A/N: Even with the wind-down from the last chapter, I feel as though it's been a minute since Class 1-A has had the time to just sit and be. Time for a catch-up chapter between friends!

Reunions

Kurai stood outside of class 1-A's dorm, feelings of longing and nostalgia washing over him as he looked up at the living complex. It hadn't really been so long since he'd stepped foot inside the building, but to him it felt as though a lifetime had passed him by. Adding to the feeling was the thought that when he had last left campus, he had almost been a different person entirely.

"Hey," Mina said softly as she squeezed his hand and looked up at him. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he nodded with a wobbly grin. "Sorry, I didn't think that this would be so emotional for me." It was nearly eight in the morning, and even in spite of the fact that they had managed to get some sleep on the plane ride, the time differences between Japan and Otheon had left the group feeling severely jetlagged. The additional detail that they had only been able to sleep in brief shifts at the police station while they took turns filing their mission reports with the available detectives didn't help their energy levels, either. It had taken most of the night, following their escape from the media to the police station that handled most of the reports from UA faculty and hero students, so to see the sun rising when all they wanted to do was crash on their beds was a sight that somehow just made them feel even more tired.

"It's weird, isn't it?" Eri asked, drawing the couple's attention to her. She didn't look at them as she went on to say, "I remember the day I came here, for the funeral. In the future, UA was nothing more than a charred spot on the map after Shigaraki's forces burned it to the ground. The last time I saw it in my future, buildings were collapsing, and there was fire and death everywhere. And after that, growing up on the run, it felt like that was all I could remember of this place. But when I came back and walked on the campus for the first time in this era, it almost felt like nothing had changed at all- except for me."

"Like we're a couple of strangers walking through, wearing our old faces as a disguise to blend in," Kurai summarized, leading the other One For All inheritor to nod in agreement.

"And here I thought Tokoyami was the master of melodramatics in our class," Weiss deadpanned as she and Bakugo walked past the trio, apparently having grown tired of waiting on them to get moving again. "We've all been up for far too long, so I suggest we all start moving if we want to get a solid bit of rest."

"Come on," Mina told Kurai as she squeezed his hand again. "It's time to come home."

And if that just didn't put the biggest smile on his face. "Home," he repeated, liking the feeling of the word leaving his mouth. As Mina tugged him along, he made sure to add in a voice that was only loud enough for her to hear, "Mind you, my home is wherever you happen to be- UA or not."

Then it was her turn to wear a cheek-stretching smile as they made their way up the steps and into the building that they shared with their friends. He didn't see anyone in the lounge area, which would have been unusual, if not for the fact that most of them would have only just gotten in from their own missions, and were likely taking a well-deserved rest. Those who would force themselves to get up early were probably doing their normal morning routines, such as working out or getting ahead (or caught up) on their homework.

Guess that means I can sneak into my room and catch a few z's before people notice I'm back, he thought with a tired grin.

"SURPRISE!"

"Mother of Shenron!" he yelped as the room was suddenly flooded with people streaming in from the kitchen, laundry rooms, and even the bathing areas, until all of his classmates were standing in a rough circle, with Eri and Izuku wearing the biggest smiles in the bunch. "You guys are gonna give me a heart attack and kill me again one of these times!" Turning to Mina, who had burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, he quickly added, "You set this up?!"

"Told ya I'd planned a surprise party!" she giggled as she doubled over with merriment. To their classmates, she said, "Please, please tell me one of you recorded that!"

"Got you covered," said a familiar voice that Kurai never would have expected to hear on UA's campus.

"Wait, is that-?"

"Good to see you again, Kurai," Tensei Iida said as he strode out from behind a cluster of the class' taller students, a broad smile on his face as he moved to seize the younger hero up in a rough embrace that took his friend a second to return. "You're looking well, kiddo."

"You-! You can walk!" Kurai laughed as he was released and looked the elder Iida brother up and down. "But the doctors said-!"

"I have your friend to thank," Tensei interrupted as he gestured to Eri, whose smile grew even wider as Kurai's eyes nearly popped out of his head.

"You rewound him?" he gaped.

"Ingenium runs once again!" Tenya declared before the girl could confirm the act, even as he took his turn to hug Kurai, breaking his strict conduct of societal politeness for the first time since his other classmates had known him. "We were able to convince Principal Nezu to allow him on campus to welcome you back!"

"He's not the only one," said another familiar voice that got Kurai to turn to his right, his smile growing back to the point where it was starting to hurt his face. Shukin moved in to grasp forearms with his cousin before giving him yet another hug, one that was joined by Akarui, who was also wearing a huge smile. "Man, you really had us worried with that whole Kanto thing! It's good to see you back in one piece! Though I gotta say, I kinda liked the salt-and-pepper look you had going on before. Now you're just salty."

"It's great to see you too, and now at least my looks match my personality," Kurai laughed. Looking over his cousin's shoulder, he then called out, "Aunt Sakura! Sorry I didn't call after the Humarise attack."

"I'd like to say I'm upset about that, but you just saved the world, so I don't think I have much grounds to stand on if I decided to be mad," the woman replied with a warm smile as she then moved to join the group hug. "It's good to see you safe and sound, Kurai."

They remained like that for a few seconds before Yang declared, "A'ight, we agreed that the family gets first dibs on the hugging! That time has now passed! Time to move it or lose it, Hogo-sha's!" With that, his family was practically shoved aside by the blonde so that Ruby and she could take their turn in welcoming the boy home. Of course, they were nowhere near as restrained in expressing their affection, and Kurai could have sworn that he heard some of his joints popping out of place before they put him down.

"Come on!" he grunted. "I just… got outta the hospital! Again!"

"Ah, you've taken way worse and gotten up," Yang laughed, but she and her younger sister complied and released him, making sure to keep him steady on his feet as they did. "Welcome back, Kai."

"Man, you were so cool back in Kanto and with that video message!" Ruby practically squealed. "I can't believe I'm getting to go to the same school and train in the same class as the next number one hero!"

"Okay, let's pump the brakes on that one," Kurai told her through his laughter. "It's gonna be a minute before any of us can even make our way onto the charts, let alone the top ten."

"500 yen says you're in top ten even faster than Hawks," Kirishima grinned as he extended a hardened fist toward his friend, who met it with a solid punch reinforced with traces of black lightning.

"You're on," Kurai chuckled. Then he was all but tackled as he found himself on the receiving end of another crushing embrace, this one being delivered by their resident gravity heroine. "Ow! …It's good to see you too, Ochaco."

"Don't ever worry us like that again," she scolded him through her smile and tears of relief. "You scared all of us half to death."

