A/N: Well, it would seem that I have now officially been releasing chapters for this story for four years, now. And considering that I was planning/working on it for something like a year before I even started releasing it... Huh. I've spent more than half a decade on this thing.

Well, if nothing else, I have persistence going for me! Enjoy the next chapter, folks!

Family Business

"Welcome to the Iida Family Agency!" said Tensei as he greeted his interns with a friendly smile in the lobby of the new office building. "Glad to see you're all able to start on the same day- wasn't sure it would happen with all the craziness going on lately."

"We're glad to be here, broth- I mean, thank you for your hospitality, Ingenium, sir!" Tenya replied as he stood at attention, which led Mina to snicker in an aside while his brother rolled his eyes to heaven.

"Tenya, we went over this during your interview," the elder Iida sighed. "I don't mind if you call me your brother, or by name- a lot of the people around here use their civilian names when we're not in the field."

"Right! Sorry," Tenya conceded as he forced himself to relax a little- an act that Mina knew without a doubt had to be physically painful for him.

Turning toward a third intern who had come to work for the agency, one who was not associated with UA or the other two students, Tensei then said, "Why don't you three introduce yourselves to one another, and then we can get started with orientation?"

Each of the three students were damp from the rain that had begun to pelt them on their way from the train station, though they had managed to make inside before they could be called sopping wet. Outside, one could hear the distant rumble of thunder that threatened a good, long rainfall. Forecasts that morning had said that the rain would only last a day or two, but more recent reports were stretching the prediction out to a likely three days and nights.

These students were certainly about to earn their keep, working in a bustling city during a deluge like this one, Tensei mused to himself as he waited to see which of them would make the first move in getting the necessary interactions going.

"Sure thing," Mina volunteered before turning to the other intern and saying, "Nice to meet ya! I'm Mina Ashido, but out in the field, I go by Ashid Queen!"

"I'm Tenya Iida!" her classmate added sharply. "My hero name is Ingenium Mk II! I am the class representative of Class 1-A at UA High School!"

The other intern nodded in acknowledgement before saying, "Nice to meet the both of you. My name is Kenji Kiyoshi, codename; Blade Runner. I'm a senior at Dramath High. This'll be my second time doing a work study with the Iida Agency." He looked to be a little older than the two of them, though he was nowhere near Tenya's six-foot-plus height. His face, low-pitched voice, and posture lent themselves to the thought that he was someone used to letting other people talk instead of being an instigator of conversations, himself. He wasn't bad-looking, with a strong jawline and emerald green eyes that complimented the red stripes in his short black hair.

"We look forward to working with you!" Tenya said as he stuck his hand out, which the other boy shook readily enough. "I'm sure that we'll be able to learn a great deal from you in addition to my brother and his sidekicks!"

"Lemme know if he's being a handful," Mina grinned as the other boy regarded her classmate with a measure of apprehension. "I can make sure he reigns in the enthusiasm."

"As if you can talk!" Tenya protested, indignantly. "Remind me who it was that our class voted 'most likely to overwhelm their rescues'?!"

"Bakugo," she answered without missing a beat.

"No, he was most likely to frighten them!"

"What's the difference?!"

"They seem like they'll fit right in here," Kiyoshi said to Tensei, who nodded with another chuckle to himself. "Thank you for taking me on again, Ingenium."

"My pleasure, Kenji."

Once Tensei had successfully recaptured the attention of the UA students, he took them further inside the building to see where they would be working, training, and even sleeping if they stayed for a weekend shift. There was a respectable-sized workout room, an office lined with four-dozen computers, more than half of which were currently occupied, large changing rooms, nice-looking shower stalls, and a mess hall. Everywhere they went, there were at least five or six sidekicks hard at work at their given stations.

Tenya greeted several of these heroes by name in passing, each of whom seemed delighted to witness him walking among them as a hero, himself. Kiyoshi was also familiar with most of them, which left Mina feeling like the odd one out- though that didn't stop her from making her own first impressions whenever she was introduced to someone new. She was glad to see that everyone so far seemed as friendly as Tensei, or at least polite enough for her to know that there didn't seem to be any given animosity toward interns.

Once they had been given a tour of the building's facilities, Tensei turned back toward them and said, "Go on and head back to the mess hall for some dinner. We don't have Lunch Rush's quality of food, but I think it'll be enough to get you guys ready for patrol tonight. It'll give you three a chance to talk a little more- keep in mind that a fair number of your patrols and training sessions will place you together, so you'll be spending quite a bit of time together in the coming months. Ashido, try to get better acquainted with some of my sidekicks while you're at it- Tenya, I trust you to help her along with that."

