The Emperor's Dragon II

Ambition Can Be Dangerous

Kai watched the recording again. He'd already seen it several times and his initial reaction was one of jealousy. Those students, the ones who were now quirkless, were, for the first time in their lives, healthy. The infection that was a quirk was gone. And yet, everyone seemed to believe there was something wrong with them. There had been lamenting over the past few days on how terrible their lives would now be.

The world just did not understand.

What was concerning to him was not the loss of the quirk, but the one who had taken it. Mitei Chui, Izuku Midoriya... The son of All For One. And that was the problem.

There was a power vacuum in the underworld at the moment. While the Shie Hassaikai had never sworn allegiance to All For One they had respected his power. Kai could still remember asking the Boss why they didn't challenge All For One. They had the means, after all. The Boss had given him a very direct look. He knew now that the look had meant the man was judging if he was ready to hear the explanation and felt thankful that the Boss had decided he was.

We could take him on. We could fight him, the Boss had admitted. It would even be considered a public service and there are some heroes who would help us.

At the time, that had seemed too good to be true and Kai had narrowed his eyes, waiting to hear about the catch. The Boss had recognised the look and had nodded at him, silently approving of his skepticism. The Shie Hissaikai could have challenged All For One. They might even have won, but it would have cost them everything they had. And while they were weakened, the heroes would have pounced, or some other rival in the underworld.

And in the event that they lost... The Boss had just shaken his head and explained that he doubted they'd have achieved even a pyrrhic victory in that case.

So they had respected All For One, even worked occasionally with his operatives but the Shie Hissaikai had mostly kept to themselves.

But there was an opportunity now. All For One was gone, taken out by All Might and in Tartarus. His heirs were inexperienced. They could be guided. They could be ruled. The Shei Hissakai could be the rulers of the underworld. But they would have to move quickly and decisively.

Kai nodded to himself and thought about what he knew about All For One's heirs. The older one, Tomura Shigaraki was the one most well known though Kai did not know that much. The kid was just starting out, and while he had access to All For One's resources he could be dangerous. He wasn't interested in that one. It was All For One's second heir, his son, who interested Kai. From the evidence, the boy had the same quirk as his father. It didn't matter if it wasn't the same, it seemed to be functionally the same and that was all that was important.

And since the son had publicly taken those quirks, his name was now well known. In the underworld, that sort of name recognition was required. And if the boy had a copy of his Father's quirk, then his Father's underlings would be comforted by that. Those underlings had a lot of power in the underworld.

He took a deep breath as he thought. He could control Tomura. From what he knew the boy was tempestuous and impulsive. The younger boy was just too much like his father. His quirk was truly dangerous. If he was younger then- Kai shook his head. There was no point in thinking of what might have been. He'd make an overture to Tomura, and dominate him and...

Kai had no idea what the relationship between the two was, but if there was any friction then that would suit him. He'd be able to work with that. The younger boy would- There was no reason to kill him. In fact, killing him might put All For One's followers offside. The depth of their loyalty was unknown. But he could still deal with the boy.

He had the means. Well not quite yet but he would soon have the means. The project was going well and the new man was proving his worth. While blood couldn't be cloned, or at least not properly cloned, the young man had been able to refine their extraction techniques. While the volume of material they got from each harvest of Eri was the same, the concentration was stronger. Kai liked to call the extract quirk factor, but he knew it wasn't. It was a mix of various blood components that carried Eri's quirk factor.