Chapter Text
Vigilantes were a common problem. Someone wanted to “fight against evil” but couldn’t be bothered to take the right paths towards it. A detective's job is to track these people down and take them in. A lot of these vigilantes were kids looking to help but unable to become heroes for one reason or another. Most of the kids were able to be brought in through fingerprints or blood left on a scene since they don’t have the careful planning that villains or underground heroes have. That’s why when a group of people, likely kids, suddenly appeared and started doing vigilante work without being caught, he took notice.
Looking up, he listened to the cat-headed detective in front of him, “Tsukauchi, I have good news and bad news. The good news is we found prints for some of the vigilantes. The bad news is... “ he trailed off awkwardly before hesitantly starting again, “there are no matches whatsoever. We checked multiple times across all the databases we have access to but, there’s nothing.”
“Nothing at all?” the detective asked, “Have you tried looking for their quirks? They all seem to wield a different element so finding a match shouldn’t be too hard.”
“We tried, sir, but things like fire and electricity are so common. Even then, the weird ones like ‘purple light that gives headaches’ and ‘blue light that feels like electricity’ didn’t show up no matter how we worded it.” The cat met Tsukauchi’s eyes as he said, “These people are entirely off the grid.”
Tsukauchi sighed before asking, “Tamakawa, do you at least have the profile on them? Anything would be helpful at this rate.”
“Yes sir, ” the human-cat replied, “It appears that they use code names when speaking to each other along with the elaborate costumes; this means they either are part of a larger organization or have trained together for a long time and have connections. If it’s the latter, they may be siblings or blood brothers of sorts. If they’re part of an organization though things would likely get messy if we tried to capture them.”
Tsukauchi stopped him with a hand, “This is all very useful but do we have any descriptors or police sketches? Hair color, eye color, age, weight, height, anything?”
Tamakawa didn’t meet his eye when he admitted, “Well… some people are saying that they might be teenagers but there’s nothing concrete yet. I know how touchy you get when it comes to vigilante kids but remember, these people are highly trained. You shouldn’t treat them lightly.”
Tsukauchi reflected upon the situation as he thought, “Great, more kids that shouldn’t be on the streets at night, let alone fighting muggers and murderers. Why is it that the first thing kids turn to when they want to do good is violence and self endangerment? Being a police officer or a detective is perfectly honorable, plus it doesn’t put you in danger nearly as much.” None of that mattered at the moment though, Tsukauchi knew he had to bring in these kids one way or another. He hoped they wouldn’t need jail time to see the error in their ways, but if they didn’t see it, that was always an option. There was no guarantee they were kids though, he really hoped that--.
Tsukauchi’s thoughts were put on hold when his phone began ringing. Hopefully whoever was calling didn’t need his help right away. He wanted to put more thought into this case, hopefully, bring them in before the next school year started. Oddly enough though, the caller ID was blank, not even a ‘no ID’, but instead, completely non-existent. He furrowed his brow as he brought the phone to his ear.
“Tsukauchi speaking, how may I help you?” He asked, hesitating only slightly.
“Hello.” A young feminine voice began, “This is Oracle, though you likely do not know me by that name. We found a gang harassing the residents of an apartment building in downtown Fukuoka and took to fix that ourselves. Unfortunately, we do not have the power required to jail them ourselves and we would prefer not to walk directly to a police station now that you have a case on us. We are requesting you come to pick these men up.”
Tsukauchi’s mouth gaped open. How did she get his number? Was this a member of the vigilantes he was looking for? Did they think that calling the detective in charge of their case was a good idea? Did they know he was in charge in the first place? A million thoughts went through his head at once before he realized he would have to respond, but what to ask first?
“Are you part of the vigilante group that appeared recently?”
She hesitantly answered, "Yes." before asking again, "Are you picking these men up or not?" letting a small amount of anger slip through her words.
Tsukauchi’s quirk told him this was true so he responded, “I’ll send some men over, can you stay on the line with me? I’d like to hear more about your group.”
“Sorry, no can do. We’re busy, plus I don’t know if you’re secretly trying to pinpoint my location. I’ll keep in contact with you about any further criminals we take down.” She sounded somewhere between casual and arrogant as she stated this.
It was a last-ditch effort to get a little more information, but it couldn’t hurt to try, “Wait, can I at least get a name for your group? The file name right now is ‘vigilante group 30/12/16’ which isn’t great.”
“Alright. We are the Phantom Thieves. You will be hearing more from me in the future. Goodbye.”
She hung up leaving Tsukauchi and a confused Tamakawa alone once again. The contents of the call were written down, and true to his word, men were sent to look for the gang. A few minutes later though, he received a message from Oracle. An address with the words, “we are hopeful you cooperate” typed out under it. Tsukauchi sent the address to the people in the field, pinching the bridge of his nose as he thought about the case at hand. A group of completely anonymous teenagers with enough experience to take down a gang terrorizing an apartment building. Not only do they have the battle experience, their hacker, ‘Oracle’, was able to find and call the phone number of a high ranking detective. Tsukauchi had to wonder, what kind of life leads to these kinds of people?
The Phantom Thieves of Hearts had seen better days. Shabby attics and school dorm rooms were better than the apartment they found themselves in, if only because they didn’t all live together. Fitting seven people and a cat into a three-person apartment was never a great idea, but what other choice did they have? When you get thrown into a completely unfamiliar world with nothing but your clothes, weapons, savings, and items of questionable origin, you have to make some sacrifices. At least they still had their, admittedly weaker, personas.
