I have returned. College destroyed me in ways you do not want to know. But so far, my grades are ok, and soon, my first holiday will begin.

Yay.

-SpiritOfErebus

…

"The primary fault of the operation would be the incomplete information that we received. So far the hospital has reported two civilian deaths, seven critical injuries, and twelve lightly wounded." Tensei said, looking at the representative from the HPSC. Said representative was dressed in the identical looking suits that were probably actually their uniforms.

"I have Sir Nighteye's email right here, confirming to me that they were also investigating the very same criminal, and had reported it to the Hero Public Safety Commission. He was listed as a B-rank villain."

"...What can I say?" the representative said, spreading his hands. "Your statements are nothing but speculation and defamation. The hero association holds no legal responsibility if you cannot produce further proof."

"I reported the name of their organization." Tensei said, restraining his hands from slamming down on the desks in front of him. "The Shie Hassaikai."

"And you all were supposed to keep civilians out of the crime scene, Ingenium." the representative said, condescension coloring his words. Tensei wanted to punch him. "But the numbers don't lie. You failed, Ingenium. You failed your responsibility. Why would you be blaming us?"

"Sir, those people wouldn't be dead if-"

"Again, rumors and speculation." the representative said, his expression morphing into a slight smile. "Obviously, the HPSC would have given you information to the best of our ability. But if you haven't communicated the circumstances, how else would we have known to give you the information?"

"Overhaul is associated with-"

"Yes, he is associated with the Shie Hassaikai." the representative said. "We are not denying that. However, before this day, it was not definitive that he was involved with the group. Only now, with your agency's failed assault, can we conclude that. However, this lack of information isn't the HPSC's shortcoming, since our information comes from what heroes report."

"So… what you're saying is… nobody's to blame?" Tensei said, his phone shaking in his grip as his knuckles grew whiter and whiter behind him as the urge to punch the asshole in front of him grew. Normally, he would be concerned about his phone screen, but it was better not to attack the scummy representative and bring shame to the agency.

"Nobody to blame but you, Ingenium." the representative said. "In fact, your agency may be getting a little too large for Hosu's current, relatively crime-free state. Perhaps it's time to cut the budget just a little. Let about ten interns… slide away."

"But you don't want this doubt about the HPSC to increase, right?" Tensei said, in a tone that sounded more like forced calm than actual calm. "What, with the recent protests and things about quirk usage. And if I don't do anything, there isn't really anything you all can do, right?"

"Very well, then. You want to play this game." the representative said, sighing a bit. "I knew you were going to try and be smart about this, Ingenium-san. Besides, while we can't do anything to your agency, we can… perhaps… affect the certification of your two new interns."

"...I despise you."

"But that doesn't stop us from negotiating, does it?" the representative smiled. "Now, how about you drop your silly little accusation, something that doesn't even have substantial evidence… so that we absolve your agency of the responsibility of letting civilians into a crime scene?"

"This better not happen ever again. To any hero." Tensei said, his jawline tightening as he began to grit his teeth. "Sharing information about known B-rank villains that have extremely dangerous quirks should be commonplace. Do. You. Understand?"

"...Of course, Ingenium-san." the representative said. "So, do we have a deal?"

A hand was extended. Obviously, nothing of this manner could ever be written down on paper.

Ingenium turned and walked out of the door of the private room. The artificial smell of antibacterial spray, the slightly acidic smell of pharmaceuticals, and the very faint, yet discernable smell of blood mixed to form a definitive picture of a hospital. Tenya was standing in front of the doors of one of the rooms, various parts of him iced and patched up. While his armor protected him from scratches and cuts, he was not spared from bruising and simple wear-and-tear. He was simply standing, and just looking ahead.

Then, from out of the room, Hans slowly staggered out. With one of his arms in a cast and looking miserable in general, with his torn-up lab coat still on and his bowtie miraculously intact, he sighed as he took a bag of O-positive blood, the most common type, and took a sip. He wrinkled his brow and shook his head slightly in disgust, but the change was visible. Hans no longer seemed like he was about to fade away from this Earth.

"...How are they, Andersen-san?"

"Alive is a strong word to use in this context." Hans sighed, looking at the blood bag with mild revulsion. "Many of them are missing limbs or functions in limbs, and some of them will probably never walk again."

"And you're just going to stand here and comment on it?" Tenya said, turning to look at Hans. "We're heroes! We've failed these people!"

