Era

27

Night had already fallen by the time Nedzu was back in his office, sipping thoughtfully from a cup of his favorite blend of tea. The last couple of days had been... trying. Dealing with the media was difficult at the best of times, always pushing and prying for a story to spin, and usually one that cast UA in a poor light. There were only so many ways one could say, "We sincerely apologize and we won't let this happen again" before the message started to ring a little hollow.

Then there were the parents. Nedzu sighed, setting down his cup and pulling over his laptop, paws hovering over the keyboard restlessly. It seemed like every single parent wanted a personal apology from the principal of UA himself, even if their child wasn't involved in the incident at all. He huffed as he checked through his emails, relieved that the influx of messages seemed to have slowed to something more manageable. Humans. He had to admire their dedication. The instinct to protect children was one he could understand; after all, he was first and foremost a pro hero and a teacher. But this was... a bit of an extreme reaction, in his opinion. Perhaps it was the shock of discovering what their children would be up against driving them to lash out at the nearest source of blame.

Nedzu leaned back in his office chair, feeling it loom over himself comically. On a normal day this would amuse him enough to snap him out of such a funk, but now it was just... distracting. Every single parent had decided to bring up their grievances with him, personally, and it had an unsettling consequence of making him feel rather... small.

A conversation, a polite smile when it turned angry, a comforting word if it brought tears, over and over and over again. Exhausting.

For every. Single. Child.

Except one.

Of course he was exaggerating, always one for dramatics. Nedzu hummed and opened up his emails again to ensure he hadn't missed anything in the rush. There were a few students who hadn't been involved in the incident whose parents hadn't bothered to reach out to him. Especially those from older classes. But this was a very, very notable exception.

Suzuki Era had been kidnapped. She'd been held hostage, presumably threatened, been the only student to be hospitalized; and to top it all off, she wasn't even in the Hero Course. Of all the parents, Nedzu would have expected hers to be the most furious.

And yet. And yet. There was nothing in his inbox, no messages waiting for him on his phone.

Nedzu understood the instinct of a parent protecting their child. And as irritating as that was to deal with, the complete lack of it was all the more unnerving.

It was an itch, and one he finally had time to scratch now that the media storm had calmed from its bloodthirsty frenzy. First, he needed to figure out when she was kidnapped. She hadn't been in homeroom, which meant that it had to have happened some time between when she left school the day before and when the first bell rang. It would probably be difficult to hide a child's disappearance for an entire night, so he would assume it had been when she left for school in the morning.

Nedzu pulled up his (probably criminal) access to a web of street cameras. Thankfully nothing was illegal unless you got caught, and he was very adept at covering his tracks. It was simple; he had young Suzuki's address, so he would just have to find a camera that overlooked it and scan through the footage until he saw her leaving her home and, presumably, her subsequent kidnapping.

Obstacle number one presented itself almost immediately, as soon as he pulled up the camera feed. This was not a house. This was a post office.

Against his more rational thoughts Nedzu felt the beginnings of a smile tug across his lips. Oh, so this was going to be one of those, then? No matter. It wasn't as if he was planning on going to sleep after all of this commotion; he had all night.