"Eh, the halfway mark isn't so bad," he grinned back.

"Oh my word, let the death thing go!" Akarui demanded.

"Never!"

Kurai was soon subjected to an arm-wrestling tournament that Yaoyorozu made them hold outside, seeing as she did not want to have to remake another table if they happened to have a repeat of the last time Kurai had pitted his raw strength against Kirishima. Somewhat to their collective surprise, however, he did not do as well as they expected him to do when quirks were taken out of the equation. He strained to beat Kirishima, and he outright lost to Izuku after his friend won against Ojiro.

As he winced and rubbed his sore arm, the green-haired boy asked him what had happened. "You've been training to fight since you were a kid, and you're in even better shape than I am, how…?" he wondered aloud, utterly bewildered by what had just happened.

"Not a lot of space to work out in a hospital for crazy people," Kurai chuckled, a little bitterly. "I was able to do some reps each evening, but nothing like we get here. I'm a little out of shape."

"Dude, you ripped apart a gas cloud like it was nothing, and then blew up a mountain and a half, how are you out of shape?" Jiro asked him, also looking perplexed by the sudden turn of events. "Besides, you still look pretty fit to me."

"Those full-powered attacks I used banged me up, make no mistake," he replied as he looked down at his right arm, which was trembling slightly. "Not as bad as Izuku used to be, but I don't have the physical constitution to handle this quirk at one hundred percent without injury just yet. Nothing a return to routine workouts won't fix."

"Wait, how is it that you're able to use a quirk that Midoriya had to train for almost a year to even handle a fraction of at almost full strength?" Kirishima asked him.

"My body already had to adapt to one overpowered quirk before," Kurai shrugged with a wry grin. "I guess I should be counting my lucky stars on that account."

"So then why doesn't Midoriya's body break whenever he uses your old quirk?" Tensei asked curiously. He wasn't aware of One For All and its true properties, but he had been informed of the exchange of quirks between the two boys.

"The strength enhancement works a little differently than a lot of people would assume," he started to explain. "The energy acts not only as extra fuel for the muscles, giving him superhuman strength and agility, but also as a sort of cushion around the bones and muscle fibers so that impacts are reduced. As I grew up and trained the quirk, my body eventually adapted, and I needed less and less energy to reinforce my body, until the amount became pretty much negligible. It's a semi-automatic function of the quirk, but it's also why fighting hand-to-hand for extended periods of time was a little more tiring than a casual glance would reveal." Turning toward Izuku, he then added, "As time goes on, you should experience the same thing, although I imagine that you need a lot less power to reinforce your body than I did when I first started training in earnest."

"I'll be counting on your help to minimize the time I have to spend with training wheels," his friend smiled, which he returned.

"From the tales of the way you handled yourself in Otheon, it doesn't sound like you'll need them for any length of time, Young Midoriya," said another familiar voice, causing the people who had gathered outside to turn around to witness the comical sight of All Might walking toward the dorm building with a cart carrying a large cake on top of it. "Young Hikari, it's good to see you home." He was followed closely by Aizawa, Togata, and little Eri, whose eyes were shining like twin rubies with excitement.

"Good to be home, All Might," Kurai grinned as he knelt in the grass and held his arms out wide, prompting Eri to let go of a laughing Togata and make a beeline straight into his waiting embrace. "Hey, kiddo," he chuckled as he stood up and twirled the little girl around. "Did the teachers tell you that I got all better?"

"Uh huh!" she giggled cheerfully as she returned the hug. "I'm glad you're not sick anymore!"

"You and me both," he said as he loosened his hold so that he could swing her up and sit her on his shoulders, prompting her to laugh in delight again. "I wasn't about to stay in a hospital for too long, you know. How else would I be able to play with my favorite kid?"

"Yay!" she chirped happily.

Off to the side, several of the girls (minus Asui, Ochaco, and Weiss) who had witnessed the interaction were now looking at Mina with traces of jealousy, who just returned their gazes with a smug grin. "Yeah," she giggled. "That's all mine."

"Life is so unfair," Jiro grumbled as she kicked at the grass.

"You're just mad now that you didn't take Hagakure's dare to talk to him after karaoke on the first day of school, ribbit," Asui said from where she was crouching in the grass. Off to the side, Blake was doing her very best to keep the heat from rising in her cheeks, and having limited success. Out of everyone, she had made it a point to keep her interactions with Kurai to a minimum, not sure that she trusted herself not to do something stupid if given the opportunity.

"Sh-Shut up!" the slender girl stammered as her face flushed deep red while Mina doubled over laughing. "Why'd you even bring that up?"

"Not like it matters now, does it?" the frog girl replied with a tilted gaze toward her friend. "If you're really over it, it shouldn't bother you so much."

"It's embarrassing, getting reminded of stuff like that outta nowhere!" Jiro grumbled while Mina continued to laugh, now having fallen over in the grass as she clutched at her sides. "And now we've broken Ashido. Nice going, Su."

"Ribbit."

"Hey, Kurai might be taken, but I'm not." The girls all turned to see Shukin grinning in a friendly manner from behind them, apparently having heard at least part of their conversation. He held up a hand and gave a quick wave while maintaining the smile and saying, "How about it? Anyone wanna go for the upgraded model?"

His smile and body language expressed nothing but sincerity, and when he had been introduced to each of the girls earlier, he had been very polite, much like his cousin. Even so…

One of Jiro's earphone jacks stabbed him in the arm and pumped him with a quick sonic vibration that dropped him like a sack of potatoes, leaving him as a groaning mess on the grass. "It's a hundred years too early to be thinking you can hit on a group of girls, skinny," the girl muttered as they walked away, some of them chuckling as they did.

"I'll take that as a 'maybe later', then," he groaned.

Meanwhile, Kurai was approaching the teachers with a thought in mind. "Good to see you, sir," he said as he shook hands with All Might. To the other instructor, he then said, "Thanks for putting this together, Mister Aizawa."

"What makes you think I did?"

"Process of elimination," the boy answered with a cheekier grin. "All Might was busy with the Alliance, most of my classmates were out in the field, and those who weren't either aren't close enough to me to put something like this together, or they lack the imagination to do so. That leaves just you."

"I'll be having you undergo a quirk fitness test tomorrow morning to measure how your capabilities have diminished since your return to life," his teacher replied as he moved past him without so much as a sideways glance.

"Thought so," Kurai snickered.

"You're starting with a ten-lap run around training ground beta."

"Ah…" the Guardian Hero sighed as he turned back toward All Might. "Feels like nothing has changed." Even as he said the words, he felt as though he were speaking too soon. Something about the former pro hero seemed… off, but he couldn't put a finger on why.

