deathcombo99: God dam, I binge read the entire story

Re: Comments like that always brighten up my day~

superpierce: Nice chapter love the addition of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid.

Re: That's the power of Discord for you~

LoamyCoffee: Desire to read... REIGNITED!

While it pains my heart to see the result of time passing enough for the humans of the series to be gone, I'm glad that Takei is helping Elma heal and bring back that spirit that I love so much about my Gluttonous Sea Dragon.

But now that you've revealed her, I don't doubt that the other dragons still on Earth will be making appearances.

Re: A big part of their dialogue was inspired by Ken Akamatsu's UQ Holder which sincerely tackles the ramifications of long-form immortality; and if they're written well, Immortals can make great place settings, so I hope I did a post-post-post-series Elma "Joui" justice.

Raidentensho: very nice. Elma is indeed a keeper. though, i do wonder if the Mc and his harem will go rift jumping and maybe land on "Toriko" as one of the stops to really brighten Elma's days? this will indeed be epic. until then, later!

Re: Maybe in an off-shot~ Torikois one of my favorites, as the rampant cameos in Giant-Slayer show~

*AHA*

Elma and I exchanged contact information before we parted, and given this was the most emotion Elma had ever shown anyone from the Mon Squad, including but not limited to calling me "hatchling" on the way out as they tried to (and eventually succeeded in) pry(ing) me from her arms, I had some explaining to do.

Thankfully, I'm a lot better at bullshitting in this body than I was in my last one, so I made up some spiel about how I "recognized" someone that had lost loved ones in the past "from a place of sincerity", and just poured my heart out to her in what were admittedly fewer words than had come to mind before I let it out like word vomit.

By some miracle, the two of them bought that, though it might've been because Zombina was a laid-back sort of sort courtesy of her pseudo-immortality, while Doppel herself was a trickster and decided to let me play whatever "long game" she thought that I thought I "had in mind"…

They didn't hear Elma and I say anything too incriminating to one another, so it was possible I could keep up the charade for a bit longer, but if they did any sort of in-depth background check on that picture of Kobayashi-san, she too might have to answer some difficult questions.

Unless Elma had a memory-erasing spell in her repertoire. If she did, that offered her a lot more latitude.

It was easy to tell Shiori and Kuromi about being a "Reincarnated" because they had their own forms of Multi-Dimensional Awareness, but to tell normal people… And Hitomi was going to be the hardest of all to tell; she was the first person I saw when I woke up, and I was her first professional success to boot…

Still, those were worries for future me.

My life was taking a turn; for better or worse, I wasn't sure which. But what I did know was I'd continue to make the most out of what little time I had on this version of my world, even if the end-goal wasn't what I'd initially had in mind.

*AHA*

"Grampy… Why isn't Bub-kun moving?"

"Hey ojii-chan, you won't ever leave me, will you?"

"Gramps…"

'How can he be dead? He was the strongest person I know…'

"Ugh… That dream again…" Fujimi Yomi groaned as she got up from her bed.

Craning her gaze toward her zombie head-shaped alarm clock, the Undying Girl let out a groan as she saw she still had an hour left before she was supposed to get up for school that day.

"Whoever came up with that expression, 'sleep like the dead', obviously didn't know how the ones that come back feel."

It was more often than not impossible for the girl to get back to sleep after having that particular dream sequence… so Yomi decided to get her morning stretches in early. Going through the motions, one of her sutures on her forearm snapped, a sigh leaving her lips before she bandaged it up with some gauze.

"Oh well. At least I have a cute boy to pamper me later~" the Undying Girl chuckled to herself as she brushed her monochrome-colored hair, her zombie badge/hairpin going up last as she donned her school uniform.

*AHA*

"Takei-kun~ Could you help a girl out~?" Yomi grinned in homeroom, a spool of medical thread in her hand.

"Geez, you're just coming apart at the seams, aren't you?" the blond-haired elf-like boy chuckled as he took the spool from her hand, pulling out her old suture before getting to work on the new one.

"Honestly, you'd forget to bring your own head to class if it weren't attached," Kuromi huffed off to the side. "Oh wait. That already happened," she deadpanned dryly.

"That's a reference by the way~" Shiori grinned off toward a vacant space in class. "Kachowwww!" she said making a wavy motion with her hands.

*Past*

"What's in your hand?!" Shitara Nobuko demanded through the courtyard window.

"What-?! N-Nothing!" Takabana Yama cried out.

"I don't… BEWEVE YOU!" Nobuko cried as she shot out her tongue across the courtyard, catching the long-nosed teen by the arm.

