Naomasa Tsukauchi sat at a desk going over pages and pages of information, accounts and data. Across from him and on the other side of a one-way glass sat Izuku Midoriya's stretched and warped form, quietly sobbing to himself in the corner of the room. Naomasa was not a man to smoke, but this case had pushed him into taking up the habit, the whole situation just seemed like a pit of continuous and unending tragedy he'd never be able to pull himself out of, he had to find a way to unwind even if it wasn't the healthiest things to get into or else he'd lose his mind trying to get everything into order.

Naomasa took a long drag of his cigarette, held his breath for a moment, then breathed out, removing all of the smoke from his lungs. Finally, he put out his cigarette, leaving it on an ashtray on the desk, and got up determined to get something, anything out of the monster in the other room. The detective opened the door to the questioning room and a pang of dread washed over him as his eyes fell on Izuku's warped form, he felt both sadness and anger for the green-haired student, he hadn't stopped crying for a single moment since the day he was brought to the station. He was distraught by what had happened and Naomasa knew that was true, his quirk didn't detect any trace of lying or subterfuge from Izuku, those weren't crocodile tears he was crying, they were true, but yet this one person, this one... kid was the single cause to many peoples' lives being lost

No official number had been given as of people's, the police were still trying to establish a timeline and organize everything, so no death toll had been given to the press, but more and more missing person reports were coming in and it was becoming impossible to hold the media back. Naomasa couldn't exactly blame the news outlets, even he could admit that this disaster was particularly... bleak. It only made sense that the public would be afraid, paranoid, and demanding more info when a random person appeared seemingly out of nowhere and without warning caused an untold amount of destruction to Musutafu and killed without remorse and without any apparent reason. Naomasa was doing his best to make sense of the situation, but all he knew for sure now was how the incident started and how it ended.

It had all started when another villain, one with a sludge quirk, took a teenager hostage, the situation then was already bad as it was, but it all went to hell when Izuku arrived. According to several eyewitness accounts, the first time Izuku was seen at the epicenter of the disaster was when he had busted out of a police cruiser that was present on the scene, apparently he was manic, screaming nonstop while galloping towards the other villain with reckless abandon, disregarding anything and everything in his path. The people injured during his first appearance were the luckiest ones affected by his rampage, they had only been either trampled or violently shoved, the worst injuries suffered there were bruises, sprained ankles, or small bone fractures. After that came the first serious injury of the ordeal, Death Arms.

Death Arms had narrowly escaped death, it was lucky that many civilians were present at the scene and had called for emergency medical help. When they had fished him out of piles of rubble and wreckage, his guts were threatening to spill out from him, he was somehow still semi-conscious, however, and was manually preventing them from leaking out from his abdomen. Once he and the paramedics had arrived to the hospital, they immediately put him into an intensive care unit where it took multiple tries until they finally got his condition stable, he had flat-lined more than once until they finally succeeded. At the end of it all, Death Arms was left unable to walk because of multiple fractures to his legs, got a concussion that would need months of therapy to heal completely, was left suffering from a painful abdomen wound that would require surgery to correct and to stop being debilitatingly painful, and multiple deep gashes, cuts, broken bones and otherwise grave wounds all over his body.

Naomasa continued looking at Izuku, one moment he was putting holes in heroes, and then just as fast he becomes a crying mess. It didn't make any sense, why would he feel bad now? Why did he not care about viciously attacking people then? Naomasa needed answers, and he was going to get them.

Naomasa advanced into the room and approached Izuku, eventually stopping a meter from him.

''Are you ready to cooperate now?''

Izuku continued sobbing in the corner, not helping his already damp Medical mask. Naomasa sighed deeply, grabbed Izuku by the arm, dragging him to a chair and making him sit on it, and then went to the other side of the table he had sat Izuku at and sat down, taking out a file.

''lets's try this again, what do you want? Why did you do this?''

No response. Naomasa stared daggers at Izuku, making the teenager turn away from the detective. He stood up, slammed a document on the table, and tried to loom over Izuku, only succeeding in getting on an eye-to-eye level with him.

''You cleaved through a mile of concrete, metal pipes, and sediment like it was tissue paper. Hundreds, possibly thousands of civilians injured, who knows how many dead, a hero nearly dead, one villain unable to be located, and 4 rescue personnel whose bodies have been unable to be recovered. What happened down there? Why? What could they have possibly done to make you kill them for it?!''

