The Shogun

Chapter 6 : The Rebel is Born

Now

The entire room was silent. Nobody had any idea what to say. Reina couldn't help but feel bad for Izuku but she was incapable of saying anything. Seiran takes a sip of water from the glass and she says, "Inko had shown Izuku his goal... but the path to reach it, he has to choose it himself. Inko had asked Izuku to be ruthless... In the world as competitive and hierarchy driven as fifty years ago, the world demanded cruelty, the world demanded ruthlessness".

Reina looks at Seiran and she says, "So, 'The One who promised Utopia' is not the story of a man who was fed up by the injustice his people faced but rather it is the story of a boy who was trying to fulfill his mother's dying wish?"

"Well in Layman terms, yes... creating equality in the world was a byproduct of it..." Seiran replies and Reina simply nods. For a second a pregnant silence grows in the room and suddenly, Reina asks, "So... what happened to Izuku after that?"

The elderly woman leans forward a bit and replies, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Inko might have wanted Izuku to be brutal but that was a very difficult task considering the fact that Inko herself was never a brutal person. Being kind, not standing up for himself was something Izuku indirectly learned from Inko herself".

"Yep, that is an impossible task for Izuku", Akira says to which Seiran couldn't help but chuckle a knowing laugh. The chief editor eyes her a bit and she asks, "What?"

Seiran gives the younger woman a gentle smile and says, "I said it's difficult... but I never said that it was impossible... Milgram's experiment, which eventually became very infamous for recording ugly but true side of human behavior, had shown how individuals may be subtly made obedient and, under a sense of power, lose their moral compass and be nudged into participating in acts of violence against fellow citizens. A person's brutality which might be non-existent, can be accelerated depending on the situation. Let me tell you, Izuku by no means was a saint... He did have toxic thoughts but his moral compass, his values and his ideals were acting as a buffer.... When the very source of those ideals that is Inko has been taken from him, he doesn't need to hold back. But sometimes in order for that brutality to come out, he just needed a little bit of coaxing".

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Then

"What do you mean by 'I'm not eligible' ?!" Izuku asks angrily as he slams his fist on the desk of the lawyer. The man of practice simply sighs and replies, "I mean that you are not the legal heir of the apartment and the bank accounts your mother had left".

This causes Izuku to let out a growl. It's been a month since his mother's death. It was a wonder how quickly the country went back to normal. The city center was still closed off for business, considering it was still being developed and the government had estimated that it would take at least six months to bring it back in working condition. Inko's funeral was a silent affair. No one appeared when she was given the last rites and no one appeared when she was put in the incinerator. Not even Izuku's wretched father had come to see her off. In the end, he was all alone to pick her remains and store them in the urn.

The past one month were the worst days of Izuku's life. Normally, he would have been fine with two weeks of holidays but without his mother, the apartment just seemed lifeless. He kept to himself most of the time and every night he went to a nearby ramen booth to have his fill of the day's fuel. When the schools reopened, he kept to himself... well he always did that but this time he just wanted to be left alone. He never told anyone about his mother's death. As if someone cared what happened in his life. Bakugou was still his usual self, antagonizing him any moment possible. There were times Izuku just wanted to punt the explosive blonde in the ground, but he was definitely keeping his intrusive thoughts intrusive.