"Of course!" the younger Iida replied sharply. "Ashido is quite adept at integrating herself into a variety of social circles, but I can certainly continue to facilitate introductions with your sidekicks whom I believe will get along with her easily enough. Will Inertia be in later today? I haven't seen her."

"Er, no…" Tensei said with a slightly crestfallen look. "She left to open her own agency almost a year ago. She still coordinated with us when she had the chance while I was out, since we're in adjacent districts, but she's not a part of this agency anymore."

"Ah, a great loss to our family's agency, but good for her!" Tenya said with a cheery smile, having apparently missed his brother's brief expression of sadness, though Mina certainly did not. "Well, even with her absence, I'm sure that I can introduce Ashido to enough people to get things started!"

"Shroud, K-9, and Loop de Loop are in right now," Tensei replied, his face quickly clearing up. "I'd also suggest introducing her to Cheetah, but she's out on an extra patrol. Again."

"Again?" Tenya inquired.

"Again."

"Oh dear…"

"Did I miss something?" Mina asked the others when her classmate moved his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose. "Who's Cheetah?"

"She's one of Ingenium's top sidekicks, which of course, isn't enough for her," Kiyoshi answered this time. "She's aiming to be his number two before she strikes out on her own."

"Problem is, she can get a little bit ahead of herself every now and again," Tensei shrugged with another grin. "She's got a lot of potential and a great work ethic, but she could do to learn some restraint- and how to take a coffee break every now and again."

"I'm sure we'll meet her in the field, if nothing else," Tenya told Mina. "Something tells me that the two of you will get along quite nicely."

"Sweet," Mina grinned devilishly as she undid her jacket buttons and moved to sling the fabric over her shoulder. "Can't wait."

"Ashido, put your jacket back on this instant!" the tall boy quickly demanded with a frown. "While wearing them in public, we are expected to don the complete outfit the proper way! You're disrespecting our school's uniform, and our academia by proxy!"

"Dude, we're gonna be changing into our hero gear in a minute, and we ain't exactly on the streets right now."

"Then go to a changing room before you take off the jacket!"

"I think you have your work cut out for you, sir."

"I've known that ever since Tenya decided to become a hero," Tensei sighed heavily, though Kiyoshi could see that he was smiling while he did.

"How do you think Ingenium and Ashid Queen are getting along?"

Kai's initial response was to grin at Chronoa from the side before answering, "If she hasn't gotten him to go on a rant about rules and regulations at least once with her disregard for proper conduct by the end of the night, I'll eat my saber."

The two of them were on evening patrol in the district where Gran Torino had set up his agency while their mentor was working from home with Tsukauchi over the phone. They were keeping to the rooftops for the most part, keeping a sharp lookout for any suspicious activity down below. Chronoa could continue to give Kai tips on how to move without being seen in the city, while he would supply her with some ideas for uses of One For All.

She couldn't use any of the secondary quirks stored within the generational power, as it would seem that All For One's doctor had succeeded in removing the extra quirk factors, though the vestiges had managed to remain in the shared consciousness of the quirk. Even so, the fact didn't bother her overmuch. The strength and speed that came with the old power were more than enough for her to handle as it was- she had no idea how Kai was learning the other half-dozen powers so well, even with the help of the previous users' vestiges guiding him.

"It's a good thing you know her well enough to make that bet safely, because I think you would actually eat that thing if you lost," she told him as they leaped across the street, having spotted nothing in the way of criminal activity on the block.

"I'd like to say that I always keep my word, but…" Kai shrugged as he scratched at his silvery-white hair, the most prominent reminder of his failure on Nabu Island.

"Don't you start on that again," Chronoa said with a small frown. "You did the best that you could, and you know that. Self-loathing for circumstances outside of your control is not going to help anyone, especially not you."

"Right," he said he shook his head rapidly, as if trying to dislodge the maudlin thoughts from between his ears. "Sorry, I'm alright."

"Good," his partner grinned at him. "You have any idea what Ashid Queen would've done to me if you came back from patrol all depressed?"

"Honestly, if I did my own depressing, she probably wouldn't do anything to you," he grinned back. "Me, on the other hand? I can already hear the lecture she'd use."

"Hmm… You see that?"

"Danger Sense already clocked 'em."

