A/N: Alright, people! You wanted Akarui-centric content? You got it!
P.S. I would like it known publicly that a person named Marting Fahs on this website apparently gets a kick out of mocking people for mental illnesses. Congratulations, Martin- Hell is filled with people like you.
In the Absence of a Brother
Kurai yawned, making no effort to conceal his boredom as he sat in the classroom that was dedicated to learning self-control methods and other coping mechanisms for whenever he and the other patients made it out of the hospital and back into normal society. It was all things that he had learned from the time that he was young, having needed to keep control of his emotional state at all times, as to avoid sending his quirk into overdrive. So far, he had learned nothing new in the three days that he had been put in Itomori, and he wanted something more stimulating for his mind to focus on.
I guess having a hero career like I did turned me into more of an adrenaline junkie than I thought it would have, he thought wryly as he stretched his arms over his head. At this point, I'd kill to have my first one-on-one counseling session.
"Something you have to say, Kayaba?" asked the counselor who was leading the class.
"Yeah," Kurai replied, once again making no effort to hide his mood, this time being annoyed. He didn't like Shinki, who seemed to view the patients as people who should have known better than to do whatever landed them in Itomori in the first place, leaving it to people like him to teach them the basics of acting like a normal human being. "You're boring, and I have nothing to learn from you. Mind if I duck out early?"
Shinki's face darkened, but he kept his tone level as he answered, "These lessons are for your own good, Kayaba. You'll have to sit through them like everyone else, and it's only thirty minutes out of your day."
"Thirty minutes I'll never get back," Kurai snorted. "Seriously, I've sat through these same lectures since I was a kid. You don't have anything in your lesson plan that I don't already know about. Besides which, impulse control is not the problem I need to address."
"Considering the circumstances that brought you into the care of this hospital, I don't agree with your assessment," Shinki replied. "You lost control of your quirk, did you not?"
"The phrase 'lost control' gives way for a person to blame their sickness for the actions that they take," Kurai shot back as he lowered his arms and narrowed his gaze. "You and I both know that on some level, people choose to give control of their actions over to their illnesses. What you teach in here is how to train one's self out of that victim's mentality so that they at least know that their actions are their own going forward, and not to blame it solely on a chemical imbalance in the brain."
Making a vague gesture at the patients around him- many of whom were now looking angry at him- he went on to say, "A lot of these guys are here because they want someone to tell them that it wasn't their fault, that they had no control over themselves. They're the ones that need to hear this lecture."
"This is a discussion, not a lecture," Shinki started to say, but Kurai was already shaking his head and laughing softly.
"Then why are you the only one allowed to talk?" he snorted. "Look, I already know that I'm the one responsible for getting me put in here. I don't have anything to benefit from sitting here, and if that's not enough to convince you, I'll just have to keep on being a disruptive influence for the rest of the class."
"And what benefit does that get you?" Shinki grumbled.
"I won't be bored, and everyone else will be getting the same thing out of this lesson that I am," Kurai shrugged. "Big fat nothing."
"So you'll hold everyone back with you?" the counselor shot back. "Doesn't seem very in line with a former hero student." Part of Kurai's cover story as Madara was loosely based on the truth, such as the part that he was a former hero aspirant suffering from PTSD.
"It's not," Kurai answered with mock cheerfulness. "Being concerned about others constantly is part of what landed me in here. Maybe it's time to flip the script and start being a little more selfish. I dunno, but that's my point- I need help figuring out new ways at looking my situation, not looking back at the well-trodden road that got me here in the first place."
"The only help you'll be getting is help back to your room if you don't sit down."
"Sounds good to me." With that, Kurai stood up and left the room without a backward glance, much to the frustration of the counselor. He also happened to be on the receiving end of several looks of continued irritation, though there were a few among the patients that found themselves admiring his determination to stick to his narrative, correct or not.
That night, Kurai sat alone in his room, his stomach in knots as he tried to work out the lump lodged in his throat, to no avail. He hadn't been able to get any food to sit well, so even though he couldn't bear the sight of a full plate, his stomach was still complaining about having nothing in it.
He had been told off by Doctor Kentaro over the phone for disrupting the counseling session, but he had refused to concede that he was in the wrong. In the end, the doctor was forced to agree that they would make better progress at this point with solo counseling as opposed to a forced group participation, though he was warned that he would be expected to go back once his new counselor had decided he was ready.
None of this had really bothered him, and truth be told, he had simply woken up in a bad mood that would not leave him, no matter how hard he tried to focus on other things throughout the day. Being forced to sit through Shinki's lecture hadn't helped anything, but it wasn't the primary reason for his unwillingness to cooperate with the hospital staff that day.
Despite his best efforts, his body started to shake, and he felt his eyes burn as tears escaped into his sleeves as he pressed his brow against his folded arms. Throughout the day, he had been able to hide his encroaching sadness, but now that he was alone, he couldn't hold it in anymore.
The truth was that before he had died, he had been looking forward to this day for quite some time. He had thought that it would be a day full of smiles and laughter with his friends and family. He had imagined that they would spend the day reminiscing on their experiences at UA and how it had changed them for the better, followed by an evening watching movies and playing games while waiting for the fireworks to go off.
As he tried to control his crying without success, he could hear the dull booming of the pyrotechnic shows that were beginning all across Japan, bringing in the sound of the New Year. In past years, those same sounds had always signaled the beginning of a new celebration for the Hogo-sha family.
In fact, it was sixteen years ago, nearly to the minute, that the Guardian Hero had been brought into the world. Every New Year's since then, the boy had been surrounded by happy family and loyal friends to celebrate the day of his birth, and now that he had more friends than ever before, he had thought that this day would be the best one yet, with many more to come.
But not this year.
For the first time since he had been born, Kurai was all alone on his birthday.
Akarui rubbed his eyes as he leaned away from the computer screen he had been staring at for the last five hours without pause, only now becoming aware of the headache that had been building up in that time. "If there is a god, please send me a coffee," he grumbled as he shut his laptop and wiped at his running nose before looking up at the cloudy sky from the bench in front of the teacher's dorm. His fingers were numb from the cold, and his jacket had proven insufficient at warding off the winter chill of January's beginning.
He had just spent his morning and the early afternoon doing what Weiss and Winter had laid the groundwork for during the prior week. That being, the transfer of the money they had set aside for him into his private, offshore bank account. Actually, there were three separate accounts that he had set up, one in the Cayman's, one in Switzerland, and another in Japan. The idea was that even in the unlikely event of someone from Schnee Industries managing to follow the money trail to one of the accounts, they would never be able to find the other two before he moved the funds again.
