The closer they got to April, the closer they were to the official opening of DEKU Tower as their official company headquarters, and the more stressed everyone involved in the process became. Izuku had started everything already, hiring staff and helping to arrange the closing of their main New York Office, which would be downgraded to a smaller location.
Already, they had all of the custodial staff and assistant administrators hired, all of whom were already at work, making sure that the building itself would be ready in seven weeks, while his IT systems team were steadily making sure that every computer system was connected to the corporate servers, and that those connections were strong.
There was no end to the ongoing paperwork that seemed to place his desk, and whenever one set of forms was signed and delivered, two more seemed to take their place.
Rather than using the smaller office he had in his penthouse apartment, Izuku had decided to get a head start as CEO and was working a full day in his office, with a temporary secretary outside taken from his admin pool, and a constant stream of visitors, many of whom had questions they wanted asked and answered before the building was officially operating, and also quite a few who simply wanted to thank him for hiring them.
Those who told him that they were glad to have a chance for a real, "legitimate", lifestyle, never failed to bring a smile to his face.
Here they were, helping to save people, one employee contract at a time.
Still, he'd made it clear that he was there to work, so when Rody arrived in his office, walking straight past his secretary, face pursed, and immediately locking the door behind him, Izuku knew that something was wrong. He flicked a switch on the underside of his desk, and the room was instantly soundproofed, jamming all electronics within the confines of its walls.
"What's happened?"
"There was a kidnapping", Rody told him, wasting no time, "happened locally", he bit his lip as Pino fluttered about his shoulders nervously, "you know, I don't get all of this thing that you're doing, but fucking hell", he swore in English, and Izuku knew his friend's Japanese was good enough that he only forgot to use it when he was worried or stressed, and was proven right when he almost immediately swapped back to Japanese, "they're saying that he's only four years old. If there's even a chance that you can help…"
"Let's go".
Rody and his Quirk both sighed in relief, with Pino wiping the imaginary sweat from his brow.
Three in the afternoon was early for a workday, but thankfully, being the hottest new rich guy in town allowed you a lot of leeway when it came to having strange behaviour.
"Shino, something's come up. I'll be gone the rest of the day. If anything else comes up, I'll handle it tomorrow".
"Okay sir", he nodded, "can you just sign this? It's the approval form you wanted for the custodial supervisors to be able to set orders from their own budget".
He handed him a pen, and he took it, signing it, before dropping the pen onto his desk, and marching towards the elevator, with Rody hot on his heels.
"Have a nice night, sir", Shino called.
"You too", he managed to call back, before stepping into his private elevator. Rody was already pressing his thumb to the scanner when he looked, and they stood in silence, as they descended. Taking a deep breath, Izuku sank into his role, and became the Yokohama Vigilante.
"Get on the police scanners", he ordered, not bothering to check that Rody was listening, knowing full well that he wouldn't miss a word he was saying, "I want to know everything that they know. Get an ID on the boy. I want his name. I want his address. I want his school information and everything you can find on his parents and siblings. We need to know if this was a targeted attack, or one of opportunity. If they used a vehicle, I want to know which vehicle they used. I want to know who was driving it. I want to know which direction it went in, and where it is now. Did they take anything other than the boy? And if they did, what did they take?"
Rody's resolve was as solid as any stone, "I'm on it".
The doors opened.
Their supercomputer was a level below the elevator access, but Izuku continued onto the walkways below it, moving down another level to where he kept his armour. He'd removed his jacket, shirt and tie as he walked, casually tossing them aside as he entered the storage room. Slipping out of his polished pumps, his trousers slid down, having already been slightly hanging from his hips, once he had slid the bracers from his shoulders. He took a second to pull of his socks too, but kept his underwear on, leaving him standing in only a pair of very formfitting, plain black briefs.
He reached for the plain body suit.
Made up of two layers of Kevlar-weave, which held a layer of kinetic impact gel between them, the suit was dark grey in colour and unadorned, covering him from the very tips of his wrists and ankles, up to the base of his skull, and sealed itself using the same electromagnetic system as the main body of the suit.
