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Chapter Illustration
Madam President arrived at Metropolitan Police Headquarters without the press.
Her motorcade entered through the underground garage, her security detail locked down the elevators, and the participants' phones remained in shielded lockers outside the meeting room. Officially, the gathering was an interagency review of the incident at Hosu Port.
Unofficially, twelve dead people demanded names.
The Prosecutor General, Metropolitan Police Chief Tsuragamae, and the heads of three departments were already present. Tsuragamae's head resembled that of a massive dog; whenever a new document appeared, one ear involuntarily turned toward the speaker, betraying his irritation before his voice did.
Endeavor sat apart from the others.
He had not been invited as an investigator or a lawyer. He was one of the country's most influential Pro Heroes, a man held up to the next generation as an example. If the decisions made here concerned the use of force, the public response to a villain's death, and trust in heroes, it was better to let him hear the arguments in the room than explain them later through the evening news.
No one objected.
The more Endeavor learned now, the less likely he was to publicly call their decision idiotic before the government prepared its wording.
Madam President took the seat at the head of the table.
— Begin with the confirmed facts.
The central screen showed the port before the attack, then the site afterward.
Twelve dead: seven civilians, two police officers, and three Pro Heroes.
Dozens injured.
Several sectors destroyed, storage tanks damaged, logistics halted, and losses whose final cost the insurers were already trying to pass on to the state.
For now, the attacker was described as an unidentified mutant under the influence of Trigger. The word Nomu appeared nowhere in the official material. Aside from perhaps a handful of separately cleared individuals, no one present yet knew that the word was supposed to mean anything.
The mutant was dead.
It had been killed by seventeen-year-old Nomura Okutami—a victim, a witness, heir to the owner of a substantial port interest, and a student in UA's Management Course.
A photograph from the pier appeared on the screen. A bloodied teenager with tiger ears and a tail looked at the adults surrounding him. The image had already spread across the country.
— An annoyingly fortunate face, — the Prosecutor General muttered.
Madam President looked at him.
— Fortunate for whom?
— The press.
— Then be precise.
He pursed his lips.
The report continued. Nomura had organized a trap, participated in the evacuation, drawn the mutant away from the workers, and used his Quirk under an immediate threat to life. Witness accounts differed in detail but agreed on the essential point: had the fight remained inside the warehouse, the death toll would have been far higher.
Endeavor studied the photographs of the destruction.
— The kid stopped that alone?
— The final fight, yes, — Tsuragamae replied. — Before that, the mutant was weakened by Detective Kaniyashiki, Sergeant Sato, the hero Quillshire, and the port workers.
— Then he wasn't alone.
— Exactly.
The Prosecutor General tapped his pen against the table.
— And yet the system allowed a minor into combat, lost control of the evacuation, and permitted the sole suspect to destroy our primary source of evidence.
The room grew quieter.
That was why he had come.
Not to determine what had happened.
To assign the cost.
2
— Who held the highest official authority inside the warehouse? — the Prosecutor General asked.
The operations analyst opened a diagram.
— After two heroes were killed and communications failed, Detective Monica Kaniyashiki. Temporarily assigned from the Osaka Police Department. Eight years of service, specializing in crimes involving Quirks.
— Did she issue orders?
— She coordinated the groups, accepted Nomura's plan, and changed the evacuation sequence.
The Prosecutor General slowly looked up from the papers.
— Accepted Nomura's plan?
— Yes.
— Why would a police detective entrust people's lives to the plan of some minor?
The analyst hesitated.
— Nomura possessed the most complete information about the attacker's capabilities. His proposed sequence of actions allowed—
— I did not ask whether the plan happened to work. I asked on what grounds an officer with eight years of service surrendered effective command to a seventeen-year-old civilian.
The question had been phrased so that every answer sounded like a confession.
If Monica had acted independently, she had violated the chain of command. If she had followed Nomura's direction, she admitted that she had been unable to make the critical decision herself. The lives she saved changed the consequences, not the wording of the alleged violation.
The prosecutor made a brief note.
— Who was responsible for the outer perimeter?
— Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi.
Tsuragamae stopped turning pages.
The list had been spoken aloud.
Two names.
