A/N: One black belt test and thesis presentation later, and I AM HERE! Back to regular schedule, let's go!

Balance

Ashid Queen, Stuntman, and Cheetah were all somewhat surprised when their latest trip back to their temporary base was interrupted by a middle-aged hero who called himself 'Marksman'. "You guys are being ordered to take a rest for the next two hours," he informed them. "Get washed off in the tents thataway, head over to the mess tent to eat something, then take a nap, do whatever it is that you need to do to relax."

"Uh, who's this guy?" the pink heroine asked her companions.

"He's with us," Cheetah answered her. To the man, she asked, "I take it this means that the other members of the agency are on their way, if not already at work?"

"Yeah, we got about forty of ours' out in the field right now," Marksman nodded quickly. "Ingenium is calling for the night team to take a breather. There's some cots set aside for the rescue workers back that way- I'd suggest using 'em. This op looks like it's gonna take a few more days to finish."

"If it's gonna be taking that long, we don't have time to waste lying around," Cheetah grunted as she moved past her coworker, who was rolling his eyes. "I'll get a snack, but I can keep going after that."

"Don't make me tranq you," Marksman warned her as he patted what looked like a revolver on his hip. "Ingenium knows what he's about, especially when it comes to large-scale ops like this one. If he's saying you need a break, then take the break."

"You were the one telling me that it's important to take a step back when we need to, even when we don't want to," Ashid Queen said as she rubbed at her heavy eyelids, not even registering that the muck on her hands was just as bad as the skin she was trying to cleanse. "I'm gonna do what the boss orders- I can barely focus on anything right now."

"That lesson was for you, not me," Cheetah grumbled. She then turned back to Marksman and said, "I'll get some food, then I'll take a nap for one hour. After that, I'm back out in the field."

"I suppose that's as good as I'm going to get out of you," the other hero sighed. "How about you, Stuntman? Do I need to spike your drink to get you to cooperate?"

"Isn't it liable for a hero to be threatening to drug people so casually?" his companion replied with an arched eyebrow. When his only response was to put his hand on the holster, Stuntman held up his hands in a gesture of surrender as he said, "Joking! I was joking- kinda. I'm gonna go wash and take that nap, now." With that, he fairly ran off toward the tent serving as a temporary washing station for the men.

Marksman gave vent to a smug grin as he watched Cheetah trudge away before he turned to the remaining heroine and said, "Sorry we aren't meeting under better circumstances. It's Ashid Queen, right? Tensei said that you were the other intern who would be with his brother."

"Eh…" the girl made a slight waving motion with her hand before saying, "Iida was taking too long to get his act together, so we started rescues on our own- haven't seen him or the rest since then."

"I see that Cheetah is passing along her loner habits," Marksman chuckled with a slight roll of his eyes. "Well, as much as I'd love to stay and give my two cents on what that's going to do for your career, I need to get back out there. See you later, Ashid."

"Later, Mark," she replied while giving him a half-hearted, two-finger salute as he jogged away.

As she dragged her feet toward the other wash tent, she reflected on how the news about receiving reinforcements had triggered no sense of relief for her. It's good that we have more people, she thought with a sigh. But it's hard to feel like it's really gonna make a difference…

After getting a brief rinse- with water that proved to be surprisingly hot- and scrubbing her body with the supplied soap in the women's wash tent, Mina felt just a fraction better. While she was getting cleaned, another volunteer came and informed her that her costume was also being scrubbed, though she doubted it would be entirely clean by the time it came to put it on again. After dressing in a standard volunteer outfit with the word 'hero' titled on the front, she made her way to the mess tent, where it took a few minutes for her to be able to get a plate of food and a place to sit. She had thought about going to join Cheetah and Stuntman if they were in, but all of a sudden, the idea of company just seemed so exhausting to her that she took to the relative quiet of the darkened corner without any hesitations. This was a first for her, since the Melting Heroine was a textbook extrovert who got her energy from being around other people. Even during her depressive spell a few months back, she had always found it easier to function by being around other people, but at that moment, she would genuinely rather sit in a dark room with absolutely no external stimulus than even say hello to whoever came along and occupied one of the empty seats at the bench.

I dunno if I'd even wanna talk to Kurai right now, she reflected sluggishly as she bit into the bun she had been given. The taste of pork barely registered in her tired brain, she was so out of it.

Given such a degree of fatigue, it was no surprise that she failed to pay attention to the identities of the other people who came to occupy the table. In fact, it took them a good four or five attempts of trying to get her attention before they succeeded in drawing her out of her half-asleep state of mind.

"Ashido!"

"Bwuh?" she mumbled as she blinked her bleary eyes and looked up from her plate to see none other than Ingenium Mk. II and Loop de Loop seated across from her with expressions of concern on their faces. "Oh," she mumbled. "It's you."

"Okay, take it easy," the other heroine said as Ingenium bristled with indignation. "We're all tired and hungry, so this is not the time to be hashing out who did what. We just wanted to make sure you and the others were okay."

"Yeah," Ashid Queen nodded as she returned her gaze to her food. "Yeah, we're okay. The three of us managed eighty-three rescues so far. No injuries on our part."

"Sounds like a productive few hours for you guys," Loop de Loop nodded with approval.

"Thanks," the pink girl nodded slowly before she made to stand up. "Look, I'm glad to see you guys are okay, but I'm beat, and I don't really feel like talking, so I'm gonna… go lie down." She barely managed to get through the last three words, having to stifle a yawn in the process.

"I understand, but please do your best to be at the next strategy meeting before you return to the disaster area," Ingenium told her as she started to walk away. "There have been some changes in the allocation of search parameters, so we need to-"

"Why would I show up to a strategy session if there's not gonna be any strategizing?" the girl replied without looking back at them, causing her classmate to stiffen in place with a hint of outrage. "I'll stick to what I've been doing and actually saving people… instead of second-guessing every move before I can even get going…"

She was swiftly stopped in place by an armored hand on her shoulder and Ingenium's stern voice saying, "I admit that I made a poor start, but it is always important to have a plan, like Midoriya always does, or any number of my family would have! To rush in without a plan in advance leads to further disasters, like on Nabu when Kurai-"

"Let go of me before I slap you again," Ashid Queen said in a tone that brooked absolutely no arguments. Remembering the last time he had been within striking distance, Ingenium quickly released her and sat back down.

The pink girl slowly looked over her shoulder while she then said to her classmate, "You know what your problem is, class rep? You know why you always freeze up right before the big, important moments?" Without giving him a chance to answer, she went on to say, "You can never decide who you're going to try to be every time a crisis comes along. Sometimes it's your brother, sometimes it's Kurai, and sometimes it's even Izuku. You want to be a good hero that your family can be proud of? Then stop trying to copy Izuku, stop acting like you've got the same burdens as Kurai, and stop expecting yourself to be Tensei! Start being you, Tenya!"

With that said, she stormed off, muttering other, less intelligible things under her breath. The few people who happened to get a look at her face while she passed them by knew that it would be best to give her a wide berth.

There was a good ten seconds of silence at the table before Loop de Loop volunteered the words, "Y'know, bringing up her boyfriend's really horrific death again probably wasn't the best way to make your point right then."

"That has been made abundantly clear, thank you," the armored hero grumbled without looking over at his teammate.