He stepped into his boots and clasped the utility belt he'd created around himself, locking it at the centre of his waist, before sliding the gauntlets he'd designed over his hands, leaving him with only the mask to add, which stared up at him from the mannequin, its slitted eyes and pointy ears, dared him to once again put it on, while the diamond-shaped respirator that covered the lower half of his face, looked particularly like a grin, mocking him.
Last night, he'd been lucky.
Sheer, dumb luck was the only reason at least one kid wasn't lying in the morgue instead of a hospital bed.
Today, he was going to make sure that at least one kid was safe.
He pulled the mask on.
The suit began to activate, the magnet system locking itself into place, and bringing all of its basic systems online, while Izuku reached for the symbol.
For the Bat.
Bats frightened him; bats had saved his life; and now, he would do the same for his city.
With two wings, jagged, like knives pointing up at the sky, Izuku reached for the symbol, a dull green in colour, and set it into place, in the centre of his chest.
Then the suit truly came to life.
The dull green, dark enough to blend in with the dark grey, lit up and became a bright acidic colour, as the nanoparticles spread out across his body, connecting with all of his systems and bringing everything up to being completely operational. Armour that was matte black in colour spread across the grey bodysuit, bathing him in shadows, sharpening his fingers into bright green claws, turning his unadorned forearms into bladed weapons, and granting him access to every weapon that had been stored in his belt's arsenal.
He was ready.
It was time to go to work.
=== === === === ===
"Show me what you've got".
Rody and Pino shivered in unison, as the Yokohama Vigilante walked up behind them. He knew that it was his best friend beneath the mask, but the growling quality it added to his voice, along with the creature-like appearance…
Rody wasn't ashamed to admit it.
The sight of it frightened him.
"Accord-", he cleared his throat, his cheeks coloured red, as his voice came out with a slightly higher-pitch than was normal, "according to the police reports, the kidnapping took place following a vehicular collision. Witnesses reported seeing a car run a red light from an idle position, which then collided with a white van. The driver of the car then pulled the child from the vehicle, dragged him into the van and then they tore out of there".
In an effort of politeness, Izuku removed his mask, "Cameras?"
"On your upper left screen now. Only the one angle, and while we can see the driver getting the kid, we can barely make out anything about the van, other than its white".
Izuku watched the video himself to confirm what Rody had said, before nodding, "What about other local cameras?"
"I tried that, but the area's mostly small stores. Cameras on the inside and the occasional one watching the front door, but nothing with a full street view".
"What about cellphones?"
"Nothing yet", he shrugged, "it's possible no one was recording, or if they were, they haven't posted it yet. KPPD put out a request already, but so far, nobody's come forward".
"Okay, and how long since the abduction?"
Rody quickly checked the clock, "Almost three hours now".
"Tell me about the kid".
"Victim is Yojo Yaoyorozu-"
"Yaoyorozu, as in-"
"As in the YIN? As in, the Yaoyorozu Investment Network? Yeah, one and the same".
"Hmmm…".
"Like I said, Yojo Yaoyorozu, son of Momo Yaoyorozu, and grandson of her parents, Sen and Yukatana Yaoyorozu, owners and operators of the Yaoyorozu Investment Network, which has an annual net income of around six hundred billion yen in your average year".
"So a good target for a ransom".
"No kidding", he muttered, "anyway, Yojo is currently not attending school and is instead being homeschooled, by what I assume is a small army of their staff. They've a lot of names on their roll, including some who only work in one of their many private buildings".
Izuku chose to ignore his tone, which was somewhere between impressed and disgusted, "Run backgrounds on the staff. Focus on those with access to them on the daily, prioritise any new hires or anyone who's flagged as having possible financial difficulties".
"Okay, I'm on it".
"What else?"
"His mother also does some work as a Pro Hero, though she's just listed as a reservist, so she's not even officially ranked. Her moniker is, 'The Everything Hero: Creati', alumnus of the Ultra Academy of Heroics-"
"You can just say U.A.".
"-noted. Her father, the boy's grandfather, Sen, attended Harvard University in the States, while Grandma Yutakana is a former model, who had no higher education, but met her future husband while working an advertising shoot in Tokyo for a company he was working for. They've been married for almost thirty years, no obvious issues that I can find, no illegitimate children, no divorce proceedings in the works. Police reports says that the mother was involved in the accident but hasn't woken up yet. Her doctors say it shouldn't be long. Both grandparents are currently with her".
