The Emperor's Dragon II

Bribery

Commissioner Kouki Sozo forced himself to take several deep breaths. As he breathed he flexed his fingers. He was a career public servant. He'd learned various exercises to keep his temper in check and to work through his anger. He never got rid of all of it, just enough to ensure he wasn't making stupid decisions. No matter what the public believed, stupid public servants did not get to be Commissioners.

Equally, Commissioners who presided over public scandal did not remain Commissioners for long.

The loss of six quirks could have been covered up and ignored if it was simply six random people. But the loss of six hero student quirks... six who were relatively well known, that was not going to be something the public let go. The Commission could have controlled the situation but then the Yaoyorozu's had gone and exploded the situation. Their press conference...

Sozo resisted the urge to groan. He understood that they wanted their daughter's quirk back but they should have cleared their press conference with the Commission. The Commission would have denied it, of course, but they could have then worked to capture this new villain. Now the Commission's resources were split. They were dealing with the public fiasco that the Yaoyorozu's Press Conference had caused, as well as gathering what information they could about the villain.

"The Principal is here to see you," his assistant said.

Kouki nodded and sat back in his chair as his assistant showed Principal Nezu in.

The rat gave him a measuring look as he entered but Sozo was a career public servant, he knew how to keep his expression bland. He knew the rat would take the expression as a challenge but he was not about to give away any information he didn't have to. The Principals of the Hero schools always thought they were more important than they really were.

"Commissioner," Nezu greeted him as he took a seat. The rat looked rather small in the chair but Kouki ignored that. He couldn't afford to be distracted.

"What happened?" He asked, not bothering with pleasantries.

"With what?" Nezu asked.

Sozo gave him a look. He had no time to play games with the Principal.

It appeared that Nezu smiled at him but it was hard to tell. The rat knew what the stakes were. "You expected us to know we had a student who could take quirks?" Nezu asked.

"Yes," he managed not to shout the answer.

The rat looked at him. "I did warn you not to make precipitous decisions," he had the gall to say. "If you'd given us more time to investigate, we would have known that Mitei Chui, was actually Izuku Midoriya, Hisashi Riji's son."

"You had him enrolled and you didn't know," Sozo pointed out. "More time was hardly necessary," he added. The only way they'd figured it out was when the boy acted.

"In light of previous events, we were conducting reviews on all students," Nezu said, sounding entirely too reasonable. "We had not yet reached the Management students, though when we had, the anomalies with his enrollment would have become clear."

"No," the Commissioner said firmly. "This is not the Commission's fault."

The rat didn't answer immediately but it was obvious he was thinking. "The taking of the quirks is directly Mitei Chui's fault, but he was enrolled without doing anything and in his own words, the trigger for taking them was your direct cause."

"The Commission has made no move against him," Sozo refuted the Principal's statement.

"But you did against his friend," Nezu said. The rat was smart enough not to sound triumphant.