A/N: Okay guys, who's ready for some fan service?!

...No, not that kind! Get your heads out of the gutter! What are you, Min*ta?

P.S. I set up a poll using the story function on my Instagram, the_red_swordsman concerning the fate of one character, and some artwork that teases events in the next chapter. Go enjoy and let me know what you think!

Phase 1: Chapter 24

Go Beyond

Bakugo screamed his hatred at one of the villains, a morphing-type that had purple skin and incredible bulk that gave him tremendous strength. He peppered the man with explosions, trying to see if there was a way to wear his quirk down, but so far it didn't seem like his efforts were yielding any fruit. The only thing he seemed to be able to do was annoy the brute, which certainly wasn't doing his own temperament any good.

Kirishima was currently stuck in a wall, having been knocked into it by the villain fighting Bakugo after jumping to his friend's defense, while Kurai and Todoroki were having difficulty pinning down the other villain. He was a tall, spindly man, with ridiculously large, webbed hands that seemed to eliminate any ice or energon that the two students sent at him. Worse, he was able to use his quirk at long range, making it impossible for them to stay still, lest they wind up with holes in their abdomens, or with a limb being torn away. Every time he swiped at them, the spot where they had been standing was carved away, leaving a large hole in the concrete.

"What is this guy's quirk?" Kurai muttered as he unleashed a barrage of energon at the man, even as Todoroki sent an ice wave at him, all to no effect.

That is, until the villain made a mistake. As he swiped at the oncoming ice, the frozen matter seemed to disappear once more; only it reappeared this time, falling in between them as large balls about the size of the man's hands. Immediately, both boys knew how his quirk functioned.

"That's not matter erasure," Kurai announced loud enough for Bakugo to hear.

"He's displacing it!" Todoroki grunted as he slid to a stop beside Kurai, both of them wary of the villain, who had temporarily stalled, apparently feeling cautious now that his quirk had been unveiled.

"Is that right?" the explosive boy muttered as he landed behind them, turning them into a rough triangle that kept their guard up in both directions. "Well, if you've figured it out, go beat him. We don't have time to keep messing around!" With another fiery blast, he launched himself into the air, obscuring the others in a smokescreen.

At first Kurai thought that he did it to be a jerk, but then he realized that their enemy couldn't see them clearly for the moment. Clever guy, he admitted inwardly. "Rush him," he told Todoroki. "I need a few seconds."

"You got it," his friend told him before he charged out of the smoke on a sheet of ice. The skinny villain snarled in surprise, and immediately focused on trying to hit the ice-user.

Meanwhile, Bakugo had flung himself even higher into the air, and was now using consecutive explosions to transform himself into a whirling human missile that was on a collision course with the beefy villain. "Howitzer… IMPACT!" the resulting blast shook the entire floor, and rendered the villain unconscious, back in his normal, unassuming form.

"Damn it, you stupid brats!" the skinny man shouted, his attacks increasing in ferocity as he drove off Todoroki and then aimed for Bakugo.

Before he could attack the more volatile student, however, Kurai shouted, "Hey, villain! You forgot something!" The tall man turned back to face the other kid, who immediately flung his arms outward, unleashing an orange energon beam that bore down on him with the force of a tidal wave, smashing him all the way across the room and blasting him into unconsciousness when he collided with the wall and the beam exploded on top of him.

A moment later, both villains were trapped in ice, and the young heroes-in-training were regrouping around Kirishima, who was still stuck in the other wall. "Everyone okay?" Kurai asked.

"I'm fine," Todoroki nodded.

"Don't ask about me!" Bakugo growled.

"Good to hear it," Kurai said as he turned to their other friend, then frowned as he noticed one little detail. "Dude, why are you still in the wall?"

"I'm stuck," Kirishima answered, straining to move his rock-like arms, but being unable to do so. "Can't you guys pull me out?"

"He wants to know why you haven't turned off your quirk, you damn moron," Bakugo snapped.

"Oh," the redhead said dumbly as he turned off his power, and immediately finding it easy to get out of his predicament. Sheepishly, he added, "Guess I shoulda thought of that."

