A/N: Okay, who wants a chapter full of even more emotions?! I know I've been running on a rampage those things with the last couple of instillations, but the show's not over! So buckle in for another doozy! I've also put up several new art pieces detailing key scenes from this chapter on my Instagram and DeviantArt accounts, so be sure to check them out!

The character 'Doctor Akabane' who appears in this chapter is not my original character. Credit for their creation and use in this part of the story goes to the original artist, who can be found on Instagram with the handle 'prmths.c', please go check them out and show them some love. They're really nice, and their work is great quality, plus they update stuff more regularly than I do. XD

Because of This

The sound of helicopter blades whirred across the nighttime sky as the emergency vehicle hurtled toward the nearest hospital. Inside the transport, a trio of EMT's were working ceaselessly, trying to sustain the life of one very weak student, none of them overly confident of his chances of surviving his ordeal.

"Victim suffered major blood loss in correspondence with the right arm, he's gone into hypovolemic shock!" One of the workers, a middle-aged man, kept his eye on the boy's vitals, praying that the weakened heartbeats would sustain themselves long enough for them to get to the hospital. Due to the severity of his wound, and the necessity for an immediate treatment, the boy had been the only one approved for an airlift- the other students that had been badly injured would be taken back into the city via ambulance. They had to take into account and compensate for the changes in air pressure that the flight would put on the boy's ruined body, but the speed at which they could get him to the hospital outweighed those concerns.

"Does he need a quirk particulate in blood transfusions?"

"Negative, quirk is non-heteromorphic!"

"Wound status?" Another EMT, this one a younger woman, was using her quirk to dull the boy's sense of pain as best as she could. They couldn't afford to give him anesthesia at this point, or else he could flat line.

"According to his classmates, the remains of the arm was cauterized via an incendiary burst from a quirk, so it's likely sterile, and the bleeding has slowed."

"That might also be due to how much blood he'd lost by that point."

"According to his student ID, he'll need B-negative blood… Misa, radio the hospital, tell them to have several bags ready."

"Yessir."

The older man looked down at the pale boy as he breathed shallowly and murmured, "Hang on, kid. Don't you dare die on my watch, you hear?"

"Dear?" Moka Hogo-sha widened her eyes in alarm as her husband stood up from where he had been sitting by their younger son's bedside, pale and jaw locked as his hands shook while he pocketed his phone. "What's wrong?" The last time he had looked like this, he had been on the receiving end of the news that his brother had died in the line of duty.

"That was Eraserhead," he answered numbly. "The camp was attacked by the League of Villains."

"What?!" Despite the alarm clutching deep at her gut, she kept her voice down, not wanting to wake Akarui after he had fallen into a peaceful slumber. "Is Kurai okay? A-And the other students?"

Her husband was silent for a few seconds before he slowly shook his head in the negative, and Moka felt her stomach drop into a yawning chasm. "It's bad, Moka," he said grimly. "One of the students was kidnapped by the League, but it seems they want him alive, so we might be able to get him back. I have to get to the office to get the manhunt started- the League is now being recognized as an official terrorist organization instead of just a local gang. It's a national-level threat, now."

"Kurai," Moka said stubbornly, having noticed that he was avoiding the subject of their child. "What happened to him? Where is our son?"

"On his way to here to the hospital," he answered flatly, appearing drained of nearly all his vitality. "A villain got him in the forest. Eraser didn't have time to get me all the details, but from what I understand, Kurai put himself between a classmate and a villain, and now he's injured seriously enough that they're flying him out."

"How seriously?"

"…I need to make a call."

The doors to the hospital burst inwards as Kurai was wheeled in on a mobile bed, the nurses shouting at the other staff to get out of the way as they made a beeline for the surgery room. "We're losing him!" shouted one of them, a woman with blue skin and hair. "They better have those bags ready!"

"The patient's parents are on their way down, they wanna know his status!"

"They can wait until the surgery is done!"

At this point, Kurai could have well been a corpse with how pale and gray he had become. The only indication that he lived were his shallow breaths into a c-pap mask and the off-beat beeping of the heart monitor that he had been attached to.

The second that he had been transferred onto the operating table, however, his heart faltered, and the increasingly irregular blips on the EKG let the doctor and nurses know that things were getting much worse. "Clear him!" the doctor ordered, sweat already lining his furrowed brow as he began to use his quirk to control Kurai's blood flow in the remains of his arm, keeping his wound from shedding any more of the precious liquid. "His heart's gone into ventricular tachycardia, we need a defibrillator, now!"

One of the nurses transformed his hand into a pair of sharp scissors that slashed through the boy's shirt, leaving his lean abdomen exposed to the air and surgical lights. Another prepped the machine and stood by, ready for the doctor to give the order. He did so, and the young man placed the metal pieces in the correct areas before shouting, "Clear!" A surge of electricity pumped through Kurai's body, causing his back to arch involuntarily before the power was cut, and he slumped back on the table.

Fortunately, he only needed the one jolt and a few seconds of CPR to get his heart going steadily again, which filled the doctor with a temporary surge of relief, but he knew that his patient was far from safe. His years of experience told him that they had just barely pulled the boy back from an asystole, and Kurai was nowhere near out of the woods. "Get the blood transfusion going, now," he ordered brusquely. "Yuuki, get those scalpels and stitches where I can reach them. Ryoutarou, make sure to keep that AED charged! Daizo, if he drops into ventricular fibrillation, you're in charge of CPR, so keep that pump prepped! Shigeru, clean his left leg so we can graft from the thigh! Move it people, this kid's still in bad shape!"

