That night, it was the noise that woke him.
Mom and Dad had been fighting again.
He'd heard them, just a few nights ago, whisper-yelling at each other again, when they thought that he'd already gone to sleep, but he'd snuck back and pressed his ear to the door.
"-galivanting again!"
"I'm earning us a living!"
"Which you could do just as well from here. You just want-"
"Don't be stupid-"
"-to meet up with your little slut".
"…"
"…"
"I don't know what you're talking about".
"Oh, don't even. I've seen the messages-"
"Have you been going through my phone?"
"You're on a family plan, Genius. We share an account-"
"That doesn't-"
"-which records all of the messages".
They'd gotten quieter after that He didn't know what a slut was, but he didn't think it was a good thing. His mom didn't seem to like it, and his mom was the nicest person he knew. He'd have to remember to ask her about it later.
There was a storm outside, and the roar of the thunder was what had woken him from his slumber. Lightning flashed, briefly illuminating the walls of his bedroom, and he took a shaky breath as All Might smiled back at him.
In a world of Pro Heroes, All Might was the greatest Pro Hero of them all! He always showed up to save the day with a ginormous smile on his face, before beating the bad guys and saving the people in trouble.
Smiling down at him, Izuku felt braver looking at him.
'CRACK'
The lightning flashed again, lightning up the room and Izuku grabbed his blanket tighter, before he looked up, blinking in confusion.
He was tired, and his mom told him that tired people could get confused, and that growing boys like him should always make sure that they're getting enough sleep, but when he looked outside, it looked like the rain was falling upwards.
That was so cool.
Even if it didn't make any sense.
He didn't know any Pro Hero that had a Quirk like that.
"Hisashi!"
"Mom?!"
He heard another crash, like the sound of a glass being dropped on the floor, before his mom yelled out his dad's name. He called out to her, then a second time, but all he could hear was the wind as it picked up outside his window, until it sounded deafening to his small ears.
"Mom?!"
He ran into their sitting room to find her; it was noisy, and the rain was acting weird, and she was yelling, and now?
Now there was lightning in the living room.
Bursts of bright red and blinding white lights danced across the living room, covering it with flashes of colour that made it hard for Izuku to clearly see what was happening. The bursts of miniature lightning seemed to crackle and smash into each other, as if in some twisted kind of dance, with the light making it so that he couldn't see what was happening, and the noise meaning that he could barely hear what was being said.
He didn't know what to do.
"Mom?! Dad?!"
"Izuku!"
"You need to get out of here!"
"I don't- what's happening?! Mom?! MOM?!"
"Izuku! Run!"
"Mom! I can't-"
For a moment, just one single moment, Izuku could see the lightning clearly. For a moment, one single moment, time itself seemed to pause, as the red lightning solidified, forming a man in a bright yellow suit, roaring in rage, and then, he blinked.
And it was gone.
His mom was gone.
His father was gone.
Even his home was gone.
And he was cold.
Shivering, as the cold set in through the thin fabric of his All Might pyjamas, Izuku found himself rapidly blinking in quick succession, as he worked on clearing the flashes of colour of his eyes, getting them back into focus, as he looked up and finally realised exactly where he was.
He was stood outside of the school gates.
Aldera Elementary School loomed above him, which meant that he wasn't too far from his and mom's apartment.
Mom had once made him promise her that he would never walk home from school without her. She didn't want him getting lost; she just wanted him to be safe, and Izuku had promised her that day, no matter what, he would never ever leave the school without her.
Izuku hated lying, and he hated breaking promises more.
He also didn't hesitate.
Turning around, Izuku orientated himself as swiftly as he could, until he was facing the direction of their apartment, and without a second thought, he ran.
=== === === === ===
Izuku moved as quickly as his legs would allow him to, and while the distance wasn't far, he still found himself huffing and puffing with exhaustion as he turned the last corner.
There were already police officers there.
That was good. The police helped Pro Heroes, so that meant they would be able to help.
Red and blue lights were flashing all down the street as he ran past. Some of the police turned to look at him, as he ran past; one of them, a younger one, with dark skin and a little beard tried to guide him away, calling his name, but Izuku ignored him, ducking past their attempts to stop him and reached the bottom of the stairs.
His mom was already there.
"I didn't do this", she was telling them, as the police walked with her, "I swear to god, I didn't do this".
"Mom!"
"IZUKU!"