"I think you'll find that a few things have changed, just a little," the older man chuckled heartily.

"True, like Bakugo and Schnee? Didn't see that one coming."

"Young Bakugo and-? What?"

"What?"

"Er…" All Might blinked at his student a couple of times before Kurai started chuckling again, leading the man to favor him with another smile and the words, "Well, what do you say we bring this inside and start serving it to everyone?" The weather outside was pleasant enough, even though everyone was at least wearing a sweater or a hoodie to keep warm.

"Up to you," Kurai replied flippantly as he grinned up at Eri, who was playing with his long hair, and comparing it to her own. "Outside or inside, I don't have a preference."

"But… it's your cake," All Might told him, as if it should have been obvious. "Your decision is what counts right now."

"Come again for Kai?" the boy said as his gaze dropped back to his teacher, and then down to the frosting on the desert, which he could now see spelled out, 'Welcome Home, Kurai! Happy Belated Birthday!' He blinked a couple of times in surprise before he looked back up and asked, "Wait, really? I thought this was to congratulate our class on not getting killed by Humarise! My birthday was over a month ago! This should be for Akarui, if anybody."

"Dork," Mina grinned as she skipped up to stand beside him. "You really thought our class was gonna let this chance slip by?"

"Happy Birthday, Kai!" Eri chirped from atop his head.

"You've done too much for us not to throw a proper welcome back party!" Kirishima said as he and a few of the other guys approached them. "The birthday thing is just a bonus!"

"A few of us had gifts for you just sitting around since you were bumming it up in the hospital, and we needed an excuse to get rid of 'em," Kaminari snickered. "This was the best chance we had to do that without making it awkward."

"Which you just did by saying that," Sero told his friend, who shrugged unapologetically.

"Uh… I guess we'll go inside and eat, then," Kurai said with another shrug, jostling his passenger as he did. "What do you say, Eri? Want some cake?"

"Yes, please!"

"You heard the little lady!" Kurai called out as he started heading back to the dorm. "I haven't eaten anything in the last few hours except for some subpar office ramen at the station! I need real food!"

"Since when is cake real food?" Shukin asked as he joined his cousin, having just finished brushing the last of the grass blades out of his hair.

"Last I checked, since the three of us split that pound cake when our moms and my dad went to that last police gala," Kurai tossed back without missing a beat.

"Dude!"

"I knew you boys threw out that lasagna I made that night!" Sakura called as she started walking toward them while the other students rippled with laughter.

"Aunt Sakura, I love you, but what kinda real lasagna has no ground beef in it?!"

"A vegan one!"

"That's not a real lasagna!"

After the people in attendance had their share of cake, Kurai was treated with various gifts from his friends. Some were in celebration of his return, while others had been meant for his birthday. There was Dragon Ball, Naruto, and Star Wars merchandise from multiple givers, and from his family, he received a comprehensive book and holo-disk detailing the first ten years of Gang Orca's hero career. Mina's gift was a big surprise to him, as it turned out to be a series of instructional DVDs that detailed the seven forms of lightsaber combat, all the way from basic forms of Shii-Cho to the most advanced maneuvers of Vaapad.

"I figured you wouldn't mind a chance to go beyond your normal nerd levels so you could go plus ultra with your fighting style," she told him before he caught her up in a spinning embrace that got her laughing, and most of their friends smiling at them.

"Yes and yes!" he cheered as he set her down. To everyone else, he added, "Thanks for all of this, guys. Means more than I can tell you."

Just then, the doors were opened from the outside to admit yet another group of people that took Kurai by surprise. "Hope we're not too late!" Tetsutetsu called out as his class filed in behind him. "Heard you guys were havin' a party to welcome back-! Oh hey, Hikari! You're looking good, man!"

"Thanks?" he replied as the room became significantly more crowded with the majority of class B's population, as well as Amajiki and Hado trailing behind all of them.

"We wanted to be the ones to surprise you, but we figured it'd be fair to invite the other guys in welcoming you back to the hero course," Kirishima explained. "Don't worry, they said they were gonna do something to keep Monoma busy while we were doing this."

"In lieu of that, however, we did bring this," said Awase, who held up what looked like a dummy of their loudmouthed classmate. "It's a piñata- something they do over in the west, apparently?" As he said this, he looked over at a quartet of students whom Kurai did not recognize.

"Yep!" said a blond boy as he held up a wooden bat. "You hit it until it breaks open and spills all the candy in it. My sisters always loved doing this at their parties."

"You don't seem entirely opposed to it yourself," his dark-haired comrade commented dryly, which set the four of them to debating among themselves while the other freshman students moved to greet their friends.

"Who're these guys?" Kurai asked in an aside to his fiancée.

"They're Team JNPR," she reminded him in a lowered tone. "That guy is Arc, the other one is Ren, the short girl is Valkyrie, and the supermodel is Nikos."

"Right, got it," he nodded. Then he found himself returning well wishes to the other aspiring heroes in his year as they took their turns in welcoming him back. Eventually, he was formally introduced to the newcomers from the States, and much like his friends before him, he was surprised at how different each of them were from one another.

"So, how about it?" Jaune said as he held up the piñata once the introductions were over. "I heard about how Monoma gave you quite a bit of grief last year. Wanna smack it?"

Kurai eyed the prop a little critically before he said, "No offense, but it isn't gonna take a lot to break that thing open. Isn't this more of a little kid's thing? I mean, I'm sure Eri would love to take you up on it."

"Jaune forgot to tell you that you're blindfolded while you try to hit it, and you gotta spin around a buncha times before you get to take a swing," Nora informed him with an unsettling smile, which got his eyebrow to raise a fraction. "Also, no quirks."

"…Okay, I'm interested."

"You should change your alias to the 'Window-Smashing Hero'," Mina laughed as Kurai lay on the grass, staring up at the sky, which he desperately wished would stop spinning above him.

"I assumed… that I would be spinning myself," he groaned out as he shut his eyes, which only somehow made the sensation worse, forcing him to open them back up and see Mina staring down at him with a bright grin. "You guys… are evil!" In the background, a lot of his classmates were laughing while All Might and Aizawa were trying to figure out how they were going to justify another broken window to Nezu.

