A/N: Back to keeping a regular schedule! We'll do our best to have an extra chapter out as a make-up for the hiatus sometime in the next few weeks.

Trigger warnings for psychological disturbance and domestic abuse themes in this chapter. If either of these topics render this instalment unpalatable, please message me in private, and I will be more than happy to send you a summary of events herein.

The Dead Walk

Class 1-A had dealt with a lot during the course of their first year in training to become heroes, but now even their teachers had to question whether they were about to be pushed past an acceptable limit. In the last hour, they had learned of a power that transcended time and the tragic story of its bearer who now stood among them. They now knew that All For One would threaten their world again in a different form, and that it was already on the move. Todoroki had learned that his eldest sibling lived as a remorseless killing machine, forged in the fires of hatred of their father. Weiss now knew where her family's true loyalties would lie if the tides of profit were to change. Perhaps worst of all, All Might and Deku knew the true extent of what their failures could have brought upon the world.

Then again, the sight of their newly-resurrected classmate, one of the now-two holders of One For All, laughing like a maniac on the floor in front of all of them after what they had just heard, might just take the cake for them. After a few seconds of this, however, one person decided that they'd had enough of his inexplicable behavior.

"Kurai, cut it out!" Mina shouted as she grabbed him up by the shirt and forced him into a sitting position. "What the hell is that supposed to mean, there was no point to her bringing you back?! Did you not just hear what happens in a world without you? It literally goes to hell, forget everything we went through after you died, already!" He just stared at her for a second before his giggling fit resumed, tears streaming out of his eyes as he continued to cackle without pause.

"I guess he finally went and lost his mind," Kaminari said sadly as the others could do nothing but watch as their friend inched closer to insanity, an intruder that had been waiting by the door to his mind for quite some time, even if it had not always been as obnoxious an observer at all times.

"If anyone has a right to it…" Jiro said in an equally somber tone. Even so, it hurt all of them to see the formerly strong-willed boy reduced to such a sorry state.

Everyone's impending sorrow was immediately scared out of them when something rather unexpected happened. Mina, her face purple with anger, drew her hand back as far as she could, and then smacked Kurai across his face loud enough to produce a crack that made even Aizawa flinch.

Kurai's laughter stopped as he kept his face turned away from them for a long, long moment. He slowly brought his gaze around, maintaining that silence as he did, and further giving his friends an uneasy feeling when they saw the Cheshire-like smile on his face. "Thank you for that," he said as a bit of blood trickled out of the corner of his already-swelling lip while Mina kept a wide-eyed, furious gaze fixed on him. "May I have another?"

"What is the matter with you?!"

"Lots of things, haven't you noticed?" he chuckled. He didn't even flinch when Mina drew her hand back again, but her next strike was blocked by Iida grabbing her forearm while he gave both of them a flinty stare of his own.

"We deserve an answer, Kurai," he said firmly, though his tone was amazingly non-confrontational. "And I think we've all been hurt more than enough these last few days, Ashido. I don't want to see any of you come to harm, especially by our own hands."

"Trust me, nothing is going to hurt me more than the fact that I'm stuck here beyond my predestined lifespan, again," Kurai smirked, though now they could see that there was no light in his eyes at all, as if he still possessed the gaze of corpse. "Actually, no, that's not quite true. The fact that I don't even need to be here makes it worse." He raised an eyebrow at his two close friends before he added, "Mina said that the world went to hell because I wasn't able to stop it, but that's only halfway true. The fact of the matter is that the heroes need One For All to defeat All For One, not me specifically."

"But you are the one who holds the power, now," All Might grunted as he got to his feet wearily. "It is your destiny and responsibility to-"

"All Might? Shut up." Kurai spoke with an angrier cast to his voice this time. He heaved himself to his feet before he stormed over to the thin teacher, and put himself nearly face-to-face with the man before anyone could stop him. "You're not the wielder of this power anymore. Your say in what happens to it is minimal at best, because I don't idolize you the way that Izuku does. But I suppose I'm no better, seeing as by all rights, the power shouldn't reside in me, either. It belongs to her, now." At his last words, he pointed at Eri without even looking her way, startling everyone in the room. With another scoffing sound, Kurai went on to say, "She's the eleventh holder, and has her natural quirk to augment it, which means that she'll be more powerful than I could ever become. You don't need my help- you need her. She resolved to fight until the battle is done long ago, like everyone who went before her."

"Are you saying that you're not among that number?" Eri asked him softly, having seemed to be the least disturbed by the events unfolding in front of her.

"I was," Kurai nodded as he turned to face her directly. "But my fight- a fight that I had no right to partake in from the beginning- is supposed to be done."

"Whether or not you were born with a quirk has nothing to do with it being your fight," Izuku said as he stepped over to side with Eri. "Neither All Might nor I were born with powers, and we chose to fight, anyway, same as you."