"What about the boy's father?"
"Unknown. He's not listed on any documentation; not even the birth certificate, and based on what I can tell, the mother never tried looking for him. No investigations near the time or since. No bloodwork. No unusual activity on their cellphones or email. Either she doesn't know enough to start looking for who he is, or she does know him, but doesn't want him to know about the boy".
"Rule him out for now".
"You think it's a bad lead?"
"It's not a lead. Right now, it's a dead end. We have no information to start with, so let's focus on what we know for certain and then build up from there. Who was the driver?"
"Her name's listed as 'Mei Rin', but it's a fake. So's her ID, driver's license and employment credentials. All we have is a physical description of a tall female, with bright green fingernails".
"Tell me about the van, then".
"White transit, no plates. Can't quite make out the driver from the camera angle, his face has been mostly blocked by the wreckage. Came in from the west and collided with the passenger side at the rear, where the mother was sat. they grabbed the kid and headed north, towards Old Yokohama".
"Street cameras?"
"We can track them partway, but we lose them once they enter the Klee Ward".
"That entire ward's still down for reconstruction. It's all factories and warehouses, a lot of which need to be torn down. Searching it could take weeks".
"I don't think you'll have that long".
Izuku nodded, "Keep running that search on their employees. Let me know the second something turns up".
"You sound so sure that it will", Rody said, raising his voice, as he realised that Izuku was already walking away, headed down the walkway towards the garage.
"That kid wasn't taken by accident", he yelled back, "they didn't just know where he was. Whoever took him arranged for a replacement driver, so that not only would they know where he would be sitting, but people would waste time looking into them. Find whichever staff member's missing and get police sent to their homes".
"What? Why?!"
Izuku slipped his mask on, as he slid into the driver's seat his plain grey, retrofitted car, which Rody still thought smelt of blood, "Because chances are, they're the one responsible for giving that information away, and if they are, then they're either fully involved, or a loose end".
"And if they're a loose end", Rody realised, speaking only to Pino as his friend drove away, "then odds are that they're already dead".
=== === === === ===
Mei Rin had no real family name. She'd been a street rat her entire life, walking the streets from her earliest memories, eating the food that other people considered their waste and teaching herself to walk and talk, how to fit in with a crowd that she didn't belong in.
She'd even been the one to decide on her own name. The people she'd grown up around had different names for her, always changing as she moved from place to place, in search of food and shelter. She wasn't ashamed of what she'd done to survive, she was proud of the strength she had to do what was necessary, but as an adult she'd needed a name.
She'd chosen Mei simply because she liked it. It was short, simple and easy to remember, and was common enough that it could be used constantly, whenever she needed a new alias, without becoming too noticeable. For the last few days, she'd been Mei Rin, while they prepared to grab the kid.
Ten years ago, Japan had gone to hell, but Yokohama had gotten the worst of it. Destroyed by All Might in his final battle, no one wanted to be the one taking up residence where he had died, and so, the real people of Japan had been allowed to take it over. Mei had been fourteen when that happened.
She'd never been much of a fighter, but when you could kill whoever you wanted, with nothing more than a mere scratch of your fingers, and the police were often too busy to stop you, you could get away with a lot.
She'd made a lot of money over the years, putting bodies in the ground for those who were willing to pay her well enough.
But that was relatively small time. As of a few days ago, she was twenty-five years old, and she'd decided that she wanted to be retired before she turned twenty-six. Ideally, somewhere warm, where it didn't rain, and with enough money that she never had to worry about working another day in her life.
Fortunately for her, she'd met the Glutton God.
Glutton God, who didn't even bother to use any other name, had gotten a taste of what he called, "the good life", when All Might kicked the bucket. He loved the chaos and carnage, he loved the money and loved to indulge himself. Then, by a random stroke of fate, he'd met Senya.
She was the love of his life.
She'd decided to relax one night after work, with a cold drink and the quiet company of a small bar, when she sat on the stool beside him.
"So, big man, what do you do for a living?"
"I'm something of a high-risk trader in a pretty niche market", he grinned, pleased with his description, "what about you?"
She snorted, "I'm a glorified babysitter for a rich brat".
