Izuku poked at the tablet despondently. He really didn't know what to do with it. He knew Doctor Garaki was running several experiments but right at the moment he wasn't interested in them. He was only interested in things that would heal his dad. He tapped his way through Doctor Garaki's files without any real purpose.
Eventually, Izuku put the tablet down and just sat with his back against the tube. He listened to the liquid in it bubbling and watched as Gigantomachia paced around the room. He let himself feel his dad again. His quirks were still there, glowing like a beacon above Izuku's head. It was a comfort, in and of itself. All the little coloured lights gathered around his dad. He let his eyes unfocus and just watched them with his quirk for a while. His Dad had so many. He felt proud of that. It meant he'd helped so many people. Under all of them, Izuku knew his Dad's quirk was there and he focused, trying to get a glimpse of it.
Except when he did that, he saw other quirks. The little points of light weren't in the room. They weren't the Doctor or Gigantomachia, they were outside. Not that far. Izuku used the distance to the Doctor to estimate the distance these quirks were. They were probably in the next room, or maybe a little further. Some of them were really close together, as if the person had multiple quirks.
"There are others here?" He asked softly.
The question came as a bit of a surprise given the way it startled the Doctor. With his eyes unfocused Izuku didn't see the details of the look the Doctor gave him. "There are," the old man eventually answered. "But you don't need to worry about them."
"Okay," Izuku replied, somewhat dreamily. He was still focusing on the quirks around them. He stretched out further and this time felt quirks moving around. There were only a few of them and they didn't seem to be coming closer. Izuku concluded they were people outside the building. He felt thankful that there weren't that many. It was safer.
He brought his attention back to those who were closer. There really were several which had to be in the same person. Excepting his dad, and Gigantomachia, Izuku had never seen anyone with two quirks before. "Why do the close people have more than one quirk?" He asked.
"Those are my experiments," the Doctor told him. "They aren't something you need to worry about Izuku."
"Why do they have quirks?" Izuku asked.
The Doctor chuckled. "Izuku, I perform research into quirks, so of course, my experiments have quirks."
The boy nodded and didn't notice when the Doctor heaved a sigh of relief that there were no follow up questions. Izuku sat for several more moments before he lifted the tablet. He released his hold on his quirk and looked at the screen. He flicked back and forth, going into the Doctor's server.
There were lots of folders there. Izuku had seen some of it before, during his summers and he just wasn't sure what he should look at. He knew it was the Doctor's way of distracting him but all he could think about was how to get a look at a quirk registry. He had no idea how to do it without Nasutto. And yes, he felt bad that Nasutto had died but he hadn't really known the man that well. He was more concerned about his dad.
Though… Izuku frowned as a thought occurred. He knew the Doctor did research into quirks but he'd never really thought how. It made sense that he worked with quirks if he was researching them but maybe he had a link to a registry. He looked at the tablet and typed 'registry' into the search.
He was somewhat surprised when there were several results. A couple were registry papers, but there was a folder in the results. Izuku clicked to it. There was a list of subfolders. His eyes widened when he recognised a list of countries. The Doctor didn't have a list of the registries, did he?
Izuku decided he didn't care. He scrolled down the list and went into the folder named Japan. In there were a couple of documents. He looked at the sizes and clicked to open the biggest. Izuku didn't recognise the program but he could see the list of information. It really was a list of quirks! And he could see the name of the person with the quirk next to it, and more importantly, their location. There was also a description of the quirk, but as Izuku scrolled down, he realised it wasn't always filled in. Even so, a smile spread across his face and Izuku brought up a search and typed 'regeneration' in the quirk name search field. The smile vanished when there were no results. But then he thought about his own quirks, and those of his friends. The names weren't always the best descriptor but with more of the descriptions blank than filled out… he had no choice. He bit the inside of his lip as he tried to think of what other words might be used to name a regeneration quirk.
'Self healing' was the obvious choice and he entered that. Again, no results came up. Maybe they didn't want to use the word healing. 'Cure,' brought up nothing.
It wasn't that there were no quirks, it was that the results weren't what he was looking for. Or there was a mark against the quirk to indicate that the government checked on it. They were healing quirks but not the type he could get. He needed something that wouldn't attract any Hero's attention.
