A/N: Alright, let's get into it for real! It's time for Akarui to get in on some of the infamous UA action! Just how will he, Mina, and Kurai affect the movie arc? The only thing I can tell you is that by the end of this adventure, there will be major changes to the storyline...

P.S. It feels like this should be a no-brainer, but I'm gonna have to ask some people to refrain from posting spoilers about My Hero Academia in their reviews. I want to let people's reviews go through, but as I feel it's incredibly discourteous to other readers to risk spoiling the surprises in store for them if they like waiting for the anime, I have to erase/block them. The same goes for copy and pasting sections of this story in the reviews- I don't appreciate that.

Know that this does not apply to most of those of you who put up reviews, it's just a handful. I appreciate your guys' support, and I'm just trying to make sure that everyone who comes here can enjoy the full measure of surprises that the original story and my fan faction have in store for you. With all that said, I hope that you all enjoy this next installment.

Phase 1: Chapter 23

Fighting Onward

"We've been in some bad spots before, but I think this takes the cake," Kurai muttered as he and the others stood in a rough circle on the emergency staircase. The group had nearly made it to the dining area when they heard a gunshot, which led to them making a hasty retreat up to the next floor. After Melissa supplied them with directions, Jiro and Midoriya went to run reconnaissance from above the main hall.

They had just returned with the disturbing news that all the heroes present, including All Might, were restrained by the island's security system, which had been hijacked by a group of villains that were now using the same technology to hold virtually everyone on the island as their unwitting hostages. Thanks to Jiro's quirk, the two had been able to have a brief conversation with All Might, who had told them to clear out and keep their heads down until the situation was resolved.

"So what's our play?" Akarui asked, looking between his brother and Iida. He appeared nervous, and for good reason. After all, he was a middle-school kid that had no interest in being a pro hero himself, so it was only natural that he be frightened of the circumstances that they were in.

"My first instinct would be to go and find some pros from outside the party, but there's too many chances that we'd get caught," Kurai muttered as he put his chin in his hand. "Our phones aren't working, either, so we can't call for help."

"We could beat up the bad guys," Mina offered, causing Iida, Kaminari, and Akarui to look at her like she'd lost her mind. "What? We survived the USJ, and we've all interned with pro heroes. It's not like we don't know what we're doing."

"Are you crazy?!" Kaminari yelped. "Those guys have All Might, the number one hero, pinned down, and you think we can take 'em?!"

"We'd be in violation of the law!" Iida added crossly. "We're not licensed heroes!"

"Actually, that's not entirely true," Kurai countered, drawing everyone's attention to him. Shifting his gaze to Melissa, Kurai said, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I-island doesn't regulate quirk usage, right?"

"That's true," she nodded.

"So if- I know, big if- we could take down the villains, could we just treat the situation as a citizen's arrest?" he inquired.

"Yes, as far as I'm aware," she nodded again. "We've never had a crime committed on this scale here, so I don't know that there's much of a precedent to go by, but what you're saying makes sense."

"How'd you figure that?" Jiro asked Kurai, who simply shrugged.

"I kinda have some knowledge about law enforcement and potential loopholes," he answered.

"I can't believe that you, of all people here, want to find a way around the rules," Iida said, his tone angry as Kurai turned back to face him. "Especially when you called me a hypocrite for doing the exact same thing."

"Really?" Kurai said flatly. "Now? You wanna do this now?" All around them, the other students shifted uncomfortably, knowing that things were probably about to get pretty intense between the two of them.

"Yes, now!" Iida barked, startling the others. "If you go ahead to fight those villains, it will be just like when I went to fight Stain!"

"This is nothing like when you went to fight Stain, and don't you dare try to bring me down to your level again," Kurai growled, his eyes sparking blue for a second, alerting everyone as to just how close he was to losing control. "You were hell-bent on revenge. You were being selfish and wanting to assuage your guilt. I want to save the people in this building from ending up as bargaining chips for whatever it is that these villains want. And as we just covered, there's nothing illegal about a citizen's arrest."

