22/03/2025

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

The Emperor's Dragon
Chapter 103 - Still Reviewing Events

"Dragon."

Izuku looked over to see Twice approaching him. The man seemed a bit nervous.

"You are up early," he greeted him cheerfully. Izuku was usually up before everyone else and was going to find Kurogiri so that he could talk to his Dad. His father had decided to spend last night catching up with Kurogiri and Gigantomachia.

Twice nodded and shuffled with obvious discomfort.

"Is something the matter?" Izuku asked gently.

The man gulped and swept one hand through his blond hair. He sighed. "What are you planning on doing for Dabi?" he asked.

Izuku waited for Twice to make a follow up question, but it didn't come. "I'm not sure what you mean," he replied, gesturing for Jin to sit with him at one of the tables. He glanced over to the door on reflex and noted that it was closed, and locked.

"What are you going to do for Dabi?" Twice repeated.

Izuku shook his head. He still didn't understand. Dabi was dead. "There's not a lot I can do," he told his companion.

"No, I mean with his body," Jin clarified.

That was an odd question. "I don't have his body." Twice knew that. Dabi's body was with the heroes.

"That's what I mean," Jin said. "It's-" He swallowed, still uncomfortable.

"Twice, I promise I won't be offended," Izuku assured him. "If there's something I'm meant to do then I will," he added.

Twice gave him a look and then nodded. "It doesn't happen very often. Usually people die during infighting but since Dabi died on a mission, it's considered good practice for you to see to his funeral arrangements. If you don't, he'll just be buried in a common grave."

"Oh," Izuku said. That wasn't anything near as bad as he thought. "I'll have Kurogiri collect Dabi's body then, and we can honour him," he said.

He supposed that made sense. If one of your crew died for your mission, you should at least have the good taste to make sure they were buried as they wished.

"That's good," Twice agreed.

Izuku nodded and waited to see if Jin had anything more to say but the man didn't feel he needed to impart any more advice. "You did good yesterday," Izuku told him instead. "I couldn't have done it without you," he added.

"I wish I could have done more," Jin told him.

He felt his eyes widen. "How?" Izuku asked with a chuckle. "You made half the warp gates and that alone gave us the advantage! You didn't have to do anything more."

Twice looked down at the table.

"You think I want you to be the muscle all the time?" Izuku had the realisation.

With his quirk, Twice could easily overwhelm opponents. He could run whole missions by himself and if two clones couldn't do the job, then four could be sent, or eight or more… If you were in control of that quirk, then Izuku would well understand how it could be abused. You couldn't need anyone else, and you would be willing to pay Twice… well, maybe not everything he asked for but enough to ensure that he remained faithful to you.

But that, apparently, wasn't what the man wanted. Izuku thought about what he knew. If Twice wanted to it was likely he could have dominated the underworld but he must not want that. Infact… Twice had seemed happiest every time they were together.

It would be easy to tell Twice that he had to use his quirk, but Izuku paused… That wasn't what he wanted at all. He wanted … Saying he wanted the heroes gone was the easy answer. What he wanted was actually more complex.

He wanted people to see each other, not just the quirk. He wanted people to introduce themselves just by their name. These days it was name and quirk and that shouldn't be the case. Twice should be able to introduce himself as Jin Bubaigawara and nothing else. Everyone should be able to do that.

So, if he demanded Twice use his quirk then…

Yeah, that wasn't what he wanted.

"If you don't want to, you don't have to use your quirk," Izuku told him. "I don't want you to be the muscle, unless that's what you want."

Silence stretched between them. Izuku wanted to say more but he knew he had to let Jin reply for himself.

Fifteen seconds passed, and Izuku felt himself growing worried. The silence stretched into thirty seconds, and he forced himself not to fidget and not to demand answers. Forty-five ticked over and Izuku consciously stopped himself from tapping his fingers. If he truly meant what he said, then he'd be patient. And he did mean what he said. He truly did but, this was hard.

"No, it's okay," Jin said finally.

Izuku didn't release a breath of relief. Instead, he just nodded gently.

"You always ask, so that's okay," Twice explained.

It took Izuku a moment to push aside his frustration to realise what Jin meant and then he was vaguely insulted on behalf of the villain. But… that was, he supposed, normal. Villains didn't ask. Villains demanded. "I will always try to ask," Izuku reassured him. He couldn't promise anything more.

Jin nodded.

"And, despite what happened yesterday, I don't want to lose people," Izuku insisted.

"But you knew it was a possibility."

He bit his lip and nodded. Izuku sighed. "I knew it was a possibility," he admitted. "For all of us. We did our best to plan for Tartarus but there could always have been a surprise, and I knew Dabi wanted Endeavor, and that Endeavor would not be easy. But… he wanted Endeavor. He pushed that far. All I asked was that Dabi be a distraction." Izuku didn't need to explain further, that if Dabi had surrendered, then they'd already be planning on how to get him out. It felt a bit like he was saying Dabi caused his own death and… from a certain point of view, the fire villain had since Izuku hadn't asked for him to die. But life, and death, was ultimately Dabi's choice.

