Chapter 17

₊˚⊹✷ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍.
⤷ he looks like a disgruntled Pomeranian.

THE PLATFORM HUMMED with the kind of Monday-morning energy that made everything feel too bright, too loud, too fast. Suitcases clicked against tile, announcements buzzed over the intercom, and Class 1A clustered together like a flock of birds waiting for someone to give the signal to scatter.

Aizawa stood planted in front of them with dead-eyed vigilance, his glare alone kept the entire class from vibrating straight into orbit. “You all have your costumes, right? Remember, you don’t have permission to wear them out in public yet. And don’t lose them or anything.”

Ashido threw hers into the air. “Gotcha!”

Aizawa’s sigh was audible even over the train announcements. “Speak properly. It’s ‘yessir,’ Ashido.”

“Yessir…” she deflated, though brightly.

Oda shifted where he stood, tightening his grip on his black case—heavy, rectangular, and fitted with a coded lock. His hero suit was inside, neatly folded the way Yaoyorozu had kindly suggested he store it, and even now the weight of it felt strange in his hands. The suit wasn’t new anymore—he’d worn it through the USJ attack—but the idea of wearing it under Ranpo’s supervision just felt… wrong. 

He pushed his bangs out of his eyes again. They’d grown a little during his days in Recovery Girl’s infirmary, and his ribs still throbbed whenever he inhaled too sharply. The doctor had told him to take it easy. ‘Easy’ was gonna last for a while.

“Make sure you mind your manners with the other heroes during your internships,” Aizawa continued, glancing over them all. “Now get to it.”

“Yes sir!”

The class fractured instantly—small groups peeling away, laughing, calling out goodbyes, checking schedules and maps. The station swallowed them one by one.

Oda stood on the edge of it all, watching Iida pass him with long, stiff strides. Normally Iida radiated this hyper-focused energy, the kind where he buzzed like a wind-up toy you couldn’t turn off. But now…

His eyes were unfocused. Haunted. He bowed politely as he moved through the crowd, but his expression was wrong. Tight. Hollow.

Oda tracked him for a few seconds, chest tightening in a way he didn’t entirely understand. He wasn’t the comforting type. He barely knew how to comfort himself. But something in Iida’s posture made Oda itch with unease.

He was going to Hosu. To the place where his brother had been attacked. And everyone knew that meant something dangerous was brewing behind his usually disciplined eyes.

Still… Oda wasn’t Ranpo. He couldn’t read minds or intentions. So he exhaled, slow and steady, and tore his gaze away.

He looked down at the paper in his hand—creased from being folded and unfolded too many times. Internship Assignment Request: Armed Detective Agency, Yokohama

Despite Aizawa’s encouragement, despite the list of nearly 4000 offers, despite the chance—maybe the only one he’d get—to branch out… Oda hadn’t budged. Not even a centimeter.

He knew where he belonged. Or at least where he was expected to be. The ADA was government-run, supervised, and deeply connected to everything Oda had been raised under. Ranpo expected him to report for his internship, and Oda had learned how to pick his battles. This wasn’t one of them.

He boarded the train, stepping inside with a muted wince as his ribs shifted. The doors slid closed behind him with a soft, hydraulic hiss.

The carriage rocked gently as it pulled away from the platform, and Oda sank into an empty seat by the window. The city blurred past in streaks of white, steel, and green. He rested his case on his lap, fingers drumming absently against the metal.

He wondered how the others felt. Excited, probably. Nervous, maybe. Hopeful.

Oda just felt… heavy.

He stared down at his reflection faintly mirrored in the glass—tired eyes, black hair falling into his face, posture curled in slightly from lingering pain.

He wasn’t sure what exactly awaited him at the ADA. Ranpo would mock him for being slow. Atsushi would smile too kindly and try not to look worried. Kunikida would lecture him. Yosano might threaten surgery if he sneezed wrong. 

Still, despite everything—despite Ango, despite expectations, despite the weight of his own history—there was a strange, muted comfort in going somewhere familiar, even if familiar didn’t mean safe.

Oda leaned his head lightly against the window, shutting his eyes as the train sped toward Yokohama.

He didn’t know what this internship would bring.

But he had a sinking feeling it wasn’t going to be simple.

The train coasted into Yokohama with a long, low screech—metal grinding against metal as it eased into the familiar underground platform. The doors slid open and the rush of city air, colder and sharper than Musutafu’s, hit Oda in a way that made something deep in his chest clench.