"Do her slaps really hurt that bad?"

"Go and test her temperament, if you're so curious."

"That is a hard pass."

"That will be all for now, thank you."

"Sir!"

The original Ingenium let out a long sigh as he took off his helmet and pressed his thumb and forefinger on either side of his nose, trying to alleviate the tension headache that had been building up all night and morning as he had done his best to both rescue people with his own hands and through coordinated efforts with his sidekicks and other agencies. Of all the weeks for Tenya to start his internship with me… he thought with a wry grin. Oh well. Father forced me to swim by throwing me in the deep end when I refused to get into the children's pool. I do believe there's something to be said for 'sink or swim'.

"I remember seeing that look on your face a few too many times over the years," said a familiar voice that caused him to swiftly spin around and look at the tent entrance in surprise. He was greeted by the sight of a heroine in her late twenties who was smiling kindly at him. "Hey, Tensei. Been a while."

"Shinobu!" he said, a smile breaking out on his own face as they moved to greet one another. "How long has it been?"

"Well, I struck out on my own about this time last year, and I stopped by a couple of times while you were in the hospital, but I think you were still pretty out of it back then," the woman replied with a slightly more somber look. "I meant to keep visiting, but work kept coming up, so much so that I barely had time to volunteer with the at-risk program-"

"You don't have to explain the days getting away to me," Ingenium chuckled, his headache already forgotten. "I think I remember you coming by, but I obviously wasn't the most capable host at the time- sorry about that."

"What do you have to apologize for, Tensei?" she asked him with a slightly incredulous grin. "You were- Well, let's just say that I honestly wasn't sure that I could believe it when your mother called to tell me that you were well again." She placed a hesitant hand on his shoulder while looking him up and down for a moment before saying, "You really can walk. You can be the hero we all looked up to again. It's like a miracle, and I say that knowing full well we live in the day and age we do."

"Not a miracle- a friend," Ingenium told her before he shifted his gaze back toward the tent entrance once again. "Speaking of whom, would you care to come in?"

"Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt," Kai said as he and Chronoa came through the entrance, somewhat to the surprise of the other guest. "We're on break for twenty minutes, and I figured it might be a good time to pay a quick visit. Inertia, it's good to see you. I take it you're here to help with the evacuations in this zone?"

"Yes, my sidekick and I just arrived," she nodded as she stepped away from Ingenium, a slight blush coloring her cheeks as she did. "She's coordinating with some of the first responders, but when she's done, we'll be heading out."

"A sidekick already, huh?" Kai grinned with approval. "Well done to you." He looked like he wanted to add more to that statement, but then he remembered the girl at his side, so he changed his approach to say, "Sorry, excuse my bad manners. Inertia, this is Chronoa- my fellow intern under Gran Torino, and the one responsible for getting Tensei back on his feet."

"It was you?" Inertia asked the dark-haired girl, who immediately nodded with a smile on her face.

"It's nice to meet you," she said with a polite head bow. "My quirk allows me to reverse damage done to people's bodies, which is how I was able to restore Ingenium's legs, as well as grow Kai's arm back."

"Well, that's an impressive power," Inertia said as she returned the bow. "If that is the case, you have my most sincere gratitude for healing Tensei. The world needs heroes like my old boss in it."

"Old boss?" Chronoa looked to Kai for an explanation, who already seemed ready to give one.

"Inertia used to be Tensei's number two sidekick," he explained. "She started working for him about ten years ago, and only recently decided to open up her own agency."

"We were very sad to see her go, but from what I've read, she's done quite well for herself," Ingenium grinned again, causing the woman to look at him in surprise.

"You've been following my career?" she asked him.

"Of course," he nodded enthusiastically. "Even before I was injured in my fight with Stain, I kept track of you. As I said, I was sad to see you go, but with all the good that you've been able to do in your new jurisdiction, I have to admit that I may have been holding you back a little at my agency."

"If she's performing better than she was at the Iida Family Agency, I can't wait to see how she does in the field today," Kai grinned at the pair. "The rain is finally starting to let up, so the crew preventing the landslides has mostly broken up, though they're leaving a few people up top just in case we get another shift. The two of us are now tasked with assisting evacuations in high-risk zones."

"The two of you?" Inertia repeated, looking at Chronoa without comprehension. "Wait, wouldn't your quirk be better used in the triage?"

"Huh? Oh, right," the girl said with a sheepish smile as she scratched at the back of her head. "Well… Truth is, that isn't my only power. I was experimented on by the League of Villains for a while, so now I also have super-strength, which I've been using to help Kai in preventing anymore mudslides."

"Wait, you were-?! What now?!" Inertia turned to look at Ingenium for a better explanation, but all he could do was shrug helplessly.

"The League thought she stood a better chance at surviving some of their more radical experiments because of her quirk," Kai explained, the proposed narrative that had been agreed upon by those privy to the truth coming easily to his lips. "Lucky for her and us, they were right."

"And… now you're becoming a hero?" Inertia asked, apparently struggling to keep up with the information she had just received.

"I want a shot at the guys who took my family from me and locked me in a lab for years," Chronoa replied, her eyes taking a much harder light for a moment. "I also want to make sure that other people don't have to suffer like I have. Being a hero means that I can accomplish both."

For a moment, Kai expected Inertia to chide the younger heroine for holding to such a goal, but all the other woman did was grin slightly at her and say, "It sounds like you've got a much clearer idea of what being a hero means to you than I did when I was your age."

While Chronoa dipped her head in acknowledgement, Kai took the moment to say, "Well, we don't want to keep you two. We're gonna grab some water and sit down for a bit before we head back out."

"I'd recommend evac zone Bravo-Three," Ingenium said as they both turned to go. "It's not far, and there's less chances of a camera crew showing up to get a shot of Japan's next Number One."

"Yeah, I may or may not have used Smokescreen to get away from a crew in the Tango area," Kai grumbled as he made his exit. "Thanks for the tip, anyhow."

"Bye, Ingenium!" Chronoa said as she followed her partner out of the tent. "It was nice to meet you, Inertia!"

"You too!" Once the younger pair had departed, she turned back to Ingenium and said, "Hard to believe that's Hogo-sha." In her mind's eye, she could see him, along with a younger Tenya, watching the heroes of the Iida Agency going to work with no shortness of admiration in their eyes. To see him walking confidently among their number as a battle-hardened hero in his own right was honestly a little jarring.

"Wait until you see him in action out here," her former boss chuckled. "I'm sure you saw what he pulled off in Kanto, but it's something else to see him working in person."

"Look at you, sounding like a proud dad," she giggled in response. "You know, you'd probably be pretty stellar at that."

"Only if I found the right woman," the hero said with a sigh as he looked down and rubbed the back of his head. "And even if I did find her, I'm afraid that I might already be married to the job."

There was a brief pause before Inertia answered, "Well, maybe if you found a woman who didn't mind sharing the job with you?"

"What, you mean another hero?" Ingenium asked as he looked up at her in surprise, to which she nodded. "I mean… I suppose I hadn't really thought about it."

"Well, maybe change that," Inertia said before giving him a quick wink. "I know I've thought about it a few times, myself."