That part of the plan had only taken him about an hour to execute under the power of the chilly winter sun. The real hard part had been breaking into the Schnee Industries' data vaults in order to download all of their prototype schematics onto his private server while covering his tracks (and the Schnee sisters' involvement). There had been more projects in development than he had been led to believe, both under the categories of what the Board of Directors had access to, and what Jacques Schnee kept close to his lapel. Even with Solar Intelligence enhancing his mind at full throttle, his skills had been stretched- but he had accomplished his mission. Not only did he now have access to a wealth of support item schematics, he also held hundreds of keys to bringing down Weiss' father- keys that he would certainly use when the time came.
Schnee's father will be lucky to see the outside of whatever elitist prison he manages to weasel his way into once I'm done with him, he thought sourly. As it turned out, Jacques Schnee wasn't just an advantageous, greedy businessman who would sell his own mother for an edge in the stock market. He was as bad as Endeavor at being a family man, except that he showed no inclination or intentions to change his attitude toward his mentally deteriorating wife. The more that Akarui had learned about him, the harder it had been not to dump everything he had found on the lap of whoever was running the FBI's White Collar Division. The only real reason he was exercising restraint for the time being was that it would take him some time to come up with a way to deliver the evidence concerning the man's shady business dealings and ethics that didn't implicate his daughters in the act of corporate espionage that he had just committed.
Best bet would be to pin it on his son, he decided. He seems like the type, and I'm sure his sisters won't mind if I throw him under the bus when it comes down to it.
That could wait, though. For now, he needed to come up with Eri's lesson plan for the next week, as well as meet Power Loader so that he could start getting a sense for how the man preferred to run his classroom and the lab after hours.
Just as he was about to stand up, he detected the sound of someone exiting the building behind him and descending the steps in his direction. "You and your brother seem to have an unhealthy love for cold weather," the owner of the footsteps said as he moved to stand in front of the boy, who raised an eyebrow as he noticed two steaming cups in his hands.
"While there's a joke I could make about Schnee or Todoroki somewhere in there, the truth is that this is one of the drawbacks to my quirk," he replied as Aizawa stood in front of him. "It works better with direct sunlight exposure, so if I want to be at my best, I don't have the luxury of staying inside where it's nice and warm."
"I'd find it hard to be at my best if I came down with something," Aizawa said dryly before he handed Akarui what smelled like potent coffee. "Drink this and go inside. If you get sick during your first week of work, Recovery Girl won't thank you for it."
Cringing slightly as he remembered the old woman's knack for inflicting pain with her cane, Akarui forced himself to stand up with his computer and coffee in hand, wincing a little more as his joints protested the sudden movements. "Oof," he grunted as he arched his back, hearing a few pops as he did. "I forgot what it was like to have a sore back."
"You're twelve, you don't know what a sore back is yet," Aizawa replied, a little sourly.
"You do when you spend as much time in front of computers as I do," Akarui countered.
"Once you've had your bones crushed so that the splinters end up in your muscles, you can complain about being sore," the teacher quipped. "Get inside- I don't like repeating myself."
"Okay, okay," the boy grumbled as he started moving toward the building, his toes tingling lightly as blood began to flow freely in his legs again. "Man, Kurai wasn't kidding when he said you were a hard case."
"Unless you want to start tomorrow morning by running fifty laps, I suggest you keep that smart mouth of yours' in check," Aizawa growled.
At that, Akarui turned around with a raised eyebrow and the words, "Nice try, but I'm not a student. You can't make me do anything."
The Erasure Hero's eyes immediately flared red while his scarf began to unravel around his neck as he said, "Wanna bet on that, Hikari?"
Even with his superhuman intelligence now being negated, Akarui immediately knew what the smartest thing for him to do would be. "I'll just be heading inside, then," he said before he turned and fairly jogged up the stairs, eager to be out of the reach of Eraserhead's scarf.
Less than a week back into the school semester, and Akarui met his first real challenge as a guest instructor at UA.
"Hatsume, I don't care how you argue the merits, you're gonna be forced to stand there and build the model according to the specifications I detailed, or I'll give you failing grade for the assignment," he muttered as he stared up at a girl with pink hair and unsettling yellow eyes.
"But that leaves no room for creativity or ingenuity!" she complained, even as the other students in the class worked on their projects as had been assigned to them by the boy genius. He had spent time with Power Loader during the winter break learning each of his student's weaknesses, and had drawn up support item concepts that he wanted the freshman to design in order to spend time on working through those shortcomings. Normally Power Loader wouldn't have the time to craft individual assignments for each of his students, but with Akarui's help, he now had a way to measure the personal growth of his students in the areas that they had been lacking at the start of the year.
Hatsume's test had been the easiest to create in concept, but getting her to follow through with it was proving to be the hard part. It wasn't that Akarui hadn't known that she would challenge the idea itself- it was simply that she was proving to be a lot more one-track minded than even he had predicted she would be.
"Creativity is an important part of the design process, but it's not always up to the designer to decide what goes into the final product," he said flatly while Hatsume levelled a major pout at him. "If the client has a specific way that they prefer an item to work, then you are not at liberty to make any changes, even if they would improve the design. That's how you lose clientele- and credibility. When you have your own support lab, you can call the shots, but you're never gonna get there if you don't exercise an ounce of self-control once in a blue moon."
Hatsume's project had actually been laid out for her in its entirety- from the schematics to the necessary materials, she had everything she needed to make a pair of support gauntlets designed to absorb recoil impact whenever the user struck a hard surface. Her assignment was simply to follow the instructions as they had been laid out and assemble the gauntlets. The catch was that Akarui had implemented various flaws in the design on purpose- nothing that would damage the tech, just make it perform at a suboptimal level. He figured that she would catch them, but he wanted to see what she would do about it. She didn't seem to take criticisms very well, something that every designer needed to be able to do in the professional world, so he hoped to challenge that trait sooner instead of later.
"I'll lose credibility by producing junk-level tech like this!" Hatsume now shot back, causing Akarui's cheeks to turn a little red. "I can make a baby that'll fly circles around these things!"
"Fly into the sun, you mean," Akarui replied dryly before shaking his head in the negative. "Also, not the point. No one is disputing that you could make a better product than the one you're being told to make. What has yet to be seen is if you can listen to anything other than your screaming ego for more than a minute."
In the end, the pair ended up arguing so long that Power Loader just kicked them both out of the class for the day.
"I don't get it," Akarui complained as he sat down to dinner with Kurai's friends the next day. "I know I'm younger than everyone I'm teaching at this school, but what does Hatsume have against me?" His schedule didn't always line up with the students from Class 1-A, but when it did, they made a point of inviting him to join them.
"I don't really think it's personal," Izuku replied as he started mixing together the ingredients in his bowl. "She doesn't like being told what to do by anyone. Even Mister Power Loader has a hard time keeping her under control, and that's pretty much because he could ban her from the lab at any time."