The prosecutor did not want a systemic analysis, but a convenient pair: one person inside and one outside. One had allowed the violation. The other had failed to prevent it.
— Are sanctions against Nomura under consideration? — the Prosecutor General asked. — Unlawful use of a Quirk, excessive force in self-defense, destruction of evidence. The damage he caused may also become the subject of separate civil proceedings.
Madam President did not even glance at the photograph.
— No.
— The matter has not yet been discussed.
— It has now.
— With all due respect, public opinion must not replace the law.
— Precisely. So do not replace the law with your desire to show the public a punished teenager.
The prosecutor straightened.
— He dismembered a human being.
— He stopped a creature that had killed twelve people and was still attacking, — Endeavor said. — If you want to charge him, first find a hero willing to say publicly that he would have allowed that thing back into the warehouse.
— Heroes are required to preserve life, even the lives of criminals.
— When they can.
No flames appeared, yet the temperature around Endeavor seemed to rise on its own.
— I have seen enough young idiots die trying to save a murderer who still had a knife in his hand. Do not teach me the difference between an arrest and a fight to the death from a photograph in a safe room.
Madam President raised one finger, stopping the prosecutor's reply.
— There is a simpler reason. The country has already seen Nomura on a stretcher. The workers call him their savior. Gang Orca publicly confirmed that the force was necessary. If the state sanctions him now, people will conclude that we punish those who resist villains.
— We could limit the case to financial claims.
— Against a seventeen-year-old orphan whose father died in the same chain of events?
— Against an heir who received substantial assets.
Too quickly.
Tsuragamae turned his canine head.
Madam President noticed it too.
The Prosecutor General concealed his haste behind a sip of water.
Another hearing already existed in his mind: a civil claim, interim measures, frozen accounts, and a judge who knew how to interpret necessity in the proper interest of the state. The heir had received billions and had not yet learned to protect them. Enough money could be shaken from such a case to leave many people satisfied.
Now the old hag was closing the door before he even reached it.
Why?
Did she truly care about the boy?
— Nomura will not be included in the sanctions, — Madam President repeated. — Until new evidence appears, he remains an injured minor and a key witness.
The prosecutor wrote down the decision.
His pen nearly tore through the paper.
3
— Let us return to Tsukauchi, — he said.
A timeline appeared on the screen.
Tsuragamae stood.
— The first emergency report arrived after the attack had begun. By then, some of the victims were already dead, internal communications had failed, and local command had effectively ceased to exist.
He pointed to a marker.
— Tsukauchi arrived after the main group and received a written appointment as commander of the outer police perimeter—not of the operation inside the warehouse. His duties were containment, admitting medical teams, requesting reinforcements, receiving evacuated civilians, and preventing the threat from spreading into the city.
— The outer perimeter failed to contain the site, — the prosecutor observed.
— The threat did not enter the city.
— It reached the pier.
— Still within port territory, where Nomura deliberately drew it away from the evacuation route.
Endeavor looked up from the papers.
— So the kid did more than accept a fight. He chose the direction and kept the threat inside an area that had already been cordoned off.
— Away from civilians, roads, and residential districts, — Madam President added. — In effect, he localized it and kept the disaster from leaving the port.
The diagram made it obvious: the warehouse, the evacuation line, an empty pier, and water beyond it. Nomura had driven the mutant into a place where even a breakthrough left it fewer directions to continue.
— Competent, — Endeavor said. — Especially for a seventeen-year-old.
He exchanged a glance with Madam President. Neither smiled nor nodded, but they arrived at the same thought.
A very sharp kid.
Tsuragamae displayed the communications log.
Every order Tsukauchi had issued carried a timestamp, recipient, and confirmation. Additional vehicles. Medical teams. Requests for top heroes. Roadblocks. The Coast Guard. A reception area for the wounded.
Nothing heroic.
Nothing for which he could conveniently be dismissed.
— Why did he not overrule Kaniyashiki's decisions? — the prosecutor asked.
— Because he had no direct contact with her when those decisions were made and no authority to command an Osaka officer on temporary assignment inside an autonomous operational zone.
— He outranked her.
— Not within her chain of command.
There it was.
