Requiem of Revolution

Chapter 4: Corruption

He knocked on the door and waited. After a few moments, he heard a "Come in!" and opened the door.

The room was small but larger than your average office space. It was well decorated in polished wood furnishings, but bearing the markings of being older pieces well preserved. Numerous surfaces displayed awards of various kinds, all attributed to the man sitting in the spacious leather chair behind the equally spacious desk.

Yonamine Toshiaki, the current governor of Nagano Prefecture peered at him over his glasses, a scowl on his face.

"Well, it's about damn time. Only took you two whole days." He said, his tone controlled but the scowl on his face was still present.

"I apologize for the delay, but as you are aware, there aren't exactly a lot of us to go around," Tokoyami said, bowing a little.

Toshiaki gave a "hmph" of annoyance but gestured for him to sit down which Tokoyami took.

"While I was briefed on the situation, it wasn't as encompassing as I would have liked. So I would appreciate it if you could tell me more about the situation." Tokoyami asked.

Toshiaki muttered under his breath for a few seconds, and Tokoyami thought he caught the word, "lazy heroes," before Toshiaki faced him directly and steepled his hands.

"Well, this all probably started a few weeks back, we just didn't make the connection until now. Some outlining towns have been having problems with the water they draw from wells, uncommon but sometimes the groundwater in an area can take on new tastes. They usually sort themselves out before long, but recently a lot of people have gotten sick suddenly. Then, recently, a few hikers went missing on Mt. Takatsuma. We sent out a team to look for them, or at least figure out their cause of death. We searched for several days without luck, on the last day, the team came back, but three of the search team had mysteriously gone missing as well. Naturally, we suspected an animal with a quirk might be responsible. We had a more combat-ready group sent out not long after. We received a report about an undocumented cave, then silence. The entire team is presumed dead. In the past day, one of my people suggested that it might be a plant with a quirk being the cause. If the cave is the origin point, and it runs deep enough, then it might be contaminating the groundwater in the region. That's why I've called for a hero like you, the circumstances and terrain seem to be best for someone like you." The governor said, handing Tokoyami a pile of papers, all transcripts of the transmissions sent by the search and rescue teams.

"If it's an animal, kill it and bring it back, simple. But if it's a plant, then I'm told it might be more complicated depending on the species of plant and the quirk it has. Kill what parts of it you find that might be interfering with the groundwater, then call us so we can get experts out there to exterminate it completely, as well as study it. Plants with quirks are exceedingly rare."

The governor suddenly grimaced and handed Tokoyami a different document, a very formal-looking one.

"You can use that to requisition whatever you might need to help. That includes people. If you have any questions, direct them to my secretary." The governor then gestured for Tokoyami to leave.

It was rather abrupt, but Tokoyami took his leave. As the door shut behind him he sighed and started to make his way to the hotel he had booked. Along the way, he made a mental list of what kind of equipment he wanted to bring. It was shaping up to be a relatively complicated mission, with precious little information. The kind of mission he hated.

The first problem would be the sheer darkness of the cave, and while he could meld with Dark Shadow to see in the darkness, if he brought anyone else with him they would need the necessary equipment. That brought up a different problem though, finding anyone in the city with specialized thermal imagining equipment was unlikely. Such equipment was not available to the police, and would instead be more readily found in the military.