Rody smiled to himself, as he watched the data messages roll in, and took his time reading the transcripts as they appeared on one of his many screens, as the officers of the KPPD began to call in with their results.
After receiving an 'anonymous tip' from someone Rody would deny sounded like himself with a bad Kansai accent, the police had quickly decided that the van he'd described was being driven by a member of the Glutton God Gang that they quickly identified as Guzzler, and that the van was a match for the one used in the kidnapping of the missing child. They'd also decided that Guzzler himself was a close enough visual match for the driver, (or at least, what could be seen of him), that they had probable cause to pull him over and after a search of the van, detain him.
The KPPD had offered him a deal for reduced charges, if he helped them find and recover the boy, but he'd remained mute, simply looking at them in smug silence, as he waited for his time to run down until they'd be forced to release him forty-eight hours later.
Instead, they'd recovered the missing child after just another hour, and now?
Now he was being charged with child abduction, amongst a handful of other things.
Okaya smiled in satisfaction as marched moved him from their interrogation room into a holding cell of his own, and did her best to not look too smug when she watched her fellow officers drag in the rest of his friends.
They'd gotten them.
The Glutton God, the Gobbler and the Guzzler.
All three members of the Glutton God Gang were now in custody, and between the video of the kidnapping, the evidence they were still collecting from the warehouse they'd been found in, and the boy's witness statement, the three of them would be facing some real jailtime, rather than simply waiting and having their lawyers find ways to delay proceedings, while witnesses decided to retract their statements and let them walk free.
Justice would be finally served.
It was a win in her books.
The woman they'd been working with, their 'man on the inside' of the Yaoyorozu Household, Senya Nohara, was brought in as well, and they had her placed in the female cell on the opposite side of the facilities as the other three, where they would be kept as far apart as they were able, before they were all sent away.
Four child kidnappers in custody was also a good night in her books.
They took the kid to a private room, along with a paramedic, and then took a moment to call his mother. She was still in the hospital, but an officer had already been sent to inform her that her son was safe, and she was able to confirm that her own mother was on her way to the station already, to look after the boy.
None of the boy's injuries appeared to be serious, or in need of immediate medical attention, so they needed someone with authority to be with the boy and consent to a medical examination and, hopefully, a round of questioning, while the events of the last few hours were still fresh in the boy's mind.
The kid had already mentioned the presence of the vigilante she was supposed to be hunting down, and while she was against any form of vigilantism, just for tonight, she decided that she was going to be grateful for the fact that he'd gotten there quickly, and not allowed anything worse to happen to the kid than what already had.
Just this once.
=== === === === ===
Rody was still sat at the computer when he heard the rumble of the car's engine coming down the path towards the cave. He knew it was coming, of course, he'd heard his friend confirm that he was safely on his way home, and then, when the entrance had been opened, he'd received an alert on the computer, not only letting him know that one of the cave's vehicle entrances had been accessed, but it had also provided him with the camera footage pointed at the entryway.
He'd sighed a sigh of relief when he laid eyes on his friend's safely returning form.
He'd said he was fine, and that the boy was safe, but he'd be slow getting back, taking care to move slowly around the heavy police presence in the area.
He'd been tracking the police chatter since then and been able to confirm that the boy had been safely escorted to a station, and his grandmother had arrived to look after him. The police had been planning to question the boy, which he assumed was happening now, while the kidnappers were being processed.
That was where the bad news came from.
"What happened?"
The car had pulled smoothly onto the inbuilt turntable, and Izuku, still wearing his, 'urban combat suit', (he really needed to come up with a better name for it than that), had exited immediately, turned to face him, taken a single look at his face, and had likely assumed that the worst was happening.
He swallowed, "There's been a complication".
Though he couldn't see the facial features behind the mask, it didn't take much imagination to picture the glare on his face that accompanied his growl, "What kind of complication?"
"The police arrested the kidnappers and had them processed while you were busy making your way back home".
"And?"
He steadied himself for what might be about to come, "They're only reporting four".
Reaching up, Izuku pulled his mask from his head, revealing the confusion that had settled across his features, "There were only four?"
