Counting Down

The Three Cases (old)

Aizawa and Tsukauchi were sitting across from each other discussing the vigilante's case. Again. Aizawa had a total of seven empty coffee cups around his chair and four more that were full and waiting for consumption. Not including his half drunk cup he was holding in his left hand as he wrote down his perspective on the past few hours.

Tsukauchi was ignoring his coworker, opting to shift through other reports and possible clues to who the vigilante is. And why they seemed so familiar to both adults.

After a few more minutes of a comfortable nonverbal silence among the rustling of papers, Aizawa was on his ninth coffee. He passed the report to Tsukauchi. "It's worded exactly how I said it earlier but with more of the smaller details I observed as well."

Tsukauchi looked up with bloodshot eyes, then reached out with a slightly trembling hand to grab the notepad.

The sighting included a blur of black and green on the roof above the alleyway...running in the opposite direction.

Tsukauchi looked up. "That's it?" He deadpanned.

"Yes. It's easier to say what you think you saw than to actually write down what you truly saw. I would rather write down the reality my eyes saw--which was a blur of black and green on the roof, running away--than to accidentally make up a false detail that ends up sending us on a wild goose chase." Aizawa takes another sip from his mug, as calm and logical as someone who is high on coffee yet emotionally null can be.

"Why did it take two plus hours then?" Tsukauchi asked, setting the notepad down on his messy desk and rubbing his temples with his hands.

His desk was cluttered with stacks upon stacks of papers on the corners and sides. The middle looked as if someone had ransacked a bunch of files and moved them around into an unordered blob. Tsukauchi was scatterbrained as he annotated copies of previous reports in an attempt to find any relevant information.

Aizawa's half-lidded, black eyes pierced Tsukauchi. On any normal person, the glare would be frightening and borderline petrifying. But after years of working with the Underground Hero, Tsukauchi was immune to the glare.

"I'm tired. And probably hallucinating. You try staying up for more than forty seven hours without any form of sleep." Was the sharp reply.

Tsukauchi sighed, looking up to analyze his friend. After knowing this man since practically diapers, Tsukauchi had inevitably started to pick up on odd habits Aizawa began to take part in.

One bad habit included biting his tongue when he was thinking hard about something.

Currently Aizawa's fingers were twitching. Like the man was itching to leave but waiting for a specific signal. Tsukauchi felt himself shrink back into his own chair, exhaustion taking over his body. "Let's just call it quits for today." He began, looking a relieved Aizawa in the eye. The UA teacher was awaiting an answer to his unspoken question. Tsukauchi rolled his eyes at his childhood friend's antics. "Go ahead and head to the back room. You can have it for the night."

With a proud huff and tired thanks muttered to Tsukauchi, Aizawa began to leave for the back room.

The police station had inserted a couple rooms for those who decided to work late or if major events such as a massive villain attack or natural disaster did occur, workers and civilians could rest at the station. These rooms were barely cleaned, but their main usage was to house heroes on late shifts--specifically Aizawa and some other Underground Heros who needed to bunk somewhere.

"I don't understand why you simply just don't go back to the apartment you share on UA grounds. Wouldn't you sleep better on your own bed?" Tsukauchi called out right as Aizawa was opening the door to leave the office.

"Nezu forced me to move in. It was mandatory to live on UA grounds as a new safety measure that the Commission enforced." Aizawa slightly angled his head to look at Tsukauchi from the corner of his eye without moving his body. "Those idiots inside the apartment can't shut up, mind their own business, or leave me to rest alone. While my bed is heavenly, their noise sounds like it comes straight from hell."

The tone of voice Aizawa used sounded like an exhausted parent, annoyed by their children's screaming during ungodly hours of the nighttime.

But if Tsukauchi knows Aizawa, he also knows Yamada. And Kayama. Neither of which can not goof off or stay serious when around each other. And having to live with them along with the majority of the other staff...Tsukauchi understood why Aizawa preferred to sleep in the back of the police station instead.

He doubts he would enjoy sleeping in the same apartment as Kayama and Yamada knowing their antics.

Nevertheless it was funny to hear Aizawa gripe about the people that practically adopted and befriended him-like he was a stray cat on the side of the road-during his years at UA.

Once Aizawa was gone, Tsukauchi turned back to his massive piles of paperwork. He had been assigned to two other cases beyond the Vigilante: Zero's.

One was of a missing child, Yuuri Sugawaro.

The other was of a relatively new vigilante, coined as the "Hero Killer: Stain" even though he had yet to injure or kill any heroes. Tsukauchi hoped this vigilante never did become a murderer, because then he would become a top priority case along with locating Yuuri. That would mean that Zero's case would be put on the back-burner until Stain was defined and Yuuri found.

Tsukauchi would rather maintain Yuuri as top priority while working to catch both vigilantes as well. But he knew there was no way he could be in more than one place, doing more than one thing.

The detective was willing to spend his work time looking for clues on the missing child's case with the help of his co-workers and then splitting the vigilante observation on his free days.

But there was no earthly way he would willingly drop any of these cases until he finds out the full story in each scenario.