Cool Motive, Still Murder

Chapter one- The Exposition, As You Do

Shouta Aizawa was having a rough day.

As both a teacher and a pro-hero, he rarely got a consecutive eight hours of sleep. For the past week, he'd slept maybe twelve hours. Total. Suffice it to say, he wanted to take a nap.

Pertaining to the hero half of his daily duties, Aizawa was on patrol from ten to three o'clock in the morning. Hizashi insisted that he should take the night off to catch up on sleep, but Aizawa had another motive for coming out tonight. There was a new unregistered vigilante going around this area, and one of Eraserhead's responsibilities as an underground hero was to bring them in.

The detective Aizawa was working with, Tsukauchi Naomasa, had some 'experience' with this vigilante. Namely the notes addressed to "Mister Detective Detector Sir", followed by a small doodle of a bunny's silhouette. Their signature. No one at the station could figure out how they knew about Naomasa's quirk without coming into contact with him. It's not like that was public information.

Few have met this eluded vigilante face-to-face, but even without directly seeing them, they seem to emit this aura of a playful and energetic personality. Perhaps childish, if not for the absurd number of villain takedowns tied to their name. In only a month's time, there have been a reported thirty-six cases involving "Rabbit", as they've been dubbed, all without any evidence of a true identity, quirk, or even appearance.

On the receiving end of Rabbit's power have been injuries ranging from blunt force trauma to the head, to blood loss; nothing anywhere near fatal— all resulting in the victim's memory becoming an unreliable source of information. Sure, none of these people were innocent, but this "Rabbit" is trying awfully hard to remain a mystery. The only consistent details from interrogations being a terrified utterance of the word "bunny", adding to the vigilante's reputation. It was also hilarious to see grown men tremble at such an innocent sounding name.

To Shouta, it makes no logical sense. Vigilantes tended to be on the younger side, not good enough to get their licence, but with too much power that would go to waste otherwise. Most vigilantes were just one time illegal quirk users. That is the definition of vigilantism in their society. But this one was consistent.

Yes, there was no recorded quirk usage and no, fighting back in self-defense was not punishable by any law, so technically they would not be able to make any accusations against the anomaly that was Rabbit. But if they clearly weren't looking for attention, what was it? Shouldn't they have tried to pursue a heroic education if that was their true motive? Someone with such a powerful quirk as to take down so many criminals while staying under the radar should have no issues getting into a hero school like Shiketsu, or even Yuuei.

Assuming that Rabbit's untraceable status was the result of a quirk, Shouta pondered. As an established pro-hero with a quirk described as "non flashy" and to his grade-school peers, "villainous", Shouta was a tad bit more open minded to possibilities of obscure or distasteful quirks.

Even while lost in thought, Eraserhead retained an acute awareness of his surroundings, and was immediately on edge at hearing something crash in the alleyway below his current perch. Expecting a drunk, a homeless person, or at worst; a villain, Shouta kept a firm clutch on his capture weapon whilst descending from the rooftop via the fire escape. What Shouta was not expecting was to see the aforementioned man-of-the-hour, currently lying next to a cluster of wooden palettes. By their dazed muttering, Shouta could tell they were somewhere on a scale from disorientated to concussed.

"Rabbit." Aizawa's muttered voice reflected his own exhaustion. He had never seen the vigilante- no one had, yet he knew exactly how to name the figure in front of him.