"Citizen's arrest can be applied in cases of self-defense," Iida shot back. "You can't go and pick a fight with professional criminals and say that it's above the scrutiny of the law!"

"He's right," Todoroki interjected, his cool voice cutting through the heated atmosphere. "We can't just go fight them. That being said, I'm with Hikari. We also can't just sit around and do nothing right now."

"Then what should we do?" Mina asked with a frown. "Doesn't seem like we have a lot of options open to us."

"We can still help," Midoriya asserted, surprising his friends. "We can save All Might and the others without fighting anyone."

"How?" Yaoyorozu asked him.

"If we move quickly, we might be able to restore the island's security system without running into any villains," the green-haired boy explained. "We just need to find the control room in the tower and reset the security parameters. That'll free All Might and the other pros, and then they can do all the fighting for us."

The others looked around at each other, each of them considering the plan. "I'm in," Uraraka declared.

"Me too," Mina grinned.

"Really?" Izuku asked, looking surprised at the fact that his idea wasn't being dismissed out of hand.

"It's a good idea," Todoroki nodded. "If we're aiming to be pros someday, we need to start acting like it sooner, rather than later."

"I'm with you," Kurai told his friend.

"In that case, count me in," Kaminari said as he got to his feet with a bright smile.

"Let's do it," Jiro grinned as she gave Midoriya a thumbs-up.

Iida hesitated for a moment, then he stepped up to his friend and said, "The moment that I think we've gone too far, I'm putting a stop to this."

"Who died and made you the morality police?" Kurai challenged him, but Midoriya held up his hands to keep them both from arguing.

"We all need to work together for us to have the best chance at stopping these villains," he told them wearily. "Fighting each other isn't going to help us, and it's not going to help the people that are counting on us. Iida, I know you're worried about repeating Hosu, but things are different here. We'll be fine." Turning to address his other friend, he added, "And Hikari, people make mistakes. But they can't move on and learn from them if the people they look up to keep putting them down for it."

Iida and Kurai exchanged angry looks for a moment, neither one willing to give ground, before the shorter of the two finally said in a somewhat subdued voice, "Tensei would be giving us an earful if he could see us right now, wouldn't he?" Kurai was still upset with his old friend, but he was pragmatic enough to know that if they were going to go through with Midoriya's plan, someone needed to concede, even a little, so it might as well be him.

"Yes, he would," Iida admitted begrudgingly. Holding out a hand to the other boy, he said, "It's going to be a while before we can really forgive one another, but… in the interest of being heroes, I'm willing to work with you on this."

"And in the interest of hoping that you can prove me wrong about you not being one, I'll do the same," Kurai replied as he shook hands with the class rep. Turning to Midoriya, he added, "Let's roll."

"If Iida is on board, then I'll go as well," Yaoyorozu said, making her the last student to agree to the plan.

"Have you guys lost your minds?!" Akarui demanded. "You do realize that I have to go with you, right?!" Kurai made an apologetic gesture to the others before he grabbed his brother roughly by the arm and dragged him down the flight of stairs so that they could talk in private, provided that they kept their voices down.

"You're staying here," Kurai told his brother firmly. "You're not combat trained, so if there does end up being a fight, I can't risk you getting caught up in it. Mom and Dad would kill me."

"As opposed to ditching me in a closet while there's trigger-happy villains running around?!" the younger boy demanded. "I'm going with you guys, even if I think you're insane!"

"You'd only get in the way," Kurai said flatly. "You can't even use the excuse that you've got Solar Intelligence- there's no sunlight for you to absorb, so you're as dumb as we are right now."

"Ha!" the younger boy snorted as he reached into his pocket. "That's what you think." He pulled out a necklace with a small light on it that made Kurai's eyes widen in surprise.

"Where did you-?"

"Made it myself before we came to the island," he smirked as he clicked a button on the back of the light causing it to light up with a bright white glow that hurt the eyes of anyone that looked directly at it. He quickly put the necklace on and tucked the item under his shirt, reducing the glow substantially.