Rody shook his head, while Pino, sat on his shoulder, buried his behind his wings, "Not four from the warehouse. Four total: Glutton God, Gobbler, Guzzler and Senya Nohara", he paused for a moment, seeing the widening of his friend's eyes and flaring of his nostrils, as he realised just what exactly he was trying to tell him, "according to the reports, they were the sum total of those present".
"But-", Izuku's voice was more of a growl than it had been when he was wearing his mask, "what about the other one? The one calling herself Mei Rin?"
"Wasn't accounted for. At least, she hasn't been in any of the info I've seen so far. I don't know what exactly happened, but I believe that she may have… escaped".
=== === === === ===
"Mother!"
When children became involved in their line of work, there were very few reasons to feel cheerful. She was firm in her belief that children, especially children not old enough to even understand what was happening in the world around them, should never be in a position to need the assistance of the police, yet despite that, Okaya couldn't keep the smile from her face, as she escorted her Yaoyorozu charges into the heiress's hospital room.
The family matriarch met her husband with a quick kiss to the cheek, while their youngest member rushed into his mother's room, climbing up onto the seat beside her.
"Yojo", she smiled warmly, reaching out to cup his cheek momentarily, as he settled himself at her bedside, "are you okay?"
"Yes Mother", he replied, smiling slightly, still subdued when compared to your average four-year-old, Okaya noted, but still much more chipper than he had been when he'd been brought into the station.
"They didn't… hurt you, did they?"
The boy visibly shivered, relaxing when his grandmother sat down beside him, to place a reassuring hand onto his shoulder. His grandfather took the chair opposite him, and from where she was stood near the doorway, she could see the curiosity in his gaze, muted as it was.
"It was cold", he told them, his small voice struggling to remember everything at once, "and they stuck my hands to the fence, and I really needed to wee and they wouldn't let me go to the bathroom, and you said that only babies don't use the toilet and-"
Anger flared in her gut. Anger at the boy's words, at the position he was forced in, and at the four bastards sitting in her holding cells, but she knew that it was nothing compared to the anger that his family must've been feeling. His grandmother in particular, looked as though she was mentally planning the most efficient way to return to the precinct and murder them all in their cells.
"It's okay", his mother murmured, "it's okay. It wasn't your fault, okay? You're here now. You're safe now".
"Safe", the boy murmured, before his eyes lit up the way they had at the station when they'd gotten to him telling them about the end of his day, and she knew what was coming before he even began talking, "but then, there was this big noise!" he threw his hands up, as if mimicking an explosion, and despite her objections to vigilantism, Okaya found herself hoping to god that the vigilante had been smart enough to not have actual explosives involved, "And the Mister Bat-Man was there! He was so cool! He punched and kicked", the boy mimed the actions as he spoke, "the mean lady with the nasty claws, and then he went 'BAM'", the boy threw out a clumsy fist, "and knocked her out".
The others nodded along, somewhat in shock about his experience, but Okaya was silently left to fume over the fact that they'd apparently missed a suspect. Four in custody was a good thing, until you realised that that was just eighty percent out of a score of one hundred.
She hated it went dirtbags went missing before she could throw them in cuffs.
"Mister… Bat-Man?"
The Yaoyorozu heiress might have been asking her question based on what her son had said, but it was clear who she was asking it too.
"We think he's talking about a local vigilante that the KPPD has been tracking for a number of weeks now. We don't have a lot on him, but he supposedly has fangs, claws and wings, so a bat-based Quirk makes sense. It also seems as though your son has also become our first proper eyewitness of this Bat-Vigilante. We've got uniforms canvassing now, but it seems as though he was gone by the time we got there".
Yojo shook his head, "Nu-uh", at his grandfather's cough, he turned back to find him staring down at him with a raised eyebrow and corrected himself, "I mean, no. He was still there, then there was all the noise, and I saw the red and blue lights, and then he was gone. Like magic".
"His Quirk, we're presuming", she added, "or at least a part of it. It could be teleportation, or some other form of personal transportation. Maybe even flight, if the bit about him having wings is correct", she went to shrug, aborting the motion halfway through, "it was dark, cloudy, not to mention the lateness of the hour. It's entirely possible that we missed him pulling his vanishing act".
"I attended U.A. with a student who could meld his body into any object that was black in colour and transport along them", Momo remembered absently, the description reminding her of a student from Class B for a moment, though she couldn't recall his name, "he's working as an Underground Pro Hero now, if I'm remembering him correctly", she shook her head, "Vantablack, I think he calls himself, but I can't completely be certain though".
