The Emperor's Dragon II

Not Expected

Commissioner Sozo stared down at the report on his desk. He hadn't opened it yet but was anticipating savouring the reading. It wasn't often that a report was good news for the Hero Public Safety Commission but this one promised to be. The Taxation Department had finally conceded that Hisashi Riji was a villain and the courts had ordered Hawein, Mori and Nishimura provide access to Hisashi Riji's assets. The company had complied. And now he was going to see the boost the Commission would receive.

They needed it. While Commissioner Motoo of the Taxation Department did not get a say in allocating budget, that was all done by elected officials, as Tax Commissioner, she worked closely with Treasury and Finance and those two groups did the work of allocating the spending. The HPSC hadn't had a funding cut, but they had been told to fund new initiatives from the savings they were meant to have made from previous initiatives.

He couldn't go back to Treasury or Finance to say that the initiatives hadn't made the savings they'd promised to government. Not without having to explain why, and he couldn't explain why without revealing some of the Commission's secret projects. On paper, the initiatives hadn't made any savings, in reality the initiatives had made the savings they should have, just that the money had been diverted to other things. Usually no one called them on it, and the HPSC got allocated the budget they asked for. Except this time... Motoo would say she'd done nothing. He knew she had.

That's why it was a rather delicious irony that the villain Hisashi Riji's assets would now come to the Commission and would serve to bring in more villains. It was fortuitous timing. Controlling ownership in JBQC would give the Commission enough cash to cover their short falls and the extra assets, those he knew Hisashi had to own but had no idea what they were, would allow the Commission to launch new projects. Sozo already had several ideas.

With a smile, he reached out to the report and flipped it open. It was rather slim but this was probably just the first draft, outlining what assets were where, with an initial estimate of value. Other, more detailed reports would follow telling him exactly how much each asset was worth.

Sozo scanned through the first paragraph and a feeling of cold came over him.

In accordance with the court order, Hawein, Mori and Nishimura have provided all documentation of Hisashi Riji's estates and assets. The list of assets is contained in Appendix A. A summation is as follows:

Liquid Cash in accounts: 266,197 Yen.

That couldn't be right! Hisashi Riji was a millionaire, probably a billionaire. He would not have so little means! He had to have liquid assets to run his business, to ensure his criminal empire obeyed him. Or... Sozo frowned, was everything tied up in the Company and Hisashi had truly run his personal bank accounts stupidly lean?

He ran his eyes through the report but could not see JBQC mentioned anywhere.

The cold feeling grew. There was mention of several safe deposit boxes but the contents were not valuable. What did he have need of the stupidly old USB technology? There were papers in another, containing two birth certificates, one over 100 years old, and one a mere 16 years old, and a marriage certificate. With that there was also a divorce filing.

It made no sense. He recognised two names on the certificates. Inko Midoriya was Hisashi's, now divorced, wife. Izuku Midoriya, who's name was on the current birth certificate was his son but who the hell was Yoichi Shigaraki?

The Commissioner shook his head and flipped through to the Appendix. There had to be more assets! JBQC had to be somewhere. Though... For a moment the Commissioner frowned. Did JBQC trade under another name? He tapped at his tablet, bringing up a government listing. All registered businesses were registered on the government listing and JBQC, while being majority owned by a villain, was still a registered business. It traded mostly legitimately. He found the listing and confirmed that JBQC was not just its trading name, it was the company's real name. So where was it in the documentation? He'd already checked that the company was not officially owned overseas.