Once the blindfold had gone over his eyes, Ochaco had surprised him by negating his gravity, followed by Blake's ribbon binding him up tightly, and then Yang finishing things by yanking on the fabric with all of her strength, which had essentially turned him into a floating top for a good fifteen seconds. When Ochaco disengaged her quirk, he had barely been able to stand up, let alone remember where the piñata had been placed. Nevertheless, he waited until he felt like he could keep his feet steady underneath him, and then swung the bat with all his might in what felt like the right direction. Unfortunately for him, he misjudged just how bad the vertigo had affected him, and it was less than a second between him realizing that he had lost his grip on the bat and registered the sound of a window on the second story being shattered.

Now he was struggling not to throw up the cake he had eaten previously, and apparently his state was sorry enough that Future Eri decided to take pity on him. "Here, let me help you," she said as she placed a hand on his brow before a spark jumped between them, and he felt his nausea immediately drain away. "Better?" she asked.

"Yep," he grunted before he performed a kip onto his feet and gave his classmates an annoyed look. "Villains!" he shouted with mock anger. "All of you, villains!"

"I guess he can dish punishments, but not take!" Yang cackled.

"Oh yeah?" Kurai smirked as he raised his right hand. "Let's see how you do with it." Blackwhip shot out of his arm and ensnared Yang before she could react, followed by him lifting her off the ground and then spinning his arm rapidly, which in turn whirled her around and around for several seconds, until he decided to let go and dropped her on the grass from a safe height.

Predictably, she did not land on her feet, instead falling to the grass and clutching at her head with a low groan. "Not so funny now, is it, Xiao Long?" he smirked as he approached.

"So, are we still gonna hit the piñata, or what?" Jaune asked Ren, who was holding the rope with a passive look on his face as he shrugged in response. The blonde then let out a yelp as Blackwhip snaked around the puppet and squeezed roughly, breaking the cardboard and depositing all of the resulting candy on the ground.

"Mind picking that up for Eri?" Kurai asked over his shoulder while he held Ruby at arm's length, who was trying to take revenge on her sister's behalf. "She'll like it more than I will. Thank you, though- this was therapeutic." Another squeeze, and the Monoma piñata lost its head, which went rolling past the two boys, who now regarded one another with wider eyes.

"Man, Monoma must've really pissed him off," the blond student chuckled nervously as Blackwhip dissipated.

"I wonder what he would make of Cardin's team, if they were to ever cross paths," Ren commented quietly as he let the rope fall while they moved to pick up the candy pieces.

"Now that's a fight I'd pay to see," Jaune admitted with a wry chuckle.

The party continued on for some time after, but eventually, Kurai's forgotten exhaustion got the better of him. He had sat down on the couch to play Smash Bros with some of the other boys, and as soon as his head touched the cushion behind him, he was fast asleep.

"Huh," Sero said as he scratched his head and looked down at the other boy. "Guess he has been up for a while."

"Yeah, Bakugo went up to his room a while ago," Kirishima nodded as a few of them gathered around their friend. "I'm honestly surprised that everyone from their team has stayed up this long."

"Well, he, Izuku, and Eri probably had the worst of it," Mina said as she rubbed at her own eyes. "They had to fight the leader and all. Seeing him like that, though, I feel like I'm gonna crash, myself."

"We'll get you guys to your rooms, then," Ochaco volunteered as she used her quirk to make Kurai float again so that they could move him with less chances of waking him up. She also grabbed Izuku's hand, who followed her without much resistance toward the elevator. "Come on, Mina."

"Thanks," the pink girl mumbled as she made to follow them.

As they left, Todoroki turned toward Future Eri before asking, "Couldn't you rewind them so that they have normal energy levels?"

"I could," she answered with a grin, having done that very thing to herself earlier in the day. "But I think they've earned some alone time." Todoroki said nothing, but he did nod in agreement after a moment of silence between them.

"Thanks for getting us here, girl," Mina said as Ochaco released her quirk on Kurai, depositing him gently onto his bed. "I got it, now."

"Get some sleep," she told her friend with a soft laugh before she exited the room and closed the door behind her. She found Izuku about to nod off where he was standing, so she jostled his shoulder a little to rouse him before he could completely pass out. "C'mon, Deku," she said as she gripped his hand and led him along toward his own room. "You need to get your own rest."

"Sorry to be a bother," he mumbled.

"You've never been a bother," she assured him as they reached his room. "Needing help every once in a while, even for little things like this, doesn't make you a bother."

"Right…" he nodded slowly. "Still getting used to that idea…"

"Yeah, well…" Ochaco's face burned as she considered her next words, but by the time they were stepping into his room, she decided to say, "When you love somebody, it's no trouble to lend them a helping hand, you know?"

Being apart from him and the others for the battle against Humarise had not been all that upsetting to her during the race against the clock, but after she'd been given some time to reflect on how things had gone, she realized that they could have very well turned out much differently. What if they hadn't been able to stop the bombs? What if she died, a world away from her best friends, without saying what she needed to say to them- to her best friend in particular? Thus she had made up her mind to set something straight as soon as she had the chance, and here it was.

Izuku stopped where he was, causing her to turn around and look at him with a fidgety air as he blinked several times in succession. "When you…?" he repeated slowly, as if he didn't trust what his own ears had just told him.

Ochaco took in another deep breath before she took the plunge again and said, "Deku- No… Izuku, I love you."

"Y-You love…?" he whispered, his exhaustion temporarily forgotten.

"I do," she nodded as she stepped forward and looked him straight in the eye. "I really do… You've been my hero for a long time, and the best friend that I've ever had… I admire you so much, Izuku, and I have to keep pinching myself every day to make sure that I'm not about to wake up and realize that I dreamed all of this up. I do love you."

"I…" Izuku's eyes welled with tears before he threw his arms around Ochaco and started to cry. "I can't… remember… the last time I heard that… from anyone other than my mom," he sobbed. "I couldn't even begin to tell you how happy I am right now… Because I love you too, Ochaco!"

Hearing those words removed the girl's reservations, and she threw her arms around him, not caring that she was causing them both to float in the process. "You've always believed in me, even when I haven't," he cried softly. "You were the first person I could save with my quirk, and that makes me so happy. I would have saved anyone, but you're so special and precious to me… I'm glad it was you." He pulled back slightly and laughed hoarsely before he went on to say, "You gave me my hero name, something that I'd wanted all my life, and then you became my friend, which I never would have dreamed would be possible for someone like me. You make me feel like I can do anything except for be good enough to deserve someone like you… I love you so much, Ochaco!"

He buried his face back in her shoulder as they both began to laugh quietly while they held onto each other, even as they bumped into the ceiling. They knew now that no matter how far apart their work might take them from one another, they would always be with each other to share their strength.

The members of the Otheon attack napped until the sun started to descend, which was when Kurai's extended family had to leave, so Akarui made a point to wake his brother up so that he could say goodbye to them before they departed.

