Lightning – My Hero Academia

Chapter 30: Honest & Forthcoming

Ako rubbed his hands and fingers together nervously. He wasn't sure what else to do or say.

Ako believed Ryukyu when she said that she would be keeping a closer eye on him going forward, but he didn't expect to be partnered with her the very next day. One thing's for sure; he definitely felt like he needed to conduct himself a lot more carefully.

"You seem rather uncomfortable, Tanaka. Are you gonna be alright?" Ryukyu asked, glancing over at him.

"Yeah, I'm okay...just a little nervous. I feel like I should apologize again for yesterday's incident. It was a bad look – not just for me, but on everyone else involved too." He said.

"It's alright. I have to remind myself that you kids are still very new to this whole process. You all have much to learn about the protocols of being a pro hero," She said seriously before smiling gently. "Don't get too worked up over it. It's all part of the learning process. Let's just avoid making it a repeat incident, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am," Ako agreed with a nod. "It's just that...I feel like I'm behind everyone else, and I really wanna show that I've got what it takes to succeed." He admitted.

"I see...you were accepted into the hero course after you won the Sports Festival, right?" She asked. Ako nodded his head.

"Yes. So as new as everyone is, I'm even worse." Ako commented with a little chuckle.

"Well, you also have a lot of potential. You certainly proved it that day. But I do understand where you're coming from." Ryukyu said.

"You do?" He asked, looking up at her.

"Of course. Everyone wants to prove themselves when they start off in this line of work. The decisions you make every day can have a bearing on your future, so you want to ensure you're making the right ones...which is why I have a question I'd like to ask you." She brought up.

"O-Oh okay."

"What made you decide to choose my agency for the internship program? I know that with you being the winner of the tournament, you must've had dozens if not hundreds of offers to choose from." She inquired.

"I...you asked me this before, didn't you?" Ako vaguely recalled.

"I did, but I could tell that since everyone else was around, you didn't want to give an overly personal answer. So since it's just the two of us, I'd like you to give me a more honest answer." Ryukyu explained what she had observed from him.

"Right..." Ako nodded and looked down, blushing a little in embarrassment. She was completely right, which was both scary and awkward. However, how would he progress if he wasn't honest and forthcoming when he needed to be?

"Okay...um, well...the reason is-"

Before Ako could give his answer, they suddenly felt the ground rumble and heard a large amount of chaotic sounds: crunching metal, cracking roads, and people screaming. Ryukyu's eyebrows furrowed in concern. The two of them looked around but they couldn't see where the noise was coming from.

"Sounds like something big is happening. I'm gonna take to the skies. Get ready to hop on!" Ryukyu said.

"Got it!"

Ryukyu stepped out into the road and quickly transformed into her dragon form. Ako ran and jumped up on top of her, holding onto her back as she flapped her wings and quickly flew up above the buildings near them. They didn't have to go too high to see what was happening.

Just a block or two over, Ako could see the top of what looked like the head of a gigantic orange and brown Tyrannosaurus-Rex. His eyes widened, "What kind of a quirk is that?!" He exclaimed.

"What? Never seen a giant lizard quirk before?" Ryukyu chuckled, flying towards the rampaging monster.

"So that's a person, right? Not one of those crazy Nomus?" Ako asked.

"Definitely a quirk. I can tell by the skin. Alright! Listen, Ako! I'm going to swoop down and you jump onto the street. Focus on getting any bystanders to safety! Keep your distance and let the pros handle this, alright?" She instructed him.

"Got it! I'll focus on the civilians!" Ako nodded.

Ryukyu went into a nosedive, getting low enough for Ako to jump off of her back. He grunted in discomfort and kicked his legs before landing on his feet. He slid sideways and had to hop a few times to get himself to stop. He looked up at the giant T-Rex as it was breaking off the top of a building with its head.

"That's a big guy...okay! Everyone, let's move the other way!" Ako yelled, gesturing for people nearby to run.

