Bonded With You * Kacchako *

Chapter 9: Aftermath

9/11/2020: In honor of the real heroes who ran and helped those in need 19 years ago. Your acts of bravery and sacrifice will never be forgotten.

Listen to the music above as you read.

I cried writing this chapter.

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When Uraraka, fish head, and I arrived at the scene of a collapsed multistory apartment building, we were met but a daunting sight. Nothing would've prepared us for the scene of rubble that laid before us. The battle against Shigaraki and the League of Villains had ended but the rescue had begun. Multiple cities were basically turned to dust thanks to that fucking bastard and his behemoth minion, Gigantomachia.

To avoid over exhaustion during the rescue, the heroes had set up shifts. They gave us U.A. students shorter shifts and assigned us in two or three-man teams to spread the rescue efforts. They made sure that our quirks were compatible with each other to best assist with the rescue.

"There's another over here!" Ear Phone Jack yelled toward Thirteen. They were about twenty meters in the pile of rubble ahead of us.

"Alright. I'll be over as soon as I can, let me finish with this one." She called over her shoulder. You could see the exhaustion in the way her shoulders slumped.

Pink Alien ran over to weird ears, "Don't worry, Thirteen, I've got this one!" She began to systematically melt debris with her acid, careful to avoid shifting support beams and crushing the person beneath.

I stared at the steel, concrete, dust, and fires around me, 'How the fuck are we going to save everyone before it's too late?' Flashbacks of the battle between the heroes and All For One entered my mind. Unbidden memories of those around me bloodied and possibly dead resurfaced as the realization hit me, 'I'm going to have to face such fucking images once more.'

A firefighter with dark hair walked up to us, "You're students from U.A. High, aren't you?"

None of us verbally answered but someone must have nodded because the firefighter said, "My name is Benjamin but you can call me Benny. You three will be coming with me." Based on his name, he must've had foreign roots. He started to walk to the most western part of the wreckage that had fewer people searching and we followed wordlessly, the shock and urgency of the task ahead of us heavy on our shoulders. A large wall piece of the building loomed beside us as we walked.

The firefighter spoke again, "I was informed of your quirks earlier. Anima, do you think you could go find some animals that can assist in looking for life? Uravity, you can use your quirk to gently remove the debris and avoid causing any sort of shift that may injure those we are rescuing or yourselves. Bakugo, if you could stay on solid ground and use your quirk to dispose of the debris passed to you. There are buckets to dump the pieces in that myself and a few others will help to carry away."

"I hate being told what to do but whatever," I said dryly.

"Alright." He turned to look at us, "Let's start digging and save these people. They are counting on us."

Anima walked off to look for some animals while the rest of us started to dig. Uraraka and others tried their best to avoid falling into any voids while they dug and passed debris to me. With no need for them, I took off my gauntlets and laid placed them out of the way. Benjamin and some extras, who looked like civilians, carried away the buckets as I filled them with particles and they brought them back empty.