"Sorry I crashed so hard," he mumbled as he hugged his cousin farewell. "It was really good to see you, though."

"Ah, don't worry about it," Shukin chuckled. "It was cool getting to meet all your friends- now I know whose merch I need to buy when they're fresh outta school, while they're cheap."

"I hope you're not thinking about using me as a connection to get a bunch of autographed memorabilia from my classmates to put up for bids on the internet when we go pro," Kurai deadpanned.

"No idea what you're talking about," his cousin replied cheerfully. "On an unrelated note, mind signing my cap here?" So saying, he held out a blue baseball hat and a marker, which Kurai took with a roll of his eyes and proceeded to sign. "Thanks. Now I can get those losers who don't believe that I'm cousins with the Hero of Kanto to finally shut up."

Kurai's right eyebrow shot up, but he said nothing until he had finished signing the hat and then handed it back to Shukin. "Careful who you show that to," he advised the older boy.

"Why, what-?" The elder Hogo-sha boy looked down at the cap, then back to his cousin with a stricken look. "Dude, why'd you have to do me like that?"

On the bill of the hat, Kurai had written, 'For my dumbest fan. –Kai.'

"It's not inaccurate."

"Now you sound like your brother!"

"You make that sound like a bad thing."

"No one asked you, Aki!"

Not long after that, Shukin, Sakura, Tensei, little Eri, and the teachers all left, leaving only the hero course students (including the Big Three) to continue the party. Shiozaki and Pyrrha from Class B teamed up to make dinner, with input from Bakugo that was unasked for, but not unwelcome. The result was a spread of shabu shabu that the students all took turns in filling their bowls with.

Now refreshed and having had a chance to say hello and give thanks to everyone who had come to celebrate his return, Kurai was able to justify spending more time with his closer friends; in this case, his brother, the other members of Team Lightning Drop, Kirishima, Todoroki, Tenya, Future Eri, Yaoyorozu, and Togata. Even Amajiki had been pulled into hanging out with their group, though he spent most of the time sitting at the corner of the table and trying to make himself look as small as possible to avoid attracting attention.

"So you two were basically on a vacation while the rest of us were being put to work in the field?!" Kirishima demanded, having just heard that the two of them had spent a couple of days laying low in a backwater town that they refused to mention by name.

"Essentially," Mina confirmed with bright grin.

"In my defense, I was ready to come back after the first night had passed, but Nezu told us to lay low," Kurai shrugged. "I just followed orders."

"And I'm sure you didn't enjoy following those orders at all, right?" Eri snickered.

"No comment."

"Well, all things considered, as long as you two conducted yourselves in a manner that is above reproach, I see no flaw in the principal's plan," Iida commented. "After all, you were able to exploit the element of surprise quite well, as we all saw."

"No comment," Kurai repeated with a grin.

"Wait, no comment on the part about exploiting the element of surprise, or on being above reproach?" Iida now asked them suspiciously.

Mina and Kurai exchanged a look, returned their gazes to the class representative, and then said, "No comment." They then burst into laughter as most of their friends turned red, save for Akarui, who was rolling his eyes at the two of them.

"If I ever have kids, you two are gonna be the ones I point at and say 'Do everything you can to avoid being like those idiots'," he muttered.

"And since that's never gonna happen, because there is literally no woman alive who would be willing to put up with your level of attitude, we'll just point you out to our kids and say, 'There's the image of narcissism perfected'," Mina shot back, which got Kurai to hang his head with a small groan. "What?"

"Don't ever tell him he's perfect in any way, it always goes to his head."

"Don't know what you're talking about," Akarui said with a smug grin of his own. "My perfection is an assumed fact of nature, there's no need to go pointing it out whenever there's an opportunity."

"Anyways…" Ochaco said in an effort to steer the conversation back to the original topic. "What'd you guys do while you were laying low? Or did you avoid going out to avoid attracting attention?"

"The place we hid out in is pretty backwater," Kurai answered. "A lot of people that live there are a little on the older side, and they don't much keep up with the times. Even if some of the residents recognized Mina, it would probably just have been as a UA Sport's Festival competitor, if even that. We were able to visit some shops and restaurants…" A slight smile etched itself into his face as he added, "We got some fireworks that we were able to set off on the beach, which made itself into a nice little show."

"Correction, I got the fireworks," Akarui snickered. "You guys just took advantage of my hard work, like usual."

"Judging from the smile on your face, something good must've happened with the fireworks," Togata interjected, having noticed the sly grins that Mina and Kurai were giving each other following Akarui's jab.

"Oh yeah," Mina grinned as she reached behind her neck to undo the clasp of her new necklace. "You can definitely say that." She pulled the chain out, making sure to use her free hand to hide what was on the end of it until she could put the ring on the appropriate finger underneath the table. "In fact, it's the best thing to happen to me in my life so far."

"Wait, did-?"

"Boom!" Mina said as she held her hand out over the table, proudly displaying the diamond in the ring she had been given, and causing most of their friends' eyes to nearly pop out of their heads. Eri, Izuku, Todoroki, and Akarui already knew about the development, even if the latter had not yet seen the ring on her finger until now.

"That looks good on you," he said sincerely as he looked her in the eyes. "I look forward to having a sister."

"Aw, thanks," she giggled while the others tried to process what they were seeing. "I'm looking forward to not being the youngest child in my family!"

"Is that thing real?!" Ochaco sputtered.

"Yep," Kurai nodded with a laugh.

"It's a beautiful piece!" Yaoyorozu said as she eyed the jewel in a similar enough manner to Weiss that it nearly made the couple laugh, though she did not seem to notice. "Congratulations to the both of you!"

"Where'd you find something like that?!" Kirishima asked as he leaned over the table to get a better look. "Did you get it wherever you guys were hiding out?"

"Nope!" Mina replied cheerily. "His mom gave it to him to give to me."

"I thought that ring looked familiar," Iida said as he turned to his friend, who mentally prepared himself for a lecture. Instead, he was fairly surprised when the taller boy grabbed his hand and started pumping it eagerly while saying, "Congratulations indeed, Kurai. I wish you many happy years together from here on." Then, because he was Iida, he felt the need to add, "Although if this impacts your schoolwork in any way, I will be forced to-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Kurai chuckled as he returned the handshake. Behind him, Ochaco had run around the table to hug her friend with happy tears beginning to show at the corners of her eyes- Izuku's influence, he thought.

"A ring for the girl you love is so frickin' manly!" Kirishima declared before he extended his fist toward Kurai, who returned the gesture once again. "Congrats, man! You too, Ashido!"