Akarui raised an eyebrow before he said, "So I need to give her a reason to fear me?"
"I don't think that's gonna work for you," Ochaco said before he got too far ahead of himself. "You might be a teacher, but you're not really the teacher, if that makes sense?"
"It's like how we respect Principal Nezu, but we know that it's Mister Aizawa who's responsible for us," Todoroki added. "Whether or not that means we need to fear him depends on what we've done under his guidance."
"I'm still hearing that a fear factor should be involved," the younger boy grinned as he broke his chopsticks and swirled his soup while taking an appreciative sniff of the pork aroma. "Works for me."
"Would it work on you, though?" Mina's question paused Akarui in place and got him to look another question at her. Seeing it, she shrugged and said, "If you think about it, Hatsume's not all that different from you. Her quirk may not give her the same level of intelligence as you, or let her skip half the education system in a semester, but she still knows what it's like to be ahead of everyone else in her age group. Now she's got a kid three years younger than her who's pretty much telling her that her achievements and inventions don't count for anything because she won't follow instructions like everyone else."
"I still don't see your point."
"Would you be where you are if you had just followed instructions like everyone else and not reached higher?" Mina replied dryly. "You're pretty much telling Hatsume that she can't be like you, even though she clearly has the potential to break away from the pack. How would you like it if it were the other way around?"
Akarui opened his mouth to protest, then shut it and looked down thoughtfully at his food, a small frown creasing his face as he did. The expression was so similar to his brother's when he was wrestling within himself that it caused a lump to form in Mina's throat and forced her to look away so that Akarui wouldn't see the glimmering in her eyes. While the others lacked such a strong reaction, the similarity in the younger boy's bearing did cause the other students to feel the absence of their friend more keenly for a moment.
Seeing the troubled expressions on their faces as he looked up, Akarui cleared his throat and decided to change the subject. "I heard Class B is getting some new transfer students," he said as he scooped some noodles up with the sticks. "They're from the same school as Rose and the others, right?"
"That's right!" Ruby said as she leaned over from her table with a giddy expression on her face. "Team Juniper's supposed to get here tonight! I can't wait to see them again!"
"Settle down, Sis," Yang chuckled as she grabbed her sister up before she could fall out of her chair. "I know you're really just excited to see Uncle Crow."
"Duh!"
"I take it these guys are friends of yours'?" Todoroki asked Weiss, who shrugged uncertainly.
"I'd certainly consider Pyrrha a friend," she answered. "Nora and Ren are agreeable enough, I suppose. Then there's… ugh, Jaune."
"Jaune?" Todoroki repeated.
"Don't let Weiss give you the wrong idea," Yang said before her teammate could begin a tirade. "He's a dork who happened to have a thing for her, and it took him a little while to take the hint. Other than that, he's really just a harmless goofball."
"If he's harmless, what's he doing in the hero course?" Akarui asked after swallowing his first bite of noodles.
"Well, it's kinda one of those things where you don't judge a book by its cover," Ruby piped up with a grin. "First day I met him, he and I both got lost wandering around the school campus looking for orientation. He got picked on a lot, so quite a few of us were wondering what he was doing in the hero course, too. But, it turns out that if you put him in a fight, he'll turn into almost a different person- quick thinking, inspiring to his teammates, not half-bad with his quirk and combat skills."
"That last part is entirely owed to Pyrrha," Weiss sniffed.
"Fair," Yang agreed.
"What's this about your uncle coming with them?" Blake asked curiously.
"Actually, our dad is coming, too," the blonde American answered with a slightly more rueful grin. "Apparently since so many of us Second Amendment kids are here, Professor Ozpin decided that it'd be better if UA had a little extra help in keeping an eye on all of us."
"And they picked your perpetually drunk of an uncle to do the job?" Weiss asked dryly, catching everyone else's attention anew.
"He's not always drunk!" Yang protested. "Buzzed, sure, but not always drunk."
"Dad'll keep him in line," Ruby shrugged before adding in a lowered tone, "I hope."
"Now I'm really interested to meet all of these people," Akarui grinned. "If your dad and uncle are pros coming to work with the school, I'll probably end up working with them on the new security measures I'm developing."
"Yeah, uh…" Yang chuckled before she said, "Our Dad will probably work with you however you need, but don't bet on Uncle Crow doing anything he doesn't want to."
"Noted," Akarui sighed. "At least this coming semester won't be boring."
Mina frowned before she muttered, "What, an imminent attack from an army of villains isn't exciting enough for you?"
"Well, when you put it like that…" the younger teen grumbled. Glancing around, he then asked, "Anyone seen big Eri?"
"She's meeting with All Might right now," Izuku answered quickly. "He's showing her some finer points in controlling her quirk." He had also been training rigorously to master Energon with help from Akarui, Mina, and even some letters that Kurai had sent his way. He tended to stick to using the quirk to enhance his physical abilities over producing lasers, though he had been replacing his regular use of the Delaware Smash technique with small bursts of power from his fingertips that produced a similar effect with less effort on his part.
"Has she been able to manifest any of the other powers that Hikari was able to dig up?" Ochaco inquired. Over the last few weeks- ever since they had been gone on their trip to Nabu Island- Akarui had been working with All Might to recover whatever information they could about the previous users of One For All, and the quirks that they had possessed. In addition to Black Whip, there were supposed to be five other powers that Eri would be able to use, in addition to the raw, physical power of the quirk, as well as her own 'Rewind' ability.
"We were able to find out about the powers of everyone but the second and third guys," Akarui informed them. After a moment of consideration, he decided to add, "Well, I had some information on the third guy, but nothing solid due to the uncertainty of the times and the fact that he and the second user were some kind of leaders in an underground resistance against All For One- they kept to themselves as much as possible."
"What'd you find?" Izuku asked, a little impatiently. His curiosity was only natural, given how the quirk had once belonged to him, and he had been the one to discover that there were other powers that could be used by whoever held it now. It still felt strange to talk about One For All so openly among his friends, but he did have to admit that there was something to be said for the truth setting one free.
"There's Blackwhip, Float- a levitation quirk from All Might's master- then Danger Sense and Smokescreen, which are pretty much what they sound like," Akarui rattled off. "The third guy may have been able to move at superhuman speeds, but we couldn't find any details on how the quirk itself functioned, or that it even was super-speed. Whatever it was, it seemed like the quirk was kind of inconsistent, because there were a few records I was able to dig up about battles that he was probably in, and it seems like his speed wasn't always able to help him out of a bind."
"That last part all sounded pretty vague," Blake commented, which got Akarui to make a face at her.
"It was over a hundred years ago, and like I said, these guys were trying to stay hidden," he grumbled. "This was all before quirk registrations, so I'm having to piecemeal a trail back from the fourth user's known associates to try and get a clearer picture of what was going on back then."