Once again, no response from Izuku. Exasperated, Naomasa picked up the document and went to exit the room in a huff, but before he could close the door, however, Izuku spoke in a deep, strained and gruff voice.

''Face...''

Naomasa froze and looked back at Izuku

''They... saw my... face.''

Izuku resumed crying harder and Naomasa gripped the door tightly, slamming it shut after a few seconds of staring at Izuku. Naomasa remained just in front of the door he had slammed shut for a moment, staring at it in a horrified trance, before quickly walking back to the adjacent room and taking out a cigarette from his pack of cigarettes and lighting it.

His face? The people he attacked, the people he killed, they died because they saw his face? This was madness, insanity, it felt like Naomasa was living a waking nightmare, what twisted logic did that inhuman monster operate on that held death as an acceptable penalty for viewing his face? Naomasa took a long drag of his cigarette and breathed out, it was progress but he was going to need more information than that if he was going to build a proper timeline and figure out how this all came to be in the first place. At the very least this explained how some things were triggered, reports said that Izuku was not as tall and stretched as he was now when he broke out of the police cruiser, it only happened once he got hit by the explosion quirk of the other villain's hostage's quirk, apparently, once they were face to face, that's when Izuku's body started to change violently. Does that mean that viewing Izuku's face acts as a sort of trigger for his quirk? It would explain the shift in power, how he went from being able to tear flesh to being able to tear at stone, metal, and earth. It would also come to explain Izuku's uncanny ability of locational awareness, they had mapped out Izuku's path of destruction through the sewers, it admittedly looked erratic and random, twisting and turning one moment then going straight the other, busting into a wall only to erupt out of it a few meters away, but the more that they compared where the sludge villain might have been at a certain time and what direction Izuku was going in at that same moment, the more they realized that no matter where the villain was, Izuku was always able to head directly towards him in a perfectly straight line. The thought was both sobering and horrifying to Naomasa, he thanked his lucky stars that All Might had told them not to remove Izuku's face coverings under any circumstance, he had told them it was to keep Izuku calm, that he was scopophobic and that they made him feel safe, but had they ignored the warning or not respected All Might's wishes so they could ID Izuku, they'd likely all be dead.

Naomasa sighed, although some questions had been answered, new ones were popping up. If Izuku killed anyone that saw his face, why had the hostage not been killed? Witnesses claimed that when Izuku broke out of the police cruiser, he was wearing the same type of sunglasses and medical mask, therefore no one could've been able to see his face to trigger him, so what made him go ballistic to begin with?

The detective opened a file marked ''Katsuki Bakugo'', he had been the one taken hostage by the sludge villain not too long before the police cruiser that contained Izuku arrived on the scene. Just as the villain did, this Katsuki Bakugou must have seen Izuku's face too, he was right there in the middle of it with the other two, yet unlike all the others who had gazed upon his deadly face, he was alive, not unharmed, but very much alive, which is entirely remarkable considering the fact that the bodies of those who had seen Izuku's face had not even been able to be recovered yet. Katsuki Bakugou had been recovered by the rescue team at the start of the recovery effort, they had found him unconscious near the opening that Izuku had made into the sewers while attacking the sludge villain with a broken neck, Naomasa hypothesized that the villain had thrown Katsuki at Izuku in an attempt to buy himself some time while escaping through the sewers, that's when Izuku would've grabbed Katsuki by the throat, which would come to explain the broken neck. Katsuki should've died then and there, but instead, Izuku only held his throat tight enough to break it and strangle Katsuki until he eventually passed out, opting instead of killing Katsuki, to give chase after the sludge villain, that was what the detective thought happened between Izuku and Katsuki.

This stumped Naomasa, what was it about Katsuki that set him apart when it came to the other victims? He'd have to bring him in for questioning once he recovered enough from his injuries, it might give him a clue as to why Izuku would've spared this one person. Naomasa got up from his chair while taking another drag of his cigarette and pondered how he should proceed with the investigation while pacing around the room, he decided he should give up questioning Izuku, he wasn't going to cooperate at all any time soon and it'd just end up being a waste of time. Instead, Naomasa decided that he should try interviewing witnesses to try to piece together the events that led up to Izuku being held in that police car, what happened in the sewers and why they were unable to find the bodies of Izuku's confirmed victims. Before he could get far in his deliberating on who to question first, however, a knock came to the door. Snuffing out his cigarette in the ashtray, Naomasa walked to the door and opened it, revealing a police officer.