"Shitara-san, you're amazing!" Yomi grinned, her right eye socket empty.

"Hurry and reel him in!" Nobuko cried around her extended tongue.

"Rocket… PUNCH!" Yomi shouted as she ripped her left hand off, despite Hitomi's protests, and threw it. The long-nosed teen dodging the super-literally thrown punch by the skin of his nose, the next moment Yomi whooped- "Gotcha! The Rocket Punch was just a distraction~!" -as her own thrown head caught him in the face with a *SLAM*, snapping the long-nosed teen's head back. "Yeah! Mission accomplished~!"

-said the Undying Girl from her (decapitated) place on the ground as her severed hand held up her formerly-lost eyeball.

*Present*

"If you wanna see the full story, read the second chapter of the manga~"

"Shiori, who're you talking to?" Chisa huffed as the 2D Girl continued talking into the empty distance.

"Well, at least you guys are perfectly capable of getting into weird shit when I'm not around…" Takei hummed as he finished the string of sutures. "There you go. All better."

"Arigatou, Takei-kun~!" Yomi grinned as she held out her head and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Chuuuu!"

"Fujimi-san, please refrain from breaking your own sutures," Tatara Ken groaned as he walked into that at homeroom.

"Eehee~ Whoops~" she grinned poking her tongue out the corner of her mouth.

"If you keep making a habit of this, I'll have to start charging," Takei said as he placed the girl's head on her shoulders and got to work on her neck. "Are you… Are you getting off on this?" he asked as the Undying Girl squirmed with a flush on her face.

" . . . Mayyyybe~"

"Takehiko-san, don't kink-shame your peers," Ken sighed tiredly.

"Not what I wanted to hear first thing in the morning…"

*AHA*

"Boya! Get your gear on and let's go! We're going on patrol today!"

"Jii-chan?!" I gawped as the old man leapt through the open window at the end of the day, clad in his yellow Mega Man-esque Hero suit, an equally-familiar suitcase slung over his shoulder.

"Whoa! A Hero!"

"The rumors were true."

"I didn't know they ever got that old!" -were the mutterings that occurred as Sorahiko deposited my costume's carrying case onto my desk with a heavy *Thump!*

"C'mon, boya, up and at 'em! Gotta strike while the iron's hot!" Torino said slapping at my leg with his cane.

"I don't get any say in this, do I?"

"Not in the slightest!" the senior said unashamedly.

"Ah, geez…" I sighed as I took up my case. "Alright, fine. I'll drop my bags off with Hitomi-sensei and be right with you."

"Get the lead out, alright? We're burnin' daylight!"

*AHA*

"Takei-kun, you look so cool!" Hitomi beamed at me as I stepped out from behind the infirmary curtain.

"I'll admit, I do feel slightly less-ridiculous with all this on…" I hummed as I adjusted myself in the body glove, returning the borrowed canister of baby powder to its place on the shelf. "Thanks for holding onto my stuff like this. I'll swing by the house to pick it up after jii-chan is done with me."

"It's no problem at all," Hitomi smiled, and then warily looking down into my attaché case. "You be responsible with this thing, alright?" she asked passing over my P-90. "I don't want to see you on the news again.".

"I'll keep the gunfire to a minimum," I replied as she cutely chastised me. "Though I doubt I'll have much use for it. Not with a veteran Hero around."

"It still warrants saying," she said puffing out her cheeks, and then licking her fingers before mussing with my hair.

"H-Hitomi…?!"

"We can't have you going out there with messy hair. Now sit still, this'll only take a second."

"Oh my, a hair-fixing party and no-one invited me~?" Otome swooned playfully.

"Run, Takei-kun! SAVE YOURSELF!" Hitomi cried as Otome's tendril-like hair slithered towards the both of us.

"If you really mean that, stop using me as a human shield!"

*AHA*

"Thanks for letting us come along!" the metallic-haired teen, Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu, smiled with a wave as we all left the school gates.

"We greatly appreciate it," the orange-haired teen, Kendo Itsuka, smiled in kind.

"Yeah, well… I couldn't really think of any reason to exclude you guys," I returned as we, Torino, and a couple of my in-group followed along.

While it was true that Gran Torino wasn't conventionally "heroic" in the aesthetic sense, that he had survived to a ripe old age of… Okay, I actually don't know how-old he is, but given the amount of ass he can still kick, does it really matter?

