Chapter 121: Guild

Summary: A view of how the Guild is forming up!

Warning! Chapters 120-123 were all posted back-to-back! Make sure you don't miss any of them!

Chapter 121: Guild

Setsuna really wished she could reach back in time and strangle her past self. Any of a dozen or so choice dates would have sufficed, really. There were quite a few moments where that past self had made well intentioned decisions that had, unfortunately, led her to her current headache. Was it too late to transfer to the Hero Track again? Probably, yes.

Drat.

Tiredly, she scrubbed her eyes with the palm of her hand aggressively as she thought over the semi-clusterfuck of the last several days. She, apparently, hadn't been the only one to think that Midoriya and Yaoyorozu would be taking up leadership roles within the guild. Heck, her habit of sending one of her ears out to snoop on conversations as 'practice' (not to get gossip, certainly!) had even allowed her to catch a comment by one of the faculty. Apparently, they had been caught out by the two Group A girls pivoting too. Which almost certainly explained why she'd been pulled aside by Vald-sensei two days into the Guild trying to form up and encouraged to take a leadership role.

Now, just a week into the new course, and she was already utterly exhausted by it all. A few others had stepped up, possibly after their own pep talks by other faculty members. Interi was a godsend for sorting out the mess that was the mysterious realm of logistics, for example. Kaminari was incredibly useful for dealing with the support people that were mustering from yet another new course. He was actually pretty decent at interacting with the JDSF training squads that were going to be helping them integrate various varieties of boomstick into their tactics, too. Add Bakugo and Kirishima in as a bad cop/good cop duo that somehow worked to enforce a vague sort of order on training, and it was working.

Sort of. Kind of. If you accepted a generous definition of 'working.'

The problem was that they had too many wildcards with strong personalities thrown into the mix. Hado was competent and powerful, but an airhead through and through outside battle. Yoarashi Inasa was an egotistical jackass who she desperately needed Kendo to karate chop into unconsciousness just so her head would stop pounding from all the over-volume enthusiasm. Only, of course, that Kendo had stayed in the Hero course! Mina and Camie were both awesome and she loved their energy…but she also had to deal with that energy.

Herding cats was a generous way to put it.

It didn't help that they, collectively and including the teachers, didn't really know where they were herding the cats to, either.

"Okay, Set. Look on the bright side. Despite having descended far enough into madness that you're giving yourself pep talks, you've at least gotten the Guild roughly separated into some versatile squads. Juzo might not have stepped up the way you'd hoped to help lead this mess, but he's doing solid as the leader of the Trap Squad. Sure, part of that is because Camie is surprisingly good at working with him and he's got a monster sized crush on her, but if it works it works."

She nodded as firmly as she could at that, trying not to mentally plan vengeance on Honenuki for not stepping up to help lead the overall mess. He was doing a good job with bringing Camie, Yo Shindo, Shishikura, and Kodai Yui together. Their team, which she was currently calling the Terrain Manipulation and Trap Team (a name she thought still needed more workshopping), was proving just as deadly as she'd hoped. Their particular combination of Quirks allowed them to rapidly change a battlefield into a killing ground, so long as they were deployed somewhere the enemy could be tricked into or funneled toward. With Camie to cover their changes, it was by far their most successful single group so far.

"The Strike Team is solid, too! Bakugo might still be abrasive, but he's less of an asshole now, and a solid tactical leader. Kamakiri, Ashido, Kaminari, and Kaibara are all doing well with him. Mina, thankfully, is helping keep the internal strife down since she's a great big ball of sunshine that even Bakugo can't help liking."

All true. Also, sadly the last of the good news.

"The scouts…could be worse?"

In truth, her scouts were exceptionally good. The problem was that there were only three of them. Pony, Hagakure, and Blanche Hikari worked amazingly well together. The final girl had been a complete unknown, but her Quirk of Remote Mirror was extremely useful. She could see through any mirror she'd touched within the last eight hours, with a total capacity of a couple of dozen mirrors. She could even process a dozen or so of the resulting views simultaneously, making her insanely valuable for both guard duty and recon. Hagakure's invisibility was obviously useful in a scout role as well, and her ability to precision snipe with lasers made her great for picking off an enemy commander too.

Unfortunately, Pony was a sign of the bigger problem. The girl's support gear, most of which hadn't been too hard to adapt to Rifts Bubble environments, should have made her part of the Striker Team. That Group was meant to hit hard, deal a lot of damage, and fade. Pony had a minigun, one capable of firing high-explosive rounds. Combined with her flight mobility, she should have been a shoe in for the Strike Team. Unfortunately, they were so badly hurting for a scout element that Setsuna had been forced to use her as an aerial scout. She wasn't bad in the role, and her horns could help spread Blanche's mirrors, but it was far from ideal.

Worse, Setsuna knew that she herself should have filled that particular slot. She was just as mobile, if slower, in the air and far better trained in stealth. Not to mention that a floating hand was far less visible for spreading Blanche's mirrors than Pony's horns would be. Unfortunately, good as she was at multi-tasking, she couldn't manage to Scout and act as Command and Control for the entire Raid Group at the same time.

"The Heavy Team…is a complete and utter disaster despite poor Kiri's best efforts. Fuck. May whoever sent us Inasa be non-lethally, but painfully beat in a dark alley."

She slumped at that. The Heavy Assault Team was supposed to be their group that got 'stuck in' as extremely direct combatants and duked it out blow-for-blow with large enemy groups. Kirishima and Tokoyami were fantastic tanks. Mawata's Cotton Guard could soak damage like crazy while providing crowd control at the same time, slowing anyone she stuck her impossible tough and elastic cotton to as they tried to fight their way out of the ridiculous puffballs. Kusano, a terrakinetic that could create golems, was a perfect force multiplier! And, in theory at least, the combination of Hado Nejire and Yoarashi Inasa should have been a nearly unbeatable air element to cover the rest.

