He had interrogated murderers, impostors, self-made prophets, clumsy imitators, and geniuses without a moral compass. He learned, through forced repetition, to detect falsehood when it clung to the skin like an indelible shadow. But the boy in that room didn't fit into any known category.
He stood upright with a ceremonial stillness, too precise for someone rescued from a two-year hell. The heart monitor traced a normal pulse, a rhythm that contradicted the supposed disorientation, and Tsukauchi noticed the incongruence instantly: the human heart rarely lies. And yet, that little boy breathed as if reality were a language he no longer spoke.
The detective left the hospital, letting the dawn cling to his coat. He lit a cigarette he didn't inhale, a ritual gesture to organize scattered thoughts. The nonexistent smoke rose before his eyes, a mute metaphor for his patience.
The Special Investigation Department occupied an anodyne floor, saturated with the smell of aged paper and stale coffee. Tsukauchi walked down the hallways, greeted with a minimal gesture, and set the folder on his desk. The cover read:
Izuku Midoriya — Missing minor (open case)
He reviewed the photo: innocent smile, lively expression, transparent gaze. The child he had seen at the hospital was a different entity. He searched for inconsistencies, dates, reports, contradictory accounts from witnesses who had never seen anything.
One night he disappeared from the park. The patrol took fifteen minutes to arrive. There were no cameras within a two-block radius. No anomalies reported. A case without traces: too clean.
He turned on the computer and went through the list of discarded suspects: neighbors, teachers, a harmless janitor. Then, among sheets from Izuku's class, his gaze stopped on a name: a boy with blond hair and red eyes.
"He didn't cooperate at the time," Tsukauchi murmured, "but now… I'll have to reconsider some questions."
A day passed. He returned to the hospital, not to interrogate but to observe. He had the habit of watching when no one suspected they were being watched.
He stopped in front of the room. The half-open door revealed Inko asleep in a chair. The heart monitor persisted in its obstinate tic. And the boy… was awake. Not enough to speak, but enough to assess the environment.
His barely open eyes were not those of someone confused. Nor of a traumatized child. They observed the ceiling with an unsettling serenity, cold, almost clinical, as if he examined the world from a prism foreign to childhood and pain.
He didn't seem to notice the detective's presence. Or, if he did, he hid it with surgical precision.
Tsukauchi stepped back, closed the door carefully, and walked down the hall. The doctor on duty was reviewing some forms.
"Has he said anything else?"
"No, sir. Nothing relevant. He still has no memories."
The detective nodded. His instinct, the silent compass that rarely erred, vibrated with a subtle tremor.
Traumatized victims. Children in shock. Shattered survivors. Izuku was none of them. His fragility was too orderly, too intact. A perfect anomaly amid chaos.
'Something about that boy doesn't fit. It's like he's a robot trying to replicate human emotions.'
The Bakugō house was in an orderly neighborhood, quiet at that hour. He walked along the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, reviewing the blond boy's file.
Katsuki Bakugō. Twelve years old, explosive temper—literally and figuratively—tendency toward aggression toward more vulnerable children. School history full of warnings. Interrogated at the start of the case… without useful results.
Tsukauchi stopped in front of the door. The garden had been freshly watered; the damp smell of the soil mixed with the distant murmur of televisions. He rang the bell once.
The door opened almost immediately.
Mitsuki Bakugō appeared with a frown, as though she were already annoyed in advance.
"Detective Tsukauchi? Did something happen?"
The woman didn't lose her hardness, but her expression showed a tiny tremor. Perhaps a mother's intuition. Or someone else's guilt.
"I need to speak with your son," he said, showing his badge without aggression. "It's about the Midoriya case."
Mitsuki tightened her jaw.
"I thought that was already closed."
"It was never closed," he replied. "And now we have new information."
The woman hesitated for a moment.
"Katsuki is in his room. Come in."
The interior of the house was bright, spotless, warmly decorated. Nothing that matched truly troubled families. Nothing that revealed violence, neglect, or secrets… except the tense silence that settled as he walked through the living room.
