24/07/2021

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The Emperor's Dragon
Nestling 63

"Giran."

The man in question stared at his phone. It told him voice only, which wasn't the problem. The problem was that he recognised the voice. And he was scared stiff.

It was Kurogiri's employer. He'd met the man once, and once was more than enough.

Giran had heard of him, All For One. Juhin had told him but meeting him was something different. He was terrifying just sitting there. There was an air of absolute surety about the man. As if he knew that no matter what you did he would be able to counter it easily.

Now of course, Giran was aware of the rumours going around. How All Might had fought All For One, and how All For One had died. Except that obviously wasn't the case. There were other rumours going around though. All For One was injured. All For One had killed All Might and was going to kill the Prime Minister and rest of the Government. Giran didn't believe that one. The underworld was the underworld after all and they didn't do such stupid moves.

There were a lot of rumours, and there had been a lot of politics going on though, a few months after the incident things were quietening down. He'd been a bit surprised when Kurogiri had called him but had fulfilled that order.

Now he was terrified.

Obviously, All For One had survived and all the politics that had gone on in the underworld were for nothing. Even if the man was injured, that didn't matter. Giran knew the man would be able to control everything. Those who didn't fall back into line would be dealt with.

"Sir?" He said softly, trying to infuse respect into his voice. Dealing with Kurogiri, even knowing that the Warp Gate worked directly for this man was one thing, dealing with him directly, that was a whole different matter. Giran was terrified.

But he was a broker… and even if he thought so himself, a darn good one. He just needed to treat this man as a client. Find out what he wanted, and fulfil the contract.

It was normal. He just had to keep reminding himself of that.

"I have need of your services," All For One said.

"What do you need, Sir?" Giran asked. This man was just a client. This was the first step. Find out what he wanted.

"I have need of a quirk."

Giran felt his pink eyes widen. Of course he knew the whispers that All For One could take your quirk. That he could give you another quirk. But that's all they were, whispers… weren't they?

"It does not matter what the quirk is but it should come from an older person. The key is that they must be completely willing to give it up," All For One continued.

Giran swallowed as he tried to control his breathing. It couldn't be true! It just couldn't be true that All For One could take quirks.

"The individual must also be able to state that clearly, without ambiguity."

It had to be true. What had Juhin gotten him into? Is this why she'd just grinned when he'd taken over the account with Kurogiri. It had seemed odd that she didn't fight him for the client but he took it as some sort of graduation present… That he'd passed her test and become a broker in his own right.

What a fool he'd been!

"Can you provide that?" All For One asked pointedly.

Despite the fear, or maybe because of it, Giran's mind was flying. He couldn't think about the quirk. All For One had said the quirk didn't matter. So what was the man asking for? He was asking for a geezer who was prepared to do something for money. That was much easier to think about.

"What is your budget for this, Sir?" Giran asked. "And how respectable do they need to be?"

The answer to his first question would give a hint to the second but he felt it best to have it stated openly.

"Reasonably respectable," All For One answered immediately.

All right, so he didn't want some homeless bum who would do anything for a few yen. That put the price up.

"Price is negotiable; however, I will pay more for a serviceable quirk."

"Understood," Giran heard himself say. He was still trembling and, if he was honest, he was more than a bit impressed by the way All For One treated this as just another transaction. No, that was foolish. For the man, it was just another transaction. An odd one but just something he did every day. It probably was.

This was why the guy ran the Underworld.

"I'll talk to a few people to see what can be found," Giran said.

"Do that," All For One agreed and Giran could hear the laughter in his voice. He knew the effect he had on Giran.

Usually the broker would resent that. This time he just accepted it.

"Let Kurogiri know when you've found a candidate," came the further instruction and the call was terminated.

Giran was left staring at the now dark screen. He swallowed as he hyperventilated. Sure, he'd nearly been captured by Heroes a couple of times and those had been fearful experiences but they had nothing on the phone call he'd just had.

His consciousness now relegated those experiences to mere carnival fears, liking walking through the House of Horrors. You knew nothing would hurt you but you were still scared.

Talking to All For One was nothing like that. Giran closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe deeply. This was just another job.

That's all he had to focus on.

Just another job.

-ted-

There were few things in life that surprised Kyudai Garaki. Sometimes an experiment actually surprised him but usually that was with the new knowledge it revealed. It was a nice surprise but not the type he was experiencing now.