''sorry, sir, but the woman's back.''

Naomasa sighed, Inko Midoriya, she was there the day they brought Izuku into custody both at the scene of the end of Izuku's rampage and at the station once they brought him there, she'd been hounding them to let her see her son ever since, barely even leaving the station until she was forced to when they eventually closed their doors for the night. They had to deny her request, they were still trying to get Izuku to talk and with his mother's protection, he might've shut down completely and hid behind her so they didn't want to take the chance. Now, however, Naomasa was reconsidering his decision, maybe if Izuku was calmer than he was now, then maybe he'd be able to make progress, maybe he'd been a fool and let his emotions cloud his judgment. No matter how monstrous he looked, no matter what heinous acts Izuku had committed and no matter how angry he was at Izuku for having done what he did, Izuku was still only a kid, a kid who was scared and afraid out of his mind, who was vulnerable and was shutting down in response.

Naomasa thanked the police officer, patted him on his shoulder, then advanced towards the reception area, where he came upon Inko yelling at the receptionist.

''Let me see my son, for god's sake! It's been three days and I've waited long enough, let me see him goddamnit!''

Naomasa approached the nervous receptionist and told her that he'd take care of it, gesturing for her to walk away so he could handle the situation.

''Inko Midoriya?''

Inko, frustrated, breathed in to try to calm her anger.

''Yes. That's me, please, can I see my son?''

Naomasa shook his head

''No, not yet.''

Inko's anger flared up again, but before she could explode on Naomasa, he raised his hand up to stop her and spoke.

''But that can change, I need to ask you a few questions.''

Inko hesitated for a few moments

''Am I being interrogated?''

''Yes, I believe you might be able to help me in my investigation and the faster I can figure out the details of how this incident happened and what happened in those sewers, the faster you'll be able to see your son.''

Inko sighed

''Fine, but only if you promise me I can see my son.''

Naomasa thought for a moment.

''fine, I promise but it will only be for a certain amount of time, I won't allow you to stay with him overnight.''

''that's fine with me, as long as I can see him, I'll answer any question you have.''

''very well. Please follow me.

Naomasa allowed Inko behind the reception counter and further into the police station. Once at the cells, Inko could hear Izuku's sobbing. It took everything she had not to run in to see her son, she just wanted to go in there and comfort him, to tell him that everything was ok, that he would be ok and that she loved him, but she knew Naomasa would pull her away, she knew that the detective might go back on his promise so she held on and kept walking behind him, proceeding to the questioning room. Naomasa opened the door for Inko, who proceeded to sit down and lay her purse on the table, then went to sit down himself, pulling out a notepad and flipping a few papers until arriving on the desired page.

''miss Midoriya, you are Izuku's mother, am I correct?''

''yes, I am.''

''and you were there when All Might brought Izuku to us, correct?''

Inko looked to the side

''I wasn't just there, I helped in saving my INNOCENT son.''

Naomasa closed his eyes in anger and layed the notepad on the table.

''Miss Midoriya, your son ran through a mile of stone, causing untold chaos on the streets above, and killed 4 people with his own hands, not counting those he might've killed as a result of the damage he caused to the city.''

Inko rose up and smashed her hand unto the table, shaking it and hurting her hand in the process. Seathing in anger and trying to pretend like her hand didn't hurt, she yelled at the detective.

''MY SON COULDN'T POSSIBLY HAVE DONE THIS OUT OF FREE WILL!''

Naomasa remained firm in front of the mother's cry. Inko put her palms on the table and faced it, letting her tears fall on the flat piece of furniture.

''I have spent the last 14 years of my life looking out for him, making sure that at any given moment, he'd be safe, all because of the illness that I gave him.''

Naomasa's gaze softened at Inko's outpour of emotion.

