14/12/2021

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The Emperor's Dragon
Fledgling 28

"I'd feel better if we had tested this on your eyes," Kyudai told All For One honestly.

He was sitting with the ancient man as they waited for Tomura to bring the girl.

"Despite how it looks, Doctor, I am prepared for this to fail," Sensei said, by passing his suggestion. "But I believe the possibility of success is worth pursuing. And it will give Izuku contact again with his friend."

"You'll give him that party?"

Sensei smiled. "Maybe," he admitted. He had promised his son a birthday party where all of his friends were present but various circumstances had conspired to ensure that it didn't happen. "Would your grandson like to come?"

That was a hard question. "He'd prefer it if I could remove one of his classmates," Kyudai muttered while he tried to think of a better answer.

"Really?" All For One seemed amused.

Kyudai knew better than to try to shift attention. If Sensei wanted to discover the truth, he would, but equally he may not be interested beyond the time of this conversation. The Doctor sighed. "Yes," he admitted. "One of the other students is not too kind towards him."

Anyone who knew the Emperor of the Underworld would be surprised that he was aware of what school policies towards bullying were. "And there is no punishment to this student?"

"No. The teachers are aware of it, but chose to do nothing. Apparently the boy has a good quirk for hero work."

At that, All For One actually laughed. "What is the quirk?"

"Some sort of explosion quirk. Tsubasa doesn't have the observation skills Izuku does."

"Explosion based, hmm?"

Garaki could hear the interest in All For One's voice but he knew what conclusion the man would come to. Explosion based quirks were tricky and Hisashi preferred quirks which were a bit more straightforward.

"What quirk does Tsubasa have?"

"Flight via transformable wings," Garaki replied immediately. Tsubasa got his quirk from the other side of the family. He hadn't inherited, or at least it didn't appear that he'd inherited anything of his grandfather's quirk. It was interesting how quirks skipped generations or appeared only as facets in the following generations. That happened, especially when quirks were not complementary. The child would get aspects of their parents, and other ancestors' quirks, and those aspects, or facets as he called them were not usable, or functional. It happened to about 1 in 20,000 people. With his grandson's quirk, the Doctor already knew All For One would be interested in that and indeed Sensei gave him a look.

"You could fix the problem," All For One said.

Kyudai frowned, and even though he knew Sensei couldn't see the expression it was enough for the man to know he was asking.

"You could reinforce Tsubasa slightly," he explained. "It would make him strong enough to deal with the boy with explosions."

For a moment the Doctor didn't understand the suggestion and then his eyes widened. He knew what All For One was suggesting. He could put Tsubasa through the first stage of Nomuification. Without the addition of a second quirk, it would simply strengthen his grandson. His intellect would remain. "In exchange for?" Kyudai asked, though he already knew what the cost would be.

All For One gave him a sightless look.

"I will think about it," he replied.

Again Sensei gave him that sightless look. It told the Doctor without words that he knew eventually Tsubasa would be in a tank, and a new copy of his quirk would be in creation. Before he could say anything further, one of Kurogiri's warp gates appeared. From it stepped Tomura. The teen was dressed normally in that he did not have any hands gripping his body.

Kurogiri reformed behind the teen.

All For One cocked his head. "I did not expect you to be alone," he murmured.

"The NPC wouldn't come," the teen spat.

It was interesting to see Sensei's reaction. Tomura had seldom been punished for anything and that had led the boy to worship All For One. This was the first time he had been asked to do something and apparently he'd failed. Kyudai was interested to see if Sensei would punish him or simply wave it off given that the quirk was for him.

"Did she say why?"

It was obvious Tomura didn't want to answer and as the silence stretched, Kurogiri replied. "I believe she said she did not wish to accompany such an old man," the warp gate informed them.

From the look Tomura gave them, it appeared that statement was true.

Garaki saw All For One smile. It was one of those mocking smiles he wore when he knew that the individual would just have to accept the abuse, or cost or whatever it was. "Did she now?" he murmured.

Tomura's face shifted to something that was even more frustrated and Kyudai knew that he'd have wanted to disintegrate the girl. He also knew that Shigaraki was under strict instructions not to.

"I trust you obtained a genetic sample in her stead?" the leader of the underworld asked. The 'at least' in the sentence wasn't said but everyone in the room heard it.

"Here," Tomura almost growled, reaching carefully into one of his pockets and pulling out a zip locked bag. Kyudai took it from the teen.

That seemed to calm Sensei and he gave Tomura a measuring look with his sightless eyes. "Do not be disappointed, Tomura. You will just have to try again next time," he indicated.

"I can do it without mentioning Izuku!" Tomura spat in response.

