Elmo Vespa sighed resting his head on his folded hands.
Because putting aside the migraine and a half that was taking over the Japanese branch of the family, he was having trouble trying to dig up some important information.
Something that normally would have been easy for someone with one of the best information networks at his fingertips.
But nothing was ever damn easy when it came to things related to the ancient bastard.
He needed a fucking break from all of this cloak and dagger crap.
Elmo stood up from the large desk and walked out of his grand- his chambers and out to a balcony for some fresh air.
Being protected from the chill in the air since that was one of the few good things about these big formal robes.
All of the thick cloth of course had to be good for something other than the expensive detail work.
Elmo's eyes trailed over the compound's grounds.
It wasn't a big place, all things considered, not above ground anyways since that would get far too much attention from the locals.
What there was though was a big sprawling garden for him to look upon.
It was a tranquil looking in the moonlight and the calm of it all was something Elmo dearly needed at the moment.
Elmo took a deep breath and put his hands on the railing shifting his weight and letting his thoughts drift from reality as he just listened to all the little sounds around him.
The creak of wood as it shifted under cold, shrinking with the chill not unlike the building itself was shivering.
The soft trickle of water running through the pipes.
Faint hum of the various insects in the air around him, making his ears twitch and in so many directions.
Unfortunately, a knock on the door to his chambers brought him back to the real world.
Elmo's ears flicked back, and he face-palmed with a groan.
Walking back into the building he made his way to his seat behind the desk and thumped his leg, giving whoever permission to enter.
One of Raijin's siblings entered carrying a tray of food, the silver tips of her white hair and fur meaning it was Mist if he remembered her correctly.
Elmo motioned for her to come forward and gave him whatever she brought him.
"Has there been any word back from China?" Elmo asked as she set the tray down on the desk, the drag of her lame leg making a soft thump as she moved closer.
"No." Mist softly answered, a cloud of condensed sparkling fog escaping her mouth.
"Milan?" Elmo pressed.
"No records there either." Mist replied, her wisping voice making an even better cloud which hit Elmo in the face.
"Go and see if Melvin has any updates from England yet." Elmo said dismissing her, with a wave of his hand.
Mist bowed and left the room without another word.
Elmo looked over the bowl and winced slightly, seeing what he was sure was marinated rabbit meat.
Another part of becoming the head of the family would be eating rabbit meat regularly from now on, which was hard on the teeth of an herbivore.
Still Elmo plucked a marinaded slice of meat and put it in his mouth.
And yet, trying to chew through the odd texture of meat wasn't nearly as annoying as trying to find even a scrap of information about All For One's damned Doctor.
Because he had no idea if it was All For One's doing or not, but Elmo would ensure that someone's head would roll for erasing the documentation of that crazy doctor working with the mad tyrant.
Cause even after six whole months, with almost two thousand different members of the family, they hadn't found out one damn thing about the bastard.
Which was absolutely frustrating considering how important it was to find out who the bastard was.
They had only heard of 'The Doctor' from Kurogiri and Shigaraki, but had on good authority that the man existed from the both of them.
And that the man was a major part of All For One's plans considering he was the one responsible for the Nomu.
So, finding out who he was would let them get some leverage on the Frankenstein wannabe.
However, even many months later of trying to find the man they hadn't uncovered anything that could point to the man's identity, hell they didn't even have a fake name for the fucker.
Something which led Elmo to drawing a few conclusions about why they couldn't find this information.
Especially since human birth records had been very carefully maintained since the rise of quirks.
First the man could have been erased purposely by All For One or himself if he was already involved in the underground.
Second the man could have altered his records so they wouldn't be able to find him.
Or, and he hoped this was the case, the Doctor was merely a foreigner and therefore the search needed to be expanded outside of Japan.
However, as the days passed and there still wasn't any hint of the man that could be the Doctor.
Frankly if they could at least know what the man looked like it would have greatly helped in tracking the man down.
Unfortunately, the only people who did see the man couldn't tell them a damn thing about his face since All For One and his fuckery prevented them from having any memory of his physical appearance.
Leaving them with the only way to identify the man by looking through the records of people that disappeared or were killed years ago.
And someone with extensive information and training with biology and quirk science.
Which was not nearly enough to make a decent search, so they tried to get more info on the bastard but sources for that were very thin if not completely non-existence outside of his work with All For One.
And it wasn't like they could openly ask since that could get back to All For One.
Leaving them in a mess that the Vespa's were rarely in.
One where they had little clue what to do since they had no information, with few ways to dig it up.
Honestly, it was starting to piss him off.