The pair had almost instantly switched into business mode the second that Chronoa spotted a large van pulling into an alley adjacent to a charming little pawn shop. Due to the rise in crime since All Might's retirement, small businesses like that one made for easy targets, since they usually lacked the attention from local heroes. Kai's showing in Fukuoka had caused the spike in criminal activities to slow down considerably, but his death had more or less negated the effect. Even with his return to life being made public, crime syndicates and petty thieves had decided to take advantage of the chaos that had spread following Humarise's attempt at global annihilation.

"How many?" Chronoa asked as lightning began to crackle up and down her body.

"I'm sensing five people with malicious intent in there," Kai answered as black electricity stirred up his hero gear. "I doubt there's anyone tending the shop at this hour- probably why these guys picked now to rob it- but I'd like to avoid tearing up the place, if at all possible. I can't tell if they're armed or not."

"Does that matter against us?" his partner asked with a cocky grin, which he gave a slight frown to.

"Top-ranked heroes have been brought down by standard firearms in the past," he cautioned her. "Just because we're fast enough to dodge bullets doesn't mean we should assume we're beyond their capabilities and armaments. Plus, there's not a whole lot of room for us to maneuver in that alleyway."

"Right, sorry," she replied, her face becoming more serious in the process. "I'll follow your lead."

A few seconds later, five men dressed in black with ski masks were startled by the sound of something heavy hitting their getaway vehicle hard enough to crumple the hood and destroy the engine inside. They all whirled around to witness a sight that took a good four seconds to comprehend- the Guardian Hero himself standing atop the remnants of the vehicle with a cold smile plastered on his face.

"You know, in the future, if you're going to rob a shop, maybe don't dress like robbers," he said as he made a vague gesture at the lot of them, three of them flinching as black lightning sparked across his fingers.

"Who's robbing?" Growled the leader, even as he reached for something behind his back.

"Oh, my apologies," Kai replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I seem to have created a case of mistaken identity. Clearly you must be the shop's rightful owners, with that great big key you're using to get in." As he said this, he pointed behind them, where a large crowbar had been jammed in between the frame and the door.

"We've been made," said the one closest to the boy, his hands slowly going up over his head. "We can't beat him. We're better off- now!" As he dove to the side, the leader whipped out a magnum and fired off three shots in rapid succession at Kai.

There was a blur of motion and white lightning that interrupted the deadly projectiles and congealed in the form of a girl who now stood a little further up the alley, grabbing the robbers' attention with a sharp whistle. "I think you boys lost these," she said before she held up her palm so that they could see the bullets nestled in her hand, and not a single mark on her or Kai to show for it.

"What the-?! Who's this chick?!" one of the other thieves demanded of no one in particular. Neither he nor his companions had ever seen her featured on the news with Kai, so her presence was a completely unknown factor to them. Even as he spoke, he was startled to realize that his friends and he were each pinned firmly to the wall by some kind of dark energy that was coming from Kai's body.

"Your worst nightmare," the young hero answered them while his grin widened. "You think I'm bad news? You'll wish you were dealing with Endeavor by the time she's done with you."

There were several more flashes of lightning that erupted from the alleyway before the local police received a call about a disturbance taking place downtown.

"Hey, Tenya, get a load a' this!"

Iida and Mina both looked up from their dinners to see a hero in his late twenties approaching them with a tablet in his hand, and a big grin on his face. "Hatake, it's good to see you again," the taller student said as he rose from his seat to turn to the man, obviously familiar with him already. "What's this that you're so eager to show me?"

"It's Hogo-sha," the hero grinned wider as he passed the tablet over to his new colleague. "Looks like his fans are making a hell of a lotta noise on the forums."

Tenya took the device, his eyes quickly scanning the headline on the presented article from behind his lenses before his eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Is this real?" he asked with some measure of disbelief.

"Yup," Hatake chuckled. "It's already got over five million signatures, and it doesn't seem like it's slowing down anytime soon. There's even a few articles covering it from some of the major news' sites."

"What's happening to Kurai?" Mina asked with a slightly worried frown.

"This is a petition to the government by the people of Japan to have Kurai skip his remaining two years as a high school student so that he can begin working as a pro hero immediately," Iida answered as he lowered the tablet and then passed it to Mina over the table so that she could see it, herself. "According to this, there are even a few heroes who have signed it in a show of support."

"Wait, for real?" she asked as she read the page with wide eyes. "I mean, that's a lotta people who want to see it happen, but… Would that even be legal?"

"Not at all, especially in light of the last year's events, and what's happened to Kurai himself," Iida said with an immediate negative shake of his head. "Law states that a hero must earn- at the very least- a high school diploma from a hero course before they can begin working as a pro. In the wake of Stain's impact on the community at large, the Hero Safety Commission made it much more difficult to even obtain a provisional license, as our class experienced firsthand. All of that aside, the Safety Commission is under a lot of pressure to send only capable heroes into high-risk areas, so that no one is needlessly killed in action, like Kurai was."