If she'd been fully sober, then perhaps she wouldn't have taken the random guy from the bar home with her, but it was her night off and Senya wanted to enjoy herself. Between the tequila and two rounds of being delightfully pounded into her mattress, she'd dozed off in the early hours of the morning, leaving Glutton free to nose around her home, until he discovered the most beautiful fact about her.
She worked for the Yaoyorozu Family.
She had a line into one of the richest families in the world.
All he had to do was convince her that what they were doing, would be a victimless crime.
The only downside was that the members of the Glutton God Gang were well-known to the police, even if they had never been caught, they all had arrest warrants out on them. They needed an outsider, who could go in and pull off the job, without raising suspicion.
That was where she came in.
Thankfully, the lure of a very lucrative early retirement appealed to Senya, just as much as it did her.
She couldn't help but be sceptical, "You sure they'll pay".
"They'll pay", the girl responded, barely bothering to look at her, "Mother dearest may not like her little brat that much, but they're always banging on about the family image and public appearances. Trust me, they'll pay - they'd have to, just to save face".
The Glutton God grinned, stretching his face, pale face wide, "Then let's get to it. I'm starving".
Finding the right date was easy enough, so was getting her into their home, as the temporary driver. The hard part had been arranging for the collision, but that had changed once the woman had told her to find ice cream. If there was anyone who knew the best spots for dessert in this city, it was the Glutton God.
With a whispered word in her ear, she'd accelerated, and the boys had done the rest.
Guzzler had been the driver, while Glutton had been in the passenger's seat, wrapping the slime he produced with his Quirk around the front of the van, protecting it from damage as they hit the car. The second the car stopped, she'd grabbed the brat from the backseat and dragged him into the van while he yelled for his mother. Gobbler was already there, and he wasted no time in wrapping duct tape around the kid's mouth to shut him up and stop him from screaming.
"Got him?"
"Got him", she confirmed, "now let's go, before the cops show up".
=== === === === ===
"I found your missing employee and sent an anonymous tip to the police. They've just raided her place".
Rody's voice came through the car's speakers, as he continued to drive around Klee, looking for any van that seemed out of place, "Did they find anything?"
"Nothing. She's gone. According to them, it looks like she fled. Her car's missing too".
"Track it and tell me about her".
"Senya Nohara, aged twenty-nine, employed as an aide in the Yaoyorozu Household, primarily looking after Yojo, the missing kid".
"That explains how they got his schedule".
"Yes, my thoughts exactly. She called in sick, and they had to get a replacement driver. From there you know the rest. No outstanding legal issues I can find. No debts. No living relatives as of last March. Not much of a social life either".
"Most likely in it for money then".
"There's been no ransom demand though".
"The accident took place at one, it's now… two in the morning. They won't call this early; they'll wait and make the call in a few hours. Noon, most likely. Show them that they've managed to take the kid and keep him away from the, for a day, somewhere where they couldn't find him. After that, they'll demand the money".
"Okay… what are the odds that if they pay up, they'll get the kid back safely?"
"If they're even willing to pay, then the odds are close enough that I'd call it fifty-fifty".
He could hear Rody scowling over the comms, "I don't like those odds".
"Nor do I, so let's find the kid before it comes to that".
"Oh… dammit!"
"What happened?"
"Same issue with her car as the van. Found it, followed it, lost it when the cameras stopped".
"Did you lose it with the same cameras?"
"What? No, it was different set. Why?"
"The kidnappers might be practiced criminals, but Senya Nohara isn't. Even if they thought to take the long way to wherever they've stashed the kid, she won't", he pulled the car over, before bringing up the car's onboard map and syncing it with the one on their supercomputer, "show me her home address".
"Okay, it's over here".
A bright red dot appeared on the screen, as the map zoomed out to include the edge of Tokyo, "Now add in the site of the crash, and the last locations of their cars, and the direction they were both travelling in".
"Oh, I see what you're getting at. Okay, the crash was here", another red dot appeared, much closer to where Izuku was now, "and the van was last seen here, heading this way", this time the dot was blue, with an arrow sticking out of it, "and her car was here and heading that way", a second blue dot and matching arrow appeared.
