Once they'd all come back to school, after both parts of the final exam were over and they'd had a chance to get some actual rest, Izuku found himself back in class listening to Kaminari-san, Kirishima-san, Sato-san, and Ashido-san all freaking out about what was going to happen to them since they'd failed the practical exam.

"Come on, guys, I'm sure that Aizawa-sensei isn't going to leave you behind," he said, trying to reassure the four of them as best as he could. "It's a training camp; I don't think Aizawa-sensei would keep anyone out of training, even if you did fail the practical exam. I don't think keeping you out of training would help with anything you need to work on-agagag!"

"Don't you understand, Midoriya?!" Kaminari-san shouted, having firmly grabbed his shoulders so he could shake him as hard as he could. "Not everyone can be a tactical genius with a stupid-million Quirks!"

"All right, Sparky, let him up," Kacchan said, and Izuku could just manage to catch sight of the way he swatted Kaminari-san upside the head.

Before anyone else could start to say anything, and almost before Izuku could manage to recover from the way that Kaminari-san had been shaking him, the front door of the classroom was slammed open and Tenko-nii dragged Aizawa-sensei's sleeping bag into the room.

"Butts in seats, scrubs," Tenko-nii said, sweeping them all with his cool, red-eyed gaze.

Everyone sat down; Tenko-nii chuckled softly, laying Aizawa-sensei's sleeping bag down beside his desk, then making his way over to sit down in his chair. As Aizawa-sensei started going over just what it was that they could all expect, now that final exams were over – and also revealing that both the oblique threat of someone being left behind, as well as the stated one of the teachers going all-out during the course of the practical exam had been just one more of Aizawa-sensei's logical ruses – Izuku found himself struggling not to laugh at the sheer indignation in Iida-san's voice as he yelled at Aizawa-sensei. It was kind of funny, the way Iida-san was concerned that the class would stop believing in Aizawa-sensei if he kept using those little teaching tricks he used so much.

Really, Izuku had gotten used to that kind of thing back when Dad had asked Aizawa-sensei to help him get a handle on his own Quirk, back when he was little.

After Aizawa-sensei had finished going over everything they'd need to know for the training camp they were going to be working at for the next week, Izuku turned as Hagakure-san suggested they all go to the same mall that he, Tenko-nii, and Bambaa-chan had been, that day when she'd been attacked by that Villain. The Villain that Uncle Toshi really didn't seem to want to talk about…

"Deku, are you going to come to the mall with us?"

"Huh?" he asked, looking up at Ochako-san as she stood over his desk. "Oh, sure," he said, nodding.

He didn't think there would be two big Villain attacks in the same place, at least he hoped not. The entire class went out to the Kiyashi Ward mall together, and for the first five minutes Izuku couldn't help but find himself tensing up as they all made their way through the main concourse of the mall. Turning as he felt an arm winding around his shoulders, Izuku smiled as he saw Tenko-nii walking beside him again.

"Let's go, Zu-chan."

"Yeah," he said, nodding as the pair of them continued on their way deeper into the mall.

There were things he still needed to pick up, before he headed off to the training camp; he couldn't rely on Warp Gate for everything, especially since Aizawa-sensei would try to break him of that habit as soon as he noticed it forming in the first place.

~MHA~

When all of their people had all gathered together in Sir Nighteye's large, main conference room, Toshinori found his eyes drawn almost inexorably toward Hisashi. His old friend – the closest he really had to an uncle, considering what had happened with his original family – was once again in the guise of Sensei, and Toshinori once again found himself wondering just how many people actually knew about his work as an Underground Hero. Not everyone would be willing to ignore it if he was forced to run out on a Council meeting, after all.

"Given what Stendhal was able to determine, during his attack on Chisaki, it would seem as though Niseko Sezu is not the only missing child that was taken by these Villains," Sir Nighteye himself said, bringing the attention of everyone in the room firmly back to him. "Taking the strength of Chisaki's Quirk into account, I think it would truly be best if Sensei accompanied our strike force when we moved against this group."

"Yes, I would have to agree," Hisashi said, leaning back in his seat as he folded his strong arms across his broad chest.

