30/03/2024

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The Emperor's Dragon
Dragon 6 - There's More Than One Side

Captain Teiko Meishu looked at the stats for her district. They'd had a spate of gun violence in her district lately. It had been against the homeless, and in all cases, the witnesses had indicated that the perpetrators had worn plague masks. Of all things! She'd dismissed it at first, but when the second, third, and forth reports had come in, she couldn't just call it a hallucination from whatever drugs they were on.

She sighed. Someone was targeting the homeless. And it probably wasn't just one person. The plague mask had been present at each attack but it was described differently each time. Sometimes it was black. Sometimes it was white or brown. It didn't always cover their eyes… So there was definitely more than one. Which meant there was an organisation. They weren't killing them though. The shots were very careful to be in the arm or leg, nothing that was fatal, and then… This is where the stories got even more ridiculous.

Those who were shot claimed that their quirk was gone. Except they weren't. When they were asked to demonstrate their quirk it worked, so… Meishu would like to say there was nothing more to consider but… There had been several whose quirk hadn't worked. It had later, but not when they were first asked. The general feedback from the medics was that the gunshot had stressed the individual, and they'd temporarily suppressed their quirk. The medics who examined the wounds and patched them up had also said that they weren't regular bullet wounds. In fact, one of them had said the wound was more similar to that of a tranquiliser dart but not quite. There had been some foreign but still organic substance in the wound but no one could tell what it was, and for the moment, since it was only the homeless being attacked, there hadn't been the motivation to do a full analysis of it. They'd just run the general tests.

Meishu had no idea what was going on. The police were meant to deal with criminals and it was meant to be pretty straightforward. Villains were dealt with by heroes, and they were the ones who could have the headaches. This was a headache. This wasn't straightforward and it was annoying her.

"Sir!"

"What is it?" Teiko snapped, looking up from the reports.

"We've got eyes on someone with a plague mask," Chebu told her.

"Where?"

"Inadaira Avenue," came the quick reply.

"Shit!" Teiko swore. Inadaira Avenue was near the Zambori River and the homeless generally gathered under the bridges. It was an easy way of keeping the worst of the weather off them and if they could rig up some sort of windbreak…

"Here," Chebu said, holding out a radio.

It was kind of archaic that they still used radios but it was the most efficient form of comms. The phone networks were stable but could be overwhelmed at times of the day or year, so they needed the reliability. "Who is it?" Captain Meishu asked.

"Isatsu," Chebu told her.

"Isatsu," Teiko snapped.

"Sir!"

"Just follow them," she ordered. She had a suspicion about where the plague masked group was living but she needed it confirmed. Then she could order a raid.

They were Yakuza. An organisation that should have been dead and buried but had persisted, tenuously clinging to life like a cockroach. They'd been all but obliterated in the late twentieth century but their descendants had turned to cybercrime in an ever dwindling state until the dawn of quirks. The social upheaval then should have been the final death knell for them but they had clung on and even created some clan like structures in places. It was hard to tell with the wars and fighting but they'd probably helped some people during those times. Society then wasn't what it was today but… they had long survived past the time where they were useful.

Nowadays, as far as she knew, they took in outcasts and… Meishu had no real idea as to what they did. Probably petty organised crime and drug distribution. She'd never caught them at anything, so it was time that they were reminded who was in charge.

To do that, she'd need some proof for a warrant.

"Shit! They've just shot someone!" Isatsu whispered urgently.

"Call an ambulance and continue tracking them," Teiko instructed.

"But-"

"They shot them in the leg, yes?" She asked pointedly.

There was silence and she could imagine that Isatsu was checking. "Yes, Sir," came the reluctant response.

"Then this is like the others," Teiko concluded. The person would be injured but would be okay after being treated for the wound. "Call an ambulance," she ordered again. "I want to know where the plague masks are hiding."

"Yes, Sir," Isatsu agreed.

Meishu brought up a map and tapped her finger on an area of it. It was a residential area but the buildings were large and… Yakuza tended to inherit their wealth though the years of being ostracised had to be cutting into those funds… She just knew they were there. The evidence would come.

-ted-

When Yakuni had agreed to help the Shie Hassaikai, he'd been given better facilities to help them but he was still viewed with suspicion and in charge of the girl. He could eat with the rest of the group and did but he could sense there was still a division. He wasn't sure if it was because they still suspected him… He didn't think it was. If that was the case, then he was sure Kai would take him apart again. It was probably because he was different, and involved in the core plan.

Though if it was suspicion, it wasn't unfounded. He wasn't loyal to them. He said he was but he was, as always, loyal to Dragon. They'd asked if he was still loyal to Dragon's father and that had never been the case. Not his first loyalty anyway… oh it had been but it had changed.

"What'cha doing, Yuki-nii?"

Yakuni looked over to the child the Shie Hissaskai were dependent on and gave her a smile. "I'm looking at a slide," he told her. "Do you want to see?" he offered.