"No, not the same as me," Kurai said harshly, making his best friend flinch from the force of his words. "I was lied to, told that I had been born with a power that could shape any destiny that I wanted for myself. Turns out that power was stolen and sacrificed to me on an altar made of a family's bones. You both were lucky to receive your powers from those willing to give it gladly, not so with me." He paused slightly before he went on to say, "I tried my hardest to make the best use of that power, and each of you can attest to that. And in the end, all it got me was a painful end where I left everyone I loved behind, and all of you with nothing but hollowed memories that would be forever tainted by my demise."

"But you have a chance to change all of that now," Aizawa told him. "You've been given a second chance to live alongside your friends to make a difference against the forces of evil that exist in this world."

"Third chance, actually," Kurai growled. "I've died twice, now, which means that I get to look forward to experiencing what is a supposed to be a singular pleasure for the third time."

"Is life truly so unworthy of experiencing that you've been reduced to this defeatist's mentality?" Iida asked of him as he helped Mina get to her feet, who hadn't moved in some time.

"This?" Kurai snorted as he gestured to the general area around him. "This is not life. What we're living in is a pale and grotesque imitation of life. If I had my way, I'd just as soon as put myself out of my misery again and get it over with, but I can't, for two reasons, the first being that unless the taking of my own life would save another's, I wouldn't get to go back to being with my ancestors. I'd just get reincarnated and have to try again in my next life."

"Never thought I'd see the day where you'd be such a selfish bastard," Bakugo growled from the corner that he had taken up, having seen the crumpling, defeated looks on the faces of many of the others at those curt words.

Kurai gave him a flat stare before saying, "The second reason I won't go through with something like that is because I know what it would do to all of you, and to Akarui. I wish you all could hate me, truly I do. But because I know all of you after everything that we've been through together, I know that won't happen. Even if I were to become a cold-blooded villain who committed atrocities like All For One himself, I know that none of you would have it in you to hate me for it. And because of that, as much as I wish that Eri had never made it to my coffin, I will endure this 'life' of mine for a third time." He gave them all another flat look as he added, "But from now on, count me out of this fight. Kurai Hikari may be alive again, but Kai stays in the grave."

"You can't just-!"

"I'll find a suitable host to wield One For All, don't you worry," he said as he turned his back on his classmates and teachers. "I'll make sure that they have a golden heart like Deku's, too. I owe him that much, at least."

He started to walk toward the door when he felt a strong hand grip his shoulder and keep him in place. "You know we won't just let you walk away from this, right?" Izuku said in a surprisingly strong voice. "We know that you're hurting, even if we can't understand how much, and that's why you're saying these things. But after everything we've been through, you know as well as any of us that we're not giving up on you, not by a long shot."

"Izuku?" Kurai said without turning around, interrupting his friend before he could go on. "I'm going for a walk, now. Take your hand off of me."

"We're not done wi-Whoaaaa!" His words were drawn out into a sharp yelp as Kurai's left hand sparked with black electricity and grabbed Izuku's arm before a blur of motion and a blast of wind tore through the common space and hurled him through one of the front windows, broken glass flying out into the snow with the now-injured boy. Uraraka let out a startled cry and leaped after him, followed closely by Sero and Ruby.

Kurai's face was almost unrecognizable with dark hatred and contempt for the world at large as he made for the door at an unhurried pace, as if nothing had just happened. He did, however, warn the others over his shoulder, "If I feel a scarf coming for me, I'm gonna break your damn legs as soon as my quirk comes back, Mister Aizawa. Leave me alone." The black-garbed teacher, whose eyes were glowing crimson, slowly lowered his hand from where it rested on his binding equipment as Kurai exited the building.

"We need to get Recovery Girl over here to have a look at Midoriya," he said tonelessly to All Might. "This just got a whole lot more complicated."

"We can't just let him go like that, can we?" Kirishima asked of no one in particular. "Shouldn't we try to stop him, or something?"

"How do we stop that?" Kaminari asked as he pointed at the broken window. "He just wasted Midoriya with one hit, and they're supposed to be tight! Imagine what he'd do to us if we pissed him off right now!"

"I doubt that he'll leave the campus," their teacher answered. "He's upset, but he's not stupid. He knows how dangerous it could be for him out there on his own."

"I'm so sorry," Eri sniffled as her body trembled and tears fell from her eyes. "I didn't mean for this to happen… I just wanted to help… I wanted to save everyone, starting with him! But… He's right, I should never have…" To the class' continued collective surprise, Mina moved toward the other girl instead of pursuing Kurai and wrapped her up in a firm hug, which allowed them to cry into each other's shoulders.

"What's done is done," Aizawa told the future girl calmly. "You acted rashly, and now there will be consequences for it. Learn from your mistake and move on from it. Pitying ourselves is not a luxury that we can afford right now, especially given everything that we've just learned."

"Sir, it sounds like you think she shouldn't have resurrected him," Iida said as he looked out the window with a haunted gaze in his eyes. "You can't possibly feel that way, though, right?"

