11/10/2022

Thank you to everyone who reviewed, you are the greatest!

The Emperor's Dragon
Emergence 15 - Management Studies

Izuku had long ago perfected a look for class where he wasn't really paying attention but it had to look like he was. He adopted that look when his class did things they obviously thought were necessary but he had no real interest in. Picking out the class representative was one of those times. He didn't think his dad would mind. Sure, technically it was a position of power, but in practice all it meant was he had to go to extra meetings and organise the chore roster. It had no power. Dad had shown him how to evaluate a position for the benefit. Class Representative was one of those things that looked good but…

As a result, when he'd been given his slip of paper to fill out his vote, he'd just made a random scribble on it so that people could see he was voting and then put it in the voting box. Their teacher, former Pro-Hero Manager of Best Jeanist, Endeavor, Ms Joke, Backdraft and Fourth Kind, had counted the votes. She was apparently managing Fat Gum now but indicated with such an experienced Hero, it didn't take long. Izuku translated that statement to mean that Fat Gum wasn't as temperamental as some of the other heroes. He did have to admit though, that she had managed a wide variety of heroes. Her experience would be good for the class. He was looking forward to comparing her management lessons to those his dad had given him.

"In runner up and as Vice Class Representative we have Zellia Du Ed," Ms Kanri paused to let the class applaud politely. Izuku gave the girl a nod when she stood and bowed as he clapped with the rest of them.

"And as our Class Representative we have Mitei Chui!"

Wait? What? Izuku had actually clapped twice before he realised that was him. He blinked and the sudden sea of faces smiling at him. He hadn't nominated so how had he- Internally Izuku sighed. Everything had ranks and apparently Windy Chui ranked high in the business world. For a moment he wondered if he should reject it but then realised that a normal management student would be thrilled to be elected Class Representative and he was a normal management student..

He rose and bowed, copying Zellia's actions. "Thank you," he told his fellow classmates. "I will endeavour to be a Representative for us all," he said before he sat back down.

The words earned him a funny look from some of his classmates but Ms Kanri looked like she knew what he was talking about. He wondered if she'd skewed the results.

"Home room is over," she announced. "Zellia and Mitei, please stay for a moment," Ms Kanri instructed as the rest of the class rose and shuffled out to their next class.

"Ms Kanri?" Izuku asked when the last of his classmates went out the door.

"Congratulations, both of you," she said, smiling warmly. Ms Kanri had pale purple hair which she wore in a bun and had a complicated pattern in her green, oval shaped eyes.

Izuku decided to test a theory. When he'd last fought Gatarui, he'd seen that the spider quirk was spread all over his body. Other quirks were more centralised and he thought that it meant mutant quirks were spread all through the owner's body. He wasn't sure what type of quirk Ms Kanri had but he was reasonably sure they would find out. He looked at her with Dragon's Hoard for a moment. Her quirk was spread throughout her body so he was going to say that she had a mutant quirk. He'd find out if he was right later.

"Thank you," Izuku said with a smile.

"Being Class Representative isn't that onerous," she told them. "You organise the chores and attend an occasional meeting. There's nothing to be concerned about with them. It's usually just a way of passing information to the school," she explained.

"I'll be sure to support Mitei," Zellia said.

"Thank you," Izuku told her with a smile. "Is there anything we need to do now?" he asked Ms Kanri.

"Not yet," she shook her head. "I will register you both and then let you know when the first Representative meeting is. It will be this week, but some of the classes take a bit longer to select their Representatives."

Izuku cocked his head.

"They are not as efficient as the management stream," she indicated.

He wasn't sure if that was a not so subtle dig at the Hero stream and left it be. Maybe it was the support course that were disorganised… or more probably, more focused on creating things. Instead he gave her a knowing smile and then didn't fight when they were ushered out of the class room.

"Congratulations, Mitei," Zellia said the instant the door closed.

"Thank you," Izuku said.

'We'll have to work closely together," she added as they moved down the corridor.

"I'm sure we will work out an equitable division of work," he replied absently, thinking about their next classes. They had to shift class room now because they had a double class that was deemed practical economics. Then they had math and Japanese before lunch. This afternoon was another practical management place. He'd looked at his time table carefully and had noted that it wasn't designed really for practical life skills. There was nothing about cooking or nutrition on there so he hoped that was covered somewhere. Or was the implication that UA graduates could simply afford to have someone cook for them? That seemed a bit too ambitious. Or were they meant to have learned that in Middle School? They'd done some of that but… Izuku sighed. It had been sort of fun to learn that type of thing, and it would be useful now that he was living alone.

He missed the look Zellia gave him. "I'll be happy to share anything with you," she said.

Izuku wasn't sure what she meant so as they came to their next class room, he gave her a smile and opened the door. It seemed like the right thing to do. Zellia smiled back at him and went through and he didn't think anything of it. Afterall, there was now class to attend.