"Next time, use your head," the blond boy grumbled as he turned away. However, he surprised everyone by stopping for a moment to say, "Thank you." Kurai recalled that Kirishima had been put in that situation after taking a hit meant for Bakugo, but it was still a shock to hear him give thanks to anybody.

"Whoa, where'd that come from?" Kirishima chuckled. "Don't worry about it."

"I'm not worried!"

"Bicker later, we need to catch up with the others," Kurai said as he began to lead the way. He knew that blasting through each set of doors from there on was going to be challenging, even with both him and Bakugo, but he saw no other options.

I have to protect Akarui, he thought worriedly. The others can handle themselves, and he's the smartest person I know, but even still…

"Don't order me around!" Bakugo shouted.

"Hey guys?" Kirishima asked as the quartet began to jog at a brisk pace. "Time for you to give us some answers."

Just as Todoroki opened his mouth to begin explaining the situation, there was multitude of alarm sounds coming from above, accompanied by small red dome-bots that were flashing lights of the same colors. He frowned while Kurai and Bakugo cursed, both of them getting their quirks ready to go at moment's notice.

"Security drones," he muttered. "Looks like the villains are getting serious."

"And now I'm seriously pissed off," Kurai snarled, his temper clearly beginning to succumb to the effects of his quirk.

"That's my line, Saiyaman!"

"Anyone else think that this is a little too easy?" Jiro asked as the group charged up the stairs to floor 128.

"Easy?" Kaminari panted. "You call running up hundreds of floors of stairs and barely making it past villains easy?"

"No, she's right," Akarui gasped as they headed for floor 129. "By all rights, the barriers for the last forty-odd floors should still be closed by the lockdown procedure. Someone is letting us through."

"I almost hate to ask why they would do that," Yaoyorozu breathed.

"They're probably trying to box us in somewhere that would be easy to lay a trap," Midoriya answered. "Based on our classmates' fighting abilities, they'll have probably realized that we're hero course students. They won't want to take any chances that we know how to restore the security systems."

"Whatever the case, we have to keep going," Iida muttered. "We're well past the halfway point, so it's only logical that we press on."

"There's gonna be a problem with that," Akarui wheezed as they came to a stop on floor 130, where a familiar obstruction lay above them. "I think we're where they want us." The gate leading to the next floor was locked down tight, preventing their further advance.

"What's the plan, kid?" Kaminari asked him.

"There's clearly a trap on this floor," Akarui answered tiredly as he moved toward the side door. "So we'll spring the trap." Before anyone could protest his plan, he added, "Even if they know that you're heroes-in-training, they won't know everything about your power sets. Some elements of surprise are on our side."

"And what, they don't have any surprises for us?" Mina asked. "Playing into their hands is a bad idea. I can easily melt through this gate so we can avoid whatever they have planned for us on this floor."

"Worse idea," Akarui replied instantly, irritating the pink girl. "Yes, you can melt through this gate quite easily- I don't doubt that. However, I also know that your quirk would begin to cause damage to your body after getting us through no more than forty floors, at which point we would have thirty more to go."

"As opposed to fighting through seventy floors of villains?" Mina shot back.

"I find it highly unlikely that we will encounter any more villains until we reach the last ten floors or so," Akarui replied as he opened the door, holding it so that the others could pass through. "An operation like this would have to be run by a small, elite crew, not an army. My guess is that they will now start to deploy the tower's automated defenses against us, instead of fighting us themselves."

"Ashido, as much as I hate that he is here, Akarui knows what he's about," Iida said as the others began to go through the exit. "We'll follow his lead for now."

"Fine," the girl said through thin lips.

As she passed the younger boy without another word, she heard him mutter, "I worry about him, too."

"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.

"Already done," the girl replied as she tugged on the strap of her dress to expose a little more skin, out of which dropped a handful of what looked like red flares. "Pull the caps and throw them into the room," she explained. "It will release a specialized dust that carries a slight static charge, enough to disrupt their coms."

