The Emperor's Dragon II

Enter the Contacts

Izuku sat in the corner of the bar. The others weren't up yet and the bar wasn't open, so he was taking the time to think, and practise with the quirks he'd taken recently. He still didn't have the hang of the Yakuza's quirk but he had determined that it seemed to have several aspects. Disassemble, followed by a choice to either reassemble as it was originally or as something new. But with the something new, he couldn't just create something from nothing. The mass had to be there in the first place and reconstructing something new took a lot of concentration.

He couldn't shake the feeling that his lack of ability to use the quirk was at least somewhat related to his dream the other day. He had no problem using Solar Force after all, and was coming to understand how the girl's quirk worked. Both Saisho and the girl had been happy in his dream. The girl had been on a bouncing castle and Saisho had been taking care of other infants.

The Yakuza had been crucified.

Maybe it meant that his quirk wasn't willing... Izuku shook his head. If the quirk wasn't willing, then he'd just have to make it willing. And that would simply require more practice. Or he'd give it to someone else but this one, even with his limited utility had uses. If he could figure out how to build or rather rebuild a body so that it could withstand multiple quirks, then making a High End Nomu would be easy! Condition them for loyalty, optimise body, have him rebuild them and then shove the quirks in and viola... done. He might even be able to do the optimisation.

Sure it took up his time but he'd also be using the final product.

So he was continuing to practice. Mostly with the girl's quirk. Finding things that he could easily measure time on was being a bit problematic. Fruits should be okay but they were often put into storage, so it was important that he only practiced on fresh fruit. Yakuni had also pointed out that some bugs had definite life cycles that could be observed, and measured such as butterflies, except it was winter and bugs were in short supply.

Even so, with fruit he was getting a good idea of how the quirk worked. Intent was important. Before he engaged the girl's quirk, he had to have a firm idea of the outcome he wanted but it was not just about intent. There was something else that impacted it as well. Yakuni said that it worked with some sort of energy. Izuku still didn't know what that energy was but he did know it took time to accumulate the energy. The more time taken to accumulate, the more he could 'rewind' something.

Izuku shook his head. He shouldn't think about the quirk as 'the girl's quirk'. It was his now, and she had a lovely barrier quirk. He needed to practice with the other quirks too, the ones Yakuni had collected for him but he needed more room for that.

"Izu?"

The soft question of his name broke his attention and Izuku looked up to see Himiko standing there. Her hair was down and she was blinking in the dim light of the bar tap room.

"Himiko?" Izuku asked. It wasn't like he was up particularly early, just that most of them liked to sleep later. He was still in the habit of waking early for school, even if he was no longer going to school. Himiko usually didn't get up for another hour or so.

"Why are you awake?" She asked, as she came over to the table. She was still dressed in her pyjamas and when she got close, Izuku could see that they had little cats and dogs on them... with knives and an occasional brown patch that he was pretty sure had to represent blood.

Only Himiko!

"I always get up this early," Izuku said. "It gives me time to think," he told her.

Himiko slid into the booth and rested her head on his shoulder as she sighed contentedly. Her hair fell forward and Izuku reached out to push it back over her shoulder. It was surprisingly soft. "You warm," HImiko murmured and Izuku could see that her eyes were closed.