"Needlessly?" Mina repeated as she put the tablet down while her frown deepened into a small scowl. "Tenya, if Kurai and Izuku hadn't been there to stop Nine, how do you think that fight would have gone? Do you think that Endeavor or Hawks could have managed to pull off a win against that guy? They could barely handle a new Nomu working together, forget the knockoff All For One. They'd have died, and they wouldn't have been able to secure the win. As much as it killed me to see Kurai die like that, at least he was able to protect everyone and keep the villain from getting what he wanted."

"I'm not trying to discount any of that," Iida said with another shake of his head. "I'm simply trying to explain the line of thinking that the Safety Commission is likely employing at this time, and their reasons for doing so."

"Tenya's right," said another hero as he approached with a food tray in hand. He looked to be in his mid-thirties and was dressed in what looked like baseball gear, which Mina assumed was his hero costume. "No one on the Commission is gonna risk stirring the waters right now by backing such a controversial demand."

"Hajime," Tenya said with another smile as he shook hands with the older man. "I had heard that you might be transferring to a different agency a few months ago."

"Well, it was looking a little rough for the place without your brother around, so I was thinking about moving to an agency with a little more pay and a little less commute," Hajime admitted with a chuckle. "But thanks to his miraculous comeback, I decided to stick around."

"Wait, you seriously turned down a pay raise and a better location because of Ingenium?" Mina asked.

"Best boss I've ever had," the older hero replied before he turned more toward the girl. "Hi, by the way. I'm Nao Hajime, but call me 'Curveball' in the field."

"Mina Ashido, Ashid Queen," she replied as she gave him a short head bow. "I guess now I know I've got it pretty good in terms of upper management, if you're that willing to stay here under those conditions."

"Ah, well," Hajime shrugged while maintaining his smile as he sat down with his food. "I accepted a few years back that I'm never gonna make it with my own agency, so now I try to appreciate how good I actually do have it. Plus, I like to travel quite a bit, and the Iida Family agency has enough sidekicks to cover my shifts and let me go whenever I have enough in the piggy bank."

"In other words, he's a slacker who coasts by on the generosity of our very big-hearted boss," said a woman's voice as the owner and another pair of young heroines approached the group. The one who had spoken, a girl not much older than the students, grinned at the rest of them in a good-natured way before saying, "We saw this poor girl surrounded by a little too much testosterone and wanted to see if she needed any backup?"

"You mean you were looking for an excuse to sit at the grown-up's table," Hatake smiled back in a similar manner, which told Mina that this was a fairly normal interaction for the lot of them.

"I'm more of an adult than you, ya dope," she shot back cheerily before turning her attention back to Mina. "How 'bout it, Ashid Queen? Wanna come sit with us, or should we duke it out with the boys right here?"

Mina looked a question at Iida, who nodded in understanding. "It will be good for you to become better acquainted with some of our seniors without my constant presence," he said, which led to her standing up and looking at him with some measure of surprise. Seeing it, he lifted his chin a little and stated, "I doubt even your ability to get into trouble in my brother's agency, and as I have been informed by some of our peers, being class rep does not mean that I need to supervise everything our class members do."

Mina let out an impressed whistle before standing up and saying, "Remind me to write a thank-you letter to Manual sometime this week."

"What does that mean?"

"When we first met, you never would have let me out of your sight around your brother's workplace," she grinned as she retrieved her food from the table. "You've loosened up, class rep." With that, she turned toward the other ladies, who smiled in a welcoming manner as they made room for her to walk with them to another table.

Iida smiled as he watched her go, knowing that she was in good hands with the women who had approached them. He stiffened in place as he heard a familiar voice saying from behind him, "Now, who is that?"

"It's good to see you too, Mareo," the tall student sighed as he turned to see the grinning face of his family agency's resident heartbreaker. His hero name was Rebound, which in all honesty, somewhat described his personality. He was one of the younger heroes who had been employed by Tensei, but he was ranked number seven in the agency. He was very good at his job, so even if he spent a little too much time chasing skirts for the Iida's liking, as long as he kept his professional life above board, he was a welcome asset to the team.

"Sorry I didn't see ya, Tenya," Mareo now chuckled as he shook hands with the younger hero. "But, I mean, can you blame me? That girl you brought in with you is lookin' fine. Please tell me she's a senior at UA."