Ending up with not enough money and a lot of hard to carry stuff was never the plan, but life had different plans for the group. Plans like giving them magic powers, taking down a prime minister, fighting god, losing, and then being dragged into a world where everyone has completely different magic powers. The most important thing for now though was survival, and that required money. While getting a job seemed like a good idea there would eventually be questions like “who are you”, “where’s your birth certificate” or “how come there’s no record of you existing beyond the last few months”. That left them with two options, steal or stretch their savings as far as possible. Ironically enough, the Phantom Thieves chose not to steal.
Eventually, there would have to be some source of housing, food, and money though. The best-case scenario would be some financial aid from someone who wants to help them, but who would take in a bunch of kids and their cat? After researching possible ideas Futaba stumbled upon a solution, good schools were willing to pay for less well off students to go to them. If they could convince a board of directors that they were worth it the Phantom Thieves would no longer have to live in a tiny apartment rationing food. Only one school made sense at that point, UA highschool.
Given enough time Futaba would be able to fake school records and birth certificates, but that meant that they would have to get into the school. They had a few months to prepare the... less school-focused members for the written test along with already being a year or more ahead, so that part wouldn’t be too much of an issue. The bigger issue was getting at least one person into the hero course. Being brought into another world was great and all, but they still wanted to get back. Finding a way to move through realities would require connections and research, and they only had a specialist in one of those categories. Joker was perfect for the position of ‘connection-making hero’.
The money and training problems came with a not so obvious solution, vigilantism. Some kind strangers would give money or snacks in return for being saved while giving them all valuable experience. This all lead up to the rough situation of trying to act as vigilantes while getting ready to go to the biggest hero school in the country. All while Joker tried to become strong enough to get into the hero department. After an interesting night of training and vigilantism, Akira reached the apartment along with Yusuke, Morgana, Haru, and Futaba.
“We return with sustenance!” Futaba exclaimed into the quiet room, startling Ryuji, Ann, and Makoto.
Ryuji groaned, “Thank goodness, dude. My brain hurts with all the studying Makoto forced us to do.”
“You need to get this down by the time the entrance exams come around.” Makoto scolded while grabbing food for the study group, “Otherwise you might not get into the school and we’ll have to completely restructure our plan. You wouldn’t want that, would you? ”
“N-no queen…” Ryuji stuttered out.
“Hurry up, you know the drill people, shower order goes whoever needs it most and I vote Yusuke.” Morgana teased.
“I most certainly do no-” Yusuke stopped, “Well, maybe I do.”
As Yusuke started taking up the only bathroom the rest of the thieves began to eat. The field crew recounted what happened, explaining their exchange with the detective.
“You mean to tell me that you called the detective trying to capture us… and gave him a location that you were currently at?” Makoto asked incredulously.
“I mean… yeah,” Akira admitted, following quickly, “but we were out of there right after. I was a little worried about Futaba talking with him, but she did really well. She used her serious Alibaba speaking style and it worked.”
“Mweheheh! The great Alibaba strikes fear into the hearts of all no matter what universe!”
“It may be tough, but do you think you’ll be able to handle the communication with him from now on? I don’t want to risk too many people being heard.”
“You can count on me! I want to be paid in instant ramen... I don’t think now is the best time for that though.”
“Ughhhhh.” Ryuji groaned, “Why does all the cool stuff happen while we’re studying?”
“You could probably take a break...” Akira admitted, “how about this, prove you’ve got enough of this down for now and I’ll take you on the next training session.”
“Hell yeah! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!”
“Umm… If I may interject,” Haru started, “was it a good idea to call the detective? There were probably more ways we could have made sure that they were arrested, and with how different superpowers there are in this universe, it may be that we just set ourselves up for being found out.”
“Nahhh, it’s totally fine! I made sure that the call was totally untraceable and even used a slight voice changer. Any reasonable method of finding us out is totally off the table!” A confident Futaba explained.
“Yeah, and now that our name is out there we can finally bring back calling cards! That was the coolest part of the job to me.” Ann excitedly realized.
“Calling cards? But there’s no point anymore, we aren’t messing with cognition. We don’t even need to open any doors in mementos.” Morgana remarked.
“Yeah, but why not? It’s a good idea to get our name out there anyways. I still wanna bring hope to those in need and what better way than to have a group of people doing whatever it takes to help them? Heroes are all high and mighty, and we can be, like, the opposite of that! People lurking in the shadows not bogged down by what we are and aren’t allowed to do. Calling cards are great for that effect!” A remarkably passionate Ann explained.
“Hmm… that is a good way of looking at it Lady Ann. We should talk about it tomorrow after everyone on the field team has showered I expect you all to sleep.“
Everyone gave their affirmations as they got ready to sleep, shifting between rooms to change. The Phantom Thieves drifted off to sleep one by one. The soft breath of his teammates echoed in the background as Akira once again thought through the events of the night. He couldn’t help but feel like something went wrong tonight, that something would come of it soon. Searching through his memories of the evening he couldn’t find anything out of place, nor any kind of reason to be worried. The sense of dread lingered though, squeezing his chest a little as he slowly fell asleep himself. If the feeling continued into the next day, he would have told someone, but he couldn’t do anything now. He let sleep take him into the next day, hoping it will go away.