"Now I want you to highlight every neighbourhood along both of those arrow lines", they turned green, but one of them was much darker than the others, "and I can assume that the dark green is…"
"The only area that falls onto both paths", Rody confirmed, before he pointed out, "but you can't be completely certain that the kidnappers drove straight there. If they chose a longer route, that means that they went another way…"
"You're right", he agreed, "but it's given us a reasonable starting point. Send me the colour, make and model of Nohara's car. I'll adjust my search and see what I can find out".
"Copy that, and Izuku…"
"No names on comms".
"I know, it's just…"
"Yeah?"
"Good luck".
=== === === === ===
She supposed that the stress from his little journey had tired the boy out, because he fell asleep before they arrived at the factory. The area was old, most of it slated for demolition and a rebuild within the next few years, but for the moment, it sufficed to keep them safe and away from prying eyes, and only needed to do so for another few days.
"Get up brat", Gobbler said, kicking the kid's foot, as the van's sliding door opened.
"Huh… mmmf-", the boy's eyes flew open, widening almost humorously, before he burst into tears.
"Aw, fucking great", Gobbler murmured, glad that the makeshift gag he'd stuffed in the kid's mouth was working to block out most of the noise, as he grabbed the boy's collar and pulled him to his feet, and gave him a little hove between his shoulder blades, "now walk brat".
The boy stumbled but did as he was told.
There was a sign on the factory wall, supposedly with a company name, but it was old and faded, and while someone with a vision-based Quirk might've been able, Mei was incapable of reading what had once been written.
"Hello handsome".
"Good morning beautiful", Glutton greeted his beloved Senya, as she sat herself across one of the camping chairs they were using in place of real furniture, "you good?"
"Not a cop in sight", she beamed, wrapping her hands around Glutton's neck, as he drew close, one hand settling in his magenta locks, twirling it around her finger, "and I even made you breakfast".
"Darling, you are divine".
"Well, every god should have a goddess of his own to worship".
"Mmm", he grinned, the two of them pressing their lips together, "I like the sound of that".
"Mmfff", the boy groaned from behind his gag, as he caught sight of his usual carer. He made to rush forward, likely looking to her for comfort, but Gobbler had no care for the boy's comfort, instead dragging the kid over to the nearest railing and handcuffing him to it.
"Now sit there and shut up", he told him, which amused her to hear, spoken as it was in Gobbler's nasally voice.
"Well then", she asked, taking a chair for herself, "now what?"
"We call the mother at noon", Glutton said, already helping himself to the breakfast spread that Senya had provided, "and make the ransom demands. They'll get us ten billion yen in less than forty-eight hours, or we off the kid".
=== === === === ===
"What's being done to find my son?"
Okaya had retreated long enough for her charge to be given a head examination and have her bandages changed out, at the insistence of her doctor, but she insisted on returning and speaking with her, while she was being given her morning meal. Given the blow to her head, they were keeping her on plain toast and what she thought was some kind of broth, for the moment, lest she throw it up.
She had a dozen more questions to start with, but the woman had pre-empted her, asking her own question before she could get a word in.
"We've got CSU combing the crime scene now, patrol cars sweeping the area and are asking local residents for camera footage from the time of the incident. We plan to run the story on the nine o'clock news, along with a photo and a request to the public for help. We're considering that this could be a ransom attack, so we're also bugging all of your phones", she told her, glad to see that she was alert, before noticing the amount of food she'd been given, which she knew from experience was more than she was supposed to, "do you normally eat so much?"
"My Quirk requires a constant consumption of calories", she said in a bored tone, having explained this a thousand times beforehand, "even when it's not in use".
She did her best to not panic, as she asked, "Does your son need the same?"
There was a half-second of alarm in her eyes, before the younger women shook her head, "No, no he doesn't. Yojo's Quirk hasn't come in yet, and until it does, we won't know about its side effects, but no, he eats the same amount a normal child would".
"Okay then", she made a few notes, "then the obvious thing to worry about is the ransom itself. The amount-"
"Money is no object".
"Granted, but that alone doesn't carry a guarantee of a safe return", she set her notepad down for a moment, "like I said, we've got people prepping your phones now, and a pair of detectives are on their way up here now, to help guide you through all of this".
"I want to help".