One minute earlier…

Kurai opened his eyes to see that he was standing before a massive gate that looked as though it had been shaped out of the largest, purest diamond born from someone's wildest fantasy of riches. The fence surrounding it was made of gold- and yet it did not seem quite like the gold he was familiar with. This substance, whatever it was, seemed as though it represented the very idea of the purest gold that one could imagine. Beyond the barrier, he could see countless people and fine buildings, all of them made of pure marble that lined the streets of gold. They all radiated strength and safety, and somehow, a grand purpose that he simply could not wrap his mind around.

Looking down at himself, he was surprised to see that he was dressed in his favorite casual clothes, and even more shocking, his right arm was fully intact, as if his injury had never occurred at all. "Huh," he muttered as he looked back up, his mind finally registering what had happened. "Somehow I imagined more clouds and angels singing everywhere."

"The choir is actually further inside, near the throne room," said a familiar voice that caused Kurai's eyes to widen, and his jaw to drop as he spotted the speaker. That person smiled widely at him and held out his arms to either side as he stood at the entrance to the grand city. "Hey, Kurai. I didn't expect to see you for quite a while longer, but it's good to see you, anyway."

"Uncle Shiro!" the boy exclaimed, running toward the man as fast as he could, colliding with him hard enough to nearly knock the other man off his feet. "It's so good to see you!"

"You too, kid," the older man laughed as he released his nephew. "You've filled out since I last saw you- I bet the ladies love you down below."

Kurai let out a laugh of his own as he grasped his uncle by the shoulders and answered, "Just one, but she's amazing- way out of my league."

"No girl is out of your league, my boy," Shiro laughed again. "I've seen a bit of what you've been up to, and I gotta say, I couldn't be prouder of what you've accomplished."

"I feel like I could have done more, but I guess that's all done, now," Kurai shrugged, feeling oddly at peace with the fact. "You know, I thought I'd be more upset about being dead, but somehow I feel like everything is gonna sort itself out- and it takes a big load off of my shoulders."

"You mean that part about you becoming one of the next Symbols of Peace, like All Might?" his uncle asked with a raised eyebrow. "I think you would've been even better than the man himself, and this is coming from a cop that's grateful to him for helping us out of more than one bad situation."

"Hey, if you knew about that, then you already know about Midoriya, right?" Kurai countered. "He'll be a good enough hero for the both of us, I know it."

"Maybe," Shiro shrugged. "I get to see and hear a few things about you and our family every once in a while, so I have a general idea of what you've been through. But I gotta say, Kurai, I think your work isn't quite done just yet."

"Come again?"

"They're getting ready to try and take you back down there," Shiro said as he cocked his head, as if he were listening to something in the distance. "Time doesn't really work the same up here, so we have a little while before they get going on that."

"Wait, seriously?" Kurai asked, his eyes going wide again, this time with worry. "Don't I get a say in whether or not I go back?"

"You can always take it up with the ancestors," Shiro replied as he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating a huge castle that towered far above the other buildings in the city. "It's ultimately their call, but I'm sure they'd hear you out, if you'd like."

"I mean…" Kurai hesitated, looking down at his right arm and flexing his hand a few times. "What's waiting for me if I do go back? A lot of pain and suffering, for starters, not to mention a legacy that I'm not too psyched about taking on, if I'm being honest."

"You've got that girl you mentioned," Shiro pointed out. "What's her name- Mira?"

"Mina," Kurai corrected him. "She's great, and I love her, weird as that might be for someone my age."

"Kid, I was in love with your aunt from the time we were in junior high."

"Okay, so there's that," Kurai conceded. "I know Mom, Dad, and Akarui would miss me, along with all my friends, so that'd be a downer. Plus I know I could do a lot of good as a hero- I'd be able to make sure that the stuff I've had to go through doesn't happen to other kids like me."

"All that's true, but you know that you're not really obligated to go back," Shiro told him. "Don't feel like you have to."

"Okay, which side are you on?" Kurai asked with a wry grin. "One second you're hinting that I should go back willingly, now you're saying that I shouldn't feel bad about staying. Which is it?"

"Both. My point is that either way, you can afford to be at peace," Shiro explained as he patted his nephew on the back. "You've done a lot of good in a short time, and you can be proud of that. But you could do even more good for the people down there, and if that's the case, you should do it gladly, because the opportunity is there. I'm real proud of you, and I just want to see that you're content with your path, no matter which way the ancestors send you."

"I think that'll be pretty hard to do if I do go back, but I'll give it my best shot," Kurai shrugged. "If that ends up being the case, is there anything you want me to tell your family?"

"Send your aunt my love, and tell Shukin to stay away from my pipe collection," Shiro said with a half-grimace. "Your grandfather gave me that, and they're not really supposed to be for recreational use."

"You seem more upset about the pipes than the fact that he's smoking underage," Kurai laughed, though he was surprised at his cousin's irresponsible behavior. He knew that Shukin had a mischievous streak, but not quite like that.

"I did the same thing back in the day, so I can't really judge," Shiro sighed. "If you don't mind, tell your father that I never regretted joining him on that raid."