"Fantastic," Akarui grinned as he snatched one up. "Then here we go!" With that, he kicked open the door and hurled the first flare, which instantly began to fill the air with the substance that Yaoyorozu had described. As soon as it touched the red drones, they began to move about uncertainly, colliding with the railing in the room, and with each other.

Seeing the success that it was having, Akarui called back, "Spread them out! We want to affect as many of them as we can!"

"You got it!" Uraraka grunted as she hurled two of them, using her quirk to keep them elevated for a longer period, as to more effectively spread the dust.

"Nice," Akarui nodded, though he noticed that some of the drones were still getting ready to target them, and that they were moving much faster than he would have hoped. "Midoriya, Ashido, you're up!"

"All right," the young man nodded as he charged forward, his gloved fist drawing back as it crackled with verdant lightning. "Detroit… SMASH!" A blow on par with the strength that he had used to best Kirishima during the Sports Festival collided with one of the drones, and a gale wind tore through the room, tossing a good chunk of the other robots into the air. From there, gravity did the work to destroy them as soon as they crashed into the ground, all the way across the room, mostly clearing the path for the students.

"Dude!" Mina exclaimed, impressed with the display of strength that they had just witnessed. "Is your arm okay?"

"Yeah!" Midoriya grinned as the acidic girl moved to melt a few drones that had avoided the attack. "Melissa made this gauntlet, and it lets me use my power without hurting myself!"

"That's amazing!" Uraraka cheered for her friend.

As the others began to praise the blond girl, Akarui was closely studying the gauntlet that Midoriya had used to avoid injury. Normally, all he would have been able to get out of a brief look would be an idea of the materials used to construct the shell. Now, with his quirk in overdrive, one look was all he needed to ascertain the materials needed to not only build it, but improve upon the design.

He blinked as a sudden wave of nausea assaulted him, and he nearly lost his balance, only saving himself from colliding with the ground by grabbing awkwardly onto the railing. No, he groaned inwardly as vertigo gripped his entrails. No, not right now!

"Kid?" he heard Mina ask as she stopped beside him. "Are you okay? We need to keep moving if we don't wanna get caught. Jiro says that she can hear more drones coming from the east."

"Yeah, I'm f… fff… fine," he managed to spit out. "Ugh."

"Dude, are you sure?" she asked him as he forced himself to stand. "You don't look so good."

"I'm just dehydrated," he said as she grabbed his arm to keep him steady. "I'm not… used to all this exercise and excitement, is all."

"Okay," she said as he began to support his own weight again, though she still seemed uncertain. He gave her a weak grin as he shambled forward, gaining confidence in his step as he forced himself onward.

"Come on," he told her as his dizziness began to fade away. "We don't want to be left behind down here." Silently, he added, Sorry, Brother. I can promise the safety of everyone but me, now.

They had no issues getting to the 138th floor, where the tower's network servers were stored. As they came into the main room, Mina asked, "Anyone think those drones gave up a little too easily?"

No sooner than she had spoken than did the sound of alarms echo throughout the room, followed by several-dozen drones leaping down from higher balconies, with more coming from side halls, all of them with panels popping open to reveal stun and capture-type weapons.

The group slid to a stop, Akarui muttering, "You had to ask, didn't you?"

"Aw, crap!" Kaminari groaned. "My quirk is useless against these things!"

"And we can't afford to damage the servers," Melissa warned. "They could affect the security of the entire island!"

"Then we delay them," Akarui announced. "These things can capture you, but they can't kill you. So we need a few of us to keep going while the others delay this swarm for as long as we can."

"A sacrifice play?" Iida asked disapprovingly.

"You got a better idea?" Akarui grumbled. "This isn't a strategic ambush point. They're just throwing everything that they have at us now, hoping to capture us before we get any further. That tells me that the villains are done trying to be clever."

"Hikari, Midoriya, take Melissa and get out of here!" Yaoyorozu ordered as she began to construct something out of her back. "The rest of us will hold them off!" While she spoke, Mina charged right into battle, sliding around at high speed on her acid trails and dissolving the little robots as she went, though she was careful not to damage the server machines.