Ingenium's cheeks flared red as a few things that had taken place over the last couple of years suddenly clicked into place for him. "Wait, Shinobu, are you-?"

"Inertia!" The tent flap burst open to reveal another young lady dressed in a hero costume, panting raggedly. Registering the presence of the other hero, she quickly stood up straight and managed to gasp out, "Sorry… to intrude. But base command wants us moving out… with the rest of our group in less than five."

"Well, duty calls," Inertia said with a sad sort of smile toward Ingenium as she moved to follow the girl who appeared to be her sidekick. "I'll see you later, Tensei."

"Wait, Shinobu!" the man called before she could leave. "I, er…" His words failed him for a moment, but Inertia waited patiently until he managed to say, "I feel like this conversation needs to be finished- perhaps over coffee? When this is all over, of course."

The heroine's face brightened considerably before she answered him, "Of course. I'll look forward to it."

"As will I."

Then she was gone, and Ingenium was left alone in the tent with his thoughts. How long has she been waiting for me to…? He could only wonder silently. Of course, the moment he tried to seriously think about it, his headache chose to return with a vengeance.

Kai and Chronoa made it to the area that Ingenium had recommended to them in less than a minute, thanks in no small part to their quirk. "We've been at this for like twenty hours, and we haven't even covered one-fifth of the evac zones?" Chronoa mused as they headed for an outdoor table, where they could see water bottles up for grabs. "Do you know how long we're going to be at this for?"

"Well, things should hopefully pick up now that we've got more heroes coming in to help things move along, but I'd still say that we're gonna be at this for the rest of the week, at least," her partner answered quietly. "After three days pass, it unfortunately becomes less of a rescue op and more of a recovery one. We're trying to make sure that we find everyone in the citizen's registry before that time elapses."

"How do we know if we've done that or not?" she asked as he grabbed a pair of water bottles and gave one to her. "Thanks."

"No problem," he replied before taking a long drink from his bottle. Once his mouth was cleared, he told her, "You haven't seen this yet, since we've been focused on keeping the mudslides at bay, but when we start rescuing people, we take them to one of these command centers that they've set up, each of which has a list of the people who lived here when the disaster happened. If we bring them all the way back ourselves, we go and inform someone in the command tent who we've rescued, and they'll log them as having been saved. The process takes longer when identifying the dead, but the idea is the same. This doesn't happen often, but if we do manage to find everyone in an area, dead or alive, HQ assigns the heroes working the area to a new zone, leaving one or two people behind just on the off-chance that someone slipped through the cracks."

"This is a lot different than the rescue operations that the UA Alliance used to run," Chronoa mused aloud as they moved along, trying to find a bench or a crate to sit on for a few minutes.

"How's that?"

"Our friends could only ever afford to commit forces to the rescue of people who we knew to be alive," she replied as she looked over at him sadly. "I guess it's just weird for me, going through so much effort to save people who might be alive. Not that it's bad in and of itself- just different to what I'm used to."

"Then I'll do what I can to make sure you do get used to it," Kai grinned at her.

"Glad to hear it," Chronoa smiled in response. "I look forward to a future without a one-sided world war occupying it."

Before Kai could give his thoughts on the subject, he was interrupted by someone to his left. "Thought I heard your voice, kid," said a somewhat older woman as she approached the pair. "That was a hell of a show you gave us last night."

"Scab, good to see you," the Guardian Hero answered as he moved to shake hands with the pro. "I kinda had the feeling that your guys' team would be in this area after Tensei pointed me in this direction."

"You on break?" Scab asked after she gave him a nod.

"Just for a few minutes, but yeah."

"Shame, our team just started our 'off' shift," the older heroine sighed. "I'm sure Tenya would have loved to have you in for lunch."

"No rest for the wicked," Kai grinned with a small shrug. Turning to his peer, he then made quick introductions. "Chronoa, this is Scab, another one of Ingenium's higher-up sidekicks. Scab, this is my fellow intern and partner, Chronoa."

"Good to meet you," Scab said gruffly. "If you two are interns, where's your supervisor?"

"He's working another case right now, so he sent us in his place on behalf of his agency," Chronoa answered quickly. "Since Kai has already had the experience of working without a pro's supervision, Gran Torino felt that we could handle this on our own."

"Hmm, so I guess Tensei wasn't the only one thinking along those lines," Scab muttered, almost to herself, which led to Kai tilting his head inquisitively at her.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"Tenya was put in charge of Iida Agency's B-team for this area," Scab sighed. "It was a pretty rough start for him, but he's more or less found his rhythm. Still, we had some… dissension in the ranks."

"Tempest?" Kai guessed, to which Scab quickly shook her head in the negative.

"No, Tensei put a moratorium on that one pretty fast," she answered him. "No, it was the other intern who started it, which got Cheetah and Stuntman going. Nobody's been hurt out in the field, but Tenya's taking the proceedings pretty hard."

"I can imagine," Kai nodded with a slight frown. He knew that his friend had a habit of trying to take on the responsibility of everyone's well-being once they came under his command, so to have some of them break off had to be something very difficult for him to swallow.

"You said it was another intern who started the group's fracture?" Chronoa now asked. "I'm guessing she had a big personality and a lotta pink?"

"Friend of yours'?" Scab smirked.

"Classmate," Chronoa answered.

"Girlfriend," Kai said at almost the exact same time.

"Oh, so it is her," Scab nodded slowly. "Well, she's gonna be in some hot water once this is all over, but last I heard, she and her partners in crime rescued a few-dozen people last night, so at least they've been keeping busy the right way."

"Aw, Mina…" Kai sighed as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I love that girl, but I really hope she didn't just burn another bridge."

"Nah, I wouldn't worry about that," Scab grinned at him. "She's not the only one who'll be in hot water once this is all over with."

"Eh?"

"Don't worry about it," the older heroine chuckled. "Matter of fact, why don't you run and say hi before your break time is over?"

"I'd love to, but I don't know where she'd have gone," Kai shrugged helplessly.

"Well, the mess tent is thataway, and if she's not in there, she's probably taking a nap in the temp shelter over there," Scab said as she indicated the two different structures. "I'll let you get to it, but it was good to see you again, kid."

"You too, thanks for the directions," he replied before the older heroine walked away with a small wave over her shoulder. Once she was gone, he added to himself, "Something tells me I'm not gonna get a chance to sit down before our break is over- too many people to touch base with."

"Divide and conquer, then," Chronoa suggested.

"How so?"

"Where do you think Ashid Queen is most likely to be?" she asked her partner. "You go there, and I'll got to the other spot and catch up with whoever's there. If I run into Ingenium, I'll make sure he's occupied enough so that you two don't get interrupted."

"Eri, you're a goddess," Kai said through a grin, causing her to giggle in response. "In that case, Mina's probably taking a rest, so I'll check the shelter. We'll meet back here in fifteen minutes."

"Yes, sir!" The girl gave him a mock salute and then started walking toward the mess tent, a bounce in her step and a grin on her face.

Watching her go, Kai couldn't stop a broader smile of his own from breaking out. She's been through hell, but she's found her reasons to smile again, he thought as he moved toward his own destination. I'd question how that's possible, but I suppose the same has been wondered about me.