"It's a poor workman who blames his tools," Weiss smirked, causing the boy to shoot her a glare in turn.
"Let's see you follow a century-old trail through the modern dark ages before you start throwing shade," he shot back. "You wouldn't be able to find your way to your internship without a smartphone, forget a metaphorical trail with no physical form!"
"We need to focus on what we can do now to learn about the quirk's hidden abilities," Izuku said, trying to bring the conversation back around to his original topic of interest. "Has Eri been able to manifest anything like that or the other quirks we talked about?"
"No, and for some reason, the vestiges aren't talking to her like they used to," Akarui sighed. "She hasn't had any trouble using the physical aspects of the quirk, but none of the secondary abilities have manifested as of yet."
"Any idea why that would be?" Ochaco asked, looking concerned.
"I have a couple of theories that I've already discussed with her and All Might," Akarui admitted. "The first is that in the future, even though Shigaraki couldn't acquire One For All itself, Eri mentioned that All For One's doctor may have started experiments to take out the secondary quirk factors that had become integrated with the main ability. How they would do that, I actually have no idea, which is a rarity for me. That said, it may not have worked at all."
"Why is that?" Todoroki asked.
"One For All is a crystallization of power that continues to accumulate even to this day, and even if we didn't realize it until recently, the quirks that lay dormant within it are a part of that compiled power," Akarui answered quickly. "If Shigaraki had been able to extract even portions of that power from within the quirk, I think it's reasonable to assume that such extractions would have weakened One For All. But from what I can tell, Eri's version of the quirk exceeds Midoriya's in terms of physical capabilities."
"She didn't hit anywhere near as hard as your brother did when he had the power," Mina tried to point out, but Akarui was already shaking his head.
"You're thinking of when he used it in tandem with Energon, a quirk that granted him nearly the same level of physical prowess," he reminded her. "When he took up that last fight on Nabu Island, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that he was the most powerful person on the planet. Now, however, he's passed his old quirk into Midoriya, and vice versa, which means that while he's made it stronger, his version's strength and speed will never catch up to Eri's once she fully masters the quirk. If you think she was fighting you at full throttle the day she broke onto campus, I'll take the moment now to remind you that she has the potential to throw a United States of Smash with something like eighty percent of her strength."
The students all paused, their minds flashing back to the night where All Might had defeated All For One, and the sheer level of destruction that his final blow had dealt to both his enemy and the city around him. The thought that Eri could vent that kind of power without reaching her limit was nothing less than frightening to contemplate, even knowing that she was on their side.
Seeing that the idea had gone home, Akarui nodded and went on to say, "My point is that if portions of the power were taken, she wouldn't be able to reach that kind of level of strength. Right now she has to use Rewind at the same time as the strength of One For All in order to keep her body from being blown to pieces. Which actually leads me to my second theory."
He paused to marshal his thoughts under their expectant gazes before he said, "All Might never manifested the secondary quirks because the vestiges within had not yet grown strong enough to contact him, except in very brief visions when he was younger. When his power was added to the potential within Midoriya, the vestiges were able to make more solid contact with him. Kurai hasn't said anything about seeing the fragments of the past users, but then, he's been actively avoiding the use of the quirk, so I can only guess when I say that he probably could speak with them if he wanted to. Still, since Eri could talk to them pretty much whenever she wanted before now, I'd wager that he'd be able to do the same, were he so inclined."
"Didn't the vestiges in the future have something like ten years of working together and waiting for the right vessel to come along?" Todoroki pointed out. "That may have something to do with their ease of contact."
"Maybe," Akarui conceded. "You're right, that could be a factor. However, we do know that it was easier for Midoriya to see them than All Might, and even though we kind of have to skip over any potential data we could glean from my brother, I think it's safe to assume that the trend continued. And if that's the case, you'd think that learning to manifest the secondary quirks would also come easier with each new wielder, but that hasn't proven to be the case."
"You think something is blocking her?" Mina guessed, to which Akarui nodded again.
"I think the fact that she was already born with a power may have something to do with it," he told them. "When One For All evolved within Midoriya, it may have only done so because not only had All Might allowed it to grow for so long within his quirkless body, it had a brand-new fresh start to keep growing and evolving without the impedance of another quirk already occupying its host again. Another way to look at it might be that One For All didn't have to keep feeding strength to both the original quirk of its host, and the vessel themselves. It was free to amass power at a steadier rate, as well as refine its own unique properties."
The others all exchanged looks when he was done speaking, most of them looking thoughtful. It made sense, they supposed.
Only Izuku was frowning as he said, "The only thing that doesn't make sense to me is why the vestiges would suddenly stop talking to her. Even if you're right, and their silence has nothing to do with her being unable to use Blackwhip and the others, why won't they speak? When the first user reached out to me, he said that he wanted to show me more, but was unable to do so because I couldn't use enough of the quirk to let him do so."
"What's your point?" Akarui inquired.
"They- or at least, he- had more that he wanted to say to his successor," Izuku answered, still appearing troubled as he did. "They have plenty of time to do that right now, don't they? So why won't they help her?"
"Who knows?" Akarui shrugged. "It's not like we can- oh."
As he fixed Izuku with a blank stare, the greenette nodded slowly before saying, "Exactly. If my vestige exists within Eri's One For All, I can't think of any reason why I wouldn't be doing everything in my power to help her learn about our enemy and master our powers."
"And she said that Kurai's vestige named her as their chosen vessel," Mina recalled. "He loves that kid, too. Before he came back to life- which is how she says his vestige appears to her- he'd do anything to help her. Izuku's right, there's gotta be something more going on with One For All than the past users just suddenly getting shy because of her Rewind quirk."
"Wait," Akarui said, shooting straight up in his seat, and startling the others. "That might be it!"
"What might be it?" Yang asked, looking askance at the now-wide eyed boy.
"Her original quirk!" he told them. "One For All enhances quirks way beyond their original capabilities, remember? Eri was able to reverse things on a global- no, on a temporal- scale. From what we know of the original quirk, it only works on living things, right? Time isn't alive- I think? Gonna have to log that one to research on lat- Wait, no! Back on track… Point is, what if One For All is enhancing it even when she's not trying to use it? What if Rewind is turning back the clock on All Might's quirk to a time before it could communicate with its host?"
The others now exchanged looks of alarm at his latest musing. "That could be… problematic," Todoroki said, being the one to put the feeling into words. "Without Hikari to use the quirk, if Eri's One For All vanishes, who can possibly fight Shigaraki when he returns with All For One in his grasp? We'd be right back where we were in Eri's future."
"Kurai already has plans to pass the quirk along," Akarui said with a quick shake of his head. "He thinks it's too dangerous to leave it in his hands with his current mind frame being the way that it is, and I don't necessarily disagree with him."