Toshinori didn't quite know why he still found himself surprised, every time he was reminded of just how well-built Hisashi was under those suits he always seemed to be wearing. Maybe it was because those suits, tailored as they were to fit a man Hisashi's size, always served to conceal his toned musculature. Though there wasn't much that anything but a Quirk could do for the man's height.

He sometimes wondered how Hisashi dealt with that kind of thing, since it wasn't like architecture as a whole was designed for people as tall as they were; not in Japan, at least.

~MHA~

Muttering under his breath as he checked over his shopping list for the fifth time, Izuku turned as he heard Tenko-nii chuckling.

"Why don't you read that list of yours over a sixth time, Zu-chan?" Tenko-nii asked, laughing a bit more openly as the pair of them continued on their way through the mall together.

Sticking his tongue out at Tenko-nii as the pair of them continued on their way through the main concourse of the mall, Izuku caught sight of Ochako-san making her way over to where he and Tenko-nii were walking, as they continued on their way.

"Hi, Ochako-san," he called, as the pair of them fell into step with each other for a moment; or at least for as long as all of them were walking in the same direction, that was.

"Well, isn't this a coincidence," Tenko-nii said, and Izuku could practically hear the self-satisfied smirk on his older brother's face. "Come for another visit, Ochako-chan?"

Before he could turn and tell Tenko-nii not to do anything silly, he felt Tenko-nii's hand on his left shoulder, even as his older brother took out his footing, shoving him into Ochako-san. Catching himself on Ochako-san's hands as she raised them in a clear attempt to catch him before he fell on her, Izuku rolled his eyes as he stood back up.

"I will dunk you in the fountain!" he growled, turning back to Tenko-nii.

"Zu-chan, you know there's no fountain around here," Tenko-nii said, grinning at him in that annoying way he did when he was teasing him about the crush he kept insisting that Izuku had on Ochako-san.

"I will find a fountain to dunk you in," he amended, glaring up at Tenko-nii as his older brother continued grinning down at him.

Narrowing his eyes as Tenko-nii continued grinning down at him, Izuku reached through a Warp Gate into his room, grabbing the first thing he could get his hands on, so he could hit his annoying older brother with it.

"Zu-chan, are you hitting me with a stuffed seahorse?" Tenko-nii asked, laughing as he held up his hands in a clear effort to defend himself from Izuku's plush assault.

Stopping for a moment to look at what it was that he was actually holding, Izuku saw that it was the stuffed seahorse that Tenko-nii had bought for him as a joke; the one with the three baby seahorses stuck to its middle with Velcro.

"Apparently, yes," he deadpanned.

Batting Tenko-nii a few more times for good measure, Izuku put his seahorse back in his room through his Warp Gate, shoved his hands in his pockets, and elbowed Tenko-nii when he started laughing again. His older brother could be such a pain, when he'd gotten it into his head that there was something he needed to stick his nose into.

~MHA~

Looking up from his desk at the sound of his office door opening, Kai Chisaki smiled under his mask as he saw Shin and little Niseko making their way into his office. Given the look on Niseko-chan's face, it seemed as though Shin had managed to make him understand that none of those present wished to harm him in any way. Watching as Shin led Niseko-chan deeper into his office, Chisaki set his paperwork aside for a moment, pushing out his chair so that he would be able to interact more directly with Niseko-chan as Shin brought him over.

Watching curiously as Shin led Niseko-chan past Joi Irinaka, Chisaki found that Niseko-chan did indeed wave to him, the same way he'd done the last time that the pair of them had crossed paths. He wondered if Shin had managed to find out why that was, in the same way he'd requested that he find out just why it was that Niseko-chan had seemed to be so uneasy around him.

"Nemoto," he greeted, as Shin and Niseko-chan stopped before his chair. "How are you feeling, Niseko-chan?"

"I'm all right," the pure child that Chisaki had taken into his care as soon as he'd found out he existed said, sounding more shy than Chisaki would have honestly preferred.