"Thanks, dude," Kurai replied as they disengaged.

"What's this about a ring?" Yang asked as she popped up over Togata's shoulder. Before anyone could even begin to wonder where she had come from, her eyes widened and she shouted over her shoulder, "Sis, Pyrrha, ladies of UA! You gotta come check this out!"

"Why?" Ruby called out before appearing beside her sister in a flurry of red petals, who was now examining Mina's ring more closely. "What's all the- holy crap, that is a big rock!"

"And that's my cue to get outta the way," Kurai chuckled before he used Float to levitate up and out of the way of the small swarm of girls who had come to check out the ring that Mina was only too happy to show off. He maneuvered himself so that he landed in a corner of the room, which was already occupied by Amajiki, who he hadn't even seen move. "When'd you get here?" he asked.

"The second your girlfriend pulled out the ring," the older student answered, his face planted firmly against the wall. "I knew people would come running- especially Nejire." As if on cue, the pair could see and hear the blue whirlwind scrambling to get a look at the item in question herself.

"Good call," Kurai chuckled as he leaned back against the wall, content to wait until the others would inevitably move on to him again.

"Here's hoping she doesn't start asking for one, herself," Amajiki mumbled as he peered back over his shoulder. "I don't think I could handle her any more than I already do right now."

It took a few seconds for Kurai to understand what his senior had just said, but when he did, it was his turn to get wide eyes. "You two?!" he sputtered. "I mean… How did that happen?"

"I don't entirely know," the other boy admitted. "Not long after freshman year started, Nejire was the only person in my class that I could bring myself to talk to. After that, Togata started inviting her along with us to the movies and arcade, and from there, we became the Big Three. Then, after Nejire beat me in the tournament part of the Sport's Festival this year, she told me that she was gonna treat me to lunch, and Mirio said I should take her up on it. Apparently, without me realizing it, I had gotten roped into a date with her, and it's kept happening ever since. It's… very exhausting."

Kurai eyed him with concern before he asked, "Are you okay, man? Does she know you feel this way?"

"Yeah," he nodded before turning to look more at his classmate, though he kept his head planted on the glass. "I'm okay, and it's okay. If Mirio hadn't made friends with me, then I'd never be able to look anyone in the eye, at all. And if Nejire hadn't come into my life to pull me further out of my shell, I'd probably never be able to talk to anyone other than Mirio. She's… good for me." He paused before he looked down again and whimpered, "But still so exhausting."

"Um… Good luck, then?" Kurai offered awkwardly. Still, I can't say I blame him, he added silently to himself. That girl is exhausting to be around for five minutes, let alone a class or a date! Amajiki's more resilient than I gave him credit for.

"Hey, where's Hikari?!" Sero demanded from across the gathering of girls, where the boys had started to congregate, their own curiosities having been piqued.

"Got him!" Kurai let out a yelp as Dark Shadow pulled him up by his shirt and lifted him over the table and cluster of female students before setting him down in a rough circle made up of the other boys. "Here ya go, guys."

"Thank you, Dark Shadow."

"Tokoyami, you traitor!"

"We merely wish to express our congratulations to you for taking this rather momentous step in your life," the raven-headed boy replied, his expression unchanged by Kurai's accusation. "Is that not what friends do?"

"Speak for yourself!" Kaminari said as he, Sero, and a couple of the boys from Class B advanced into a smaller circle around him. "Dude, not only do you get a girl like Ashido, but now you're setting the standards way too high for the rest of us!"

Kurai regarded them all carefully, Danger Sense beginning to buzz in the back of his head from their proximity. "I don't take your meaning," he told them.

"Which of the girls are gonna wanna go out with us, when we can't offer them anything half as nice as what you've given Ashido?!" Awase demanded of him. "You've ruined the bachelors of the freshman hero course, you selfish bastard!"

Kurai regarded them all for a few more seconds before he replied, "Have any of you guys thought about trying to ask a girl out before you look for reasons why it won't work?"

"Like you can talk, Ashido asked you out!" Sero wailed.

"Then what're you hassling me for?" Kurai asked them incredulously. "She started it, go ask her what you're doing wrong!"

"Dude, are you crazy?" Kuroiro asked, while he checked surreptitiously over his shoulder to make sure that none of the girls were paying attention to their conversation. Unsurprisingly, they were all a bundle of excited energy that was focused on one thing, and one thing only- the beautiful, glittering gem that sat on Mina's hand. "We're not interrupting them in the middle of that! They'd probably kill us!"

"Then go ask Bakugo!" Kurai said, exasperated. "Him and Schnee started going out, apparently."

"Wait, they what?!" Kaminari yelped, looking scandalized. "Since when?!"

"Dammit, Hogo-sha, that was supposed to be a secret!" the explosive teen shouted from where he was still trying to finish his dinner. "Now these idiots aren't gonna leave either of us alone!"

"Sorry!" Kurai cringed. "Honest mistake!"

"Actually, I don't like my chances of getting any answers outta him…" Awase muttered, leading the others to agree in a series of nods and echoes of affirmation.

"Well, then you're up a creek," Kurai shrugged. "Mina approached me, Ochaco made the first move with Izuku, and Bakugo's more likely to blow you up than hand out dating advice. Sorry, guys."

"Boo!"

"You suck!"

"Lucky bastard!"

"Oh, the depths of despair be upon me…"

Kurai gave them all another flat look before he performed a standing backflip that landed him outside of their wailing inner circle before turning around and muttering, "Drama queens."

"Their ill-favored mannerisms aside, many of us are happy for you, Hikari," Tokoyami said as he approached and shook hands with his friend. "You are more than deserving of the joys that a life shared with Ashido is sure to offer."

"Congrats, man," Ojiro told him in his turn. "Which of us coulda guessed that we'd be here now, all those months ago when we all went to karaoke together for a bit of class bonding?"

"I'd be happy to make the cake for you guys, you know, when the time comes," Sato offered, a little abashedly.

Kurai favored him with a broad smile before saying, "We'd have to be stupid not to take you up on that. I look forward to seeing it happen."

"Alright!" the muscular teen cheered, leading many of his friends- including those who had previously been complaining- to laugh with him.

"In all seriousness, we're happy for you, too," Kaminari told him, followed by a general chorus of agreement from the others. "You've had to fight against a pretty stacked deck, so it makes sense that you'd get a good hand every now and again. Congrats, dude."

"Thanks," Kurai accepted, shaking hands with the other boy. "You're a pretty good guy, when you want to be. Keep being that person, and you'll have the ladies coming after you before you know it."

