19/10/2024

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

The Emperor's Dragon
Dragon 61 - Government Oversight

"How the hell do we find a list of Tartarus guards?" Dabi grumbled. "It's not as if their names are published," he added.

"Actually, they are."

The fire villain wasn't the only one who turned to stare at Whisper's soft statement. Everything the woman did was soft. She was silent when moving and she was always softly spoken. He understood that at least some of it was her quirk but… Sheesh! She could make some noise, assert herself a bit more at times.

"What do you mean?" Mr Compress asked.

"The names are published," Whisper confirmed. "But we'd have to figure out who actually has information," she added, almost apologetically, completely ignoring the fact that she'd given them more information in the last two seconds than they'd been able to find for the last few days.

"Where are they published? They can't be published!" Twice asked.

"Tartarus is linked to the Commission," Whisper told them. "It's a government agency, and the names of all government staff are published," she explained.

"So… what? We just go to the website and grab the names?" Dabi couldn't believe he was asking that.

Whisper nodded. "But we have to figure out who the guards are… and… There's likely to be nothing more than their name," she added.

"That is something we hadn't considered though," Mr Compress said.

"What?" Himiko asked. She was back from having her quirk replaced and actually seemed sad. She had really liked Regeneration.

"We've been talking about grabbing the guards for information but one of the managers would also have the information we want," he elucidated.

"Managers?"

"Of the Tartarus Foundation."

Whisper was doing something with her phone. "They would have the information," she agreed. "And they might be able to tell us who has the most up to date information," she continued.

"What about an ex-guard?" Himiko asked.

"They are also a possibility," Mr Compress agreed before he looked at Whisper. "Do you have the list?"

She concentrated on her phone for a few more moments, before nodding and holding it up. "But I need to work out which is the right branch," she hedged.

"Put it on the screen! Don't put it on!" Twice said, nodding towards one of the screens set up in the bar. It usually had sports on when there were patrons here.

Whisper got up and turned the screen on, and then flicked the contents of her phone to it. These days, everything was linked so it was just a matter of pushing the information towards the device you wanted to display it. On the bigger screen a website with the government's logo appeared. There was a list of Departments on the page and as they watched, Whisper picked the one that said Hero Public Safety Commission. That opened to a specific page on them. There was some basic information about the Commission, including their annual budget, the number of staff, the Commission's generic contact details, website and how they were established.

"This is public?" Dabi couldn't believe his eyes.

"Of course it is," Whisper told him before she tapped the number of employees. The number turned out to be a link and took a moment to load.

They all recognised the website of the HPSC but it wasn't the usual landing page. They were on the 'About Us' page. There was a link to an organisational chart.

"I don't think it will be here," Whisper said. "But we can find out which division of the HPSC is responsible for Tartarus," she told them.

"Go ahead," Mr Compress said.

She clicked the organisational chart and it loaded. It was garishly colourful but logically laid out. At the top was Sozo. And below him there were his Deputy Commissioners, who were in charge of various groups, and then under that there were Divisions.

Dabi ran his eyes over the list of group names. Operations was a possibility but when he ran his eyes down the Division list, he realised it was the internal operations of the Commission. Service Delivery might be a better Group to look at, but what the hell was Strategic Advancement?

"I'm reading the words but this doesn't make sense," Himiko complained.

Dabi was kind of thankful for that. He didn't want to admit it made no sense to him.

"It will probably be in Service Delivery," Whisper said, noting down the name of the Deputy Commissioner who was in charge of that. "Or it could be in Operations or Technology Programs."

"Why those two? It can't be them!"

"I thought Operations was their internal operations," Dabi agreed with Twice's question. "They've got Corporate Enabling, Finance and Legal there," he pointed out some of the Divisions under the Operations Group.

"It will depend on if they consider Tartarus an internal function," Whisper said.

"Can't we just search for Tartarus?" Himiko asked.

Whisper gave her a smile. "It won't be that easy," she said sadly but she was focused on reading the names, and titles on the screen.

"It's this one," she said after a few moments.

Dabi looked at the name she had highlighted. "Fulaka Puchon?" He sounded out the name. It sounded foreign.

"Yes, her," Whisper agreed.

Mr Compress looked at the title. Fulaka was the General Manager of Strategic Adjustment. "How do you know that's Tartarus?"

"It's the most likely," Whisper said, and she sounded embarrassed that she wasn't certain. "They can't say Tartarus, or Correctional Facility or anything like that, so that is the one I think the most likely."

"It's better than what we have," Mr Compress observed.

"It's a name but it's not an address," Whisper noted.