Because the man was a fucked-up bastard who made any person he could get his hands on into twisted monsters for no other reason than because he could.
Sure, All For One was his backer but Kurogiri told them that the Doctor would ask for certain quirks to try out new types of Nomu.
And there was even a chance that the man might even have multiple quirks himself since they had no clue whether the man was someone originally quirked or not.
Most people wouldn't even consider the idea a Two-Toes doing all of that to other Two-Toes but having a quirk wasn't required for a person to have a deplorable lack of morals, especially when mad scientists had been around since before modern technology was invented.
Another knock at his door again brought him out of his angry ranting thoughts.
The work of the head was never done, especially in a family as big as this.
Elmo thumped his leg and, granting permission to enter for whoever had come to his office next.
Mist had returned, Elmo swallowed the half-chewed rabbit meat then asked.
"I take it something came up before you could speak with Melvin?"
Mist smiled.
"We've gotten another clump of hair for Deku-Sensei." Mist informed him, the fog much denser.
"Oh, finally some good news, I'll inform Deku and arrange a day for him to have another jaunt, get Yumi to double check dream hopper's availability for the following Saturdays, Deku will need the following day to recover." Elmo instructed.
"Very well cousin." Mist promised, her face dispelling the fog when she nodded her head, leaving soon as she came.
Midoriya will be happy to hear he could meet with Tsutsumi again.
It was a damn shame that Dream-hopper's quirk had such a long cool down, but at least it would keep suspicions down about them trying to use the hair for weapons.
Pushing the files away, Elmo instead focused on the trade lines they had with the other branches of the family and Morozov.
Their normal trade lines were faced with more police interference, no doubt by the order of both the commission and All For One.
So, he'd need to figure out new routes off the island and to the ports of the surrounding countries, as well as places to import without notice.
Which was another reason All For One was being a pain in the ass.
Whatever power vacuum came from All For One's death will be a new type of headache but could not be the same level of migraine the long-lived bastard was.
Unless they didn't find the Doctor's identity before they offed him.
Because they had no clue what type of quirk the quack had other than a maybe a semi-immortality or a prolonged life one, given the conversations overheard by Kurogiri suggested he'd been around for a lifetime or two.
And Elmo was needlessly working himself up again.
Elmo allowed his head to hit his desk and he wondered just how his grandfather dealt with all of this himself when he'd only been a foot soldier for the family.
Maybe there was some solid reasoning to most of the family's pessimism towards pursuing a college degree.
Shaking his head Elmo sat back up and reached for the bowl of meat and continued eating from it as he tried to plot new ways for their people to move.
Using old routes would only work if they were very, very old and hopefully forgotten by both the commission and All For One.
They also needed not to step on anyone else's toes by using one of their trade routes, Deku-Sensei could only smooth over so many feathers for them, and muscling in on someone's tuff was a sure-fire way of calling off any kind of truce they currently had.
Neither of which took into account the problems that came from moving their cargo over the sea.
Sea pirates had only gotten worse in the quirk era, what with how people could travel and stay in the sea near indefinitely if they had the right quirks, and made good bank by holding cargo or people.
Of course, some took to ship raiding simply for the blood lust of it.
Not to mention the fact quirked sea life was also a very big problem, Raijin still refused to board any of their boats after one of the ships he rode on was attacked by a quirked squid.
He also wouldn't talk about it either and couldn't eat squid or octopus.
So, they couldn't skimp on the security of the cargo, which meant bigger groups had to go and bigger groups were harder to hide or go unnoticed.
Just a whole nightmare to arrange, he'd probably need to consult with one of the family members that was trained in or at least studied logistics as well as someone else familiar with geology.
Maybe one of his older siblings then, his oldest brother sailed often and would be back this week, he could provide insight on the coastlines here and across the seas.
And at least one of his aunts had a quirk that ran calculations pretty fast, she'd be some help if only he could remember which one she was.
He thought she was in the same litter as his father, but it was hard to know with how many litters Nana had.
Would he need anyone else for those first rounds of conversations?
After a moment of thought he dismissed it and popped a small chunk of meat in his mouth, the chewier texture making him shake but he tried to power through it.
Pulling out a piece of paper he began to write out a summons for his oldest brother and would be sure to get a list of his father's sisters, including their secondary quirks if they had them.
Maybe he'd take a trip down to the sparring rooms to work off some stress before bed tonight, it would at least help him feel less restless.
Elmo: We need to find this Frankenstein fucker so he doesn't bring that potato bitch back
Months later
Elmo: I've found my Rocko...
Mist: Deku can visit that prisoner again
Elmo: Finally, some good news.