By the power invested in me by absolutely nothing, I proclaim that this story isn't dead! It's far too interesting and too much of a comedic gold mine for me to end it any time soon. Now, let's get into it quickly, shall we? Today, Izuku faces off against his greatest enemy...Politicians.
"And that's the story of how I got to join my dream hero academy. Everything after that is history, or my adventures after dying I guess but that will take way longer to go over." Izuku finished recounting the story of One for All and All for One, a story whose drama was undercut quite sharply when Aqua clapped at the end as if it were the first time she heard it.
"Bravo Izuku-kun, I knew those storytelling lessons were a good idea! Hmm, though telling a story that's still going on is kinda weird. Maybe we should end it soon to make it flow better?" She said as if getting rid of this world's most powerful villain was so simple...And if Izuku's party was being honest, it probably would be given their track record.
"She's not wrong you know, you could totally sell your autobiography and have it become a best seller with everything you've been through. I guess the same applies to All Might-sensei too." Either of them releasing an autobiography would guarantee them quite a bit of income by virtue of their reputation alone. All Might for obvious reasons and Izuku for his future revelations.
"Probably." Izuku didn't even try to deny it. "Speaking of revealing personal information to the general public, I have to get ready for my meeting with the Japanese, the top 10 heroes...And probably a few other governments too." Izuku gave a heavy sigh, he had his work cut out for him.
"Don't worry we'll be there to help you through it all. With a noblewoman, two goddesses, and a future village chief there's no way anything could go wrong!" The moment Aqua says this Kazuma pulls out a flask of hard alcohol and nearly downs the whole thing.
A thief goddess(no offense), a useless goddess(offense meant), a masochistic noblewoman, and the future village chief for a race of chuunibiyou wizards...And that death flag.
Kazuma kept drinking the pain away.
Hours later, Diet building, House of Representatives.
"Well, the blood tests have come back and we can confirm without a shadow of a thought that the two men in front of us are in fact Midoriya Izuku and Yagi Toshinori...This is going to take so much paperwork." The Japanese prime minister muttered as he read through the report in front of him. Though if he were being honest, having the formerly dead number one hero with him in the flesh along with his formerly dead student was taking up most of his attention.
"I have several questions." Hawks spoke up from his seat alongside the rest of Japan's top 10 heroes. Who along with the people's representatives made up Japan's leadership.
"That goes without saying, I hardly believe the situation myself. Hell, I wouldn't believe it at all if these two weren't standing right in front of me. Though I'm still a bit iffy about the god stuff." Mirko added her two cents, the blue one, in particular, was starting to get on her nerves with her childishness and antics with the scruffy-looking guy.
"Granted we aren't the ones in control of this world's afterlife. We only have the right to recruit the deceased youth into our world if they agree to help. My apologies but this Earth's pantheon decided to remain anonymous long ago so I can't speak about it much further." Eris answered in response, fully aware that her fellow goddess wasn't giving these people the best example.
"Right, about that. We aren't exactly comfortable with your usage of our young citizens as child soldiers." A random representative spoke up.
"And we aren't comfortable with the highly propagandized hero society that has been built. Is what we do really any different from having kids grow up with the idea of fighting bad guys on the streets as a glamorous career." Eris gave the generic response of the gods to such a question. Honestly, humans could be so hypocritical without even realizing it.
"Now you see here-"
"That's enough, lets save the moral debate for another time. For now, we need to address the recent actions of Midoriya Izuku in what has been labeled the Shie Hassakai incident. While I understand that the mission was a success according to Nighteye, that does not change the fact that it was done by a bunch of unlicensed minors." They wanted to hear the Party's side of the story.
"It's simple really. We were brought back right as the raid was being planned, most likely due to the meddling of a prankster god that we're acquainted with, and we found out about what the criminal group was doing. I made the decision to rescue their hostage immediately and erase their organization myself." Izuku explained his reasoning, he had nothing to apologize for and he'd have done it again if it meant saving someone in need.