With the past few months being so busy, he hadn't had a chance to keep up with his reading. And that's why he was surprised.

One of his papers, written under an alias, had been published.

An Examination of Quirk Factor in the Quirkless; Why the Middle to Distal Little Toe Joint Is Not Enough to Determine Status.

He remembered that paper. He'd written it to point out that many of the people who had the extra toe joint, also had a detectable quirk factor, which completely invalidated the theory they were quirkless. After all, you couldn't have a quirk factor if you didn't have a quirk.

The thing was, other scientists had confirmed his theory, or at least his findings.

He had presented his findings in this paper, and had only outlined the theory that if a so-called quirkless person indeed had a quirk, then they had to work on both diagnosis techniques and theories. He'd mentioned his old theory of Quirk Singularity as well as the one suggesting that the so called quirkless were indeed quirk stabilisers. The paper had been designed to provoke thought, and to have people confirm his findings, not to present the hypothesis he knew was right. He had a paper written for that, but hadn't put it forth yet for publishing.

There were responses berating him with heretical strength but there were some responses which were supportive. They expressed genuine surprise when they confirmed his findings, though they still expressed doubt in his theories.

Garaki sighed. He wondered if it was too late to reply to some of them? He'd missed all of this because All For One's condition had taken precedence. It couldn't hurt, he decided.

And, maybe it was time to publish another paper, one that took his findings further, and fleshed out the Quirk Stabilization theory that went hand in hand with Quirk Singularity. With all the work he'd done with quirkless experiments, he now knew several blood lines that demonstrated stability.

He smiled as he pulled up one of the responses and logged into the account he'd made.

This was a good opportunity.

-ted-

Izuku looked over at Tomura as the teen entered the room. He'd finished his homework and was writing in his quirk notebook. It was the one he kept about his quirks. He had been able to combine Kilo and Scale but the projected scale hadn't gone very far. At least, not at first. He'd only managed to get a bit of practice in but already the scale was travelling further and faster.

Kurogiri had stopped him when the practice board was full. But it was an exciting possibility.

"So, you haven't asked me for any stats lately," Tomura said, glaring out from between the fingers of the hand that was affixed to his face. There was another hand gripping each of his arms.

The insinuation was clear. Tomura was sure his friends had told him to bugger off.

Izuku shook his head. "Hitoshi is cool."

It made Izuku feel good to know that Hitoshi had read the information he'd gotten from Tomura and Kurogiri and had accepted it. Hitoshi had a realistic view though. He openly admitted that it wasn't all heroes, and it wasn't every mission that they went on. There were some heroes, even combat ones, who did everything the way a hero should. Hitoshi didn't have a bias towards the daytime combat heroes as his favourite heroes were the underground ones and no one could give him much information on them.

"And what of your little girlfriend?"

That was a harder question to answer. Ochaco read the information and she'd checked it but she didn't want to believe it.

Izuku had been annoyed at that until his Dad reminded him of what a change it was for her. She didn't have his experience. She didn't know the things he did. He had to be patient with her. And he was being patient. He hadn't sent her any more information so that she could think about the cases she already knew about.

"She's…"

Tomura snorted. "She's still a little NPC," he taunted.

"She just needs time," Izuku countered.

"Pft! Better break it off with her now," the teen countered. "She's going to be a liability to you."

Izuku rolled his eyes. "Like you'd be any better," he said.

"What?" Tomura growled.

Izuku fixed the teen with a stare. They'd been doing well lately, since Dad had been hurt but Tomura just kept pushing and pushing. "If Dad hadn't taken you in, you'd just be another NPC."

As soon as he'd delivered the line, Izuku realised he'd gone too far.

But he wasn't taking it back. Because it was the truth.

Izuku could see the way Tomura's eyes widened, his pupils becoming pinpricks, allowing the red of his iris to dominate. The teen actually trembled. And then he screamed and lunged forward, hands outstretched.

The green haired boy's first instinct was to just grab Tomura's quirk but he'd done that enough and he figured Tomura would simply move to punch him. Instead, he pushed the teen, forming a wall of atmospheric nitrogen to drive him back. Izuku slid out of his chair and stood with his fists clenched at his sides.

"She's not an NPC," he said fiercely.

Tomura stumbled backwards but he was quick to recover. And with a yell he jumped again at Izuku, hands still outstretched. "You take that back."

