Hopeless?

_________ POV Narration_________

The alien had already reformed the next time Beru raised his head to look at it. Well, not completely, only its head was back to normal.

"You insect! You will pay for that!"

It quickly started shouting out derogatory remarks and random threats, but Beru wasn't even listening to it in any capacity.

He just stood there, kneeling and looking down at his slowly healing arms.

His eyes seemed to be glazed over as a single thought reverberated through his mind: 'Have I really grown this weak?'

It had been many years since he had taken down All for One, many years since he had actively sought out strength, still that didn't mean he had slacked off.

In training others, he kept himself as sharp as ever, his instincts never waning a bit and his arsenal of quirks still growing at a decent rate.

But even with all of that, his strongest attack turned out to be completely useless. Not only that, it had damaged him just as bad as it had his enemy.

In retrospect, even if Beru had scouted the world for a quirk to grant him complete resistance to heat, he still wouldn't have been fine, since that would just mean his enemy would also have that same power.

He always liked to do things by himself, always trusting his own abilities over anything else.

Just like he did in his past life, he trusted only himself to the point where he was paranoid of others' intentions at all times.

So how could such a person not become stronger?

In a sense, he was constantly becoming stronger due to fear... A fear that something stronger than him was going to come along, and a fear of having to face that something.

That fear was now realized, and no amount of training could've prepared him for it. The power that he put so much trust into had failed him.

Now, Beru was stuck in his own mind, thinking circles around his insecurities and pondering if that was actually how he was going to die.

At the hands of an infantile and condescending alien that considered itself to be far above everybody else.

It was a bit ironic since, even though Beru had never said it outright, the insectoid himself had always thought that he had been the strongest in the world.

Maybe not with the same amount of disdain for everybody else, but still.

The Alien was still not quite close to being healed, it was still essentially just half a torso with a head. Still, it rambled on with curses and profanity.

Beru sighed a bit, he leaned back as more steam came out of his own body. Not like his hands were the only thing that had been injured in that 'Ultimate Attack'.

Beru had boiled his own organs and fried them, he cooked himself alive with the heat of his own power.

But Beru didn't feel that it was adequate for him to die there, no. He had so many people that relied on him. So many people that he cared about.

How could he just leave it all like that? How could he just die so pathetically?

Just as he was about to try and get up, a purple portal formed right behind him. A gloved hand appeared out of it and grasped Beru in an instant.

Beru was surprised, but he didn't resist the pull. Instead, he remembered something quite important... Something he had forgotten momentarily...

He was instantly pulled to the other side and the portal closed just as quickly as it had opened.

The one to have pulled him out of the situation was none other than one of his former students Neito Monoma, or 'The Phantom Thief'. One of Beru's more prodigious students, also one of the most prideful.

Beru slowly stood up as he felt a lot of people around him. Looking around, he instantly recognized where he was. UA's largest conference room, also the room where All Might had announced his retirement.

"T-Teacher... You don't look so well..." Beru heard a voice call out to him, it was Monoma, who had slightly burnt himself when grabbing onto Beru.

"I've been worse~," Beru said as he finally took in the rest of the sound in the room.

All of the heroes present, seemed to either be trembling in fear or rage. Many of them were Beru's students, but also the teachers at UA, and any other hero that was of any significant ranking was there.

Many saw Beru's body and their feelings seemed to accentuate, their rage seemed to boil even more, and concern surfaced in their eyes.

Some thought that if Beru, if their teacher was rendered to such a state, then what chance would they stand against such an opponent?

"No, you haven't! Didn't you go out saying that everything would be fine?!" Nemuri shouted, finally coming forward, pushing through the crowd that had gathered around Beru with an angry look on her face.

"Now's not the time for this~ We'll talk later~"

Beru stumbled forwards a bit, only for a green light to flash and for Izuku to appear by his side and support him.

"Zuku...~ Be a dear and carry me over to the stage will you?~" Beru had never been a leader, and he had never been great at giving speeches, but he was currently the only one in the room that could be considered a head figure.

Nezu was a leader, but he didn't have as much authority over all of the heroes as Beru had. And All Might was already retired, being only able to clench his fist when seeing the injured figure of Beru, his friend.

