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Inko doesn’t believe Mitsuki, not at first. She’s always been a prankster, always been eager to pull the rug out from under people.
But she’s not smiling now. And Inko’s darling boy is nowhere to be seen.
“Surely you’re mistaken,” she protests.
The detective who’s been sitting placidly next to Mitsuki frowns sympathetically. “I wish we were, ma’am, but it would seem that your son is missing.”
"No, no, that's not right," she refutes. "Izuku is fine!" He's watching cartoons in the living room, or else playing Heroes and Villains with little Katsuki-kun in his bedroom.
Inko pushes back from the table and stands, then turns over her shoulder to dart into the living room. "Izuku! Izuku, hon, come on out!"
"Inko-" she ignores Mitsuki's quiet plea from behind her. When the living room is empty, she bursts into Izuku's room.
Tears pinprick at the corners of her eyes. Izuku isn't here. Could Mitsuki be… could she be right?
No.
She can't be.
Inko won't accept that. If he's not in the house, he must be outside it.
Because Izuku was supposed to be safe. He was supposed to be with his beloved Kacchan, he was supposed to stay at Mitsuki's while Inko was stuck at work, he was supposed to be safe.
Izuku has to be fine.
She races to the front door, slips on her shoes,and grabs the house keys. She twists the doorknob, then feels a sharp pressure on her wrist.
It's Mitsuki. "Inko, don't. He's not out there."
"He is. He has to be!" Inko insists. Mitsuki's eyes well up with tears, and she pulled Inko into a tight hug. (It's not until later that Inko will realize this is the first time her friend's cried since Marasu left.)
"I'm sorry," Mitsuki murmurs. "We've been looking for hours, now, with no sign of him. He's gone."
Inko's world tilts on its axis, then falls into the abyss.
And everything
goes
numb .
The following week is hard, unimaginably so. Inko doesn't remember much of the following conversations, only bits and pieces.
"When was the last time you saw your son-"
"-so sorry, have no idea what I'd-"
"-need to start thinking about what we'll do if-"
"-three days and still no sign-"
"Inko?" Her gaze snaps up to meet Mitsuki's fierce one. "Inko, listen to me. They're calling off the search."
"What?" Inko breathes.
"They say they've spent too much time and energy already," Mitsuki says derisively. "They aren't going to keep looking for him."
For the first time since Izuku's disappearance, Inko feels something other than numb.
Inko is enraged.
who knows what
Somehow, Inko finds her way to Detective Tsukauchi's door. He's the last one in the district- all of the other ones too busy or set in their stingy old ways to listen and aid her- and he's Inko's last hope. As unwilling as all of these detectives have been, they at least have a somewhat personal stake in helping her. Detectives from other precincts have no such inclination.
Inko takes a deep breath, then steels her expression. (She knows how this goes. She's a woman, she's someone they'll easily dismiss as emotionally driven/unstable the second they get the chance, so she can present nothin but a strong face. She has to, if she wants their help. And as much as Inko loathes to admit it, she does need their help. Inko can’t do much on her own in such an unfamiliar world.)
Inko sharply raps her knuckles against the door. "Detective Tsukauchi? We need to talk. I'm-"
-"Midoriya Inko," the detective interrupts, gesturing her inside. "I had a feeling you might stop by."
"I trust that you've researched my son's case then?"
Tsukauchi nods slightly, and only then does Inko step in. “I first looked into it when it had just happened, and when someone spread the news that you were coming around seeking help, I researched it further.”
“And?” she prompts, curious to see where he’s leading with this.
The detective sighs heavily and Inko knows he has nothing good to tell her. (She had known that would be the case when she came here, but still. Inko had hoped.)
“I couldn’t find much,” he admits, looking down. “Whoever took him covered up their tracks quite well, at least considering what the reporting officers found, and by the time I started looking into your son’s disappearance with any real depth, too much time had passed for there to be anything useful at the crime scene.”
Inko stonily meets his eyes, unwilling to flinch as he rejects her as all the others have. As he tells her that there’s nothing he can do, her son is simply too low-profile, the dots too hard to connect. As he tells her that her son, her sweet, darling boy, simply ran away.
“It will be hard to find anything, but I’m sure we can do it. We’ll look into trafficking rings, we’ll check out any new villains or vigilantes that may appear, and I’ll do everything in my power to help you find your son,” Tsukauchi promises sincerely.
Inko gasps, then drops into a deep bow.
“From the bottom of my heart, thank you .” Inko straightens back up and meets his eyes once more. “I will hold you to your promise, Detective.”
“Oh, I know,” he says, then pulls out a notebook. “Now, why don’t we start from the beginning. I’ve read the case files, I know what’s been said, but I’ve never been there. Tell me; what happened that day?”
That first meeting is the beginning of an interesting journey. They find incorrect leads as often as anything, and the few that aren’t immediately disprovable are still dead ends.