"Interesting", Okaya murmured, as she quickly pulled out a notepad, and jotted down what she had just been told, making a mental note to at least make a call to follow up on it, "but you don't need to worry about him. We'll find him".
"-Tch-", Yukatana scoffed, "I'm far more worried about the criminal you let escape rather than the vigilante who saved my grandson's life".
Momo blinked, as her father rounded on the officer, his usually calm demeanour suddenly replaced by one of utter cold fury, "One of them escaped?"
Yojo whimpered, and his grandmother gently threading her hand around her head, her fingers playing with a few locks of his blond hair, until he settled into her side, noticeably calmer.
"Yes, sir. We were unable to locate the woman who posed as your daughter's driver. She appeared to have vanished by the time the police arrived on scene".
The older woman simply huffed, "Which was long after the vigilante".
"Ma'am", Okaya couldn't help the chagrined expression on her face, "you don't need to worry. Every cop in Yokohama has her face and her name. Trust me, we'll find her".
She sniffed, "Yes, assuming that this Batman character doesn't manage to do it first".
=== === === === ===
Yojo insisted on staying with his mother.
The hospital made allowances for parents and children to stay together on overnight visits, particularly when there was only a single parent to consider, but that was usually in the event of there being no other guardians able to take care of the child. His grandparents had tried to talk him into going home with them, but the boy had been insistent that he remain with his mother, and it seemed that no amount of cajoling was going to convince him otherwise.
A pair of orderlies had very kindly brought a spare cot into her room, setting him up with a blanket and pillows. They were keeping her overnight for observation, but they'd told her that barring any complications, she would be free to return home to rest in just a few hours now. Her parents had promised to come by later to pick her up, and she could already imagine the level of hell that her father was going to be unleashing on the company that provided them with their driving service, while her mother had promised to bring them both a clean change of clothes.
She'd been refused her laptop as well, both for work and leisure purposes, despite the fact that not only was she fine, but she needed to arrange to receive fresh copies of the contracts she'd lost during her accident.
Instead, all she'd been given was the novel that had been on her bedside table.
While admittedly rather trashy, the romance novels she kept were a source of constant comfort for her. She'd started reading them as a young girl, and while she knew that they had idealised, and somewhat ruined, her idea of what a relationship should look like, but even now, she still found herself turning to them as a source of comfort.
She'd read some of it to her son, (thankfully, it had been one of the lighter chapters of one of her tamer novels), but the events of the day and his adrenaline finally seemed to have caught up with him, and after a small meal and less than half a chapter, he finally crashed out beside her, and one of the orderlies was kind enough to transfer him to his cot.
Their dinner trays were cleared away, the lights dimmed, and other than one of the nurses checking in on them while he made his rounds, they were left alone to rest for what remained of the night.
It was early now, but despite that, she found herself unable to sleep, and so, had chosen to continue with her literary respite. Only a small table lamp provided her with the light she was using for her reading, and if it weren't for the turning of her page at the exact moment, she never would have seen it.
There was a shadow on her wall.
Someone was outside her window.
Quickly, her eyes darted over to his son, but he was still sleeping. Carefully, she placed the book down on the bedside table, and went to slide out of the bed, but the moment she moved, she saw the shadow on her wall jerk away.
She leapt over to the window, her mind already at work with the design and the make-up for one of her staffs and a low yield flashbang grenade, before she tore open the curtains.
"Huh?"
Behind her, Yojo sat up in bed at the noise, blinking sleep from his eyes, but for the moment, she paid him no mind, her eyes were focused only on the outside of the building, seeking out the woman who had returned to kidnap her son once again… but that made no sense. They were over half a dozen floors high, the exterior of the building was mostly glass with some metallic cladding, but she hadn't seen any cladding earlier, and there was certainly no fire escape or scaffolding on the outside.
There was no one there.
She checked again.
It made sense, her mind reasoned, that there was no one there, and she relaxed, even as she continued to scan the outside. She was just about to close the curtains when she saw it.
It was faint, hard to make out in the distance, but she saw it.