"It's simulated sunlight, the same kind used to treat patients with skin conditions like psoriasis," he explained. "Of course, my contraption is a lot stronger than the stuff that hospitals use. Give me thirty minutes, and my smarts will start coming back."

Instead of looking pleased by this turn of events, however, Kurai scowled and hissed, "You're already on a pretty unforgiving timetable, you really wanna accelerate it?"

"This'll only take off another week or so in the long run," Akarui replied in the same lowered tone. "I did the calculations myself, so I know what I'm doing. Besides, if we don't do something to stop those villains, my 'timetable' might not matter very much."

"Why are you even doing this?" Kurai demanded, still irritated by the measures that his brother was taking.

"Because whether you like it or not- no matter how much I really don't like it- I'm your best shot at restoring the security systems," Akarui said flatly. "If we run into trouble, I'll be able to plan for contingencies that even your enemies won't be able to come up with. I can basically ensure that not only will we win, we'll all get to go home in one piece. That's worth a few days to me."

Kurai was quiet for a few moments before he reluctantly said, "You can help us, but I'm the one with the combat training. If it comes down to a fight, do what I tell you, when I tell you to do it, understand? You're gonna follow my orders if you're gonna come with."

"I will," his brother promised him, which was surprising. Seeing the look of shock on his brother's face, Akarui muttered, "Increased IQ or not, I know you're the one with experience in not getting killed by bad guys. I'm staying behind you."

"Good," Kurai sighed. "Now let's get back to the others."

They returned to the group in time for Melissa to announce that she would also be going with them to stop the villains, since she knew the tower well enough to navigate them to the security control room. Midoriya initially protested this, but the blond girl was insistent, and he eventually gave way to her demand to be brought along, especially since they would be running blind without her. Kurai then informed them that Akarui would be accompanying them, and that his quirk would soon be functional enough to assist their endeavor.

Iida, of course, protested this, but Akarui and Kurai swiftly demolished his arguments with the same points that the younger Hikari had addressed when debating the subject with his brother. The class rep refused to give ground initially, but when the others pointed out that they were wasting time with the arguing, and the fact that Kurai was technically the legal guardian in the situation, making it his call, the older boy caved with great reluctance.

With that, the teenagers began to make their way up the many, many, many, many stairs that stood between them and the control room. They were starting out on the bottom floor, and they had to make it all the way up to floor 200, according to Melissa.

Mina and Melissa had to ditch their shoes partway up since heels weren't exactly well-suited for climbing thousands of steps, and Kurai's girlfriend was thoroughly irritated by the fact. "Whoever these villains are, they're gonna owe me a new pair," she grumbled as they continued the trek.

"I'll make you some new ones after this is all over," Yaoyorozu told her over her shoulder.

"No way," Mina replied with a snarky grin. "These bad guys should take responsibility for the bad things that they do."

"Just let her have it," Kurai said to head off any protests on Yaoyorozu's part. He grinned at his girlfriend and added, "I'm sure we can add theft to the many charges that these villains are racking up with this little operation."

"Are you making fun of me?"

"No!"

The group was out of breath, and their legs were aching when they came upon their first obstacle. "Aw, come on!" Mina groaned as they staggered up the stairs that put them on the eightieth floor. Just above them was a thick metal gate that prevented them from going any higher on the staircase.

"Is this is as far as we go?" Uraraka panted.

"Hang on," Kurai muttered as he walked over and rapped on the gate with his knuckles, producing a low thudding sound. Shrugging slightly he stepped back and muttered, "Shouldn't be hard to break through." His or Mina's quirk could get them through with little enough trouble, he reasoned.

"I wouldn't do that," Akarui said quickly as he stepped up to stand next to his brother, his eyes rapidly scanning the structure. "This place is on lockdown- any tampering with the security measures, and at the very least it'll alert whoever's in control that we're here."

"Why don't we use the door?" Jiro asked tiredly as she jerked a thumb at the exit that would take them out onto the hallway for the floor.