"Do you expect us to just accept that? To allow an undocumented and uncontrolled force to deal with our domestic issues without clearance or even a warning?" They tried to turn it into an issue of national security and jurisdiction. Not that it really mattered to the group in front of them.
"I don't expect you to do anything. And quite frankly I don't care about your approval, someone was in danger and I saved them. If a similar situation were to happen again I'd do the same thing." Izuku was a hero first and foremost. Legalities and public opinions were secondary or tertiary concerns at best for him.
"Ha! Damn straight kid! I also heard that you took out their organization yourself? Is this true or did you have help from the color-coated fantasy group behind you?" Mirko for one approved of the greenette's attitude. Though she was curious about what was the deal with the otherworlders.
"Nah, we took care of the mooks ourselves, though we weren't prepared to fight that Chisaki guy, so I went to get aniki just in case. Though from what I heard he wasn't that tough, he just had a strong ability." The five of them could have probably taken him, but the mooks and Megumin's mana exhaustion would have probably made the fight difficult. Better safe than sorry.
"Izuku-kun took care of them all after that. With just a finger flick too for style. And to top it all off yours truly got the final hit on the boss! The dummy should have surrendered if he didn't want a God Blow to the brain." Aqua added to Mirko's amusement, the bunny battler thinking that she was being hyperbolic.
"Ah yes, now that we're on the topic of murder." Mirko's ears dropped at the news. "Criminal or not, you did kill a Japanese citizen on our soil. And as of now the only thing keeping you here instead of in a jail cell are the words of the heroes and the fact that Chisaki Kai is somehow still alive. Care to explain that one by the way?"
"Hah, as if you can hold any of us against our will let alone Izuku-kun! And isn't it obvious? I'm a goddess so I just revived the bird brain, duh." Someone in the crowd choked on their tea while the rest had to manage with their own saliva at Aqua's comment. Even more so when they saw All Might nodding nonchalantly as if nothing unusual had been said.
"Aqua-chan, please don't insult Izuku-kun's old government. Wars have been fought for less. Though they could certainly try to imprison me, maybe even-No! Hold it together Darkness this is professional time." The blonde had learned some degree of restraint after co-ruling Axel alongside her party.
"*Cough. Moving along." The prime minister himself spoke up, he wanted to get things done quickly. Focusing on arcane legal nonsense would only make this meeting last forever. "We can at least all agree that nothing of value was lost from this and the situation was resolved without any collateral damage. For that, we thank you Midoriya-san." He gives a small bow of acknowledgment surprising many.
"It's appreciated, but we were just doing what we thought was right. Speaking of which, the kingdom of Belzerg would like to open up diplomatic relations with Japan. I come with the authority of a duke as well as the co-ruler of the city of Axel." Izuku revealed to the surprise of his fellow natives. For a variety of reasons.
"Kingdom? Duke? This other world is an absolute monarchy?" Endeavor was surprisingly the one to speak up, intrigued by the novelty of it if nothing else.
"The two strongest military powers, Belzerg and the Demon King's Country(1) are absolute monarchies, though the dwarven country and Imperium of Man are a republic and theocracy respectively. No, they don't have a god-emperor, thankfully." None that Izuku knew of anyway. He sure hoped that they didn't have something resembling the divine emperor of his world's fictional Imperium.
Many a nerd in the audience wiped a bit of sweat off their brow. Everybody's favorite grimdark game was still popular even so far into the hero era.
"Will this be a purely diplomatic relationship or an economic one? And how do you plan to facilitate trade or a transfer of information with this other world?" They were made aware of their portal technology by Nighteye ahead of time but it would still be difficult to do much with it.
"We can work out economic trade deals later, I'm sure that we can each provide something useful to the other. As for the logistics problem, we do have a way to make the portals larger so transportation isn't an issue, there is a bit of a language gap but my party should be able to help with that." They had all been taught the basics of Japanese by the goddesses and the three natives, and even a bit of English by All Might.