It always felt like this when he came back.

Like the city exhaled around him, whispering pieces of the past he would rather forget.

Oda stepped out onto the platform, his shoes clicking against the concrete. He adjusted the strap of his hero-suit-case on his shoulder. His insides still ached with every movement, a dull heat under his ribs—reminders of Todoroki’s ice, Bakugo’s explosions, and his own stupidity.

Yokohama station was loud, but not chaotically so. Its sounds were a kind of organized noise—people talking, trains arriving and departing, the distant flutter of pigeons from the rafters—yet beneath all of it was a hum. A pulse.

A city used to tragedy.

He made his way up the escalators, each step pulling him closer to the surface. When he emerged onto the streets, the gray light of an overcast sky washed over him. Tall buildings, and the faint scent of ocean salt.

Everything looked the same. Which somehow made it worse.

His feet carried him automatically down the sidewalk, past the corner bakery with the red awning, past the bookstore that still hadn’t fixed its flickering sign, past the alley where—years ago—Ranpo had forced him to memorize fifteen different escape routes “for fun.”

It was muscle memory now.

Oda crossed the street and looked up.

Armed Detective Agency.

The sign hung on the old European-style building, just as it always had. A bit crooked. A bit faded. Like everything here, it bore the weight of history.

He stood at the foot of the stairs for a moment, hand tightening on the handle of his case. His heart thudded unevenly, not from nerves exactly, but from a place deeper than that. Because this building wasn’t just where Ranpo lived. Wasn’t just where Atsushi worked. Wasn’t just the hub of Yokohama’s strangest legal and illegal investigations.

It was the last place the smartest strategist in the world had ever stepped foot before he died.

Six years ago.

On the exact same day Oda’s father died.

Two funerals—one public, one classified.

Two men buried under different names.

Two legacies twisted together in a way Oda still didn’t understand.

He remembered being small, standing outside the morgue with Ranpo’s hand on his shoulder. He remembered Ango’s voice, flat and detached. He remembered his mother’s scream.

Most of all, he remembered Ranpo’s face—the one time he had ever seen the man look truly, violently human.

Oda inhaled slowly, pushing the memory back down where it belonged.

He climbed the stairs.

At the door, he hesitated only a second before sliding it open.

Inside, the agency was exactly as chaotic as ever—paperwork stacked to catastrophic heights, the faint smell of coffee mixed with disinfectant, and the sound of someone yelling in the background.

Kunikida, obviously.

Oda stepped fully inside, letting the door close behind him. The wooden floor creaked under his weight.

He didn’t get two steps before a voice called out from the main room.

“Finally,” Ranpo drawled, not even turning away from his desk, where he was eating chips at 10 a.m. “Took you long enough.”

A second voice—gentler, warmer—followed:

“Odasaku! You made it!” Atsushi leaned into view from behind a stack of case folders, smiling the same anxious, earnest smile he always greeted him with. “Welcome back.”

Oda let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “I’m here.”

Ranpo swiveled lazily in his chair and looked Oda over, eyes sharp despite the casual posture. “You look like hell,” he said cheerfully. 

Oda blinked, unimpressed. “Thanks.”

𓏵

THE FIRST DAY SLIPPED by in that strange way time always seemed to operate inside the Armed Detective Agency—slow and fast at the same time, like the building existed slightly outside the rest of Yokohama’s timeline. Morning bled into afternoon without Oda fully realizing it, the hours filled with the quiet hum of paperwork, the scraping of chairs on wooden floors, and the soft, steady cadence of Atsushi’s voice as he patiently responded to report calls.

Oda wasn’t assigned anything big. He hadn’t expected to be.

Ranpo had been firm—annoyingly, infuriatingly firm—about the “no quirk” rule for the first few days, and Atsushi backed him up with that gentle but unmovable stubbornness he’d perfected over the years.

“You’re still healing,” Atsushi had said, voice warm but resolute as he gestured to the space behind Oda’s ribs. “Your body went through more strain than it should have, and Recovery Girl’s quirk can only close the damage, not erase the shock your organs took. Give yourself time.”

Ranpo had phrased it differently, of course:

“You use your quirk again before Wednesday and I swear to god I will handcuff you to the goddamn couch.”