"Yeah, he was like that," Twice agreed with a sigh.

"He was," Izuku agreed. While he'd gotten something out of returning Shouto's quirk, he still wasn't exactly sure why Dabi had negotiated for that. "And I'll make sure that we remember him."

Twice nodded and fell silent before he got up from the table. "I'm going back to bed," he announced. "I'm not going back to bed."

Izuku grinned. Twice was back to normal.

"You deserve it," he told him. "You all deserve it."

Sleeping in on the morning after was the least they could do.

They'd earned it.

-ted-

"Goumanya, you coming?"

The brown-haired young man looked up from where he was practising making tiny explosions on his palm. The bastard who had given him his quirk, Dragon, had downplayed the complexity of it but… Goumanya wasn't complaining. He had a quirk, and he was going to master it.

And once he did… the world would finally give him the respect he deserved.

"Coming?" he asked.

"With us," Nobasu asked. "Kobun has a job."

His expression must have given away further questions. Wasn't it Tsuke who had the jobs?

Nobasu huffed. "I keep forgetting you have no background," he muttered.

It was a reminder of how much social awareness Goumanya lacked, simply because he'd been quirkless. Social norms Nobasu took for granted, Goumanya had no idea about. Especially among… he hesitated to call them villains. But among the thugs the true villains often relied upon.

"The biggest shake up in heroics has just gone down. The Number One Hero got offed. The Number Two and Three heroes are in critical condition. Tartarus got levelled, and you are just going to sit there?"

Goumanya knew better than to say yes. Even if, regardless of social queues, it made the most sense. They weren't villains or even thugs that required heroes of the calibre of the top ten to take out. They barely rated a top 100 hero so what was Nobasu talking about.

"I'll come," Goumanya said, getting up. "But how does this benefit me?" he asked, fighting against the urge to bite his tongue. Nobasu was generally a good guy. He only laughed at his social ineptness sometimes and he could usually be persuaded to explain.

The long-fingered guy grinned. "For now, you get paid. But with all the shit that is about to go down, we gotta get our names out there."

Goumanya couldn't help the somewhat doubtful look he gave Nobasu.

"Look, we're not Dabi or Dragon but villains like that, still need us. Someone has to do the grunt work. And some of the big wigs have delusions of grandeur and they want to know who's working for them, so we gotta get our names known. Or at least get someone's name known so they can get the work. Tsuke is our broker, but people ask for teams, and Kobun is one of the team leaders. So, we get known to him, so when he's hired, we're hired… at least until we can establish our own team."

"So, it's an investment," Goumanya said. The explanation finally explained some of Nobasu's actions towards him. The other teen was obviously angling for him to be in his team one day.

"Yeah, an investment in our future work," Nobasu agreed.

Internally Goumanya huffed. Nobasu might consider this an investment in his future work but for himself… He wasn't going to ride on Kobun's coat tails, he was gonna be his own man. Give it enough time and Nobasu would be competing to work for him!

-ted-

Sozo looked at his screen. It displayed a letter. A very formal letter.

Usually, correspondence from the Here Public Safety Commission was automated. It was generated by the system and sent to the person intended. They had templates and pro-formas and many things that meant his people didn't actually write letters.

This was different. It was still a template, but one that was only available to the highest level of the executive of the Commission. The only words filled out were those that could auto populate, like the date, address and title of the Commissioner. The rest of the letter was defined as areas to complete.

It was a letter to the Prime Minister. It would go via the Minister, but this letter was the only one the Commissioner could write that bypassed the usual channels.

The Minister would see it but could not stop it or change it or anything. They didn't even have to approve it and the Minister could put additional notes on it but they were annotations and the Prime Minister didn't have to take them into account. The only thing of importance was the letter.

It was a letter requesting the Prime Minister's signature on the nomination to the World Hero Association to list a villain on the Lethal Force list.

The last day or so had seen a flurry of activity updating the list. Several of the prisoners in Tartarus had been listed on it as incarcerated, including the prisoner who had been the target of the raid. His status history on the list was one of the most interesting. It was rare that the status of deceased had to be revoked. Villains faked their own deaths all the time to try to get off the list but until a body was absolutely verified, then their status did not change.

Sozo shook his head. That was a distraction. He had to get this letter written. First things first, he should fill out the known information that went on the accompanying documentation.

Villain Name(s) Dragon

Real Name: Izuku Midoriya

Other alias': Izuku Chui, Izuku Riji, Izuku Kawa, Izuku Inpei, Mitei Chui

Those were all the names the kid had gone by overtime. Maybe he hadn't been called Izuku Riji, but his father had called himself Hisashi Riji so it seemed a reasonable alias to include.