A bureaucratic boundary no one had noticed until they needed to decide on which side responsibility would remain.
Monica had been inside. After the heroes died, she became the highest-ranking official still available. She ordered the evacuation changed. Accepted a suspect's proposal. Permitted a minor to participate in combat. Left her assigned group and returned to the pier.
Tsukauchi had been outside. His authority began at the cordon and had been documented after the catastrophe was already underway.
— Convenient, — the Prosecutor General said.
— Documented, — Tsuragamae corrected.
— You are protecting a subordinate.
— I am protecting the order log. If you find a violation in it, name it.
The prosecutor turned through the copies.
— Incomplete isolation of the scene. A minor left the warehouse and was not immediately detained.
— After the fight, he was on a stretcher. There were no grounds for arrest. Tsukauchi placed his room under guard, entered his clothing and samples into evidence, and preserved access to the key witness.
— Then a formal reprimand.
Tsuragamae did not answer at once.
A reprimand was a price one could survive.
— For deficiencies in the outer perimeter, — he said. — Without suspension.
— Why without suspension?
— Tsukauchi is leading the principal investigation. His Quirk was used during the initial interviews, he is a procedural witness to his own decisions, and replacing the lead investigator now would destroy continuity. If the ministry wants defendants, it will need an investigator whose authority was not interrupted by a political decision.
The prosecutor understood the trap.
Suspending Tsukauchi would mean admitting doubt about the statements already collected, allowing the defense to challenge the chain of evidence, and delaying the very case for which the ministry demanded results.
Leaving him in place meant receiving one name instead of two.
— A formal reprimand, — he repeated. — And a written review of his actions.
— Agreed.
That was how Naomasa Tsukauchi avoided a punishment capable of ending his career.
Not by miracle.
By the timing of his appointment, the boundaries of jurisdiction, a complete order log, and the fact that his own usefulness had become armor.
Monica Kaniyashiki possessed no such armor.
4
Her personnel file appeared on the screen.
Eight years of service.
Strong results.
Two injuries in the line of duty.
Not one serious disciplinary action.
She had been promoted to detective only six months earlier. Eight years of work had brought her to that rank—and one decision at the port could now knock her back down.
Her temporary assignment from Osaka had begun as an inquiry into the connection between the market, the gas station, and Nomura Okutami.
— There are no grounds for criminal charges, — the Internal Security representative said. — Her decisions were made under an immediate threat. Witnesses confirm that changing the evacuation procedure allowed civilians to escape.
— Then why are we discussing her? — Endeavor asked.
The Prosecutor General answered first.
— Because a positive outcome does not erase an abuse of authority. She gave the primary suspect effective influence over the operation, allowed a minor to participate, and abandoned her assigned group.
— To find the teenager who ultimately killed the threat.
— Precisely. She lost control of him.
Endeavor looked as though he were calculating how much effort it would take to burn through the table.
— Controlling someone fighting that creature was a hero's responsibility. Not a detective's.
— The heroes were dead.
— Then your problem is bigger than one woman.
Madam President allowed the silence to remain for several seconds.
— What are the options?
— Dismissal, — the prosecutor said.
— Disproportionate, — Tsuragamae replied immediately.
— Demotion and transfer.
— She belongs to the Osaka administration. The Metropolitan Police cannot demote her.
— Then recommend it to Osaka.
— On the basis of decisions that saved civilians?
— On the basis of procedural violations.
Madam President looked at the report.
— Temporary suspension pending the internal review.
The prosecutor turned toward her in displeasure.
— That is insufficient.
— For what?
He did not answer.
For the truth—perhaps.
To satisfy the public—debatable.
To demonstrate the ministry's authority—truly insufficient.
— Sixty days, — Tsuragamae proposed. — Her position and pay preserved. Mandatory recertification in interagency command. No admission of criminal guilt.
— And a written finding that operational decisions must not be delegated to a civilian, — the prosecutor added.
— After the suspension, she returns to her former rank, — he continued. — If an officer is not prepared to make a detective's decisions independently, there are no grounds for allowing her to retain detective status.
Tsuragamae tightened his grip on the folder.
— She received the rank six months ago.
— Then readjustment should not take long.