"No, don't," Melissa told them, sounding even more winded than they were. It only made sense, seeing as she wasn't in a school course that had high physical demands, unlike the U.A. students. "That would trigger a silent alarm that gives away our position."

The others took a moment to catch their breath while Akarui looked around them, trying to see if there was a way around tripping one of the alarms. However, he soon shook his head and said in a resigned tone, "Short of blasting a hole in the wall and somehow scaling the exterior, I don't see how we can avoid giving away our position if we want to move on from this staircase."

"Can't you hack the gate, or something?" Kaminari asked. "I thought you were super-smart."

Before Kurai could rescue the electric boy from his careless words, Akarui turned a baleful eye on him and said, "First of all, how am I supposed to hack into a gate that doesn't a have a local interface? Second of all, if you know so much, why don't you conjure the magic way for us to get to the top without getting caught, mister low-watt bulb?"

Kaminari stared at the boy blankly for a second before Jiro nudged him and said, "He's saying that there's nothing for him to hack into at this door, and that you're really stupid."

"Hey!" the blond boy exclaimed, his feelings injured. "Why're you so mean?"

"Akarui, put your brains to use for something other than making Kaminari cry, and figure out the best way for us to proceed from here on," Kurai said to head off his brother. "We're not on a field trip."

"Door's our best bet," Akarui replied immediately. "The enemy will know where we are, but they'll learn nothing of your offensive capabilities- after all, there's not many people with a quirk that'll let them blow through a gate like that. The longer we keep them guessing, the better it'll be for us."

"Then let's not waste any time," Todoroki said as he moved to open the door, quickly leading the others out into a rounded hallway.

Once they were all out and jogging at a steady pace, Midoriya asked, "Melissa, where do we go from here?"

"There should be another emergency staircase on the other side of the tower," she panted.

"And what do we do if that's blocked, too?" Mina pointed out.

"Then I'll figure something else out," Akarui answered. "I'm already running through a dozen different possible paths for us to take based on what I know about this tower."

"What do you know about-?"

"Taking into account in the fact that the same people that designed Tartaros' safeguards along with a number of architects and scientists that I read up on for fun are the ones that designed this place, I've been able to factor in probabilities that would have optimized a balance between security and scientific functionality, plus what I've seen of the structure itself, allows me to make educated guesses on how this entire building operates," the boy said to cut off Iida. Glancing at Melissa, he added, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but this floor focuses on how fauna react to various quirk stimulations, yes?"

"Yes," she answered, her eyes wide. "You really figured all of that out just by looking at the building?"

"I believe I mentioned reading up on the tower's creators," he answered as he turned back to look at where he was going.

"He wants to be a biomechanic when he's older," Kurai told the stunned girl. "He studies a lot of science stuff, and he researches the innovators in his spare time. He's actually a big fan of your father's." Silently he added, That device isn't just getting you back up to speed, little brother. It's enhancing your mind beyond even what you can normally do… Smart as his brother's quirk made him, he was basically pulling full schematics out of trace memories and conjectures on his part, and that wasn't within his usual range of abilities. You'd better know what you're doing, Akarui.

"Yeah, like I didn't make that obvious when I first met her tod-"

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The repeated sounds alerted the group to the alarming fact that the security gates both in front and behind them were shutting rapidly. The one closest to them was about to slam closed, and cut off the only side door that they had seen in some time.

"Todoroki!" Akarui shouted, pointing urgently at the massive door.

"I'm on it!" the older boy replied, stopping in his tracks and lowering the temperature of the air around him by several degrees as he sent forth a wave of ice that froze the contraption and created a large white wedge that prevented it from closing all the way.

"Ashido, go ahead and melt that door on the other side!" the younger Hikari said. "Kurai, get her over the ice!"

"Hang on," the elder brother said as Mina moved to hold onto his back. Gripping her legs firmly, he enhanced his body with Energon and leaped high over the ice, sailing through the gap that Todoroki had managed to secure for them, and landing smoothly on the other side. As he set her down, he asked, "You okay?"