"Yeah." Hans said in a matter-of-fact manner, "We've failed. What, did you think that every single one of our excursions into the world would end in victory? We've failed, both because we were given inadequate information, and because of the fact that we're weak."

"But we should've been able to do more!" Tenya said, his voice slowly escalating. "We-"

"Quiet, please." a nurse said softly, stepping out of the room that Hans just came out of. "This is a hospital."

"I-I'm sorry." Tenya sighed, his rigid posture slowly sagging down to a crouch near the plaster walls. "It's just that I… I just…"

"Are you just a hero intern?" the nurse said, tilting her head. "Oh, it's okay, dear. Don't worry about it too much. We know that heroes aren't infallible. You're just human, after all."

"But two people died!" Tenya said.

"How many patients do you think they get every day that are the victims of villain activity?" Hans interjected, taking another sip of his bag. "Ugh. No offense to the person, but blood is disgusting. Anyways, It's probably a large number. Since we're at UA, we're already more competent than… let's say… twenty percent of heroes. How do you think the bottom twenty percent of heroes would react if they suddenly went way over their heads and faced a B-rank villain?"

"But we still failed! Two people died!"

"Besides, why are you feeling guilty?" Hans said, pointing a finger at Tenya. "I was the one who did the recording of the conversation between Yuki and the Shie Hassaikai person in that cafe. I was supposed to be the one to handle the fistfighting villain… But I'm just so damn useless that I failed anyways! What do you have to feel bad about?"

Tenya remained silent, looking down at the floor, hands shaking at his sides. Hans sighed once again and took another sip of the blood bag. This time, he didn't recoil from the taste.

"Well, it's pretty obvious that I'm useless. And the fact of the matter is that it was really just bad luck that caused me and those civilians to be trapped in a room with that villain. But still, almost everything was my fault. Not yours, okay?"

It was time for Ingenium to step in.

"Now, now." Ingenium said, smiling weakly. "Let's not play the blame game here. We all did the best we could. And sometimes… these things aren't avoidable. I've failed before in my career. Even All Might… well, not him. But even heroes in the top ten have failed before. Don't think too much about it."

Tenya continued staring at the floor, but as the minute hand ticked once more, he slowly nodded. Hans just shook his head, and turned to face an overly bright hallway.

Very faintly, he heard somebody say something.

"...I should be used to this."

Perhaps things weren't quite resolved after all.

…

Hans should have been used to this.

Death was inevitable. Especially in situations like those. Real life wasn't a fairytale, and even then, those that he had written usually had somebody die anyways.

He wasn't a fresh heroic spirit, either. What had he been through? He had fought… or, well, supported the fight… against utter calamities. Seen Uruk be destroyed in the final singularity. Entire lostbelts had been wiped from existence, containing millions or even billions of people in those alternate realities.

But walking out of the hospital, there was no denying it. Throwing the empty blood bag in a biohazard disposal bin, he turned and began to trudge out of the hospital after Ingenium and Tenya.

He was feeling… depressed.

He almost wanted to laugh at himself. Hans, now ninety-something mentally, had become depressed?

The fact of the matter is, when was he not?

It wasn't like being a servant automatically gave you mental fortitude beyond belief. That was usually reserved for the berserkers, who were permanently trapped in a state of rage and therefore, could not, possibly worsen their mood. It wasn't like suddenly being alive in the throne of heroes and being told "Oh, enough people remembered you for writing children's stories that now you get to be alive forever. Waiting. For somebody to summon you for a magical cup or to, well, save the world" gave you a lot of closure.

The fact of the matter was, he was unhealthy. Absurdly so. Both physically and mentally.

Still, the interactions and desperate attempts to save lives had really gotten to him again. In that hospital room and the ambulance, he had expended nearly everything he had just to maintain vital signs. There really was nothing for him to do after everybody was stable, since his healing couldn't really heal much too complicated structures like spines, since he never really needed to know how. All that he could do was hold the bucket that consisted of the pebbles that were formerly Shihiro's legs, the man with the magma quirk.

And the worst part was that the magma man was conscious throughout the whole way.

And that after everything was done, he thanked Hans.

"Thanks, kid." the rock man had said. Hans imagined that, despite the intense pain, the rock man was probably smiling. "At least I still have two arms, right?"

Hans, simply put, did not understand.

He had failed them. He was the one that sort of inspired them to make that gang-like construct in the first place, which caused them to take over some territory, which then caused the entire gang war and literally all of the events.

He was the root cause of this. Everything, quite literally, was his fault.

