Tadashi jumped backwards, the raging heat from the fire clawing at him as he stumbled. Flames erupted into his vision as he hit the ground. He landed hard, his head knocking backward onto the tile. He blinked his eyes to clear his blurry vision and see his surroundings.

Professor Callaghan…

Hiro…

Slowly, Tadashi got to his feet and stumbled forward, his head swimming and pained. He recalled the short memory of seeing the school in flames from the inside. He remembered thinking of the Professor. He remembered running toward the school and Hiro, his little brother, trying to stop him. He had looked back at him and told him that someone had to help the Professor. It was only right, but he was breaking a promise that he had made. He had promised Hiro that he would always be there for him.

I'm sorry Hiro, he thought to himself as he pushed ever forward through the burning wreckage of SFIT. Suddenly there was a loud crack and he flung himself to the side just in time as a burning building fell from the ceiling. However, he threw himself off balance near a small portion of the fire. He fell over on the side, singing his side. He hissed in pain as he tried to stand. Another loud crack sounded and he looked up to see broken and flaming rafters falling toward him. He gasped and closed his eyes, rolling to the side to avoid the kindling wood.

He yelled out when he felt something hot touch the left side of his face and body. He quickly rolled back the other way only to cry out again louder as something heavy and hot landed on his legs and right arm. Tadashi didn't dare move for the pain. He knew even through the haze that his legs were crushed and that the same could probably be said for his arm.

But it never came. He heard as the building collapsed around him, but when he cracked his eyes painfully open, all he saw was a shadow looming above him.

"Hiro…"

Callaghan had heard the young man cry out in pain. It seemed that his plan wasn't going to go as flawlessly as he thought it was going to. Still, Tadashi was a good boy and perhaps there was a way for him to save the young man. Hide him out in the woods and make it look like he got blown out of a window. He hurried forward, the microbots following after him and the signal that the neurotransmitter that the younger Hamada boy had built gave off. He dodged some wreckage, careful not to burn himself.

He found the older Hamada boy lying beneath two fallen rafters. One was across both his shins and the other, a cross beam, had landed on his arm. It must have hurt like all get out considering his cry of pain from earlier. Callaghan looked around at the flaming building around him. He didn't have much time left to make his escape like he planned before he took his little detour to save Tadashi.

Quickly, aided with the microbots, he lifted the heavy beams off the boy and picked him up, trying to find a way to hold him without causing him much more pain. It was then something hit him.

He'll just have to grow up and deal with it!

With that, he slung the boy's crushed and now useless arm around his shoulders and dragged him through the building and out the back to the abandoned portion of the woods that lay beyond. Once they were out of the smoke and once again breathing fresh air, Callaghan checked Tadashi over to assess the magnitude of his injuries. Callaghan knew that his legs and right arm were totally useless now, the nerves crushed past the shoulder. But he hadn't noticed that Tadashi's entire left side was burned. His left eye was puffy and red, the cool air causing the scarred skin to smoke slightly and it must have stung, he would probably never see through it again.

How could he fix this? Tadashi was his best student and had idolized him ever since he had started at SFIT, maybe longer. He couldn't take him to a doctor and risk giving away that he was alive, not after all he had gone through to fake his own death. He would have to help Tadashi himself. So, he dragged him to the hidden van that he had stowed away in the woods a few weeks back and situated him inside on the floor. Then Callaghan himself got into the driver's seat and put on a baseball cap for disguise and a low profile before driving down the dirt path in the woods and off into San Fransokyo. Maybe Tadashi could be of some use to him.