"You are helping", Okaya confirmed, "by staying here".
"I am-"
"The Pro Hero Creati, I know, and you know that's exactly why your involvement ends at the end of a phone call. If you try and get involved, it'll be as an angry mother, not as a Pro Hero. If you do that, you'll make mistakes. Mistakes that could cost you son his life".
There was a moment, after she finished speaking, where Okaya was certain that Yaoyorozu was going to argue with her, but she surprised the officer when she relented, settling herself back against her pillows, "I know".
She looked as defeated as she sounded.
"For what it's worth, you've got what looks like half the KPPD looking for your boy. His face should hit the news any minute now, and the Chief was talking about bringing in a few heroes from Tokyo to help with the search", she did her best to offer her a reassuring smile, "your son's safety is our top priority right now".
She smiled back, but it was brittle, not quite reaching her eyes, "Thank you".
Okaya cleared her throat, "There is, however, one thing we have to consider, which we haven't discussed yet".
"What's that?"
"I don't know if you're aware, but over seventy percent of all abductions are carried out by a parent. Over fifty percent of those are carried out by the father, whether in be in anger or out of some misguided sense of love", she saw the moment she seized up, freezing in place on the bed, "Miss Yaoyorozu, what can you tell us about Yojo's father?"
"Nothing", her voice was cold and detached, missing the gentle warmth and concern that had been there previously.
"Miss Yaoyorozu, if his father is in any way connected to this-"
"He isn't".
She bit her lip to prevent herself from snapping, but couldn't quite keep the anger out of her tone, "Miss Yaoyorozu, if there's even a one percent chance-"
"There isn't", she bit out in response, before taking a deep breath, in through her nose and out through her mouth, "and that's all you need to know about him".
Gritting her teeth, she could feel the tightness of her jaw muscles, as she clenched them as well, but was prevented from saying anything else by the arrival of the case detectives. She stepped outside as they introduced themselves to Yaoyorozu and went in search of the nearest outside area.
She needed a smoke.
=== === === === ===
"KPPD had them run the boy's name and face as a lead story on the morning news. Cute picture. Based on KPPD chatter, the tipline's been going nonstop ever since, but nothing's jumping out at me though; nothing for the area you're looking in either. They made the ransom call though, just like you said they would".
He checked the clock on the car's HUD and found that they were right on time.
12:29
"I take it they've set usual demands then. Money, breakdown, drop-off point?"
"Ten billion yen in old bills. Five billion yen in ten thousand denominations, two billion in five thousand, two billion in two thousand and one billion in one thousand. Gym bags for easy transport, no dye, no trackers, no cops".
"Not a small amount, but smaller than I was expecting, given the kid's grandparents. Foolish of them to think that there'd be no cops after the car crash they caused though. Did they get anything off the trace?"
"Nothing that matters. They held the call for ninety-seconds, which was plenty of time to get the data they needed for a trace, but the call was made from a burner. They went and found it anyway, but it was left in a public park. Patrolman found it in the trash".
"Let me guess, there were no cameras either".
"Actually, there was one. It just got put in a few weeks ago, as part of the efforts to safeguard public spaces, but I got nothing from it. The park has five entryways, and only one of them has any kind of feed. I can send you the footage, if you think it'll help".
"Give it to me".
"You know, there's a joke in the somewhere".
"Rody", he warned, but a moment later, Rody had done was he asked, and Izuku quickly found his car's HUD swapping out the map he was using for footage taken from a surveillance camera, pointed at the park's main entrance. Beyond the actual entrance to the park, there were also a handful of food vendors, a lone man selling flowers and a pair of young men, who appeared to be trying to sell tourist pamphlets.
He started an hour before the call took place, and went through it until a half hour after the call had ended. Nothing leapt out at him on his initial scrub through, so he went through it a second time at a slower pace, taking the time to be a little more meticulous in his scanning.
Then he saw him.
Seventeen minutes before the kidnappers called, he spotted him walking past the food vendors and stopping to get some snacks. Big eaters weren't uncommon since the advent of Quirks, but when Izuku saw him again, four minutes after the call ended, walking back out the same way and stopping to buy even more Takoyaki to eat, his instincts warned him that something was wrong with the man.
