Forever Quirkless

Part.7

"Are the bandages too tight, sweetie?" Inko carefully secured the gauze around Eri's bleeding knee and tied it in a secure bow.

"No. It's perfect." Eri sniffled, taking Inko's hand that helped lift her up off the floor. "Thank you."

"No more running around in the halls, okay? I don't want you falling again and for your father to worry." Inko dusted off Eri's dress and gave her a small pinch on the cheek. "Go on now. And be careful."

The little girl hurried back to her room where Big Brother awaited her return. He quickly stood up from the edge of the bed, eager to hear her report. "Well?" He asked, "Did she say anything?"

Eri shook her head, "Just for me to be careful."

Deku pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. The plan was for Eri to purposely skin her knee and go to Inko to try and gather information. He began to blame himself for putting a big task onto a small child. "Are you sure she didn't mention anything else? Like how close she is to your dad or why she's here?"

"Oh!" Eri exclaimed, "She said she lives in the compound now. Yeah I asked why and she told me my dad said it would be safer for her."

"Safer?"

"Mhm!" She nodded, "I think there's a lot of bad guys where she lived." Deku knew that wasn't true. The area where his old apartment complex was located was fairly quiet. "Oh yeah and she says my dad buys her a lot of things and he's really nice." Eri's lips dipped down into almost a frown, "She might have confused my dad with someone else."

Deku knew his mother didn't confuse Chisaki with anybody. He was putting on this act so she could trust him and keep her close. So close to where it would drive Deku mad. He needed to separate his mother from this manipulative monster. "They're just pawns." That's what Chisaki had taught him. In the grand scheme of things, almost everybody is just a pawn. Deku needed to to save his mother without her even knowing he was there. "Dammit." Deku cursed to himself, "Thanks Eri." He dug in his pocket and handed her a hard candy that was strawberry flavored. "Don't let dad know."
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-Meanwhile-

"Katsuki, honey? Is everything alright?" Mitsuki gently knocked on her sons door. He was granted time to go home after his incident but was still an active student in UA.

Bakugou turned up the volume of his music for his earbuds to drown out the nagging noise from behind the door. He leaned forward with squinted eyes at the bright computer screen. For weeks he was looking up articles about the "Izuku Midoryia Case", but all he ran into were dead ends. There was no new information, no sightings, no nothing. "There has to be a clue." He said to himself. "That damn nerds not dead. I can feel it." He clenched his fists that once charged up grand explosions to only hear the crackle of popping knuckles.

He scrolled and scrolled for hours until his eyes hurt until a link he didn't recognize popped up. "Leaked footage? Yeah right." Bakugou rolled his eyes at what he thought was click bait but decided to watch anyways. The video was blurry and was shot at a terrible angle from their old middle school. A couple seconds in, Bakugou was able to see Deku stumble across the roof of the building all the way to the edge. With each step, Bakugou's heart pounded against his chest like a roaring drum. He forced himself to watch as Deku took one step off the building and disappeared off screen due to the blocking of another building.

Bakugou must have watched the video a 100 times to make sense of it all. "No body. Even if it was a quirk that suddenly awakened, there's no way he'd get the hang of it that fast." The boy rubbed his eyes to release the pressure building up. He stretched back in his chair and groaned, "Can't believe I wasted my time with this crap."