But anyway, when they said they wanted to pick the brain of a Pro Hero who had managed to not end his career on the business end of a scandal or riding a pine box, I really couldn't think of any reason to refute them. Not when they wanted to attend Yuuei so they could be the best Heroes they could be. When that "KonoFrog" was eating Chisa mind-numbingly slowly, only Moji-sensei could've been seen to have been fighting harder than those two. If they'd known one another since elementary school, it was perfectly feasible they'd been Reinforcing their respective Quirks off one another for quite a long time; as opposed to those who tried out for Hero Academies and thought the mere possession of a Quirk was enough to get through the front door. If these two were actually serious about getting into a Hero Academy, I might as well help them out where I can; especially since going to Yuuei might as well be a foregone conclusion for me.

"Just don't go too crazy with your Quirks," Torino said from his place on my back. "I might have a Teacher's License, but that only gives me so much latitude. And if you have to use your Quirks, for the love of Kami, don't cause any collateral!"

"Hai, shishou!" Tetsutetsu bowed enthusiastically at the waist.

"So what exactly are you here for?" Itsuka asked over her shoulder.

"Eh, Yuusha-kun's where the action is~" Shiori grinned.

"I have to keep this idiot in line," Kuromi sighed.

"I'm here to take in the sights~" Yomi grinned as she eyed…

Okay, I'm twelve, so my ass can't be that great, can it…?

Part of me hopes I'm just imagining things, but then again, girls do "mature faster than boys", so it isn't implausible my body glove-clad ass is drawing the eye of the fairer sex.

I just wish I wasn't fucking twelve…!

Truly, being a Reincarnated is a mixed bag.

*AHA*

"Alright, kiddos, pop quiz: why do Villains appear in big cities even though that's where all the Heroes will be?" Gran Torino asked as we took a bus into the heart of Asaka-shi, the pedestrians around us giving he and his costume-clad 'Sidekick' a wide, respectful, and/or reverent berth.

"Um… Uh… So they can fight strong Heroes!" Tetsutetsu answered pounding a fist into his chest.

Your typical meat-head response…

"Because commerce centers are where the money is," Itsuka answered with a raised hand.

Your typical 'Onee-sama' response.

"Right on the money! Literally! You see, a Villain can choose to operate out in the boonies, but then the most they can hope to rob is a half-depleted ATM or a convenience store. While the chance of Hero or dedicated police response is far higher in the big city, a successful job can set a guy for quite a few years as long as they don't flaunt their wealth like complete jackasses shouting out to the heavens 'I am here!'"

"Really? Seems kinda dumb…" Tetsutetsu grumbled.

"If you have to turn to crime to make ends meet, your prospects can't be all that great in the first place," I said as I turned my P-90 over in my hand, making sure nothing was loose. "All these Villains act like they're 'owed something', but at the end of the day, they're just lazy bums who don't want to work for a living."

"Kinda sucks all the fun out of it, huh?" Kuromi hummed knowingly.

"Well, it is comic book logic~" Shiori nodded sagely.

"Take away the silly outfits and the endorsement deals, and Heroes are just Cops who can use their Quirks and have a trademark over their own likeness," I continued. "The pay wall may've gone way down since the Corporate Age of Heroes and the heyday of Hero TV: Live!, but at the end of the day, it's all still commerce; supply, demand, diversified revenue streams, so-on and so forth."

"Hey, but what about 'justice'?!" Tetsutetsu demanded heatedly.

"Justice doesn't put food on the table or keep the electric company off your ass," I huffed back at the metallic meat-head, the teen flinching back at my monochrome domino mask as I narrowed my eyes at him. "Some people think that Heroes should do what they do pro-bono, because it 'cheapens' the work they do if they receive money for the work they do… But what about police, fire fighters, first responders, teachers, bodyguards, and so-on that also receive compensation for the work they do? If Heroes were expected to pay their own way, it'd only be Comic-Con outside of normal business hours. And Kami forbid you work at a Black Company with lots of unpaid over-time, because there's no way someone with that shit job would have the energy, let alone the motivation, for charity life-endangerment."

"Hey now, to be fair, Black Companies are largely a thing of the past era," Gran Torino interrupted. "I mean, over-worked, under-appreciated, emotionally abused people with superpowers cramped into poorly paying dead-end jobs? You're just asking for an Instant Villain attack from sheer stress alone."