"He's already selected a successor?" Weiss asked, looking surprised.
"We all talked about it when we went to visit him in the hospital before we each went to our work studies," Izuku confirmed. Looking to Akarui, who inclined his head as an indicator that he wanted the other boy to continue, he then said, "We talked about several people who we thought would be good fits for the power, and we found one we all agreed with."
"It's Todoroki, isn't it?" Blake's guess surprised those who had been present for the discussion of succession with Kurai.
"Me?" the heterochromic boy asked in surprise. "Why would I-?"
"Eri mentioned in her recounting of the future that you were one of the first people they thought of to wield One For All," Blake replied with a shrug when no one spoke up to correct her. "Your power combined with All Might's would be pretty much unrivaled, and you're friends with Hikari- he's trusted you with his life, after all. That, and you know what kind of hero you're going to be. That kind of self-assurance is necessary for someone wielding that kind of power, isn't it?" She addressed the last part to Izuku, who nodded slowly in response.
"All Might gave me the power because he saw my resolve in action, even before I had any powers," Izuku told them. "We've all grown here at UA, and Todoroki is no exception to that. As a past wielder myself, I feel confident that we're right to choose him."
"Guys, I…" Todoroki had a look of shell shock on his face as he tried to contemplate the enormity of what was being offered to him. "I don't know what to say."
Akarui was stunned as he realized that the other boy's face now closely resembled his brother's when he had seen him at the hospital.
"You don't have to say anything right now," Mina hurried to assure Todoroki. "Take your time to sort out what this means to you, okay? It's not like Kurai can pass the power on to you right this minute. And if you decide that it isn't for you, Kurai has agreed to find another successor."
Hearing this, Todoroki visibly relaxed, but seeing it stirred up a mixture of feelings for Akarui that he hadn't realized that he had been repressing. His whole life, ever since he had realized that he was different from others, even in a world filled with superhuman abilities, he had strived to keep an eye on the bigger picture- to keep track of all the stakes involved in the decisions that he made. In all honesty, he had always envied Kurai's ability to keep the grand scale in mind while still being aware of what his immediate actions would do to those closest to him- something that he himself had only been able to do in rare moments.
Now, seeing Todoroki practically recoil from the enormity of One For All's legacy, did he finally have an inkling of what had been plaguing his brother for all this time- the weight that he felt was crushing him. He had understood the concept, even the consequences, of what having One For All could do to a person's life, as evidenced by Kurai's actions and present situation. He had attributed much of his brother's personality changes over the last year to his near-death experiences and his relationship with Mina, as well as his time at UA in general. He thought that he knew his brother's mind better than anyone else, but now he realized that his objective gaze had been too broad, too concerned with the bigger picture that involved the rest of the world to really understand the burden that had been hurting Kurai's soul even before One For All came to reside in his flesh. When he had rejected the notion of receiving the power, he had done so with a cold logic, never even considering that his rejecting it meant that someone else had to bear the burden. In this moment, he could see for first time what the weight of the quirk's identity could do to a person's spirit, and even their sense of self.
"Kid, are you okay?"
Akarui shook himself when he realized that Mina had been addressing him so that he could answer, "Yeah, why do you ask?"
"You're crying."
"Huh?" Reaching up, Akarui touched his cheek and was surprised to feel his fingers come away wet. "Huh. What do you know?" Giving Mina a shaky smile, he said, "I guess this robot does have feelings."
The girl's cheeks flushed purple, but before she could say anything, Akarui stood up and told them, "I'm gonna head back to the teacher's dorms. I've got assignments to grade. Kirishima can have the rest of my dinner if he's hungry." With that, he turned on his heel and left the room as quickly as he could without running.
When he was outside, he did run.
He ran as fast as he could, dashing at his eyes every few steps, trying to stop the flow of moisture from escaping beneath his eyelids, but to no avail. He dashed past a small group of students who tried to get his attention, but he made an excuse and kept going. The faster he ran, the harder it got to see, but he didn't care.
He couldn't stop the feelings of confusion welling up from inside of him now. His uncle's death, Tensei's retirement, his own paralysis, his father's death, his mother's imprisonment, his brother's death, even his maddened resurrection; none of those things had caused him to break down like he was so close to doing now. Each time one of these challenges had come into his life, he had known what should be done, and what he could do to make it happen. Everything he had done, he had done to help the greater good- even making Kurai a new arm out of Tensei's engine parts had been a calculated move, since one hero could no longer help anyone, while the other had the potential to do so. Now, he still knew what needed to happen and what he could do to affect the change, but now that he had seen the potential consequences that his plans could cause, he found himself questioning his own thought process for the first time.
How many Kurai's am I going to create if I keep going like this? He wondered as he rubbed at his red eyes, no longer even sure that he was heading in the right direction. How many Tensei's will I leave, forgotten in the dust?
Even as he was finishing the last thought, he slammed into something and fell backward into the snow with a hard grunt. He heard a couple of wet crunches in front of him from where he had struck the object, and he soon realized that he had not hit a thing, but a person.
"Goin' somewhere fast, pipsqueak?" a gravelly voice asked as the crunching stopped less than a foot away from him.
"Sorry," Akarui mumbled, scrubbing at his eyes, trying to dry them before he showed his face. "I couldn't see very well, and I had an appointment to keep."
"An appointment to keep?" the voice chuckled. "Kid, life's a lot easier if you keep your appointments on your hip, where you can reach 'em." This was followed by the sound of a flask opening, and the smell of a strong liquor.
"Crow, this kid is way too young to keep your kind of appointments," said another voice, followed by the sound of more footsteps approaching. This one was more friendly and assuring as the owner said, "Sorry about my brother-in-law, kiddo. Come on, lemme help you up."
"I can get up on my own," Akarui grumbled as he made one last scrub across his eyes and forced himself to stand up and look at the newcomers- for they were, in fact, strangers to him. "Who are you two, and how'd you get onto UA campus?"
The first speaker, a man with black hair and sliver flecks, gave Akarui an annoying type of smile before he took a swig of his drink and chuckled, "You get a load a this tough guy, Tai? Remind you of anybody?"
The second person, a muscular man with blond hair that seemed familiar, and bright blue eyes, reddened and growled, "If you say me, I swear on your mother's grave-!"
"I was gonna say 'Yang', but hey, if the shoe fits…"
"Dammit, Crow!"
"Wait, Crow? And Tai?" Akarui repeated, his gaze switching back and forth between the two men rapidly, the similarities finally starting to click in his head. "As in 'Tai' yang Xiao Long?"
"That's us!" Tai grinned, another familiar sight on an unfamiliar face. "I take it you know my girls?"
"Yes, sir," Akarui nodded. "I heard you guys and some other students were supposed to be getting in later tonight."