Still, they keep going. After Izuku’s disappearance, Inko had quit her job in favor of first, grief, and then scolding the bigoted detectives who refused to help find a lost little boy, stolen from his mother. As such, she spends most of her time these days down at the station with Tsukauchi, alternating working with him and researching on her own while he performs his other dutiesi.
The rest of it, however, is spent at home, reading and rereading her son’s precious notebooks. The early ones are mostly incoherent, filled with childish caricatures and half-baked observations.
All Might is a prominent feature, and every new entry tugs on Inko’s heartstrings in one way or another.
There’s one entry, however, that brings her to tears.
Tucked away in the back corner of Hero Analysis for the Future 2.0! there’s a small entry entitled ‘Mom.’
‘My momma is the best momma in the whole world!’ he writes with a familiar childish scrawl. ‘She's so strong an’ smart and cool!!! Momma’s my superhero!’
A soft sob escapes Inko. Her son… her darling boy… Izuku looks up to her. Izuku is counting on her.
Inko is going to do everything in her power to get him back, her vigor renewed. She won’t let him down. (Inko even takes to carrying the notebook around with her; a reminder to stay strong.)
Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as deciding she’ll find the answer.
When months later they still have no better leads, they’re still hearing nothing more than rumors, Tsukauchi urges Inko to get a job, or at the very least find some sort of cause.
“You’re spending all of your time focusing on this,” he tells her, his hands clasping hers. “Sooner or later you’re going to burn out, and it won’t help anybody.”
Inko nearly snaps, a scathing outburst on the tip of her tongue. How dare he say that. How dare he.
But Inko inhales sharply. She takes a moment, just one, to think it through. And she concedes.
Inko doesn’t like it, but she concedes.
“I suppose you’re right. And what do you suggest I do instead?”
Tsukauchi hums thoughtfully. “Well, my main suggestion would be some sort of outreach program, especially if you can join one that focuses on quirk discrimination and the like.”
Inko’s breath catches. That is exactly the type of cause she’s willing to work towards, and that Tsukauchi knows her well enough to know that? Knows her well enough to know that the charity hitting close to home comforts her, rather than alienating her? It speaks volumes to how close they’ve gotten.
Inko stays for lunch, a shared okonomiyaki she’d made for dinner last night but hadn’t had the stomach for all by herself. (If she planned it on purpose, knowing all the while that it’s Tsukauchi’s favorite food, well. That’s no one’s business but hers.)
She went home soon afterwards and immediately set about finding an outreach program nearby. Something that feels relevant.
It takes half an hour and half a dozen searches growing more and more specific, but Inko manages to find what seems like the perfect program.
The Harada Foundation, an outreach program for kids from all walks of life. According to their website, it’s well-equipped to help kids with “weak” or “villainous quirks” by virtue of their staff, who’ve all been in the same types of situations. The more she looks onto it, the better it seems, especially considering their various resources.
The main selling point, however, is this.
‘ We also host Quirkless support groups run by Quirkless counselors and specially trained staff.’ This… this could’ve helped Izuku. This can help so many kids .
Inko dusts off her resume and pulls up the application form in a flash, and before the day’s through the Harada Foundation reaches out. It’s a volunteer organization, so Inko’s not going to get rich anytime soon, but that’s not why she wants- no, needs to do this.
Inko has to do this for her son.
But she’s also doing this for herself.
Inko’s first day is spent learning the ropes, the children all outside or else distracted with the other instructors while another shows her around. Inko gets placed with the six-to-nine-year-olds to start, and she can only hope it’ll go well; she remembers how Izuku was at that age. (And isn't that thought accompanied by a pang in her chest?)
Her very first day, not an hour after Inko’s been thrust into their life, a small little boy wanders over, tears in his eyes, small tail drooping.
Inko crouches down to look him in the eyes. “Hey there, sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
He sniffles and looks away. “I don’, I don’t wanna, I-” he trails off.
“You don’t want to tell me?” Inko guesses quietly. The boy nods reluctantly, and she gently smiles up at him. “Hey, that’s alright. It’s alright.” Suddenly, Inko notices his shirt, full of modern-day heroes. “Say… would you like to read a book with me instead? Something about heroes, perhaps?”
He nods furiously, a bit of his earlier pain forgotten, and Inko smiles. “Wonderful. I’m Midoriya, by the way. What’s your name?”
“I’m Haruka.”
“That’s a lovely name. Now, let’s go find a good book, yeah?” Inko takes Haruka’s hand in hers and leads him over to the bookshelf, where he picks out a golden-age All Might book.
He reminds her of Izuku, painfully so, but Inko finds she almost doesn’t mind it.
The end of the day comes far too soon, and Inko waves to the kids as they leave, surprising even herself when she remembers most of their names.
Inko settles into an easy routine, soon enough. Inko spends the mornings with Tsukauchi or else driving around town, scarfing down a quick lunch, then heads to the organization’s building, where she spends her afternoon and a good chunk of evening.