Dabi frowned as he thought about the logistics. Finding names might be easier than he thought but their locations could be difficult. And while it was probably possible to go to one of the bars in the Tartarus neighbourhood and get information that way, they were wanted and known villains. That wasn't wise. Only Himiko would be able to do that. But was there another way of finding addresses?

"We only have to find one address…" Dabi murmured as he thought.

"One?" Mr Compress was curious.

"Just the one," Dabi confirmed.

"Who's the head of the Electoral Commission?" he asked Whisper.

On her phone, she opened a new tab and quickly went to that government website, pulling up their organisation chart easily. "Senkyo Tesu," she read the name.

"We just need to get them," Dabi announced.

"How does that help us?"

"We need someone who has access to every address in the country," Dabi said. "And he… she, I don't know, does."

"Couldn't we use one of the quirk registers?" Himiko asked. They had heard Izuku ask for a registry search for useful quirks.

Dabi shook his head. "The Registrar's office stopped taking down addresses, because it was too much work to keep up to date. They used to," he emphasised. "And it's possible the registry copy will have the right address but the Electoral Commission has to maintain accurate addresses for voting purposes."

Whisper nodded. She understood what he was suggesting. "We find Senkyo's address, and get them to access the Electoral Rolls. Then we can find whoever we want," she explained for everyone.

"Exactly."

Mr Compress nodded. "So the first thing we have to do is find Senkyo's address, hopefully from a quirk registry and then-" He shrugged and flicked a card from the deck he always seemed to carry. Dabi didn't know which one it was but Compress looked at it and smiled.

"Then we can really get to work," Dabi finished the sentence.

There were nods all round and as Dabi sat back, he thought this had been a good little session. Things were looking up.

-ted-

Kyoui Kusha worked for the Department of Education but she had been present at every Hero Provisional Licensing Exam for the last 8 years. She loved seeing the up and coming heroes and the best bit was, she was paid to be here. The Hero Public Safety Commission ran the Exam but since it was also, at least partially for educational purposes, someone from the Department of Education had to observe. That was her role, and she loved it. She was here to represent the students, in their student capacity. Though it wasn't often that it came up.

This time though, Kyoui could admit that she was a bit distracted. For the Provisional License Exam she sat in the control room and just watched. There was nothing different with that activity today, except there was. Everyone else seemed to be ignoring the well dressed, but tall blond sitting in the corner but how could they? It was All Might! True, not in his hero form - and wasn't that a revelation! No wonder no one had been able to figure out who he was really when he could change his build that much! - but as his small form. He was intently watching the monitors as well.

It was all Kyoui could do to sit there and pretend to watch. So many questions were running through her mind! Why was he here? Who was he watching? Or was he watching them all? There'd been rumours that All Might was looking for a successor… almost forever. No one put any stock in them at all. But when it was announced that he was going to teach at UA, they all came back.

And now, with his weakness being exposed, they were running rampant in certain parts of the community. A couple of years back, when Mirio had been taken on by his Agency, everyone was certain he was All Might's successor. Or at least the hero was tapping him on the shoulder as his choice but then, observers saw that Mirio never accompanied All Might on patrol. He was always seen with Sir Nighteye and the rumours died down. The Agency had also released a statement that Mirio was Sir Nighteye's intern and that, while disappointing, had put paid to most of the rumours, especially coupled with observations.

But now, watching All Might as much as she could, Kyoui couldn't help but think there was some basis to the rumour that he was looking for a successor. It wasn't Mirio. He already had his Provisional License, it was one of these kids.

The Provisional License Exam didn't change much. It was always an elimination followed by a rescue scenario. Some people claimed it was unfair to those who were aiming to be rescue or support heroes but it wasn't, not really. They just needed to team up with others to get through the elimination round. After all, if they couldn't fight, at least to some extent, then they couldn't expect to rescue anyone if they needed rescuing or were taken out.

This exam was a bit different. The format was the same, but for the elimination round… UA usually got hazed pretty badly. This time it was much more halfhearted. There'd been comments on that. UA was running some sort of inter-school training event, which was more than a single event, it was more like an entire program. That was mixing students from schools together, and Kyoui wasn't the only one who could see some of the benefits here.

What usually happened was that UA's first years got thrown out of the exam pretty quickly. The second years, knowing what would happen, teamed up and most of them got through to the second round but they took out a lot of other students on the way. Technically that was the point of the elimination round but sometimes, with the other schools also turning on each other, it went a bit far.

Today seemed different. The team-ups were not purely on school lines but appeared to be more on functionality. That was good. That meant for the future, when these students were heroes, they would work well together.

UA's program seemed to be a good idea but the proof would be in the pudding later.