"We will?" Kaminari asked nervously. "But my powers-!"

"We'll need some bait," Jiro said with a smile that made him uncomfortable.

"Yaoyorozu, are you-?"

"Just go," Iida told Akarui as he took a running stance. "Don't let this be for nothing."

"…Okay," he said as he grabbed Melissa's hand to get her running behind him. "Midoriya, Uraraka! Come on!"

"Why me?!"

"Because I have an idea, now move!" the younger boy grunted as he released Melissa and drew his brother's sword, just in time to slash through a drone that had managed to get by their friends. Without any further protests, the other two teenagers ran after the child genius, hoping that their friends would be okay.

The quartet made their way to the outside, where they found themselves amidst several dozen wind turbines that helped to power the building. They went up for many floors, which was what Akarui was hoping for.

"Okay, this will work," he said as he turned to the others. "The enemy is throwing everything that they have at our friends back there. That means that they're much less likely to notice the sudden arrival of a handful of students on the top floor." As he spoke, he pointed to a spot near the roof of the tower. "If Uraraka uses her quirk to float us three up there, we can bypass the rest of the defenses and get to the control room."

"Okay," the girl nodded. To the others, she added, "You'd both better hold on tight to him."

"Are you sure about this?" Melissa asked her worriedly. "You'll be all by yourself."

"Don't worry about me," Uraraka answered with a cheery smile as Midoriya used his belt to thread through the hoops on Akarui's pants, effectively tying them together. "I'm trained for this, Melissa. I'll be okay."

"If you're sure," the blond girl said reluctantly.

"Come on," Akarui insisted. "We need to move."

Knowing the urgency of the matter, Melissa walked over to where Midoriya was, where she grabbed onto him from behind so that he could secure her with his own arms. As soon as she had, Uraraka used her quirk to make the three of them weightless, and then gave them a light shove upward, which set them to floating in the correct direction about as fast as a man could jog.

They were about halfway up when they heard the sound of metal doors crashing open, drawing their attention back toward Uraraka, who had a startled look on her face. "Oh no!" Melissa yelped as drones began to pour out of the doors. "Get out of there! Release your quirk!"

"I can't do that!" Ochaco called back up as she turned to face the approaching enemy forces with a brave face. "You three have to make it to the top, no matter what!"

"Also, we will definitely die if she drops us from up here," Akarui pointed out. "I'm sorry if this is cold, but we have to keep moving."

"And which one of us are you gonna sacrifice next, huh?" Midoriya asked angrily, surprising the younger boy. "Heroes aren't supposed to run out on their friends."

"Maybe not, but I'm pretty sure that they're also supposed to have faith in them, too," Akarui said mildly as he pointed back at the ground, where there was a sudden series of explosions.

"Is that-?!" Melissa cried. "It's the others!"

"Kacchan?!" Midoriya yelped as he looked back. "Todoroki, Hikari! Kirishima, too!"

"Told you to have faith," Akarui grumbled mildly.

"Sorry we're late!" Kirishima shouted up with a grin. "We've got Uraraka covered, so you guys just worry about getting to the top!"

"Thanks, we-! Waugh!"

Midoriya's thanks were cut off as one of the turbines- having been sped up by the heat of Bakugo's explosions- suddenly propelled them off-course, causing them to head out into open space, with nothing but the floor level of I-island to catch them if they fell.

"I'm gonna kill Blasty McSplode if we survive this," Akarui growled.

After defeating a small army of drones on floor 80, Kurai and the others had made their way up to floor 130 by using the villains' ID passes, but the reinforced lockdown had prevented them from going any higher with that method. So they disembarked and followed the sounds of combat that they could detect from above, eventually coming along to rescue Iida's group from certain capture, who explained where the rest of their friends had gone.

He and Mina had shared in a quick kiss, having been relieved to see each other safe and sound, but their situation allowed for little else. His group decided to press on in order to assist Akarui and the others so that Iida's group would have time to rest before catching up.

