Chapter Text
Shinsou Hitoshi had finally lost his sanity. He hadn't really been expecting to lose it, but, really, who does? It wasn't like it didn't make sense, though. It was perfectly reasonable for someone like him to lose their mind like this; clearly life already hated him enough in every other aspect, so what was one more thing for him to mourn over?
Part of him wanted to laugh miserably or maybe sob over his luck, but he simply let out a tired sigh. May as well embrace it, right?
"Why me?" He leaned his face into his hands, breathing the words out to nobody in particular. In fact, nobody else could hear them. Even if they could, they knew better than to respond to the villain grumbling to himself at the back of the classroom.
And nobody did answer him. They never did. Never would. Hell, he didn't even want them to.
That didn't stop that stupid flicker of his quirk from snapping to attention in the back of his mind. He groaned in mild irritation, half tempted to latch onto whoever had been stupid enough to answer his private complaints and command them to cut it out.
Not that he would. Or could for that matter.
He was perfectly capable of pulling the little flicker under his command, no matter how annoyingly slippery the damn thing was to brainwash, but that didn't stop it from doing absolutely jack shit to anybody around him. He had tried. Multiple times. Many times. Hell, he had even used it like a mental stress ball once or twice over the past couple days. It never did anything, though.
Thus, he came to the conclusion that either his quirk had evolved to be even more fucked up or he was losing his sanity. His quirk was its own painful can of fermented worms, so he was startlingly okay with accepting this whole thing as his initiation into the loony bin.
If only life were so kind.
A chime cut through the teacher's lecture, all eyes drifting to the PA system momentarily.
"Please excuse this announcement; could Shinsou Hitoshi please come down to the office, Shinsou Hitoshi down to the office, thank you."
Hitoshi dropped his head onto his desk with a painful bang. He must've been a serial puppy kicker in a previous life. That was the only reasonable explanation for the world itself having a vendetta against him.
"...Why me?" He repeated to himself, though it was far more of a groan than a question.
There was a pause, and Hitoshi lifted his head with a cocked brow. Was a good hit to the head all it took to cure insanity? Maybe someone upstairs was finally realizing he would totally accept pity at this point.
Then the flicker flared in the back of his mind, a bit subdued and sheepish.
That delay was new. Wonderful. Great. Perfect. Exactly what he needed.
Why was he holding out any hope for normalcy? His sanity just wasn't meant to be it seemed.
Hitoshi put away his things (a preemptive measure he'd learned years ago to be very necessary) and carried his bag haphazardly, a devil-may-care expression schooled onto his face and body forcibly relaxed, as he ignored the whispers following him across the room. Door clicked shut, he sighed heavily as all hell broke loose behind him.
He rubbed his eyes in subdued frustration, knowing the walk to the principal's office as well as he knew the flicker of his own quirk; they were somewhat similar in frequency in his life, after all. Not that it was his fault he went there. It was never his fault. He never did anything to deserve being sent there.
Didn't stop other people from assuming he did, though. Joy.
At the moment, he hadn't been to Takeda-sensei's detention room for almost 3 whole weeks; a personal record for his third year.
The real questions now were: who blamed him for their bullshit, and how long the apology letter they wanted was.
*
The police.
The fucking police.
Someone had finally gone and done it; gone and called the police on him.
"Shinsou Hitoshi, correct?" The detective - not the cat one but the generic one (how can someone even get to be that generic looking?!?) - confirmed offhandedly while flipping through files in a manilla folder. Files on him. Hitoshi eyed the papers, catching mere glimpses of the pages as they passed between the detective’s fingers.
Hitoshi nodded stiffly, muttering a 'that's me' in a dry tone. He sounded calm, if incredibly bored and mildly annoyed.
Unless this guy was telepathic. And could hear the screaming and 'fuckfuckfuck's flowing just beneath the surface. Then he wouldn't come off as calm at all.
The detective - Tsuka...something...ichi? - hummed and nodded before flipping his folder closed and shifting to rest both elbows on it. Peering across the guidance counselor's desk, he wove his fingers together and rested his chin on the platform.
"Shinsou-kun, do you know why you're here?"
Okay. Don't freak out. They can smell fear. Just act natural. Nothing to worry about. Be yourself.
"Clearly, I brainwashed someone into doing something illegal." He did not mean to sound that aggressively sarcastic. "What'd I make people do this time?"
Fuck. Brain was being a sarcastic shit.
"...Did you brainwash someone into doing something illegal?" The detective paused a moment, considering, before deliberately not answering Hitoshi's question.
The flicker in the back of his mind sparked up, but it would be an absolute bitch to pull under. Besides, it wasn’t like he actually wanted to get arrested. Still, there was an instinctual temptation to claw at the little spark, consequences be damned.
Stupid quirk.