For a moment, he allowed himself to wonder what it would be like to be in her shoes. He could see himself as he was now, standing alongside his father and uncle in their prime, using the awesome powers at his disposal to prevent the tragedies that befell them. Needle Mouse was no threat to him with One For All, he could have easily taken out the kidnappers from the Tono gang, and he could have warned his parents about making a deal with All For-

He paused, both in his movements and his thoughts. Would I warn them about what would happen if they had struck a deal with him? he was forced to wonder. If I did manage to warn them off, I would never have Energon, which means that Dad would have never been under his thumb, which means that he would probably still be alive, Akarui would have never pushed his quirk too far in order to help me, and I would be… Huh. Once again, his thoughts came to a halt, though he forced his feet to get moving again. What would I be if I didn't have a quirk? Probably a cop, like Dad.

He allowed a wry grin to break out on his face as he realized that he now had another reason not to envy Eri. If I weren't able to become a hero, I never would have met Mina, or any of the others in my class… Tenya and I probably would have drifted apart once he went to UA, he mused silently as he reflected on how long it had been since they had heard from any of their classmates at Sommei. I'd be able to spare my family a lot of heartache, but I would lose pretty much all of the experiences that made me who I am today… Could I do that to myself? How did Eri know what to change and what to leave alone when she came back?

As he entered the tent, he shook his head in annoyance at himself, already knowing the answer. She didn't know, he told himself as he moved aside to let a couple of workers and heroes through the flaps to the outside. She couldn't have known. She rolled the dice and now she's sticking to her choices, which is pretty damn brave. I'm sure if she and the vestiges were inclined, she could probably do another global rewind until they got it 'right'. He made sure to avoid eye contact and simply moved as swiftly as was politely allowed in order to minimize the chances of someone recognizing him and creating a stir in the place where people were meant to be resting.

"You're not wrong," his own vestige told him. "We could do that, but we have come to the collective decision with Eri that unless we are faced with the mass extinction of heroes again, like in our future, we won't execute such a plan."

Any particular reason? Kai asked the Tenth.

"We aren't gods who should get to play with the if's and should have's of life," the vestige answered. "Life happens as it does for a reason, even if we humans can't always abide by the direction it takes. If we could simply undo every difficult thing before it happened, would there be anything to achieve in life?"

Are you saying that you've second-guessed whether or not you did the right thing in rewinding time? Kai asked as he passed between a few rows of occupied sleeping cots.

"Wouldn't you?" the Tenth chuckled dryly. "What happened when we first came to Eri was largely an accident, but it also opened up to us a new possibility- that of being able to undo our every mistake throughout our battles against All For One. The main issue is that if we did decide to go through with such a plan, what would there be to stop us from continuing to do so in every instance of misfortune and evil that we came across? And if we did that, would we not simply become that which we hate, by taking away the free will of everyone who ever acted out of line by the standards of our own morals?"

Kai sidestepped into another row of cots to allow another hero free passage while he thought, That got dark real fast.

"It's not a subject to be taken lightly."

Fair enough, the young hero thought with a sigh, right before he finally sighted his quarry. The color of her bright pink skin and hair had been somewhat muted by all the accumulated muck, even after being washed, so it had taken him a little longer to figure out who she was. The fact that she was not wearing her hero costume also impeded his search, though not for terribly long. He felt his vestige retreat back into the depths of his subconscious, having apparently decided that the conversation was done for the time being.

With a few more strides, Kai found himself standing over the sleeping form of his fiancée, who wore a troubled expression on her worn features. She was also shivering lightly, as she had apparently not been able to find or had neglected to take a blanket for herself.

At that particular detail, he let out a quiet sigh and rolled his eyes upward for a moment. Next time she tells me off for sleeping with my feet out under the covers… he thought with a wry grin as he cast his eyes about for a covering that she could use. He quickly spotted a small stack of blankets, awaiting use next to one of the support posts of the tent, so he used Blackwhip to retrieve one and then used his hands to unfold and lay the article down on her trembling body.

"Sleep well, my love," he whispered before he kissed her on the brow, next to one of her horns. As he pulled back, he was pleased to see that a more peaceful look had worked its way onto her face, though she still seemed fast asleep.

Deciding that he really could do with a few minutes of leg rest, he sat down at the foot of her cot and adopted a meditative pose. He wouldn't be doing any deep pondering, but with all that was going on around them, he knew that he needed to take as many opportunities to quiet his mind as he could, even if only for a few minutes.

In what seemed like less than five minutes to the young heroes as opposed to their actual allotted time, Chronoa and Kai were both back out in the field. "At least it's just drizzling instead of pouring," the girl commented as they used One For All to leap over a stream that had grown quite swollen during the night.

"Maybe, but if I never see another rainstorm after this, it'll be too soon," Kai grumbled as they skirted an area that seemed especially slick. He glanced at the lens of his scouter before he added, "We're almost to the area that requested our help. Just over the next rise."

"Alright."

Now that their destination was within easy reach, the pair quickened their pace, clearing the ripple of earth in mere seconds, and then bounding down the incline on the other side until they were standing in a small encampment that looked much like the one they had just left behind. Once again, Chronoa allowed Kai to take the lead, since he had a much better grasp on who to approach and where to go in this situation. It took them a few moments, but he was able to get directions from one of the civilian emergency responders to the command tent.

Once they had made their way over, they were able to coordinate with the section chief, who- like his associates- seemed immensely relieved at the prospect of having the Guardian Hero coming to work alongside him and his volunteers. The pair were then sent to a neighborhood where many of the houses that had been greatly damaged were too unstable to risk going into, for fear of the remnant crashing down on the rescue workers.

Upon their arrival, Kai took Chronoa to a house that had been half-buried by the mud, and a tree could be seen sticking up out of the roof, roots up. A rescue volunteer hailed them over and explained that they thought there might be someone still alive in the mess beneath their feet.

"Pretty sure we heard someone crying down there earlier, but things went quiet about half an hour ago," they said worriedly as they looked into a broken window on the second story, right next to where they were standing. "We've tried calling into the house to get a response, but we haven't heard anything."

"Stand back, sir," Kai ordered as both his and Chronoa's bodies lit up with bioelectricity. As the man retreated a few yards, the hero turned to his partner and said, "We proceed carefully. If we try to take off the rubble too quickly, we could force a shift in the mud and cause whatever's left of the structure to collapse on itself."

"I'll dig, you support?" she guessed as she took her cape off of her shoulders and re-tied it tightly around her waist.

"Bingo."

With that, Chronoa dug her fingers into the damp wood surrounding the window and tore it out by the frame, tossing aside the destroyed fixture while being careful not to hit either herself or her partner with the broken glass. With that done, she crawled through the new entrance, which was free of razor-sharp edges that could harm either herself or any potential rescues. While she did that, Kai called over his shoulder to the volunteer, "How many people is she looking for in there?!"

"This house is registered with five people, two adults and their three children," they answered quickly.

"You get that?" the hero asked after tapping a button on his scouter.

"Yep," Chronoa answered through her own earpiece. She didn't have a setup as advanced as Kai, but she had requested a short-range communication device for her costume shortly after enrolling in UA for situations like this one. "I'm gonna need you to use Float and get above the house so that you can use Blackwhip to hold some of this stuff up. There's some kind of brace that I can't get around, and I need to get past it to move further in. The support runs east-west."

