You Can't Lose Me || Shinso x Reader

Chapter 15: The Investigation

Warnings: none, 

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Shinso's POV

"Shinso! I'm so glad to see you under safer circumstances. Are you feeling better? You seemed really out of it last night."

I am greeted at the conference room door by Midoriya. There is a hint of purple beneath his eyes, but he seems as awake as ever – his infinite energy will forever baffle me.

"Good morning, Midoriya. I'm doing much better, thank you," I respond as my eyes gaze around my new surroundings.

There is a wall of whiteboards to my left and a wall of computers to my right, yet it doesn't feel cramped. An intern approaches me handing me a mug of tea; I look into it slightly confused. The intern looks at me expectedly, so I take a quick sip from the mug not wanting this interaction to continue much longer. It has a flavor I haven't tried before – not to say it tastes bad – but the intern smiles at me before walking off, so I let out a relieved sigh.

"So, why am I getting tea? Sure, I like tea, but isn't coffee more appropriate for this?" I ponder aloud.

"We ran out of coffee about half an hour ago. Sorry. The night shift has been drinking it up as if it were liquid gold. I have too, but that's not important," Midoriya explains speeding up at the end.

"Well, let's get to it then." I resolve taking another sip of the tea, "What have I missed?"

"Not much to be honest. Our field team scoured the entire area, but they found no trace of the villain. They did find a bank's camera that recorded the entire encounter from the other side of the square, including their face. It was blurry, but tech has cleared up the image impressively well and they've been sending it through facial recognition for the past few hours."

"Lovely," I remark, sarcasm dripping from my voice. 

Midoriya snorts a little at this.

"Yeah, lovely." He returns to his serious tone, "How's Mr. Aizawa? Have you heard anything about him?"

"I just came from the hospital actually. He's completely blind now, but he's still 100% himself. His face was cleaned out and the doctors healed it a little, so he was checking out of the hospital with Mr. Yamada when I left."

"I still can't get over how cute they are together, but I'm very happy to hear how well he's doing."

"Yeah. I think after so many years of taking care of kids, they moved into the 'old married couple' phase prematurely." 

We snicker for a moment at this notion.

After calming ourselves, I start recounting the conversation I had with Aizawa to him, to which he nods repeatedly before moving over to a white board covered in his recognizable scribblings. It's an upgrade from the notebook. Nice.

"So, it's confirmed that the necromancy is indeed a quirk, but we still don't know what these other powers are. It's far too complex and dangerous to be some parlor trick, so there has to be something or someone controlling everything else. Whether that power isn't external and belongs to this villain in particular, or if they're receiving help from a machine or quirk user, this person is incredibly smart. Then we need to take into account their attitude toward-."

Midoriya's voice slowly falls into a mumble, either naturally or from my brain tuning it out, and I look around the room a second time to notice something strange.

"Midoriya," I say trying to catch his attention, but when that fails, I tap his shoulder. "Why are there so few people in here? This is a rather large case, and there's a lot of notes on the boards and on the papers scattered over the conference table. This can't be everyone."

"Oh, right. It's not. The night shift left work a little before the coffee ran out and the day shift won't arrive for another hour – I think. The people you see here work the in-between hours to get time consuming work done and bring the new shift up to date. It's a really effective system, but that means that they're pretty much the only people in the building."

We return to discussing the events of last night for a good while until my ears catch an irritating beep that sounds three times. Midoriya's head and mine snap in the direction of its origin. A banner flashing on the screen reads, 'No Match Found.' That is not a good sign.

"What? How is that possible?" Midoriya exclaims stalking over to the computer and staring at the screen over a tech's shoulder. "They'd have to be from another country for that to be true. This computer has a photo record of every living Japanese citizen!"

The word 'living' strikes me differently. I walk over to the computers, gripping my chest pocket once again, and I look at the cleared image of the villain's face. It still looks a lot like Akane, so I might not have been projecting anything, but I've already determined that it's impossible for her to be alive. 

I shiver despite not being cold. One of the walkie-talkies standing on the table crackles to life.

"We have a murder: female, late teens, eyes and hands missing, deceased within the past ten minutes. Send in whatever support we have at this hour. The day shift is being notified as we speak." 

The speaker then gives an address, located a few blocks away from the station.

Everyone in the room stands up, grabs their gear, and rushes out the door toward the parking lot. Midoriya and I head in the direction of the front door – we can make it to the location quicker than a vehicle – but when he bursts through the door and starts speeding off, I stop in place. They have enough people to handle this on their own, plus Midoriya. 

With a shaking hand just above the doorknob, I hesitate before making my decision. 

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A/N: Gee, I wonder what decision Shinso has made. I know, but you'll have to wait before you find out. Also, this chapter may seem very run-of-the-mill, but everything is not as it seems. Keep your eyes peeled and I'll see you again soon. 

Word Count: 1049