"She's a freshman," Hatake deadpanned, already familiar with his colleague's behavior.

"She's Kurai's girlfriend," Tenya added almost simultaneously.

Mareo's face dropped as he replied, "So 'stay away' is what you're saying, right?"

"Only if you'd rather not get on the guardian hero's bad side," Hajime grinned, more than a little happily. Unbeknownst to the playboy wannabe, he and Hatake, along with a few of the other heroes in the agency had bets on how many girls Mareo would fail to attract by the end of the year. In fact, it had become something of an annual tradition over the last three years, and while Tensei didn't exactly condone the practice, he hadn't told them off for doing it, either.

At the thought of angering a kid who had the ability to deal punches on par with nuclear detonations, Mareo quickly decided that the attractive-looking pink girl was about as off-limits as one could be.

"Sorry about the sudden introduction back there," said the girl who had come to invite Mina along with her friends. "But we saw our resident hotshot wannabe setting his sights and thought we'd run some interference."

"Well in that case, I'ma say 'thanks'," Mina replied with a grin as she and the other three heroines sat down at a table that lined the wall. "It's kinda funny, but I honestly haven't had too many guys taking a pass at me, even after I started working as an intern hero. I think I'd know how to handle myself if it came down to it, but I'm honestly glad that it's one of those things that I haven't had to deal with yet."

"Well, when your boyfriend is the guardian hero, it takes a special kind of stupid to try and one-up that," said another one of the women. She was dressed in something similar to what the police officers who trained dogs would wear, and she didn't seem much older than Mina herself. "I'm Ichika, by the way. Codename is K-9."

"Yuna's my name," said the first speaker. "But in the field you can call me Shroud."

"And I'm Yue," said the third member of the group, who kind of reminded Mina of a somewhat more confident, grown-up version of Jiro. "Loop de loop's the hero name in the game."

"We've all heard about you from Tensei," Yuna said cheerily. "Apparently he thinks you've got a lotta potential. He also says you're a big part of why Japan's rising star is still in one piece."

"Well, I dunno how much of that is true," Mina giggled in response. "Most of the time, it feels like it's all I can do to try and keep up with him. But hey, that's the name of the game at our school- go beyond and all that."

"I gotta admire your drive, girl," Yue told her. "The guy can literally dust off a city-wide bioweapon attack like it's nothing, and you're still chasing after him, anyway. I don't know how many people would even consider that a possibility, much less try to pursue it."

"How'd you two end up together?" Ichika asked curiously. "Sorry if I'm prying into personal matters, but I had to wonder."

"Nah, I don't mind telling," the pink girl grinned brightly. "So, we actually met during the entrance exam, and I thought he was pretty cute, so I…"

"How bad is it?"

"Bad," said a stressed-looking first responder into his radio as he looked up at the massive pile of mud and rubble before him. "There's at least twenty suburban blocks buried in all of this, and I'm not even sure that it's all done moving. We're gonna need every available hero in the area on this if we have any hope of finding survivors."

There was a muffled curse on the other end of the radio before the dispatch officer replied, "We're putting the call out right now. Get started on evacuation efforts with anyone you have on hand. We'll try and get a roster of the people who live in the area, so we at least have an idea of how many people we're looking for in all of that."

"Understood, make sure to send as many medical personnel as possible," said the first responder before he felt a rumble run through the ground, causing more blood to drain from his face as the rain continued to beat down on his already-soaked body. "Hurry, please. I get the feeling that this disaster is nowhere close to finished."

"Alright, interns." A young man with silvery-blue hair and sapphire eyes said as he looked the three students up and down with a severe expression. "You've had your time to become acquainted with the facility and some of the other sidekicks, so now it's time to get to work. When you're not working with Ingenium, you'll report to me while you're a part of this agency."

The speaker's name was Shirogane, and according to Tenya, he was the agency's number two hero. It was him who had taken over in Tensei's absence, but with Ingenium's return, he had chosen to return to his original position as the man's right-hand. It was another mark of how well-liked the elder Iida brother was by his subordinates, but Mina noticed that her classmate didn't seem to speak of him with the same sort of friendly air that he did when he was introducing her to the other sidekicks in the agency. Given his somewhat aloof carriage, she could see how he might rub some people the wrong way, but if he was Tensei's most trusted sidekick, she figured it might be better to hold off on personal judgements for the time being.

