Giran POV
Arms dealer, smuggler, racketeer, successful businessman, informant, broker, and simply a "good" and principled person. That is the answer someone would get if they asked Kagero Okuta to describe himself as briefly as possible. Of course, that's if Kagero Okuta, also known in the criminal world as Giran, liked the person. These and dozens of other thoughts floated in the consciousness of the "good" man as he waited lazily, puffing on a cigarette in one of his favorite bars.
In such moments, Giran preferred to relax and gradually prepare for further work. After all, he couldn't afford such a pastime often due to his lifestyle. In the criminal world, few can afford to relax for long without the risk of dying or ending up behind bars soon. Especially a broker like him. Come to think of it, with the amount he had already accumulated, Giran could have already switched to safer ways of earning money without being personally present. His sharp intellect would allow him to run a business successfully. And the chance of a confrontation with heroes would drop sharply, because no matter how good they were in actual combat, their battles against corruption and bureaucracy were not going well. A few bribes to some officials, blackmailing another with compromising material, setting up a curious hero and then notifying journalists, and the hero suddenly has no time for a modest businessman. That would be the right move and safer for him.
But Giran didn't want that; the decision wasn't to his liking, and he didn't think he would achieve anything more there than a banal accumulation of zeros in the numbers on his bank card. And although he was proud of his intellect and life experience, he considered the most important and useful of all his skills acquired during a very turbulent life to be the ability to judge people. Their potential, character, manias, and tendencies. Talking face to face, the broker could determine whether he should associate with a person or avoid them at all costs. It was thanks to this that he remained afloat while smarter and luckier people lost their lives or their freedom. He liked finding interesting people and predicting their future achievements. And also directing them onto the path he needed. Of course, failures happen too, but who hasn't made mistakes in their life?
And now he was waiting for the arrival of a very interesting young talent. Information about him, unfortunately, was not that plentiful. Iori Hoshino, formerly Iori Kaiyoshi, known in the criminal world as Tyki Mikk. Giran had puzzled over why he chose such a "working" name for a long time, until he found the old manga D.Gray-man, written even before the appearance of the first Quirk. He appreciated the irony. And the preference for taking the names of fictional heroes and villains was popular in the early years of the emergence of Quirks. Although he didn't experience that time personally.
But we are talking about an unusual lad now. Rumors about a dwarf robbing anything and everything started spreading quite quickly four years ago. And while at first it didn't interest him much—just another owner of a decent Quirk who decided to get money the easy way—most of them were caught by heroes quite quickly. But when the dwarf lasted longer than seven months and even started stealing from other villains, he became interested. He laughed for quite a while, realizing that a nine-year-old kid had been successfully stealing from famous and adult villains right under their noses. Oh, he would have paid a lot to see their faces at the moment they discovered all their cash was gone. It even started to seem to him that the boy's survival instinct had completely atrophied. And he decided to contact him. Although it was a bit difficult to do, because despite his boldness, he was quite timid.
Further, a business relationship developed between them. And for the owner of such a useful Quirk as "Choice," finding a use in "dark" dealings is quite easy. It was clear that Iori was hiding quite a bit and was afraid of some organization. The naive boy sincerely thought he had managed to hide it from him. Giran himself had not managed to find out much about this organization. Only that for a while they needed quite a lot of children and Daruma Ujiko had collaborated with them for some time. Although that's not much of an indicator. This long-lived old man likes to participate in experiments and then step aside and watch the results. And those results often made Giran feel uneasy. As for the kid, Okuta recommended a decent mercenary to him as a trainer—someone whose last job hadn't gone very well, causing him to flee to Japan in a hurry and need money—and it was good to hear his opinion on the boy's skills. The broker always tried to listen to the opinions of professionals. Excessive pride never ended well for its owners.
Giran even marveled at times at his own interest in Iori's future fate. Although there were still 2-3 years to wait before the active phase of his plan. And there were almost no special or interesting matters planned during this time. Therefore, it would be interesting to set the boy on the right path, so to speak. And, of course, with a profit for himself. He liked watching the boy vainly trying to hide his greed and indignation at the prices of goods and services. He even managed to secretly take a photo of his face at the moment he learned the price for official identification documents. If he survives, he could achieve quite a lot, especially in the coming chaotic times. And the broker intends to wait for that time; maybe then he'll show him this little bit of "compromise" just to see his reaction. It should be quite amusing.
Looking at the time on his phone, Kagero took a puff from a new cigarette, lighting it with a recently purchased pistol-lighter. Although a childish trick, it sometimes makes clients nervous when you pull it out of your pocket. Returning to his thoughts, the broker began to consider his order. Finding potential recruits for a future plan. He wasn't being rushed with this right now, but he needed to prepare in advance. And of the possible newcomers, only Muscular and Moonfish come to mind so far. One was noted for killing low-tier heroes, and the other is a recently appeared serial killer. Giran sincerely doubted the sanity of both. But what can you do? Problems with logic and psyche are a common occurrence among villains who are confident in the power of their Quirks. And sometimes the Quirks themselves physically affect the psyche of their carriers. The broker himself was lucky with his own Quirk. "Muddiness" had helped him out quite a few times at the beginning of his "career." The Quirk itself provides the ability to cause minor amnesia in a target by establishing contact with their head; their memories of the previous five minutes and the next five minutes become blurred.
Further thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps of a person approaching his table. Glancing at the time, Okuta opened his mouth in a wide grin, showing the absence of one front tooth.
"Iori-kun, you're almost late. I thought you decided not to come to see an old friend."
"There were minor problems on the way. And judging by the prices you set for me, the value of friendship for you is not at all great, old man."
At this, the broker's grin only grew wider. In his opinion, the boy had succeeded better than before in hiding his irritation and impatience behind a sarcastic answer this time. Not by much, but better.
"Well, one must separate work and personal life. All successful businessmen know that."
Iori's eye twitched slightly. He was extremely annoyed by instructive advice and lectures on topics that didn't interest him. And Giran knew this perfectly well. Iori also knew about his knowledge, so he said with a sigh.
"Alright, Giran. We could exchange barbs for quite a while. That's not why I came here."
Watching the face of the boy, who had already become a decent killer, Kagero began to speak.
"Oh, I think this will interest you. My proposal is for you to retrieve something for me from a police station in Tokyo. And as a reward, I will provide you with information about the location of the American underground space hero 'Omnipresent'..."
From his attentive eyes, it didn't escape how the boy, who had wanted to refuse, suddenly froze. Already knowing the answer, Okuta finished speaking.
"...who formerly went by the name Kaiyoshi. Do you agree to this proposal?"
End POV