"Even though Endeavor never felt anything about your sacrifice?" Kurai asked, his voice a little irritated.

"Even so," Shiro laughed again. "Don't you worry about him, understand? He has a role to play yet."

"…If you say so," Kurai sighed. Raising an eyebrow as a thought occurred to him, he said, "From the way that you're talking, I'm guessing that the doctors are about to succeed in reviving me, aren't they?"

"Sorry, kid," Shiro shrugged. "Time's up. But I'll be waiting for you again, when the time comes."

"Same spot?" Kurai asked, feeling his eyelids suddenly become heavy.

"You got it. Good-bye, Kurai. Don't take this the wrong way, but I hope it's a long time before I see you again."

"I'm gonna be a hero," he replied drowsily. "No promises about me taking my time in getting… back here…" And with that, he fell back into slumber, his spirit journeying swiftly back to the realm of mortals.

"…hear me, kid?"

I'm getting really sick of waking up in hospitals.

"Hey, I need to know if you can hear me." A nurse- at least, he assumed it was a nurse- said a little more loudly than before. "Tell me your name if you can hear me."

"…Hogo-sha," he croaked out, his throat feeling like sandpaper. "Kurai. UA student, class 1-A." Despite his return to awareness, he kept his eyes shut, not wanting to force them to deal with the bright lights that would no doubt be pointed at his face. Fortunately, he wasn't in any real pain, though he imagined that was likely because of whatever painkillers they had managed to put him on. He could also feel some kind of mask that had been fitted onto his face, though he wasn't quite aware enough to figure out why he would need one yet.

"Good, that's great," the nurse said, sounding relieved. "Can you open your eyes?"

"Is there a light pointed at my face?" Kurai groused.

"We've got the lights dimmed in here so you can get used to them," the man assured him. "Please open them so we can determine that they're working properly."

"Fine." Making sure to move his eyelids slowly, he was relieved to find that the nurse was telling the truth about the lighting in the room. As he flicked his tired orbs from spot to spot, he realized that he was not in a standard room like the last couple of times that he had been confined to a bed. "Where am I?"

"The ICU ward at Hosu General," the nurse explained as he moved into Kurai's field of vision. "You're a breathing miracle, kid. The doctor didn't think that you were gonna make it." He was a plain-looking man, save for the third and fourth eyes that sat on his brow.

"Pretty sure I didn't make it," Kurai coughed, his throat somehow feeling even drier than when he had first come to.

"You almost flat-lined for a few seconds, but after they got your heartbeat going steady, the doctor was able to perform surgery."

"Surgery?" Kurai repeated thickly, not understanding at first. Then his eyes were drawn down toward his right, and he felt his heart sink. "Oh, yeah. That." His arm had been completely severed a few inches above where his elbow had been. In place of the limb was a mound of bloodied bandages, underneath which he knew he would find stitches and skin stretched tightly together. On reflex, he clenched his left hand, though the movement was somewhat impaired by the IV tube sticking out of a vein.

"I'm sorry, kid," the nurse said sympathetically as he made some notes on his tablet. "Your classmates said that they had to cauterize the wound, and that the arm was pretty much in pieces when they left it. The bleeding is from new incisions that you sustained during the operation that I mentioned earlier. Some skin was grafted from your left leg, so that's gonna be sore for a while, too. You can get a replacement prosthetic in the future, but it won't be the same, and due to the burns you sustained, the operation and rehabilitation needed to connect the nerves will be painful."

"When can I see my family?" Kurai asked a bit raggedly, not wanting to listen to the bad news that he had already guessed at.

"They're here, and so are some of your friends, but the doctor wants to come in and see you first," the nurse replied calmly, seemingly unaffected by Kurai's change in tone. "You've been out for more than a day."

"Wait," Kurai said, alarm shooting through him hard enough that he nearly sat up, only to be defeated by the fatigue that the blood loss had inflicted on him. "My classmates. How did I forget to-? Is everyone okay?!"

"Calm down, you're still very weak," the nurse said firmly as he moved toward a sink. "From what I know, most of your classmates only sustained light injuries, and the ones that were hurt badly have already been seen by Recovery Girl. They're all expected to make full recoveries."

"Damn," Kurai muttered as he leaned back into his pillows. "I guess we should be grateful that no one was killed."

"With you on the mend, that's certainly true."

By the time that the doctor came in to see him, Kurai had started to inch back towards the realm of sleep, so it wasn't until the man was at his bedside that he registered that he had a visitor. "Good morning," the man said as he peered down at his patient. "I'm Doctor Akabane. How are you doing?"

"…You have very red eyes," Kurai answered through his mask. Indeed, the man's eyes and hair were both the brightest color of crimson, enough to remind the patient of a shiny new street sign. I think I hit my head on that tree harder than I thought.

"Still woozy from blood loss, I see," the man chuckled a little dryly. "That should go away soon enough. You got lucky- we had some of your blood type stored, but we also had a fresh donor who volunteered on your behalf."

"Yay."

"Are you in any pain right now?"

"No, sir."

"Did the nurse inform you of your skin graft?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good, Recovery Girl should be over to help you heal over the next few days, but she did say that she's going to have to space out the sessions in order for your body to recover its natural energy reserves," the man explained as he peered at a chart on his clipboard. "I'm sorry that we weren't able to do anything for your arm."

"I'll live," Kurai grunted noncommittally.

