Another Form of Power

Better Than Twitter

Chosa looked over at his boss. The editor was pale. It wasn't a state he'd seen her in before. She edited one of the biggest magazines in the country. It was one of the few hero magazines that had successfully made the transition to a new normal. As a result, he'd seen her take calls from lawyers threatening legal action, from the police demanding to know who their source was, from the government doing the exact same thing. Chosa had seen her break scandals, romances, births, deaths and marriages.

He'd seen her face down everyone without breaking a sweat. Now she looked pale, like death.

"Who the fuck was that?" Chosa asked when she put down the phone. He noted the way she did it. Gently. Like if she was harsh the person she'd been speaking to would know.

Chosa watched as Hensha swallowed. She looked up at him. "That was Imoku Kakurete."

Chosa frowned. He knew that name. "Representative Kakurete?"

"That's him," Hensha agreed.

"And?" he prompted. The man was without doubt the most powerful independent in the House of Representatives. He was up for reelection this year but from the numbers Chosa thought he was a shoe in. His constituents loved him. What he didn't understand is why Hensha looked like she'd seen a ghost.

She huffed. "This is why you aren't going to get anywhere," she muttered. "Kakurete owns Phoenix Wave," she told him.

"Oh," Chosa murmured. "Oh!" He understood.

Phoenix Wave was their parent company. It was their management which meant that Hero Weekly had transformed into News Weekly and that was mostly due to the policies of Kakurete. Policies which were very unpopular at the time but had been born out as successful. Even if he was the one to get the rules changed to make them successful.

"So what does he want?" Chosa asked. Kakurete hadn't put Hensha in that state just because he called.

"He wants us to do an exposé on Candidate Mirio Toogata."

"Exposé?" Chosa asked carefully, putting particular emphasis on the syllables.

"Exposé," Hensha confirmed.

"What does he want us to find?" Chosa wasn't an idiot. When a man like Kakurete told them to do an exposé, he was expecting a particular outcome. Though it was odd. He had no idea why Kakurete might want that. Toogata wasn't running against him after all. Chosa put that thought from his mind. It was above his pay grade.

"He didn't say, but he did suggest we have a close look at his years in UA." Hensha took a deep breath.

Chosa nodded. UA used to be a popular topic. "I'll go pull out the archives," he said. That was the best place to start. They might have something there already. And if they didn't... well, it wasn't that hard to find interesting information. It was all about how you framed it, and if the boss was saying frame it one way, he wasn't going to question that.

-afp-

Imoku looked over at the vid call.

"Are you sure about that?" Yatou Rida, the current opposition leader, asked him earnestly.

"I'm sure," he replied softly, focusing his words carefully.

The man sighed. "I just can't help but think that if Heroes were still around then-"

Imoku helped up one hand. He let his expression shift to one of faint disappointment. "Nothing would have changed," he told Yatou.

"You don't know that," the man objected. "And I'll soon be in a position to ensure things can change."