Mitsuki knocked on the bedroom door.
"Katsuki! The detective wants to talk to you."
A growl came from inside.
"Again? I already said everything I had to say!"
Tsukauchi narrowed his eyes. The resistance didn't surprise him… but that exact tone did: irritation mixed with a defensive annoyance that was hard to fake.
The door swung open.
Katsuki Bakugō looked straight at him, without lowering his gaze. Red eyes burning, tense jaw. He was a child, but with the latent energy of a restrained storm.
"What do you want now?" he snapped, crossing his arms.
The detective watched him in silence. Not the attitude. The eyes. He searched for the kind of trace he had seen extinguished in Izuku's.
Absolutely nothing. Those eyes had fire.
Finally, he spoke:
"Izuku Midoriya was found the night before last," Tsukauchi announced, letting the weight of the sentence fall into the room like a damp slab. "He appeared at his doorstep. He has multiple injuries, some severe."
Katsuki's fury vanished instantly. His face froze, unmoving, as if the words had pierced a layer he didn't even know he had. He stopped being an exalted child and became, for an instant, a body unable to process what he had just heard. Wide eyes, clenched jaw, suspended breath. Some children screamed in surprise; Katsuki simply broke inward.
Tsukauchi observed that reaction with silent precision.
"I came because this time I need your cooperation," he continued, with a tone that allowed no evasions. "Now that Izuku has returned, any detail, no matter how small, could help us reconstruct what happened."
Katsuki didn't respond immediately. His hand tightened around the doorframe, knuckles whitening. For a moment, he seemed torn between stepping back or setting the world on fire. But all he did was lower his gaze, as if an old guilt had finally caught up with him.
He took a deep breath, a harsh inhalation that seemed to tear at his throat. He lifted his gaze just enough to see the detective's unchanging face. That irritated him even more… or perhaps it freed him.
"I'll tell you," he murmured at last. "But not because I want to help you. It's because… I can't keep quiet anymore."
Tsukauchi tilted his head a millimeter, inviting him to continue without pressuring him.
"That day… the last day we saw him…" His voice faltered for an instant, but he didn't seek comfort. He simply resumed. "We were at the park. The others left early. Only the two of us stayed."
A brief silence.
"I…" His jaw trembled. "We never got along. He was always behind me, copying everything, asking things, following me like a damn puppy."
Tsukauchi watched without blinking.
"I… excluded him," Katsuki admitted, each syllable heavy as a stone. "We all did, but I… I was the worst. I yelled at him. I pushed him. I treated him like trash. Because he didn't have a Quirk."
A flash of shame went through him.
"That day, he wanted to play with me. Again." His lips tightened, as if remembering that Izuku—naive, insistent, stubborn—was unbearably uncomfortable. "I was in a bad mood. I don't remember why. I just… exploded."
Katsuki clenched his teeth.
"I hit him."
There was no dramatization, only a dry confession.
"Not once. Several times." His breathing became uneven. "I pushed him so hard he fell to the ground. He scraped his knees. He stayed there, lying on the dirt with that stupid face as always… and I left. I left him there."
Tsukauchi didn't move a muscle.
"I never thought…" Katsuki looked down at the floor, as if it could absolve him. "I never thought that because of me… he… would disappear. I thought he'd get up afterward. Go home like always. That… I don't know."
Katsuki lifted his gaze, eyes slightly reddened though he refused to cry.
"Do you think… it was because of that? That if I hadn't left him alone, none of this would've happened?"
Tsukauchi took a few seconds. No rush. The truth, that volatile creature, needed space to settle.
"I don't know yet," he replied honestly. "But I do know that what you did that day… doesn't fully explain those two years of disappearance. It doesn't explain where he was. Or how he came back. Or his current state."
The detective leaned forward slightly.
"Your guilt doesn't change the facts, Katsuki. But it can help us reconstruct the beginning."
Katsuki looked away again, submerged in an inner conflict he didn't know how to name.
"What happened after you left," Tsukauchi added, "is not your responsibility. But what happened before… that is."
The boy clenched his fists.
"I… I know."