"We wouldn't have gotten in until one in the morning, if this guy had been driving," Crow grinned lazily as he put his flask away, having apparently drained it. "Lucky us, I know how to drive anything, anywhere."
"Except to the AA meetings, apparently," Taiyang grumbled with a shudder. "And you call that driving? We're lucky the car didn't catch fire!"
"Oh, sure, blaming our luck," Crow snickered. "What else is new?"
"That's not what I meant, and you know it!"
"Uh… Can I help you guys, or should I just go?" Akarui asked in an attempt to return the conversation to something more fruitful.
"Kid, we are way beyond help," Crow chortled.
"Speak for yourself," Taiyang muttered. To Akarui, he answered, "Yeah, we actually wanted to stop by Class 1-A's dorms to see Ruby and Yang. Do you know the way? It's supposed to be around here, right?"
"Sure," Akarui nodded before he stepped aside and pointed down the path that he had been running along. "Follow that for a minute, it'll be the last building on your left in this block."
"Thanks," Taiyang said cheerfully. After a brief moment of thought, he decided to ask, "Would you happen to be Hikari? Principal Nezu said that there'd be a little guy on campus working with the teachers, and us while we're here."
Akarui felt a quick stab of irritation at that piece of information. "Where does he get off on calling me the little guy?" he grumbled as he started to walk away. Over his shoulder, he muttered, "Name's Akarui Hikari. See you guys at the next staff meeting, I guess."
"Wait, you don't want to come and introduce us to any of the other students?" Taiyang asked after the boy.
"Do we look like we need a chaperone, Tai?" Crow chuckled. "Leave the squirt be. He's got 'an appointment' to keep, remember?"
"If anyone needs a chaperone around here, it's your drunk ass," the blond man grumbled. He was about to say that he would catch up in a minute, but then he saw that Akarui was already walking away without a backwards glance. Realizing that trying to talk more to an upset teenager he barely knew would probably just make things worse in the long run, Taiyang gave vent to a shrug before he turned to follow Crow.
Thus he missed the new sprinkling of tears running down Akarui's face as he thought, Dad and Uncle Shiro used to argue like that… I wonder if they still do?
He would have to ask Kurai the next time he had a chance to visit his brother.
He eventually found himself wandering the halls of the school campus, where a few rooms still had their lights on as teachers worked ceaselessly to complete the never-ending piles of paperwork associated with their jobs. His feet carried his unresisting body to the support course lab, which he was only mildly surprised to see still had its lights on.
As he walked in, he expected to see Power Loader working at the computer like any of the other teachers, but instead he was greeted by the sight of Mei Hatsume working intently on something that he couldn't see. She was humming to herself, somehow in rhythm with the sounds of her power drill working on metal, and didn't seem to notice him at all. Deciding that he'd rather not have to deal with her eccentricities for the time being, he made to leave.
He was stopped when he heard her say, "Your dingy gloves are in the junk pile."
Akarui paused in place, not sure if she was actually addressing him, or if she was mistaking him for Power Loader. "Uh…"
"You wanted those hunk-a-junk support items made before tomorrow, right?" the girl said, continuing to work without looking up from her current project. "They're done, but I couldn't bear to put them with my other babies, so I just put 'em with the other things that Mister Power Loader throws out on Monday."
"…Right," Akarui said slowly as he stepped into the room, heading for a small pile of broken items that were sitting next to the teacher's desk. Keeping an eye on the girl as he walked, he decided to ask, "How'd you know it was me?"
"Only the staff come around during this time of night, and your footsteps didn't sound like any of theirs'," she said in a frank tone. "When you've spent a buttload of time in one place, you learn all the little ticks about it."
"And here I was under the impression the only thing you paid attention to was your own work," Akarui said tonelessly as he spotted the gloves that he had designed.
"Well, it is the only thing that really matters to me, but I've also had to tell when Mister Power Loader is gonna hit me over the head for not listening," she admitted. "So I got kinda good at listening for stuff outta the ordinary. You done looking at those things yet?"
"I haven't even started," Akarui grumbled.
"Well, make it fast," she told him, further surprising him with her abruptness. "I wanna recycle those parts into something that I won't feel disgusting about touching."
"This coming from the girl who didn't bathe for like two weeks before the school festival?" Akarui deadpanned.
"I'd rather go a month without a shower than make something that nasty ever again," she tossed over her shoulder before letting out a small squawk of alarm as something sparked in front of her.
Without looking over from his inspection of the gauntlets, Akarui asked, "Do I wanna know?"
"It doesn't need a fire extinguisher."
"So that's a no."
Her silence was an answer enough, so Akarui refocused on studying the gauntlets that he had designed. To his surprise, she had followed his instructions to the letter, although there were a few dings and scrapes in the materials that suggested some frustration had been put into them, as well. Moving to the teacher's computer, he logged in and began the sequence to run diagnostics on the equipment to make sure that it would also function as he had intended it to.
There was an awkward silence that stretched out for several minutes as the computer ran its program on the support gauntlets, with Akarui being unsure of how to break it- or if he even should break it. Hatsume's way into her work, but damn if this quiet isn't weird! he thought as he drummed his fingers on the desktop, trying to fill the air with something other than the sounds of Hatsume's humming and tinkering.
At long last, the computer announced that it was done with the scan, and Akarui let out a breath that he didn't realize that he had been holding. Quickly scanning the diagnostics, he was again somewhat surprised to find that the gauntlets had met his exact expectations.
"Sucks, don't they?"
"Gah!" Akarui yelped as he spun around to see that Hatsume had been peering over his shoulder in silence. "What're you doing?!"
"Waiting for you to see all the dumb stuff you could've fixed," she said blankly. "I mean, really, a palladium core? What kind of idiot uses that for a power source?"
"I seem to recall Iron Man making good use of the stuff with his earlier tech," Akarui grumbled. "Besides which, the point wasn't to make a good gauntlet- it was to see if you could follow instructions, which it seems you can. Passing grade for you, congratulations."
"That doesn't mean much coming from a guy who wastes his quirk on something that dumb," Hatsume shrugged as she shouldered past him and snatched the gloves away from the scanner. "Now that's done, I need these."
"For what?" Akarui asked, a little angrily. It had been quite a while since someone had genuinely insulted his intelligence, but it was still a good way to get his hackles up.
"I'm gonna fix these things into something better than anything you've ever seen," she responded as she set the gauntlets down and started taking them apart with practiced ease. "We'll consider your schematics as a rough draft."
"You really think that was my best work?" he sputtered. "I told you, the point of the exercise was to see if you could follow orders! I put mistakes in there on purpose!"
"What?" Mei asked as she paused in what she was doing. "But that's such a waste! And why should I believe you?"