What other words could be used for regeneration? He knew from his own quirks that sometimes the name wasn't that descriptive. Fire Breath was, but Caeli Imperium wasn't. And that brought in other languages! He'd just have to be patient. Izuku ran a Go Duck search.
'Betony,' 'bishop's wart,' 'hedgenettle,' and 'prunella vulgaris' all came up blank. He didn't even know what they were and he didn't think people would actually call their quirk that. 'Renew', 'revive,' and 'rehabilitate' also came up blank.
'Fix it' seemed too childish but Izuku entered it when he thought of the combination. It sounded more like a healing quirk than a self healing quirk and when a result came up, he wasn't too surprised when there was a mark beside the person's name, indicating that they were a professional doctor for the Government.
Izuku stopped searching for a while as he thought. Regeneration is what he wanted but specifically regeneration of the body. He knew it was possible because Setsuna could do it. If someone took a bit of her body, she could regrow it. She'd done it often enough with fingers…. Wait. Regrow.
He typed that in. Izuku almost shouted when there were results. More than one. There was a little hitch in his breath when he saw that. He looked at the quirk names and wondered which was which. Well, it wasn't Regrow Plants. That one actually had a description. 'Reviving and regrowing organic plant material' wasn't what he wanted. That left two others. Neither had a description. Regrowth, belonging to a woman, Jiko Chiyu, in Kyoto and Regrown, belonging to a man, Yilusun Logen in Hirosaki.
He couldn't tell which would be better but Kyoto was closer. Izuku sent the details of both quirks to his phone and then clicked out of the quirk registry before putting the tablet down. If it wasn't one of these two quirks, he'd have to search again but now he had a new problem, how to get to Kyoto?
Kurogiri was the obvious answer but he just didn't want the man knowing. Not yet. There was something holding him back. The man was already doing all he could bringing in healers. And… Doctor Garaki and Kurogiri knew what his quirk was. Why hadn't they asked about this possibility?
The train went to Kyoto, and while he didn't have enough money, Tomura had the card. Money wasn't going to be an issue here. Finding this Jiko Chiyu might be the real problem but… Izuku tilted his head back, looking up at the bubbling tank of liquid his father was floating in.
There was all the reason he'd need.
-ted-
"Thank you for seeing me on such short notice," Sir Nighteye said as he entered the office.
"It's the least I could do, given the situation," the Hero Public Safety Commissioner said. Soukan Haruta was an older man. He was a career public servant. He knew exactly what to say and what not to say as the situation demanded but he also knew when he had to see Heroes and Sidekicks personally, and when they could be fobbed off to his underlings. Mirai was assured that as All Might's Sidekick, he was on the personal list. "How is Toshinori doing?" Soukan asked as Mirai took a seat.
"He's between surgeries at the moment," All Might's sidekick answered. "And the doctors are keeping him unconscious." It would be useful to speak to Yagi at the moment but medically it would probably cause more problems. Heroes had a lot of sway in the community, but in a hospital, the Doctor's ruled.
Commissioner Haruta nodded. "Probably for the best," he murmured.
While a patient's records were confidential, he would have seen at least the initial report on the damage done. Even so, Mirai knew what the real question was, except, he didn't know the answer. With damage as severe as had been inflicted on Toshinori, would he have to retire as a Hero? Only time would tell, but he wasn't going to be doing things for at least a month. Probably longer if he actually obeyed the Doctors.
"So, as much as I appreciate the update, what did you want to see me about?" Soukan asked. His eyes were sharp.
"The villain," Mirai stated.
"Toxic Chainsaw will not be in a position to contradict anything we say," Soukan told him.
Mirai nodded. That wasn't his concern but it was good to have it confirmed. "The press release will be forwarded to the Commission for approval within the hour," he told the Commissioner. It better be he'd approve the final draft earlier and it was going through marketing at the moment. "I'm more concerned about those who saw the villain," he elaborated.
"They've already been spoken to. As have Eraserhead and Scarab. They won't be contradicting anything."
That was expected. The rescue group would know that sometimes the truth caused more harm than good and he fully expected the underground heroes to go along with the HPSC's story.
"I was more concerned about his body," Mirai told the Commissioner.
"His body?" Soukan asked.
