The Emperor's Dragon

You've Given Him Time

With dad mentioning he'd tried a quirk like Himiko's to regain his health, Izuku had naturally thought of his friend. He lay on his bed and looked down at his phone. He still didn't have her contact details and the last letter he'd sent had been ignored, again. The message he'd sent her on her birthday was unread but he knew that was the case. He had no idea of her number, and with his changed, she wouldn't know his.

But... he still missed her and had been reminded of that the other day. And every time he thought of her, he sent a joke.

When he got her number, and plugged it in, they would go to her and... He grinned.

It wouldn't make up for the missed time but at least it would show he had been thinking of her.

So what did he send this time? He'd send a vampire one last time so something different now. Izuku grinned and typed, Why do nurses bring red markers to work? It was one of those jokes that had a lot of variants and copies but at least it was still about blood. Himiko would like it.

He really wanted to see her.

-ted-

"How is your investigation going?" Tsukauchi asked his friend.

Toshinori was in his deflated form and sat next to him on the park bench, nursing his coffee.

Naomasa was greedily inhaling the caffeine.

"It's not," Yagi replied with a sigh, putting the cup down beside him. "If I thought he'd gone to ground before, he's completely disappeared this time."

"Him or-?" The Detective didn't finish the sentence.

"Him or," All Might nodded, looking grim.

That was part of the problem facing them. They knew they were chasing a villain but they weren't sure who. Was it All For One, injured but well enough to lead, or was it someone else using his image? The underworld wasn't talking and no one knew for sure.

All they really knew is that All For One's body had disappeared and no one had seen his son. For the last four years. There were hints of him, or at least his forces - the raid in Tsu with the collapsed building said they'd gotten close - but nothing else.

"The thought of someone using his body is bad enough," Yagi said, "but if it's him, if it's actually him, even if he is injured-"

Again, he didn't finish the sentence. Unspoken was the addition on it, that if it was him and he, by some travesty of justice, wasn't injured then...

Then they were in a lot of trouble. It had cost All Might more than the world knew to take out All For One. If he had recovered then, there was no one who could stand against him.

"It's got to be a puppet," Tsukauchi murmured, referring to the possibility that All For One was alive.

"I don't know. I just don't know." And Sir Nighteye didn't know either and it was his vision which had started this.

The Detective sighed heavily. "Inko found his records," he said after a moment.

"What?"

"Inko found his records," Tsukauchi repeated. "She's working for a group that deals with long term missing persons," he told his friend. "They linked the missing Hisashi Riji to Hisashi Midoriya."

From the corner of his eye, he could see how Toshinori's expression collapsed. The Number One Hero's eyes closed as he grimaced in pain. He, like Tsukauchi, wanted to tell Inko more but the reality of the situation was that any knowledge of All For One was dangerous. "What did you tell her?"