"Got it, how far away from the entrance are you?" he asked as he began to levitate over the roof of the house.

"I've made it about twenty feet, give or take."

"Alright, hang on." Measuring the distance as close as he could with his eyes, Kai then shot a Blackwhip tendril out of his right arm, causing it to stick to the roof where he estimated his partner to be, as well as two other points on either side of it that ran perpendicular to the framework of the house. "Okay, I've got a hold on it," he told her. "On your go."

"Okay, three, two, one!"

There was a sound of something snapping from within the house, and Kai immediately exerted more strength into his arm as he worked to hold up the roof. "Alright, I've got it," he assured her once he was certain that the structure would hold.

"Good, I'm going in." There was radio silence for a couple of minutes, but eventually Chronoa grunted, "I've got two in here who are alive, but unconscious. If there's anyone else in here, they've been buried for a while."

Kai closed his eyes briefly as he registered her words, but he was careful to maintain his control over Float and Blackwhip. "Can you get them out on your own?" he asked her.

"I'll be able to help them get themselves out once I've rewound them," she answered. "If we run into a complication, I'll need you to send another person in to help make the extraction."

"Alright, just say the word." With that, the communications were cut, and Kai resigned himself to the relative silence and chill of the February rainfall. It took a lot longer for Chronoa to emerge from the house than it did for her to make it into the structure, but eventually, she managed to make it out with two teenage girls, both looking dirty and dressed in bloodied clothing, though neither of them had any wounds to speak of.

Rewind for the win, Kai thought as his partner looked up and gave him a thumbs-up. She too was now sporting bloodstains in her clothing, though they did not seem to originate from any injury of her own. Seeing her confirmation, he performed one last scan for life signs in the house with his scouter, and then released Blackwhip while descending back to the ground when the readings showed up negative. The moment that his feet touched the soaked earth, the house gave out a loud groan, followed by several loud cracks and pops that preceded the roof collapsing in on itself. Having expected the outcome, he and Chronoa remained unfazed by the sudden noises, but the two girls let out startled yells before they realized that they were in no imminent danger.

"Sorry about that," he apologized as he approached the pair, who looked at him with wide eyes. "My partner and I can take you to a safe place, now."

"Th-Thanks," the elder of the two said through a violent shiver. Her clothes were not in the best shape after being buried and torn by the mudslide, and they seemed more suited for sleep than walking around in the late winter air to begin with. Seeing this, Chronoa untied her cape and laid it across the girl's shoulders, helping her to wrap it around her body so that she could retain some semblance of warmth. The girl thanked her again, but Kai noticed a similar problem with the other girl that had been rescued, and his partner didn't exactly have any more spare clothing items.

With a shrug to himself, he quickly shed his gi's top half, leaving him in a white undershirt as he held out the article to the other girl. "Here," he insisted when she seemed hesitant to take it. "You need it more than I do right now."

"Thank you," she said softly before she accepted the oversized garment and wrapped it around herself. Looking between the two of them, she then said, "My mom and brother were in there."

"What about your dad?" Kai asked her, though he made sure to keep his tone as gentle as possible. It was difficult to tell exactly how shaken and fragile the two were at the moment, so he needed to handle their questions and his answers very carefully for the time being.

"He was at work when this all happened," the elder sister replied through another shiver. "We don't know where he is, now."

"Please, our brother and mom?" the younger girl pleaded, tears in her eyes.

Kai and Chronoa exchanged a look before the heroine told them, "I looked everywhere that I could in the house. I couldn't find anyone other than you two."

The two teenagers paled at the unspoken implications, but again the second girl managed to be the one to talk. "Well, m-maybe they managed to get themselves out? Or someone came earlier and they just didn't know to look for us? Or-?"

"If that is the case, there will be a record of them having been rescued back at base camp," Chronoa interrupted her while laying a firm hand on her shoulder. "Kai and I will escort you back there now, but we need to get moving. There are other people in this area that we need to look for."

"Wha-? No!" the younger girl said with a quick shake of her head as she looked back at the ruins of her house. "You need to get back in there and look for Mom and Cho-"

"Hey, take a deep breath," Kai said as he stepped a little closer to the pair of siblings. "I know how you feel, trust me. Chronoa and I will do everything that we can to help you find your family back at the base camp, but I need you to understand that there is nothing left to be done for anyone who might have been in your house. Like you said, it's possible that they got out earlier, but we can't let the two of you go digging around here- you could get hurt again, and it's our job to make sure that the two of you are taken to safety."

"Wha-? But-! Please, he's only seven!" the girl begged the pair, causing them to look at one another with pain in their eyes. "You have to help him!"

"Can your scouter tell if there's anyone alive in there?" Chronoa asked her partner, to which he winced at.

"I already tried twice, but unless I have their biometric information already stored in its memory, a direct line of sight, or an active quirk within 100 meters, my scouter isn't capable of detecting a person," he replied. Looking at the two girls again, he decided to ask, "What kind of quirk does your brother have?"

"Uh, some kind of purifier quirk," the older sister answered as she thought quickly. "Anything liquid that he drinks turns into water, no matter what it is."

"Mom has a sanitation quirk- her body is never affected by external germs or viruses, or anything like that," the younger added hurriedly.

Kai scratched at the back of his head as he thought it over. Those aren't very powerful quirks, and the boy would have to be drinking something for the scouter to pick it up… Maybe he got some rainwater filtered down into wherever he was buried, but there's the problem of him running out of air… After weighing his options for a moment, he told the pair, "I'll use my tech to search for your mom and brother again, but no matter what I find, I need you to promise me that you'll come with us once the search is over."

"Okay," the first girl nodded through another shudder. "We promise." The second girl looked less sure of the offer, but she also nodded in agreement.

"Alright," he said as he turned back toward the house and tapped a couple of buttons, which adjusted the scouter's parameters to specifically search for low-strength quirks in the immediate vicinity. He stood in front of the ruined structure for a few minutes, his heart pounding in his ears as he waited for any sign that his brother's tech could tell him concerning the people who had once lived in the dwelling.

Unfortunately, it seemed that luck had run out for this particular family. He turned away from the buried building and slowly shook his head in the negative. The two girls immediately sank to the ground where they stood, their faces pale and eyes vacant. Deciding that it would now be best to proceed with speed instead of hesitation, Kai moved quickly and gathered up the taller girl into his arms before turning to Chronoa and saying, "We need to get going. They're in shock, and it'd be better for the medical professionals to handle this from here on."

"Alright," the heroine nodded as she looked at the two sisters with sympathy. Kai's body lit up with his bioelectricity, which prompted her to move and scoop up the younger sibling into her arms, who protested ineffectually.

"Wait…" she said dully. "I can't go… I'm supposed to help Cho with his homework tonight…" Chronoa tightened her grip as the girl started to thrash harder while they walked away, doing her best to harden her heart and do what needed to be done. "Stop! Stop it, put me down! Please! I gotta help my brother!" Even as she struggled with all her might, it proved utterly useless against the strength of the Temporal Heroine.

As they listened to the younger girl's wailing, it was all Kai and Chronoa could do to set their gazes on their next destination and take their rescues along, willing or not.