"Yeah," she grinned lightly as she moved toward the door and hurled a glob of acid on the surface large enough to melt a man-sized hole through the barrier. "You know, as far as dates go, this isn't the worst one."

"Really?" he asked, jerking his head back with a puzzled look. "What's been worse than this?"

"Dude, you thought it was cute to take me to an ice cream parlor where ninety-five percent of the customers were grade schoolers and their parents," she laughed. "You're a sweetie, but as far as good dates go, you're not exactly batting a thousand."

"Wha-?!" he sputtered as Iida and Midoriya clambered over the barrier, Akarui riding on the second boy's back. "I have a lot of good memories there! And you said that you liked it!"

"I said I liked the company," she replied, giving him pause. "And honestly, I've had better ice cream at the supermarket. Sorry, sweetie."

"Dude, you took her to Jen and Barry's?" Akarui scoffed as he walked up to them. "You are so lame. I honestly can't believe that we share genetic material."

"Are you guys really doing this right now?" Kaminari asked as he jogged by.

"Apparently," Kurai said through gritted teeth. Shouting after his brother, he added, "I hope everyone here knows that this is coming from a guy that memorized every subspecies of fish that they covered in Blue Planet Five!"

"I don't have a girlfriend to impress," he heard Akarui call back as more of the others students filed past him. "By the way, we need to hide."

The sudden change in subject caught them all off-guard, but it was Yaoyorozu who asked, "Is the enemy coming?" As she spoke her inquiry, Kurai and Mina came in behind everyone else.

"Not unless you can think of another reason why the elevator just started coming up from the ground floor," Akarui replied as he pointed at the lift tube, which rested in the middle of the giant atrium that the classmates had all found themselves in. Lowering his arm, he started toward some bushes and added, "Come on. I'd like to hijack that elevator, but there's no guarantee that the villains wouldn't just destroy the system to trap us or worse, send us plummeting to our deaths. Our best option is to wait for whoever they sent to pass us by, then continue on to the other staircase."

"Of course we can't go the easy way," Mina groaned as they all crouched behind some deep green bushes.

Glancing at her from the corner of his eye, Akarui then said, "Your dress, Ashido. Sorry to say this, but you're gonna have to ruin it."

"Excuse me?"

"Jogging up the stairs was one thing, but if worse comes to worst, and you guys have to fight, a dress that long is only gonna trip up a mid-to-close-range fighter like you," he said as he kept an eye on the elevator's approach. "You need to make that thing shorter."

"No way," the girl hissed angrily, but she was forestalled by Akarui holding up a finger for silence.

"Cut it in the next ten seconds, or you might not live to regret it later on," he said in a low voice. "I calculate a fourteen percent chance that we end up in an altercation on this floor, and that number keeps going up the higher in this tower we get. I need you to be able to fight well, or else I put a high number on the chances that my brother hurts himself trying to rescue you later tonight."

"Grrr…" she scowled, looking like she wanted to strangle the kid. However, all she did was secret acid out of her fingers that cut the lower hem of her dress clean off, right above her knees. "You owe me a new dress for this, bucko."

"Noted," Akarui said without looking at her. "Now shut up. They'll be here in three seconds."

Mina responded by sticking her tongue out at the boy, but she kept quiet as she scooted closer to Kurai in their hiding space, which led to him gripping her hand reassuringly. Not a second later, they heard a couple of male voices accompanying the opening of the lift doors. Unfortunately, the voices were getting closer, which had Akarui's mouth hardening into a thin line as his thoughts raced, trying to find a way for them to escape detection.

"Hey, we see you, you stupid kids!"

Those words gave pretty much everyone in their group a heart attack, but Kurai and Todoroki prepared to leap out of the bushes, so that they could draw the villain's fire, until another voice stopped them in their tracks. "The hell'd you say to me?!" Bakugo growled, surprising his classmates from where they crouched, hidden.

"What are you doing here?" another villain asked, confirming that there were at least two of the thugs present.

