Title: A Difference of Perspective.
Author: town_without_heart.
Rating: T.
Genre: Mystery.
Status: In-Progress.
Fandom: My Hero Academia.
Pairings: None.
Summary: Fifteen years ago, a boy disappeared. Ripples in the water, the butterfly flaps its wings, and everything changes.

The notice is unremarkable, one face lost among a sea of lost faces. It is a yearbook photo of a young boy in his school uniform. His eyes are wide, shadowed by dark half-circles. His hair is green, wild and curly. He does not smile as he stares into the camera, and the somber expression makes him looks far older than his purported thirteen years. The text below the photo reads: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY?

Link:
Part One - The Disappearance of Midoriya Izuku.
Part Two - The Reeducation of Midoriya Izuku.
Supplemental - Case File #D13-Midoriya.Izuku. To be read after chapter six of Reeducation.


I’ve been meaning to rec this fic.

Warning: last update is October 2019. Hopefully the writer will return someday because this fic is gold.

The summary is apt for this fic, but here's a few more details: Izuku saves Bakugou from the sludge villain and impresses All-Might, but All-Might by chance doesn’t see him again that day and the opportunity passes. Fifteen years later, Detective Tsukauchi stumbles on his cold case, as after that fateful day, Izuku was never seen again.

Or so it seems.

This fic’s second greatest achievement is Izuku himself. Quirkless, and one of the most competent Izuku’s I’ve seen in fanfiction. Incredibly smart, practical, and willing to go to extreme lengths to complete his goals, with no over-powered or self-indulgent bullshit. This fic’s great achievement is portraying Izuku’s competence when he is entirely off-screen. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that the fic is mostly the detective and his team following Izuku’s breadcrumbs left over a decade beforehand. Everything about Izuku is communicated by people who met him and their experiences with him.

The only drawback that could cause immersion break is the speed in which the detective finds people who met Izuku, some entirely by coincidence. Also, a lot of the people Izuku met are canon characters, which feel a bit forced at times on how he meets them.

However, it's all very compelling and it’s a crime this fic hasn’t been updated in months.

Still one of my favorites.

5/5.

 

I think its really good. I think there is only one real immersion break, which is the nurse at the hospital happening to know Deku. I like the fact that we don't know where he is, but also that we have a creeping sense of his similarity to Stain, and the influence that he has had from him. I like the hint about All Might, and then the subsequent reveal, as well as Bakugo and his status as the number 3 hero. I'm not always a fan of the prose, it felt like the super detective vibe sometimes stilted it, but at the same time, it was the aesthetic that the fic was going for and I don't think I can really knock it down for a successful stylistic choice. It was really good.

The only thing holding me back is the nature of the story. Probably the same reason I'm not a huge detective novel fan, it didn't feel like there has been any character development, or even a protagonist. I guess sort of Izuku, but at the same time, we don't see him and so its hard to actually see the character development.

Again. It's really good. You should read it.

4.5/5

 

I enjoyed this. I think this story's potential is limited by the fact that most of the development comes via audio transcripts. It always feels like a crutch for the author, and I don't have much reason to think differently here.

The characterizations of the canon characters grown up is, for the most part, really good. That, together with the mystery of finding out what exactly Izuku has been up to, definitely makes the story as enjoyable as it is.

It does feel a bit contrived that Izuku directly interacts with all these canon characters despite the drastic divergence from canon.

I wonder who the number 2 hero is. Maybe I'd know if I had gotten further in the source material.

3.5 rounded up for uniqueness.

 

I just read through this today. Just my first read but it was riveting. A different perspective from the normal mha fics which generally are si's thinly veiled has izuku having a different quirk. Izuku remains quirkless and I love that here. Gives off a very batman without the money and cool gadgets vibe.

The previous poster says that the detective's fast finding of clues and threads require a little suspension of disbelief but honestly, I loved the fast pace.

The originality of this fic astounds me and for that alone I would like to give it a 4.5/5 but since it's incomplete and likely to remain incomplete (unfortunately) I would round it down to 4/5.