"I don't think that there was a right or wrong answer to the situation that Eri was put in," their teacher shrugged. "All I know is that things have been put into motion that cannot be undone, and now we will have to react as best we can."

"We will need to keep a close eye on Hikari, given his current volatile mental state," Nezu said, looking more worried than any of them. "I hope that he chooses to pass on his powers sooner rather than later, but it is clear to me that he can no longer remain in the hero course, nor does it seem that he wishes to. I have some thoughts as to how we should fill his slot in your class, Aizawa, but I believe that such matters would be best discussed behind closed doors."

"Agreed."

"Hold on, you're giving up on him, just like that?!" Ojiro demanded. "You're not even gonna try to talk him out of this?!"

"You saw what he did to Midoriya," Aizawa shrugged. "Trying to argue with him would likely lead to similar results, no matter which of us made the attempt. It would be illogical to put any of you in harm's way like that, especially given that we don't have the means to stop him as he is. I sincerely doubt that Eri or Midoriya could find it in themselves to hurt Hikari, even after what just went down."

No one spoke out against this, not even Bakugo, because they each knew it to be true. Kurai had suffered cruelties beyond imagining time after time, so the idea of adding to his troubles yet again was something that none of them could stomach, even in spite of the way that he was acting. They just couldn't believe that the boy whose spirit seemed unbreakable had not only cracked, but crumbled to dust, leaving behind the shell of a bitter animal that was hardly recognizable to them.

They can't be right, though, can they? Kirishima thought as some of the others moved to clean up the destroyed common area with looks of shell shock plastered on their faces. This is bad, but… Kai can't just be done, can he?

"There's only one person who might be able to get through to him right now," Iida suddenly said, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.

"I hardly think that Ashido is any state to-"

"No, not her," Iida said to interrupt Aizawa, which was uncharacteristic enough of him to startle everyone in the room again. "I wish that she could, as much for her sake as his, but the unfortunate truth is that she is not the one who can reach out to what is left of the man we all knew." He looked at Eri for a quick moment before he added, "If she has the power to rewind people, then there's something that we must try."

Kurai disappeared at around eleven in the morning, and it wasn't until nearly midnight that he was found, sitting beneath a cluster of snowcapped trees in the cold without any heavy weather gear, snow having piled onto his clothes and exposed skin. They nearly thought that enough snow had actually piled onto his head to form a small dome of frozen moisture before they both remembered that his hair was actually white now. His coal-black eyes were still dead when Aizawa and All Might approached him, both of them eyeing him like a cornered animal who is about to run wild. He said nothing in the way of greeting, and he refused to answer when they asked if it was alright for them to come closer. They might have thought that he had simply died again if it weren't for the the small puffs of steam coming from his nostrils that told them that he was breathing- he wasn't even shivering, a clear sign of hypothermia, which could quickly turn dangerous.

"Are you planning to freeze to death out here?" Aizawa asked him after a handful of awkward silences. "I thought that was against the wishes of your ancestors."

When Kurai yet again refused to respond to verbal provocations, there was a sound of rapid footsteps in the snow, followed by All Might reaching out and saying, "Young Hikari, wait a-"

"No, we're doing this my way," said a familiar voice that got Kurai's eyes to flicker over his shoulder right before a tightened fist smashed into his face, knocking him down to the snow with a slight grunt, blood flying from his lips before he lay on the ground, still unmoving.

"Ow," he muttered.

"Trust me, that's a lot less than what you deserve, jackass," Akarui snarled as he massaged his bruised knuckles. "You should see Mina and the others right now. If you were trying to get nearly thirty people to question whether life is even worth living, forget trying to be a hero, great job, man. People were actually somehow better off when you were dead."

"That's the point I've been trying to make," Kurai slurred, his already-bruised cheek darkening to purple as he continued to lie on the ground without a change in his expression. "I'll assume you know everything by this point, then."

"I managed to work out most of it in between everyone crying," his brother muttered angrily. "I don't care what kind of suffering you've endured, I can guarantee that what you're doing to your friends is worse than any bodily injury you've ever received, even the lethal ones." He paused for a second before his eyes darkened further and he added, "But then, that's the whole point, isn't it?"

"Even without the sunlight, you're smarter than most," Kurai said with a twisted smile through his bruised cheek. "By the way, did Eri rewind you to not have a quirk anymore so you don't have a repeat of I-island, or is that too much to hope for?"

"You really think that you can make them hate you?" Akarui snorted, ignoring his brother's second question. "You're gonna torture people who can only love you in aid of reaching an impossible goal? You're worse than the likes of All For One. At least he had the common courtesy to be born a sociopath; you're manipulating the feelings of people who you literally once laid your life down for. Seriously, you'll make a great villain one of these days."

"If you're trying to piss me off, you're gonna have to try a lot harder than that," Kurai laughed softly.

"I could say the same to you about making your friends hate you," Akarui countered. "You've hurt them pretty badly, that's for sure, but none of them hate you."

"Guess I'm not trying hard enough."