Izuku believed in facts over feelings, when it came to solving problems. He trusted his instincts, but only to the point of letting them lead him to ideas. Ideas he would then back up with research and analysis.
Rewinding the footage by several frames, he realised that he had no good shot of the man's face, so instead, he cycled back to before the call was made.
"What happened to 'no names on comms', by the way?"
"Quiet".
"Do you have something?"
"Possibly", he said, as he found the man's distinctive clunky boots, his clothes covered by a long coat, pausing to buy Takoyaki on his way into the park. Slowing it down, Izuku moved through the footage, frame-by-frame, until, just as he was about to enter the park, the man seemingly gained an iota of paranoia, looking about the place, and giving Izuku the shots he needed of the man's face.
"Run his image through the police database. Tell me what comes up".
"Just one second", he could hear the click-clack of Rody's typing, "oh, we actually got a hit".
"What is it?"
"Well, right now, his real name's unknown, given that he's never been charged, but under the codename, 'Guzzler', this guy's been picked up a few times, but police have never been able to make something stick. Supposedly he runs as part of the 'Glutton God Gang', along with his friends, the leader, 'Glutton God', and another man calling himself, 'Gobbler'. Nothing on those two either".
"What are their usual crimes?"
"Err, let's see… we've got petty theft, vandalism, destruction of property, larceny, extortion, blackmail. Their entire MO seems to be based around threatening shop keepers for money. Bit of leap to kidnapping and ransom".
"Not really. They've gone from demanding money from people, to demanding more money from richer people".
"If you say so".
"Can you track him?"
"Not for long. He heads north for a few minutes, but past that…"
"No cameras?"
"No cameras".
"Still, north would put him in my direction".
"It could just be a coincidence".
"I don't believe-"
"-in coincidence, yes, I remember you saying… far more times than I thought was necessary".
"And here I thought you were just a slow learner".
"You're not funny".
"If he's coming this way, that means we're probably in the right place, and now, we're looking at the right suspects. We just need to find the boy".
"Oh, well if that's all".
"Remind me to get a drone when all of this is over. It'd be great if we could track from the air".
"I'll do that. In the meantime, you want me to keep scrubbing through camera footage, see if anyone else pops up?"
"No. Leave that to the police. If there are other leads, they'll be running them. This is our best bet for now, so get me everything you can on this 'Glutton God Gang'. If this turns into a fight, I want to be ready".
=== === === === ===
The fact that she had to take the ransom call from her hospital bed, felt like adding insult to injury. Momo had gotten top marks in their investigation and analysis classes at U.A., and she should've been helping the police to find her son. Instead, they'd forced her to remain put and not assist their investigation, ("interfere with"), in any way.
She'd simply sat there, wearing her favourite pair of red silk pyjamas and matching dressing gown, her forehead still covered in bandages, wrapped around her head, as she waited for her phone to ring.
Her parents had returned to sit with her, having spent the morning dealing with the media, and she was glad to have them with her, as they sat on the uncomfortable hospital chairs on her right-hand side, as what felt like a small army of police officers took up the majority of the space. Her phone had been slotted into a box-shaped contraption that she didn't known the name of, but was told would trace her call, meanwhile more officers were present: some to take notes, others to help with the phone, and at least one, she was certain, was there to gauge their reactions.
She'd started using her thumb to dig out imaginary dirt beneath her fingernails.
It was a nervous habit; one she'd worked hard to get rid of as a child. She'd never quite managed, but she'd become quite talented at hiding the fact, adding gloves to her outfits to cover her nails, or finding other ways to occupy her hands, whether it was by grabbing something, or simply stuffing them beneath the table, out of everyone else's sight.
But now, she felt as though she had no such options. Her father had a pair of his gloves on, and would likely give them to her, should she ask for them, but she also knew that he needed them to help prevent his headaches, should he need to handle anything that could activate his Quirk.
As if able to read her mind, her mother reached out, threading their fingers together.
She managed to smile at that, which felt wrong given the circumstances, but before she could linger any longer on it, her phone rang, and she froze.
It was time.
The rest of the room fell silent, and she felt one of her father's hands settle itself on her shoulder, as one of the detectives, (she was beginning to regret not learning their names), settled the box and the phone on her lap.