"You cut that pretty close, too," the doctor said with a wondering shake of his head. "You'd suffered enough blood loss to kill you on its own, not to mention the blunt-force trauma to your head, among other injuries your classmates said were inflicted by villains while you were unconscious."

"As far as head injuries go, that's pretty light for me."

"Yes, I've seen Recovery Girl's notes on the side effects concerning your quirk," Akabane sighed as he lowered the charts. "The fact that kids like you are allowed- encouraged to- push yourselves so hard under these circumstances, in spite of the villains going after you… Makes me kinda glad that my daughter didn't make it in, if I'm being honest."

In spite of himself, Kurai found equal measures of his curiosity and irritation being aroused. "Your daughter wants to be a hero?" he mumbled thickly, deciding that it might be better not to throw shade at the man responsible for his well-being at the moment.

"Yeah, but she wound up going to the general studies course at UA," the man answered. "She's a first-year, like you." He hesitated before adding, "She really admires your class, seeing all that you guys have accomplished."

"Such as nearly getting pulped by a monster the first week of school and getting mutilated by a cannibal during summer break?" Kurai deadpanned. There goes good manners, I suppose.

"Well, while that's true, you've also survived both times, gone on to win the Sport's Festival, and stopped a major terrorist strike on I-island," the doctor countered, seemingly having missed the change in Kurai's tone. "Your parents raised a good kid, Hogo-sha. That being said, I don't think anyone would blame you if you decided to hang back from the hero course after this. Being a hero… Well, it can take more than just a physical toll, and not just on the heroes themselves." He almost seemed to be saying the last part to himself more than to his patient.

Kurai's eyes narrowed before he said, "I'll bear that in mind."

Finally sensing that he must have irritated the boy, Doctor Akabane made a gesture of apology before saying, "Sorry, that was insensitive. I mostly meant to say that even if you continue in the hero course, you're not going to be able to participate in a lot of the physical classes until you've got a replacement arm and been through the proper rehabilitation."

"Look sir," Kurai sighed as he aimed his gaze up at the ceiling. "Going into the hero course, I knew that something like this could happen. I accepted those risks, and even if I'm still just in school, I have to accept the consequences of my actions. If it was this or my classmates getting killed and eaten, I'd do this again, every time. So don't dump a pity party on me- I need help getting better so I can get back into it as soon as possible. Can you help me to do that?"

The doctor was quiet for a minute before he chuckled sheepishly and rubbed at his neck while he said, "I guess it's for a good reason that you're in the hero course, huh? You're right, it's my job to get you up on your feet. Sorry I let my own feelings about all this get in the way."

Kurai shrugged and replied, "You're a good dad if you're worried about your daughter's well-being, sir. But if it's all the same to you, you should work on your bedside manner."

"You're not dying!"

"Not anymore, you mean."

The visit with the doctor took less than fifteen minutes, but Kurai was impatient, so the time seemed to pass a lot more slowly than he was used to, much to his irritation. However, it felt rather ironic that when at last his family was allowed into the room, he nearly wished that he could send them away as soon as he saw his mother's face crumple in light of what had happened to him.

"Do I really look that bad?" he asked with a wry smile beneath his breathing mask as his father stepped in behind his mother, who was already fighting back the tears. "If I look as bad as the painkillers are keeping me from feeling, then I know I look pretty bad."

"I see your sense of humor has survived," his father said with a strained smile, though it was clear that even he- the hardened police officer that had seen all manners of evil that Japan had to offer- was rattled by the sight of his son's mutilated body.

His mother approached him slowly, reaching out to him, but also drawing back just shy of touching him. Seeing this, he reached out his left hand and said, "Mom, I'm on so many narcotics right now, I don't feel a thing. Touching me is not going to hurt."

"You're not on any drugs," his father informed him. "They told us that if they had given you any anesthesia, your heart would have given out. Fortunately, one of the orderlies that assisted in the operation has a quirk that blocks a person's ability to feel pain for a certain amount of time. She's been coming in every few hours to refresh the effect, but she says it'll wear off completely by tomorrow, even if she uses it again."

"So that's why I'm not on cloud nine despite the fact that I can't feel anything?" Kurai mused. "Please tell me I get drugs once this gimmick is up."

"Something that every police officer wants to hear from their son," his father said with a wan smile as he placed both hands on his wife's shoulders, who still had yet to speak. She could only switch her gaze between Kurai's face and his stump of an arm. "But yes, you'll be put on painkillers as long as the doctor says you're strong enough to handle them."

Trying to force himself to think about something else, Kurai cleared his throat and asked, "How's Akarui?"

His father hesitated before he answered, "He's doing well, all things considered. He'll be up here tomorrow to visit you. He's been trying to hide the fact that he hates the wheelchair- even I wouldn't have guessed, but it turns out that your mother pays a little more attention to him than I do."

Kurai couldn't help but smile at that, just a little bit. "You're only busy every day trying to keep the city safe, right? I think it's okay if you miss a few social cues from your son. I'll probably be the same if I ever have a family in the middle of my hero career."

"Hero career?" his mother repeated, finally having found her voice. "You're still… going to become a hero, even after this?"

Kurai looked her in the eyes, all humor vanishing from his face as he replied, "I'm going to become a hero because of this. If I have the power to make sure that something like this doesn't happen to someone like me, then I owe it to that person to become the best hero I can be. No one else should have to suffer like this, Mom."