The other teachers were in similar situations, for them it was quite a bit worse though. They hadn't retired yet, but they still stood by and watched as Beru fought by himself and got injured to that extent.

Now, Beru was standing in the middle of the stage, and the damage that had been done to him was evident.

Recovery Girl was thinking about protesting a bit and trying to send Beru to a hospital, but they still had an active threat to deal with, and Beru, even with all of his injuries, was still stronger than the vast majority of heroes present.

Beru looked at the room for a few seconds, Izuku still supporting him by his side with a grim look on his face.

The room was filled with whispers and worried voices, but that didn't last for long.

"Now~ I'm not going to claim that this situation is looking great~" Beru started talking, and in an instant, the entire room quieted down. That was the sheer authority that Beru's voice had in the Hero society.

That was how much respect his name garnered him.

Even if he didn't start with encouraging words, he still looked at everyone in the room with a smile on his ant-like face, completely showing off his jagged teeth.

It was by no means a calming smile like All Might's, at least not in looks, but everyone had come to associate it with a feeling of peace.

A smile that they knew they could rely on.

At that moment, the state of Beru's body didn't matter at all, his confident smile spoke a lot louder than his injured body.

Even Izuku got rid of the grim look and stared up at Beru with a smile of his own.

"I've been cruising quite nicely through this life~ I've had my own hardships to overcome~ Plenty of villains to battle~ But I gotta tell you~ What we're up against now makes fighting All for One look like taking candy from a child~"

Beru's joke had managed to garner quite a few smiles in the room, but no one was in the mood for laughter.

Beru's next words managed to turn those smiles upside down in an instant too...

"I thought that~ Just like in any other situation~ I'd be able to handle this on my own~ But I might've bitten more than I can chew~"

Everyone in the room looked at the feed, the Alien that Beru had fought was still recovering, the scale of Beru's attack made it difficult for the Media to get any closer than a few dozen kilometres.

But their cameras could still zoom in on the Alien, even with the bad quality people could tell that it was angry and that it still wasn't moving.

"Now~ There's no reason to worry I tell ya~ Why?~ Well, look around the room." Everyone listened to every word that came out of Beru's mouth.

And they listened so intently that the instant Beru told them to, they started looking around the room.

Even the teachers and the older heroes, looked around the room with proud gazes, as they were starting to realize exactly where Beru was going.

"Around you~ Around me~ Stands the future of this world~ The very best generation of heroes to ever spawn out of our tiny country~"

Everyone, at this point, was realising where Beru was trying to get to. But no one came close to daring to interrupt him.

"Who in this room hasn't put his life on the line in the past?~ Who in this room hasn't given everything out of him against an opponent much stronger than himself?~ I think we all know the answer...~"

Beru's smile widened as he spoke, and everyone in the room seemed to also begin smiling even wider, seemingly imitating their favourite hero.

During the speech, Beru healed his working hand at quite a fast rate. By now it was completely intact. Looking as good as new.

"Our enemy~! He looks strong, doesn't he?~ He sure as hell is resistant~ But I assure you, compared to all of you~ He is nothing~!"

Beru used it to point at the projected image behind him. Pointing directly at the Alien on the screen. The subject of everyone's fear and worries, but they stared at the figure of the alien without any of those emotions now.

"What you all have experienced~ The times where you danced with death~ The times where victory felt outside your grasp, yet you still persevered~ The enemy has NONE of that!~"

Beru's powerful voice seemed to raise the spirits of everyone in the room. His smile now gave everyone a feeling of power.

"Nothing more than a flower in a greenhouse!~ He may wield immense strength~ But he can never compare himself to people like you~ People that have crawled through dirt, tread through harsh adversity and bled countless times~"

At this point, the majority of the people in the room were almost roaring with excitement. Everyone was getting swept up in that excitement, in the feeling of power that Beru's words provided them with.

"Alone, I may have lost~ Maybe~ But, when all of us are together...~ Who can say for sure that they can stop us?!~"

At this point, it was already becoming too much. The excitement broke like a dam and the people in the room started roaring and cheering one by one.

Beru looked at them, at all of them. His entire body seemed to shake with a strange feeling of excitement.

'That's right... In this life... I'm not alone at all.'

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