"Yeah, and not to mention, where do you think all the Hero Course drop-outs wind up when they lose their 'protagonist status'?" Kuromi huffed. "We don't think much on it because there are so many Heroes wandering around and we can't toss a rock into the air without hitting one on the way down… But the fact is, there's plenty more who find out they can't cut it a year out of graduation, and they either quit when the stress of 'the real world' gets to them, or they get injured by some two-bit Villain and they have to retire because their one-trick Quirk isn't good enough to keep them afloat. Not to mention all the in-fighting between the 'work horses' and 'show horses'."

"Well that's a pretty gloomy way of looking at things…" Tetsutetsu said warily of the Shadow Girl.

"Nothing wrong with being realistic," the pretty, but still-gloomy girl waved him off.

"You guys really know a lot about this…" Itsuka hummed looking between the two of us.

"It might just seem like we're wise and all-knowing, but it's really just 'genre-awareness'~" Shiori smiled, looking over her shoulder cattily.

"Well, here's our stop," Gran Torino said as he hopped onto my back. "C'mon, 'Junior Heroes'! It's time to patrol!"

*AHA*

I had hoped that this 'patrol' of ours would just be a 'Horse & Pony Show'; a light bit of exercise before we phoned it in, went home, and did homework. However, when I caught the semi-familiar sound of a leather glove being dragged down the strings of a bass guitar, well…

"RUUUUUN! IT'S GOJIRAAA!"

"It looks like Gojira, but due to international copyright laws, it is not."

"Still, we should run like it is Gojira!"

"Though it isn't~"

"AHHHHHHHHH!" the two suit-clad Japanese businessmen screamed as a parade float-sized Heteromorph with reptilian characteristics rounded the corner, his or her tongue flailing through the air as a copyright violation-toeing *SKREOOOONK!* bellowed through the air.

"That tongue…" I muttered as something nagged in the back of my head, the scars across my arms and legs aching at the sight of it.

"Decreased blood circulation to oral tissue. A readily-identifiable symptom of Japan's strain of power-boosting neo-steroid: Ideo Trigger," Torino summarized as Tetsutetsu and Itsuka looked to him for guidance. "Alright, you three, keep the crowds back! I'll go distract not-Gojira over there!"

His cane tossed over to one of our tagalongs, the next moment he shot off like an airsoft bullet, zigzagging through the air before double-kicking the Gojira knock-off in the face with impressive force.

"Damn, Takei! You've got one kickass ojii-san!" Tetsutetsu awed as the Gojira-like Heteromorph was forced back a step.

"Fanboy later!" I said drawing a starting pistol, a recent addition to my 'Hero Kit', from my side holster and raising it above my head. *POP!* "EVERYONE! THIS WAY!"

"RUN AWAY FROM THE BOOTLEG KAIJU!" Itsuka added cupping her gigantified hands around her mouth.

"HEY, WHAT THE HELL'RE YOU DOING?! GET OFF YOUR PHONE AND RUN!" Tetsutetsu shouted at some guy with his phone out.

In return for this potential life-saving advice, the metallic meat-head got the middle finger from the pedestrian as he shamelessly filmed something that would have way too many hashtags attached.

"Leave him. Let Charles Darwin decide his fate."

"Who?"

Christ or Kami or whoever, these modern-day kids are stupid…

"The guy that decided stupid animals are the ones that die first," I said frankly before grabbing the back of Itsuka's shirt. "And where do you think you're going?"

"To get that rubber-necker out of here!" she said as her Quirk-enlarged hands made grabbing motions.

"You so much as touch that guy, and he'll sue your panties off."

Would that be petty?

Yes, yest it would.

Would some asshole in a pending disaster area sue someone for stopping them from filming for YouTube or FaceBook or Twitter or whatever?

Ab-so-fucking-lutely.

"But…!"

"You need to pick your battles. You're not even a Hero-in-Training yet, so you aren't expected to actually save anyone," I chastised her before she could get charged with 'Quirk Abuse' or some other nonsense. "Telling people to run away from the drug fiend is the most we can sensibly do at the moment."

*SPLAT!*

"Well, at least that guy died instantly…" I said frankly after a tail-swipe from aforementioned 'drug fiend' sent a parked car up into the air, Itsuka and Tetsutetsu's faces draining of color as the sidewalk was painted a very disgusting one.

*POP!*

"DOUBLE-TIME IT, PEOPLE! HELL, I'LL SETTLE FOR SINGLE-TIME!" I shouted as I fired another blank, those that had been on the fence between watching and running choosing to run.

Ah well, at least that phone junkie wouldn't be breeding any time soon.

You know… Cause he died.

*AHA*

"Urgh…!" Itsuka dry-heaved into a nearby trash can after local Hero support arrived, Gran Torino walking the six of us off once not-Gojira was subdued.