"Why don't we try starting again?" he asked, reaching out for Niseko-chan's hand, smiling under his mask as the silver-eyed boy reached back, allowing Chisaki to take his small hand in his own larger, gloved hand. "My name is Kai Chisaki."

"I'm Niseko Sezu."

Pulling Niseko-chan gently into his lap, Chisaki took off his left glove so that he would be able to actually touch Niseko-chan. It was perfectly fitting, considering his purity, that his hair and skin were so soft.

"Nemoto, what else can you tell me about him?" he asked, turning his attention back to Shin, even as he pulled his glove back on and gathered Niseko-chan closer to his chest.

There were other things that he would have to do, considering the plans that he still intended to carry out, but for the moment Chisaki could allow himself to get to know the pure child he had taken from among that festering pit of sickness and disease. He could allow himself to concentrate on the mundane operations of the Shie Hassaikai, while in his mind he turned over the problem of just how he would create the cure to the disease that had spread throughout Japan – not to mention the whole of the world – and also how he would address the inevitable approach of those who had held to their disease so long that they had made it a part of their very being. Anyone afflicted with both a Quirk and chronic heroism will be a problem for us, so long as we allow them to exist, he mused.

~MHA~

"They're Yakuza?" Toshinori found himself asking, as Sir Nighteye displayed the data that he and his people – even Izuku, while he'd been out on his internship, though he didn't think Nighteye had brought Izuku in on the investigation itself – had gathered about he'd first thought was just another Villain group that had kidnapped a child, injured Stendhal, and then retreated back into the shadows once more.

"Yes, that is rather odd. So far as I was aware, the back of the organization was broken by the work of the Pro Heroes Seven Strong and All Might, alongside their unknown companion with the elemental Quirk," Hisashi said, tilting his head slightly with that same laconic air of curiosity he adopted when he knew at least some of the answer to a question, but didn't want to let on how much information he actually had.

"Up until the latter half of this month, that was the general consensus, Sensei," Sir Nighteye said, adjusting his glasses and turning to fix Hisashi's hidden eyes with his own gaze. "However, even as many Villain groups have been driven underground by the presence of All Might and his fellow Pro Heroes – including yourself, though your own role is more geared toward Support – it would seem that this particular Yakuza cell has done the same."

"The Shie Hassaikai," Stendhal growled, drawing Toshinori's attention.

"No one here blames you for not fighting off Overhaul when you came across him in that alley, Stendhal," Mirio said, speaking up before Toshinori could say a single word, though that was just what he would have been saying, in this case.

"Indeed, an Emitter-type such as Chisaki's Quirk, with its simple conditions for activation, was truly the worst matchup in light of the conditions that your Quirk imposes on you to activate it," Sir Nighteye said, turning his attention to Stendhal for a long moment, before returning his attention to the main screen again. "Now, we have little enough information as to what Chisaki intends for Sezu-san and the girl, however considering his affiliation, I doubt that he has either of their best interests at heart."

There was a general consensus as far as that was concerned, one that Toshinori found himself joining in with as soon as he heard it, but nothing really seemed to reach Stendhal; the Freelance Hero was sitting as rigidly as he'd ever seen someone, fists clenched as he growled something that sounded like a vow not to fail again. Toshinori made his own vow, this one to himself: he'd look out for Stendhal for the duration of this operation, since anyone going into battle with that kind of weight on their mind wouldn't be able to focus on much other than their own failure. Even if it was just a failure in their own mind.

No one with that kind of weight on their mind would be able to concentrate properly.

~MHA~

Making his way down the corridor, once he'd finished putting Niseko-chan down to sleep in a room not very far from where he himself slept, Chisaki narrowed his eyes as he found himself standing in the room that contained row upon row of stasis tanks. Every single one of them containing the form of one of those poor unfortunate people from the Rosaru Ward; each and every one of them so twisted by their particular strain of disease that they no longer even resembled humanity anymore. Rosaru itself had been a festering pit of disease, so the only humane option had been to burn out the contagion.

He'd read that such had been the procedure in the past, when quarantine measured had either failed, or were simply insufficient for containing the spread of a particular disease; Rosaru had been a regrettable necessity.