Outspread wings, bigger than any bird she had ever heard of, carrying their own away, as he glided on the winds with ease. In the darkness of the early morning, it appeared to be a mass of solid black, quietly flying away from the hospital, but she knew what it really was.
Or rather, who it was.
The mysterious vigilante who had already apparently supplanted Lemillion as her son's new favourite hero, despite him not actually being a Pro Hero. As a vigilante, he was a criminal, and yet, for today at least, she was grateful for his very existence.
Based on what she could see of his retreating figure, she understood why Yojo had called him, 'Mister Bat-Man', and based on those wings that she knew had to be a part of his Quirk, then he had one hell of a mutation to live with, which also sadly meant that he'd be identified and arrested quickly enough.
That was a shame, she supposed, even if it was the right and legal thing to do.
"Mother", the boy murmured, trying to rub the sleep from his eyes, "wha-"
"Shush dear", closing the curtains much more gently than she'd opened them, she made her way over to him, and pulled back up the blanket he'd shrugged off, "it was nothing. Go back to sleep".
=== === === === ===
The kidnapping and subsequent recovery of Yojo Yaoyorozu had not only made the local news, but was also being covered nationally, and even on a handful of the more relaxed international channels, yet despite the coverage it was being given, the information being given out by the KPPD was scarce at best, and Rody couldn't help but notice that not one of the channels he'd checked had even mentioned the involvement of a vigilante.
He wondered if Izuku preferred it that way.
He'd have to ask.
The Yaoyorozu Family had put out a statement, the patriarch of the family reading it out from the entrance of the Yaoyorozu Investment Network's headquarters, while his wife, daughter and grandson stood beside him. A few of the more daring reporters tried to get quotes from the mother and son duo when it was over, but their security was quick to usher the family inside and away from everyone else.
Just to be safe, he checked the faces of the security personnel he could see against the list Izuku had prepared, knowing that his friend had already ran background checks against those who remained with the family.
When it came to closing his cases out, he was nothing if not thorough.
Though why his friend was calling what he did casework and assigning himself additional paperwork, in addition to the running of his multi-million dollar business, (should he be calling it a multi-billion yen business, now that they were in Japan?), was a mystery to him.
Thankfully, it was also the most interesting 'case' Izuku had worked over the last few weeks. He still went out on his patrol at least three times a week, always changing the days of the week, the exact areas he worked in and the times he went out and returned home in, never repeating the same pattern twice, and leaving Rody worried the entire time, as he manned the computer, despite repeated offers to 'go to bed' and 'get some sleep'.
In the time he'd come to know Izuku, he'd long since understood what Izuku didn't, or at least, what Izuku refused to.
And that was that a small part of Izuku, deep down, possibly in a part of his mind that was so deep down, he couldn't even acknowledge to himself that it existed, Izuku felt that his life was worth less than any other man's.
He threw himself into helping people with a zeal that Rody had never seen from anyone else - ever - and it was more than just punching people. He'd built one of the world's premier lifestyle support companies practically overnight, one focused on quality products that actually helped their customers, instead of just catering to the Pro Hero industry, and then instead of doing the smart thing and selling it, so that could retire before he turned twenty-five, to his own private villa in the Caribbean, and live his life surrounded by beautiful, busty blonde women in tiny bikinis, who would serve him alcoholic drinks out of coconuts with tiny paper umbrellas, Izuku had instead used his company as a springboard to set up a dozen charitable aids and foundations, helping people gain access to help that they might not otherwise find.
He offered his hand to anyone who remotely looked like they might need it, no matter who they were or what they might have done. He did everything he could to see the best in everyone, even if they didn't deserve it.
Even if they were a struggling orphan in a ratty sportscoat, who'd tried to mug him for the contents of his wallet.
And then, as if that wasn't enough, there was his constant presence on the late-night streets of Yokohama.
Despite his regular appearances, no one had been able to make any kind of full body identification of the Yokohama Vigilante, which added to his mystery, and the most excitement his friend had seen was your average drug deal, involving only a handful of people.
He'd drop down from the sky, threaten everyone present with his simple presence, and then attack, leaving them just injured enough to not require a prolonged hospital visit, while keeping them off-kilter enough that they would struggle to describe him to the KPPD when they were picked up.
He was keeping all of them off-balance, and by some miracle, it appeared to be working.