It gave me a very enjoyable afternoon is all I'm saying.

 

Okay, so starting off - this has been updated since the original post - two in June 2020, and one in February 2021. However, the author's not got any other recent uploads, so future postings are still in the air.

The premise is pretty good - looking into the disappearance of an old school friend, and as it goes on, more and more things start coming together. There seems to be a strong sense of direction, and the author has a clear plan for where things go. This does lead to, as already mentioned above, problems where the next hint just turns up. On the one hand, it does mean you have to accept that Eri just so happens to be in the room at the time; but at the same point, if she wasn't, then the story would stall, and there'd be a scene (maybe) where Eri turns up at the police station and mentions that a colleague overheard the conversation, and didn't Eri mention Deku as an underground hero that she'd met once? or something.

Talking of things that seem odd - why does everyone remember Izuku?

All Might, I kind of get. This kid was one who he decided to pass on OfA to, and he's not passed it along since. The fact that, apparently, he's not looked for Izuku at all in that time can maybe be put down to Int being his dump stat, but it's still a bit weird. Then the old soup kitchen woman, Ochako, Shoto, and Touya. These people all remember him fondly from a few meetings, enough to be able to instantly recognize him from old photos and sketches, but never checked up on him during this time? Ochako specifically says "Your artists are really talented, but you’re missing the scar on his face", and this kind of instantly recognition on an incorrect sketch seems like it's just a vehicle to move the story along.

Maybe I have face-blindness, I don't know, but I can't picture the faces of people from high school that I've not seen since.

It sort of makes sense that people haven't looked for him - the soup kitchen woman says that it never works to look for runaways, and Ochako says that he'd told her he was going away; so it's not completely unexpected, but it also seems strange that it never came up in conversation between themselves at any point.

However, the writing is good enough that none of this seemed to be something that mattered during reading. I enjoyed it, and whilst I noticed I had to suspend disbelief a few times, it was by no means a particularly egregious case of it, but there were definitely times you notice the plots only moving forward through authorial power, and it doesn't feel quite as organic as it could.

All that said, this isn't a crossover/alt-power canon re-tread/stomp-fic, SI harem bullshit, or Quirkless-Batman; so it already stands quite a chunk above the majority of MHA fics. Maybe not the best in the fandom, but a good showing - 4/5

 

This story/series is now complete. The writer has mentioned in the side-story (link, don’t read until you finish the tenth chapter of Reeducation) that perhaps they’ll write more of the universe, but for now it’s done.

Let me talk about the ending.

Spoiler

The ending will probably be controversial to a lot of people, but the more I think of it, the more it makes sense.

As the story was ongoing, my idea was that the investigative team would hit a dead end and Izuku would come out of the woodwork to do a last interview and wrap up the story all casual-like. But the last chapter makes it clear that Izuku doesn’t care about the investigation or the investigators. Maybe that was hard to tell in the interviews, who were talking about an Izuku so close time and emotion-wise to the investigators. But Izuku is nearing thirty now, and aside from wrapping the team in bureaucratic red tape and messing with them through Eri’s interview, Izuku is done with the whole scenario.

While it does wrap up Izuku’s side (new identity, controlling everything from the shadows, has a good group of friends and family), it leaves the team’s ending to the imagination. It seems they won’t ever get a conclusion regarding what happened to Izuku, which is probably what Izuku wants. But I’d have liked to at least see them move on from the investigation to give emotional closure regarding them to the audience.

There are also a lot of unanswered questions, which the writer makes clear they have the answer to, yet is not explaining it. It’s a bit frustrating to be led like a dog through a story with treats, only for the treats to be placed on a too-high shelf. I won’t say it’s mean, and the writer isn’t obligated to give their audience the treats as Izuku is not obligated to tell the investigative team anything… but it’s certainly a choice.

Otherwise, I really enjoyed this story. Due to the ending, I’d probably lower my score to 4/5, but it’s a very solid 4/5.