"You really think that making them hate you will, what, set them free of their ties to you?" Akarui snorted. "Grow up, big brother. You can't take back the time that you've already spent together, the memories that you made with each other. Those will always remain, buried underneath the pain that you intend to cause, and whenever they feel tempted to react against you, those feelings will always resurface to keep acts of revenge at bay."

"Everyone has a limit to what they can take, exhibit 'A'," his brother snorted as he pointed at his head, the first movement he had made since Akarui had punched him. "They'll get there, eventually."

Akarui let out an animalistic growl before it turned into a shout of frustration that preceded him grabbing his brother up by his shirt and slamming his head against the tree trunk he had been sitting under as he shouted, "Listen to yourself! You said that you're doing this to set them free of their ties to you, but the reality is that all you're doing is drawing on their pity to further your self-sorrow!"

"Say what now?" Kurai asked with slightly dazed eyes. "I don't think I can hear you through the dent you just put in my head."

Akarui let out another growl before he yanked on Kurai's shirt and slammed him into the tree trunk a second time. "There, maybe that'll fix it," he snapped. Over his shoulder, he added, "I'd stay back, sirs. He won't hesitate to pummel either of you."

Aizawa tugged on his scarf as he said, "We need to be ready for anything, including the possibility that you'll push him too far, or vice versa."

"We can handle each other, sir," Akarui shot back. "It's what brothers are made for." Turning back to Kurai, he snapped. "Lemme reiterate so your dumb ass can understand my previous accusation… Quit being a drama queen!"

"Tell me what about this isn't dramatic?" Kurai chuckled bitterly.

"Stop deflecting," Akarui shot back, actively fighting the urge to ram his brother's head into the tree again. He knew that another blow like that would probably knock him unconscious, and he didn't feel like waiting for him to wake up so that he could finish this lecture. "Neither of us have ever needed the pity of others before, and you certainly don't need it now. Your attitude about this whole thing is so damn middle-school level, it hurts. You knew when you decided to be a hero that you wouldn't have an easy life, or death, for that matter. You don't get to suddenly tap out like a bitch because things took a bad turn." Before Kurai could get a word in, Akarui went on to say, "No one is saying that what happened to you is okay, but I'll now take the time to remind you that I've had to suffer even more loss than you, and you don't see me throwing a fit about it. You really think that our ancestors are gonna want to let you back into the fold if this is how you're gonna spend your days back on Earth?"

Kurai said nothing, but his eyes dropped away from his brother's accusing glare, leading Akarui to nod in satisfaction. "If you wanna quit being a hero, that's your prerogative," he told his sibling. "I say it's a shame, but that's hardly my business what happens with One For All. Give the quirk to someone who will make good use of it, if you please. What is my business is how you've acted today, when all Eri and the others wanted to do is help you. You haven't even thought about how Todoroki has been taking the news about Dabi, have you? Or how about Schnee finding out that her father is everything she always feared him to be?"

Kurai remained quiet at that, but the other boy could feel his shoulders stoop with defeat as he asked, "What's your point, now?"

"Get your head out of your ass, Kurai," Akarui snapped as he finally let go of his brother's shirt. "There are bigger problems to deal with than your ungrateful hide getting resurrected because a little girl wanted to see her hero again. So let's get you on your feet, march you over to the dorms, treat you for hypothermia, and make sure that you give everyone two apologies apiece."

"…Why two?"

"One for dying in the first place, and another for coming back," Akarui grunted as he forced his brother to his feet and started to help him stumble back toward the dorms through the trees. He stopped when he saw Aizawa and All Might standing in front of him, both looking cautious. "He won't cause trouble anymore, sir. He knows he's in the wrong, and now he's going to do what he can to make amends, aren't you, Brother?" He gave Kurai a side glare as he said this.

The elder boy's eyes remained on the ground, but he did speak just loud enough to be heard over the wind and falling snow, "I'm sorry, All Might, Mister Aizawa. Neither of you deserved what I've done today."

"I can't say that I understand the reasons behind your actions, but I won't fault you for them," All Might said, sounding relieved. "I can, however, relate to suffering in silence for the greater good, so whatever comes next, know that you will have your teacher's support."

"Break anything in the common space again, and I'll break your legs," Aizawa said dryly as he lowered his hand from his scarf. "Agree to finish the first year in the hero course, and I won't convince your new teacher in general studies to give you remedial lessons every day until you graduate."

"Why do you want me to stay?" Kurai asked him wearily, his eyes barely staying open as he finally began to succumb to the cold. "Doesn't seem logical."

"There's a lot more paperwork involved in exchanging students if it doesn't happen during a semester break," his teacher muttered. "We also can't have you leaving UA even after you transfer courses, for your own safety as much as the fact that I'm your legal guardian."

"Yay, logic," Kurai groused.

"Shut up, you're still in trouble with me," Akarui scolded him as he began to force his brother to march while supporting his weight from the side.