So Oda kept his hands in his pockets and his quirk dormant, the marks along his arms still faintly sore. Instead, he spent his morning shadowing Ranpo through stacks of old case files while the detective lectured him in a tone that made it impossible to tell whether he was bragging or genuinely teaching.

“You see, Odasaku, the trick,” Ranpo explained while casually rifling through confidential police records, “is never actually about the evidence. It’s about noticing what idiots don’t realize they’re telling you. Everyone leaks information. Most of them leak it constantly.”

Oda scribbled notes on a clipboard because it was something to do with his hands. “Most detectives rely on evidence,” he muttered.

“Yes, well, most detectives aren’t me,” Ranpo said. “Your job as my intern is to keep up, not compare me to mere mortals.”

Oda resisted the urge to roll his eyes so hard that he’d pass out.

Around noon, Atsushi returned from patrol—hair wind-tossed, jacket unzipped, the faint scent of city air clinging to him. He dropped a rescued kitten into Ranpo’s arms (Ranpo screamed), apologized seventeen times, and then returned to Oda with a sheepish smile and a boxed lunch he’d bought extra on purpose.

Atsushi had matured in the twelve years he’d worn the title “Weretiger,” though Oda doubted the man saw it in himself. He carried himself differently now—shoulders steadier, footsteps more confident, voice calm even when speaking to nervous civilians. But he was still Atsushi: painfully kind, endlessly soft, and infuriatingly patient.

“I caught a purse snatcher on the east pier,” he reported as he sat on the edge of Ranpo’s desk, flipping through his hero log. “Nothing too serious. Do you need anything, Oda? Water? Pain meds? A heating pad?”

“I’m fine,” Oda mumbled, though his ribs tugged when he leaned forward.

Atsushi frowned in a way that said he absolutely didn’t buy that.

Ranpo, munching snacks loudly, didn’t look up. “He’s lying.”

“I noticed,” Atsushi sighed.

Oda clicked his pen. “I’m sitting here doing paperwork, not lunging at villains. You two can relax.”

“We literally cannot,” Ranpo said flatly. “You nearly died last week.”

“And you would’ve been unbearably dramatic about it,” Oda shot back.

Ranpo gasped. “Unbelievably rude.”

The rest of the afternoon passed in similar fashion—Oda assisting with missing-person data searches, helping Atsushi with hero reports, sorting Kunikida’s intolerably organized filing system, and trying—not very successfully—to ignore the ache under his breastbone every time he twisted the wrong way.

By evening, the office lights had dimmed to a warmer tone, casting long shadows over shelves and papers. Atsushi returned from a second patrol, tired but smiling, and Ranpo finally put down his snack long enough to stretch like a cat who had done absolutely no work all day despite insisting he was “mentally exhausted from carrying the agency.”

Oda sank into the couch near the windows, exhaling slowly. His body didn’t scream at him as violently now. Healing, then—just slow. Every day a little easier.

Ranpo plopped down beside him, stealing one of Atsushi’s steamed buns from the bag on the table. “So,” he said, chewing obnoxiously. “First day done. Thoughts? Feelings? Traumas resurfaced?”

Oda stared tiredly out the window at Yokohama’s skyline. “It’s quieter than UA,” he said.

Ranpo blinked, then snorted. “This place is a circus.”

“Yeah.” Oda’s voice softened. “But it’s a circus I know.”

Atsushi walked by with a mug of tea and set it gently into Oda’s hands without a word. Oda accepted it, warming his fingers against the ceramic.

The city outside buzzed with life. The agency hummed with its own peculiar rhythm. And despite the ache in his ribs and the heaviness woven into Yokohama’s air, Oda felt something loosen—something small, something hesitant, but real.

This place wasn’t easy. It wasn’t peaceful. But it was his.

“Alright,” Ranpo yawned, stretching until his back cracked loudly. “Tomorrow we do actual detective work. No training fights. No hero nonsense. Just brains, baby.”

Atsushi placed a hand over his face. “Don’t call it that.”

Oda took a sip of tea, eyelids heavy, ribs less painful than they had been that morning.

Tomorrow would hurt too. But he could handle tomorrow.

“Sure,” he muttered. “Brains.”

Ranpo immediately kicked his shin.

“Odasaku,” he snapped, “don’t say it like that. Have some respect for your brilliant mentor.”

Oda smirked faintly. “I’ll try.”

