Chapter Text
Shouto didn’t let his excitement show when he and his partner were assigned their first mission assisting a police case.
On the other end, Bakugou was outraged at that turn of events.
They were a pair of promising heroes after all,
On their way to the top
And Bakugou needed to sacrifice his progress to ‘help some weak extras’?
His partner did not like that. Obviously.
But work was work
And they were going to be the best at it.
Whether it was a villain capture or just a boring investigation.
The thing was, Shouto had been impossibly elated when he’d heard the news.
It was like despite all the odds his dreams had come true.
He never really wanted to become a hero all that much.
If not for how persistent Endeavour had been, Shouto wouldn’t have even applied for the hero course.
He would’ve been content with Gen Ed.
And if it would piss Endeavour off? All the better.
Unfortunately, the old man had been a step ahead once again and before he could take an application form into his hands, an invitation for the recommendation exam appeared in the post.
So he had gone with the flow.
He wouldn’t say he thought it a bad choice.
According to Tsu he ‘came out of his shell’ and they all said it was for the better.
He’d helped a large number of people,
And got to work together with his best friend.
He’d say it was a nice development,
With didn’t change the fact that he would love to be able to sit down and brainstorm for a while.
The thing about heroics was that it almost always was fast-paced.
It mostly made him a first responder.
He needed to react to an emergency, not wonder about the causes of the situation.
The hero was someone who sees a threat and needs to neutralise it;
Saving lives here and now was always the priority.
It was rare that the job needed to be carefully planned.
It happened,
After all, if the villains were scheming so the heroes would have to.
But raids were usually planned either by police or support heroes.
He was neither.
He was but an executioner.
Shouto was trained to react,
The others were trained to think of when and why.
He could analyse his opponent, but only in the heat of a fight when he needs to focus on facts, not possibilities and what-ifs. That wasn’t nearly enough to consider truly satisfying.
The thing was, Shouto thrived on thinking.
He loved the what-ifs.
He loved brainstorming,
Abstract theories.
He loved searching for answers in abandoned trash of thoughts,
Fishing out the thrown-away parts and trying to arrange them into a logical picture.
That was why he’d dreamed of becoming a detective ever since he’d learned about their existence,
Of the ways they search for closure in unsolved cases.
Shouto found that intriguing,
Alluring.
Even a small detail no one cares for could be the key evidence
If one would stop and think about it.
In heroics, the more questions he had the more complicated it gets.
In an investigation, questioning facts, double-checking, searching for impossible…
It was the essence of the profession.
It’s what Shouto liked the most,
And it was what the Florist case had given him plenty.
While his three partners tried to cope with the lack of progress, he sat in the corner,
Quietly content that he had multiple unknowns to search for.
It would be a lie to say they knew nothing about the Florist.
They knew of his motive,
His method of killing,
His intellect,
His preferences—
The victims didn’t have much in common.
Different ages, different careers, different looks, different quirks, different environments—
The most significant connection Shouto could think of was their personality.
And of course gender.
All the women were happy-go-lucky, bright, likeable.
With the only distinction from the equation being the lawyer.
While her record showed she had been a positive and considerate person, she was…
A strict woman.
More than what Florist would normally like, Shouto was willing to bet.
She hadn’t been showing her heart on a sleeve, from what he gathered.
That was what was different from the rest.
Her person wasn’t compatible.
It was almost like her case was separate.
But it wasn’t.
That was why the lawyer's murder felt just like a trap they’d stepped on.
With that murder, the Florist lost the self-made morals he’d had before.
He’d dipped his toe in and gone too deep.
Killing for his benefit, not for whatever he did before.
Now he didn’t mind sacrifices.
Didn’t mind straying from the path if it kept him hidden.
Was that what the patient was?
Another sacrifice?
To confuse the police?
With the method changed enough to make them question if it was really the same man?
To make them paranoid with the additional threat of a copycat?
That might’ve been his motif.
But then why leave the characteristic bloody imprint?
Did he seek to confuse them?