-ted-

Izuku sat in his seat as he waited for class to begin. While he'd known UA had a big focus on heroics, he hadn't actually expected a class to be specifically named Introduction to Heroics: Management and Marketing. He wasn't completely surprised to see it, but he thought they might have fitted it into their regular Management class. Apparently not and Ms Kanri had made it clear that their specialist afternoon classes would alternate between Management and Heroics Management.

Yesterday, had been regular management. Ms Kanri had asked them about their investment history and experience. Izuku knew that many of his classmates came from regular families, who didn't have huge investment portfolios. He also knew that at least some of them were the sons and daughters of some very well off business owners. Dad had gone over that when setting up his new identity.

Windy Chui, his mum, was one of that group. She ran a large company and had extensive personal investments. So when some of them admitted they hadn't invested much he'd been surprised. There were some who had. They'd invested a couple of hundred yen here, and there.

That class had been rather sobering. He'd realised then that all the way back when he was ten, when Dad had said he was giving him a realistic amount of money to practice investing with, he really had been giving him a realistic amount of money. Many people started with less!

In class he'd admitted to having a small shared portfolio and a smaller one he ran for himself, for practice. He'd been careful not to mention the amounts, but the admission had gotten murmurs of surprise and respect from his classmates. It led to some interesting conversations after the class where he had confirmed that yes, he really did have a personal portfolio of investment that he ran himself.

Today, however, promised to be different. It was going to be devoted to managing heroes since many of the people here today would go into that field.

"Welcome to Introduction to Heroics: Management and Marketing," Ms Kanri said as she took her place at the front. "I'm sure many of you believe that managing a hero is just like managing a business," she said. "Well, yes, and no," Ms Kanri answered her own question.

"Looking at it one way, a hero is simply another employee of the business," she outlined. "But looking at it another way, the hero is the focus of the business."

Around him Izuku's class nodded. He could see the truth in her words but at the same time, there had been businesses like this in the past. High level sports men and women used to have managers, so how was a hero really any different. He raised his hand.

"Yes, Mitei?" Ms Kanri said.

"Is running a hero business similar to managing a pro footballer in the 20th and 21st centuries?"

"A pro-footballer?" she asked, obviously not understanding the term.

"A professional athlete," Izuku clarified.

"I think we can agree that a hero is far more important than an athlete," she said.

Izuku knew better than to argue. "But the business model seems to be the same," he said. "The athlete was both the focus of the business, and an employee of the business. But the athlete, like a hero, had to perform well, in order for the business to do well," he explained.

"That may be but heroes deal with far more difficult situations," she said but Izuku could tell that at least on one level she agreed but didn't want to say it. No one ever wanted to look at the past. "Now, if there are no more questions," Ms Kanri said in a tone that Izuku had come to associate as a quasi threat from teachers. Even if anyone in the class had questions, they weren't going to be answered then. "I will run over the class curriculum, expectations, and marking requirements."

Most of the class nodded happily but Izuku felt slightly disappointed. He'd hoped that UA teachers wouldn't shut down questioning like that. But... this was early. Maybe she had to get the administration side of the class out of the way. He hoped so.

"There's a file named Curriculum in the class folder. Please open that on your tablet," Ms Kanri instructed and then waited as they did so.

The file was a simple one. The class name was at the top as was the title of the class. Then each week for the year was laid out, with the major topics they'd be covering. Izuku read down the list. There were the normal, expected things there such as Types of Heroes, and Onboarding a Hero but then there were other things he hadn't really thought of but made complete sense.

Negotiating with the Commission was one topic that made perfect sense. Heroes were paid by the Commission. The more jobs they took and the higher their profile the better they got paid, which was probably why Marketing was directly under that point. There was also Managing Multiple Heroes followed by Bonuses but then there was something he was surprised to see. The heading was Difficulties, and it had several weeks devoted to specific difficulties. Those were Unsuitable Personal Relationships, Collateral Damage, Civilian Death and Lethal Force Authorisation.

Around him there were gasps and Izuku realised that his classmates had just read that.

"Other difficulties such as pregnancy, stalkers, and self delusion are covered in later years as well as going over more refined tactics for the difficulties represented here."

"Ms Kanri," Izuku recognised Kai's voice with the question. The boy had a peculiar echo in his tone caused by his quirk. It was almost as if two people were speaking at the same time. "What does Lethal Force Authorisation mean?"

Their teacher looked at Kai. "Exactly what it says, Mr Yuen," she replied. "For now we won't be dealing with it much," she continued. "But it is important you know it exists." Ms Kanri looked over at the class and apparently she didn't like what she saw. She sighed. "You are close to being adults now, and UA does not sugar-coat the reality of the world. The Lethal Force Authorisation is just one part of Managing Heroes that you must be aware of. How your hero deals with it, will be a test of who they are as a Hero."

