A Tarnished Hero

Chapter 12: Walled In

Izuku stared out of the car window, the trees outside zooming past them as the sirens wailed along the road. His eyes closed, the memory of the chaotic end of the day filtered through his mind.

The medics and policemen swarmed the scene, tending to the wounded and handcuffing the villains. Despite the frog girl's insistence that he wasn't one of the villains, the officers' pointed glances and firm grip on his arm told him that they weren't convinced.

And even with the somewhat rough treatment, Izuku couldn't blame them. Protocol was protocol, after all. At least they didn't push him to the ground and pressed their knee against his windpipe to the point of suffocation.

Shoved into the back seat of the police car, Izuku's head drooped as his body cooled down from the action. The roaring engine of the speeding car was a harsh tune that rattled his ears. Each time his eyes fluttered shut, the officer in the passenger seat would twist around, a flashlight beam piercing through the dark. His jaw tightened while his eyebrows twitched at the action, fingers drumming his knees in an attempt to not give the officer a piece of his mind.

A normal person would've already passed out, but Izuku was far from normal. His senses were honed through trials and tribulations, and every time he could sense someone or something staring at him, his instincts would kick in.

Thus, why he was staring out of the window. He couldn't sleep so he might as well pass the time by gazing out into the open world. His fingers twitched at the thought his items being confiscated by the policemen, much more so with the bottomless box.

His gaze flickered to the bottomless box kept out of reach, sitting in the hands of the officer in the passenger seat. His fists clenched, eyes narrowing ever so slightly at the sight. The thought of the officers poking through his belongings made his skin prickle.

At least the only one that could access it was him. He could just get it back later, through force if necessary. As for his armor, they tried. They really did, but Izuku would not budge.

Tensions were high until the rat principal, Nezu if he remembered correctly, assuaged their concerns about the heavily armored man that looked like he could rip a man in half. And wasn't that statement true...

He wondered what would happen if they found the bisected remains of the villains he accidentally killed in the conflagration zone... Actually, would there even be remains left at all? The fire there was still going strong, artificially produced he surmised, even after everything was all said and done.

After a bit of thinking, he concluded that yes, there would be remains. Flesh might burn and turn to ash, but bones would remain, bleached but whole. The fire there wasn't strong enough to incinerate a skeleton, and knowing how advanced technology was in Japan, their forensics team would no doubt find out that they were killed by not the flames, but a blade.

Said blade being safeguarded by another police officer in another car in their convoy.

Izuku sighed, hopefully, everything that happens later would resolve peacefully, otherwise, he'd hate what he had to do to get back to the Lands Between. He was protective of his runes, okay!? It was going to be such a waste to dump all of these runes just to return to the last Grace site he'd rested on.

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Izuku's fingers tapped rhythmically on the metal table, the soft impacts sounding like thunder in the enclosed room. Arms still cuffed and lately linked to the table, he squirmed about in his seat for a bit, trying to find a good spot where his ass wouldn't feel like it was pressed against a rock and a hard place.