Steeling her resolve, she pressed the 'answer' button.
"Hello?"
"Miss Yaoyorozu?"
"Yes. Who is this?"
"My name isn't important. What is important, is the wellbeing of your son".
She fought back the urge to snarl, and took a deep breath instead, "Where is he?!"
The caller chuckled, "Safe… for the moment. His continued safety relies on your co-operation".
She swallowed, "What do you want?"
"You have exactly forty-eight hours to deliver the ransom to us at Mosspa Square. You are to deliver it in person. You are to come alone. If we see so much as a hair in the place that belongs to a cop, you'll wish your had brat died in that crash".
She closed her eyes, and felt her parents' grips tighten, "How much?"
"You will deliver the following: Five billion yen in denominations of ten thousand. Two billion yen in five thousand bills, and two billion in two thousand billions. One billion yen in one thousand bills. You will come in a car. If we see a van, we leave. If we see tinted windows, we leave. The cash comes in gym bags. There will be no tracing dye, no tracking devices of any kind, and all of the bills must be at least five years old. Do you understand everything that I have just said to you?"
"Five billion in tens, two billion in fives, two billion in twos, one billion in ones. Mospa Square. Forty-eight hours".
"That's correct".
"Now, I want to speak with my son".
The call ended.
She sucked in a breath, and after a moment to gather herself turned to her parents. Her mother pulled her in, hugging her from the side, the way they had when she was a child, when they'd sit and read together. She leant in, momentarily worried about her father's hand, but the man himself was already stepping away, phone in hand, as he began barking orders at one of his accountants to get him the money they needed.
"Don't worry dear", she murmured in her ear, as the officers began bustling about, "everything's going to be alright".
=== === === === ===
Izuku no longer believed in coincidence.
Children believed in coincidence, but he was older than that, and hopefully, wiser too. He knew that coincidence simply tended to be facts that had gone overlooked, and if you were like him, and believed that planning was the key to success, you had a tendency to not overlook the things that other people might.
Building-by-building, he'd been combing the Klee Ward, which was largely comprised of aged and abandoned factories and warehouses. The entire ward was dying a slow death, and had been ever since Yokohama had first been abandoned. In the years since, the local authority had slated it all for a largescale demolition and reconstruction project, with slices of land being sold to developers and business owners alike. Izuku had considered purchasing some of it himself - for DEKU Enterprises purposes - when they were more secure in the area, and in a safe position to do so.
There were only a handful of cars left in the ward, but they'd mostly been burnt out or stripped for parts. He saw a handful of other cars about, passing through, but never stopping, and they became fewer and fewer as the light of the day gave way to the dark of the night.
But what he had seen, for the first time that day, was a car, alone in a factory carpark, and covered by a tarpaulin.
He didn't believe in coincidence.
His eyes narrowed, his mask adjusting its faceplate to match, as he moved into the shadows, switching the car into standby mode.
"You've got something?"
"One moment".
He slipped out of the car, the systems no longer working without his suit present, and made his way into the carpark, sticking to the shadows. Before he pulled the tarpaulin up, looking at the car's details.
"Did you still have the details on Nohara's car?"
"Yeah?"
"Give them to me again".
"Blue compact. I'm not a hundred percent on the kanji, but the plate numbers are-"
"A five hundred, followed by thirty-three and then a twenty-seven".
"You've got something?"
He looked up at the building ahead of him, as he replaced the tarpaulin, "I've got something".
=== === === === ===
Author's Notes:
The Klee Ward, mostly factory areas, where a lot of local manufacturing takes place is currently under construction, and is named after, 'Kalee', the home of Star Wars's General Grievous and his species, the Kaleesh.
The Glutton God Gang are a real team included with the My Hero Academia universe, so please feel free to look them up for further reference. The Glutton God is the only one whose name and Quirk we see, so I've named his two subordinates as Gobbler and Guzzler. They all have production-based Quirks and need to eat and drink a lot to make them work, respectively, which is where their names come from.
For those curious, at the time of this writing, 10 billion yen is the rough equivalent of 71 million US dollars, making each 2 billion yen cut worth around $14.2 million.
Mospa Square is named after Mos Espa, which first appeared in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) and was the hometown of Anakin and Shmi Skywalker.