"It's not a waste if you're getting your point across," Akarui replied as he pulled a flash drive out from his pocket and plugged it into the teacher's computer. "And here… is the proof… that I'm not full of it… Dammit, where'd it go?"
"What're you doing?" Hatsume asked as she looked at him like he had grown a second head.
"Looking for- aha! Found it!" Moving quickly, he opened up the file he had been looking for and put up on the lab's projector. "Feast your eyes, and kindly take back your allusions to my lack of intelligence, if you would." He had managed to dig up his true designs for the gauntlets, as he had intended to have Yaoyorozu assist him in making them.
Hatsume remained where she was, but her eyes were fixated on the board with rapt attention. Akarui recalled that her quirk allowed her to see things up to five kilometers away with crystal clarity, so her lack of movement shouldn't be interpreted as a lack of interest.
For a few minutes, she hardly blinked, and no words were spoken in the room as she studied the new schematics. Eventually, she said, "Not bad… Some of this looks similar to that Hikari guy's replacement arm."
"Kurai is my brother," Akarui deadpanned, his irritation back in full force. "I designed that arm, which by the way, held up against kinetic forces that rival or even surpass All Might's full power. I'm know what I'm about."
"Huh," Hatsume murmured, her eyes still fixated on the board. "Shock absorption and redistribution- adds to the durability- lightweight, collapsible to make it an easy conceal carry, even when in civilian clothing- there's a high-demand feature. Multiple focal points for energy release, so nice versatility. Not bad, but for someone who's supposed to be smart, you're missing something that every support item like this requires to function."
"If you're about to say 'power source', save your breath," Akarui smirked. "If you got a look at my brother's arm, then you'll know that I haven't designed this for just anyone to use. It's a specialized item meant to assist an amateur wielder of Energon."
"Huh?" Hatsume finally looked away from the board, a confused look on her face. "Did'ja hit your head or something? Your brother's no amateur when it comes to his quirk. I mean, I never pay attention to anything outside of the lab, but I've seen footage of him in action against villains. He's so good at what he does, he doesn't need any support items, other than the arm. And he doesn't even need that anymore! Or wait, does he? Someone said his arm grew back when he got brought back to life, I think."
"Kurai doesn't possess Energon anymore," Akarui answered with a sigh. Remembering the story that Aizawa and Nezu had fed everyone so far, he told her, "The villain on Nabu Island stole his power, but it proved to be too much for his body to handle, so he had to get rid of it. Unfortunately, in the middle of all the fighting, he ended up ejecting the quirk into Midoriya, who now has to learn how to use a whole new power. It's why I'm designing these to begin with."
"What?!" Hatsume shouted as she grabbed at her hair in apparent frustration. "That means that all my hard work that went into developing those babies for his costume don't work anymore?!"
"Not really?" Akarui snickered, finding some amusement in her evident frustration after how much she had been making light of his intellect. "He's keeping most of the costume the same- he just asked me to help create some focusing devices for the energy release. The other parts are just something I added to make the gauntlets more durable and comfortable."
"Did you tell him you were doing that?"
"No, why would I-?" Akarui stopped himself midsentence before he sagged his shoulders and grumbled, "This is a trick question, isn't it?"
"So it's okay for you to make stuff up as you go, but not me?" Hatsume asked as she levelled a stern look at him.
"Tell you what, Hatsume, let's see you make a support item that's as good or better than mine," Akarui challenged her. "We both come up with a piece designed to accomplish the same thing and submit it to a student for testing, and whichever design they favor will mark the winner. If you win, I won't hand you any more 'pointless' exercises- sound good?"
"Excellent," Hatsume grinned eerily. "Your baby is gonna be eating my baby's dust when the time comes! What're we designing?"
"What's the point in all these extra defenses bein' set up if the villains aren't gonna see 'em is all I'm asking," Present Mic grumbled as Akarui shut off the projector that he had been using to present his proposed schematics for new security measures on UA's campus. "If they don't see a reason to back off, isn't that just inviting them to attack us again?"
"Right, sure…" Crow drawled from where he was reclining in his chair, up against the wall, and away from the other teachers, several of whom looked disgruntled by his presence. He swirled his flask next to his ear as if trying to hear how much liquid remained inside of it before he went on to say, "Let's put up a big flashy sign that says we're upgrading everything, why don't we? That'll scare off the Paranormal Liberation fanatics." His voice was layered with so much sarcasm, it was as if he were addressing a child who was only beginning to understand the concept.
"Does he have a point, or is he just trying to piss us off?" Midnight muttered.
"He's trying to remind you guys that these League people, or Liberation freaks, whatever they are these days; they don't think like normal people," Taiyang sighed as he rubbed the bridge of his nose- something he did often when he had to work with his brother-in-law. "From what Nezu has told us, that Shigaraki guy isn't really afraid of anything. He'd probably take these upgrades being advertised like a slap in the face, and he returns stuff like that with interest. It'd probably make him attack us even faster."
"Thing is, according to what we've been told by Eri, Shigaraki was supposed to have already attacked us by now," All Might said in a subdued tone. "The fact that the Liberation Front is holding off means that something has changed from the future- something to make them more cautious."
He had been a lot more somber in his mannerisms the last few weeks, having been subjected to a hearing by the school board as to whether or not he should be fired for his conduct concerning Kurai and Izuku's training. While not everyone had been made aware of One For All- instead being told that Eri had been able to come back in time due to quirk experimentation in the future- Aizawa had informed the rest of the staff that All Might had been training the two boys to take on his responsibilities in addition to all the other hardships that they had been made to suffer, resulting in Kurai's current predicament. Most of the other teachers still respected All Might and what he had done for the community at large, as well as recognizing that he had been put in a fairly impossible situation when he realized that his power was fading and his body was withering away. They didn't necessarily approve of his actions concerning the two boys, but they felt that he had done the best he could, and as long as he continued to devote himself anew to all of his students, he should not face any disciplinary action. However, the injunction was now on his record as an instructor, which meant that he would have to proceed carefully going forward, lest he be made to answer for his actions with Japan's Board of Education, outside the protection that UA currently offered him.
Aizawa had observed the proceedings and acknowledged the judgement of the other instructors without complaint or protest, but it was clear that he would be watching All Might with an eagle eye and every ounce of suspicion that he possessed. Even now, he was eyeing his coworker with a measured gaze, as if waiting for him to say something that would give him an excuse to pounce again.
Akarui had noticed this, and seeking to divert the other teacher's attention away from his idol, now said, "You guys were never able to find a mole in the school, right? Maybe there isn't one, but if there is, they could have informed Shigaraki's people that Kurai is still alive, and that we have a new ally with power equal to his. That would probably be enough of a deterrent to at least make them proceed with a greater degree of caution- or maybe they've decided to wait on their leader to emerge from whatever procedure he's probably undergoing right now."