But here, at the end of the road, he was being thanked for it?

Hans sighed and got onto the van. The very same one that Ingenium had used to take them to their temporary office. Only, this time, there was a lot less stuff. The stash of instant noodles had been completely exhausted. The boxes full of paperwork were filled out and sent, but Hans then noticed that Ingenium's armor was in the front seat.

"...Hey, where's Enigma?" Hans asked, pointing at the gear.

"She's at a different hospital." Ingenium explained. "Transformation quirks make injuries that carry over much stranger to treat."

"I see."

The ride continued in silence for a while.

"Well, that's our week." Ingenium said. "I don't think we'll be doing anything today. You two deserve a break."

"Nii-san!" Tenya protested, looking up from his very uncharacteristically slouched position. "We can still train! We can still do… something!"

There was a red light, and Ingenium stopped the car. The slightly cheap van squeaked a bit as the brakes seemed to struggle a bit under Ingenium's boot, before finally giving in, stopping about a quarter of a meter behind the car in front of us.

"Well, kids, I suppose it's a good thing that you've had your first failure this early." Ingenium sighed. "It's unavoidable in this line of work, to fail once and have other people's lives be the consequences of our failures. But… there's nothing to do but try your best. And to try your best, you all need a break. Honestly, we were in over our heads against that villain, and it was a miracle that we survived."

Hans just turned his head to the side, leaning his forehead against the bottom of the window. His eyes peeked out just above the window locks and slowly, just slowly glanced over to a gathering crowd.

"Like it or not, this world is imperfect." Ingenium said. "The hero system isn't all that it makes itself out to be. But that's why we're here, isn't it? To try and help whenever we can."

"...Yep." Hans sighed. "If only I was slightly more useful."

Once again, Hans was hit with cold, hard facts by himself. Only the powerful, wealthy, or influential could actually do anything in this world.

Nothing would ever change.

…

Looking at the scene of Hans slumped against a car window, Kiara grinned.

"Frustrated by a lack of power, are you?" she smiled, slowly turning to face a dark, dark room. Within the vast room inside Kiara's mansion, hundreds, no, thousands of people knelt on the ground, ceremonial robes painted over with both red and blue symbols that gleamed in the light.

"Well, this will surely… shake things up." Kiara said. She felt more alive than she had in several years. In no small part to the dress that she had commissioned, looking like a near-perfect replica to her God-Dress that she wore in the Moon Cell. All she was waiting on were her horns. Then she would be complete again.

"The others are ready as well, ma'am." her secretary said, wearing the same robes that the others kneeling on the ground were wearing.

The screens that she gestured to showed other warehouses in various locations across the globe. Each location lay in a major city, and besides the screens, a map filled with red lines showed more strange symbols drawn by the arrangement of the warehouses.

It was finally time.

Everything was in her favor.

The time? It was the first day that her movie would be showing in theaters. Her fame would be at its highest.

The place? The whole world was hers. She would be the only person capable of drawing a magic circle around the world, in tens of thousands of human souls.

The people? Governments would be much too slow to react to this threat, and mere physical might could never stand up to a magical attack. Even the likes of All Might were powerless against this.

She had the advantage… and the world was in her grasp.

Slowly, she got out an aged, wooden box, and retrieved from it… an old writing feather.

Looking at the quill in her hands, she smiled… and dropped it. It slowly fluttered to the ground, the blue pinions gently fluttering as it fell onto the floor. Slowly, it began to glow as it approached the ground so saturated in ritual and preparation. A gust tried to carry it away from the ground, to stop this nature-defying action.

But gravity was merciless.

The feather hit, nib first, and the ground began to ripple. Instantly everybody in the warehouse began to melt, their flesh and blood merging to form one, liquified mush. Their blood. Their spirit. Their mind. Their belief. Everything was exploited by the glowing runes on their white robes, before being absorbed into the patterns on the floor, leaving behind naught but dried up skeletons. Turning, she saw her secretary melting, albeit at a slower pace. She wasn't within the circles.

"Through our… sacrifice… a utopia… will be born!" she gurgled, reaching a hand towards Kiara. Smiling, Kiara reached back and gently stroked the woman's cheek.

"Indeed, my dear assistant." Kiara smiled. "And now…"

She raised her arms.

The circle's ominous red exploded into a swirl of blue and pink. In the room, and on the monitors, tendrils emerged and reached for the sky, disappearing into the air as blue and pink sparks. She could already feel it. That agonizing pleasure.