Kyoui was trying to work out who All Might was focused on. From where she was sitting, she could see his eyes flicking between the screens but she couldn't work out if he was following one particular student or was just watching them all.

There were some groups of students who were doing well. There were even some individuals who had decided to go it alone who were still in it. Shouto Todoroki was going it alone but seemed to be allied with one of the other groups which had students Kyoui didn't know but they came from a number of schools. Shiketsu, Ketsubutsu and Seiai. It was an odd group. There was one person from Shiketsu, one from Ketsubutsu and several from Seiai, but the Seiai students were following the direction of one of their own, and ignoring the other two.

That was okay. The Seiai ladies were probably aiming to be support heroes, so teaming up with some heavy hitters was what they were meant to do. They'd get their time to shine in the Rescue phase of the exam. Watching that group made it clear that the heavy hitters were the really tall student from Shiketsu and Todoroki. The two of them were sweeping away the opposition rather handily.

The Ketsubutsu student… Kyoui wasn't sure what she was doing. But if her team was happy with what she was doing, then that was just the way the Exam went. It wasn't long before the little group had enough hits for them all to progress, including all the Seiai ladies and Todoroki. On camera the Shiketsu student made some sort of flourish and the monitoring devices the students were wearing all pinged with a pass. Kyoui looked over to the board to confirm it and wasn't surprised to see that the group was all on the pass side now.

The motion allowed her to look at All Might. He was still watching the screens, but Kyoui could see that there was a slight smile on his face. It was distinctly pleased but while it would be tempting to say the Number One Hero was pleased with the results of the mixed group, there were other teams who were clearing the requirements, even some of the loners had done it too.

She'd have to keep watch.

And her view of All Might reminded Kyoui that there was meant to be some sort of announcement tonight. Since the battle at Kamino everything had gone topsy turvy! The Provisional Licensing Exam had been put off. UA had opened its doors to students from other schools. The Annual Hero Ranking Gala was late and there was a new villain out there who could steal quirks permanently. Granted, that villain was just a kid but… That was so scary!

Which reminded Kyoui… there were a couple of quirkless students in the exam. Todoroki would have been one of them, but his quirk had been returned. The Yaoyorozu's had begged for their daughter's quirk but nothing had happened. And the others remained gone as well. Who was here today who didn't have a quirk… Ah… Katsuki Bakugou, Eijiro Kirishima and Tenya Iida. They were all participating.

Kyoui flicked her eyes over the screens, looking for them. She knew what Katsuki Bakugou looked like at least, though she wasn't sure of the appearance of the other two… Where were they?

She couldn't find them. Kyoui looked back at the ranking screen. There were three columns on that list. Pass, fail and still being examined. Names were quickly moving from the still being examined column into either pass or fail. She ran her eyes over the pass column and noted that the three names weren't there and moved to the fail column.

Ah… There were two names there. Katuski and Eijiro. That wasn't surprising. There was debate as to whether they should be allowed to continue in the hero course without their quirks. A lot of people said no. Others argued that the course had taken them, not their quirk, so they should be allowed to continue until they pulled out. The obvious counter argument to that was to agree that UA had accepted them, not their quirk, true, but when UA accepted them, that had included a quirk, and it was akin to being sold something under false pretenses. Sort of. The fact that they had lost their quirk now meant they weren't the same people UA had accepted. Not exactly.

It was complicated.

The fail result wasn't going to help their case to stay, especially with others wanting to be heroes. Kyoui flicked her eyes to the still being examined column, just in time to see Tenya's name disappear.

She moved her eyes to the failed column and was surprised when his name wasn't there. A glance at the pass column… He was there.

Well, that just complicated the argument that the quirkless students should be moved into General Studies, Management or Support Courses. Two of them had taken that option already but if Tenya could pass then… Maybe it was just bad luck that Katsuki and Eijiro had failed.

It would add some layers to the argument anyway.

Kyoui sighed as the last few names on the still being examined column moved to the pass and fail columns and the first part of the exam finished. There was going to be discussion of the results in a lot of areas, not just the official discussions. The armchair politicians…

They were going to have a field day.

-ted-

The names of senior government staff are definitely published in many countries. It's just part of the website. So while the stock standard 'guard' might be more challenging to find, the head of the Electoral Commission or some of the other departments and their senior staff are really easy to find. Names anyway. From there, even if the department is not public facing, you can usually figure out where the corporate offices are - they aren't usually in the same place as the public facing ones. But it's not that hard.

And provisional exam! With UA running an interschool event the hazing wasn't as bad but still not great. And since the main point of the exam is to get Inasa his provisional license, it's onwards. I won't be showing much of the fighting in it because it's going to be pretty smooth. It's the people watching, like Kyoui who are far more fun.

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-

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