"You'll call me 'Tempest' or 'sir' in the field," Shirogane was now saying as he made sure to take turns in maintaining eye contact with each of the interns, who met his gaze evenly enough. "We'll be starting with standard patrols of the area, which will last until midnight, or the next team is called in to relieve us. I expect each of you to be ready to go in fifteen minutes. Make sure to brief the rest of the squad on your quirks, and memorize each of theirs' before we head out. In a large agency like this one, unit cohesion is a prerequisite for success. I won't have you interrupting the team's natural rhythm by allowing for sloppy preparations."

Okay, so maybe I was too quick to think that there's no prejudice against interns here, Mina thought with a small frown as the man left without another word. How's a guy like him ranked so high at the Iida's agency? Are his skills really good enough to offset such a bad attitude?

"Don't take it personally," Tenya said while Shirogane walked away, as if he had heard her thoughts.

"He's not normally like that," countered Kiyoshi. "He's not as relaxed as Ingenium, granted, but I don't think I've ever seen him be that strict with any of the other sidekicks. He definitely didn't talk to me like that the first time I came here."

"I mean to say that his issue is not with Ashido," Tenya replied with a small shake of his head. "The truth is, I do not think that he approves of me, which has unfortunately led to the drawing of his ire toward the two of you. If that is the case, I hope you will accept my apologies." So saying, he bowed deeply to the two of them, which got Kiyoshi to raise an eyebrow while Mina let out a long sigh.

"I seriously doubt it's your fault," she told him as he straightened up. "If he does have it out for you, though, do you know why that could be?"

"The Iida family agency is one of the oldest ones in the country," Tenya responded with a small sagging of his shoulders. "The primary reason for that is in the name. My great-grandfather and his sons were among the first official heroes, and when it came time for my grandfather to retire, he passed on the agency to my father, aunts, and uncle. Now Tensei is the head of the agency, and when I become a pro hero, I will be expected to take up the role of leadership alongside him. I know that Shirogane holds a great deal of respect for my brother, but I do not think that he approves of the nepotism involved in the agency's workings."

"Wait, so he's basically pissed off that as soon as you graduate, you're pretty much gonna be taking his position in the agency?" Mina summarized.

"No, I will actually be his superior," Tenya shrugged, a little helplessly. "As a pro hero who helps to head the agency, I will have a say in who is hired, dismissed, or taken on as an intern- a privilege not afforded to a sidekick, even one as trusted as he is. Had Tensei not recovered from Stain's attack, he would still be in charge of this place, and I sincerely doubt that I would have been welcomed as I have been by my brother."

"But… Wouldn't your dad or somebody be able to tell him whether or not you could be a part of this agency?" Mina asked, trying to keep the politics straight in her head. "I mean, your family name is on the sign out front."

"My father could have some say, I imagine, but he's retired, so any final decisions are up to the hero who is currently in charge of the agency," the tall student answered. "While Tempest was in charge of things, I did not receive an invitation to come and do an internship or work study here."

"That's messed up," Mina scowled while she crossed her arms.

"Well, I doubt I would have taken the invitation at the time, even if I was given the chance," Iida shrugged as he spoke in a placating tone. "Unfortunate as it is, my intentions were not strictly in alignment with heroism at the time."

"Fair enough," Mina conceded, though Kiyoshi looked a little confused at the exchange.

"Not in alignment with heroism?" he repeated, causing Iida to stiffen in place. "What does that mean?"

"He was having a rough time with his brother being injured, so if internships hadn't been a mandatory part of our course, Iida probably would have taken time to be with his family," Mina said before the bespectacled hero could fumble through an answer. "I know that after Kurai died, I was nowhere near a good headspace for being a hero."

Kiyoshi regarded them with something like a dubious gaze, but after a moment, he simply shrugged and said, "I suppose you should both be grateful for the miracles your loved ones have experienced, then. Not that it's really any of my business."

Seeing that the other student seemed willing to move on from the subject, Iida let out a small sigh of relief before saying, "We should get ready for-"

"Tenya!" The sound of Tensei's urgent shout took the interns by surprise, even as they noticed the man himself jogging toward them in full armor with a worried look on his face. "Good, you're all here," he added as he came to a stop in front of them. "Get into your hero gear, double-time. There's been a massive mudslide at the edge of the suburbs, and the first responders are already pulling bodies from the rubble. Every available hero is being summoned to assist the evacuation and rescue efforts."

"We're on it!" Tenya replied as both he and Mina turned around and took off for the locker rooms, where they could see a number of other sidekicks also heading.

Staying behind for a moment, Kiyoshi turned to his boss and asked, "How many of us are going, sir?"