Only Yoarashi was utterly incapable of sticking to a plan unless Hado rode him hard, and even the bubbly girl was beginning to get aggravated that he had a tendency to abandon his job covering his allies for an all-out offense. His Quirk was powerful as heck, but his gung-ho and hyper-aggressive personality made him a discipline issue. One that Setsuna had no idea how to fix. He couldn't be reasoned with, since criticism just bounced off. So far, only the fact that Hado could and had kicked his ass utterly was keeping him vaguely in line. Worse, she couldn't move him to any other team. Bakugo would kill him, possibly very literally. He'd do more damage than good as a scout, and his personality was completely at odds with the Trap Team's methods.

She didn't know what to do with him, he was fucking up half her plans, and she had a migraine just thinking about it. Maybe, she thought, it was time to admit she had a problem and seek help. But…who did she ask for that help? Vlad-sensei wasn't right in this case. Maybe Present Mic? There was some personality similarities there. Hell, it was worth a shot at this point…

... ...

"Well now, listener! I admit, that's a rough one. Not many people come to me for leadership advice! Still, I can see why you did, that cat has a lot of the same volume I do! But with none of the chill to even it out!"

Setsuna tried not to let her total lack of belief in Present Mic's 'chill' show on her face. She really did. She was fairly certain she succeeded. Either that, or he was just used to it. Either way, he didn't seem offended, which is all she could really ask for.

"Normally, I'd be all about letting the listener learn from a mistake! But that's the wrong move here, since a mistake by him could mean your team loses someone. No, this calls for professional assistance. You don't worry yourself over him for now, yeah? I'll get Eraserhead together and have a little two on one chat with your problem child! Run the next…two combat sessions, let's call it, without him. Use it to shore up the rest of the team, alright?"

Setsuna blinked. Eraserhead? She hadn't dealt with him, but she'd certainly heard horror stories. She considered for a moment, then decided the 'problem child' had earned whatever hell he was about to experience. Doubly so if it meant she got a day or two to get some other rough spots smoothed out without the 'passionate' idiot savant wrecking things.

"Thanks, Mic. I just…I don't know that I was the right person for this."

Mic was silent for a moment, before sighing. Shockingly, when he spoke again, reaching out a hand to rest of her shoulder and give it a little shake as he did, his voice was neatly and perfectly under control.

"Tokage, listen to me for a minute, okay?"

Surprised at his voice being soft for once, she nodded.

"What you're doing? It's big. It's big and it is going to make a hell of a difference. But one thing you gotta remember about big things? They take time. The whole world has been rushing around in panic mode for months now, ever since the Invasion started. Hell, here at UA it's been even longer than that, since we were attacked here and had all sorts of issues with the League before the current mess even began. The last year has been one crazy hit after another. So I get why you're putting your nose down to that grindstone and hammering hard at making a tune that hangs together. But slow down."

Setsuna blinked, caught completely off guard by the serious turn the conversation had taken.

"Seriously, slow down. Take a deep breath. In fact, take at least one of the next two days you have assigned for combat practice to take the whole team off the field. Get a bunch of snacks from Lunch Rush, and have a jam session. Ask them what's been working, what hasn't, and what sort of support they need. The world outside is under control. More or less. If it wasn't, we wouldn't be taking so many of you off of the field and having you work out a whole new system like this. It's more important that you get this right than that you do it fast. The teams out there now can handle the Bubbles for a few months. You're building the future, not a stopgap that we're going to throw into the deep end in a few weeks. Alright?"

A tension she hadn't even realized was there had slowly leaked out of her shoulders as she took in Mic's words. Looking back on her own actions from the last week, she suddenly realized that he was right. She'd been pushing to pull the Guild together like it was going to be thrown into hell and expected to survive any day. But they weren't even supposed to attempt a Bubble for a month and a half, and for that first few they'd be bringing along a couple of the current, veteran Rift Bubble teams to supplement them if things went to hell.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to realign her thoughts.

She didn't regret pushing hard this last week. Hammering out a solid officer core and basic organization had needed to happen fast. A case of striking while the iron was hot. Better yet, they'd all just come off mandatory rest, so it had been safe to push everyone repeatedly, looking for the trouble spots. Yet, at the same time, she realized Mic was right. This wasn't like the teams she'd led before, smaller and focused on closing Rifts mostly. She was helping build an entirely new organization from the ground up, which wasn't going to be fast.

"There. You've got it. You were right to bring the Yoarashi situation to my attention. If he's not dealt with early, he'll wreck your foundations. But don't push until you burn out, right? Slow and steady. Get with Kaminari and Interi, figure out what sort of non-combat assets you need. Talk to the squads you've made and figure out how to make them smoother. Get in touch with the current Rift Bubble Teams for advice. Figure out who you can offload some more of the work on, too. Heck, talk to the rest of the professors about any issues and see if there's an easy fix. Don't try to lift the whole world on your shoulders. Even All Might broke a little, when he tried to do that, even if you shouldn't repeat that I said that. Don't repeat the same mistake, yeah?"

Another deep breath, cleansing this time as she exhaled.

"Yeah. Thanks Mic-sensei…I think I really needed to hear that."

He patted her shoulder again and grinned.

"Anytime, listener! I might not be the best at seeing the big picture, but I know when you need to chill and ride things out a bit so you don't go crazy! Find some jams, get yourself some feedback, and let Lunch Rush spoil you with all that sweet, sweet food you shouldn't eat! Midnight always said, if a pint of ice cream can't fix it, just double down and go for two!"

Set couldn't help it, she laughed. Maybe Present Mic did have some chill, after all…