My single greatest mistake as a pro hero was not being able to take care of my intern.
She was bright, quick, and efficient. I saw all that, plus her skill, in the sports festival, so I took it upon myself to invite her to become my apprentice. I'm sure she had other options, but apparently she deemed it logical to go with me. She was too good to keep on patrols, so I took her on the first mission that came up during her apprenticeship.
I never knew it would be her last.
We were assigned to watch this certain little girl because she had an interesting quirk. It seemed that everyone she touches loses their quirks, which reminded me a lot of Aizawa. Given the movements of the Villain Alliance and the first couple of cases of the Eightfold Cleansers, Nighteye sent us to trail the girl and protect her. It was fine at first, and Mai's quirk proved most useful for stakeouts.
But everything that could go wrong, went wrong.
We were watching the street in front of the little girl's house when the alley started shaking. Mai lost her balance and fell to the ground, and I got distracted as well. I think it was at that moment that someone had picked up the little girl we were watching, because the next second I came to, she was gone.
Mai quickly climbed to the highest point of the street and scanned the place as far as her vision allowed her and caught a trail. We pursued them until we got them cornered in an alley. I could still remember the child's muffled crying under the kerchief tied over her mouth. But before I could take a step, the child exploded.
Blood and guts splattered on the walls around us. I resisted the urge to back away when some of it splashed on my hands. But almost as quick as the gore spread, they began crawling back to the kidnapper, slowly until they formed the body of the little girl again. The moment her face was whole, she started bawling harder. Her cries scratched my ears like nails on blackboard. I couldn't understand what just happened. The kidnapper whose face was shadowed by a hood slowly wrapped a hand around the little girl's neck.
"If you don't want her to feel that again, I suggest you turn around and forget this happened. Trust me when I tell you that shit hurts."
I felt Mai move beside me, but I held her back as I kept my eyes on the kidnapper. A silent agreement passed between us, and the walls started moving, forming a hallway that the kidnapper pulled the little girl into. I would never forget the way the girl's hands reached out for us; her desperate eyes are forever burned in my mind.
"Sensei! They're getting away!"
Mai couldn't be held back, but she never made it. The hole closed when she reached the wall, and no matter how hard she pounded, it wouldn't open. I saw her turn to me, her own eyes filled with tears, her expression as broken as the girl we just lost.
I felt like a coward. My tongue felt thick in my mouth. "Our orders were not to engage. She would be worse off if we attacked."
"So what are we going to do? She was asking for help!"
"I saw that, Hatsume!"
She froze. I've never risen my voice at her. I never had the reason to. I clenched my fists and steeled my resolve. My call was right.
Mai followed me back to the offices wordlessly, and she was there when we reported the incident. She answered their questions when she was asked, but she remained silent otherwise. There was no mistaking the shadow that had fallen over her face. I knew I had to talk to her, but I got so caught up in the paperwork and reports that I let her slip away when her shift ended.
The next day, Mai didn't come to work. I almost couldn't blame her; seeing what she saw too early in her career needed processing. I let her be without telling Vlad King.
I should have notified him the morning she didn't come in.
She also didn't come in the next morning, nor the morning after that. When her internship schedule was on its last day, I finally called Vlad King. His words confirmed a suspicion I didn't want to acknowledge.
"She hasn't been going to class, as expected, so I naturally assumed that she was with you."
I was called in by Principal Nezu and held a conference with Vlad King. We called her home, we asked her classmates, we enlisted the help of her sister – but it was all to no avail. It was like she disappeared into thin air.
The kidnapping incident was the last I saw of Hatsume Mai, and the way things went down a few months later, I couldn't shake off the feeling of guilt. If I had chased after the child, if I followed Mai's advice, would things have turned out differently? She had always given me sound advice, based on the balance of logic and heart. Why did I ignore it?
But I knew the answer to that: I'm a hero working for the government. We were not to engage or duke out punishment until we're told to do so by a superior.
I was there in Nighteye's funeral. I couldn't look at anyone, and the feeling that it was all my fault never left me. If we had retrieved that child, Nighteye wouldn't have had to die. Those students in Aizawa's class needn't have gone through such traumatizing experience. That rescue operation never should have happened.
If I had listened to Mai, nobody would have gotten hurt.