"Not enough," Tensei sighed in frustration. "I've sent out some calls for our off-duty members, but they'll take a while to get there, and most of the people in the agency can't be pulled off of patrol without risking an incident in the area escaping our notice."

"Then I'm sure me and these two will do our best to make up the difference," the younger hero mused before he ran in the same direction that they had gone.

"And here's to a job well-done," Kurai grinned as he held out a candied apple that he had just bought from a nearby convenience store to Eri, who rolled her eyes upward.

"I'm not a little girl, Kai," she chuckled as they watched their arrests being hauled away by the police, some of whom had spent a few minutes talking with Kurai with no small measure of excitement. "I don't need snacks as motivation to keep doing my job."

"So you're saying you don't want it?" he replied as he started to pull the treat away, only to have a blur of wind snatch it out of his hand before it reappeared in Eri's grip.

"Don't put words in my mouth," she told him before taking a bite of the snack.

"Thought so," he laughed. "By the way, when you're going in to dislocate somebody's elbow, remember that it's a lot easier to do if you apply pressure in opposing directions for each half of the arm, instead of just trying to strike the joint directly."

"Does it really matter that much against someone like those jokers?" she asked him skeptically once she had swallowed the first morsel.

"Not really," he admitted. "But against someone with a reinforcement-type quirk, you're going to want to know how to utilize weak points like that with the most efficiency possible, especially if you're going up against multiple opponents. We may be able to outmuscle just about anyone, but it's better to outmaneuver them when we can. Using small fries like them for practice helps turn that fighting style into an automatic reflex- muscle memory for when you go up against a heavy hitter like Muscular or Deku."

"Or you?" she smirked, which led to him grinning back at her with confidence.

"Dream on, kid," he replied. Eri was about to return the snarky comment with one of her own when Kurai's scouter beeped to alert him to an incoming call, which led to him holding up a hand for silence. "Yes sir?" he said after he had accepted the call. There was a brief pause before his eyes widened slightly and he asked, "How long ago was-? Uh-huh… I understand. We'll head over, ASAP." Dropping his hand from the scouter, he turned to his partner and said, "We've gotta get moving."

Eri's gauntlets immediately extended to wrap themselves around her arms and hands while she asked, "What happened?"

"Mudslide in the Medriaas ward, a bad one," he replied as the air between them began to charge with the power of One For All. "Gran Torino got the call for help because the Commission knows we can be there in a few minutes."

An instant later, the two of them were leaping from rooftop to rooftop, the wind whistling in their ears, and lightning tickling their skin as the city passed beneath them in a blur. Struck by a thought, Eri looked over to Kurai and shouted, "Go on ahead of me!"

"What?!"

"You can fly faster than we can jump!" she told him. "If it's as bad as it sounds, those people need all the help they can get, right now! I'll be right behind you, but a few minutes of your assistance can make all the difference, even without me!"

"You're sure?!"

"Yes!" she insisted. "Go!"

With one nod back in her direction, Kurai then engaged Float and powered up to eighty percent so that he could blast off toward a storm in the distance at the speed of sound, leaving a loud thunderclap and a grimly smiling Eri in his wake.

"Okay, people!" Ingenium shouted to be heard above the din of noise created by all of the first responders, machinery, heroes, civilians, and the storm that continued to rumble ominously above them. Gesturing to a map that had been put up behind him underneath one of the tents that served as a coordination point for the rescuers, he went on to say, "Our job is search and rescue in these two areas! We will be splitting in two teams to accomplish this, one of which will be led by me! The other will be led by Ingenium Mk. II- rosters are up here on the board, so find your group and be ready to move out once this briefing is concluded! Please bear in mind that we could be at this for several days, so be sure to pace yourselves!"

"Hang on, did I just hear that right?" Ashid Queen asked as she looked up at her classmate, who was stiff as a statue inside his armor. "He wants you to lead one of the groups?" She wasn't the only one looking surprised- and in Tempest's case, bordering on angry.

"I'm sure some of you hold reservations about Mk. II leading one of the teams," Ingenium went on to say. "But I'll only explain this decision by telling you that he has been in charge of a much larger rescue op with far less resources, and under his leadership, there were no casualties among the civilians in his care on Nabu Island! Listen to what he tells you to do in the field, no questions asked!"

"Yes sir!" the assembled sidekicks answered in unison.

"Let's get to work, heroes! Team A, you're with me in the east quadrant!"

When Ingenium Mk. II seemed to still be frozen with surprise, Mina elbowed him hard enough that it forced him to move while also jumpstarting his brain. "Right!" he managed not to stammer. "Team B, I'll be headed to the northwest quadrant shown on the map! Please join me as soon as you're ready! We must get started immediately!"