𓏵

THE NEXT MORNING began like any other at the Agency—Ranpo eating something sugary before noon, Atsushi reviewing overnight reports with quiet focus, Oda rubbing sleep from his eyes as he tried not to aggravate the tender ache under his ribs—but it snapped sideways the moment the news alert pinged across Ranpo’s screen.

TOKYO HOMICIDE – POSSIBLE SERIAL LINK INVESTIGATED

Ranpo froze mid–chocolate bar bite.

The word serial hung in the air like a trigger.

And Ranpo, who moments earlier had been draped dramatically across his chair like a lazy housecat, suddenly sat upright with the eyes of a wolf who’d scented prey.

“Oh? Serial killings?” Ranpo’s voice slid into something sharp and electric. “Well now. It’s about time this week got interesting.”

Atsushi paled. “Ranpo, you don’t even know the details yet—”

“I don’t need them.” Ranpo was already shoving snacks into his coat. “I can smell incompetence from Yokohama.”

Oda sighed. “We’re taking the train?”

“We’re taking the train,” Ranpo confirmed, grabbing Oda by the arm and dragging him toward the door. “Atsushi! Bring your hero license and a notebook; I need someone responsible to hold my snacks.”

“I’m not a snack mule!” Atsushi protested, but he grabbed the notebooks.

Within fifteen minutes, the three were rushing down the sidewalk toward the station. Ranpo walked fast—too fast for someone with his posture. Atsushi kept pace easily, long legs eating up ground, and Oda followed slightly slower, hand in his suit pocket where he discreetly pressed against his side to manage the dull, stubborn throb of still-healing organs.

The train ride was mercifully short, the morning sun streaking across the window as Yokohama blurred into the edges of Tokyo. Ranpo tapped his foot the entire time like a metronome of impatience.

When they arrived, the air was thick with tension—police barricades, curious civilians pressed behind tape, the tight murmur of people trying not to panic in public. They followed the street down a narrow block until the crime scene came into view.

And there he was.

Best Jeanist.

Tall, immaculate, denim-themed to a degree that made Oda’s eyes hurt. Standing with perfectly ironed composure beside his assigned first-year intern:

Bakugo Katsuki, whose hair was—Oda blinked. Straightened, brushed down and tamed. He looked like someone had attempted to groom a wild animal for a fashion magazine shoot and been only half-successful.

Bakugo saw them and immediately went red in the face at the sight of a fellow classmate being there.

“Don’t—say—anything.”

Oda didn’t but the corner of his mouth twitched.

Ranpo did not try at all.

“Oh my god,” Ranpo whispered loudly. “He looks like a disgruntled Pomeranian.”

Bakugo detonated. “SAY THAT AGAIN, YOU FOUR-EYED BASTARD—”

Best Jeanist held out a hand, fingers elegantly extended. “Bakugo. Rein yourself in. Heroes must embody composure.”

Ranpo snorted. “Yeah, sure. Lemme know when he finds any.”

Oda braced for the explosion—but Bakugo froze mid-lunge, eyes darting between Oda’s placid expression and Atsushi’s polite panic.

He stepped back with a snarl, arms rigid at his sides. “What the hell are you doing here anyway?”

The question was for Oda but Ranpo stepped forward with the swagger of a man who had never once in his life been told no.

“I,” he declared, pointing at himself with a dramatic flourish, “am here to solve your case. You’re welcome.”

But the lead investigator—a graying detective with deep set lines in his forehead—stepped firmly between Ranpo and the taped-off area. “Absolutely not. This is a Tokyo Metropolitan Police matter. Outsider agencies are not being allowed in.”

Ranpo blinked once.

Twice.

Then he scoffed. Loudly.

“You’re investigating a serial?” He slapped a hand over his heart in exaggerated offense. “Oh, that’s adorable. Truly. I didn’t realize Tokyo Metro had taken up comedy.”

The detective bristled. “I won’t have some arrogant private consultant mocking—”

“Oh, no, no,” Ranpo cut in, eyes gleaming. “Not mocking. Pitying. There’s a difference.”

Atsushi winced. Oda pressed his hands harder into his pockets.

“I have full jurisdiction,” the detective snapped. “And I’m not letting some child prodigy—”

“I’m forty-two, how dare you—”

“—walk into my crime scene and tell me how to do my job!”