Quirk: /

Sozo started at his cursor. He had absolutely no idea what to name the villain's quirk. And having just re-read the dossier on the kid, Sozo now knew something he really wished he didn't. There was a chance that their identification of the quirk was incorrect. A tiny change, given the use history of the quirk but a chance. The villain was not on record boasting about his quirk, which is how they usually confirmed unknown quirk features. Even so… he had to fill out that area.

Quirk: All For One*

Sozo put the asterisk on the identification and wrote the supporting paragraph. The villain has demonstrated the ability to give and take quirks, and to use multiple quirks. Demonstrated abilities include taking and giving quirks via skin-to-skin contact. It is assumed the villain is required to use his hands, but this has not been definitively confirmed.

Known quirks include, but are not limited to:

Scales, speed, strength, regeneration, Hardening, Engine, Fire Breath, Fire Proofing, claws, …

He'd have to get Nighteye or All Might to look over the list. There were no doubt other quirks. Actually, they could fill out the rest of the dossier required to accompany the letter. Their information would be just as good as his, if not better since All Might had history with the villain.

Sozo turned back to the letter.

Dear Prime Minister,

I am writing to gain your authorisation and personal approval to register the villain Dragon on the World Hero Association Lethal Force Designation. Your authorisation is required for registration.

He added that line because he had heard of others, who held whatever their country's equivalent position was, not being able to register villains to the list because the Prime Minister, President or whatever they were called would not provide their authorisation.

The villain Dragon is directly responsible for the Tartarus security breach and for much of the damage at the Osaka Square Incident.

They were such innocuous words to describe the events. The villain had killed a fair number of guards personally but had no doubt masterminded the entire event. It was hard to think of a sixteen-year-old being capable of that, and Sozo would admit that the brat probably had help but… He was still front and centre at the incident. And with Osaka, Sozo's advisors had made it clear that the Nomu came from Dragon's relationship with All For One.

The teen was also responsible for the murder of the Niigata School Principal Shuyona but no one cared about her. Oh, they cared, but against incidents like Tartarus and the murder of the Number One Hero, one school Principal wasn't going to make the case to get him on the Lethal Force list. Not by itself, but it could tip the balance. If the villain only went after heroes, then some would say that was reasonable but going after a civilian made it personal, made him more of a threat. The crime would be listed in Dragon's dossier, along with his suspected role in killing Tomura Shigaraki.

There is no evidence that the addition of a villain to the lethal force list increases their status or the severity of their crimes.

It definitely increased their status in the underworld but to get on the lethal force list the villains were already well regarded in the underworld. The important part was that there was no evidence that they played up their status on the list. These were villains who were established. They were secure in their power, and they were not usually show boaters who wanted notoriety. They already had it. The list was really a determination of who was who in the upper echelons of the underworld.

What else did he need to say? There was no need to outline the crimes. The dossier and supporting paperwork would take care of that. Ah… Sozo remembered. The World Hero Association's Lethal Force Designation will provide international heroes with insurance protections in Japan should they choose to operate here for the purpose of capturing Dragon.

That was also an important point. International heroes often assumed that their insurance covered them in all countries. It most definitely did not. There were those heroes who carried insurance for multiple countries, and heroes registered with the European or Pacific Islander Hero Associations carried multi-country insurance, but most were limited. However, listing the villain on the Lethal Force Designation Register meant that insurance policies would apply, so long as the Hero Association of the country verified that the mission had been, in some way, related to the designated villain.

The insurance agencies absolutely hated that rule but thus far, their attempts to get the regulations changed had been met with failure. Governments remembered how big corporations had failed during the emergence of quirks and while the corporations liked to claim they'd changed, everyone knew, they hadn't.

They couldn't. Not while profit was their driving motive.

Sozo shook his head. That was enough history for now.

Your authorisation is required no later than five days after you receive this letter, to allow timely registration of the villain.

He didn't like that sentence. To him it meant that the Prime Minister could officially choose not to 'receive' the letter, but the system protected against that. The delivery of the letter would be registered, and the system would highlight the importance of the letter. There was no excuse for the Prime Minister not to see the letter within a few hours of it being delivered. That was how these things worked.

Sozo sighed and read it over before nodding. He didn't apply his signature just yet. He needed that dossier completed. Quickly he pulled up a message and attached what he had so far. Mirai could fill out the rest for him and the man would no doubt appreciate the urgency of the situation.

Now, what was his address again-?

-ted-

The conversation about Dabi's remains wasn't really suited to the last chapter, when they are saluting him in the bar, so was put off until the morning.

The minor villains - aka criminals - have realised what an opportunity this is so now Goumanya will get some opportunity to use his quirk and some exposure. He hasn't really thought things through.

And Izuku... well, he's moving up in the villain world, but it's not in a way that's going to make him happy. But once word gets out, a lot of lesser villains will be very impressed. Daddy-dearest may even shed a tear of happiness, right before he puts a standing bounty on anyone hurting his Dragon!

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!