It took them a while to make it out of the trees, and by the time that they had made it back to the dorms, Kurai had passed out due to the effects of hypothermia and the beating he had received from Akarui. Everyone was up and waiting for them to come back, including Eri, who had been told not to leave the building under any circumstances while the search was on. The window had already been repaired, so the room was warm when Akarui managed to make it through the door and dump his brother's stiff form on the closest couch with a grunt.

"Holy crap, he was out there like that the whole time?" Sero asked as they all took note of his frozen body. Only in the lights of the room could they now see that he had been suffering from frostbite, as evidenced by the spots of wax-like consistency on his skin, and the red, swollen patches all over his arm and face. He still wasn't shivering, however, which meant that his body was not attempting to warm itself, even though he should have been responding to external heat by being in a warmer environment.

"He's got second-degree frostbite," Akarui said as he stepped back. "He'll need an IV drip to stay hydrated while we warm him up. Yaoyorozu, can you provide those instruments?"

"I can, but I'm not authorized to perform medical services under these circumstances," she said with a negative shake of her head.

"I'm authorizing it," the younger boy said shortly. "I'm a licensed medical professional, so do what I say, and it'll be fine."

"You're licensed?" Iida asked, in spite of the circumstances playing out in front of them. "Since when? And how?"

"Since you guys started at Nabu Island," Akarui muttered as he examined his brother's damaged skin. "I got bored with doing regular advanced academics after I got paralyzed and decided to try for an emergency responder's consulting license- seemed like the best way to get into the medical field with the time I had left. I played the 'dying kid' pity card big time, so the schooling board decided to let me use my quirk to advance my education freely. After that, I started working on my master's in biology while majoring in engineering. I should be done with both by the end of the school year." After a half-second pause, he added, "What, did you think I was just sitting around while you guys were busy?"

"So you're licensed to address situations like this one?" All Might asked, sounding impressed.

"I'm not only licensed, I'm obligated to do so," the younger boy said as Yaoyorozu began to produce the requested items.

"I can just rewind him," Eri started to offer, but Akarui held up a hand to forestall her.

"I'm obligated to make sure that he recovers, not that he's comfortable," the younger Hikari said in a hard tone. "The prick wants to be miserable, he can very well suffer a little physical discomfort after what he's pulled today. And Midoriya, if you say a word in his defense, I'm gonna throw you through a window." Izuku, who had been about to speak, promptly shut his mouth while Akarui took the needle and IV tube that Yaoyorozu had conjured for him.

He deftly inserted the metal into his brother's flesh and installed the plastic tubing before he asked Todoroki to dispose of them outside with his fire for sanitation purposes. Once that was done, he turned to Ochaco and asked, "Mind helping me get him to his room? He'll recover more effectively in a familiar environment."

"Of course," she said as she moved to levitate her friend.

"Feel free to bump his head into a wall on the way."

"Seems like you did more than bump his head already," Blake said quietly as she pointed at the spot where Kurai's head had been resting after he started to float upward. Everyone's eyes widened in surprise when they saw the blood that had stained the fabric of the furniture, including Akarui.

"Oops," he cringed. "I guess I hit him harder than I thought I did."

"What'd you do to him?" Kirishima asked with a deep frown.

"I beat some sense into his thick head," Akarui answered quickly. "Given that he's back here without throwing another tantrum, I'd say this is a small price to pay. He really had it coming, and if it's anyone's place to give him a well-deserved beating, it's me. By the way, do yourselves a favor, and don't give him pity points for this- it won't help anybody."

"What, we should all take turns beating on him like you did?" Kirishima scowled. "That's not manly, dude."

"I'm not saying that at all," Akarui shot back. "Just keep in mind that selfish behavior shouldn't merit pity or coddling. He's not a child, so don't treat him like one. He can take responsibility for his actions."

"You'd almost think that he was the older brother," Weiss mused to Yang as Uraraka and Akarui led Kurai away with Yaoyorozu's equipment, who nodded in agreement. The duo only paused when Mina moved to stand next to Akarui and say something unintelligible under her breath, which he nodded at.

"Sure," he answered. "Just let us get him settled in, and I'll leave you with instructions for proper treatment."

"Thank you," she murmured, her eyes nearly vacant enough to match Kurai's. Something about the way that she looked right then told the others that their classmate was going to be in for a less-than-pleasant awakening whenever he shook off the concussion that Akarui had probably given him.

As it turned out, it took the better part of the next day for him to regain consciousness. Mina stayed in his room with him while Eri borrowed her bed for the night, Aizawa having said that for the time being, she would stay in an extra room in the dorm building. The official report being given to the police by the faculty was that a student had been brainwashed by a villain into attacking the campus, and that they were handling the matter internally. This would keep the police from looking too closely at Eri while the teachers figured out a way to work her into the school's curriculum, as the majority of them were in agreement that it would be best if they could train her in the looming fight with the villains that they now knew to be inevitable.