To his surprise, she gripped his arm tightly and told him, "I was worried that this was going to stop your dream of becoming a hero like Shiro- I know how much you looked up to your uncle."

Kurai blinked at her a few times before he said in a blank tone, "I expected you to be trying really hard to talk me out of becoming a hero after this."

"Our family doesn't turn away from evil, son," his father said as he laid a hand on his shoulder, his mother nodding in agreement. "I wouldn't stop from something like this, so your mother and I can hardly expect you to cower now. That, and we're proud of you for choosing to continue facing the darkness, in spite of this."

"Yeah, well…" Kurai shrugged with another grin. "It's easy for me to say this stuff now. Let's see if my bravado holds up once I can feel pain again." His father laughed a little at that while his mother kissed his forehead tenderly, causing him to close his eyes and relax just a little bit.

"I wish that you wouldn't keep putting yourself in these situations, but after everything that your father has done, and all the things I'm sure that you will be able to accomplish, I know better than to ask you to stay safe," the woman sighed as she drew back, her eyes still misting.

Kurai's brow quirked upwards a little bit at that. "For the record, I didn't choose to get involved in this one. Moonfish attacked me and my friends while we were trying to get to the base camp without running into any villains."

"Did you say 'Moonfish'?" Hikari's father asked with alarm. "That villain is supposed to be-"

"On death row, yeah." Kurai shrugged before adding, "Pretty sure he's on his way back to the chamber, minus his teeth. He might've taken my arm, but I hit him hard enough that he shouldn't have been able to go anywhere for quite a while."

Before his father could make a reply, he was interrupted by his cell phone's ringing. Kurai recognized the tune as being from the station, so he kept quiet while his father retreated into the corner of the room, a frown on his face. "Yes?" he muttered as he put the device to his ear. "This had better be important. I said not to call unless- Oh? …I understand. I'll be there soon… Soon is when I arrive at the station, Detective, and I'll remind you only once that my son is a victim in all of this, too! So don't you dare implicate that I lack a sense of urgency for this case, unless you want to go back to being a beat cop!" With an angry motion, he hit the disconnect button and shoved the phone in his pocket.

Kurai was shocked- never, in his whole life, had he seen his father lose his temper when it came to police work. Certainly he got angry with his sons, and with home repair projects, but when it came to his job? It was unheard of for him to act unprofessionally.

"Dad," he said carefully as the man approached the bed again with a scowl on his face. "What's happened?"

"…You don't breathe a word of this to anybody outside of your class, understand?"

"Yes sir."

His father sighed and rubbed his forehead as he said in a low voice, "One of your classmates was taken by the League during the attack. I've had every officer in the area that I could spare looking for him."

Kurai felt his blood go cold, in spite of the fact that his body's pain receptors had been temporarily disabled. "Was it Bakugo?"

"Yes."

Kurai felt his stomach drop before anger seized him, and he glared at his ruined limb with something like disgust. "I lost my arm keeping him safe," he spat bitterly. "You're telling me that was for nothing?"

His parents exchanged a glance before his father replied, "Moonfish likely would have killed your classmate, along with you and the others, orders to capture him or no. Based on the statements gathered from your peers, I have no doubt that you saved his life."

This reminder helped Kurai's temper settle down a little bit, but the fact that he had more or less failed in the end still felt like salt in the wound. Looking up at his dad with a hard light in his eyes, the boy asked, "You have a lead on where he is, don't you?"

"We think so."

"Then do me a favor." Kurai clenched his remaining fist before growling out, "When you find him, don't let any of your men get hurt like me. Tell them all to be careful- and then beat the League of Villains' asses into the dirt."

"Language, son." His mother gave him a disapproving look, in spite of herself, while his father merely nodded once.

"They will all face justice," he promised. "We're bringing in Endeavor and All Might for this, along with several other top-ranked heroes."

"You know, for once I'm glad that you'll be working with that pyromaniac. He's not likely to let the League off with a warning."

"No… No, he's not."

He talked with his father and mother for a few more minutes before the commissioner had to answer the call of duty. His parents left together, but his mother mentioned that she would be back once his friends had a chance to visit him. He wished his father good luck, and then he was alone again.

He had avoided mentioning his meeting with his uncle, Shiro, mostly because he wasn't certain that he hadn't hallucinated the whole thing. It had all seemed too perfect, too much like something that someone desperate for a peaceful ending could have conjured in their death throes.

No, he thought after a few moments of silence. After what I just went through, happy dreams should be the last thing my mind could come up with. I don't care if my heart never stopped beating, I know what I saw- where I went…

He didn't realize that he had fallen asleep until he was awoken by the sound of someone crying next to his bed, on the side with his mutilated arm. He slowly opened his eyes to see Mina sitting on the bench, sobbing softly with her face buried in her hands as her shoulders shook.

"…Hey, sweetheart," he said groggily, prompting her to gasp and look up at him through a film of tears. He noticed that his mask had been removed while he was passed out, so he didn't have to struggle to make himself heard through the plastic and tubing.

"Kurai, you're… I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." Her eyes were deadlocked onto his while his heart sank at seeing her despair.

"Did they not tell you before?" he inquired softly as he reached for her, just managing to fasten a weak grip on her hand when she placed it on his stomach.