With the comment, Izuku wondered how the heroes she'd managed had dealt with it. She'd managed a couple who must have gone through Lethal Force Authorisations. Maybe not Ms Joke but that hero was more a distraction hero while the others did the work. Endeavor would definitely have had them but… Lots of his classmates had looked up their teacher. She'd only managed Endeavor for two weeks. That said a lot, especially when it was common knowledge that Endeavor did his own management now.

She smiled. "It's one of the reasons All Might is so great," she said. "He's had multiple Lethal Force Authorisations but has never killed anyone. Not even Toxic Chainsaw," she added.

It took all of Izuku's self control to remain sitting there once he heard that. All Might hadn't fought Toxic Chainsaw, he'd fought Dad and… while Toxic Chainsaw was a cover, most of the details of the operation, those that were publicly available, were true. Which meant…

He felt sick and he felt a sweat break out over his skin. That meant there had been a Lethal Force Authorisation given by the Commission for his Dad.

And All Might had done his best to fulfill that authorisation.

"Mr Chui!" Ms Kanri called. "Are you okay?"

Izuku shook his head. One of the reasons Windy Chui had been picked as his cover parent was that her husband had been injured in the Toxic Chainsaw raid. It was publicly available information.

"Oh," Ms Kanri said, suddenly understanding. "I am sorry for bringing that up," she said.

The class didn't understand, so Izuku took a deep breath. He had to get through this now. "I'm sorry," he said. "I just…" He looked to the rest of the class. "My Dad was in Tsu on the day of the Toxic Chainsaw raid," he explained. "He was badly injured."

"How badly?" Izuku thought it was Kebin Deburuin who asked because of the way he got elbowed by the other teen sitting next to him.

"Very badly," Izuku answered honestly. "He still hasn't recovered." That was true for both his dad and Windy Chui's husband. "He won't ever recover," he added, looking down at his desk.

"But he was compensated," Ms Kanri interrupted. "This is one of the reasons management is so important. I know All Might regrets every death and injury on that mission but-" She sighed and Izuku wondered which of her client list she was thinking about. "That is the work of a hero and their manager. You will be the person trusted to make sure that when things go wrong, they still go right in some way. Obviously it would be best that Mitei's father was never injured, but that's Toxic Chainsaw's fault. However, through management we have compensation and other schemes to make things better."

"And by learning about them, and when they can be applied as well as how to manage your heroes will be covered in this class. Now, please turn to the next page," Ms Kanri continued and the class continued.

Izuku wasn't listening. He felt nothing for Windy Chui's husband… no, that wasn't quite true. He felt sorry for the man. He was just a statistic and he knew… If All Might had won that day, had actually killed dad then… that's all he would have been too.

And that made him feel sick.

-ted-

All For One turned his blind gaze to the Doctor as the man worked. He was working on the intelligent Nomu. The other candidates had eventually broken, leaving only the man he'd selected. The others were functional Nomu but would not be independent the way this one would be. They hadn't discussed the fact that he'd been right and All For One knew that the Doctor didn't want to discuss it.

The man sighed heavily and to All For One's sight quirk turned to him. "You have a question?" Kyudai demanded. There was an edge to his voice that said he was frustrated.

All For One focused on him. "Things are not going well?" he returned a question.

"Well enough," the Doctor replied. "But you have a question," he repeated.

He did. Garaki assured him that the current copy of All For One was developing well, and thus he would be able to transfer it to Tomura shortly. But that was the current copy. "What has happened to the other copies of my quirk?" he asked.

Even a bad copy of All For One would be useful.

"A few were complete failures," Kyudai replied.

"And those that weren't?"

"They have limited utility," the Doctor replied.

"What has happened to them?"

"They are in storage," the man admitted.

"How many quirks can they hold?" All For One asked. That was always a consideration when copying his quirk.

"I believe all are under ten," the Doctor indicated.

He nodded. That wasn't enough for him to use but was more than enough for those copies to be very useful. There were many powerful quirks these days that had quite dramatic drawbacks. Using a copy of his quirk and some other quirk could be used to balance them. They were very useful.

"Consult with me before you use them," All For One ordered.

"Of course," Kyudai confirmed.

All For One nodded.

The copies could prove useful but for the moment, they could remain in storage. He'd need to think on their use.

-ted-

So Izuku's run with teachers who don't want to admit he's right continues, except this time it might have wider consequences for the world than the teacher thinks. And AFO gets closer to having a good copy of his quirk and ultimately using Tomura as his new body... but all those other failed copies... I know at least one ended up in a movie (but I haven't really watched the movies) but I can think of far better uses for them.

My discord is on this code: ZX2R5h2cEm FFN will remove links but you should be able to figure that out. It's a year old now! YAY!

-ted-

Loved it? Hated it? Found a spelling mistake? Let me know please!