For the next three hellish, rain-soaked days, the heroes worked ceaselessly to extract those who had been swallowed up by the earth. Morale was in low supply to begin with, and by the time the heroes were being told to pack up and go, misery abounded.

Kai and Chronoa objectively had some of the roughest shifts, given that their abilities and work ethics made them hot commodities for the rescue workers. The Guardian Hero single-handedly prevented over a dozen more mudslides from burying the emergency responders in between his direct rescue attempts, while the Temporal Heroine was responsible for saving the lives of nearly three hundred people in critical condition before they even made it to an ambulance.

They coordinated with many different agencies throughout the week, but Gran Torino himself only put in an appearance during the last ten hours, having finally finished whatever work he and Tsukauchi were up to these days. The two wielders of One For All knew that it had something to do with tracking down Shigaraki and his top officers, but they both knew better than to press the old man for details before he was ready to divulge them. Besides which, the two of them were so emotionally numb and brain-dead by the time he pulled them out of the field that asking about the Paranormal Liberation Front was nowhere near the forefront of their concerns.

Despite having saved hundreds of people- possibly close to a thousand if one counted their combined efforts with other heroes in the area- they had uncovered many more corpses in the process. The longer the rescue operations went on, the worse condition that the bodies ended up being in when they got dug up, having become swollen with moisture or distorted by the weight of the earth and debris that had crushed them in the first place. Chronoa seemed fairly unaffected by the deaths, which her partner attributed to her upbringing, both before and after her time at UA.

It was perhaps the greatest surprise to Chronoa when she had found Kai during one of their short reprieves, leaning on the ruins of a rooftop, and breathing heavily over a puddle of watery bile that he was also wiping away with the back of his hand. He was nearly as pale as he had been when she had found him as a corpse, and his body was shaking badly when she came to put an arm around him and console him if need be.

It was then that she saw the mangled body of a boy around their own age, speared by one of the support beams from the house, glass sticking out of his back and leg like some macabre porcupine. Only his face had been left mostly undamaged, reptilian eyes and fanged mouth open wide, pleading for help, even in death. It had clearly not been an instantaneous demise, but Chronoa hoped that the poor soul hadn't suffered for too long before the end came.

She thought that she might have heard Kai murmuring something along the lines of, "Not even him… this… so messed up…"

When she had asked him if he was overworked, he had then shook his head and told her that he would explain himself once they were able to go home. "Even if we're on break right now, we have to be ready to go back into action on a second's notice," he had said as he walked away from his vomit without a backward glance, his gait steady and his voice unwavering. "If I go into what brought that on, it's going to take me a lot longer than we can afford to finish pulling myself together once I start. So for now, do me a big favor and don't ask if I'm okay."

That last sentence was normally the kind of thing that he would say with a wry grin to let his friends know that he was joking, but in that moment, Chronoa could only see how weary and- for lack of a better term- damaged his spirit was. As she had gone to follow him into yet another disaster zone littered with the cries of the desperate, she hoped that he might be able to catch a few minutes with his other half.

However, as ill luck would have it, the two of them saw nothing more of their friends throughout the remainder of the rescue efforts, and the only time Kai took a moment to stop was when he spent a little extra time entering the address of the deceased, his haggard eyes lingering over a set of names that meant nothing to his partner. Chronoa could have sworn that fate was taunting her predecessor with the number of times that they would catch glimpses of Ingenium Mk. II or Ashid Queen from a distance, only for one of their teams to be called away to another location on an urgent matter. The only time that they ever came into direct contact was during that second day, when Kai had seen his beloved in the resting tent while Chronoa was brought up to speed on his team's then-current situation by their class rep.

When the three-day live rescue period had elapsed, Gran Torino's agency made the collective decision to remain on duty for another thirty-six hours in the hopes that they might be able to find those of hardy spirit who could have survived against all odds, as well as help move those who had been pulled from the rubble, but were unable to make it to a safe zone due to the inclement weather, ruined roadwork, sustained injuries, or all of the above. To their dismay, they were unable to save any more lives, though they were able to preserve many of those who had already been moved away from immediate danger by others.

After escorting a cul-de-sac's worth of people through a small stretch of hazardous terrain to safety, Chronoa had taken a moment to murmur, "Do you ever wonder how many people we've just missed the chance to save, Kai?" When all she received was the silence of the rain, she had turned to look more fully at her partner while asking, "How many people were waiting for us just now, and we weren't able to-?"

"Don't," he cut her off, his voice uncharacteristically harsh. It was in such contrast with how he normally spoke, especially given the warm tone that he nearly always reserved for her and her younger self that it actually made Eri flinch and back away a half-step. However, she quickly saw that her hero was once again deathly pale and shaking where he stood, so Chronoa made a conscious effort to place herself back at his side and wait for him to once again retain the headspace that he needed to be Kai- the hero who stood his ground, no matter what he was faced with.

The pair of them were so filthy by now that the girl wondered if they would ever be able to scour the last of the grime from their bodies, to say nothing of their clothes. Nothing even resembling white still existed on Kai's costume or his hair. She would never discard her cape, given all that it had meant- and still did mean- to her. She would figure something out to get the thing cleaned, even if she had to convince Akarui to build some kind of super-sanitizer. However, she felt reasonably confident that the rest of their clothes would only be considered truly sterilized after they were introduced to a 4000º furnace.

Once again, it only took him a few seconds to get moving, but now more than ever Chronoa realized that while this method of compartmentalizing his suffering allowed him to function for periods of time beyond what would have broken most people, there was going to be an inevitable fallout. I guess now I can understand why Dad was so worried about me when I first came back, if this is how I looked from the outside, she mused as she followed his lead back into the uprooted forest. I owe him an apology for blowing him off when we get back…

There were a few times when a given news' crew tried to catch Kai and his partner for a quick interview during the operation, but he had always been quite adept at evading people he didn't want to be around. The use of Float and Smokescreen only served to make him nigh uncatchable when he didn't have a task in need of his immediate attention to use an excuse to avoid them. After nearly a dozen of these close encounters, the pair noticed that the emergency workers and volunteers had seemingly picked up on his preference to avoid the paparazzi when they started running interference for them so that they could do their jobs and catch their breath every now and again without interruption, for which they were immensely grateful.

Even so, once they were given the order to make their way to an exit, Kai knew that he was going to have to face the music. "I can see the headline now," he muttered as Chronoa followed him toward the base from where they had originally been deployed. "Rising Star's Hatred for Villainy is surpassed only by his Fear of the Press… Or something to that effect."

"You really don't like the media, do you?" she asked as they skirted a boulder.

"I really don't."

"But they seem to like you."

"Because I'm the meal ticket for any reporter who can get a few frames with my face and a sound bite in it," he grumbled. "I doubt if any of them actually care what I can do for society. I've seen it too many times, where the minute someone lets these people down, they turn on them like a piranha school in a dry season."

Chronoa looked at him with some concern before she dared to ask, "Is this because of how they treated your father after he died?"

"Actually, it's more because of how they treated him- and my entire family- while he was still alive, though the post-mortem cover wasn't exactly endearing to me, either," he answered her. With a backward glance, he then asked her, "What do you know about my family, other than my brother and me?"

