The Emperor's Dragon II

Coming Together

Izuku sat at a table in the bar. The others weren't up yet and the bar wasn't open. Yakuni sat across from him. The young man said he had something to tell him but for the moment, they were both focused on breakfast. Kurogiri had cooked, which was unusual but appreciated, and the full breakfast of rice, fish, toast, pickles and salad was delicious.

"Uh! I never realised Kurogiri was such a good cook!" Yakuni said, as he put his chopsticks down with a pleased sigh.

"He's had practice," Izuku reminded him.

Yakuni grinned at him. Izuku was still eating and he got the impression that Yakuni would wait before speaking to him. "You can talk while I finish," Izuku told him.

"It seems rude," the young man shrugged.

Izuku sighed. In some circles it probably was rude but he didn't really care. Yakuni was loyal and that made all the difference in the world. But since he wasn't going to talk, Izuku focused on his food, chewing the last bit of fish thoughtfully before he ate the last bite of rice. He put the bowl down and set his chopsticks on the tray Kurogiri had brought the food on.

"That was good," he agreed with Yakuni's earlier statement. Izuku usually had a bowl of cereal for breakfast and so the larger meal was appreciated.

"He probably thought you needed it because of yesterday," Yakuni told him.

Izuku grinned. They'd had a training session yesterday and he had finally been able to use all the quirks the young man had gathered and copied for him. Those quirks, particularly the reinforcement, and endurance ones meant that while he was tired last night, he wasn't absolutely exhausted like he would have been without them.

And actually... given the energy requirements of his quirks, he should probably eat something more substantial than cereal every day but that was a thought for later.

"So, what did you want to talk about?" Izuku asked, getting straight to the point.

"A couple of things," Yakuni said.

"Himiko's quirk copy?" Izuku was particularly interested in that.

"Nearly done. You are right in that your father had a copy made a while back. Because of that, I know the exact age Himiko's quirk came in and can accelerate growth to just before that. So it's nearly done. The last bit is the hard bit because if I accelerate too much, we're back to nothing."

Izuku gave Yakuni a wide smile as a portal appeared on the table and scooped up the breakfast trays. Kurogiri was as efficient as always. A pot of tea and two cups replaced the trays.

"That's fantastic!" Izuku cheered. Getting Himiko her quirk back was something he really wanted, even if he thought he was getting to the stage where he could use Rewind on Himiko.

"How are you going with your method?" Yakuni asked, almost reading his mind.

"You confirmed my time estimates?" Izuku countered with his own question, reaching out to pour the tea before he handed one cup to Yakuni.

Yakuni nodded. "There's a bit of leeway with the calculations but I think you are correct. Twelve hours of charge is about 50 days worth of rewinding."

Izuku took a deep breath when he heard that. Yakuni confirmed. And that meant...

"So how do you want to heal her?" the scientist asked him before taking a sip of his tea.

He laughed. There was a bit of a maniacal edge to it but Izuku was happy. "I'm of two minds about it," he admitted. "I know that I'm going to have to use Rewind on someone but, I don't really want to use it on Himiko first."