Ranpo placed one hand on his hip, “Listen carefully. You are not going to solve this case. You cannot solve this case. You lack the methodology, the deduction skill, the observational capacity, and frankly, basic reasoning. This case has patterns too subtle for your department, and if you continue on your own path, a fourth victim will die.”

The color drained from the detective’s face.

“So,” Ranpo finished lightly. “Shall we skip the screaming match and move on to the part where you let me save your city?”

The detective stared.

Best Jeanist raised a brow.

Bakugo muttered, “Damn show-off.”

And then—

The tape lifted.

“Fine,” the detective growled. 

Ranpo clapped his hands together with a grin so wide it practically carved crescents into his cheeks. “Excellent!” He spun on his heel, coat flaring dramatically, and beckoned sharply. “Let’s go. You too, Jeanist. Bring your Pomeranian with you.”

Bakugo sputtered like a firecracker dipped in gasoline. “I’LL KILL YOU—”

“Uh-huh, very scary,” Ranpo said, already walking under the police tape. “You guys gotta catch the bad guys, since Atsushi’s not technically allowed to.”

Bakugo growled something incomprehensible. Best Jeanist cleared his throat and followed, posture impeccable even in a murder scene. Oda slipped in behind Atsushi, a quiet shadow lingering at the edge of the group. His ribs twinged, but he ignored the pain. There was something grounding, almost soothing, about crime scenes. They were puzzles—awful ones, yes, but puzzles still. They made sense even when people didn’t.

The alley was cordoned off with cones and blue tarp. A light drizzle clung to everything, making the blood-scent heavier than it should’ve been. Police markers dotted the ground. A white sheet covered the body.

Ranpo didn’t look at it yet.

He pointed at Oda instead.

“Alright, kid. Go on.”

Oda blinked. “…Go on?”

“Take a look.” Ranpo gestured broadly to the entire crime scene, as if revealing a stage. “Tell me what happened. Step by step. I know you got it.”

Bakugo clicked his tongue.

Oda swallowed, tugging the tank top sleeve of his hero suit. The markings on his arms glowed faintly in the dim light. The ache in his side throbbed, but he forced his senses outward. He knelt beside the first marker.

A broken phone. Screen shattered inward.

“There was a struggle,” Oda said, voice low. “The victim dropped the phone while trying to run. The shatter pattern shows they landed on it—face down, probably shoved.”

Ranpo hummed approvingly.

Oda moved to the next marker.

A smear on the wall, too high for a fall, too sharp for an impact alone. He touched it with a gloved fingertip.

“They were thrown,” he murmured. “Hard. Angle suggests the attacker was taller. Stronger. Or had enhanced reach—maybe a quirk?”

Jeanist nodded once. “Interesting.”

Oda shifted to the body. He lifted the sheet carefully, ignoring the cold dread sliding along his spine.

“Throat cut,” Oda said. “Deep. Fast. Based on the depth and clean slice… blade quirk? Or something similar.” He frowned. “But—”

Ranpo leaned down slightly. “But?”

Oda pointed. “No defensive wounds.”

Atsushi’s expression tightened. “Meaning the victim didn’t fight back?”

“Or didn’t get the chance,” Oda murmured. “It was over before they reacted.” He stood, slow and deliberate, using the wall for support. His lungs felt tight. He pressed a hand to his ribs, grounding himself. “The killer approached from behind. Quick. Precise. This wasn’t improvisational violence. It was practiced. And… there’s something wrong with the blood spatter.”

Jeanist angled his head. “How so?”

“It’s too controlled,” Oda said. “Too contained for a throat wound. Either the killer knew how to minimize the spray, or—”

“Or the weapon caused cauterization,” Jeanist finished, voice grave.

Bakugo’s eyes narrowed. “…Heat quirk?”

Oda shook his head. “No scorch marks. Something else.”

He took a step back, letting all the pieces swirl in his mind. His temples pulsed. The alley blurred. His body still wasn’t at full strength, his breathing shallow.

“Odasaku?” Atsushi asked gently. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Oda muttered. “Just—thinking.” He stared at the ground, frustration building like static. “I can’t finalize it. Something’s missing. A motive or… a pattern.”

Ranpo grinned, stepping forward at last. “Well, of course something’s missing. That’s why I’m here.” He snapped his fingers. “Allow me, peasants.”

The detective crouched, glasses glinting as he surveyed the scene with the razor-sharp focus Oda had watched his entire life.

