The Emperor's Dragon II

Sales Pitch

Once in the building, Shunin led them to his office, before gesturing for her to take a seat on the other side of his desk. Mei looked around. It was an interesting office. The view was extensive, and along the other wall there was a shelf full of leather bound books. It was old fashioned but Shunin's desk was clean and orderly.

He took his seat and looked over at her for a few moments. "You are a remarkably gifted young lady, Miss Hatsume," Shunin told her.

"I like making my babies!" Mei agreed. Power Loader would be cringing. He'd explained to the class, mostly for her benefit, that while using slang terms was okay for school, more formal language would be expected in business. She understood the implications but the lecture had taken up valuable inventing time and if people couldn't handle her terminology, then that was their problem. They'd still want her babies because they were so great.

"You did make the helmet used by Izuku's father?" Shunin didn't seem perturbed by her slang.

"Not that one," Mei corrected. "But I designed it."

He nodded. "Good," he breathed.

"Why?"

"I do not know if you will be called to the stand," he explained. "But I do not need to learn there that you had help with the design."

"Izuku paid for the design and for an old, clapped out respirator for me to study," Mei said. "And I did buy a whole heap of agar kits for sanitation tests. Do they count?"

"That sort of assistance is fine," he dismissed those concerned. "I want to be sure that no one else aided in the design."

"Someone put armor on it," she pointed out.

Shunin shook his head. "The armor isn't in the patent application."

"Oh."

They sat for a few minutes in silence before Shunin looked at her again. "You seem quite calm to find out your friend could be classified as a villain," he observed.

Mei understood a fishing sentence when she heard it and thought about her answer. Technically Shunin should be on her side but in reality, she knew that everyone was on their own sides. But he was also a lawyer, and about to go up against the HPSC and while that might just be money, she didn't think so. Most people stayed away from the HPSC if they could avoid it.

"Let's look at it a different way," Mei invited. "The hero system has been in place for a while, yes?" she asked.

The lawyer nodded.

The system had changed, and evolved a bit but had been in place long enough for dedicated high schools on quirk usage, heroics and the supporting industries to be established and have retired alumni. It was not something that had been around for a few years.

"In that time, the number of villains has not reduced. It's actually gone up," she pointed out. "That's partially because quirks have become more useful in daily life, and are therefore used more, both by private citizens and villains, which of course, increases the number of villains by definition," she said. She didn't need to explain to a lawyer that the use of a quirk during an assault changed the definition of the person from criminal to villain. "But even allowing for that, the number of villains, proportionally, has gone up."

Shunin said nothing but Mei got the impression she wasn't saying anything that was new to him.

"I'm not saying that the hero industry is solely responsible for the increase in villain numbers but, it is contributing. And it seems to me that if a system is contributing to society's problems, then it should be changed."