BNHA: Lessons Learned

Chapter 16

Hideya Tabasu, his real name was. As a hero, he'd graduated from another school three years ago and was serving a work experience course with the Endeavour Hero Agency under the name of Elastor. A good name for someone who had a quirk very similar to a student at U.A, called Seto.
The ability to produce yards of incredibly long bands made from his arms and legs...sometimes even his nose.
He was an excellent capture specialist, but a short while ago he'd been the next person to run into the Mimic.
During the fight, which looked to be very evenly matched, the Mimic had managed to gain the upper hand by securing an arm around Elastor's head...and then he'd hung him with it.
Being inexperienced with that quirk as that Mimic was, it was thought that he'd simply pulled too hard, snapping Elastor's neck and completely severing the spinal cord at one of the few joints that the real Elastor couldn't transform.
The news was a horrible blow to the four friends; they'd hoped to find a way to get rid of the Mimic and destroy him before the first life was taken...now, it was far too late.

   "...where's Endeavour." Sasha then said after they'd all heard the very depressing news.
   "I think he's still with Elastor, in Mortuary Three." Naomasa told her. "I was just speaking with him on the phone, and he's not long come from telling the guy's family."
   "Stay here." She then vanished.
   "...huh?" Toshi looked around wildly, then began to get an awful feeling in his chest. "Don't tell me she's..."
   "I'd stay here if I were you. He's not in a great mood, and she won't want him to take it out on you as well."
   "Please don't go." Izuku agreed. "She must know what she's doing, yeah? She'll be back."
Sasha didn't know, actually, but the one thing she'd realised was that if Endeavour had also heard about the Mimic and his glorious track record, she'd have to face the fearsome hero sooner or later anyway. Might as well be now.
Rather that than catch her when Toshi was present too.
She'd heard about that, and she didn't want Toshi getting dragged into an argument that was technically her fault.
The Mimic had followed her, so she was the most to blame.

When she reappeared, she saw the awful sight of a slim, male body laid out on a trolley next to a towering, muscular man who was partially wrapped in living flames.
She didn't know what she hated more; the horribly-broken and bent neck of Elastor, lying at a sickening right-angle on that trolley, or the look of utter hatred that Endeavour gave her as he turned around a second later.
As she'd predicted, he then did the one thing that Sasha hadn't wanted Toshi to see; he walked up to her, drew back his right hand...and punched her square in the face.
She didn't feel that part. His hatred had hurt far more, but she'd still used her power to absorb the blow.
Her head snapped to one side, then slowly drew back.
Endeavour then turned to look at his fallen cohort.
   "...I had respect for you, before this." He told her quietly. "But to think that this brave man now lies dead because of you, of your negligence and lack of thought..."
   "I'm sorry." She replied. "We've only just worked it out."
   "You've known for years!" He spun around violently to approach her again, fists clenched in rage. "You knew about those things all along, I struggle to comprehend how you could forget something so fucking memorable!"

   "We thought they were all dead." She replied calmly. "How am I to know that one could have chased me across the breadth of the planet, when it can even turn into a flea? If you can work that out when you've been alive for far less time, do tell me. I'd love to know."
He didn't, of course. He had just been so beside himself with anger and grief at the innocent life lost in the line of duty, something that had never happened to him before now.
That was what he'd lashed out at, really, but it was also something that would have taken a long time to explain to any other person that had witnessed it.
She also knew that Endeavour wouldn't apologise, even though he was wrong. He was too stubborn a man, too proud, and always had been. He wasn't going to lose pride too.
Instead, he stared at her silently, still feeling the rage but no longer having a viable outlet for it.
   "...I suppose you're gonna tell me that this was meant to happen, then?" He said angrily. "Poor Hideya, whose only crime was that he thought of himself too little, was the person chosen by destiny to be the first victim of the Mimic? To spur everyone else to action, like the ultimate martyr?"