The ground breaks as Rappa's chest hits the trench he'd formed from the street, and Deku lands gently on the ground beside him.
Mirio blinks, staring at the dust cloud where Deku had been standing a moment before. A small burst of cracks lay there beneath the dust, but nothing else.
Deku's eyes scan the street after staring at the unconscious Yakuza and settle on him. They're bright green with dark edges, glittering vividly in the sunlight. His hair, Mirio realizes, is the opposite: black at the roots and green in the light, vivid enough to make up for the complete lack of personality in his features. Other than streaks of dirt and sweat, his expression belies what he's just accomplished. Really, even with his muscles, he's more like Sir than anyone Mirio has ever met. Shorter, sure, but thin, covered in tight, compressed muscle that didn't quite show off just how powerful the person really was.
"…Lemillion, did you see him move?" Sir whispers. Mirio frowns and shakes his head.
"No. I wasn't looking right at him, but… it looked like one second he was standing, and the next he was just… there. Did he hit the Yakuza, Sir?"
"…If he did, it was a kick to the shoulders." Sir is straightening, staring at the boy with an obvious frown. "For a moment, he was too fast for me."
Mirio decides that he hasn't seen everything. This 'Deku' has just shattered his worldview for the… He isn't even sure how many times it's happened this year. Really, it's not fair.
Deku walks out of the crater, facing Overhaul without flinching. Overhaul stares him down, but they're too far for Mirio to see if Overhaul is angry or just… resigned. Resigned to the fact that his spear has just been completely shattered by this stranger.
"Did you really do it…? Did you really use her like that?" Deku's voice carries in the quiet that has taken over the street. Mirio guesses that maybe five or ten minutes have passed, more than enough time for the blocks of city around them to quiet down and evacuate. Is this a class three incident yet? He has no idea. Overhaul and his Yakuza would qualify for class four if they had the quirk erasing bullets.
Overhaul pulls out a gun, proving that the situation can still get worse.
"Sir, is he… is he a hero? A sidekick, an apprentice, do you have… any idea…?" Mirio's voice is quiet. He knows protocol says not to interfere because that could make it worse but Deku can't possibly know…!
"I've never heard of him before. This is new to me, but who would make this their debut?"
A bubble forms around Deku, which seems to shock him. The heroes stare at his back, waiting for an opportunity.
"Sir, have you looked?" Mirio never asks that question, but this is…
"No. There are too many unknowns. I can't afford..."
A crack stops them both short. Deku flinches back, then reaches up and rips something from his shoulder.
"I was really hoping to wait and show off the full clip of finished product… but maybe this will put an end to this foolishness. Return Eri to me. Without your quirk, you're powerless against us. You'll save no one else with this foolishness." Overhaul's projecting his voice, full of barely suppressed rage. The gun is holstered, and a glove pulled off slowly. According to their sources, Overhaul's quirk works by touch, and he's probably going to turn Deku into a bloody mess in less than a second if someone doesn't do something.
Sir's hand on his shoulder stops Mirio. He grinds his teeth, desperate to jump in and do something but knowing that his mentor is right.
Before Overhaul touches the ground with his hand, Deku disappears again. Mirio blinks when the barrier-user flies into the air and a small cloud appears where he'd been standing. Deku lands on the street near Rappa's trench, holding another unconscious Yakuza in his arms and glaring at Overhaul.
"…Your quirk should be gone." Overhaul is frozen, hand suspended a few centimeters over the ground, as his eyes narrow towards Deku.
"These bullets erase quirks?" Deku's voice breaks, rising to a fever pitch, "You…! How DARE YOU!"
"Who ARE YOU?" Overhaul shouts, touching the ground and erasing the pavement between the pair. Powder fills the air between them, then fades just when Overhaul reforms the earth into a wave of spikes reaching all the way back, stopping bare meters Rappa's unconscious body.
"I'M THE ONE WHO SAVED HER FROM YOU!" Deku's scream breaks the silence in the square. The earth shudders and the spikes vaporize in a rush. Overhaul collapses forward, unconscious, a moment before Deku grinds to a stop a full block away from where he'd started with a pair of trenches tracing his wake.
Mirio isn't sure when he started holding his breath, but he… doesn't have the words for what just happened.
"He couldn't have… All Might wouldn't lie to me like this." Sir is quietly steaming, eyes locked on the green haired boy who stands at the end of the street, looking back at the wreckage. Everyone who watched the battle begin to descend from their preferred perches on the outskirts, approaching the unconscious forms of the Yakuza. A blanket of shock covers them all, and Mirio finds himself heading down the street towards Deku before anyone else. Sir has headed to where Overhaul lies unconscious.
Before Mirio can reach him, Deku's eyes lock onto him and the boy seems to snap back to reality. A gust of wind blows down the street as Deku disappears, either running too fast for Mirio to see which direction he went or flying away. Mirio wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, he decides.
Apparently, the world is never going to make sense. He just needs to get used to that.
Tsurugamae Kenji gets the full, compiled report one month after 'Deku's' debut. He's not entirely surprised when it's Tsukauchi delivering the report, because that particular detective has a tendency to end up with cases like these. After a brief bow, Tsukauchi decides to get right to it. He begins a year and a half ago, when All Might had first moved to the city.
Why it begins with the discovery of All Might's secret, Kenji will never know. Maybe the universe has chosen this boy for something, or maybe he has very peculiar luck.
Once the slime villain incident is covered, things quieted down. Midoriya apparently decided to do some public service as part of some kind of self-help project. The list is extensive, listing at least ten projects that have garnered media attention and three that no one really noticed. Kenji isn't sure why Tsukauchi is taking the long route until he slides an incident report from just before the summer out of the file. As it turns out, it's the first of many.
Midoriya has chased after the League of Villains. He's got seven counts of throwing himself in to save civilians, only to get caught in the crossfire (a car going seventy-five KPH, a gigantification quirk, a bomb blast, and an apartment complex fire are the most notable of those). Two months ago, he'd picked up a small child who was lost, running through the streets without her guardian, and apparently was deemed fit to look after her until they'd discovered who she could go to (some sort of trauma made it impossible to separate her from Midoriya). When the little girl saw Overhaul destroying downtown, Midoriya had gone after Overhaul to keep the damage to a minimum and keep the little girl safe. She'd confessed that he had done some rather horrible things to her, during the incident. People had whispered about Overhaul performing human experiments, but… Kenji found himself wishing they could just put an end to the bastard.
Tartarus was the worst they could do for his kind, sadly.
After the incident exploded, and the hero industry went on a witch hunt for the suddenly infamous 'Deku', Tsukauchi had been hard pressed to get the Midoriya's to see a physician. Near the front of the file, the medical reports confirm the worst rumor of all.
Midoriya has no quirk.
He's just naturally strong enough to do these things, apparently. A little note near the end expresses some mild horror at Midoriya's daily routine, and Kenji makes a mental note to talk to the boy about it at some point in the near future.
When Tsukauchi finishes that, he sheepishly reports that there are another three incidents where Midoriya jumped in to save people, using 'Deku' as an alias that people have started pursuing. The internet has a small following for Musutafu's Deku, the "Green Wind Vigilante" as the reporters have started calling him.
The notes from that are staggeringly in the boy's favor.
"Even if he's not using a quirk, this can't stand. He's breaking the law by stepping in without a license, even if he is All Might's second coming." Kenji mutters. Tsukauchi coughs, and Kenji's ears detect the barest trace of a snort beneath it.
One day I'll find out, Kenji thinks. If he let a detective run around with secrets of the state, what kind of chief was he?