The Emperor's Dragon II

The Veil Has Lifted

Yagi watched the security camera recording again. It was of the holding cells where the- He sighed. There had been plans to separate those who attacked Ochaco Uraraka but it had also been thought, assumed really, that they would be safe for one night, that the kid's information network wasn't that developed.

It was a hard lesson to learn. The kid... He shook his head. Izuku Midoriya might be young, he might be relatively inexperienced but he was not a regular fresh faced villain. He had the contacts, and apparently, the will, to go far.

It was so sad but Toshinori knew he couldn't focus on that. He rewound the security footage. They only had a few moments of it but it was revealing. The group had appeared via warp gate, much as they had at the USJ and then gotten to work. One of the villains, so far only identified as Dabi, shot fire at the cameras and they all blipped out.

From there, they knew that Dragon had broken the locks, Jin Bubaigawara had used his quirk to grab the prisoners they were interested in, while the others made sure the perimeter was secure. The other prisoners, those who hadn't been taken, reported that Mr Compress, Atsuhiro Sako had stood near the warp gate the entire time, not moving, while the others had acted. And they'd also reported that everything was silent. They could hear nothing, except their own bodies. One of the prisoners had slapped themselves but they hadn't been able to hear that.

All of the villains were on the brief second of tape they had but... There were some missing. Tomura Shigaraki was not present but he could easily have decided not to come because this was Izuku's desire. Josai Shizukana was also- No, she was there but not seen? The silence definitely hinted at her quirk...

Ah... Toshinori figured it out. Mr Compress had compressed her, which would also explain why he'd appeared to do nothing but stand there. He was holding the field centred on them. Though the warp gate could also have done that.

Goto Imasuji was not present but he might not have been brought because of his bulk. He would have taken up all the space and Chou Konchu wasn't there. The butterfly quirked lady- Again, it might be an easy explanation. The villains had pulled off the mission quickly, and they hadn't needed others. The absence of other villains was not necessarily evidence of anything, it could simply be practicality. People forgot that villains were practical, sometimes far more so than others.

He watched the second again, in slow motion and froze the image on Izuku Midoriya, who they believed to be Dragon. He was showing quirks he'd never shown at UA and Toshinori felt a brief flash of respect at his control. In the image, he was covered in scales and his eyes glowed. The scales were even on his face and the analysts had been quick to tell him that with the distortion the scales caused, they couldn't use facial recognition, so there was a chance that this wasn't Izuku Midoriya.

He knew it was. There was absolutely no question in his mind that it was Izuku and the scales... They had belonged to Hiryu Ren. Yagi remembered Nighteye telling him about that case. Izuku might not know- Izuku would know his father had taken the quirk but he probably didn't know from whom. Toshinori wondered what he'd think if he knew Hiryu... Would he be angry? There was absolutely no doubt that he was angry that his friend was attacked. The evidence spoke for itself.

"Oh Izuku," Yagi sighed. He'd hoped they could bring him in and maybe... Well, he didn't really know what the maybe was. The boy had killed and now...

It was such a waste.

-ted-

Izuku was tired, but he knew he had to deal with the prisoners before he could rest. Some of them had defecated and that had stunk. At least he'd been able to use fire to deal with the mess. He hadn't been too careful either so the heat had burned some of them but the sooner they were dealt with, the sooner he could get some sleep before he went to speak with Shouto and then...