"Well, you can't save everyone," Gran Torino sighed as he hobbled along, his cane tapping the ground with a little more force than was necessary.

"Dude, how the hell can you be so straight-faced about this…?!" Tetsutetsu growled angrily at me. "Someone died back there, AND YOU DID NOTHING ABOUT-"

In response, I pulled back some of the catsuit from my arm, revealing the faded tally mark-shaped scars from where that vampire-looking motherfucker carved me up for parts.

"People die. People die every single day. I got over it," I said covering it back up, Tetsutetsu gritting his teeth while Itsuka looked pensive. "Don't weep for the stupid; you'll be crying all day," I said her way.

"So you really were attacked by a Villain, then?"

"Three times; and that's only the direct ones," I said holding up three fingers her way. "Those 'Rift Beasts' or whatever, that was just 'right place, wrong time'," I shrugged. " . . . Do you know how many people died during the last great war?" I inquired, seemingly out-of-nowhere, Tetsutetsu looking like he was about to hurt himself while Itsuka's mouth formed soundless words. "Seventy-three million across six years from every active country. And that was before Quirks became a thing. For every one Quirk-related incident you hear about on the news, there's nine more that never see print. Nine more that nobody really cares about because no-one wearing their underwear on the outside of their pants showed up to handle it and make a spectacle of the whole sad affair."

"Well, what the hell kind of Hero are you going to be?" Tetsutetsu growled at me.

"Bonjour, Heroes~" I said knowingly with a wave of my hand before I lifted Sorahiko onto my shoulders and walked off.

"I don't get it. It that a reference… or something?" Itsuka blinked.

"The cake is a lie!" Shiori shouted seemingly-out-of-nowhere.

"Forty-two," Kuromi added.

"What the heck does that mean?" the red-head deadpanned.

*AHA*

"SPRAY… STARRRRRRCH!"

-was what my increasingly-sensitive ears picked up from one of the office buildings overhead.

*SMASH!*

*CRASH!*

"Oh? Looks like someone worked their slave labor-I mean, employees, way too hard," Gran Torino hummed as a run-of-the-mill office desk turned a shiny foreign sports car parked by the curbside into a modern art piece.

*POP!*

"EVERYONE, CLEAR THE AREA!" I said firing another blank into the air. By some miracle, everyone on the street actually had the wherewithal to vacate the premises once some postal desk drone started breaking windows with office furniture like the world's most-aggressive bubble wrap-popping party.

"Keep your wits about you! I'm going in!"

*FWOOSH-FWOOSH-FWOOSH!*

"So, do you actually know how to use those things?" I hummed aloud as Itsuka used JSL to instruct those who were hard of hearing or couldn't hear at all.

"In combat?" Itsuka asked, her forearms having lengthened and widened appropriately to accommodate her giant hands. "Yeah, of course I do!"

"Good to know. Manako and the others' horror stories about their teen years didn't really paint a pretty picture about most Quirk users, so I figured, but I didn't want to assume," I shrugged before grabbing her shirt and yanking her back behind me, an office chair hitting the space she stood on a few seconds ago and peppering my flak vest and visor with debris.

Tetsutetsu for his part tanked a falling coffee machine to the face, and his Quirk, which reminded me of Colossus' from X-Men, was the only thing that stopped him from painting the street a disgusting color too.

"Being a 'late bloomer' must've made it hard on you," Itsuka hummed, wiping a bead of sweat once she saw how-close she'd come to biting it.

"I wouldn't know. When that Villain attacked me at the orphanage, he totally fried my brain," I waved off, clearing the street as the police and a few Heroes began to show up.

"Was that before or after the… you know…" she said eyeing my forearms.

"Before, and I spent an entire year after collecting bedsores. Hitomi-sensei was the first person I saw when I woke up, and the rest, as they say, is history," I hummed. "TETSU! GET YOUR SHINY METAL ASS OVER HERE! MAKE WAY FOR THE PROFESSIONALS!"

Even if they were dressed like complete jackasses…

*AHA*

"And as it turned out, it really was some desk drone that went postal after too-much overtime," Torino told the police officers once the younger, less-curmudgeonly Heroes showed up.

"I see, I see," the officer replied, jotting down notes with a practiced hand. "And the kids?"

"Grandkid and his friends. Bit of a… pre-Academy training exercise."

"Hey, I recognize him now… Wasn't he there with that whole pig-person debacle?" the man blinked as he recognized me.

