Chapter Text
Naomasa sat in a cold, sturdy chair in a plain room with beige walls and no windows. On his right sat Officer Tamagawa Sansa, one of two officers that had been staking out the Midoriyas’ apartment until the past hour — when he had brought the lone remaining Midoriya in for questioning.
Across from them sat Midoriya Inko. She was not in handcuffs, nor had her belongings been removed. Niceties had been exchanged. Now, Naomasa went to the heart of the matter.
“Where is your son, Mrs. Midoriya?”
Much like last time she’d been interviewed, Mrs. Midoriya had a handkerchief at the ready. Her eyes were dry as she stuttered out, “I-I’m sorry, Detective. I d-don’t know.”
Truth.
He pressed her anyways. “On Monday morning, you called Izuku out sick due to strep throat. While it’s normal for symptoms to abate within a day of the appropriate medicine, in the past I have observed you to be a woman with a great degree of concern for your child. That is to say, you worry easily. I find it hard to believe that you would take your eyes off him so soon after an illness. So, I’ll ask you again. Do you have any idea of where Midoriya Izuku might currently be?”
“W-with his father?” she suggested uncertainly. Naomasa waited, but she did not elaborate.
“Could you please describe the circumstances of when you last saw your son and husband?”
Now she sniffled, and tears began to bead in her eyes. “What’s going on? Why a-are you looking for them?”
“It’s for an ongoing investigation. Unfortunately, I am unable to provide more detail.”
“If you refuse to cooperate,” Sansa piped up, “You could be charged with obstruction of justice.” That was, currently, an empty threat. But it was effective in evoking responses.
Mrs. Midoriya hastily wiped the cloth over her face. “They left the apartment together earlier today.”
“Why?”
Suddenly tears poured down her face, and she hid it completely in the handkerchief. “I don’t kn-know!” Lie. “They were in a hurry!” Truth.
Naomasa crossed his arms. “Ah…my apologies. I knew I was forgetting something.” He leaned forward. “Mrs. Midoriya, at this point I would like to inform you of something. My quirk is uniquely suited for questioning witnesses. Simply put, I can detect when someone tells a lie. Do you understand?”
To her credit, Mrs. Midoriya gave no indication that this being revealed right after she’d lied distressed her. She merely nodded.
“Considering you just lied, I’m afraid we are now obligated to officially—”
“Did I?”
He let her cut him off briefly. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Surely you need proof,” she insisted.
“If it comes to it, my testimony is admissible in court.”
“Testimony,” she repeated. “So, on the basis of your own trustworthiness, and that of your quirk.”
Naomasa narrowed his eyes in suspicion at the statement. Sansa fidgeted in place. Suddenly, the person in the room with the least bothered composure was Midoriya Inko herself. In rather inconvenient timing, his phone chose this moment to silently ring in his pocket. He ignored it. “This is not the time for—”
“My husband has white hair.”
Lie. For a second, he was too surprised at her interrupting him a second time to register it. Then he paused. Sansa was unable to contain his sideways glance. Both policemen were fully aware Midoriya Hisashi was described as having curly white hair and that his I.D. displayed the same.
For now, he would play her game. What was the lie? “Who is your husband?”
“Midoriya Hisashi.” Truth.
“Is his hair currently a color other than white?”
“No.” Truth.
“Does he or has he ever worn a wig?”
“No.” Truth.
He pointed at the mug sitting in front of his cat-headed partner. “Is the color that I’m pointing at white?”
“Yes.” Truth.
Astoundingly, he found himself straining to find other loopholes in her statement. “Is Midoriya Hisashi your only husband?”
“Yes.” Truth.
He grasped at a strand of his short-cropped hair. “Is this hair?”
“Yes.” Truth.
If all her perceptions were factually correct, how had that statement been a lie? This time, he was the one to glance sideways at his partner. Sansa stiffened at the hint that the responses were not what they were supposed to be.
“Do you admit that your quirk is unreliable?” Mrs. Midoriya asked in a deceptively pleasant tone.
“One statement is hardly proof,” Naomasa found himself saying. Suddenly, he felt like he was the one being interrogated. She had been clever, to choose a supposed fact to be registered as a lie. The usual problem his quirk ran up against was selective truths hiding a lie by never registering as one in the first place.