With regards to Kurai's resurrection, only about half of the hero course students in the student body knew about it, even if not how, and so they had been sworn to temporary secrecy on the matter, at least until they released an official statement to the press. There was another vote among the staff on the matter of allowing him to remain on campus, but Kurai's defenders won out once again, though even they were unsure of how much it would come to matter, in the end.

When he did finally come to, it was the late afternoon of the day after he had been revived. He wasn't surprised to see Mina by his bedside, staring out the window at the snow that continued to fall. She didn't look at him, but she must have known that he was awake, because she asked, "How do you feel?"

"About half as awful as I deserve," he muttered, his cheek angrily reminding him of its bruises as he did so. He could feel burning sensations where all of his frostbite patches had been bandaged by his brother the previous evening, and his tongue felt thick, making it difficult to talk.

"Good," Mina said tonelessly as she turned to look at him, allowing him to see the dark circles under eyes, and the tear tracks that were still fresh. "You better apologize to Eri before the day is over, got it? She's been a mess all day and night because of you."

"She's not the only one, apparently," he mumbled as his head started to pound like a jackhammer. "Why did you stay here all night after what I did?"

"Because you needed someone to look after you," she answered. "Also… I needed to apologize."

Kurai would have burst into laughter at those words, but since his head was killing him, he opted to raise an eyebrow and say, "Sorry, I think my ears are still concussed. Did you just say that you wanted to apologize to me?" When she nodded quietly, he repeated, "Me? The guy who tossed his best friend out a window and threatened to break his teacher's legs because he wanted to keep me from hurting anyone else?"

"I promised to be there for you, and support you, even if I couldn't understand your pain," she answered him without breaking eye contact. "Instead, I lost my temper and I took it out by hitting you. Even if I hadn't done that in front of everyone, it was a pretty scummy thing to do."

"I deserved it," Kurai shrugged, but Mina was already shaking her head in the negative.

"You never deserved that from me," she said firmly. She bowed her head toward him and murmured, "I devoted my love to you, and love should never hurt you like I did. I already apologized to everyone else for making a scene, but I need to say… I'm so sorry that I hit you in anger, Kurai. I hope that you'll forgive me."

Without hesitation, he replied, "There's nothing to forgive, Mina." Remembering his brother's words from before he passed out, he added. "I, on the other hand, need to know if you can ever forgive me for getting myself killed, and for being such an ass when I came back."

Mina straightened up before she told him, "I will, on both accounts, though I won't lie, I'm still gonna be kinda raw from this whole thing for a while."

"Fair enough," Kurai grunted as the ache in his head intensified. "I'm honestly surprised that you're not dumping me right now." Even as he said it, he realized that the termination of their relationship was a very real possibility, given how he had acted the previous evening.

There was a very loud silence that stretched for several seconds before Mina shifted in her seat uncomfortably and said, "I don't wanna break up, Kurai. I love you, and you love me, but we've both hurt each other pretty bad. I know neither of us will hold it against each other in the long run, but… I think we could both do with some space for a bit."

Kurai was expecting such words to feel like a solid gut punch, but instead all he felt was a tired resignation as he realized that she was right. Both of them had made some serious errors in judgement, and they would be licking their wounds for a time because of it. Trying to act like everything was normal after what had just happened would only put extra stress on them, and while he didn't much care what happened to him at this point, he did not want to wound Mina any more than he already had- and he knew that the same was probably true in reverse.

With that in mind, he nodded his head, moving as little as he possibly could to avoid plaguing his skull with any unnecessary pain. "Alright, what do you want that to mean for us?" he asked her.

Mina appeared to think for a moment before she replied, "I think we'd better stay away from dates, and definitely no sleepovers or alone time in our rooms. I don't mind hanging out together in our friend groups, maybe even a double date setting if Izuku and Ochaco still wanna have anything to do with you, but don't expect anything in the way of flirting or getting cozy if we do."

"You basically want us to have platonic boundaries," Kurai summarized as he closed his eyes, the light beginning to hurt his sensitive head. A couple of weeks ago, he would have been floored by the idea of Mina being the one to set physical boundaries, but given everything that had happened to him, he doubted that anything could surprise him anymore.

"Yeah." She hesitated, then said, "If things are getting to be too much in your head, you can come and talk to me in private. I won't deprive you of the trust you have in me keeping your confidence when you need it."

"Thank you," he told her, feeling a small measure of relief enter his mind. "Naturally, I'll extend you the same favor." Even with that reassurance, he couldn't help but ask her, "Is this gonna be one of those awkward things where we pretend like we're friends for a while, and then we just break up, anyway?"

"No," Mina sighed with a shake of her head, even though Kurai couldn't see her at the moment. "I am your girlfriend. As we've established, I still love you, even though you're a dense knucklehead. I just don't feel like getting very cuddly with you after seeing you treat everyone else so badly."

"Once again, fair enough," he murmured as his head continued to ache abominably. "How long do we do this for?"

Mina shrugged before answering, "I don't think that this is something that we can put a timer on. Maybe it'll be a few days, maybe it'll be a few months, but I know that we'll get there. Whenever you feel like we're ready to get back together in the way that we have been, I'll be more than happy to hear you out, but I'm not guaranteeing anything."