— Nomura was not an ordinary civilian when he was the only person who possessed a way to stop the threat, — Endeavor said.
— That is exactly the kind of reasoning that destroys command structures.
— Your reasoning increases the body count.
— Enough, — Madam President said.
The decision appeared on the screen:
*Detective Monica Kaniyashiki—temporary suspension from duty for up to sixty days. Upon completion of the suspension, demotion to her previous rank and mandatory recertification. Retain her position within the Osaka Police Department.*
Not dismissal.
Not exoneration.
And no longer a detective.
Severe enough for the ministry to announce that measures had been taken.
Lenient enough for the police to claim they had protected their officer.
And painful enough for someone who had given the job eight years of her life.
— Quillshire remains, — the Prosecutor General said.
A photograph of the hero after the evacuation appeared on the screen: torn costume, bandaged head, exhaustion frozen on his face.
— He was inside the warehouse, — the prosecutor continued. — He held a hero license, participated in adopting Nomura's plan, and failed to prevent civilian deaths.
— He blinded the mutant and covered the evacuation, — Endeavor said.
— And survived where three of his colleagues died. The public will inevitably ask whether he did enough.
— The public will ask whatever question you put in its mouth.
The Prosecutor General opened an appendix to the witness statements.
— In this case, they are already asking without our help. Many workers describe Quillshire as a coward. According to them, he abandoned his comrades, retreated from the villain, and failed to take adequate measures to neutralize it.
Excerpts from the interviews appeared on the screen.
A disgrace to heroes.
While everyone else was dying, he was looking for a way out.
If he had stopped the thing sooner, those people would still be alive.
The words belonged to people who had survived a night of blood, fire, and collapsing metal. They had seen isolated moments: Quillshire retreating, disappearing behind containers, while other heroes failed to return. They had not seen the full plan and could not know that his retreat had drawn the mutant out of the passage or that his Quirk had bought the evacuation group several vital seconds.
Trauma did not make their testimony a complete picture.
It did make excellent material for the evening news.
The representative of the Hero Public Safety Commission spoke for the first time.
— Quillshire will be offered the opportunity to make a public statement. He will acknowledge that he failed to protect everyone at the port, apologize to the victims' families, and voluntarily end his hero career.
Endeavor slowly turned his head.
— Voluntarily?
The Commission representative could not hold his gaze.
— It would allow him to avoid a formal revocation of his license and separate disciplinary proceedings.
In other words, Quillshire was being offered a choice between public resignation and the public destruction of his reputation.
Madam President studied the hero's photograph for several seconds.
— Put on record that there are no criminal claims against him.
— Naturally.
That line would remain in the sealed material.
A tired hero would face the cameras, ask forgiveness for those he had failed to save, and call coercion his own decision.
5
— The question of supervision over Nomura remains, — Aizawa said from the remote connection screen.
He was not there in person; the continuing investigation kept him in Hosu. His assessment, however, occupied a separate file.
— The functional test confirmed the claimed copying ability. He reproduced Erasure without depriving me of the original, and the temporary copy later decayed. Unlike Monoma, Nomura's body can fully reproduce mutation-type Quirks.
— Then what is the problem? — Endeavor asked.
— An incomplete registration, contradictions in Taiko's biography, and too many events surrounding one teenager. The test reduced my suspicions. It did not eliminate them.
Monica had not reported Mite.
Consequently, the "unknown resilience" remained a theory built upon fresh scar tissue and the discrepancy between the teenager's condition and the surrounding devastation.
— Are you proposing detention? — Madam President asked.
— There are no grounds. I recommend supervised guardianship and mandatory examination before he returns to UA.
— He has a state representative.
— Temporarily. Kaito is recovering and cannot assume responsibility. Nomura rejected the family asset manager because of a conflict of interest. Child Services is still looking for a private candidate.
— Kaniyashiki? — the Child Services representative asked. — She understands the case and has the boy's trust.
— You just suspended her, demoted her, and declared her incapable of making operational decisions independently, — Endeavor said. — Now you want to hand her a minor with a billion-dollar inheritance?
The proposal died before it could become an official item.
