The Emperor's Dragon II

Old and New

Izuku looked down at Ochaco. She was still lying in the bed, unmoving and nothing had really changed with her prognosis. The Doctor had read her chart and had dismissed her condition as a brain haemorrhage brought upon by head trauma. The diagnosis had made him see red and he wanted the vigilante's neck between hands all the more. But the vigilante was being held in a high security prison - not Tartarus - while he awaited charges. Those charges would stick because All Might had insisted they be laid.

That wasn't justice!

Justice would have been if All Might said nothing and they were still laid but Izuku knew, just as well as the Number One Hero knew, that without his interference, the more serious charges would never have been laid.

He sighed and hooked the old chart he'd sto-borrowed a while back over the back of her bed, next to the new one. Garaki had written a few treatments on it, suggestions and Izuku was tempted to add his own notation but knew if he did that, then the view of Ochaco as a villain lover would only be cemented.

In the minds of many it was already a done thing and him healing her was going to be reinforcing that impression for some but he wasn't going to let her just lie here.

He moved to the chair next to the bed and sat in it, before taking her gloved hand. When he hadn't shown any immediate interest, the sidekicks watching the hospital had been reassigned and so now all he had to worry about was the doctors and nurses on the night shift. He'd had Kurogiri drop him here, just after one of the nightly checks, so had a little while before they were interrupted.

He would have liked Mei and Hitoshi to be here but he knew better than to risk it. He had to trust that they were still with him. Izuku shook his head. Trust. It was absurdly easy to give at times and laughably easy to betray. But... he had known both Hitoshi and Mei for a long time and he had to have faith that they would, in the end, stand with him.

For Ochaco, as much as he wanted to give her a choice, he wasn't just going to let her lie here. With a sigh, he pulled up the copy of regeneration he was carrying. It should work. If it didn't, because the damage was already 'healed' then he'd have to come back and try rewind once he fully understood that, though he was getting close to that. Twelve hours of 'charge' seemed to give about 50 days worth of rewind and he had figured out that he didn't have to use it all at once. From what Yakuni had told him, the girl had rewound her father completely when she first activated her quirk. Four years of charge on the quirk, would have given her about 400 years of rewinding! No wonder there had been nothing left. She wouldn't have understood that intent was necessary with her quirk and wouldn't have known how to hold back.

He did but he was nervous about trying it on a person.

Regeneration, in this case, would hopefully do the trick. For Himiko... he could either rewind her or get a copy of her quirk. For his Father.

He had to practice on a person first.

Izuku looked down at Ochaco. She looked peaceful, as if she was just asleep but he knew better. "I'm just going to borrow, Zero Gravity," he told her, "so that Regeneration doesn't hurt you."

With Dragon's Hoard he reached out and was surprised when Zero Gravity seemed to leap into his hand. It was almost like it wanted to be there. Then he gently shifted the copy of Regeneration into Ochaco and watched as the red quirk spread out over her body. Zero Gravity was one of those quirks that was concentrated. Regeneration, because it impacted the entire body was dispersed.

And Regeneration had the added advantage of being a passive quirk. So long as Ochaco had touched something with five fingers, Zero Gravity activated, which was why her hands gloved. They were odd gloves and left two fingers bare. They were the type of gloves Tomura very occasionally wore when he didn't want to destroy something. For Ochaco it meant she didn't make the hospital equipment, the bed and blankets float, though of course right now, she had Regeneration.