"Whoa, calm down, man," they heard Kirishima say as Midoriya and Akarui peered out over the edge of the bushes to get a better look at what was going on. The redhead stepped ahead of his volatile classmate and gave the villains a friendly smile as he said, "We kinda got lost looking for this party a while ago. You guys mind pointing us in the right direction?"

Wow, Kurai thought as he saw Akarui smirking. He was right about them being bad with directions, but I had no idea that anyone could get that lost.

"How did they get this far up looking for the party?" Jiro muttered.

No one had time to answer that question, though, because the second villain suddenly shouted, "Don't lie to me, or you'll regret it!" There was a sound of rushing energy, and the heroes-in-training knew that hiding was out.

Todoroki moved first, sending a cascade of ice from his foot that swallowed up the villains where they stood, surprising Bakugo and Kirishima equally. "Wait, is this-?" Both boys turned to see their classmates coming out from the bushes, all of them looking relieved that their friends were safe.

"Todoroki, get us up there!" Akarui shouted, pointing at a walkway several floors above them. He knew that it was highly unlikely that the villains were really down already.

"I'll stay behind with these two and hold the villains off," the heterochromic boy replied as he used his powers to conjure an ice pillar beneath their group's feet and send them upward at a rapid pace. "We'll catch up when we can."

"I'm staying, too," Kurai announced as he leaped off of the ice before it could get too high. As soon as his feet touched the ground, he looked back up at his brother and then hurled something from his waist at the boy, shouting, "You keep them safe, understand?! Be a hero, just for today!"

"I will!" the younger Hikari promised as he caught the item. The others were only slightly surprised to see him clipping Kurai's photon sword onto his belt. Apparently the older boy wanted to ensure that his brother would have something to defend himself with, if it came down to it.

"Are you sure?!" Mina called down, looking worried.

"I'll be fine," Kurai assured her, even as he began to pass out of casual earshot.

"Don't take any chances!" Akarui called down. "After you beat these two, be wary of reinforcements!"

"What's going on, Icy-Hot?" Bakugo demanded as he and Kirishima approached their classmates.

"You didn't hear the broadcast?" he asked them dubiously. When they both gave him blank looks, he sighed and muttered, "It doesn't matter right now. I'll give you details later, but for right now, you need to know that villains have taken over the island's security systems. The others have gone to stop them."

"Wait, that's what this is about?!" Bakugo asked, looking legitimately worried, for once. There was no time to ask more questions, though. Based on the sounds coming from within Todoroki's first ice wave, they didn't have long before their enemies would be upon them.

"Let's try to make this fast," Kurai muttered as his eyes shifted blue.

"Why'd he have to stay behind?" Mina asked of no one in particular. It was clear from her expression that she was worried about Kurai, but they didn't have much time to think on how he and the others would be able to handle the villains down below.

"Don't worry about it," Akarui told them as they came level with the bridge above their heads. "We still have a wide range of quirks on our team here, and there's only a few powers I can think of that we wouldn't be able to neutralize."

The group leaped onto the bridge, but immediately encountered another problem. "The barriers are up," Iida scowled as they looked in both directions. "What now?"

"This can't be as far as we go," Uraraka said worriedly as explosions began to echo from down below them.

"It's not," Akarui told them. He pointed up toward a hatch in the ceiling on the next floor up, saying, "My bet is that thing is a maintenance passage. We can use it to get to the next floor."

"Good idea," Yaoyorozu murmured as she conjured an explosive device, which she then hurled at the hatch door. A second later, the small entrance was blasted open, though it was still too far for them to reach just yet.

"We can't use that unless someone lets down the ladder," Melissa argued. "It's locked from the inside. To get in, someone would have to open the door from the other floor and lower the ladder for the rest of us."

"No problem," Akarui stated, causing the others to do a double-take.

"High-security deadlock isn't a problem?" Jiro asked him. "Okay, kid, I'll bite. How're we gonna pull this one off?"