"Got it," he sighed heavily, already knowing that it was probably going to be a long while before he would feel like he had the guts to try and resume their normal interactions again. "Thank you for making it clear where you stand."

"Thank you for accommodating," she replied tonelessly. She sucked in a deep breath and then stood up with her chin held high and her posture straight before saying, "I'll tell Recovery Girl that you're awake- she wanted to check on you once you came to."

"Okay." He hesitated before he cracked one eye open to look at her before adding, "See you later?"

"Sure," she nodded, though her expression remained neutral. "I hope you can make it down for dinner- I'm sure the others would like to see you up and about."

"You sure about that?" he asked dryly. "I tried to make them all hate me."

"That didn't stop half of them from coming in to check on you every hour or so all day," Mina shrugged. "Do whatever you want, but even if you feel hella embarrassed, it'll be better to go down and face them sooner instead of later. You don't wanna give all the resentment a chance to build up."

"…Got it," he said in a small voice that told her just how much he was dreading facing the others. "I'll head down once I'm cleared to get up and move around."

It wasn't too long after Mina left that Akarui came in with Recovery Girl and Eri, and he looked pretty irritated. "I was planning on letting you suffer the full measure of your stupidity, but I realized that if we don't do something, you're gonna end up having multiple areas of tissue death," he said as he took out his brother's IV drip. "So Eri is here to rewind you back to health under Recovery Girl's supervision. Lucky you."

"Bite me," Kurai grunted.

"By the way, I passed by Ashido on the way over here, and she does not seem like a happy camper. I believe I told your dumb ass to make things better, not- Ow!" He rubbed his head where Recovery Girl had cracked it with her cane as she gave him a stern look.

"Your brother's had enough, sonny," she warned him as Eri moved to Kurai's bedside. "You told Eraserhead that he's learned his lesson, so I don't care to see you rubbing salt in his wounds."

"Yes, ma'am…" Akarui said as he eyed her cane warily, keenly aware of the fact that while he had been able to smack his brother around without fear of retribution, as well as yell to his heart's content at the other teachers who had been shell-shocked by recent events, the Youthful Heroine was clearly another matter.

Meanwhile, Eri had moved to hold Kurai's hand and simply stared down at him, her power still remaining dormant as she tried to find the right words to say. Eventually, she just went with, "I'm sorry, Kai."

"That's not my name."

Eri took in a breath before trying again. "Kurai… I'm so sorry," she told him, in spite of the fact that he refused to open his eyes to acknowledge any of them. "You were right, I didn't need to bring you back into the fight. You earned your rest, and I stole that from you because I wasn't thinking things through. Please forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive, Eri," he answered softly, though he kept his eyes shut. "Your only mistake was choosing to look up to someone like me as your hero. I wish that I was the kind of person who could be grateful to you, but I'm not. Really, I'm the one who owes you an apology for not considering what you must have gone through to do all of this. For that, and for being harsh to you, I am sorry."

"It was you and Deku who saved me all those years ago," she replied as her horn began to glow. "And while his spirit lives inside of me with One For All, it was your will that made the final decision to accept me as the next inheritor, which allowed me to come back and have a second chance at life. You don't owe me anything, least of all an apology."

"Even so-"

"No, don't," she insisted as she lowered her head and lifted his arm so that her brow could rest on his fingers. "I stole from you, and while I can't give you back your resting place, I can give you something that might make your time among us a little easier to bear." White bio-electricity crackled along his body from her head for the briefest second, and when it was gone, Eri withdrew and let his hand fall back onto his body.

At first, all it seemed that she had done was to restore him back to before he had submitted himself to the merciless cold of December, and allowed himself to be pummeled by his brother. His face was no longer swollen, and smooth skin stretched under his bandages, allowing for easier movements. It wasn't until he had started undoing the wrappings on his left forearm with his right hand that the others realized what she had done.

"Kurai," Akarui said as he pointed down at his brother's right arm, his eyes wide, having realized that he hadn't noticed it, himself. "Look at what you're doing."

"What?" Kurai sighed as he looked down. "I don't need these anymore, so I… Oh. Oh." His eyes grew huge as he lifted his right arm and wiggled his fingers, blinking as he finally registered the sensation of his fingers brushing past each other. His right arm had returned in its entirety, without even a scar below his bicep to remind him of its absence, as if it had never been gone to begin with. "It feels so… right."

"I can't do anything about the scars up here," Eri said as she tapped her own head. "But now at least the League can be denied this particular victory." Her skill with her quirk had grown to the point where she was able to rewind individual traits of a person's body without affecting the rest of them, such as erasing someone's quirk, or regenerating lost tissue without rewinding a person's body all the way back to before the injury itself had occurred. In this case, Kurai's arm was in the same shape it had been when he lost it, but he retained One For All and the other scars that his body had accumulated in the days since his injury.