However, it seemed as though his hunt for one of those who had managed to escape from his purge of that diseased Ward had drawn the attention of those who were most afflicted by the chronic heroism that had spread throughout society in the wake of the scourge of Quirks. It seemed as though it would be necessary to make use of more of the poor, diseased creatures he'd taken into his care. Truly, it was the only use that such twisted, diseased wretches could be put to, given how far they had diverged from the human form.

He would need to think carefully, just which of those he could best use to create a smokescreen for the Shie Hassaikai to escape under.

~MHA~

The sound of his phone going off distracted Tenko from watching Zu-chan with his clearly-future girlfriend, but when he looked down at the message that he'd been sent, he raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"What is it, Tenko-nii?" Zu-chan asked, as he and his future girlfriend turned to look at him while he paused to check his phone.

He sighed in semi-good-natured annoyance. "Duty calls."

Hurrying to meet up with Tsukauchi, Tenko found himself smiling once more as he heard the sound of excited footfalls following in his wake.

"You mean, you're going to go out and save people now?!" Ochako-chan squealed, and Tenko chuckled as he found himself reminded once again that she was a huge, completely unashamed fangirl; it'd been more than a little easy to forget, considering how much fun he'd been having teasing Zu-chan's future girlfriend.

"That's the idea," he said, grinning back at her as the three of them continued on their way to meet up with Tsukauchi.

Once the three of them made it out to the parking lot where Tsukauchi was waiting for them, Tenko whipped off his hood so that he could give Zu-chan a big, loud kiss on his chubby right cheek. Zu-chan clearly wasn't about to let him go with just that, of course, and Tenko found himself laughing as his baby brother hugged him tightly enough that he could swing the pair of them around without too much risk of knocking the both of them over. Looking around as he felt another pair of arms wrapping around him, their grip quite a bit more tentative-feeling than his baby brother's had been, Tenko chuckled as he ruffled the little fangirl's hair, in turn.

The sound of someone calling drew his attention then, and he turned to wave to Tsukauchi. "I hear you; I'll be right over," he assured the man – his idiot Uncle Toshi's closest friend outside the family – as he started forward, Zu-chan's right arm still wrapped loosely around his waist.

"I'll see you again when I can, Zu-chan," he said, playfully ruffling his baby brother's soft, curly hair, before turning to climb into the back seat of the car that Tsukauchi had brought for him. As he crawled into the back seat, however, Tenko smirked as he realized that there was one, last thing he could say. "Oh, but there is a favor you can do for me, Zu-chan."

"What is it?" his adorable baby brother asked, and Tenko could practically hear the adorably earnest look on his baby brother's face as he prepared his phone.

"Make sure to give your girlfriend a goodnight kiss!"

Snapping the perfect picture of his baby brother's flustered face, just before he slammed the car door on Zu-chan's spluttering attempts at a response, Tenko laughed as he settled himself down in the back seat.

"Tenko-kun, are you playing matchmaker again?"

"Maybe," he drawled, smirking as he looked into the rear-view mirror, catching Tsukauchi's gaze for a long moment. "So, have you got my gear?"

"Your gear's been sent to Nighteye's agency," Tsukauchi said, and Tenko found himself more than a little surprised to hear that.

It was kind of surprising, to think that he'd be meeting up with his idiot Uncle Toshi's old Sidekick for… whatever this new operation of theirs was going to turn out to be, but as Tsukauchi pulled up to the Nighteye Hero Agency, Tenko put those thoughts out of his mind as Tsukauchi drove up to the building where his uncle's old Sidekick worked. The sight of Uncle Toshi – or All Might, since both he and Sensei had had a few good laughs over Zu-chan's habit of calling their uncle by his real name no matter what form he was in – as the Symbol of Peace brought a slight smile to his face, one that only widened as his uncle turned to him with a smile on his broad face.

Not his usual 'heroic' smile, but the kinder, gentler one that he reserved for family and close friends.

"It's good to have you here, Tenko-kun."

"Thanks, Uncle Might."

