Chapter Text
In Naomasa Tsukauchi’s line of work, his ability to hear the truth of a statement served him very well, and he had a seemingly endless supply of interesting tales to keep his curiosity sated. He would take interview after interview and statement after statement to ensure the integrity of each case that came into the station. But the constant rise and fall of the bells that characterized his quirk would always give him a terrible headache by the end of the day.
Tsukauchi stared blankly at the mountain of paperwork he had been struggling through for the past half hour when he startled at his partner for this case, Eizo Tanuma, whispering a quiet, “Will you be alright, Tsukauchi?”
“Oh, Eizo-san! I’m fine,” Tsukauchi muttered, nearly toppling over the stack of reports and statements in his haste to look over his shoulder. ”…or at least I will be after I get some sleep.”
Eizo looked at him skeptically, as if he had somehow acquired Naomasa’s ability to hear a lie. “Oh alright, just make sure that you don’t drive home, you can hardly keep your eyes open! I’ll see you tomorrow, Tsukauchi-san.”
After waving away Eizo’s concern and bidding him a good night, Tsukauchi went right back to his work, knowing that if it was not done tonight, it would take days to catch up.
Today was a particularly bad day, as Musutafu had seen a particularly bad villain attack, and while the villains were quickly captured by the heroes on the scene, the resulting interviews with the detainees were proving to be difficult. The constant and abrupt switches between truth and lies made by this particular villain were almost enough to drive him mad. Then of course came the dreaded paperwork. By the end of it all, Naomasa was pulling out his phone to ask his sister to come pick him up, as he would be unlikely to drive safely with the building pressure like a scalpel behind his eyes.
Naomasa Tsukauchi could always hear the truth drifting from Makoto’s tongue like a bell that constantly tolled. She was always there for him, always honest with him, even with unspoken truths like body language, and he tried to do the same for her. His sister had a similar quirk, after all, and intimately knew the importance of truth from their family.
The constant noise never wavered when Makoto spoke to him; it was a constant in his life. Until today. The overwhelming silence rang louder than his quirk ever had, setting the offending words in sharp relief.
Don’t be silly, Nao! I’d always do anything for you; I’m still your sister after all!
The blaring silence of that statement juxtaposed the previous crescendo of the bells that had always been his sister.
What was going on? Could he have heard wrong? Could his quirk be malfunctioning? He didn’t understand. His sister HAD to be his sister; they shared too many features to be anything else; the inky darkness of their hair and the small freckle nestled just behind both of their right ears identified their familial status just as the thirty years they had spent learning everything about the other had. Naomasa hesitated in the middle of entering the car, his fist tightening on the top of the door without his permission.
Something was wrong.
"What?" He barely choked out over his confusion and shock, the constant awareness of the silence of his quirk never leaving his mind.
Oh, don’t be like that; you know I hate it when you pretend not to hear me!"
That part was true enough—the bells jolted back into place like they had never left. Naomasa slowly lowered himself into the passenger seat, closing the door. He didn’t know how and he didn’t know why, but he just knew that this thing was not his sister.
There was nothing objectively different about this Makoto impostor, after all it wore his sister’s favorite suit, the one she wore for good luck whenever she had a meeting, it had the same beauty mark right below it’s borrowed mouth, and smiled with his sister’s smile. Naomasa forced himself to smile at whatever was wearing his sister’s face. It wouldn’t do to let it catch on that he knew.
When the car pulled up to his apartment building, he, for the first time, did not invite his sister in for dinner, citing his massive headache, though that had never stopped him before. His excuse would just have to do; he had to get to the bottom of this. He had to start researching just who or what was masquerading with his sister’s face, and most importantly, he had to find his sister.