"Oka- Wait, what do you mean 'that person'?!"

While this was happening, Yang found herself standing in the kitchen next to Blake, who was very intent on making a rather simple cup of lavender tea. She had made her way over after noticing that she was the only girl who wasn't currently trying to get a good look at the ring that Kurai had given to Mina. "You okay?" she asked the dark-haired girl when she was sure that no one was looking their way.

Only to her partial surprise, Blake turned toward her without a hint of extra color in her cheeks or a sign of tears in her eyes to say, "Nope."

Yang regarded her friend with sympathy before she asked, "Wanna talk about it?"

"Nope."

"Kay," Yang nodded before she gave the other girl a brief hug. She knew her teammate's body language well enough to tell that directly pressing the subject right then would accomplish nothing positive. All she could do was let her know that she didn't have to keep this all to herself. "Lemme know when you change your mind."

"I will."

"Alright." With that, the blond girl started to leave, but then another thought occurred to her, leading her to turn back around toward her friend and say, "Just a thought, before I go…" Blake looked her in the eye, but said nothing, which Yang took as permission to continue. "Hikari values your friendship, a lot. You guys have been through some stuff together, and it's a real attachment that he's made with you. I know that's what's making things hard on you with all of this, but if you value him as a friend at all, you should congratulate him." Putting on a wry smile, she added, "If you don't at least say something, he's gonna start wondering where you were, and then he'll be worried, which is just gonna lead to another set of problems for you- and me, by extension."

"Sorry," Blake apologized as she closed her eyes and lowered her head. "I don't mean to make extra trouble for you."

"Ah, don't worry about it," Yang told her. "I'm pretty sure I'll be the one to cause more trouble between us in the long run."

In spite of herself, Blake cracked a little smile before saying, "If that's true, we better win against Shigaraki when he comes back, because that'll just be a warm-up compared to what you'd bring to the table."

"Ha!" Yang chuckled, before her expression became more sober. "Alright, I'll leave you alone, now. Just do yourself a favor and talk to him before you sit on this for too long. It'll be better for both of you, even if he doesn't know it."

"Doesn't make it easy."

"It'll be a lot harder if you wait."

"…I know," Blake sighed, her voice finally betraying her in the sound of a slight tremble. "You're a good friend, Yang."

"Hehe, I know."

"Okay, not so good." As Yang walked away with a snarky grin on her lips, Blake let out a long sigh and forced herself to admit that she had a very difficult portion of the evening ahead of her.

"I suppose we have some preparations to make," All Might sighed as he sat down at his computer in the teacher's office. "Young Hikari is going to need all the help he can get in catching up with his peers after all his time in the hospital."

"His academics have already been taken care of," Aizawa replied without looking up from his own computer. "While not as intensive as our own program, the hospital did have classes for people his age who were cleared to continue pursuing schoolwork, which he took advantage of. Nezu has already drafted a brief test on each subject covered in our curriculum that will let us ascertain whether or not he has fallen behind his classmates, and if so, to what degree. After that, I'll schedule some makeup sessions as they're needed."

"He mentioned that his physical constitution has weakened from his time spent in Itomori," the blond teacher commented thoughtfully. "I'll work with Recovery Girl to see if we can't help him build up the muscle mass that he used to have. Should make it easier for him to handle One For All's full strength."

"Good," Aizawa muttered. "I'll trust her not to let you go overboard again."

All Might regarded the other man with a tired sigh before he said, "I'm trying to do better, Aizawa. I don't want to see him come to harm because of my mistakes again any more than you do."

Aizawa still didn't look up from his computer, but he did nod once in his colleague's general direction. "As long as you're not trying," he told him. "Just do it."

"…Then I will do better by all of the students, not just the inheritors of One For All."

"Well?" Kurai asked as he scratched at the back of his head while his fiancée looked him up and down. "What's the verdict?"

"Hmm…" she mused with a little smile as she took in the sight of him with newly-cut hair that no longer hung over his eyes when unkempt, or brushed the nape of his neck. He had asked Asui to take her scissors to his head once everyone had settled down about the engagement ring, which the frog-girl had happily obliged to. Mina had to admit, he looked pretty good with his hair back to a more manageable length- not that she could allow him to know such a thing right away.

To that end, she turned to Asui and said, "I think we need to take more of it off."

"Ribbit?" the other girl croaked as she put a finger up to her cheek while Kurai looked very confused. "Why is that? Any shorter, and he'll look like one of those military guys in those western movies that Kirishima likes watching."

"Well, we gotta mess him up somehow," she replied, her mouth starting to quirk upwards, in spite of her best efforts. "I mean, if we leave him like this, he's just too handsome." Kurai stared at her for a couple of seconds before he slapped his hand over his eyes and let out a long groan while she gave into her laughter. "Seriously, it's gonna be hard enough to keep all the girls away from you as it is," she giggled. "But then Su has to go and make you look like an Adonis…!" Then she doubled over, her stomach already sore from all the laughter that she had been putting it through in the last few hours.

"You're hilarious," Kurai grumbled as he dropped his hand away. As an afterthought, he looked down at it and added, "Man, I am so glad I don't risk breaking my nose every time I do that."

"I'm kinda surprised that never actually happened, if we're being honest," Kirishima commented. "Nice haircut."

"Thanks, man."

"I'll just go put these away, ribbit," Asui said as she padded away with her trimming equipment in hand.

"Thanks, Su!" Kurai called out as she left. To Mina, he said, "You're evil."

"Correction, I am delightfully deceptive," she replied with a cheeky grin.

"Like I sai- Blake?" Kurai's sentence was cut off as he called their approaching classmate by name. He was a wearing a new grin as he said, "Been hard to catch you for a minute today. Coulda sworn you were avoiding me."

"Sorry," she apologized, keenly aware of Mina's subtly scrutinizing eyes being cast upon her. Ignoring it for the time being, she focused on Kurai and said, "It's not easy being around you right now, if I'm honest."

Kurai's smile faded in favor of a slight frown as he said, "I'm sorry? Did I do something to-?"

"No, it's nothing you did," she hurried to assure him.

His frown remained in place as he then said, "If this is about Nabu Island, I swear to my ancestors-"

"Kurai, what happened on Nabu Island is always going to haunt me, and I won't pretend otherwise," Blake said with a level of strength that surprised Kurai. "You may have made your peace about it, but I haven't, and I honestly doubt that I ever will. That said, you mean more to me than my trauma." Without any further hesitation, the girl stepped forward and wrapped her arms around the boy, who was initially taken aback by the affectionate gesture from his normally-taciturn friend. "Thank you for standing by me when you could," she told him softly. "And congratulations to you and Ashido on your engagement. I'm sure you'll be very happy together."