"No!" Izuku growled and pushed him back again. This time he didn't release the pressure. Barriers were almost the first thing he'd learned to create with Caeli Imperium. He pushed Tomura back up to the wall and then focused, pushing his hands in beside him. The teen was making grabbing motions.

"You can't disintegrate air, Tomura," Izuku reminded him, stepping close but not so close that if Tomura managed to get free that he'd be in range of the teens' reach.

"She's not a NPC," Izuku repeated.

"You take it back!" Tomura snarled. It sounded like spit would have come from him but the hand covering his face kept Izuku from knowing that.

"Don't call her a NPC," Izuku said. "And I won't call you one," he offered the deal.

Tomura growled but didn't give him a response.

"Okay, stay there for a while," he said, turning away. It would be a good test for him to see how long he could hold Tomura there while writing in his notebook. Izuku sat back at his desk and picked up his pen.

"Bastard!" Tomura yelled.

Izuku ignored him as he re-read the last sentence he'd written. Perhaps he could project his scales better if he also used Caeli Imperium with it. He could pull all the nitrogen in the air out of the way but that left the Oxygen and other gases, which would still be less dense than normal air… Or maybe he could make a tube out of nitrogen and make a vacuum? They'd done an experiment in class about vacuums and it showed how a train could work. It wasn't exactly correct but the principle was there.

He wrote the idea down in the list of things he had to try. As he tried each of the ideas, he wrote them properly into his journal with an explanation of what it was, what he had been trying to achieve and what the outcome was. Not everything worked but it was good to experiment. And even failed experiments lead to new ideas.

He thought about the new quirks he'd gotten from his dad. Poison Fang and Night Cat. Being able to see in the dark was brilliant. He hadn't had a chance to use Poison Fang but he knew it would come in handy in the future.

"Bastard!" Tomura screamed.

Izuku winced. He'd forgotten how noisy Tomura could be. He looked over. "Don't call her a NPC," he said, deliberately softly.

Tomura snarled and twisted against the barrier. Izuku watched as he put his hands on the wall. It immediately started turning to dust, exposing the inner construction. He wasn't sure if the wall was structural or not, so Izuku released the barrier, and actually pulled Tomura away.

They glared at each other for a few moments. Izuku raised one hand. There was nothing visual when he used Caeli Imperium but he knew Tomura recognised the gesture.

"Pft! Nothing ever changes with you," the teen snarled and then stalked away.

Izuku watched him go, listening for his footsteps as he retreated. It was only when he was sure Tomura was gone that he sighed.

Maybe he had gone too far but… No. If Tomura didn't respect his friends, then why should he respect Tomura? Ochaco was doing her best. She was trying to see the bigger picture but she had nothing to relate it to.

Hitoshi knew that the world wasn't nice. Naoki and Shigeru had warned him against talking to Hitoshi but at the same time they knew what Setsuna was like and they knew she was training to be a hero. They saw the bad bits of the system but… Izuku didn't think they'd actually go against the system. Hitoshi would.

Ochaco was like Naoki and Shigeru that way. She was a part of the system. She was accepted. She had no reason to see the bad parts because they didn't impact her. Except now they had, through him.

She was trying and Izuku was thankful for that. And because she was trying, Tomura did not get to call her a NPC. He could call Naoki and Shigeru NPCs but not Ochaco. Not when he'd have been an NPC as well… or maybe he'd have been like Hitoshi, able to see the faults but not sure what to do about them?

Either way, he didn't get to say she was an NPC.

Izuku looked at his wall and sighed. He still wasn't sure if it was a structural wall but thought it probably wasn't. It didn't seem solid enough. The plaster was gone, revealing wooden uprights and some cross pieces. The power point was hanging by the cabling and looked rather sad. Izuku sighed again. He was going to have to at least sweep up the dust, and then tell Kurogiri because he already knew Tomura wouldn't bother.

He shook his head. This was going to be annoying.

-ted-

I've always wondered if Garaki wants to get published. He does all this research but he never gets to share it and part of research is getting to brag about having found something new. Think of all the new things Garaki has learned but doesn't share. Sure, they have been learned through the torture of other humans but... some sacrifices need to be made.

And hold your ground Izuku. Don't let Tomura bully you about your friends. He's just jealous. And you are right, he would be an NPC if not for AFO! So you tell him!

-ted-

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