sign.
“Ok! Ok hold on I will!” turning and running back into her room she grabbed her phone off the charger and called her Mom.
‘You better be ok Morie,’
Well the bad news was that the quirk, Dominant Gaze apparently, had indeed fucked up his brain a bit.
“As best we can tell, the quirk relied on messing with your adrenaline levels and probably a couple other hormones to work. I’d recommend seeing a quirk specialist if you want to figure out the finer details,”
The good news was that it wasn’t permanent, and should be back to normal within the week.
“But if you’re still noticing anything odd or unusual then make another appointment, these kinds of quirks can be tricky, and this kind of situation is pretty rare and nearly impossible to study,” Doctor Kinjo (as his name tag read, because he’d forgotten to introduce himself,) smiled at him as Aizawa looked up from the papers he’d been given.
Aizawa didn’t smile back, but he did nod as he finished taking pictures of said papers.
He didn’t possess enough medical knowledge to know what exactly all these tests were or what all the images and percentages and words on the paper meant, but Recovery Girl certainly would if he ended up needing to show her these in a week.
“Any questions?”
Nope.
“No,”
“Alrighty then! You’re free to go! Feel free to call if you think of anything later though!”
Aizawa grunted.
“Thank you for your time,”
He could not wait to go home.
Hagakure Robun was a man with a mutation quirk that made him entirely blue, his hair, skin, eyes, even his teeth. All blue.
He welcomed Tsukauchi into his home with a worried smile and a boisterous voice.
Hagakure Ise had a light manipulation quirk. She had plunged the room into darkness before excusing herself.
She’d made them all tea with shaking hands.
Tsukauchi couldn’t see Hagakure Toru, but he thought the bitter tea was a pretty great representation of his feelings as yet another child was hurt by the whole ordeal.
The Hagakure household was quiet and dark when he left.
“...So, it doesn’t look like the family was abusive or anything, and the kid was in online school, so it’s unlikely there’s anything to investigate there. Small mercies I suppose, not that it feels like it,”
Hizashi hummed as he sprinkled seasoning into the meat, glancing over his shoulder to see Shouta quietly leaning against Naomasa’s shoulder as the man’s head thunked onto the table.
“Their quirk won’t have any lasting effects, should be back to normal by the end of the week,”
“So it was the quirk that made you so out of it then?”
“Probably, apparently it messed with chemicals in my brain, and since I wasn’t released from the quirk effects naturally there wasn’t an automatic off switch telling things to go back normal,” Aizawa shrugged. “At least, that’s how they explained it, they recommended a quirk specialist if I wanted to know more,”
“Do you?”
“Not particularly. Though if anything unusual happens or if things aren’t back to normal in a couple days then I might,”
“Hmm, how are you both doing?”
“I’ll be fine, honestly I feel more guilty about the fact that I don’t feel worse more than anything else. Hate to say it but I’ve gotten used to this stuff to a certain degree,”
“It’s not like there’s anything you could’ve done, and you didn’t know them, it’s logical that you wouldn’t be extremely upset by it,”
“I know, still feel awful about the foster family though,”
“Telling anyone that someone they loved is dead is never easy, Shouta?”
“Ask me again in a week,”
Shouta winced as both Hizashi and Naomasa turned to give him mildly disapproving glares.
“...I’ve set up an appointment with my therapist for later this week,”
Naomasa buried his head back into his arms and Hizashi turned back to their dinner with a small smile.
“Oh, Fukukado and Kaniyashiki invited us to dinner tomorrow-”
“Absolutely not,”
“They invited Takagi over too,”
“...Maybe,”
“Sounds like fun! Hey, isn't Takagi’s wife pregnant? Think she’ll be there?”
“Does it matter?”
“Well yeah! We should get them a gift!”
“We should get Fukukado and Kaniyashiki gifts too then,”
“I am not going gift shopping for Joke,”
“Oh but you’ll go for Rock Lock huh?”
“Yes,”
“So I’ll let them know we’re coming then?”
“Absolutely!”
“Maybe,”
Naomasa figured a non-hesitant maybe was as close to a yes as he was going to get from Shouta. Maybe a non-apprehensive one if they were lucky, but he’d take what he could get.
Pinochio: We’ll be there tomorrow
Pinochio: …
Pinochio: Pinochio? Really?
TheJoker: I’m hilarious I know
SneakySneeSnek: :D
Pinochio: I thought you hated snakes
SneakySneeSnek: *SNEESNEK
SneakySneeSnek: Not snake
SneakySneeSnek: Snek
Pinochio: I’m too tired for this
TheJoker: LMAO
Pinochio: Shouta was right
TheJoker: Too late now fucker!!!
Pinochio: No legitimately too tired, rough case
SneakySneeSnek: Oh yeah howd that go
Pinochio: Better than expected, still bad
TheJoker: That’s rough
Pinochio: Nothing new
SneakySneeSnek: Unfortunately
SneakySneeSnek: Is Aizawa ok tho
“Shouta, do you mind if I tell Fukukado and Kaniyashiki about the quirk?”
“I’ll do it,”
GrumpyPants: im fine
GrumpyPants: joke
TheJoker: Eraserhead :)
Pinochio: Weak name, disappointing
TheJoker: Yeah well I’d like to see grumpy pants do better
GrumpyPants: 2 days
SneakySneeSnek: rip
TheJoker: Why are we worried about Aizawa
GrumpyPants: we are not
Pinochio: Quirk effect
TheJoker: Is it actually fine or Aizawa ‘it’s only a small stab wound’ Shouta fine
Grumpy Pants: one fucking time
Pebbles: I haven’t heard this story.
GrumpyPants: you wont
TheJoker: I’ll tell you tomorrow!!!!
GrumpyPants: no
Pinochio: actually fine
TheJoker: Oh good, wouldn’t want you bleeding out on us
Pebbles: Fine.
Pebbles: I’ll go, but only if you tell that story.
TheJoker: Deal!
GrumpyPants: no karaoke
SneakySneeSnek: :(
GrumpyPants: no