Weeks, months, a year passes like this before they find any information that’s even remotely useful, and it’s still no more than just a faint whisper.
Not even that, a murmur.
Ghost.
True to their moniker, nothing is known about them. But they’re small and lithe and Inko's boy has always been good at hiding.
“Don’t get too excited,” Tsukauchi warns, but there’s a faint glimmer in his eyes that betrays his own rising hope.
Several more months pass as they learn more about Ghost and Inko focuses more on the program. It’s hard work that gets easier with time. Inko learns more about the kids and gradually grows closer with them, though there’s still that level of distance with some kids. They’ve all experienced discrimination of some sort or another, unfortunately, but Inko’s experience with it means the shy, “weak-quirked” kids are eager to interact with her, while the ones with more “villainous” quirks think she can’t possibly understand them.
Inko tries her best to prove otherwise, but it’s something that’ll come with time.
Eventually though, her duty shifts from a caretaker of sorts to the group's own makeshift nurse. Inko doesn’t mind in the slightest, happy to put her hard-won skills to use after they spent so many years on the shelf, so to speak.
Besides, it helps her grow closer to the kids, and she’s glad for it. (Sometimes though, it pains her. These small, small children are coming in with scrapes and scratches Innko knows damn well didn’t come from a playground tussle between friends. But Inko’s been there before, fought that fight for herself and her son, and never once has informing an adult solved the problem.)
It’s honest work, though it doesn’t pay too much. Inko’s always had a soft spot for kids, and helping ones that are just like she was? It carves out a new space in her heart and makes it all it’s own.
And eventually, somehow, Inko finds her way back to the hospital. Through the organization, sure, but she didn’t think she’d be back here. There are things Inko can’t do on her own though, supplies she doesn’t have, so the return to the hospital is less of a choice and more a necessity. Still, it’s. It’s nice. Inko reconnects with old coworkers, catches up after both their shifts are done and they’ve got free time.
Just like that, it’s all too easy to let time slip away. Two years turn into three turn into four, all the while Inko not-quite fades. She still researches with Tsukauchi, still double-takes at corners when the child running past isn’t Inko’s boy but another.
Inko still hopes.
But time moves on for all, and Inko gets caught up with it. She rarely pays attention to the news, but she see’s how stressed Tsukauchi is getting to be. As such, she starts seeing him on the weekends only, and it lets her fill her mornings with emergency shifts in the ER or else spent in the children's ward before she heads to the Harada Foundation for an evening in the nurse's office, or else with the kids if it’s slow going.
It’s on one such night, five years after Izuku’s disappearance, that the channel switches from the children’s program it had been on to footage of a city in chaos.
HOSU CITY, the headlines blare. Nomu on the loose, three dead already, the Hero Killer spotted in a random side street. Inko, with the swift deftness that comes naturally to mothers everywhere, switches the channel before any of the kids can really process it, and she manages to find another movie quickly.
She juggles the kids for the rest of the night the same as always, but she makes sure to keep an eye on her phone.
When Tsukauchi calls her on her way home around ten, it doesn’t come as a surprise.
She saw the news. She knows her worth, she knows that she’s close enough to Hosu general and on-call for when they’re understaffed enough to the point of necessity. Inko also knows how bad villain attacks can get.
“I’ll be right there,” she promises, already halfway out the door.
“Excellent. See you soon.” The detective hangs up.
Inko’s rushing into the hospital a half hour later, and the detective meets her in the front lobby, along with a scraggly looking man.
“Midoriya-san, hello,” the detective greets.
Inko nods and glances around surreptitiously. “Hello, Detective. Where do you need me?”
The other man steps forward, then, hand up in a half-wave. “Hello Midoriya-san, I’m Aizawa, though you may have heard of me by my hero name- Eraserhead.” Inko shakes her head that she hasn’t, and he nods. “I have someone for you to… meet.”
Inko frowns. “I thought this was a work-related call? Is this- do they not need me?”
Aizawa inexplicably glares at the detective, who raises his hands apologetically. “I apologize for giving you that impression, but the hospital is operating just fine. No, you’re here for… it’s best if I just show you.” The detective turns on his heels and Aizawa follows, and Inko is left with no choice but to go along, wary of what this could mean.
Someone Inko hasn’t met before, in a situation that’s hard to explain.
It’s all rather suspicious, but Inko’s worked with Detective Tsukauchi over the years, and she knows a good kid when she sees one.
They end up on the fourth floor in the pediatric ward, and Inko’s curiosity only grows. There’s a small niggling in the back of her mind, something suspiciously like hope , but she pushes it away.
The detective stops at room two-twenty-three, and Aizawa gestures in. “After you?”
Inko glances at the detective to confirm. He nods, and she twists the doorknob.
Inside the room is something- some one - she never expected to see again.
His eyes may be haunted, and he may have gained far too many scars, but Inko would recognize him anywhere.
She's finally rediscovered her center of gravity. Her world is balanced again.
“Mom?”
“Izuku!”
Her son is home.