Monica was under internal review, belonged to another regional administration, and now needed time to rebuild her own life. Turning guardianship into an extension of disciplinary punishment was too convenient even for this room.
— Retain the state representative until an appropriate candidate appears, — Madam President ruled. — Any private or institutional candidate will undergo a separate Family Court review. Do not connect guardianship to the port investigation.
Temporary supervision remained inconvenient, slow, and bureaucratic.
At least it did not turn Monica into another instrument of the state.
6
The meeting ended three hours later.
The Prosecutor General left first. In the corridor, he allowed himself to swear—but only in his thoughts.
Nomura had been excluded from sanctions.
Tsukauchi escaped with a reprimand.
Kaniyashiki kept her place in the police but lost the detective rank she had held for only six months.
Quillshire was preparing to apologize publicly and "voluntarily" retire.
Better.
And still too little blood for a catastrophe of this scale.
He could already picture a judge separating the civil and administrative claims, inheritance accounts frozen "pending clarification," every new expert assessment increasing the cost of proceedings. Now billions had slipped from his grasp with the old woman's signature.
Why had she protected the boy?
Inside the room, Madam President gathered her papers.
— Did you know the Okutami holding represents roughly twenty-seven percent of the port structure? — Tsuragamae asked.
— Before the meeting, only that it was substantial.
— Then why protect him?
She looked at TNO's photograph.
— Because the state should not turn a rescued teenager into an enemy merely so a prosecutor can profit from his inheritance.
Tsuragamae raised one ear.
— You noticed.
— He remembered the assets far too quickly.
The elevator doors opened, and Fat Gum came down the corridor at nearly a run.
Security tried to stop him. Stopping Fat Gum physically proved harder than stopping him procedurally, and he had no time for procedure.
— Madam President. Chief Tsuragamae. What did you decide about Kaniyashiki?
His smile was gone.
Tsuragamae exhaled heavily.
— Temporary suspension. Up to sixty days. Afterward, demotion to her former rank. She keeps her place in the police.
— For what?
— The ministry requires proof of a response.
— They need a scapegoat.
— Yes.
The direct answer stopped Fat Gum.
— Then protect her.
— We protected her from dismissal and criminal investigation. The prosecutor wanted her removed from the service entirely.
— By taking away her work.
— Temporarily.
— There is no "temporarily" for Monica when it comes to the job. You know that.
— I do.
— She had been a detective for six months.
— I know that too.
Tsuragamae looked away. His canine features made his exhaustion look almost human.
— The Prosecutor General represented the ministry's position. Had I refused to implement any measure, the issue would have moved from Kaniyashiki to police leadership. Once I was removed, the next chief would have signed a dismissal rather than a suspension.
He did not add that his own office mattered too.
That saving subordinates was considerably easier when the price did not include one's own position.
And that Monica belonged to the Osaka administration in any event. Formally, she was not his responsibility.
— So you had to sacrifice one person to stop them from sacrificing everyone else, — Fat Gum said.
— I had to choose a decision that can be reversed.
— And who explains that to her?
— I will, — Tsuragamae replied. — And Tsukauchi.
Fat Gum looked at the closed doors.
— And Quillshire?
— The Commission is already preparing his statement.
— Did he decide to leave?
Tsuragamae remained silent.
That was answer enough.
— Then you found two people today, — Fat Gum said quietly.
He looked at Madam President.
— You agreed to this?
— I did not allow them to dismiss her.
— But you allowed the suspension.
— Politics rarely offers a choice between justice and injustice, hero. Usually, it offers a choice between damage that can be repaired and damage that will remain forever.
— Convenient words.
— Then bring me inconvenient facts. Statements from those she saved, communications records, confirmation of her decisions. The more of them enter the file, the sooner the suspension will end.
Fat Gum slowly nodded.
— I'll bring them.
— And I'll be there when you tell her, — he added. — Not as a representative of the Commission. As her friend.
Tsuragamae nodded.
Fat Gum left.
Cameras were already gathering outside headquarters. Within an hour, the public would be told that a comprehensive investigation into the Hosu Port tragedy had begun, that the actions of responsible officials would be evaluated, and that public safety remained the state's highest priority.
Not one statement would contain the word scapegoat.
The system had surnames for that.
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