"It was not in the morgue," Sir Nighteye explained.
The Commissioner nodded his understanding. Mirai's eyes narrowed slightly but he forced himself to relax. "You were going to identify his civilian identity?" Soukan asked for confirmation.
"I was."
"It has been decided that it's best if Hisashi Riji simply disappears," the Commissioner told him blandly.
Sir Nighteye blinked and then reinterpreted the sentence in political speak. The Government was going to blame something on JBQC and specifically All For One's civilian persona but what? "So Hisashi will have been taken directly to Tartarus?" He probed. It still didn't explain where All For One's body was.
Soukan smiled. "Yes."
That was an acceptable cover story. Those in Tartarus did not get visitors. "And has he been taken to Tartarus?" Mirai asked. He was adept at political speak but there was no room for error here.
The Commissioner didn't reply immediately and Sir Nighteye began to worry. They could maintain the fiction that Hisashi Riji had committed some crime and had been incarcerated in Tartarus all they wanted, so long as his body was actually there. "Such an interesting ability," Soukan said finally. "To take and give quirks," he elaborated. "There exists quirks to temporarily copy quirks, to shut them down and to do all sorts of wondrous things. But to take them permanently? I did not believe it possible until I read the file."
Sir Nighteye hadn't believed it was possible either until he started working with Toshinori.
"And All Might's quirk! So fantastic. A legacy of the beginning. Just the same as Hisashi. It is something that must be studied." The Commissioner smiled at him.
For a moment Sir Nighteye felt disgusted but then he nodded as he translated the words. The Commissioner couldn't just tell him that outright, not when it involved human research. That was strictly monitored and usually forbidden. Especially quirk research, even on corpses.
All For One's body was not at Tartarus. With him being dead, there was no need for that though the public story would be that he was there. His body was instead at some research lab. "What of his wife and son?" Mirai asked. Tartarus may not have visitation rights, but as far as he knew, Hisashi Riji had never divorced Inko Midoriya, so she could have a claim on his assets, as would his son. Hisashi Riji was, publicly, a very wealthy man, and probably owned many of his assets legitimately, and the sidekick had seen the way people came out of the woodwork when money was involved.
"His what?" Soukan demanded, his eyes going wide.
"Hisashi's wife and son," Sir Nighteye repeated blandly. Did the Commissioner not know how All For One had been tracked down? Had he been so blinded by the potential research? "I do not believe he is divorced from his wife, but definitely separated, as he took their son and left about five years ago." He didn't have to elaborate further. Soukan understood what that meant. Even if the wife didn't have a claim on assets, the son did. That complicated matters. The Government could claim assets from Hisashi Riji's estate if there was no one to claim the estate. No one would look into it too closely, however, even if the wife did not wish to claim anything, the law recognised the son's claim. It was far better than the Government's.
"Where is the boy?" The Commissioner asked. There was a gleam in his eye that made Mirai thankful he had the answer he did.
He didn't care for the child the way Tsukauchi seemed to but he knew what that gleam meant. The Commission were… They were human, with all the vices and problems that entailed. "I don't know," Sir Nighteye replied. "The police inform me that he hasn't attended school since the battle."
Soukan knew what that meant. Either the child, Izuku was with Hisashi's trusted lieutenants and would be raised to take his father's position or those self same lieutenants had seen the opportunity for personal advancement. If Izuku had Hisashi's quirk, All For One, or a copy of it, the Commission was not getting a live test subject.
At length, the Commissioner nodded. "Thank you for letting me know. I'll see to it that the appropriate arrangements are made," he announced.
Mirai nodded. The statement was a catch all but probably translated to the wife would get some benefits, so she had no reason to claim more, and something would be put aside for the son, though if he appeared, the Commission would reexamine their options and Mirai knew that the preferred option would be to take him as a test subject. "No, thank you for allaying my concerns about Hisashi," Mirai returned as he rose.
He wasn't happy that All For One's body would be experimented on but it was better than the alternative of him, somehow, impossibly, surviving.
"Of course," Soukan told him, smiling as Mirai left his office.
Once outside, Sir Nighteye shook his head slightly. He wondered if there'd come a day when the Commission was the enemy and all he could conclude was that was possibly. Except, it wasn't today, and for now, that was enough.
-ted-