''He couldn't function during the first 4 years of his life, he was scared of his own shadow, he barely smiled at all back then. He got better once he and Katsuki were introduced, but even then he was still scared of everything. He would break down regularly, at the slightest of stimuli and even when his panic attacks got rarer and rarer, he still couldn't stand the thought of going anywhere without his face coverings, he even stopped letting me see his face unless I had to. He has always been like this, scared, afraid of the world around him, retreating at the slightest sign of danger, he wouldn't be able to hurt a fly even if he wanted to.

Inko sniffled, balled up her hands into a tight fist and spoke to Naomasa in a voice shaking in contempt.

''and you... you're expecting me to believe that he wanted to do this? That he was in any way in control? No... no, I can't believe that. I WON'T BELIEVE THAT!''

Naomasa sighed, he felt for Inko, he truly did.

''Control or no control, what happened did happen and nothing will change that. Perhaps the courts might give him a reduced sentence if it is deemed that he truly had no control over himself or that this was simply an undiscovered quirk gone haywire but for that to happen, I must bring this investigation to a close, I need to find out what happened down there and what events even lead to this in the first place.''

Inko sat back down and wiped her tears away, a shadow covering her eyes and her posture crooked.

''you're right...''

Naomasa began again

''so, you were saying that you helped All Might in the recovery process?''

Inko sighed

''Well yes, but no. I did help All Might, but I didn't help in the recovery per se.''

Naomasa raised an eyebrow

''so, how did you help?''

Inko corrected her posture and sat more properly in her chair.

''I had seen Izuku on the news, he hadn't come home at the time he usually had, so I was worried and wanted to watch television to calm my nerves, that's when I first saw how Izuku had changed. It was a news photographer, I think, who took the picture I saw, it was before he had entered the sewers. You couldn't see his face and his body had changed so much that I didn't recognize it was him immediately, but then I saw the pants, his hoodie and his hair and I knew it was my Izuku. I saw from the way the back of his head looked that his mask and sunglasses had been removed somehow and that's when I grabbed my purse and ran out the door as fast as I could. I knew that he must've been petrified, hurt, or scared, I needed to go and help him, I had to. Not too long after, I arrived where the news broadcast said that he had stopped and demanded that they'd let me go see him, but they didn't let me. I argued with the officer there for a while, until All Might and another officer came and told him to allow me through. I thanked the two for allowing me to see my son, but I was too quick to assume.''

Inko put her elbows on the table and put her hands on top of each other.

''they refused to allow me to see him, I was angry and asked why they let me through if they weren't going to allow me to see my son.''

Inko sighed

'' I assumed the worst when they looked at each other before answering me, I thought they were gonna tell me that Izuku had died, but then they told me that Izuku had killed those rescuers. I still don't know if I was glad or sad at the revelation. I didn't respond to them at all, I was too In shock to do anything, but eventually, All Might spoke up and shook me out of my trance. He told me that he would go down there and bring Izuku out himself, but that evidently Izuku was not in a state of mind where he could be approached, that he was even worse then when he and the officer had seen him before the incident. Then, he asked me if i knew of anything that would calm him.''

Inko removed her hands from the table and laid them down on her thighs

''of course I know what would calm my son, I told him that Izuku was scopophobic but the big lunk didn't understand what it meant so I had to explain it to him. I explained to him how Izuku was sensitive to other people's gazes and that if I was correct, he didn't have his face coverings at that moment so the best way to approach him was to go into the sewers completely blind and cover his face with the coverings that I always bring with me. He questioned my judgment, but he shut up once I detailed how long I had cared for Izuku and that if anyone knew how to approach him, it was me or his doctor. So, before he climbed down into the sewer, he ripped one of his sleeves off to use as a blindfold and I gave him the medical mask and pair of sunglasses that I hope Izuku is still wearing now. All might, went down, got Izuku, came back up and the rest, I think you know.''

Naomasa finished scribbling in his notebook and sighed. The detective thought back to a certain part of the story, All might and the officer had met Izuku before he had gone on a rampage in the sewers? When? Why?

''that officer you said was with All might, do you know his name?''

''um, I'm not sure. I think it was... Takahashi? All might only ever said his name once, so I can't say for sure.''

Naomasa nodded and noted the name down, he'd have to bring All might and the officer in for questioning later, they might be able to finally piece this whole timeline together. Still, the question of how Izuku was triggered in the first place and what happened to the bodies still remained.