She opened her mouth as if to continue, but he did not let her this time. “Mrs. Midoriya, I am not entertaining this any longer. My apologies for this, but we still have the right to detain you for three days even before initiation of an investigation. We will inform you of the process applying to you shortly, but for the moment my partner and I need to step out. Do you need anything urgently? Water, the bathroom?”
“No,” she said bluntly.
He nodded at her and left the room with Sansa. Another officer was passing by in the hallway, and he flagged them down and instructed them to watch the door.
“Are we consulting with the Chief?” Sansa asked as they continued further into the station.
“Yes. The investigation was officially into the vigilante, Phoenix. Considering how sparse the ties were to just Midoriya Izuku, I’m not certain Midoriya Inko would fall under the extended detention time frame.”
Sansa nodded, and then his ear twitched. He halted in stride and looked back the way they came. Trusting the senses of his long-time comrade, Naomasa did the same. “What’s wrong?”
The other policeman launched into a sprint. Naomasa ran after him just a second later. “Interview Room B breached!” Sansa shouted, possibly in the hopes that another officer would hear their commotion, since none were in sight. “Witness in distress!”
What?! They’d left somebody to guard the door and if the precinct had been breached, there would be alarms blaring. Naomasa had thought the only threat would be Mrs. Midoriya attempting to run.
But no — they rounded a hallway corner to see an unguarded interview room door wide open and the sound of a scuffle inside. Naomasa, slightly faster than Sansa, overtook him and skidded inside, fists rising in preparation —
— only to see the guard he’d left behind get pepper-sprayed in the face by a wrathful Midoriya Inko.
“Whoa!” He dodged to the left as she turned the spray in his direction. Sansa rushed in, but the woman didn’t spray again. The officer she had attacked — or, who had attacked her? — writhed on the ground.
“Officer Ando!” Sansa hissed out. “Explain yourself!”
“A-a little help, here?” The officer pleaded. “Normally when a civilian attacks an officer, they’re the ones under suspicion!”
“I know what I heard,” Sansa said. “Having a silencer on your gun is bad enough, much less firing the thing outside proper protocol!”
Meanwhile, Naomasa examined Mrs. Midoriya closely. Blood dripped down from somewhere hidden in her hair, on the left side of her head, and rather damningly there was a bullet hole in the room’s wall. Despite this, she stood confidently with her spray at the ready and watched their interaction with the rogue officer cautiously.
“Where are you hurt?” Naomasa asked her. “Did that bullet graze you, or is that blood from something else?”
Wordlessly, she used her free hand to pull back her hair. He grimaced at the sight. A good chunk of her ear had been taken out by the bullet. Immediately, he thought to ask dispatch for a medical unit, but hesitated.
Sansa was putting a struggling Officer Ando in cuffs. Nobody had been drawn by the commotion to the room, which meant most of the precinct was out. Unsurprising given what was going on with the UA students’ summer camp, even if this station in particular wasn’t directly involved. But Officer Ando…this officer had worked at this station for years. This was no new hire planted to aid the League of Villains, or whoever else might be after Midoriya Inko. If there was one, there could be more. Naomasa couldn’t trust anyone emergency related, except Sansa. He was certain the Chief could be too, but time could be of the essence and now Midoriya Inko needed rapid relocation with minimal details listed on any official records.
“Mrs. Midoriya,” Naomasa said. “Do you trust me?”
She glanced rapidly between him, Sansa, and the restrained officer. “Not particularly.”
“I understand. However, we don’t have much choice. I need to relocate you before any other potential plants have the opportunity to try again. I can’t say where, considering,” he indicated the rogue officer in plain hearing distance. “But I promise you will come to no harm.”
She hesitated but eventually lowered her hand with a terse nod. He let her grab her items and instructed Sansa to handle the situation with the Chief. Then, he guided Mrs. Midoriya into one of their undercover vehicles and left the station.
“Where are we going?” she asked after a few minutes.
“Your son interned with Eraserhead, didn’t he?” he asked her instead of immediately replying.
“He did.”
“Then you might have heard of it. It’s called the Oken Haunt…”