With a more relieved smile on his face now, Kurai returned the hug while saying, "Thank you. Let me know if there's ever anything I can do to help out in regards to the trauma bit."

"I will," she said as she pulled back and favored him with a rare smile.

Off to the side, Eri had put a hand on Mina's shoulder as a precautionary measure against any hasty actions on her friend's behalf. "You don't need to worry about her," she said in a low tone that only the pink girl could hear. "I'm sure you've already worked out for yourself that she isn't that kind of person."

"Doesn't stop the basic instinct of wanting to scalp her," Mina muttered. Eri regarded her with a slightly worried look, which led to her deflating a little and admitting, "Okay, not scalp her. But some manner of bodily harm would probably be involved if I didn't know better."

Eri looked downward at that, a strange expression on her face that seemed to indicate that she was struggling with whether or not to say something. Eventually, she lifted her head and looked Mina in the eye again as she asked, "Did I tell you about how Gambol Shroud died in the future?"

"No, just that she was long dead by the time you came back to this time," the pink girl answered with a slight frown. "What does that have to-?"

"It was when Shigaraki's forces came for Kai's corpse," Eri interrupted her. "At the time, we assumed that he and the doctor were raiding graveyards and using cadavers to produce a new generation of Nomu- which they were- though we now know he was after One For All. Akarui got wind of their plans to raid the graveyard where he and a lot of other heroes were buried, and our alliance got some of our best and brightest together to put a stop to it.

"Ground Zero had Freezer Burn and others with incendiary-type quirks get to work on destroying the bodies so that Shigaraki couldn't use them as soon they arrived, but the Front was already there, looking for Kai's grave. Clones of Twice had started digging up other bodies of interest while Dabi, Spinner, Moonfish, and Cinder had come to keep anyone from interfering. The only advantage that our side had was that we knew where the body was, but even that wasn't enough to let the team win. On the other hand, you all made the villains pay for their victory dearly."

"How's that?"

"I'm told that you and Gambol Shroud worked together to kill Moonfish, a fight that put you in critical condition," Eri answered. "By the time you made it back to home base, I was almost too late in being able to save your life. She, on the other hand…" The time traveler indicated Blake with a small motion of her hand here. "She held off the other villains on her own while Ground Zero ordered a retreat. Took Cinder's other hand and killed Twice's prime in the process, too. Real Steel and Weld found her body in the aftermath of the battle, next to Kai's tombstone." She let that fact sink in before she added, "According to the quirk of one of our allies who could see certain events of the recent past, she fought to her last breath to keep them from digging up his body. More than her own life, she didn't want to see him made into a monster for Shigaraki to use and hurt us with."

Done saying her piece, Eri watched as the tension slowly drained from Mina's body, though the wary look in her eyes remained. "I always trust Kurai," she murmured. "So I'm not worried in that sense. I'm not even really worried about her making a move on him. I just wish that I could hate her for wanting him. But the more I watch her and learn about her, the more I also want to like her. And now that I know how hard she fought for him, even when I couldn't… Dammit, I actually have to respect her for it." Giving Eri an accusatory look, she then said, "Why'd you have to tell me about that? Why couldn't you tell me something that justifies me hating her?"

"Because she doesn't deserve your hate," Eri replied with a shrug. "And I don't want to see you carrying even a shade of the bitterness inside of you that you had in my future. Yours' and Kai's happiness is a beautiful thing, Ashi- Mina. Enjoy it because you can now, without worrying about anyone else."

At that, Mina's face broke into a slightly sheepish grin. "You're a pretty wise kid," she told her. "We're lucky to have you reminding us of how good we actually have it."

"My pleasure," the other girl giggled. "Besides, you gotta remember, Kai is my hero. If I have a chance to save him some grief, you better believe that I'll take it."

"I hear that." With another pair of smiles, the two girls moved back toward Kurai, who was now talking to Blake and Tokoyami.

Tomorrow would throw them all back into the unremitting hero course work of UA's freshman year, but none of them felt very apprehensive at the thought. It was going to be mind-bending, back-breaking work that would make most anyone else in their shoes throw their hands in the air and wail in despair as they gave in to their own weaknesses, but not these students. After all, they would finally be capable of moving forward in a way that they had not been able to do in quite some time.

Starting tomorrow, Class 1-A would all be moving toward a brighter future, together.

Mataras: Well, next chapter marks the end of the Unleashed portion of Your Hero Academia.

Kurai: Wait, really? Seems a little short.

Mataras: Perhaps, but Survival (part 2) was only 12 chapters, and actually had a lesser word count. Still counted as its own phase of the story.

Akarui: Fair enough.

Kurai: Do we get a title for the next part ahead of time, or are you gonna do your usual thing and blue-

Mataras: Coming in March of 2024, Your Hero Academia: Enmity.

Deadwood: Sounds unnecessarily dramatic.

Kurai: You're unnecessary.

Deadwood: Hey! Some people might argue that this whole chapter was unnecessary! Seemed like the perfect time for me to float along!

Mataras: Torch him.

Litrosh: Happily.

Deadwood: NooOoooOO!

Kurai: Next time on Your Hero Academia- Two Heroes

Akarui: Which pair are going to see Go Beyond?

Mataras: Plus Ultra!

Next time on Your Hero Academia: Unleashed...

"Dammit!" he shouted before using Blackwhip to smack aside the closest bolts. "You were supposed to get tripped up trying to use Divine Eye! When did you even-?!"

"First time!" Izuku cut him off as he too emerged from the smoke cloud, eyes and hair blazing red while his skin darkened as if with a bad sunburn. "I had the sense that I would be able to use this, and it seemed like a better option since I haven't been able to use the Divine Eye ever since we used Akarui's devi-"

"Dude, how are you talking that fast while fighting and using a power that basically requires you not to think?!" Kurai demanded as he cut him off, still doing everything he could to avoid getting his by an energon blast.

"You thought that this ability required little to no conscious thought, but it really just requires you to let your body act on its own, separate from any conscious decisions on your part, which doesn't necessarily mean that I have to stop think-!"

"Stop that!" Kurai shouted as sweat dripped down his brow. He had not planned for Izuku to be capable of using one of his more dangerous abilities so soon after awakening Energon anew, and his nerves were quickly becoming raw from the tension. As a result, his temper was growing shorter by the second, and even though this was meant to be a sparring match between the three One For All inheritors, he had no intention of losing, physical decline over the last month be damned.

'There's still Thexan,' his own vestige reminded him.