She looked hopeful and he slid off the chair he was sitting on, gesturing for her to get up on it. Her name was Eri and without her, he knew Overhaul's plans were nothing. She climbed up and looked through the microscope. "It's all blue!" Eri exclaimed.

"That's the dye," Yakuni replied. You used dye to highlight certain cells and he was looking at hers.

"Yuki-nii, what is this?" Eri asked.

"It's your quirk factor," he told her. She could say his name but since he'd become her quasi protector, she'd chosen to call him that. It was probably because he was just as trapped as she was, and she knew it.

"My quirk factor?"

"An extract of it," he explained.

He had to admit that Kai was intelligent. At least in a way. The man didn't have a scientific background. He was a thug, but through trial and error he'd figured out most of what he needed. The Shie Hassaikai were not powerful but with his plan, they could be. Kai had managed quite a lot on his own but Yakuni knew he'd accelerated the process slightly.

The Shie Hassaikai could isolate Eri's quirk factor but he'd refined the process so that they got more for the same sample size when they harvested from her. He'd also refined their concentration technique and… Kai had mostly worked out the difficult part of his plan. Eri's quirk rewound things but it didn't stop. She could stop it but when they made the extract it didn't stop. Kai had worked out, at least in theory, how to adjust the potency so it stopped and only affected the subject's quirk.

He'd been impressed by that but what he was looking for now was a complete inhibitor. Yakuni wasn't stupid. He knew that Dragon and Dragon's dad were considered a threat to Kai and that the Yakuza would want to use a quirk erasure bullet on them. Maybe not Dragon's dad now, since he was in Tartarus but Dragon… That made him feel sick, which was why he was working on this.

If there was a way of stopping Eri's quirk at a particular point, then why not shift the point so that it never started working? At least, that was the theory.

And if he couldn't do that then… He didn't think he could do it quickly, and Yakuni wasn't sure if it was even possible but he was then going to try to reverse Eri's quirk. Theoretically if he could see how it worked, he could reverse it but that was a big, big theory.

He wasn't as good at this as Daruma.

Yakuni knew his best hope was to find a chance to escape with Eri and thus render the Shie Hassaikai powerless that way. He could see other applications for her quirk. Dragon's father would be over joyed to have it. It would restore him to full health in mere seconds and… He tried not to think about that. There was also a possibility it could be used for immortality.

Eri didn't seem to be able to use it on herself but that wasn't an issue. He could copy the quirk and then-

Again, Yakuni pushed that thought aside.

The one thing that would hold the Shie Hassaikai back from absolute power was the fact that they could only generate limited numbers of bullets. They only had Eri, and they couldn't abuse her too much. Kai could take her apart and put her back together but there were limits on that.

He though… He could help them come up with an almost infinite supply of her quirk factor, and he didn't want to think about that. You couldn't grow quirk factor in a lab, at least not like you could grow bacteria cultures. It just didn't work like that but he could grow clones. With the right facilities, Yakuni could grow ten, twenty… as many as they wanted clones of Eri and they would all have her quirk and then…

He ruthlessly suppressed that knowledge. Kai didn't know he could do that, and he had no intention of telling them that. He was good at biology but that was all.

"What does it do?" Eri asked as she pulled back from the microscope and slid off the chair allowing him to return.

"This bit doesn't do anything. It's the factor," he explained, gesturing to the slide. "To activate it, you need to have other cells."

She frowned. "Like a prison?" Eri asked softly, almost worried.

Yakuni chuckled. The humour surprised her. "Not like a prison," he told her. "Everyone is made up of cells," he explained. "They form every part of us, and what you were looking at is a part of you." He didn't really know how to explain cells to her properly without going back to some very basic biology concepts and… She was only seven. He couldn't remember what he was studying when he was seven but he was pretty sure it wasn't biology.

"Do you have them?" Eri asked.

"Not exactly the same," he said and then thought of a way of showing her. Yakuni reached out for a clean slide and the wafer thin cover. He scraped that against his skin, showing Eri what he was doing. Then he gestured for her to get back on the chair as he stood. She did and as she watched, he put a drop of dye on the cells he'd wiped on to the slide before dropping the cover over them.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

Eri nodded and put her eye to the microscope as Yakuni slid the new slide under the lens.

"It's still blue!" she commented.

"That's the dye," he said again. "Can you see how the shape of the lines are different?" he asked.

There were a few moments of silence as Eri looked at his skin cells. "They're all joined together!" she said.

"They are," Yakuni agreed, remembering what it would look like. "The lines you see are the cell walls," he added. He kind of wished he had an onion. That would really highlight the differences. Maybe he could get one to help educate Eri?

Probably. He couldn't see how they'd object to that and Eri wasn't allergic to them so…

He was distracting himself.

Nemoto had told him that-

Yakuni didn't know what to think. Nemoto had said that some group called the League of Villains was going to come and talk to the Shie Hassaikai and then he'd changed it to Dragon was coming…

He didn't care about some random villain group, he did care about Dragon, which is why he had to do something… There was no way Dragon would bow to Overhaul. Overhaul was inferior in every single way but…

He knew how these things worked. If Kai could get leverage then…

Yakuni was not going to give him that leverage.