For a moment, Garaki didn't understand but then he realised what must have happened. Himiko was Izuku's friend. If Tomura had invoked the younger boy's name then there was a greater possibility that the girl would have come with him. He hadn't though and he obviously didn't want to. That was not going to serve Sensei. He needed people who would do what it took.

"I've seen some of your game quests, Tomura," All For One said. And again, anyone who knew the premier villain in the world professionally would have been shocked at his knowledge of games. "They sometimes require you to perform mundane and quite often embarrassing tasks, do they not?"

The teen didn't look pleased but he nodded.

"I take it then you are ashamed to mention my son?"

"She should have come anyway," Tomura almost snarled.

"Ah," All For One sighed. "That may be true, but people often require persuasion," he commented.

"If it's for you, she should have come."

"But she doesn't know me, not the way you do, Tomura," the Emperor of the Underworld told the teen. "You have the genetic sample, so that will suffice," he continued, before Tomura could say anything more.

Garaki was a bit surprised. It appeared All For One had decided the new way of copying quirks would work. It was still in the trial phase and while one of the clones had been accelerated, the others were still growing as normal. And there was no guarantee of success. He hoped it would work but… Quirks were tricky.

"She still should have come," Tomura said.

The look All For One gave him said clearly that he believed she would have come, if Tomura just had mentioned Izuku.

"I have a question for you Tomura," the Ancient man said.

"Yes, Sensei?"

The smile given to the teen was one of those ones that said there was a right answer to the question but Sensei didn't think Tomura would answer that way. "How would you take over the world?"

It was not a question Tomura had been expecting. From the way Kurogiri shifted, it wasn't one he had been expecting either.

"What do you mean, Sensei?" Shigaraki demanded.

"How would you take over the world," All For One repeated the question.

"I don't want to take over the world. I just want to destroy heroes and kill All Might."

"Very well," the Emperor of the Underworld was accepting. "How?"

Sensei's insistence obviously caught Tomura by surprise.

"I'll disintegrate him."

"How will you get close enough?" Sensei questioned.

The teen had obviously thought about the act of killing All Might but had not thought about how to arrive at the point where he could touch the hero. Tomura frowned, obviously struggling to find the answer he knew Sensei wanted.

"It's alright, Tomura," All For One said soothingly after a few moments. "I will help you, but I want you to think about it. How would you get close? How will you get away? Is killing All Might enough to bring down Hero Society?" He added the question.

That seemed to surprise the teen. "Without the number one Hero they will-"

All For One held up one hand, causing Tomura to fall silent. "Without All Might, they will simply promote Endeavor," he told the teen. "It will be a tragedy, I have no doubt of that. There will be much mourning and gnashing of teeth but alone, killing All Might will not change things. So I want you to think about what will change things, how will you make your desire permanent?"

Tomura nodded, reassured that Sensei would help him with his endeavors but Kyudai rather thought that the teen had failed some sort of test.

"We will work on plans," All For One said and it was an obvious dismissal. Kurogiri nodded at him and expanded. Tomura nodded, looking like he was thinking hard and then he walked through Kurogiri.

The misty man then disappeared.

Sensei sighed. The noise was odd. He was no longer on a ventilator, but he did have an oxygen feed. "I would have preferred to have tested the theory before copying the quirk but we will have to take the risk." He jerked his chin towards the sample Garaki still held. "Start the process to grow that sample. Only one copy," he instructed.

"We should know soon if the theory works," Kyudai pointed out.

"Only if acceleration works," Sensei picked at the sentence.

Yakuni's theory was sound but that was for growing clones at a natural rate. The theory of accelerating growth until the clone was about three and a half and letting the quirk then develop at a natural speed was being tested now. They had accelerated one of the clones development about six months ago and were now waiting for the quirk to develop. It could be any day.

"If acceleration works," Garaki agreed. He was hopeful. Again, the theory was sound. He hoped it worked. It might take more time to copy a quirk but it opened up many possibilities.

It would be very interesting to develop a Nomu to counter a specific hero and equip it with the hero's quirk. That wasn't so much a counter but it would, as sure as hell, give them a surprise.

And the ability to create a copy of a quirk, just from a genetic sample… that had possibilities. In the past, All For One would not have cared about being caught, but in his current condition, he was being unusually cautious, which was completely understandable.

Garaki really hoped the process worked. For all their sakes.

-ted-

Yakuni looked up at the tube. There were four others near it and they were all a part of his project but this one was the one he considered his. It was the one that had been accelerated. It was about the right age to show a quirk and now he was just waiting for it to develop.

The problem with quirks though, especially emitter type ones, was that you never knew when it had developed. Kids got their quirk at age four but not exactly age four. Some got them at almost four, others got them at closer to five. Some late bloomers got them at six. In very rare cases, the person was older but that was usually because the quirk had some trigger and doctors knew that the individual had a quirk, they just didn't know what it was.