"No, they did, I just…" Mina mumbled hesitantly. "You were taken away in the helicopter before I could even get to you. I wanted to go with, but they wouldn't let me- again."

"Well, you're here now." Kurai said, trying to make himself smile for her, but finding that the will to do so had deserted him. Instead, he tried to find the words to lift her spirits, even a little. "That makes me feel a bit better." He noticed that her eyes were purposefully avoiding his arm, but beyond that, that they seemed to be attracted to something on his head. "Do I have one of those brain scanner things on me?"

"Wha-? No," she said with a slow shake of her head. "I just noticed your hair, is all. I guess it wasn't important enough for anyone to bring up earlier, but seeing it is still weird, I guess."

"My hair?" he repeated sluggishly. "What, did it get burned or something, too?"

"No, it-" Mina paused before she looked him back in the eyes and murmured, "They didn't tell you?"

"No…?"

"Oh," she said tiredly. Normally when she had a secret to tease someone with, she would play it up and build on the suspense as much as possible, especially when it came to taunting Kurai. Now, however, she simply told him, "A bunch of it turned silver on this side."

Kurai's eyes widened ever so slightly as he tried to reach up to touch his lengthened strands, but of course, such an action was no longer possible for him. His eyes glassed over again and he sank further into his pillows as he murmured, "Must've been a result of the shock." He had heard about this happening from his father a few times before- how people's bodies would sometimes manifest signs of their near-death experiences outside of the immediate physical consequences of the events. Some people developed the shakes, some would undergo drastic personality changes, and some would manifest a shock of white hair seemingly overnight. There were other symptoms, but they escaped Kurai's exhausted mind at the moment.

Mina just stared at him with a quivering lip as tears continued to spill from her eyes while she trembled in her seat. Eventually, she said, "This is usually about the time where you make a joke about this."

"…I got nothing," Kurai admitted, his voice cracking as tears stung his eyes. "I… Even I can't laugh about this, Mina, not anymore. I don't know what to do…" Weakly, he shut his eyes tight, as if trying to blot out the world around him, and Mina felt her heart break all over again.

She moved quickly to snake her arms underneath his back and pulled him close, careful not to touch the bandaged area. Truth be told, she really wanted to kiss him, but she also knew him well enough to be aware of the fact that he would more than likely feel suffocated by such a gesture at the moment. The last thing that she wanted was to cause him any more discomfort right now.

Kurai leaned into the embrace as best as he could before he finally felt the stinging in his eyes transform into salty rain that fell into Mina's shirt. He didn't know why exactly he had been putting up a front with his parents and the hospital staff, or why his resolve was crumbling at that moment, but he couldn't help it. Maybe it was because he had wanted his parents to worry less about him- after all, they still had Akarui's situation to deal with. Maybe it was due to the fact that in every brush with danger that he'd had so far, he had never wavered in his decision to become a hero, and he didn't want them to think that he was losing his grip.

He just couldn't tell anymore. All he could say was that being in Mina's arms, and letting his grief and fear out in the safety of her embrace, was the only thing keeping him from completely falling apart.

Kurai had lost his arm. An integral part of his very existence had been violently ripped away from him, and it might have all been for nothing. The shock of the wound and his closest brush with death yet would have been bad enough without the knowledge that it could have been a useless endeavor. If Bakugo was killed by the League- or worse, recruited by them- then his sacrifice would be meaningless. Together those facts were aiming to crush his spirit into dust, and in that moment, Kurai was unsure whether or not he could keep up the fight like he had vowed to do.

After all, if his encounters with evil had shown him anything, it was that he was just a child playing at the role of a proper hero. He had stood up to Nomu, and nearly gotten himself killed without even managing to defeat the monster. He had fought alongside Gang Orca and almost cost the pro hero his life because of his own vendetta. Even in fighting his way up the tower at I-island, his brother had paid the price for his success. Now he was hanging onto his own life after fighting a villain that belonged on death row with the aim of protecting his peers, and the other boy had been taken anyway.

Every time the goal is within my grasp, it slips away, he thought despairingly as the tears began to soak into his girlfriend's shirt. Am I not cut out to be a hero after all? His shoulders began to shake as his fingers awkwardly clutched at her back, and the soft sobs forced their way out of his throat.

"I'm sorry…" he whispered, his voice muffled by her shirt. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't do that," Mina replied in a lowered voice, though he could feel her tears dripping into his hair. "You can't apologize for something that isn't your fault. The League did this, not you."

"Mina, I…" Kurai paused in mid-sob before saying, "I don't know that I can do this anymore. Even after… Akarui sacrificed his own quality of life to help me, to make me better, and even now… I've failed at every turn. A real hero doesn't-"

"A real hero?" Mina cut him off as she held him tighter, saying, "They don't give up when life keeps knocking 'em down. They pick themselves up and stand their ground. And I know that my hero has it in him to come back from this. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday, I know that the hero Kai is going to triumph over every villain that comes up against him." She pulled back so that she could look at him through her own teary eyes and add, "You're gonna be the best hero that the world has ever seen, Kurai. You've been getting knocked down, yeah, but you've also been standing up to the forces of evil, keeping the rest of us safe since we started at UA, and you're not stopping now."

Her words touched him, but the weight of his defeat and anguish still sought to smother him like an avalanche. "I want to believe in what you're saying," he admitted as he dropped his gaze, too ashamed to meet her eyes. "But… how do I come back from something like this? I'm a cripple again- a liability to others. What if this is a sign that I'm not meant for this?" In spite of his defeatist's words, his tears were slowing down considerably.