Rody had no idea how he did it.
He spent his days in his office, working as the CEO of the world's largest up and coming lifestyle support company, and his nights patrolling the streets of Yokohama as their most frightening vigilante.
As reports of him remained scarce on the details, and the details that did go on to be reported were either a mess of contradictions, or contradicted by other reports, the idea that no one knew what the 'Yokohama Vigilante' could do, or even looked like, had kept the criminals second guessing themselves.
The idea that he could just pop up and ruin your night, and possibly your next few years, had put more than one would-be criminal in a position to do their 'business' in the light of day, where it was much easier for them to be picked up by a passing patrol car or identified by a local witness.
And with every scared kid that he let run away, instead of restraining them along with their friends, the legend of the Yokohama Vigilante grew bit-by-bit.
Honestly, Rody couldn't believe that his friend's plan was working.
When Izuku had told him what he was going home to do, Rody had, at first, thought he was joking. Then he thought that he was an idiot. Then he thought that he might actually have been insane.
Then Yojo Yaoyorozu had been kidnapped.
He'd heard the initial report that a four-year-old child had been kidnapped, and all it had reminded him of was Roro and Lala, and how small they'd been at that age. He barely even remembered the walk up to Izuku's office, asking him for help; all he remembered was the absolute certainty on Izuku's face, when he'd said 'yes'.
In that moment, Rody had known that nothing and no one was going to stop his friend from finding that lost child, and only heaven could help whoever chose to get in his way.
His takedown of the Glutton God Gang had been swift and brutal, with maximum efficiency. He hadn't turned it into a long, drawn-out fight, but instead hit them as hard as he could, as quickly as possible. His only real mistake had been that he failed to restrain them, and one of them, the one calling herself 'Mei Rin', had gotten away.
He'd found Izuku making sure to stuff zip ties into his utility belt before his next patrol.
He did his best to never make the same mistake twice.
And somewhere along the way to him becoming a regular of the Yokohama night life, Rody found that he had, if only somewhat, become a believer in what the Yokohama Vigilante could become.
In what his friend could turn himself into.
But that was only if he didn't burn himself out first.
Like today, for example.
Last night, Izuku had decided to go on patrol, suiting up and heading out of his secret underground cave, armed with only his basics. Like most nights, he left the car behind, claiming that it wasn't suitable for patrolling in, instead choosing to do so solely from the rooftops, gliding and flying between buildings, as he hunted his would-be prey.
Taking advantage of Japan's relatively earlier sunsets, when compared to Otheon and the United States, he most often chose to begin his patrols at around ten in the early night, telling Rody to go and get some sleep, (which was a request that he often ignored), and finished them up somewhere around four in the morning.
He'd be back in his apartment by four-thirty, ignoring Rody's concerns about his lack of proper sleeping habits, and then decide to get up for work at eight-thirty, being sat in his office by no later than nine.
It was true that he didn't patrol every day, and he claimed that he took a long nap in the afternoon, but Rody had yet to see that part happen, and if Izuku didn't find something resembling a work-life balance, then he was concerned that his friend would burn himself out completely, and some lucky idiot would get a good shot in while he was exhausted.
They'd already seen what a random slip of a girl, armed with only a pencil, was capable of.
He didn't want to imagine what actual hardened criminals would do to his friend, if they ever managed to catch him off-guard.
Stray pencils would be the least of his worries.
Shaking his head, in an attempt to clear his negative thoughts, he put on his best smile, "Good morning, Rumie".
From her seat behind her custom desk, Izuku's new secretary smiled shyly back at him, as she placed her desk's phone back on its receiver, "Good morning, Mister Soul".
He sighed, "It's still just Rody, Miss Aokino. Mister Soul was my father. Call it the Otheon in me, but I'm really more of a first name kind of guy".
She shuffled papers about on her desk, "I know", her eyes darted over to Izuku's door, "I just don't want for Mister Midoriya to hear me address someone so informally. I really like this job".
Rody snorted, "Trust me, Izuku doesn't care about the formality much, as long as you do job properly, and if he didn't think you were the best fit to have this job, then he wouldn't have bothered hiring you to begin with. Trust me, he was being really picky with his choice in secretary and dragged it out for weeks. He's been using a string of temps since we got here, and none of them were bad, but he still got rid of them after a few days. He chose you instead because he liked you for the role".