"Eri," Kurai said as he swung his legs out of bed and stood up in front of the girl, who immediately quieted herself and looked at him with uncertainty. Then she let out a gasp as he moved to embrace her while he told her, "Thank you for this. I don't deserve it, but thank you."

"Yeah, you definitely don't deserve that," Akarui agreed, though he held up his hands in a gesture of surrender when Recovery Girl threatened him with another hit from her cane. He also added, "I am glad to see you in one piece, though. Eri, thank you for doing that."

"Consider it an early Christmas present," she mumbled into Kurai's shoulder. Kurai then let Eri go as she pulled back so that she could look at Akarui and say, "Thank you for entrusting me with your brother's power. I know it wasn't actually you who did it, but since I can't thank you in the future, I want to say it now."

Akarui, instead of protesting that she didn't need to do that, like Kurai expected him to, merely inclined his head in acknowledgement of her thanks. "I don't think it was my decision, entirely, but I'm glad that you grew up to be someone who could inherit the power and use it like a real hero. I'm sure Togata from both the future and present are proud of you."

"Lemillion always told me that I would be the hero who would undo a million tragedies," she said before she looked back at Kurai, who was staring at his right arm and massaging it with his left, as if afraid that it might vanish on him again. "Maybe I have, but I feel like I only managed to cause a new one in place of them."

"One tragedy weighed against a million is nothing," Kurai said without looking over. "Even as I am now, I know that well enough."

"Then why did you act out like you did?" Recovery Girl asked him.

"Does a wounded animal rationalize its actions when it is in pain?" the formerly crippled boy replied, finally looking up from his restored flesh.

"You think you're an animal?"

"From my experience, pain reduces everything with some form of awareness to the same level of intelligence." Kurai shrugged when Akarui glared at him again before saying, "I'm not excusing what I've done. I'm only saying that my actions had no reasoning behind them, so don't go looking for one beyond the old saying 'misery loves company'."

"Eri, I might need you to rewind him again in a second," Akarui said as he started forward, only to be held back by Recovery Girl and Eri, both.

"He's your brother, but my bringing him back is what did this to his spirit," the time traveler asserted. "I'm partially to blame for what he's done."

Whack! Smack! Crack!

"Enough with the blame game, kids," Recovery Girl said as the three teenagers recoiled, rubbing their sore heads as she lowered her cane. "Talking about who should take responsibility isn't going to help anyone, especially you three. If you're planning to do something about all the trouble you've each caused, then get to work doing something about it instead of just arguing in circles. Honestly, all of this should have already taught you that we never have enough time in the world to do what we need to do, so stop wasting what you do have."

At those words, Kurai, Akarui, and Eri each looked a little shamefaced, but it was the eldest of them who said, "All the actions in the world won't undo my words and what I've already done. I wouldn't even know how to start."

"How do you even function, with that funny little head of yours'?" Akarui asked him through half-lidded eyes. "If you don't know where to start, you might want to think about asking the people you hurt how they want you to make amends."

Kurai stared at his brother for a moment before he nodded slowly. "You're right," he agreed somberly. "Can't fix something if I don't know what the problem is, right?"

"Yep, and if you start on another tangent about how even if you spend the rest of your life atoning for your mistakes, that it won't be enough, I'm gonna put this IV where the sun don't shine," his brother said with a frosty smile as Eri blanched.

"Got it," Kurai said as he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "So I guess now I need to ask… what can I do to make amends for my crimes against you, smartass?"

Deku: Umm... Are you doing alright?

Mataras: I am now.

Kurai: How do you figure? Seemed like you pulled all of that out from a pretty... dark place.

Mataras: Oh, absolutely I did.

Deku: Then how-?

Mataras: A weekend away from the day-to-day does wonders for the mind, let me tell you.

Kurai: Must be nice.

Mataras: It is, thank you.

Kurai: Not-! You know what? Let's just move on to the preview, shall we?

Mataras: Someone's grumpy.

Kurai: Not all of us get to go on vacation!

Mataras: You literally live rent-free in my head! If I go on a holiday, you do too!

Deku: Next time- One's Worth

Kurai: I'll be you this one's worth a whole lotta nothing.

Mataras: I resent that!

Akarui: Even if Kurai isn't, I'm ready to Go Beyond!

Deku: Plus Ultra!

Next time on Your Hero Academia: Renewal...

"That's not the point!" Izuku suddenly shouted, his eyes flaring deep purple as the air around him shuddered, and people around him took a pace backward in surprise. Kurai, seeing this, took a step forward before his friend yelled, "I gave the power to you because I know you could be the greatest hero of us all- and you proved me right when you fought to the bitter end on Nabu! Don't you get it?! I don't want the power to be passed on to anyone else!"

"Izuku, calm the hell down!" Kurai shouted as he began to pale, his emotional and physical exhaustion forgotten in the heat of the moment. "You're gonna-!"

"Don't tell me what to do!" Izuku raged as his hair began to flicker between green and yellow colors. "You don't have that right!"