Mina reached under his chin and brought his gaze back up to meet hers' so that he could see her determined expression. "When you were being held back by the aneurisms, it didn't stop you from trying to become a hero. It didn't stop you from reaching out to Midoriya and helping him control his quirk. It definitely didn't stop you from winning the Sport's Festival, and there's more than a few villains that you took down during the raid with Gang Orca that can testify to your abilities. Your mind didn't stop you back then, so your arm shouldn't now."

She held eye contact with him for a few seconds to make sure that he had gotten the message before she took her hand off of his jaw. As soon as he was able to speak, he asked in a low tone, "Will you help me get to where I need to go? Cos I sure as hell don't know what to do now." The only thing that he was certain of in that moment was that if he was going to move forward in a positive way, he couldn't do it alone.

"Whatever you need," Mina promised him. "I'll protect you until you're ready for whatever the world can throw at you."

"You sure about that?" he asked her as his eyes dropped again. "The world seems bent on throwing just about everything at me."

"Look at me." Once the wounded boy had met Mina's searching gaze again, she told him, "I love you, Kurai. That means that I'm gonna tackle your problems with you, however crazy it may sound."

Shiro's words about his wife came back to Kurai, so he managed to crack the tiniest smile as he said, "You're not crazy… And thank you."

"You're welcome." Despite her tears, Mina smiled as she sat on the bed next to him, putting her hand underneath his as she did so, not wanting to mess with the IV that was on top.

"Can I ask a favor?"

"Yeah-huh."

"Stay the night with me?" he asked in a small voice. "I don't think I'm gonna be able to get any solid rest, otherwise."

Mina's face sobered a little as she reached up to brush some of his hair out of his face and murmured, "Of course. I won't leave you alone for a second, I promise."

"Even if my mom flips out?" Kurai teased weakly as he blinked away some of the residual tears in his eyes.

"Well- I mean…"

After a few more moments of quiet with just the two of them, Mina sent a text from her phone, which saw Iida and Todoroki coming into the room a short while after that. Iida, Kurai was surprised to see, had tears in his eyes as he beheld the sight of his friend's ruined limb, and Todoroki was so taciturn that he reminded the others of how he had been when they had first met each other.

"Kurai, I'm so sorry that his happened to you," Iida said in a broken voice. "I failed you, as a class rep, and as your friend."

"Nothing to be done about it," Kurai shrugged as he forced a weak grin onto his face. "I suppose that this is what I get for giving you so much grief about Stain."

"You didn't go out of your way to find trouble," Iida argued vehemently. "You and the others were attacked, like at the USJ, and you had permission to fight. You did nothing to deserve this, and yet…" The bespectacled student stopped, his words failing him as he cast his gaze to his feet in shame and sorrow. "It should be me on that bed, not you."

"I'd rather it be me than you," Kurai replied firmly, though Mina caught his eye for a second when he looked away from their de facto leader. Drawing in a breath to steady himself, he went on to say, "When I become a hero, this will be something that I always look back on as a reason to keep fighting. It'll be hard, and I already hate that it's happened, but as I've been reminded, this isn't the first time that my body has tried to hold me back. I beat it before, and I'll do it again. I won't let this happen to someone else, not if I can do something to prevent it." Mina said nothing, but she squeezed his hand lightly in a silent gesture of approval.

As Iida straightened up, Kurai told him, "You're the class rep, but not everything that happens to us is on you." Turning to Todoroki, who had yet to say a word, he added, "My condition isn't your fault, either. In all reality, you probably saved my life."

"I overheard the doctor talking to your parents," the other boy replied in a dull tone. "He said that you were nearly dead for a few seconds. If I hadn't burned you-"

"If you hadn't cauterized my arm, I'd probably be fighting infections in addition to a worse case of blood loss," Kurai corrected him, having noticed that his friend was reaching up to touch his own burn scar. "Your fire saved me, Todoroki. You did good."

"…It still felt wrong, using my flames to cause my friend pain," his friend replied, looking sad. "I keep trying to look at it like you've described, but I just haven't been able to."

"Dude, my boyfriend needs a pick-me-up, not a buzzkill," Mina said as she crossed her arms with a frown. "He's trying to thank you for what you did, but you're too focused on feeling bad that you can't even acknowledge that."

Todoroki blinked a couple of times before he bowed to Kurai in accompaniment with the words, "She's right. I'm sorry, Hikari." As he stood back up, he asked, "Is there anything that I can do for you?"

"Just keep me updated on what's going on with our classmates that ended up in the hospital," Kurai grinned slightly, glad to see that his friend was at least being made not dwell on what had happened in the forest. Next trick is to get me to stop thinking about it.

"I can help with that," Iida said as he took off his glasses to wipe at his eyes. "Jiro and Hagakure are actually in a couple of rooms down the hall due to severe poisoning."

"Apparently there was a villain that was producing an airborne toxin that mixed with the smoke from the fire," Todoroki added. "Tetsutetsu and Kendo from class B took him down, but he had already succeeded in poisoning several of our peers by that time."