She shrunk in on herself, and for such a tall woman, it was impressive how small she could make herself look, "I just don't want to give him any reason to choose someone else", she straightened up slightly, but was still hunched over, "it's a really nice job".
"I'll bet", he agreed, "and speaking of Iz the great and powerful, is he busy?"
"Ah, no, I mean, I don't think so", she shuffled her papers again, her eyes darting over to the elevator, "I was just about to go in and speak with him".
"Excellent", he nodded towards the door, "I'll join you".
"Right", she agreed, before slowly rising to her feet, papers still clutched in her hands, and given how tight her grip was, Rody hoped they weren't too important.
He hoped he'd get used to it, but every time he'd found himself look at Rumie, when she was stood to her full height, he felt a little in awe.
She was stunningly beautiful, he felt, though he knew that there were plenty of Quirkist assholes who probably felt otherwise. She was wearing a pair of patent leather pumps, but even without heels, she still towered over him and everyone else he knew, standing at least seven feet tall, and he couldn't help but note how her golden blonde hair shined against the turquoise shade of her fur.
Her Quirk, 'Fox', gave her the heteromorphic traits of your average fox, only instead of being the same size as a regular human, or even your average fox, Rumie was at least seven feet tall, though he'd noticed that she had a habit of slouching down, as if attempting to appear smaller.
It didn't take a genius to figure out why exactly that was.
Between her height and her fur being a blue-green colour, instead of a fox's standard red-orange-brown, he doubted Rumie had ever been able to live without drawing attention to herself.
And people could be, (and often were), cruel.
Izuku had told him some of how people had treated him when he was younger, and honestly, Rody couldn't imagine that the treatment of those with mutant Quirks, especially those as notable as Rumie's, was much better than the treatment of the Quirkless.
Still, he held the door open for her, as they stepped into Izuku's office.
Dressed impeccably in a suit and tie, as he almost always was when in the office, Izuku looked up from the holographic display that sat beside his computer screen, dismissing whatever he had been working on as they entered, beckoning them closer with a hand gesture, as his eyes darted between them.
"Is everything alright?"
Neither Rody nor Rumie meant to talk over the other, but when they did, their voices overlapped.
"She's here".
=== === === === ===
Author's Notes:
This ties up part one of our first volume, and I hope you've enjoyed yourselves so far. Feedback would be appreciated, so if you're feeling kind, do leave some written words below.
The Yaoyorozu Family is reunited with their missing scion, though their ordeal is far from over, things do appear to be on the up for them and have no doubt that we'll be seeing more of them soon.
The Yokohama Vigilante remains an unknown, but whispers are being heard by the media, which I'm sure won't upset anyone at all, or make Izuku's job harder.
I was going to create another original character to serve as Izuku's secretary, before seeing an image of the 'Ordinary Woman/Fox Girl/Ippan Josei' from Izuku's vigilante arc, and immediately decided that not only was I going to use her instead, but that I had to. She just fits the world and the story so perfectly.
I know some people use, and prefer, to just use Ippan Josei as her name, (I often do myself), but I've chosen to create the name, Rumie Aokino (青狐瑠美) for her:
Rumie (瑠美) combines one of the kanji from "lapis lazuli" (瑠璃), which roughly translates as "Ruri", and can be used to signify a blue-green colour, referencing her skin/fur tone, and Mi, meaning "beauty" (美), is based on her design intending to appear, 'cute', which I think it does. Together they make Rumie, and I also like the idea of the gentle giant having a name that's similar sounding to Mirko's given name, given their staunch differences in personality.
Ao (青) can means, "blue" or "green", and Ko (狐) means, "fox", which is a refence to her Quirk, and they combine to form Aokino.
If you haven't seen by now, 'My Vigilante Academia' is forming a part of the series, 'The Deku-Verse', (additional details may be found on my profile page), and the first part of what I'm planning of seven additional companion pieces has been uploaded, 'Green Son', which will explore another of Izuku's multiversal counterparts; this time on a world in which he is revealed as the Last Son of Krypton. Please check it out!
And with all that said, I look forward to seeing you all back here for… Volume One, Part Two: The Hero Killer.