"It is time for my final act."

The world screamed.

…

"What the hell is going on?" Spinner said, his EMIYA cosplay rippling in the winds on the rooftops. His swords whirled as he slashed through what looked like a fluttering cloud of pigeons. When the feathers finally fell to the ground, however, it seemed like they were actually scraps of paper.

A thrown knife pinned one of the origami structures to the walls. The bird-like creature croaked, before shriveling, the ink draining out of the poster, reforming into another one, and slowly shifting away. Within the alleyways, racoon-like poster creatures scrambled from trash can to trash can, rescuing more of their poster brethren from the trash bags that Stain and Spinner had placed them in.

"They're all heading to one place." Stain said, jumping in from the neighboring roof, "Something feels… off… about today."

Slowly, in the sky, a crowd of papers began to swirl around a nearby movie theater. Hosu was relatively crowded this time of week, considering the fact that most schoolchildren were freed from their five-day crusades into schoolwork. Many people began to gather around the theater, pointing to the ring of flying, possibly demonic posters, like it was some sort of publicity stunt.

"This can't possibly end well." Spinner said. "And it's our duty to stop it!"

Stain sighed. His image… wasn't great, and if he showed his face, he would definitely be arrested on the spot.

"Hey, give me some of that embarrassing cosplay." Stain said. "I can't step in front of a crowd with this outfit."

"This isn't embarrassing!" Spinner declared. "This is- wait, look!"

Stain turned to look at where the lizard man was pointing. Through the traffic, a blue-haired child wearing a tattered lab coat and sporting a sling sprinted past the stalled cars and utterly disregarding traffic laws. Behind him, two people of similar build, hairstyle, and quirk ran after the child much faster than the child himself.

"Is that…" Spinner began.

"Yeah, it is…" Stain answered.

"Something's definitely going on." Stain said, sheathing his katana and getting one of Spinner's extra swords to be more unrecognizable. Though he doubted that it would actually help with his notoriety, the fact that the blue-haired child that hadn't panicked against him, the hero killer, a couple of months ago in an alleyway, had panicked about this meant that something was about to go down.

And that he needed to be there to help, just like All Might would.

Quickly, they descended from the rooftops and began to parkour over.

…

Hans could feel it in his bones. Something was off.

It was a sudden pulse of energy across the Earth that nobody else could sense. Iida was still sitting in the backseats, depressed, and Ingenium was trying to keep it together.

That meant that it was probably magical in nature, which meant that it was, again, indirectly his problem. After all, he was the only person with magic in this world, right?

His thoughts drifted to the little mermaid, suddenly growing in power and size, as she shaved off that fistfighter villain's arms. It was doubtlessly the work of another mage, right? After all, he didn't have that kind of energy.

But this… this ritual… whatever it was, had to be stopped. Whatever mage was doing this probably didn't exactly care about the populace.

"And I'm not letting anything be my fault… again, just because I didn't act this time." Hans thought, gritting his teeth.

He slammed open the car door, and began to sprint towards the movie theater.

The Iida brothers jumped at the sudden noise, Tensei slamming the brakes and Tenya leaning out the window, looking at Hans in pure confusion.

"Andersen-san? Where are you going?" The younger Iida shouted.

"There's going to be an… uh… villain attack at the theater!" Hans shouted, almost stumbling on the asphalt road as he went past another car. "My… my quirk sensed it! Definitely!"

Iida was already out of the car. Ingenium quickly took his keys out of the ignition, grabbed what armor he could, and dashed after Hans.

But the theater looked perfectly ordinary. It was just a run of the mill establishment, with posters, people, popcorn, and a purple pillar of light piercing the sky.

Wait, what?

Ingenium's boosters activated, and he took to the air.

"Everybody, evacuate the theater!"

Gritting his teeth, Hans ran faster… though it didn't really increase his speed that much, considering the various cars and people that were fleeing from the theater in response to Ingenium's call.

"This time, nobody would be hurt…"

Well, that was a lie. Hans was going to have to do the rescuing, considering the amount of mana in the air. And his incompetence was legendary.

…

AN

Wow, it's been a while, huh? Yeah, a lot of the reason I didn't update this fic was because my server demanded that I update some other fics. After I updated those fics, college started again, so... yeah. Next, I'll be updating another fic (hopefully within this same week period), so if you're still bored and lacking entertainment, check out my profile for other fics :P

Discord: discord . gg / 9t9MK3jHmV

-SpiritOfErebus