"Yaoyorozu was injured by another one of those Nomu creatures, but Recovery Girl was able to heal most of the head trauma that was inflicted," Iida informed him. "Miss Xiao Long was admitted with several broken ribs and serious internal bleeding, but she'll be okay in a few days, provided she does what the doctors tell her. Midoriya also suffered broken arms, but the only permanent damage he sustained were the scars on his hand being made a little worse."

Todoroki cut back in to say, "Everyone else was visiting Yaoyorozu when we got the news from Ashido that you were cleared to have visitors. They're all waiting in turns to come see you, provided that you're up to it."

Kurai hesitated, not wanting to be rude, but he also knew that he'd have to switch to conventional painkillers soon, which would leave him in poor shape to receive visitors, not to mention how tired he felt. "What time is it?" he asked after a moment of quiet thought.

"It's late morning," Todoroki answered. In the ICU room, which was mostly cut off from the outside, it was difficult to tell if it was morning or evening, as the clock on the wall did not indicate a.m. or p.m. "You've been sleeping for a full day and two nights."

Seeing Kurai's reluctance to accommodate their classmates, despite it being early in the visiting hours, Mina cut in now, saying, "Maybe everyone else can come later. I know I'd want a nap after everything that's happened to him."

"Sorry, guys," Kurai apologized when Iida looked a question at him. "I know I've been sleeping for a while, but she's right. I feel like crap."

"No small wonder, given your injury, surgery, and blood transfusions," the taller boy mused. "Just be sure to thank Uraraka as soon as you're able."

"Huh?" Kurai looked at his friend with no small amount of confusion at the sudden change in subject. "What's Uraraka done?"

"She's been providing some of the blood for you since your physiology is compatible," Todoroki answered, surprising Kurai. "It was lucky, really. You have one of the rarest blood types, and the hospital was running low on the supply. She volunteered to help out as soon as she found out that she was a match for you."

"Oh," Kurai said, surprised and touched that the girl would do that for him.

Back in the day before quirks existed, Kurai could have been a recipient for O-type blood, but due to the way that the human body had changed with superpowers, it was now better for people to not cross-donate, instead sticking to their own blood types.

"I woulda been first to help, but I'm AB," Mina said with a rueful grin. "Sorry."

"Seriously, people, stop apologizing for stuff you can't control," Kurai chuckled softly. "I'm just grateful that you're each here, so let's leave it at that."

"Very well," Iida said swiftly. "We're glad that you're alive, Kurai, and we look forward to helping you recover however we can. We'll all move forward from this, together."

"Agreed," Kurai nodded. He then raised the stump of his arm and said with a completely straight face, "Shake on it?"

Deku: Oh, thank goodness!

Mataras: What's that?

Deku: I'm just relieved, is all.

Mataras: Why? Kurai's still in pretty bad shape- you know that right?

Red Riot: Yeah, but at least he's gonna pull through, right? I mean, he's already making jokes again, so I'm sure he's on his way to recovering.

Mataras: Oh, no doubt, no doubt.

Deku: Plus, he technically died, so that means that we're past the prologue, and the story gets to continue with him in it!

Mataras: ...

Red Riot: Dude, why aren't you saying anything?

Mataras: Did you see him leaving a note that had anything to do with him detailing his adventures with you guys?

Red Riot: No, when would he have had time to do that?

Mataras: Exactly.

Deku: Wait, so... He hasn't-?

Mataras: How many times do I have to say it? The prologue will be passed when his actual death comes to pass. Not a near-death experience, not a quick visit to the afterlife, an actual death and funeral is coming. He won't be getting up from it like he did in this chapter. When? Not telling, but it is coming.

Kirishima: Come on, man! Why are you so bent on torturing Hikari, and your readers?!

Mataras: Hey, cut me some slack! You all knew what you were in for from the moment that you read the prologue! I did not promise a happy ending here!

Deku: But, we can still hope for one, right...?

Mataras: The fact that you have any hope at all is one of your most admirable qualities, Deku.

Deku: Uh... thanks?

Mataras: Side bar, the next chapter will not be out for three weeks as opposed to the usual two. My family and I are going on vacation, something that I need very much, and I will not be posting any new content while I am on the road. I will make up for the week's gap at some point, probably closer to a holiday later in the year, but I will keep you guys posted on that.

Red Riot: Is that when Hikari is gonna come back for this segment? Feels kinda weird that I'm still here while he's out.

Mataras: We'll see how he's feeling in a few weeks. Until then, I hope every one has a great Independence Day! If you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go set off some pyrotechnics!

Deku: Why can't you just say 'fireworks?'

Red Riot: Next time- Night Terrors

Deku: Go Beyond!

Mataras: Plus Ultra!

Next time on Your Hero Academia: Survival...

After Recovery Girl's visit was complete, most of Kurai's bleeding stopped, and he only required relatively light bandages. The session clearly left him feeling tired, but he refused to go back to sleep in spite of the older woman's advice to do so, not wanting to risk another nightmare so soon after the most recent one.

In order to distract him from his pain and exhaustion, Mina invited Blake into the room so that she could talk to him about whatever was on her mind. The raven-haired girl came in with hardly a sound to announce her presence- even the door seemed to move more silently than normal.

"Hey there," Kurai grunted as Mina helped him into a sitting position. "Mina said that you wanted to talk?"

"I'm actually here to say goodbye," Blake answered quietly, stunning the couple. "Once Yang is out of the hospital, I'm going to get on the next flight back to the States so I can transfer into the general studies program at my school."