All of this led them to encountering another set of drones that were about to attack Uraraka, which they got to work demolishing. However, Kurai wasn't exactly happy to see his brother dangling high in the sky with nothing but the girl's quirk keeping him safe, and the extended use of his quirk was taking its toll on his mental faculties.

"Dammit, Akarui!" he shouted up at his brother. "Way to take a shortcut!"

"Up yours!" his sibling shouted back. "We were running out of options! Anytime you'd like to help would be great, by the way!"

"Bah!" Kurai spat, but he knew what his brother had in mind. "Todoroki, I need your help!" Leaping high over a robot, he brought his hands to his right side, yellow light pooling between them. His eyes had shifted their focus from Akarui to one of the large turbines powering the building.

"I'm on it!" the half-and-half boy replied as he tossed aside his jacket, even as Kirishima and Bakugo tore into the swarm of drones, the latter raging with profanities the whole while. When Todoroki had a clear space, he shouted, "Make sure to aim as straight as possible!"

Kurai drew in a deep breath, adjusted his aim slightly, and then shouted, "Here we go, Kamehameha!" The yellow laser blasted forth, destroying the supports on top of one of the middling turbines, and causing it to list badly to the left. The same instant, Todoroki unleashed a blast of fire at the still-whirling blades, speeding their progress greatly and creating a powerful updraft that corrected Midoriya's course.

"Thanks!" Akarui shouted down.

"Thank us by getting these things to stop attacking us!" Kirishima replied.

"I'll take care of that," Kurai said, a dangerous gleam in his eyes as he faced the biggest cluster of robots. "I'm sick of this crap."

"Hikari, if you push yourself any more, you might-!"

"I know what I'm doing!" he screamed, his hair blazing orange and his eyes burning blue as he ascended. Holding his hands out in front of him, he then roared, "Scattered Bullets!" A massive beam shot straight out, veered sharply upwards at a point above the drones, and then dissolved into countless energon projectiles that rained down on the sentries, destroying them by the dozens, and covering the area in smoke and debris.

"Whoa," Kirishima muttered as Kurai's hair and eyes darkened. "Remind me never to get on your bad side."

"Told you I… had it…" Kurai let out a sigh and passed out, only avoiding injury because Todoroki caught him up at the last second.

"Did his brain quit on him again?" Bakugo scowled as he approached. "Idiot."

"He's just unconscious," Todoroki answered. "As far as I can tell, he stopped himself just short of having a full aneurism, but there's no telling how long he'll be down for."

"Deku and the others made it up okay," Uraraka panted as she jogged over. "Thanks for the assist, you guys."

"No worries," Kirishima replied with a thumbs-up and a smile.

"Hmph," Bakugo grumbled.

"We need to regroup with the others," Todoroki said as he stood up with Kurai still unconscious in his grip. "Let's hope that Midoriya and Hikari's brother can make it the rest of the way without too much trouble before we catch up. Uraraka, can you help me with him?"

"Yeah!"

One Minute Ago…

"Hang on tight, you guys!" Midoriya shouted as the wall rushed at them, too fast for them to just land and try to enter via an emergency exit. We're gonna do this the hard way.

Letting the full power of One for All surge into his arm, Midoriya threw his punch the instant before they would have smacked into the concrete. "SMASH!"

The entire wall gave in under the force of his might, giving them a clear path into the stairs that led right up to floor 200. Uraraka's gravity negation was then released, dropping them all on the ground. Akarui ended being the one unfortunate enough to get crushed by two people bigger than him.

"Get… off," he wheezed.

"Sorry," Melissa said as she released Midoriya, who was already untying the belt that was holding the two of them together. Before he could finish, though, Melissa let out a scream of alarm, and an unknown instinct told the boys to roll to the right.

A metal blade cut into the floor right where their heads had been, and the villain that it belonged to growled in frustration as he turned his hand back into flesh-and-blood. Midoriya then decided that he was done trying to untie the belt neatly, and used his quirk to snap the leather in two, freeing him in his movements.

However, he was too late to keep Melissa from getting hurt, as she had interposed herself between the villain and her friends, trembling with fright though she was. There was the sound of a blade slicing flesh, followed by her scream and subsequent collapse.