As he ran out into the rain, the other sidekicks quickly scrambled to figure out which team they had been assigned to before heading out, themselves. While this was happening, Ingenium found himself being pulled aside by Tempest, who had a severe frown on his face. "People's lives are on the line," he said to his boss, keeping his voice low enough so that the others would not pick up on it. "You're really going to leave them in the hands of a half-trained child?"

"As I said before, he's handled much worse," Ingenium replied firmly.

"Look, I get that he's your brother, but he was forced into those circumstances on Nabu," Tempest continued to argue doggedly. "There are other heroes in this agency more qualified to lead B Team! You can't endanger people just to try and prove a point through your brother!"

"Scab is going to assist him, and since when has any hero not been forced to act based on their surrounding circumstances?" Ingenium replied, his voice becoming a little harder as he did. "The faster that Tenya becomes acclimated to the position of command in a situation like this one, the better it will be for him and those he will go on to save in the future. Now stow the protests, Shirogane- that's an order. As you've said, there are people depending on us."

"…Yes, sir."

When the heroes of the Iida Agency's Team B had assembled, Ingenium Mk. II quickly took stock of the heroes and quirks available for him to utilize. He had Ashid Queen, a middle-aged hero called 'Scab' with a coagulating quirk, Rebound, Cheetah- whose name explained her quirk- Loop de Loop, a tall hero codenamed Stuntman, and Shroud.

Eight heroes to cover a square kilometer of buried suburbia, he thought with a grimace inside of his helmet. Okay, let's think this through- don't rush in without a plan. How would Brother handle this…?

The clouds above him rumbled angrily, and as if in response, the heroes felt another tremor running through the ground, causing several of them to look up the mountain with alarm, though it didn't seem to be moving again- yet. This didn't stop Mina from asking, "What's the plan, Tenya?"

Don't rush, he told himself as sweat lined his brow. Rushing in will only get us all killed… Images of Kurai's broken, lifeless body filled his mind, causing his throat to dry out and his tongue to lock in place. Don't be careless, no matter how dire things look! Don't make things worse with haste!

Akarui: Hey! I thought this was supposed to be my arc or some crap!

Mataras: Don't flatter yourself, this is still Kurai's story.

Kai: That's funny, cos I was hardly in this chapter.

Mataras: Okay, you know what? Both of you need an ego check- it might be your story, but not everything is about you!

Kai: Hey, don't lump me in with him!

Litrosh: What I believe everyone here is trying to say is that they are all grateful for the love and support that they have received through the many compliments and constructive criticisms that their readers have rendered unto them throughout the years?

Akarui: That doesn't sound like me.

Mataras: It does, now.

Akarui: Why?

Mataras: Because if I can be grateful for something, you can, too. As Litrosh said, we owe a great many people our thanks for their support throughout these many years. We're past the halfway point, certainly, but there is still plenty to come for this story.

Kai: I'm game to be the Guardian Hero for as long as I need to be.

Akarui: And I'll make sure you get as many chances to prove it as you need. Come Umbra, the League, anybody. I'm with you to the end of the line.

Ingenium Mk. II: As many challenges as you face, I shall run alongside you to face them!

Uravity: We're with you, guys!

Ashid Queen: Nobody's keeping us from a better future, got it?!

Gambol Shroud: Next time- What's in a Name

Mataras: In the coming year, let's all Go Beyond!

Chronoa/Deku/Kai: Plus ULTRA!

Next time on Your Hero Academia: Enmity...

Thunder crashed further up the mountain, though for how close the sound was, the light hadn't been very bright, Ingenium noted absently. Perhaps it was on the other side of the ridge, so they couldn't see the flash?

Whatever the case was, it wasn't important to the task at hand. Using the inner HUD that Akarui had designed for his helmet, he noticed that they were nearly at the designated search area, which had once been a small neighborhood with a library and some local convenience stores. Now, all he could see was uprooted trees, massive rocks that looked far too heavy to actually be moved by anything, and mud. The collapse in this area had been so total that even the roofs of second-story houses could not be seen.

"How could anyone survive something like this?" Ashid Queen asked in a shaken voice as she surveyed the wreckage alongside him.

"That's what we're going to find out," said a middle-aged heroine who went by the codename 'Scab'. She had been with the agency since Tenya and Tensei's father had been running it, and she gave Mina a tough-as-nails vibe that made her realize that getting on in years or no, there was a good reason this woman hadn't retired from heroism yet. "Alright, Ingenium. What search pattern are we running?"