Rose can't remember the last time someone had asked her that.

Actually, she can. It was when she was very small, but it was obvious she took a liking to drawing and seemed to be attracted to heroes. Her parents asked her if she wanted to be one when she grew up. But she hesitated. She wasn't sure if she could do it, so for a moment, she didn't answer, and her parents answered for her, "Awww, it's too scary isn't it? That's okay. You're our little flower. We wouldn't want you to get hurt."

They didn't mean it in a bad way, honestly. She was scared. But not of getting hurt. She was scared of failing. And as she grew up, she simply found more excuses for why she couldn't do it. She was small and delicate. No one took her seriously. Her quirk wasn't suited to it. She'd collected all the reasons she needed not to become a hero. Yet here she is at a school for heroes, all because she could never really stay away from them.

She finds herself hesitating for too long to answer his question and thinks he might react the same way her parents did, thinking she's too scared, or any other number of reasons why she shouldn't be one.

But instead he answers, "You do, right?"

Her eyes widen to a new light, a new chance.

But first, there's something else she needs to do. With permission from the teachers and the police, she has to visit her. Aizawa passes along the message to Uraraka at the end of their last class, then to Midoriya, who was able to get some sleep in the nurse's office.

"Today?" she asks.

"Right now," he answers.

"…Hmm. Okay. But there's someone I want to come with us." They both react with a reasonable amount of shock when she goes out of her way to find him. "…Kacchan!" She manages to catch him just as he and Kirishima are leaving the school. He turns and glares at her. "You come too!" It's not a request. It's a command.

Bakugo doesn't like that. "Huh?! Who says I gotta follow your orders?!"

"Deku-kun, are you sure?" Uraraka is pretty sure Bakugo doesn't even have respect for the living let alone the dead.

"You've got no reason to refuse," she says to him. "It's hero training, believe it or not."

Aizawa can see Midoriya trying to teach Bakugo some kind of lesson, but it certainly makes the air tense when the four of them, Rose, and Mic all pile into a large car and take a 20-minute drive down to Gracegold Cemetery where Samantha is buried.

"What kinda' hero training happens at a cemetery?" Bakugo has mercifully learned to speak a little more quietly, but it doesn't detract from his rudeness.

"Hey…" Mic mutters to Aizawa. "Remind me why he came?"

"Don't ask me. It was Midoriya's idea. If we're lucky, he'll learn something."

Rose leads them to the exact spot where Taka cried. It looks serene in the light of the just barely setting sun, like Samantha is sleeping peacefully just beneath the tombstone.

"…She'd be happy that so many people visited," Mic starts. "She'd call it a party."

Midoriya turns to him. "She… was really cheerful, right?"

"Yeah."

She smiles. "Then Mic-sensei, you were probably her favorite teacher."

"I agree," Rose adds.

"Someone tell me why I'm here already," Bakugo almost barks.

Before anyone can snap at him, Midoriya sighs. "Kacchan. Remember how we found out Taka Nobita had more than one victim? That Samantha Gardener was the first?"

"Yeah, I get it. I get why you're all here. He offed her, and you're here to tell her you got revenge, right? What I'm asking is why I'm here."

That's what I said, Mic thinks to himself.

"Taka Nobita didn't kill her, Kacchan." Bakugo pauses. "She was his first victim. Then months later, she committed suicide."

Ah. Bakugo didn't know that. He wasn't expecting that. He'd assumed that Taka Nobita killed her to keep her quiet after he raped her. If she killed herself months later, that meant… he let her go, taking the risk that she'd tell people? But then she never did? Did he eventually threaten her to kill herself? But still, why didn't she tell anybody before she went?

Midoriya can tell by the look on his face that he's already confused. She continues, "She couldn't tell anyone the truth, because she didn't want anyone to know. Kacchan… if someone attacked you when your guard was down, you fought, and you lost, but no one saw it, would you want to tell anyone?"

Bakugo hadn't thought about it that way. Of course he wouldn't tell anyone. He'd keep it a secret and take it with him to his grave if he could.

"You wouldn't, right? Because it's humiliating… That's how you felt after the sludge villain attack, right?"

He did. He'll never live that day down, and he hates when people bring it up. Made it difficult to go outside, knowing people recognized him from that incident.

"It's like that… Now imagine that the sludge never really comes off. No matter how many baths you take or how hard you scrub… It never goes away."

Bakugo felt like that the first few days. The smell still lingered after all. Eventually he got over it, but if he tries hard enough, he can still remember it. He can never really forget that smell.

"Imagine that feeling stretched over months… especially since you have to look at the person who did that to you almost every day."

…Bakugo can hardly imagine it. He would've gone nuts. Not being able to tell anyone, but also not being sure if he can just defeat the guy. If he already lost once, how could he win without serious training? And what's stopping the bastard from attacking him again if no one knows?

"Don't overthink it. Just focus on the feeling… You'd have to be strong to overcome that and keep moving forward, don't you think?"

Bakugo… agrees. Just having that kind of patience takes a level of mental endurance he isn't sure he has.

"Now look." She prompts him to look back at Samantha Gardener's tombstone. "This is what happens when you do your best to overcome it… and you lose." She has to fight back her tears again. She doesn't like to put it that way, but she knows that's the only way Bakugo will understand.

And on some level he does. Overcoming rape is apparently some kind of mental battle. That's what the nerd is trying to tell him. It's not something as simple as fighting an enemy at face value. At some point, you become your own enemy.

She collects herself again, and turns to him once more. "Now look at Omoda-senpai." He does. "This is what happens when you win."

And it finally clicks. Bakugo finally understands what he sees in Rose's eyes. Those are the eyes of someone who's faced that mental battle every day for the past two years. And no doubt that bastard had taunted her every day. Bakugo wouldn't have been able to stand that. He'd rather stand up to the bastard even if it means he'd die fighting… Otherwise he'd self-destruct entirely. Like this Samantha chick did.

His gaze slowly creeps to the grave. He would've ended up like that. That's when he finally feels it, "the gap" in strength. Rose had won simply because she survived. And even more than that, she actually defeated the bastard in the end. The blonde bites his lip. He hates to admit how impressive that is.

"Fearless" is someone who's faced so many scary things that they're hardly afraid of anything else anymore. Indeed, Rose Omoda had earned that title.

...Shitty Deku too?

Midoriya stares at him patiently. She can tell from the look on his face that he's finally figured something out. But above all, he sees that she's looking at him fearlessly. That means that shitty nerd had gone through, and overcome, something so terrifying that Bakugo is nothing in comparison anymore. Bakugo had bullied her, but everything he'd done was meant to just scare Deku, not to kill. Taka Nobita was a villain through and through with every intent of killing Deku if he had to. And Deku had been totally helpless. No quirk he could use. No guarantee anyone could save him.

Yeah. Bakugo agrees. Nothing is scarier than that.

…Again… He lost to the nerd again.