Kool Aid

"I can't believe you two did that to me," Uraraka muttered grumpily as she stretched after a long workout next to Toga, whose only response was to giggle innocently and hip-check her friend, "Hush, if you didn't love it, then why did you join us in the shower afterward?" 

Uraraka stumbled to the side as a fierce blush spread across her cheeks, and she glanced away guilty, "I still don't know how I'm able to walk around right now; I fought against Dread Kings that were less tiring than last night." 

Toga let out a pleased and whistful sigh, "He's great, isn't he." 

Uraraka glanced at Kenji, who was running through an agility gauntlet, an intense obstacle course tightly knit together with constantly moving pieces. Some were equipped with wide swinging arms to bat around anyone who missed a step, while others were far more intricate and complex. 

But no matter the difficulty, Kenji seemed to flow through the course as if he wasn't made of solid matter. More than once, Uraraka was confident that Kenji hadn't seen an obstacle moving and was bound to be hit, only for his body to shift and bend in near-impossible ways. 

 "Are you sure he lost his phasing quirk," Uraraka muttered as Kenji effortlessly cleared the gauntlet. 

"I don't think he knows himself," Toga replied, a severe look passing across her face, rare for the ordinarily easygoing woman. Kenji's been reluctant to talk about it because he doesn't want to worry me, but I looked at the report from his interview with Tsukauchi...he said his body was unraveled." 

Uraraka fell silent as she remembered the events that felt like a lifetime ago: the aftershock and the absolute despair that followed when she and her classmates realized the skyscrapers would collapse, and then the massive wave of absolute darkness that swallowed the building in a sea of writhing chains. 

Everyone realized the unnatural phenomenon was Kenji's doing, and they cheered him on as the skyscraper vanished into oblivion. But when the dust settled, and the wave disappeared, Kenji was nowhere to be found. The entire class searched every piece of rubble and would have continued if not for orders to retreat to the inner city as the aftershock had opened new hole in the wall and dread beasts were surging into the city. 

Shaking her head to clear the depressing memories, Uraraka looked up as Kenji walked over to them wearing his conjured robe, which seemed to move more like oil than a piece of fabric. 

"So, how did I look," Kenji asked, and he pulled down his hood. 

"Like a badass," Toga cheered with a megawatt smile and two thumbs up. 

Kenji then looked to Uraraka, who nodded in agreement: "I could barely keep up with your movements. I doubt anything without a wide range could land a significant hit on you. Do you think it's because of your new body?" 

Kenji nodded, "I think it has to be, and I can feel myself adjusting to it. Some part of me is still holding back, clinging to the idea that I still have a body made out of flesh and bones. But when I start moving, things become a lot more...fluid." 

Kenji held up his hand for Toga and Uraraka to see. After a second, the shadowy limb lost its definition for a moment before it seemingly began to melt, with tiny droplets of the shadowy material falling off and evaporating into the air a few seconds later.

"Does it hurt?" Toga asked with concern, and Kenji lowered his hand as it snapped back into shape, "No, but I need to practice, and running through an obstacle course won't cut it. How long would it take before I can be put on clearing duty?" 

Uraraka and Toga looked at each other. "You have to get clearance from the Hero's Guild. With how dangerous things are, it is better to keep a large reserve of heroes and train them up rather than risk them outside clearing Dread Beasts." 

Uraraka nodded in agreement, "The Hero Guild hopes to build up an army using the surplus of Dread Beast materials to create Alpha capsules and weapons before taking on the main rift and the Paragons residing inside." 

"It's a pipe dream. We're not going to win the numbers game. They should just lift the restriction and allow us rankers Pros to go after all the Fractures that are popping up everywhere." Toga grumbled as she crossed her arms. 

"Fractures?" Kenji asked, and when Toga didn't offer an explanation, he looked to Uraraka, who let out a tired sigh, "Fractures are what Rifts first appear as, small pockets of concentrated but limited Alpha Particles. They're not powerful enough to allow any random Dread Beast to evolve into a King or Paragon if they're drained immediately. The problem is the Dread Beasts know this as well. They let the Fracture grow and mature into a Rift, which can potentially nurture a new King or Paragon in as little as a few weeks."

Kenji frowned, "It sounds like it would be in their best interest to close the Fractures immediately." 

Toga scoffed, "You think right. Instead, when one appears, the Council waits until it's just on the cusp, then sends a team to kill everything in sight and extract the particles to make capsules instead of letting a ranker consume it all and maybe have a shot at evolving their quirk. Imagine what Endeavor could do if the council let him absorb a few Fractures or a rift." 

"There's no use arguing about it," Uraraka said with a shake of her head, "We all know the Council isn't interested in ending the Dread Beast threat or reclaiming the city. As long as people are happy and safe, no one starts to complain about taxes and the system keeps on chugging along." 

Kenji glanced between Uraraka and Toga, who seemed a few drinks away from spewing conspiracy theories about how the council was behind the initial earthquake that had set everything off in the first place. 

Seeing his look, Toga could only shrug, "Trust us, you'll start drinking the Kool-Aid eventually; just wait until you're assigned your first agent." 

Uraraka shivered before nodding in agreement, "They're the worst, but enough talking. I think it's time we get Kenji down to the Guild Tower." 

---

After leaving the Barracks, Uraraka and Toga took Kenji through the military base, which was essentially a city within itself. However, everything was made of three-foot-thick metal-plated reinforced concrete that could probably withstand a Jet Carrier crashing into it without fail. One building, in particular, seemed far more brutal than the rest and was situated in what appeared to be the very center of the military base. 

A massive square complex composed of four block towers connected by solid metal walls, "That's the Guild Tower? It looks like an enclosure to trap Kaiju in." 

"You're closer than you think you are," Toga replied mysteriously, "But that stuff comes later; we don't even know if you're still in the system." 

Kenji let Toga and Uraraka usher him inside the north-facing tower. A constant stream of heroes went in and out of the building, most clad in their hero costumes and sporting various weapons, all of which Kenji could sense were awakened. 

However, Kenji noticed that after a few seconds, people started to whisper and point as they stared at Toga and Uraraka. And after a second, Kenji realized that people were muttering 'Monarch' and 'Nebula' under their breath. 

That's when Kenji remembered he was dating the number-tenth hero, 'I can't help but have a bad feeling about this.'