"Procedure?" Power Loader inquired. "What are you talking about?"
"Eri mentioned that when the Front attacked us in her timeline, Shigaraki didn't actually appear for several months- not until the spring, if memory serves," he answered. "We also know that when he did join the fighting, he possessed All For One's power. Based on what we've been able to find out about the Nomu creatures, modifying someone's body to take on additional quirks isn't something you can do overnight. If Shigaraki is working on obtaining All For One's quirk- without turning into a brainless Nomu- it's gotta be an even more complicated process, right?"
The other teachers looked thoughtful as they processed this theory, with Gunslinger eventually saying, "Makes sense to me. If the League and the Front were certain that they didn't need a new All For One to win against us, they wouldn't be waiting around."
"What does all this have to do with whether or not we let it be known that we're increasing our defensive measures?" Cementoss asked.
"It means that we know we have time to get ready, now," Nezu answered him. "What we now face is the question of what we should do with that time."
"Uh, isn't that obvious?" Crow sneered. "Jeez, for once even the big wigs have more sense than you people."
"Do you have to deliver an insult every time you have a point to make?" Vlad King growled.
"Yes," Crow replied before emptying his flask into his mouth. "Ah… The Safety Commission has your kids training with work studies because they're turning them into soldiers for the war they suspect- and that we know- is coming. If those asshats are doing their part, you guys should buck up and start doing yours'. Stop givin' 'em reasons to throw you guys under the bus, already. I thought you guys prided yourselves on being the best pros around here? Stop making these kids do all the work for you, sheesh."
There was an ugly silence before Gunslinger growled, "If you were one of my sidekicks, I might have you shot, Branwen."
"If I was on your payroll, I'd shoot myself," Crow shot back. "Why are we even having this discussion?"
"Gentlemen, please," Nezu said in a calm tone before voices could be raised. "While I'm inclined to favor making the effort to keep these upgrades a secret, I would remind our friend from overseas that we are in no position to simply act on plans because they sound good. If we do not proceed in unity, we will soon find ourselves not only facing threats from outside these walls, but also from the discord it would generate among ourselves."
"Unity, huh?" Crow snickered. "I thought you people thrived on the competition around here."
"Okay, go refill your stupid flask," Taiyang sighed as he lowered his head in frustration. "You're not helping anything right now."
"Yeah, cos these people are probably beyond help," Crow snorted as he made to stumble toward the door. "Later, Tai. Lemme know when there's an actual job for me."
"Is he seriously drunk?" Midnight demanded as the man fumbled for the doorknob a couple of times before he finally managed to exit the room.
"He's always drunk," Taiyang admitted.
"I… am catbug!" Crow shouted from outside the door before he slammed it shut.
"Unfortunately, he has some valid points," Aizawa murmured. "If we really were all killed in the initial attack in Eri's future, before Shigaraki even showed up on the scene, we need to start stepping up our game, and quietly. The villains will attack us eventually, that's a fact. We'd be best served by equipping ourselves with the means to bloody their noses even harder than they would expect of us. We also don't want to provoke them before we're as ready as we can be."
"That gives 'em time to gather their strength," Present Mic protested.
"That's what Crow is here for," Taiyang said before anyone else could add to his idea. "Believe it or not- and I know there are gonna be more than a few of you who don't- Crow's the best there is at the infiltration game. He's gonna be working to get into their ranks and sabotage them as much as he can in the next few months."
"How?" Cementoss asked.
"I dunno exactly how he does it, but I've seen the guy take down more than one corrupt hero and politician," Taiyang shrugged. "The people he investigates suddenly end up having a lot of skeletons walking out of their closets that gets them shut down and usually in jail. You'd never be able to pin it on him, though."
"Branwen will be investigating heroes who may have ties to the Liberation Front and working to expose them for who they really are," Nezu explained. "Hopefully, the more people that he identifies as villains, the more information will get out on its own about what our enemies are up to. It may even help to prevent them from recruiting as many members as they would have had in the future."
"Any reduction to enemy numbers would be welcome," All Might nodded. "Xiao Long and Aizawa are right. If we give Branwen time to do his thing, it gives us more time to train up our students as best we can."
"Shall we begin applying Hikari's inventions to our defenses in secret, then?" Nezu asked as he set his paws down on the table in a gesture of finality for the conversation.
As the teachers were trickling out of the meeting room, Aizawa felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. Looking down at the displayed number when he pulled the device out of his pocket, he quickly called out, "Hikari. Come with me."
"Huh?" Akarui stuttered, having nearly been lost in thought as to which defense mechanism he should augment first as he exited the room. "What for?"
"It's the hospital," the teacher replied as he started walking toward his classroom, which was currently unoccupied. "I imagine that there's been some kind of change in your brother's condition, and I figured you'd want to know about it sooner rather than later."
"Yessir," Akarui said quickly as he stepped up to walk behind the older man. Due to his new schedule as a guest teacher, assistant medic, and inventor, he hadn't been able to see his brother since his initial visit, and he'd only been able to talk to him a few times on the phone in the interim. "Thank you, sir."
Deku: So, is Kurai already coming out of the hospital? That seems pretty short-lived.
Akarui: Actually, not quite.
Deku: Huh?
Akarui: Yeah, see... Mataras here wants to do a more comprehensive coverage of what's going on at UA with my brother around to muck things up, so the next chapter is a redo! Just from a different point of view.
Mataras: That's oversimplifying it.
Akarui: Then how would you describe, smart guy?
Mataras: Same time period, different point of view, different events that take place during-
Akarui: ...
Mataras: You know what? Fine. It's redo. I'm just lazy like that.
Akarui: Ah, he admits it! We're making progress here.
Deku: Next time- In the Absence of a Hero
Mataras: Let's have a look at what Future Eri has been up to in all this, shall we?
Deku: She's ready to Go Beyond!
Akarui: Plus Ultra!
Next time on Your Hero Academia: Renewal...
Eri had come in from another training session with All Might when she was surprised to see four newcomers in her dorm's common space. They were spread across the room, so she might have missed them if it weren't for the excited Ruby practically bouncing off the walls as she greeted the other teenagers as old friends.
Before Eri could make her way over, Izuku walked up with a smile and said, "Emiri, glad you could make it in time to meet our new schoolmates." To the newcomers, he added, "This is the friend I was telling you guys about. She's kinda new to our school, too."
The girl smiled politely in return as she realized that these people were probably the new transfers from America. "Hello," she said by way of greeting as she came to stand in front of the quartet, each of them wearing pleasant looks as they gathered to meet her. "I'm Emiri Hikota. It's nice to meet all of you."
"Hey," said a young man with blond hair and bright blue eyes. "I'm Jaune Arc, and the pleasure's all mine."