She turned to face him, and even at a distance, Izuku could see her shoulders drop in relief, as he ran over to her, but the police officers pushed her past him, marching her towards the car, and in a flash of red and blue light, Izuku finally saw the handcuffs fastened around her wrists, "Mom, where are they taking you?"
She swivelled around, ignoring the officers' attempts to turn her back around, even as they grabbed at her arms, calling out, "Don't go inside!"
"But- where's dad?!"
Opening the door of one of their patrol cars, the officers placed a firm hand on her head, forcing her inside, "What's going to happen to my son?!"
"MOM!"
"Stay out the apartment! Izuku!"
=== === === === ===
He took a few deep breaths to try and settle his stomach, and after a moment, while he still felt nauseous, he didn't think he was going to throw up.
"You alright there, Rookie?"
He nodded, not quite trusting himself to open his mouth just yet. This wasn't his first crime scene, nor was it quite his first murder scene, being his second, but unlike the other one, this one came with so much bloodshed that you could smell it from outside of the building.
Rage.
That was the only reason for this level of blood loss - especially when there were so many stab wounds; he'd counted nearly a dozen just on the torso alone. Whoever was responsible for killing Hisashi Midoriya had done so while in a fit of pure, unadulterated rage. There could be no other explanation. They'd been brutal and violent, and while his wife had looked demure and unassuming, Naomasa knew that looks could be deceiving.
Officer Tanuma, who was his Field Training Officer, and therefore responsible for supervising his training simply looked unbothered by the carnage, and was simply giving him an amused look, "You know, for a moment, just for a second, I thought you were going to throw up".
Naomasa ran his teeth over with his tongue, but nodded reluctantly, "I swallowed it".
Tanuma barked out a brief laugh, which looked and sounded so out of place with their surroundings that Naomasa felt the urge to throw up again.
When he'd set off on their patrol route early in the night, Naomasa had never expected that being asked to respond to a domestic dispute would lead him to walking in on such a brutal and bloody murder scene.
He'd called it in, under Tanuma's supervision, and a crime scene investigation team was sent out, along with a detective and additional patrol units for helping with manpower. Tanuma had placed the wife in handcuffs and read her rights, but all she was interested in was her son, Izuku, who had supposedly vanished in the attack.
If the woman had done this to her husband, he shuddered to think of what she might have done to his son.
She'd been taken outside a moment ago, no doubt into the back of a car so that she could be taken to be processed and booked. The duty officers would have her stripped and searched, and cleaned of the blood on her body, before having her interrogated, and if they were lucky, securing a quick confession.
"Dad?"
=== === === === ===
He span around, Tanuma's eyes snapping up to follow his gaze, as they took in the sight of a young boy, young and with a mess of hair that matched the shade of the wife's perfectly.
The son.
Somehow, he'd either snuck past all of the officers stationed around the apartment building, or as was more likely, he'd simply ran past them before they had a chance to stop him.
"Kid, don't-"
He reached out to stop him, but he was too slow, and too far away.
The kid peeled back the blue protective sheet they had used to cover the victim's body.
Naomasa moved as quickly as he could, gently pulling the boy away from the crime scene, as Tanuma stepped in to replace the body covering, both of them just close enough to hear the boy's confused whisper, filtered through a layer of pain.
"Dad?"
Thankfully, it didn't take much coaxing to get the boy to leave the apartment, and take a seat inside one of the ambulances, where a paramedic was able to treat him for shock, making sure he had no visible injuries and wrapping a thermal blanket around his shoulders.
The Office for Child Safety Services had been notified and would pick the boy - Izuku - up from the station, once they were done taking his statement and making sure that he was okay.
"There was a man - the man in the lightning".
"What's that, kid?"
The boy hunched in on himself, "I went into the living room, and there was lightning and there was a man, a man in the lightning. He was scary".
Naomasa blinked; it wasn't because of what the boy was saying, Quirks had, after all, been known to create some truly bizarre things, but it was the lack of response from his own Quirk that was telling.
Either, the boy had a nullification-based Quirk, or worse.
He was telling the truth.
But that made no sense, at least, not from what Naomasa had seen. Hisashi Midoriya was a corporate middle manager, in a company that shipped cargo containers across the ocean. He oversaw depots, but he seemed to have no contact with any of the containers themselves. His wife, Inko, was a paediatric nurse. Their son, Izuku, attended the local middle school. Honestly, the only thing of note about them, was that Izuku was Quirkless, but that did little to explain the sheer rage that Hisashi had been killed with.
Something was amiss here.