"Bastard!" Midoriya and Akarui yelled as they each moved in their own way.

Deku leaped forward, tackling the villain into the wall, and stunning him from the impact, but only for a second. The instant that the man had control of himself again, he swiped at Midoriya with his transformed arm, only failing to cut the student because of the gauntlet on his wrist. It did, however, cause the boy to flinch and stumble back, which gave the villain a slight edge in momentum.

What he failed to account for, however, was that Akarui was armed with his brother's photon sword. As the villain laughed and swung his arm/blade down at Deku, the boy let out a yell and swung the sword as he activated it, shearing off the man's limb at the elbow, leaving it a useless, charred stump.

At first everyone just stared at the severed metal limb on the ground in a collective silence. Then the pain hit, and the villain fell to his knees and screamed in agony, right before Akarui hit him with a side kick in the face hard enough to render him senseless. After that, the boy turned to the side and vomited while Midoriya could only look on in a stunned silence alongside an equally shocked Melissa.

"You just…" the blond girl gasped as she clutched at her bleeding arm. The villain's blade had scored a rough wound on her right limb- the same one that he was now missing as a result of Akarui's actions.

"Hikari, this guy is crippled for life, now," Midoriya said dumbly as the younger boy turned around to face them with a haunted look in his eyes, shutting off the sword as he did so.

"I know," he said hoarsely, his throat having been burned by the reflexive acid. "But I'm not a hero, or even a student hero, remember? I'm just a scared kid who wants this whole nightmare to be over with." His visage was so in contrast with the cold, calculating look that he had been putting on until now that it was almost a surprise to the older teenagers to remember just how much younger that them he really was. That despite his greatly superior intellect, he was still just a child.

"Are you gonna be okay, Hikari?" Melissa asked as she stood up shakily, Midoriya ripping off one of his sleeves to make a bandage for her.

"Given that my father is a sane man who's seen much worse stuff than this, I think I'll get there, eventually," the boy answered with a weak grin. "Maybe I'll book a few therapy sessions when this over…"

"I'm sorry that it came to that," Midoriya apologized. "I'm the hero, here. I should have saved you guys."

"I think you mean, 'thank you'," Akarui replied with another weak grin. "We did save your life."

"Uh…" the green-haired boy began, then stopped himself. "Yeah. Thanks, Hikari."

Kai: What did you do?!

Mataras: Nothing.

Kai: Bull!

Mataras: Akarui, on the other hand...

Kai: Don't get cute with me!

Mataras: buddy, I'm adorable.

Deku: Impending worries about Akarui aside, it doesn't feel like much changed in this chapter with regards to the original plot.

Mataras: True, but there were small changes. I promise that everything will tie together in the next chapter, and it'll be worth the wait.

Kai: Setting yourself up for failure much?

Mataras: Pardon, quoi?

Kai: You're hyping up this arc finale quite a bit. If it doesn't live up to the expectations you've given people...

Mataras: I'm confident that it will. And if it doesn't, then I suppose it'll teach me to be a little more humble in my approach to storytelling.

Kai: One can only hope...

Deku: Next time- Plus Ultra

Kai: Go Beyond! ...Wait, wrong order?

Mataras: No, that's the name of the- You know what? Never mind. Preview clip, please!

Next time on Your Hero Academia...

"And that's… that," he muttered slowly as he glanced behind himself. Midoriya had gone ahead to chase after the villains and rescue the professor, but Akarui doubted his chances of success without backup.

Melissa was currently on her phone, explaining to All Might the situation regarding her father and the villains. It sounded as though she was going to be a few minutes, so he reached inside his shirt and pulled out the necklace that was enhancing his quirk. By his estimate, the power-up would only last for a few more minutes- and he seriously doubted that he would make it past that, either.

His left leg was already refusing to respond to his commands, and his sense of vertigo was threatening to come back with a vengeance, this time accompanied by a severe headache. If this is the last time I can use my gift… he thought sluggishly as he began to dig into the computer's database as fast as he could. Then I'm going to make sure that Kurai can keep using his.