"If you're here, then you think I did." Maybe rolling his eyes and being passive aggressive wasn't the best plan to avoid that whole being arrested thing, but Hitoshi was having a really bad day. Being the reincarnation of a puppy kicker fucking sucked.
"...Okay. We're doing this the hard way." The detective clapped his hands together and sat up straight. "My quirk is called Human Lie Detector. It tells me whether people speaking to me are lying or not."
"No, I haven't brainwashed anyone into doing anything illegal." Hitoshi instantly spoke with the utmost clarity. The detective blinked in clear surprise before quickly schooling his expression. Not that he managed to keep that oddly warm smile off of his face.
"Quick on the uptake. Thank you for that." He scribbled something into a notepad off to the side. "Just covering all our bases; have you used your quirk on anyone recently? Like, say, three days ago?"
"No." Hitoshi said instantly; he avoided using his quirk as much as possible. Nobody even talked to him-..wait. "Wait. Maybe? Yes. Or no? Can I change my answer to a solid 'I have no clue'?"
The detective's hand froze and his eyebrows furrowed. He carefully put down his pen.
"Could you elaborate on that, please?"
"I could, but I'd really rather not." Hitoshi shifted uncomfortably.
"I'd really rather you did." The detective almost managed to hide his smirk.
"I'd rather not be sent to the looney bin, despite my initiation. Plus, being 'the kid with a villain's quirk' is one thing, but being 'the crazy kid with a villain's quirk' is infinitely worse." Hitoshi's eyes narrowed minutely. "Besides, it has nothing to do with...whatever you're investigating."
"I never mentioned what we're looking into."
"I have an idea of the few things it could be, though, detective." Hitoshi tilted his head with a smirk. "It'd be nice to have it confirmed for me."
"Is it so unreasonable to think that I might just be worried about you?"
"Absolutely."
The detective visibly cringed, all traces of a smile dropping from his face. Hitoshi grimaced, honestly feeling a little bad about the bluntness of the statement.
He shifted uncomfortably, before letting out a small huff and meeting the detective's eyes once more.
"How about you explain why exactly you called me out in the middle of class and I'll do my best to not come across as crazy?"
"I can live with that." He nodded hesitantly, then rolled his wrist in a motion for Hitoshi to continue.
"...Ugh." Hitoshi leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. "My quirk kind of...notifies me? Not really notifies, but I'm sure you understand the feeling from when yours goes off," He paused, continuing when he saw the detective's understanding nod. "Yeah, so I just know when the conditions are fulfilled to use my quirk on someone. It lets me know, then I activate it. Simple." He hunched over a little, looking away from the detective. "Over the past couple days, it has been randomly going off. Whenever I activate my quirk on these…" He waved a hand as he tried to think of a word.
"False positives?"
"False positives. Whenever I activate it on one of these false positives, nothing happens. Nobody acts like they're under my quirk." Hitoshi shrugged. "I didn't ever command anything about committing crimes, though. I just kind of grabbed at the false positives a few times. It's surprisingly good for relieving stress."
"I can imagine. Quirks do like to be used, after all, and I can't imagine anybody has given you too much freedom to...relieve the pressure." The detective nodded, a sad glimmer of understanding flashing in his eyes. "Well, back on topic; you say that nobody acted like your quirk was active on them? What do they normally act like?"
"Wooden puppets." Hitoshi snorted.
"...Could you demonstrate that?" The detective seemed to pause at Hitoshi's phrasing for a moment.
“Are you volunteering as tribute?” Hitoshi raised a brow, skeptical. Nobody wanted to be brainwashed. Ever. People hated it. That’s why it was called a villain’s quirk.
“No,” The detective huffed a laugh, “Officer Tamakawa is.”
“I’m what?!” The police officer with a cat-head mutation jolted before quickly righting himself back to something more professional. “Ah, yes, understood.”
Hitoshi took a breath to calm himself. They were asking him to use his quirk. It was okay. They weren’t going to arrest him for doing something they asked him to do.
Probably.
Well, whatever, fuck it.
“Can you understand cats?” Hitoshi locked eyes with Officer Tamakawa, hoping he looked more composed than he felt.
“No, but-”
As soon as that clear flame, the kind of perfection and clarity that could only come from a cleanly answered question, lit in the back of his mind, he easily grabbed it and pulled poor Tamakawa-san’s consciousness under his control. The cat officer’s body became relaxed and his expression, well, completely expressionless. It all culminated in his eyes, though, as they became dead, lifeless, and glazed over.
“Behold.” Hitoshi stated blandly with absolutely no inflection.
The lie detecting detective stood up and began giving the brainwashed officer a look over. He seemed to be relieved with what he found, though Hitoshi couldn’t figure out what there was to be relieved about.
“Can you make him emote?” The detective finally asked, jotting down note after note in that tiny notepad of his.