''Ms. Midoriya, while your son might've always been meek, can you recall any time at all where he lashed out? Exploded in anger or out of fear?''

Inko closed her eyes, annoyed at the redundant question.

''No, like I've told you already, Izuku couldn't and has ne-''

Inko opened her eyes wide in realisation, causing Naomasa to raise an eyebrow

''um, actually now that you mention it. Once, there was one time where Izuku responded in anger to something that scared him.''

''when was that? What happened?''

''Well... it was when Izuku and Katsuki had first met, they were four, he had convinced Izuku to allow him a peek at his face and Izuku punched him so hard he flew across the room and into a wall. If I remember well, he shattered a tooth.''

''and he didn't transform as he did during the incident?''

''no, he didn't, he just broke down right after, I had to come in to calm him, luckily Katsuki was ok.''

So Izuku and Katsuki knew each other? Maybe that would explain why Izuku didn't kill Katsuki, not only had he already seen his face, but he was also a childhood friend. Not only that, but it explained why Izuku broke out of that police cruiser, perhaps his quirk wasn't activated by people seeing his face but by stress, seeing his friend being held hostage must've stressed him enough to send him into a frenzy and his worst fear coming true would've sent him over the edge and sent his quirk into virtual overdrive, resulting in the violent transformation that took place. Naomasa was satisfied, some questions still remained but many had been answered.

Naomasa got up from his chair.

''thank you for your time Ms. Midoriya, this has greatly helped in the investigation.''

Inko narrowed her eyes at the detective

''can I see my son now?''

''yes, of course, I am a man of my word.''

Inko finally sighed in relief, they both left the questioning room and proceeded toward the cells, Izuku's crying becoming louder and louder. Eventually, they saw Izuku huddled up in a dark corner of his cell crying to himself. Inko immediately cried out Izuku's name and ran to his cell bars, grabbing them and urgently telling Naomasa to open the door. Naomasa complied and unlocked the cell's doors for the green-haired mother, who proceeded to run in and stop dead in her tracks when she heard Izuku's deep, raspy voice.

''M-mom?''

Inko held her breath, she could now clearly see Izuku. She had seen how he had transformed, but it didn't get any easier seeing her son in such a state. She desperately wanted to walk towards her son, but something in her stopped her, she felt her every sense telling her that danger was near, she felt her very soul pulling at her, trying to get her to turn away from Izuku. She was scared, petrified of the thing before her, it terrified her down to her very bones. Inko took a step back and was going to exit the cell until Izuku spoke once again, now more clearly and in a higher pitch of voice.

''Mommy?''

How could she had allowed herself to think the way she did? This wasn't a monster, this wasn't a thing, this was her SON! She scolded herself for having even considered running away and ran toward Izuku, wrapping the young greenette in a bone-crushing hug and crying into his ripped hoodie, repeating how sorry she was over and over again.

Izuku's crying stopped completely, he stood still for a few seconds and then slowly wrapped his enormous arms around his mother, enveloping her in a tight hug. The two Midoriyas continued hugging each other for a minute, Naomasa was about to turn and leave to give the two some privacy but he was stopped once he heard Inko gasp in pain. Izuku's grip had suddenly tightened into a vice grip, clearly hurting Inko, the detective was about to pull out a revolver to prevent the mother from being hurt but never got the chance to as Izuku threw his mother out of the cell. Naomasa ran and crouched down to help Inko, who was coughing and gasping, trying to get air back into her lungs. Once she felt better, the two turned to Izuku who had started flailing and screaming in pain, they gasped in horror as blood started pouring from all over Izuku's body. They stared at the horror unfolding in front of them, it almost look like Izuku was being crushed from the inside, he was getting smaller and smaller, his limbs were becoming shorter and shorter, and they could hear the sound of flesh tearing and organs being pressed into a paste. After 5 minutes of torture, Izuku finally stopped screaming and fell to the ground, now the size he was before the incident happened. Izuku whimpered in pain, he trembled on the ground in the fetal position. Inko got up, grunting in pain, and approached Izuku, crouching down so she was at his side.

She could hear Izuku trying to whisper something but couldn't make out what he was saying, so she approached her ear towards her son's mouth to hear what her son wanted to say.

''Mom... it hurts... please help me.''