The Emperor's Dragon II

There's More Than One Side

Captain Teiko Meishu looked at the stats for her district. They'd had a spate of gun violence in her district lately. It had been against the homeless, and in all cases, the witnesses had indicated that the perpetrators had worn plague masks. Of all things! She'd dismissed it at first, but when the second, third, and forth reports had come in, she couldn't just call it a hallucination from whatever drugs they were on.

She sighed. Someone was targeting the homeless. And it probably wasn't just one person. The plague mask had been present at each attack but it was described differently each time. Sometimes it was black. Sometimes it was white or brown. It didn't always cover their eyes... So there was definitely more than one. Which meant there was an organisation. They weren't killing them though. The shots were very careful to be in the arm or leg, nothing that was fatal, and then... This is where the stories got even more ridiculous.

Those who were shot claimed that their quirk was gone. Except they weren't. When they were asked to demonstrate their quirk it worked, so... Meishu would like to say there was nothing more to consider but... There had been several whose quirk hadn't worked. It had later, but not when they were first asked. The general feedback from the medics was that the gunshot had stressed the individual, and they'd temporarily suppressed their quirk. The medics who examined the wounds and patched them up had also said that they weren't regular bullet wounds. In fact, one of them had said the wound was more similar to that of a tranquiliser dart but not quite. There had been some foreign but still organic substance in the wound but no one could tell what it was, and for the moment, since it was only the homeless being attacked, there hadn't been the motivation to do a full analysis of it. They'd just run the general tests.

Meishu had no idea what was going on. The police were meant to deal with criminals and it was meant to be pretty straightforward. Villains were dealt with by heroes, and they were the ones who could have the headaches. This was a headache. This wasn't straightforward and it was annoying her.

"Sir!"

"What is it?" Teiko snapped, looking up from the reports.

"We've got eyes on someone with a plague mask," Chebu told her.

"Where?"

"Inadaira Avenue," came the quick reply.

"Shit!" Teiko swore. Inadaira Avenue was near the Zambori River and the homeless generally gathered under the bridges. It was an easy way of keeping the worst of the weather off them and if they could rig up some sort of windbreak...

"Here," Chebu said, holding out a radio.

It was kind of archaic that they still used radios but it was the most efficient form of comms. The phone networks were stable but could be overwhelmed at times of the day or year, so they needed the reliability. "Who is it?" Captain Meishu asked.

"Isatsu," Chebu told her.

"Isatsu," Teiko snapped.

"Sir!"

"Just follow them," she ordered. She had a suspicion about where the plague masked group was living but she needed it confirmed. Then she could order a raid.

They were Yakuza. An organisation that should have been dead and buried but had persisted, tenuously clinging to life like a cockroach. They'd been all but obliterated in the late twentieth century but their descendants had turned to cybercrime in an ever dwindling state until the dawn of quirks. The social upheaval then should have been the final death knell for them but they had clung on and even created some clan like structures in places. It was hard to tell with the wars and fighting but they'd probably helped some people during those times. Society then wasn't what it was today but... they had long survived past the time where they were useful.