=== === === === ===
"Another man", their boss barked out, literally in his case, with his Quirk, Beagle, Superintendent Kenji Tsuragamae possessed the physical characteristics of the hound, including bodily fur, enhanced senses and a dog's head in place of a normal human one, "and a man made out of lightning, at that?"
He was also not believing what he was being told.
"That's right, Sir".
Tsuragamae was in line to be named the next Superintendent General for the Prefecture; some rumours whispered around the locker rooms even said that the National Police Agency were considering naming him the Superintendent General of Tokyo, which admittedly made sense. Ever since he had risen to command, the stats showed that crime was down, particularly Quirk-based hate crimes, which always looked good when promoting. When the current he Hero Public Safety Commission would lean hard on the NPA to name him the next Superintendent General of Tokyo, making the highest ranked officer of Japan's most prestigious district.
The man himself also knew this, and Naomasa knew that he also liked the sound of 'Chief Tsuragamae'.
And a mysterious familial homicide happening on his watch, did not make him look good, especially when it had been a quiet few days, and the details of the case were being broadcast on the five o'clock news.
"And have we recovered a single shred of evidence that points to there being a fourth person in the apartment that night?"
"No, sir", Tanuma answered for him, when he hesitated, "we have not".
"So, she's lying?"
"It appears that way".
"But she didn't set off my Quirk", he protested, "neither did the boy".
"We have no way of knowing how reliable your Quirk is in these situations. Unless you're willing and able to offer up a one hundred percent guarantee that your Quirk has never once failed you throughout your entire life?"
"Well, I… I have no way of knowing for certain-"
"Then we can't guarantee that it's perfect and therefore it doesn't count as evidence. It would never be allowed to be used in a courtroom", the Superintendent waved off any argument he might have made, and a firm shake of his Training Officer's head told him not to argue with the man, "so we'll go back and look at the facts, or at least, the detectives and inspectors will. Check In with them, see what you can do to help".
"We will, Sir", Tanuma confirmed, recognising the dismissal for what it was, and began shepherding his enthusiastic rookie outside, before he could find a way to argue with the man and commit career suicide before his ever got started.
Thankfully, Tsukauchi had the good sense to wait until they rounded the corner into an empty corridor, before he rounded on his boss, "What was that?!"
Tanuma rolled his eyes, "What was what?"
"That! That dismissal! The 'just let the detectives handle it', I mean", he ran his hands through his hair, suddenly looking a lot older than his actual age of twenty-four, "he just basically said, 'drop it', and then-"
"And then he handed the homicide case off to the people whose job it is to inspect the homicide cases", Tanuma raised an eyebrow, smirking in amusement, "or did you think it was going to be yours? The rookie cop, with less than six months' experience working on a major homicide case that'll get his photo out on the six o'clock news?"
"No! It's not like that, I swear! It's just-"
"Oh my god", Tanuma found himself pinching his eyes, "you got attached to the kid, didn't you?"
"He's just lost both of his parents and I was basically the one who found him", he snapped, "of course I got attached. He's a sweet kid".
Tanuma just sighed, "Relatives pick him up yet?"
"He hasn't got any left".
"Of course he hasn't, he muttered, "you're going to end up with a puppy out of this, aren't you?"
"What?"
"I can see the adoption papers already".
"What?!"
"Let me guess, after we check in with the detectives, you want to check in on the kid?"
"I mean, they took him off to a group home earlier, and it's in our patrol zone-"
"JUST-", Tanuma bit back his groan, "I'm gonna go speak with the detectives. Go get the car ready".
"Is that a-"
"Now, Rookie".
=== === === === ===
"Ladies and gentlemen of the court… we stand before you today to seek justice for one, Hisashi Midoriya, a young man in the prime of his life, which was tragically cut short. The evidence presented in this trial points unmistakably to the fact that it was his wife, Inko Midoriya, who is responsible for his untimely death".
"The defence would have you believe that an unknown third party committed this heinous act. They cite possible Quirks and supervillains; however, they can offer you no actual evidence that speaks to this claim. We must carefully consider the facts that have been established, and only the facts themselves".
"First and foremost, the physical evidence at the crime scene is compelling in of itself. Inko Midoriya's bloody handprints were found on the knife used to kill her husband. This is not the minor detail that the defence would have you think it as, but is a critical piece of evidence that directly links her to the murder weapon. The defence has offered no plausible explanation for how her handprints could have ended up on the knife, without any other markings present, if she were not the one who wielded it".