Daruma had assured Yakuni that the genetic material growing here had gotten their quirk on schedule, at four so it could be any day now that this tube had a quirk in it.

Gods he hoped this worked. Ujiko had looked somewhat amused when he'd said that earlier today but then the man had nodded and murmured that he'd been like that with his first experiment too. But Daruma had cautioned him that even if it didn't work then the four tubes that were still maturing at a normal rate, should work.

But he wanted it now.

Yakuni looked up at the tube. It wasn't even that he wanted the quirk. Sure, he'd been promised one if the process worked and yeah, he'd take it, but right now, he wanted the process to work. Since there was nothing to say when the quirk had come in, every week, Dragon came by, or Dragon's dad did and looked at the tube. They could apparently tell when the quirk would be there and active. He had no idea how beyond that it had to be something with their quirks.

Dragon was due soon. Yakuni was thankful for that. Dragon's dad, Ujiko's sponsor was… scary didn't do the man justice. He was perfectly polite but there was an air around him that said if you didn't live up to his expectations then you would stop living. It wasn't a negotiable feeling either. It was absolute.

Yakuni had been scared before in his life. Being quirkless, he'd been bullied, he'd been beaten and he'd been scared then that he'd suffer some sort of permanent damage. Breaking a bone was one thing, he was afraid that he'd get brain damage or something from some of the beatings. But he hadn't and he was here now.

Except he knew those fears were nothing. Fear was Dragon's dad coming at you. Absolute piss yourself and not even be ashamed fear, was Dragon's dad coming for you. That had never happened but he knew he never wanted it to happen.

Yakuni made a few minor changes to the tank, filling it with even more bubbles and then he went to the others and made the same alteration. Apparently Dragon was aware that quirks could be copied but he hadn't been educated as to the method and thus wasn't allowed to see the genetic material clearly. That's what they called the clones. It was a minor thing and Yakuni was happy to comply. Anything that kept Dragon's dad happy was a good thing.

He looked up at the bubbles.

Maybe it would be today.

"Hi Yakuni!"

That was Dragon.

He smiled and turned around to face the boy. "Hello Dragon," he said politely. It wasn't just that Dragon was the son of Daruma's sponsor and that he'd be squished if he treated the boy impolitely, but Dragon had always been genuinely nice to him. And given that Dragon could see quirks, the boy had to know he was quirkless. Somehow, he had never cared.

The boy knew his job though and after greeting him looked up at the tank. "Oh!"

Yakuni felt an instant spike of emotion at the excited tone Dragon used.

"There's something there," the boy said. "But I don't think it's fully formed yet."

Something there… The words repeated in his mind and suddenly he felt short of breath. "How do you sense it?" Yakuni couldn't help the question. He'd been wondering for ages!

"It's kind of like a fuzzy light," Dragon replied, still looking up at the tank. "This one is there but I don't think it's ready yet. Do you know why that is?"

It wasn't a question he'd been expecting. It was a question he would have thought Dragon should already know the answer to but then he realised that Dragon wouldn't necessarily have known what he was seeing when his own quirk came in and he wouldn't necessarily have been around children when their quirks were coming in.

Yakuni thought for a few moments. "I don't know for sure, but I'd say it's like teeth. You can feel them coming through, but they aren't ready until they are fully grown."

Despite his crude analogy, Dragon nodded before he grinned. "Dad said I can transfer it to you," he said.

That floored Yakuni.

"So I'll see you next week!" Dragon added, scooting away, not noticing the shock that Yakuni was feeling. When the boy disappeared, Yakuni felt his legs give way. He was happy. He was so happy but… the sheer ability that Dragon and his father had… that scared him. He smiled.

It would be okay, Yakuni told himself. He even believed it.

He was, after all, on their side, and if Dragon or his dad could transfer that quirk to him… He would never change sides.

Ever.

-ted-

Tomura wants to please AFO but he sure as hell doesn't want to rely on Izuku to do it, which is why he didn't mention Izuku to Himiko, otherwise things might have been different. But now Tomura has something else to think about - how to conquer the world?

And AFO has learned about a new quirk that might fit Izuku's theme! Sure Izuku can fly, but he'd look so much better with wings! :D And a side reference to another canon character. While you could say that with Izuku not in his life he should be better but I see no reason for him to change. Izuku was one of the factors but the others - the worship from everyone around him - would give him no reason to be different, just to switch targets. And target is pretty much anyone not put on the pedestal with him. After all, we can't have it getting crowded up there.

For Yakuni, the quirk is coming in, but is it going to work properly?

My discord is on this code: ZX2R5h2cEm FFN will remove links but you should be able to figure that out.

-ted-

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