~MHA~

Watching as Tenko dressed in the Hero outfit that Nana-sensei had helped him to make, Toshinori found himself smiling in fond remembrance. As both a complement and a contrast to the costume that Izuku had designed and he and his mother had collaborated on together, the one that had been modeled off of two of his own costumes as well as the one that Hisashi had designed for himself, Tenko's had been based more directly off of Nana-sensei's. There were a few concessions made to the fact that Tenko – Dust, when he was working – specialized in urban and disaster rescue, of course: namely the hard-hat, respirator, and long, white scarf that Tenko was wearing.

And also, the lack of the smaller, red cape that Nana-sensei had worn as a part of her old costume.

With his left hand on Tenko's right shoulder, he guided the young man to a seat between himself and Hisashi, who naturally reached out to wrap his right arm around Tenko's shoulders as he and Toshinori both got themselves settled down on either side of him.

"I'm glad you could all make it," Sir Nighteye said, as soon as the last of them had taken their seats; Toshinori wasn't quite sure what to make of the way his gaze seemed to linger on Stendhal, however. "For the moment, the little we know amounts to the fact that the Shie Hassaikai has kidnapped not only Niseko Sezu, but also the other girl whose description was provided to us by Stendhal."

Looking over at the Freelance Hero, Toshinori found that he did at least seem to be paying attention to the briefing, which was a marked improvement over the way he'd clearly been stewing in his own fury when they'd first begun gathering together. He was still going to make a point of looking out for the man, of course, since even though he had calmed down a fair bit, it was clear from his body-language that Stendhal was still furious about his perceived loss against Chisaki. And, while Toshinori was fully aware that he hadn't taken his losses much better when he was first starting out, he'd had Hisashi and Nana-sensei to help him get his head on straight.

Nana-sensei was a bit too old for this kind of thing, and he didn't really know how Stendhal would react to Hisashi, but he did know that the Freelance Hero respected him almost to the point where it was actually awkward to be in the same room as him; it would have to be the Symbol of Peace who made the Freelance Hero listen to reason.

~MHA~

Standing outside the door that would take him into Niseko-chan's room, Kai Chisaki looked down at the stuffed penguin he'd had purchased for the boy; he also found himself reflecting on the other item that he'd arranged to have delivered to him. The original mask that he'd worn when he'd first become a member of the Shie Hassaikai – when the Boss had first taken him in; something he still owed the man for, and a favor he would soon repay – would of course have been too large for a child as young as Niseko-chan. The one he'd had commissioned for the boy to wear was, therefore, merely a near-exact replica.

Once the boy was old enough, then Chisaki would see about passing on his old mask; if such a thing was still necessary, of course.

Unlocking Niseko-chan's door to let himself in, Chisaki looked around for a moment, before making his way over to the large, luxurious bed he'd arranged for the child to have. Niseko-chan was just beginning to awaken, and Chisaki found himself smiling under his mask as he made his way over to where the pure, kind child was, just as he was beginning to sit up.

"Good morning, Niseko-chan," he said, reaching out to stroke the boy's head, watching as his silver eyes blinked up at him.

"Chisaki-san," the boy said, but seemed not to know what else he should say.

"I already told you, you can just call me Chisaki," he said, settling down on the bed next to Niseko-chan. "I brought something for you," he continued, unrolling the cloth mask that he'd tucked into his pocket. "Here," he said, carefully securing it over Niseko-chan's face. "The air in this place isn't suited for someone as pure as you. Come," he said, reaching down to tug Niseko-chan out of bed, even as he set down the penguin plush he'd been carrying next to the place where he'd been sleeping. "Let's get you cleaned up for the day, and then I'll give you your other gift."

Niseko-chan, watching him with uncertain silver eyes, nonetheless followed Chisaki as he led him to the washroom so that he would be able to help the child prepare for his day. Once the pair of them were done, and Chisaki had replaced the mask on Niseko-chan's face after removing it so that the boy could brush his teeth, he knelt down and gently placed a pair of white gloves on the child's hands.

"There, now you have at least some protection from the filth of this society," he said, placing a comforting hand on Niseko-chan's head, as he looked down in confusion at the new gloves he was wearing.

He'd come to understand soon enough; with proper guidance, of course.