"Furthermore, Hisashi Midoriya's body bore clear signs of defensive wounds. These wounds indicate that a struggle took place; a desperate attempt by Mister Midoriya to protect himself from his attacker. The nature and placement of these wounds are consistent with a rage-fuelled domestic confrontation, not an attack by an unknown outsider. This further narrows the circle of possible perpetrators to someone within the household, namely, Inko Midoriya".
"The motive for this crime also becomes clear and has been thoroughly demonstrated throughout this trial. Inko Midoriya discovered that her husband was unfaithful to her - on more than one occasion - now, understandably this was a revelation that caused her great distress and anger, however, rather than seeking a lawful resolution to her marital issues, she chose to take the path of violence. The prosecution does not ask you to condone Hisashi Midoriya's actions, but we do implore you to realise that infidelity does not justify murder".
"We must also consider the testimony of their son, the nine-year-old Izuku. While it is undoubtedly difficult for a child to be asked to testify, Izuku has provided us with critical insight into their family dynamic. He admitted to having heard his parents argue, including on the night of the murder. This pattern of conflict undermines the defence's portrayal of an idyllic family targeted by an unknown assailant. Instead, it paints a picture of a volatile relationship that tragically culminated in violence".
"The defence's narrative of an unknown perpetrator is a desperate attempt to divert attention from the overwhelming evidence against Inko Midoriya. There is no credible evidence to support the existence of this mysterious third party. In contrast, every piece of evidence we have presented ties Inko to the crime".
"Ladies and gentlemen, we must not be swayed by sympathy or speculative doubts. The evidence before us is clear and compelling. Inko Midoriya, in a moment of rage and betrayal, took the life of her husband. Justice for Hisashi Midoriya demands that we hold his killer accountable".
"We ask you to return a verdict of guilty, affirming that the evidence, the law, and the pursuit of justice compel this outcome. Thank you".
=== === === === ===
"The court will rise".
"Inko Midoriya, this court has carefully considered the evidence presented during your trial, the arguments of both the prosecution and the defence. On the charge of the murder of Hisashi Midoriya, your husband, this court has no choice but to find you guilty of the murder of your husband, Hisashi Midoriya".
"You have taken the life of a person with whom you once shared a home and a family, a person you once vowed to love and cherish. The court recognizes the emotional turmoil and betrayal you experienced upon discovering your husband's infidelities. However, these circumstances do not excuse or justify the act of taking his life".
"Your actions have not only resulted in the loss of Hisashi Midoriya's life but have also profoundly affected your son, Izuku Midoriya, who now must carry the burden of this tragic event for the rest of his life".
"After careful deliberation, this court sentences you, Inko Midoriya, to fifteen years of imprisonment. It has been determined that you will be eligible for parole after serving ten years of this sentence, contingent upon your behaviour and the progress of your rehabilitation during your incarceration".
"It is my hope and the hope of this court that during this time, you will reflect on the gravity of your actions and take the steps towards rehabilitation. The possibility of parole after ten years offers you a path to reintegration into society, provided you demonstrate a commitment to change and personal growth".
"Court is now adjourned".
=== === === === ===
Author's Notes:
And that's it for the Prologue!
Hello everyone and welcome to Book Three of the Deku-Verse, Born to Run, and for those of you who aren't familiar with the characters of DC Comics, we're going to see this version of Izuku become our version of The Flash.
And like every good Flash story, it starts with a vicious murder. I elected to keep Inko around in prison, rather than have her be the victim, because I feel having his mother, (who he admittedly cares more for than his father), being so close and yet so far away, would be more torturous for him than simply losing her.
And as I'm sure the comic faithful among you will agree, if your Reverse-Flash isn't emotionally torturing your Flash, are they really fit to be called their arch-nemesis?
This story takes place on Earth-123. Unlike Earth-2238 and Earth-5127, both of which were given names relating to Star Wars, the home of Born to Run is numbered for the legendary comic book issue: Flash #123 "Flash of Two Worlds", which is known most of all for re-introducing the Jay Garrick version of the Flash and first introducing readers to the concept of the multiverse to DC Comics; something I'm sure you'll all agree is very fitting.
We have very little backstory for most of the characters in the show, so I've added a little into Tsukauchi, Tanuma and Tsuragamae here, with the added benefit of not needing to come up with more original characters, just to fulfil what would've been their roles back then.
Also, not a lot of Izuku in this chapter once you get past the opening, but he'll show up in the next chapter, as I do my best to condense his teenage years and get him into the MHA timeline.