Shouto knew it was Florist’s doing.
They all knew it.
The crime scene’s atmosphere screamed of his presence – Rakuyama said so as well.
From the very first crime scene, he’d replaced the air with dread like no one else did.
Florist was just straying from the path again.
But this time the reason wasn’t as simple as ‘distraction’.
Shouto felt it.
The lack of maiming was essential.
It was not just an empty decoy.
It was more complex.
He had a reason to skip over ‘the hands ritual’.
And finding that reason would be the key to finding the Florist’s real identity.
-Was it affection?
Did he simply not want to cause the victim more harm?
Did he know her closely?
Was he her doctor?
-Or maybe convenience?
Was he afraid of alerting the staff?
Was he pressured by the time limit?
Did he have any difficulties?
Had he messed up then?
No,
He would bet the decision was explicitly planned.
Maiming the hands was symbolic somehow.
It was not an empty act.
It had a meaning,
Had a purpose.
What was it needed for, then?
Why did he even torture them then all in the first place?
Had it been because they were so joyous?
To show them the pain of the world?
That wasn’t it;
The lawyer’s hands were disfigured and the patient’s not.
If either of these were the answer, the lawyer would’ve been spared the torture.
She had seen atrocities of this world every day—
But… indirectly…
She wasn’t… experiencing it.
She didn’t go through these struggles herself, which…
The Florist didn’t need to show cruelty to the patient, because she was already familiar with its concept.
She had been living through the pain every day.
She’d been terminally ill and he deemed it cruel enough.
In his twisted ways, he took mercy on her.
So in the end, the Florist did everything he set out to do
And additionally messed with investigators’ thin thread of sanity.
Shouto leaned back in the armchair he always sat in when thinking.
But wasn’t it affection too?
The care for details…
Can it be associated with Florist’s definition of care for a person?
Details like the wig he’d brought just for the victim.
The patient’s family said that it was nearly identical to her natural hair.
It caught Shouto’s eye
Because it looked so familiar.
Like his mother’s…
It wasn’t a nice comparison by any means.
Seeing the resemblance to his mother in a brutally murdered girl.
He’d already had such dreams…
Dreams of his mother lying still on that hospital bed
While he just watched her ‘sleep’.
Shouto hated himself for visualising it.
Even when the nightmare did not give him much of a choice.
The knowledge that the Florist was in the same hospital she’d been staying in, and no one noticed—
It made both of his sides shiver.
Knowing that if the man had wanted, Shouto would’ve been investigating his mother’s death,
Knowing that it was still an option—
That his mother, his sister, his friends…
That they could be next
While he just watched…
He tried to clear his mind from such thoughts but..
Uraraka’s lack of common sense was frustrating.
He had told her that contacting the suspect for the serial murders of the decade was a bad idea.
Granted he didn’t word it like that…
But what could he really say?
He wouldn’t even have to worry about that, about her, if not for Bakugou’s call.
And it was a bad call, If Shouto had any say in it.
Well, if he knew that his partner would just give Tsu that damn number, he would’ve melted the phone itself.
It was ruthless of him to use Uraraka like this.
She was a good girl and didn’t deserve to be exposed to the danger she had no idea of.
For what? For information?
For gossip that Shouto was supposed to get from her?
It was too dangerous and he didn’t like it one bit.
Despite all his angry remarks, Bakugou didn’t think it through enough.
He was still under the impression that Midoriya didn’t have what it takes to be the Florist.
And while that might be true, he ended up on a suspect list for a reason.
Shouto didn’t know what sort of history was between the two,
Didn’t know Midoriya at all,
But there was a chance of him being exactly who they were looking for
No matter how small.
And if it were the case, Shouto would be playing with his good friend’s life.
Currently, two facts haunted him:
How interested Midoriya was in Uraraka
And how Florist showed his affection.
Bakugou once said that he hated this case.
That it was wrong in every place it shouldn’t have ever been.
He’d agreed then.
And even though he was pissed at him beyond comprehension
He still did now.