“Smile.”
The cat smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. It never did. Never could.
“Are the eyes always that dead-looking?”
“Yup.” Hitoshi popped the ‘p’. “Super creepy, I know.”
“It isn’t that bad, actually. If you want to see creepy, then come down to the precinct and I can show you some creepy cases.” The detective returned to his seat across from Hitoshi. “That should be everything we need from you; you can release Tamakawa now.”
Hitoshi let the mind control drop immediately, not really wanting to press his luck here. Life returned to Tamakawa-san’s eyes as he blinked in mild confusion before giving Hitoshi a wary look and stepping back against the wall. Hitoshi gave a nonchalant shrug and tried not to be too offended.
They had literally asked him to do it, for fuck’s sake.
“...Right! I promised I’d tell you why we called you here.” The detective remembered just as he finished putting away all his papers.
“A villain with a control type quirk is running around and all you have to go on are the effects and tells of said quirk to catch them.” Hitoshi guessed. He really couldn’t think of any other reason for this all. “And they’re so good at hiding their identity that you’re desperate enough to harass middle school students.”
“...Quick on the uptake indeed.” The detective let out a pleased hum. “Very close. He’s a vigilante that the police have dubbed ‘Puppeteer’, and he’s notorious for never leaving any traces. He has used everybody, from victim to bystander to villain, in his vigilante activities. He has even used police officers on occasion to leave massive files filled with painfully detailed notes on all sorts of illegal activities going on around the city. All we know is that he can control people, so we’re looking into every quirk in the city that has the potential to be able to do that. There are surprisingly few of them, hence us being in a middle school.”
Hitoshi nodded in understanding. So some idiot was running around using their quirk all over the place and getting everybody with vaguely similar quirks dragged into their problem. He couldn’t help but feel a bit annoyed at that, while also trying not to feel too much longing over being able to use a quirk like his so freely to help people.
“If that’s everything, we shall be taking our leave now.” The detective stood, then stopped. “Would you like me to write you a note?”
“...What.” Hitoshi deadpanned.
“For your teacher and principal. To ensure they know you weren’t here because of any trouble with the law on your end.” He said it like it was the simplest connection to make. “I know how…judgemental people can be.”
“...That would be great, thanks.” The whisper passed over Hitoshi’s lips in a daze. His brain wasn’t fully computing this. It was almost like someone was being considerate towards him.
He sat there, mildly out of it as he tried to figure out the detective's reason for extending such an olive branch, but was forced to give up on that train of thought when a paper with a quickly written message was handed to him.
It said he was helping with a police investigation.
It said that his quirk had been needed.
It said he had been useful.
Hitoshi stared at the paper, reading it over and over from the concise greeting at the top to the messy signature at the bottom. The words didn't change. They continued to say what he thought they said.
"Here, take this, too." The detective handed him another paper, though this one had far less writing. "Just in case."
On it was the name 'Tsukauchi Naomasa' followed by a phone number.
"That's my personal one; call me if anybody gives you any trouble."
And with that, the door to the borrowed room clicked shut and left Hitoshi alone. Alone to cry silently to himself.
Somebody cared.
*
"Was it wise to give a random kid your personal phone number?" Tamakawa asked as they crossed the parking lot towards the black cruiser they came in. "Your desk extension should've been good enough."
"Sansa," Naomasa sighed, "you heard the teachers, right? It's like they were excited by the prospect of us being there to arrest him!"
"That was pretty messed up." He conceded. "But you're sure he isn't Puppeteer?"
"Positive." Naomasa had no doubt in his voice. "He wasn't lying about never using his quirk on anyone until he remembered the weird reactions with his quirk, and the way his quirk looks and works is completely different than Puppeteer's MO."
"Didn't your quirk act up for a bit there when you started on the Puppeteer case?"
"Yeah. Hopefully there's no correlation." For both his sake and the kid's.
*
It had been really really really hard for Izuku to stay quiet the entire time. He was glad he did, though, because he would've felt really bad if Tsukauchi began suspecting Shinsou of being him any more than the shot in the dark he had been.
He had used one of the officers in Tsukauchi's precinct - the one that jittered like a middle school kid with anxiety whenever he drank a drop of coffee - to check on whatever leads the detective had pulled out of his ass to find him. He had been a bit worried that the officers would mistakenly arrest Shinsou without even talking to the guy simply because of his quirk, so he had hung around the middle schooler for a couple days while he waited for police officers to show up to question him.
He was fully prepared to puppet some people to make it absolutely clear that Shinsou was not Puppeteer.
But Tsukauchi himself had gone to speak with him.
Izuku liked Tsukauchi. Tsukauchi understood.
So, he had managed to keep himself quiet. After all, they were the only two people he had met in the entire city who were able to hear him.
Best not to push his luck.