"Don't ask," Torino huffed, hobbling away on his cane and back towards us. "Alright, we're good to go."

"You sure?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah, it's all good," the elderly Hero waved off. "I have… a ton of latitude."

"Can we go home now?"

" . . . Yeah, okay," Torino nodded after eyeing the damage around them. "I think that's enough for one day."

*AHA*

Unfortunately, the universe at large didn't have the same opinion of things…

*CRASH!*

*HONK*

*HONK*

*HOOOONK!*

"Dammit, these guys keep coming out of the woodwork!" I swore as the bastard lovechild of Optimus Prime and the Pilsbury Dough Boy crashed through the wall of the convenience store in front of us like the Kool-Aid Man.

And I don't mean normal sex. I mean hate fucking. Like there was something wrong with the relationship and that was the only catharsis they could find without violence.

*POP!*

"All of you! Scatter!" I shouted, my starting gun snapping the civies around us from their ogling. The Villain rounding on us at the noise, a blackened tongue wetted a grill of disgusting-looking teeth, eyes hazed over with drugs locking onto our bright colors.

"Kids! Move!" Torino hissed as he shot up and over the guy's shoulder before kicking at the back of his head, failing to draw aggro as the Villain continued to advance on my friends and I.

"Itsuka, Tetsutetsu, remember what I said about 'Quirk Abuse' earlier?" I asked aloud, ratchetting the slide on my P-90. "I take it all back!"

"About god-damn time!" Tetsutetsu grinned, getting his Colossus on as he rushed at the unperturbed "Truck Villain", only to get bitch slapped through a house.

*CRASH!*

"That doesn't look good…!" Itsuka shivered as she raised her enlarged hands in a defensive posture.

It was one thing to fight a giant frog; but going up against a legit Villain, I could understand her trepidation.

"NO SHIT!" I swore as I opened fire with my SMG, the 30-round mag emptied out into his midsection, doing little more than pock-marking him with bruises. "FUCK! SHIT! FUCK!" I swore as I ran for it, having succeeded in drawing aggro. "Leg day, don't fail me now!"

"Damn you, skipped gym classes!" Kuromi muttered as she ran alongside.

"Wha- Kuromi!? Shiori?! Yomi!? What part of 'scatter' did you all fucking miss?!" I asked/demanded as we rounded the corner, the Truck Villain momentarily overshooting.

"Obviously, we suck at it," Shiori hummed as the Truck Villain clawed at the ground to get back after us. "That or plot reasons~"

*RIP!*

"Ohshit!"

"Yomi!" I cried out as the sutures on her left leg tore, head bouncing up with a *SMACK* as she fell to the ground right in the Truck Villain's path.

When later asked about what the hell had gone through my mind when I did what I did, as though it were some kind of universal constant, the words that came from my lips were-

"My body just moved on its own."

Of course, that was later. What happened at present was…

*AHA*

'Of all the times to break a suture! Shit!' Yomi swore as blood dribbled into her eye from her split forehead.

The wound closing up even as she looked over her shoulder, the Truck Villain galloping down the side street like an enraged gorilla, Gran Torino's best efforts to dissuade him went largely ignored. Despite being "Undead", her life flashed before her eyes, and then started flashing before her eyes again after she'd recovered from her first "death".

Sure, she'd never actively stress-tested how-much her [Undying Girl] Quirk could heal her body, given that even a year later, her severed limbs showed no real progress of permanently re-attaching themselves. But even she knew that if the Truck Villain trampled her underfoot, a series of spiderwebbed craters left in the wake of each knuckle and footfall, that even one direct hit and she'd be done for.

Which was why she was filled with both elation and dread when a familiar pair of catsuit-clad arms scooped her up from the ground before running like hell, the waning sunlight reflecting off an orange-tinted visor.

"Real shit time to go to pieces on me, huh, Yomi-chan?!"

"T-Takei-kun…" she sobbed, eyes growing moist as she felt his pulse pounding, the Truck Villain bearing down on them.

"Movemovemovemovemove!" he hissed at himself as his eyes panned left, Yomi following his gaze to see Shiori and Kuromi huddled around a corner, waving them over frantically.

"It's okay. You're going to be okay."

The next moment Yomi felt herself go weightless, Takei lobbing her sidelong toward Shiori and Kuromi's waiting arms. The very moment they'd caught her…

*THUNK!*

"TAKEI-KUUUN!" Yomi cried as the Truck Villain bodily struck him with his lowered truck-like head, body akimbo as he pinwheeled through the air before falling to the ground, coming to rest in a crumpled heap.