"Mina, use your acid to give yourself foot and handholds all the way over to the hatch, then climb up inside it," he answered as he looked at his brother's girlfriend. "Once you get up to the top, melt the door and get inside to let down the ladder so the rest of us can follow."

"That's not gonna be easy," she said, her eyes flicking downward at the sound of another larger explosion.

"You didn't go to U.A. to take the easy route, did you?" Akarui said as he snapped his fingers to get her attention. "Kurai will be fine. But him staying behind to fight them off is worth nothing if you don't help us advance, Ashido."

Her caramel eyes sparked as she answered, "I said it would be difficult, not that I wouldn't do it. And I know what him staying behind is worth without you spelling it out for me, but I am allowed to worry. Not all of us can be as cold and calculating as you are, kid." With that, she made for the wall and began to use her quirk to carve a tenuous pathway for herself up toward their exit.

Deku: That was pretty intense.

Kai: I'll say. I didn't really expect things between me and Iida to come to a head like that.

Mataras: Well, in life-and-death scenarios, it seems like you either make up or you finalize the split. I'm glad that I was able to make things more amicable between you two, at least. Like Iida said, it'll be a while before you're totally cool with each other, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Kai: True, but...

Deku: What is it?

Kai: This stinks of a setup. The last time he let me make up with a friend, it went hand-in-hand with me having a fight with my best friend. And he's been obnoxiously hinting at some big change that's coming, so I'm just wondering what he's up to this time.

Mataras: Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be awesome.

Kai: You would think that.

Deku: I'm surprised that you're not staying with Akarui, more than anything.

Kai: Much as I would like to, we gotta make sure that these two villains don't get the jump on you guys later. Besides, he's with the three people I trust the most, you know?

Deku: Mina must be one of them, but who are other two?

Mataras: You and Iida, dingus. Mina will keep Akarui safe because he's Kurai's kid brother, and Iida's had his back when it mattered since childhood, and you two have been friends since the first day at UA, especially after the USJ incident.

Kai: What he said.

Deku: Wow... I didn't know that-

Mataras: Anyway, it's time for us to roll on out!

Kai: Hey! We were having a moment!

Mataras: Next time- Go Beyond

Deku: Plus Ultra!

Kai: Wait, he missed the name of the chapter! Redo!

Mataras: I didn't miss it, that's the name of the next chapter- 'Go Beyond'

Deku: Plus Ultra! ...Sorry, it's just a habit by this point.

Kai: Oei...

Next time on Your Hero Academia...

"Looks like Hikari was right about the trap," Midoriya said quietly as he and Jiro looked through the windows of a door that led into some kind of lab. Inside, they could see close to a hundred security drones.

"What do they look like?" Akarui asked from behind Iida, who was now taking his own turn to look.

"Red, cylindrical," Jiro murmured. "They move around on little wheels, but it doesn't look like they have any weapons."

"Oof," the boy muttered, drawing the worry of his companions. Seeing their alarm, he explained, "Those sound like the work of Doctor Eric Rush- an engineer who's known for making deceptively compact contraptions."

"Okay, first of all, I totally thought that you were gonna say Doctor Ivo-something-or-other," Kaminari began.

"That's racist."

"Second, are you saying that there's more to those things than we can see?" the electric boy pressed. "They just look like big moving cameras."

"And you look like you belong you belong on the Quirky Bachelor, but yes, looks are deceiving," Akarui replied blandly, causing Kaminari's face to fall again. To the others, the younger boy said, "We need to disrupt their communications and take them out before they get a chance to set off any alarms. Unfortunately, I doubt that an electric quirk like Gold Boy Wonder's is going to do anything to these things. Midoriya, Ashido, you two are best suited for swift destruction while Yaoyorozu hits them with a device to scramble their communications."

"Sure thing," Midoriya nodded as he shed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, revealing a curious device on his right wrist. At the touch of a button, the bracelet expanded and wound itself upwards until a red gauntlet covered his forearm. "I'm ready!"

"I could do with something to vent on," Mina growled as she took up a position next to her classmate.

"Then miss Yaoyorozu, if you would?" Akarui asked.