“First of all,” Ranpo began, “this killer has medical training. The cut is too clean, too exact. They severed the carotid but avoided the jugular. That takes anatomical control. Secondly, the controlled spatter? A dampening technique. The killer used fabric—probably gloved palm pressed to the wound before finishing the cut.”

He pointed upward.

“Third: that security camera? Disabled intentionally. But not wiped. Which tells us the killer isn’t avoiding identification—they’re toying with you.”

He jabbed a finger toward the sheet-covered body.

“This victim wasn’t random. All three in the serial string? They had appointments at the same underground clinic last month. One specializing in illegal quirk augmentation.”

Atsushi stiffened. “So the killer is—”

“A former patient. Or a failed experiment.” Ranpo smiled too pleasantly. “Revenge with a surgical flare.”

Jeanist let out a quiet breath. “The agency suspected a quirk-enhanced assailant. You confirmed more in five minutes than they have in two weeks.”

Bakugo scowled. He looked twitchy—frustrated he couldn’t blast anything to contribute.

Oda felt a familiar admiration twist in his chest. For Ranpo, yes. But also an old ache. Because no matter how far he got, Ranpo would always be a dozen steps ahead.

Ranpo slapped his hands together. “Alright! Now that we’ve solved the easy part, all that’s left is catching the killer before they pick someone else from the clinic’s roster.”

He had barely finished dusting his hands together before he was already striding down the lantern-lit sidewalk, coat flaring behind him. Oda and Atsushi followed, while Jeanist herded a scowling Bakugo after them like a man walking a particularly angry bulldog.

“Quit dragging me around!” Bakugo snarled.

“Heroes must uphold decorum,” Jeanist lectured, “Your posture is appalling.”

“My posture is— I’m gonna kill—“

“Not now,” Oda muttered, because if Ranpo was in one of his hyper-focused moods, interrupting him was like stepping in front of a moving train.

Ranpo snapped his fingers. “Atsushi! Oda! Double-time! We don’t have long before the killer realizes their window is closing.”

Oda’s stomach flipped. “So you figured out who’s next?”

“Yes, obviously,” Ranpo sighed, exasperated that this wasn’t self-evident to everyone. He spun on his heel, walking backward as he explained. “The murderer only strikes individuals connected to quirk-suppression research. They’re not killing at random—they’re pruning a very specific tree. First the attending physician. Then the consulting biologist. Then the diagnostics lead. All specialists in the same project.”

Jeanist hummed thoughtfully. “Which means the remaining targets are—”

“Two,” Ranpo corrected sharply, holding up two fingers. “But one of them isn’t in Tokyo this week, leaving only the on-site support specialist: Dr. Narumi Fujisawa. Works the night shift. Quiet. Predictable. Takes her dinner breaks alone on the clinic’s rooftop garden. That’s where the killer will strike—they need privacy, time, and access to her quirk signature.”

Atsushi paled. “How do you know she’ll go to the roof tonight?”

“Because she always does,” Ranpo said with a shrug. “Humans are rarely as complicated as they insist.”

Bakugo scoffed. “Tch. Sounds flimsy.”

Ranpo paused mid-step, looked at him over the rim of his glasses, and smiled brightly. “If I’m wrong, I’ll buy you a new hairbrush.”

Bakugo stiffened. “I DON’T WANT A HAIRBRUSH—”

“Excellent,” Ranpo chirped. “Because I’m not wrong.”

They reached the clinic ten minutes later. Atsushi transformed halfway up the stairwell—white fur bursting across his skin in a luminous ripple—while Jeanist took to the shadows along the rooftop access, threads unwinding from his jacket sleeve like living silver cables.

Oda hung back at Ranpo’s side, breathing shallowly. His insides still felt like they were stitched together with barbed wire. “So… what do you need from me?”

Ranpo waved him off gently. “Stay behind me. You’re still injured, and I’d rather avoid explaining to Recovery Girl why you’re leaking again.”

Oda rolled his eyes but obeyed.

A breeze swept across the rooftop as they emerged. The garden lights flickered. Dr. Fujisawa stood by the railing, flipping through her tablet, unaware that danger crept behind the ventilation units.

And then—

Jeanist moved.

Threads snapped outward like metallic spider silk, intercepting a crouched figure who lunged from the shadows with a bone scalpel in hand.

The villain froze mid-strike, limbs bound so tightly they lifted off the ground. Jeanist pulled again, and the villain slammed onto the rooftop tiles with a wet crack.