Not today. Not ever.

And when Dragon came, he'd be proud if he could provide even the smallest bit of aid in taking down the Shie Hassaikai. Kai wanted to rule but the yakuza would bow, or he'd be destroyed. That was the way of the underworld and Yakuni knew which side was going to win.

He was on it.

-ted-

Toru moved down the alleyway between two warehouses. When she'd started this, she thought it would be a bit easier than it was turning out to be. There were far more warehouses than she thought there were.

She'd allowed partially for that, but what she hadn't properly realised that there was not just one warehouse district. There were multiple spread across the city. The obvious ones were near the docks but there was generally a small area near most industrial areas too, so that had given her more places to search.

She could handle that. It was simply going to be a matter of time to search but what she hadn't factored into her timing was that figuring out what was in a warehouse wasn't as easy as just peeking into it. And some warehouses you couldn't peek into!

Those warehouses she had managed to glance into were filled with boxes, and even if she could look in from an open door, or a hole in a wall she couldn't be sure that the boxes were the real contents. The warehouses were big enough that someone could stack boxes against the walls to ensure no one could look in. Sort of like very, very inefficient curtains.

So she was now reduced to actually checking each warehouse. Thankfully, most warehouses had some sort of windows near their rooves. Small windows but she could walk on the roof safely enough and look in. The only problem with that was that she needed light to see, which meant she had to do it during the day. She couldn't risk being seen with a torch during the night. The weather was okay and the alleyway she was in was not funnelling the wind so it was warm enough but on the rooftops, she was exposed to everything!

Toru was just thankful that the worst of winter was past and they were heading into spring. It might mean more rain but it was generally warmer and she had taken to putting a towel in her bag with her clothes. That way she could at least dry off before putting her clothes back on. And, the one good thing with warehouse districts was that generally there were some areas sheltered from the rain in them.

She had another few warehouses to check in this district and then she could move on. Toru reached the ladder she preferred to get to the roof and stashed her bag. There weren't usually that many people around but it wasn't night so she had to be careful to hide it. Quickly, Toru swarmed up the ladder and ran towards the last group of warehouses she needed to check. Her feet did ping on the roof but she'd learn to run lightly, so while she couldn't hide the sound of footsteps, they didn't travel far.

For a while, she'd tried to move as quietly as she could but that had taken too long. She was now going with thought that so long as no one saw anything and she didn't sound like a herd of wildebeest, anyone who was curious would quickly forget hearing her. That was especially true when nothing happened after the noise.

In her search she'd found a couple of illicit operations and had given anonymous tip offs to heroes. She was actually happy about that because while they were anonymous Toru knew that the HPSC website recorded how she was recording the tips and had no doubt noted her name. She always signed the tips off the same - Hidden Help. Toru hoped when she finally found Izuku Midoriya, or Tomura Shigaraki or anyone, she could then come forward with the tip and reveal who she was. That would establish a reputation and… It should make it easier for her to then get reinstated in a hero course.

The particular warehouse she needed to check today had a ridged roofline, with windows lining each of the ridges. It should be easy to see what was inside. She slowed down as she approached the window.

No one could see her but if she made noise as if she was approaching the window and then made more noise going away from it, someone could put two and two together to get four. She didn't need anyone having suspicions. Toru wasn't entirely sure what they could do but she was sure she didn't want to find out.

She wasn't stupid. When she found the warehouse she was looking for, Toru knew she wasn't dealing with the nicest of people. She crept to the window and peaked in and…

"What the hell?" Toru whispered to herself. Normally, she just expected to see crates stacked on each other, and sometimes manufacturing equipment. There were a couple of crates here and… what looked to be cots with messy bedding on them down one end. At the other end of the warehouse there was some tanks with gave her a cold feeling just looking at them.

Despite the cold, she felt a stir of triumph. The bedding could just be some immigrants but there was no one around. The tanks though… those looked vaguely scientific, and not in a good way. She'd have to get a closer look but this looked like it could be a lead.

If the villains weren't here now, they had been, and that… She would report this to the HSPC but she wouldn't yet ask for her place back. She'd save that until she found one of the bases they were using but finding this…

Toru grinned. It meant she was on the right track and that made her far warmer than the cold around her.

She was going to be a hero. Just not by the usual route and that was okay because when people read her history, they'd know she started by helping to bring down some of the worst villains in Japan's history and that would sound pretty good in a biography!

But first… To check. And for that, she had to get in.

Shouldn't be too hard! She was far better at using her quirk now than she'd ever been. And really, it was ironic that it was the villains were helping with that, but Toru would take what she could get.

When you got expelled from UA, you had to.

-ted-

Lots of different things are happening and they will all, eventually come together.

My discord is on this code: TcBnRN7aDn FFN will remove links but you should be able to figure that out. There's a heap of other authors there, so come along and chat to us all! Not just about MHA.

-ted-

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