"Not much, just what Ashid Queen has told me," she replied as they started trekking up one of the innumerable small rises that had been reshaped by the landslides. "I know you went by your mother's maiden name to obscure your real identity in public for a long time because your family worried about you being a target for criminals. I know that your uncle died in the line of duty, which is one of the main reasons why you wanted to become a hero in the first place. But, Akarui didn't talk much about your family after they were all killed in my future." She had mentioned that Shukin and Sakura had been murdered fairly early on in her timeline, though whether it was by design of the Front or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time had never been clearly established.

"My mother comes from money," Kai told her, which came as a surprise. "Not nearly as much as the Iida's or the Yaoyorozu's, mind you, but we've never been hurting for financial means. Akarui and I actually get trust funds once a month, but we mostly keep them in savings and some investments- only time we started making active withdrawals from them was to help pay for his hospital bills. My grandfather on my mom's side ran a successful event-planning and catering business for high-end clientele- foreign dignitaries and local ambassadors would hire his services on the regular, just to give you an idea of his reputation. Didn't hurt that Grandfather had an eye for stock market investments on the side."

"Alright, I follow you so far, but what does this have to do with your father and the media?" Chronoa couldn't help but ask.

"I was getting to that. As I'm sure you're aware, success draws ire and jealousy, especially from competitors," he explained. "Shortly after my mom and dad got engaged, my grandfather's business was accused of smuggling illicit goods in for ambassadors from a country known for drug trades under the table, and an open investigation was launched. Being as it was that he was involved with the daughter of the CEO, my father couldn't get involved- but he was already popular among the other detectives and officers by that point in time. Long story short, he helped in an unofficial capacity to prove that my grandfather was being framed by a rival business, our family's name was exonerated, and our slanderers went to jail."

"Alright, where does the-?"

"Unfortunately, the particular news' station covering the debacle had already started running with a smear campaign against Grandpa Todoki, and by the time it was revealed that they had backed the wrong narrative, they were at risk of losing their credibility as reporters," Kai deadpanned. "Now, you'd think that any sane person would do the right thing and apologize, as to at least retain their dignity, but because these guys are so desperate for clickbait news articles, they decide that the only course of action available to them is to double, triple, and quadruple down. So begins the accusations against my father of covering for the one percent while focusing on the insignificant small fries- you know, like the yakuza, smuggling rings, underground casinos, serial rapists and murderers… Nothing important there."

His tone was so tired and utterly bitter that for a few seconds, he looked and sounded like the boy who had raged at his own resurrection, but fortunately for Eri, the moment was quick to pass. Looking over his shoulder again, he then said, "Sorry, I guess that's still a sensitive subject for me."

"Well, I can't say that I blame you for feeling that way," Chronoa replied softly. "I imagine that if someone talked about Eraserhead the way that the media does about your dad, I'd be pretty angry, too."

"I know not every media station out there had it out for my family," Kai sighed as he returned his gaze forward, as so they could watch where they were going. "It's just hard to forget that the same people now singing my praises were the same ones who ambushed a primary-schooler outside his own house so that they could try and get an angle of a 'neglectful father' from him."

"Oh, Kai," Chronoa winced as she placed an arm on his taught shoulder while they stopped atop the rise, where they could see their destination down below, already having been swarmed by camera crews. "How old…?"

"I was seven, I think." There was a brief pause before he added, "That day did not go well. Turns out that frightening a child with a quirk like Energon is a good way to end up with a lotta broken equipment and utterly avoidable injuries."

"I'd like to make some remark about how I can't believe they would do that to a kid, but we both know that this world isn't exactly kind to children," she murmured. She drew in a breath to say more, but stopped when she felt Kai's shoulder begin to shake. At first, she worried that he had finally started to break down and weep, but that thought was quickly dispelled. "Wait, are you-? Laughing?"

"Sorry," he snorted as his shoulders continued to tremble while he clutched at his stomach. "I know it's not supposed to be funny, but…! Why the hell am I laughing?!" Following this, he fully doubled over and started wheezing with merriment. "What is wrong with me?!" he cackled.

"Same thing as me," Chronoa answered, the corners of her own lips inching their way upwards, in spite of her best efforts to remain downtrodden. "This… ahem, isn't funny."

"I know, right?!" Kai continued to laugh, which finally got his partner doing the same.

"I think we're broken," she giggled senselessly.

It really made no sense. They were soaked to the bone, mentally and physically exhausted beyond reason, covered in the filth of nature and death, standing on a mountain that had shed its skin in order to snuff out hundreds of lives, many of which they had seen in excruciating detail. Nothing about their situation called for silliness or the sounds of joy, yet here they were, laughing away.

I think we need some tea, a bath, and a lie-down, the girl thought as Kai managed to compose himself well enough to grab her hand and lead her away, though he was still laughing as he did.

"We can't keep operating like this, Ashido."

"No flippin' duh." Mina was sitting against a crate on the floor of one of the smaller supply tents, looking up at Tenya with a haggard, bloodshot glare. The skin on her arms and feet were raw due to the almost-constant use of her acid quirk throughout the week, so she was decorated with a good amount of medical gauze to help keep her blisters and the tears in her skin from being exposed to any more rainfall and cold open air. She hadn't felt this sore since the summer camp, and given all the carnage she had witnessed, her emotional state was just as battered, which meant that her normal good cheer was nowhere to be seen.

They had just received word that the Iida family agency would be pulling out of the current operations, though Tensei planned to leave a handful of his sidekicks behind to help finish the cleanup. It should have been cause for celebration, them getting to go home and put the rain-driven mountain behind them. Of course, the only thing that they could focus on leaving behind were all the bodies they had dug up- and those that they couldn't find.

Of course, Tenya had also decided that what had gone down between them needed to be addressed sooner rather than later, and given that Mina just wanted to curl up in a ball under her covers for a month, she was not currently inclined to make it an easy discussion. "You here to tell me how I blew it?" she snapped before he could get a word in. "How I failed so many people because I didn't stick to your master plan?"

"Ashido, I'm trying to say that I'm sorry!"

His shout wasn't so much a surprise as the words that were spoken, which left Mina quiet for a few seconds. "You're… sorry?" she asked tentatively.

"Being worthy of the name 'Ingenium' means everything to me," the bespectacled hero said as he sat down across from her. "But as you said, I can't seem to decide what that even means for myself- or if the image I'm trying to keep even is of myself." Closing his eyes and furrowing his brow, Tenya went on to say, "We are surrounded by so many amazing people every day of our lives. I always wanted to be like my brother, because I believed him to be the embodiment of heroism. Then Kurai came into his own as a hero alongside Midoriya, both of whom showed that there is no one way to become the greatest hero one can be. And what was I doing in the meantime?" He looked down at the helmet in his hands with something like disgust before he continued, "I tried to take the law into my own hands, betraying everything that we were raised to believe in. I failed to be there when my friend needed help time after time, until it should have been too late for him. Forget being a great hero, I can't even be there for one who has been like another brother to me!"

Now Iida raised his reddened eyes to look directly at Mina before he went on to say, "At every turn, I have second-guessed myself and worse, what everyone else around me should be doing. Kurai believed in my ability to lead our class, even when I didn't believe in myself, and I still have yet to validate that belief. And every time that I have the opportunity to do so, it seems that all I can do is prove how unworthy of my own ideals I am!"