Bakugo barked a laugh. “HA! Too slow!”

The villain thrashed, hissing through cracked teeth. “Let me go! She’s the last—she’s the last one who can erase what they did—!”

Atsushi shoved him down with a clawed hand. “You’re done. Stop fighting.”

Jeanist tightened the bindings. “You will face justice with dignity, even if you do not possess any.”

The rooftop fell quiet except for the killer’s ragged breathing.

Ranpo crouched beside him, peering with mild disappointment, like someone inspecting a stain. “And that,” he said, glancing at Oda and Atsushi, “is how you solve a serial case before dessert.”

Oda exhaled slowly. Relief. Fatigue. A tiny pang of satisfaction. “So that’s it?”

“For this city, yes,” Ranpo answered, standing and dusting his hands as they walked to join the others. 

Police showed up to put the villain in handcuffs and into the back of a police truck. The villain struggle and ranted the entire time while Best Jeanist calmly explained what had happened to Dr. Fujisawa who seemed shaken. 

As Ranpo and Oda met the others,  Bakugo’s sideways look wasn’t subtle. Oda only noticed because Bakugo kept glancing over, chewing on whatever thought was rattling around that explosion-addled brain of his.

Finally, while Ranpo talked to Best Jeanist, Bakugo spoke, tone rough but lacking the venom he usually coated his words with.

“When did you learn all that crime-scene shit?”

Oda blinked. 

The casualness of it startled him more than the question. He’d expected hostility, maybe a snide comment about nosebleeds or fainting in the arena, but not—this. 

Oda cleared his throat. “Ranpo’s been drilling me since I was a kid.” He shrugged as if it wasn’t anything special. “He never really stops. Crime scenes, cold cases, observation drills… I was basically stuck with a genius babysitter who solved murders when he got bored.”

Bakugo snorted, but it wasn’t mocking—more like begrudging respect trying very hard not to look like respect. “Tch. Figures.”

They walked a few more steps behind Ranpo and Atsushi. Jeanist walked ahead with Dr. Fujisawa, giving the two boys space—not on purpose, probably, but it still felt strangely private.

Then Bakugo swung back around with another glare. “So you can figure out blood splatter but you’re nearly failing fucking math?”

Oda stopped dead. “How do you know what my math grade is?”

Bakugo’s whole posture jerked like he’d been caught rifling through someone’s diary.

“You stalking me?” Oda asked, eyebrows lifting.

“SHUT UP!” Bakugo barked immediately, face exploding into color. “I heard Aizawa say something to another teacher, okay? It’s not like I’m paying attention to your stupid grades.”

Oda squinted. “Uh-huh.”

“I’m not!” Bakugo snapped. “Why the hell would I stalk some short-stack who can’t do algebra?”

“It’s geometry I’m failing,” Oda corrected, because he had no self-preservation. “And maybe calculus.”

“Oh my god,” Bakugo groaned. “You’re a idiot.”

“Ranpo says I’m ‘optimizing my energy toward more important things.'”

“That’s because your guardian is a barely functional adult!” Bakugo shouted.

Up ahead, Ranpo perked up. “I hear that!”

“Good!” Bakugo yelled back. “Raise your kid better!”

“I taught him how to identify a killer by shoe print depth before he could ride a bike!” Ranpo called over his shoulder.

“That’s not better!”

Oda exhaled, almost amused. His ribs only twinged a little. “It’s not like I’m proud of being bad at math.”

Bakugo scoffed but didn’t fire back immediately. “You’re good at fighting,” he said gruffly. “Weirdly good. And smart in that crime freak way.”

Oda blinked again.

Was Bakugo… encouraging him?

Bakugo noticed the look, scowled even harder, and shoved past him. “Don’t look at me like that, idiot. I’m not being nice.”

“Oh, you’re not?” Oda said before he could stop himself.

“I’M NOT.”

“Feels like it.”

“I’LL BLOW YOU UP.”

“You already tried that,” Oda reminded him, “and then you hit a wall.”

Bakugo growled, palms sparking. “I hate you.”

Atsushi jogged back toward them, half-shifted, ears perked. “Hey, hey—no explosions near civilians! Save it for training, okay?”

Bakugo shoved past him too, grumbling obscenities.

author’s note-

this chapter sucks but i can’t bring myself to rewrite it.