Ako turned and looked around for people who weren't running away fast enough. He saw someone across the street who had tripped and fallen on the sidewalk. He instantly ran over and helped her up, "Hey hey I gotcha. Come on we gotta go! Can you run?"

"Y-Yeah! Oh my god!" The lady looked up at the T-Rex in a panic.

"Hey, hey, don't look at Jurassic Park, look at me! Okay? Can you run? Can you run?!" He asked again.

"Y-Yes! Yes!" She nodded.

"Okay! I'm gonna get you out of here, down the street, and you're gonna get somewhere safe, okay? Hold on!" Ako said before picking her up and getting her a safe distance away. He set her down and ran back towards the T-Rex.

As Ryukyu ordered, Ako continued to help with evacuation: grabbing people and helping them up, getting them to a safe distance, and then repeating the process with someone else. As more people started to pour out of the buildings nearby, one or two more pro heroes showed up to help him.

Ako found himself just stopping for a few seconds to watch. Other pro heroes were starting to join in with Ryukyu, doing their best to contain the T-Rex. It was still causing quite a bit of property damage, but at least now the area had been more or less cleared of civilians.

"This thing's not going down easy! Any suggestions?!" One of the pro heroes shouted to the others.

"Anyone here have a meteor quirk?" Another quipped.

Ako scoffed at this joke for a moment before refocusing his attention on this serious situation. As far as he could tell, the pros were hammering away at the T-Rex, but it wasn't relenting; they were only barely wearing it down. They needed more...

Ako swallowed nervously and eyed Ryukyu, who was still flying around fighting head-on with the gigantic dinosaur, "Sorry...I'm about to do something stupid again."

Ako ran away from the dinosaur, putting about a quarter of a mile of distance between it and him. He took in a few deep breaths, turning around and removing his jacket; he was only wearing a tank top underneath it. He shook his arms out and crouched down before shooting forward at full speed.

"You guys want a meteor? Coming right up!" Ako said mostly to himself as he sprinted back towards the T-Rex. He launched himself directly into its stomach area, spinning around and ramming his body feet first into its stomach area.

The T-Rex roared in shock and pain, rearing back from Ako's hit. Ako stumbled back and watched as its head moved around lazily before it regained its composure. It looked down at him and roared ferociously.

"Ako! Get away!" Ryukyu yelled down at him.

"Yeah! Wind up for another hit like that, kid!" One of the other pro heroes yelled down at him.

"Got it!" Ako nodded. Faster this time, he ran away and then back again.

The T-Rex tried to ready itself to swat Ako aside, but several pro heroes grabbed onto it to keep it in place. Again, Ako launched himself full force into the dinosaur's abdomen area. It reeled back from the hit.

"You want another one?!" Ako yelled up at it.

"I got it!" Ryukyu yelled, seeing an opening. She suddenly jumped onto the T-Rex's head, slamming her weight down into it.

The dinosaur let out a brief roar before it was interrupted by its chin being slammed into the roadway. With that final hit, it shrunk back down into a human: a girl with messy orange hair. She curled up on the ground and groaned weakly before vomiting on the street.

"Oh...ow...that hurts..." She muttered.

"Let's get her up. You're under arrest." Ryukyu said as she came in for a landing and switched back to her human form.

Ako watched quietly as the girl with the wild orange hair was lifted up by two pro heroes keeping a grip on her arms. Her tattered clothes were covered over by a blanket and she was escorted into police custody. She made eye contact with Ako for a second before she was placed in the back of a patrol car.

She didn't look that old. She was maybe around Ako's age...maybe...

"Ako," Ryukyu called to him and approached him. He swallowed nervously and braced himself to be scolded again. But instead, Ryukyu placed her hand on his head.

"You did a good job. You took charge in getting civilians to safety before anything else. What you did was still reckless, but I think it was the right call to make this time." She evaluated his actions.

"I-I see...so I did well?" He asked.