Darkness was well versed in learning foreign languages from her roots in the nobility and the two crimson demons simply loved the idea of learning exotic and cool-sounding languages to mix up their incantations.
"Very well, we would be happy to accept your offer and we expect to meet your leader in the near future. Should we come to them or will they come to us?" Darkness answered the latter, apparently, king Belzerg wanted to go on a vacation after the decades of on and off war, Iris was also coming apparently, leaving the first prince Jatis to run the kingdom while they were gone.
"If I may ask, how is this king like? Strict, easy-going, polite?" Several awkward seconds passed before Izuku decided to answer the question.
"...Intense. Intense would be the best word for it I think. Expect him to test your nerve in the first meeting but afterward, he'll let you know exactly how he feels about each of you. Otherwise, he doesn't stand on formality too much and is fairly even-tempered as far as I've seen." Lucky for Japan the king already had a decently positive image of the country and its people in his mind. After all, most if not all of Belzerg's greatest heroes were Japanese or at least descended from them.
A few of the representatives took this positively, apparently, they enjoyed the idea of a direct politician who didn't beat around the bush or connive in the background. It was a nice change of pace, to say the least. Though a few were apprehensive about meeting an absolute monarch who had ruled a wartime nation for decades...Fair enough.
"While we are on the topic, may we ask how a teenager like yourself achieved the title of a duke, U.A hero student or not such a thing is rather hard to believe." Granted this kid apparently had the backing of All Might himself and the support of a goddess or two, but still. Having that kind of social/political mobility in a couple of years was just downright shocking.
"He took out several enemy generals, destroyed a giant mechanical spider that was considered a natural disaster for centuries, brought peace to the country, and then negotiated an alliance with the formerly warring nations...Ah, and we're great friends with princess Iris so that might have something to do with it." Houston, we lost contact. The representatives and even most of the heroes listening performed their best bug impression at what Megumin described.
"Holy shit it's All Might all over again. Yo kid, you wanna spar sometime soon?!" Mirko jumped at the opportunity presented to her. She was unable to ask All Might himself for a spar before he went and lost his powers, but now not only was he back and as strong as ever but there was another younger and supposedly similarly strong hero. The battle-loving bunny could barely keep herself from starting the spar that very moment.
"U-Uh, sure. I don't mind, but is this really the best time to ask? Anyways, I plan to stick around in this world for a good deal of time, maybe a few weeks? I'm sure that we can arrange something within that time." Izuku accepted, a bit taken aback at the blatant offer in front of the National Diet of all things.
"So soon? Is there something that requires your attention in the other world that limits your time in your homeworld?" A question of loyalty, and a poorly hidden one at that. The one who asked was already given glared for his lack of tact but the question itself was bound to happen eventually.
"My position isn't just for show. I have responsibilities to the town of Axel, the kingdom of Belzerg, and the overall peace between it and our former enemy. My first loyalty is to my friends and family, my second loyalty is to the innocent, there are many innocent people back in Belzerg that rely on me. I can't just up and leave after everything we've been through." His old family and his new one. He would protect both to the very end but he couldn't do that if he tied himself down to one world or another.
"...Very well, we won't take much more of your time. We only need to write up some documentation for your friends while they stay here, I hope you understand." Izuku really did, the bureaucracy was annoying admittedly but it would also mean that his party could be given the proper status and protections that foreign diplomats deserved.
"Ah come on, why do we have to go through all that boring paperwork anyway! I wanna try out some of this world's wine, did you know that quirks can be used to artificially age them by centuries at a time, huh?!" ...Some of them would need those protections more than others.
"*Sigh, I'll go warn the police and public safety agencies." A surprisingly common response came from one of the representatives. They had to go threw similar motions whenever a particularly problematic hero made their debut...So much collateral damage. So many lawsuits.
So many lawsuits indeed. Beurocrat or not nobody deserves having to deal with the legal ramifications of having the Konosuba gang roam wild in your country. Oh well, somebody's gotta do it. Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and I hope that the next one won't take so long. Ciao.