"…Good."

"What?"

"You heard me," Mina deadpanned without breaking eye contact. "Realizing that you can't live up to your own ideals is an important step that any hero should know to take. If you're recognizing that before you wind up in a casket, then you're ahead of Kurai in at least one respect."

When all he could do was look at her uncomprehendingly, Mina let out a hefty sigh before she went on to say, "We already lost him, Tenya. I don't want to see you, or him, or anyone else so determined to measure up to him and the legacy that he's already creating that you just… follow his path right into the grave without really knowing why you're doing it. It'd be stupid of me to say that heroes should never sacrifice themselves for the greater good, but it terrifies me to see you so determined to be like him and your brother- both people who followed their own convictions into the circumstances that could have been their undoing, if things had ended up just a little bit different. They knew why they had to sacrifice themselves, but if you had gone to your death on Nabu or out here, would you have been able to justify it in the afterlife?"

"I… You…" Tenya's mouth opened and closed to admit a few more nonsensical sounds before he managed to get out the words, "You were angry at me… because you were worried about me?"

"Okay, I definitely slapped you because you tried to justify your crap with Kurai's death, and if you ever do it again, I'll slap you through your armor with my acid, and don't think I won't," his classmate glowered, causing him to recoil slightly, after which her haggard gaze softened, ever so slightly. "But yeah, I'm worried about you, Tenya. Kurai cares about you, and that means that I care about you, too. I want to see you succeed at becoming the hero you want to be, but that'll never happen if you keep measuring your successes and failures against your idols before you even start to try."

"And I worry about you, too," Iida replied quickly. "Not just because you are a member of Class 1-A… Kurai values you more than anything else in the world, and if I had somehow been responsible for your coming to harm, I could have never brought myself to face him."

"It wouldn't have been your fault, because I can take responsibility for my own actions," Mina told him with a slow shake of her head. "Whether or not we were officially coordinating out there, in each moment that passed, only one person had control of my actions: me. If I had followed your orders when they came, that- and anything that happened as a result of those actions- would have been my decision, not yours'. You can't be responsible for everything happening in a situation like this one, even as a leader."

"That truth has been planted very firmly in my mind over these last few days," her classmate admitted somberly. "It was all I could do to organize the people I did have working with me at any given time. Every moment felt like it was only just too short to allow for any sort of clear thinking… I don't know how Tensei maintains the balance of command and direct action with such confidence."

"I don't." Both students nearly leaped out of their skin as they turned to see Ingenium standing a few feet away, looking as tired as the two of them felt. "Sorry that you had to learn it this way, little brother, but I never stop second-guessing my choices after I've made them. That panic that you were just describing? It never really goes away, not even with years of experience."

"Never?" Tenya repeated hollowly, to which his brother shook his head in the negative.

"I asked Dad about it right before he retired and handed things over to me," the elder brother answered. "Every life that we save can easily be lost, given a wrong step on our part. That weighs on me every time I put on this armor, but it can't stop me. In fact, I think it's good that we continue to experience this fear, no matter how long we remain heroes."

"How can fear be a good thing?" Tenya asked as he furrowed his brow again. "It kept me from making decisions as they were needed nearly to the point that I failed the mission before it could properly begin. How can you say that such a feeling is a good one?"

"Because that fear shows that you care about the people you were trying to rescue," his brother answered with a warm- if exhausted- smile. "If you felt no sense of alarm at the thought of failure, it would indicate that it didn't matter to you whether or not you succeeded out there. You stumbled, yeah, but you were able to keep moving, and even accomplish your mission in spite of that fear."

"That was almost not the case," Tenya admitted as he looked down at his dripping helmet. "If it wasn't for Ashido, I would have-"

"I heard all about what happened from Scab," Tensei interrupted as he sighed and scratched at the back of his head. "Normally I'd take the both of you back to the office for a stern talking-to about appropriate conduct in the field, but I've decided to put that on hold for now. We've all lost way too much sleep this week, and seen a lot of things that I'm sure we'll want to forget. I'm not in the headspace for giving a lecture, and I know from experience that you guys won't be in the headspace to really take one in. So for now, go home. I'll sort out whatever disciplinary measures need to happen for the both of you after we've all had at least a few days to put this nightmare behind us." The two students nodded glumly, so he decided to add, "If it makes you feel any better, Scab isn't gonna let me off the hook for how everything went down, either. I'll be in the penalty box with you, come next workday."

"But… you're her boss," Mina said as she blinked owlishly at him. "She can't punish you, right?"

"Try telling her that, see how it goes," Tensei replied as he moved to help the pink girl to her feet. "Come on, up you get. There's a bus waiting to take you two and a few other heroes back to Musutafu."

"Will Kurai and Emiri be among them?" Tenya inquired as he forced his sore body to get back up.

"As long as those camera crews let them get to the bus in time," Tensei chuckled tiredly. "Some of them have been here since Tuesday, trying to get a minute with him."

"Oh, he's gotta be loving that," Mina muttered. "I get the feeling the weather around here might hit one last rough patch…"

Mataras: So, what chapter from the big book of sad was that from?

Kai: Which part?

Mataras: The media trying to destroy your father since early days.

Kai: Ah, that. I think... chapter three?

Akarui: Chapter two, actually.

Kai: Oh, hey. Where you been?

Akarui: Yeah, where have I been?

Mataras: Look, this is Kurai's story, not-

Kai: I never asked for that.

Akarui: People keep asking for my own story, you know.

Kai: I'd be down for that.

Mataras: No!

Akarui: Give the people what they want!

Mataras: When have you guys ever known me to cave into peer pressure?!

Kai: Wasn't there that time when your friends convinced you to play Fo-

Mataras: Shut up, both of you!

Akarui: Why should we?

Mataras: I'll give you a major role in the next chapter if you do.

Akarui: Next time- Burdened

Kai: You sure turned sides real quick.

Akarui: Yeah, couldn't help it- he has that psychokinesis quirk that makes me do whatever he wants.

Kai: In no world do I believe that he brainwashed you that easily.

Mataras: You guys really went beyond for this arc- Plus Ultra to all involved!

Next time on Your Hero Academia: Enmity...

Kurai estimated that there was about fifty meters separating him and Eri from their goal- hardly a great distance for anyone, much less two heroes with abilities like theirs'. Unfortunately, it seemed like it would be the longest walk they'd been through all week, given the small sea of reporters and camera crews between them and the bus that was supposed to take them home.

Already the din of noise and flashing lights were serving to augment the headaches that had settled in on the pair, making it difficult to keep their eyes open, much less focus on trying to put one foot in front of the other. All Kurai really wanted to do right then was flick his fingers and blow a path through their obstacles, but that would be wrong, and he knew that. Never makes it any less tempting… he thought dourly as he imagined black lightning destroying the microphones and cameras going off in his face. He knew that he was being asked questions, but he was so tired and drained that none of the words being directed at him were entering his consciousness in a sensible manner. It all just sounded like the rumbling of a highway tunnel from a distance to him, and he realized that he was actually dangerously close to just collapsing where he was as his vision started to swim in and out of focus.

Just let us… get some rest… he thought sluggishly as he tried to take a step forward, only to have his foot slip on the mud and send him tipping sideways.