"I'd say so. Let's go get some food and we'll talk about it a little more." She invited.

So once the crime scene was wrapped up, Ryukyu and Ako left and picked up some food from a small little restaurant not too far away. They sat down at a bench to eat and, after discussing what had just happened, Ryukyu brought the subject back to what they had been talking about before the interruption...

"So now that we've gone over all that, how do you feel about that incident?" Ryukyu asked him.

"I think I understand what I did right and wrong. When there's huge events like that going on, it's hard not to get tunnel vision on the threat, you know what I mean?" Ako explained, bringing his hands to the corners of his eyes and gesturing forward as he talked.

"Heheh, it's alright. We're all guilty of it from time to time. That's why you always need to remind yourself that the number one priority as a hero is serving the people. That's the job," She said. "Everything else is secondary."

"Yeah, that's what everyone keeps telling me. I'm doing my best to keep that in mind." Ako nodded, taking a moment to think about this again.

"Tell me, Ako, why do you want to become a hero?" Ryukyu asked him.

"Um...I don't know," He answered honestly. "It just...seems like the right path for me, especially with my quirk. And it does feel good to help people. I don't know, I just want to do things right." He said with a shrug.

"That's reason enough to be a hero, I think," She said with a nod. "You certainly have a lot of potential, and a lot of options as to what you could do in your hero career. Which reminds me of what I asked you before: why did you decide to pick my agency for your internship program?"

"Right, yeah, you did ask that! I didn't tell you...?" Ako asked, trying to remember whether or not they'd already had that conversation.

"No, we were interrupted, remember?" She reminded him.

"Right, right! Okay, uh, well the real reason that I chose to come here was...well, because of you, really. You've really made a name for yourself as a top 10 hero, and I have a lot of respect for that." He answered.

"Yeah, but I'm sure I wasn't the only top 10 hero that extended you an offer." She pointed out.

"You weren't," Ako confirmed. "But you strike me as someone who has it all put together – you're one of the top 10 pro heroes, you have your own fashion industry, you run an agency...

"That's the kind of level I'd like to attain to one day. I want to be someone who's calm, cool, and collected – someone who has it all put together and that people like." Ako expressed. Ryukyu nodded in understanding.

However, before she could say anything, she received a phone call. She glanced at the number for only a moment before answering, "One second. Hello...? Mhmm...I see. I'll be right over," She hung up the phone and put it away.

"I'm sorry to cut this short, Ako. It turns out there was more to today's dinosaur incident than we thought." She said, getting up.

"What do you mean?" Ako asked, standing up too.

"While we were busy fighting, a warehouse was robbed. A large amount of computer parts and other scrap and metal were stolen. I need to meet with the head detective on the case." She explained.

"I see...I can't come with you?"

"No, not for this. This is beyond your scope right now, so I'm afraid we'll have to part ways here. I'll make a call back to the agency so that someone else can meet with you by the time you arrive." She promised.

"Okay...thank you for today." Ako said appreciatively, bowing respectfully. Ryukyu nodded and smiled.

"You're welcome. I appreciate your honesty and your praise just now. It wasn't easy to get to where I am today, but with hard work, I'm confident that you'll get there too one day," She said with an encouraging smile. "And if you ever need any fashion tips, well I can give you a few of those too." She joked.

"Heheh, I'll keep that in mind." He chuckled in response.

Ako took a step back and watched as Ryukyu changed into her dragon form and flew away. He watched her go and let out a meaningful sigh. He was starting to feel a lot better after today. He ran straight back to the Ryukyu Agency, and the rest of his internship week was pretty uneventful after that.

If I had to choose one thing that I could say I learned from that week, it would definitely be that I needed to do better about maintaining a proper balance in all things in my life. That's always been my Achilles' heel, since my first instinct is to rush into everything and then hope I get it right the first time.

I know I sound like a broken record; it's embarrassing to say really, but I still had a lot to learn and a long way to go...

End of the Balance Arc