"Well, that's bad. But All Might—I just need one comment. It would be a success."
Chitose resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the reporter beside her.
Success. The woman thought a soundbite from All Might would launch her career. As if the world still needed one smiling symbol while everything quietly rotted underneath.
Chitose kept her expression politely attentive.
"Yes, but how did the barrier even crumble?" she asked, pitching her voice just loud enough for the nearby reporters to hear. Around her, cameras and microphones pointed upward as the crowd pressed through the shattered barrier of U.A. "Did anyone see what happened?"
What she needed was information. Real information.
"Let's just get this over with. I came here at 2:00 AM, haven't rested a second," a cameraman behind her muttered. "My editor is breathing down my neck for a shot of the new kids. I just need one frame."
She ignored the man with the bloodshot eyes and turned a practiced, curious look on the spectacled reporter whose shoulder kept bumping hers.
"Gate's been solid for decades," the man muttered, adjusting his glasses. "Never seen anything like it. Probably maintenance failure. Self-destruct. Scanning system overloading from the crowd volume."
Chitose suppressed a scoff and turned away.
She had read the barrier specifications. Triple-redundant power systems. Manual overrides. Reinforced physical layers beneath the digital locks. And that was only what could be publicly inferred.
This wasn't maintenance failure. Or system overload.
It was deliberate.
Someone had wanted the press inside.
The question was why.
She followed the stream of reporters toward the teacher's lounge, tucked near the eastern perimeter of the main building, the likeliest place for the Symbol of Peace to be.
The heavy doors swung open.
Two men stepped out, teachers, and obviously pro heroes.
"That's enough." Shouta Aizawa. Underground hero, Eraser Head. The most dangerous of the OverRat's hounds. "The barrier breach is under investigation. Leave, or you'll be trespassing."
The crowd pressed forward anyway, microphones extended like offerings to indifferent gods.
"Just one question!"
"Is All Might inside?"
"Come on, Mic! Just tell us if the freshmen were involved!"
"This is a school, not a press junket! Back it up!" Present Mic—the Voice Hero—usually loud, theatrical, primed for a crowd. Not today. He didn't play along.
"Go get All Might out here! He's gotta be in there!"
"Just one word from him and we'll go!"
"There have been no reports from the Tower in a month. There are rumors about All Might's health." A red-haired woman with a pixie cut shouted above the crowd, her voice ringing with conviction. "The public has a right to know what's happening with their Symbol of Peace."
Chitose held back a snort.
The woman actually believed what she was saying.
The naivety was almost personally offensive, thinking the public could handle knowing, really knowing, what the people who kept them safe carried.
She glanced back at the men in black, now pressing into the courtyard alongside the reporters.
"HAA HAHA HAA HAHA!"
A laugh cut through the courtyard.
Her hand moved before she could stop it, reaching for the nearest solid surface, the instinct to seed a landmine already firing—
She caught herself. Fingers curling empty at her side.
She turned.
The figure was unmistakable.
The stature. The presence. The smile.
The biggest obstacle to their liberation.
"INDEED, YOU ARE RIGHT MADAM," the Symbol's voice carried across the courtyard with practiced ease. "YOU SEE, I WAS BUSY WRAPPING THINGS UP FOR MY NEW POST. AND SO WAS MY STAFF."
The crowd stilled for a single, breathless moment.
Then surged.
Microphones thrust ahead, cameras lifted high.
"OF COURSE, ANY INTERVIEW COULD BE HELD IN THE TOWER." he continued. "ITS DOOR WILL OPEN TO YOU ALL THE LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS. I PROMISE."
But the press didn't relent. If anything, they pushed harder.
Noise crashed in waves, voices piling over each other like a physical force.
Chitose stepped back from the press of bodies, letting them surge past her. Let them sho—
Wee-woo—wee-woo—
"Ah." The Number One hero's smile didn't waver. "There they are."
The police swept in, cordoning the area, pushing the crowd back, scattering them like leaves.
A few minutes later, in the thinning aftermath, Chitose exhaled slowly.
The situation was compromised. Unknown third parties almost certainly involved. And the target remained unidentified.
She pulled out her phone and opened her suspect list, studying the top three.
The top suspect possessed a high-tier, large-scale wind manipulation Quirk. If Trigger had amplified an already formidable weather ability, he was the obvious candidate: Inasa Yoarashi.
The second suspect was the son of Endeavor, Shoto Todoroki. Massive elemental range. If Trigger caused his fire and ice to fuse rather than alternate—heat and cold combining into explosive atmospheric discharge—the vortex became explicable.
And last… with a very unremarkable history, and the only thing going for him is his first rank—granted, of course, by those nonsensical new scoring types.
There was an indication of the boy being involved in the sludge incident, but that was it.
"Well… it likely isn't Izuku Midoriya."
***
"We have no involvement in the barrier breach."
The operative who spoke had the practiced stillness of someone trained to reveal nothing. He was very good at it.
Nezu smiled pleasantly at him over the rim of his tablet.
"Of course not," he said. "That isn't how the Commission operates."
Operates. The word snagged something in the second, male, operative—a fractional stiffening, quickly suppressed. His female colleague shot him a look.
Ah. Quite the indignation. Or the performance of it.
Their act was skillful. But it wasn't for him. It was for Toshinori, standing beside him now, radiating the particular quality of stillness that meant he was working very hard to contain something large.
The man was furious beneath the smile.
Understandable. His successor could have been the target.
Nezu suppressed the bubbling cackle. All Might, the Symbol of Peace, reduced to a worried father-figure. Marvelous.
"Allow me to spare us both the formalities," he said pleasantly. "Your primary objective this morning was to assess the Symbol of Peace's remaining operational capacity at close range."
The male operative conceded this with a slight bow of his head toward Toshinori.
The One For All transference, then the direct energy transfer during the station incident, had both occurred on the same day. The decline had been sharp—sharp enough that online analysts had already begun to speculate. For the public, it could still be waved away as a minor health concern. For the Commission, who knew the truth of the wound dealt by the most ancient and dangerous villain alive, there was no waving away.
Nezu was genuinely impressed by their contingency planning for the Symbol's eventual retirement. Still, he suspected there was more behind the Commission's opaque interest in that particular young hero's trajectory.
Hawks.
He let a short silence pass, then looked back at the operatives as though the thought had only just surfaced.
"Oh, and of course—to make contact with the Vortex Quirk user and determine whether the Commission's interests require management."
The female operative stiffened. The male operative's expression remained admirably composed.
Nezu smiled at him. "I imagine the barrier's rather inconvenient collapse complicated both objectives significantly. Which is, I suspect, why you are still here."
The silence that followed had a particular quality.
"We will be in touch," the first operative said, at last.
"I look forward to it." Nezu inclined his head. "Good morning, gentlemen."
He watched them turn toward the crumbled gate. Nemuri Kayama, who had been crouching near the base of the barrier wall with a portable scanner in hand, straightened as they passed.
"No heat residue, no energy-based att—" She looked up, noticed the operatives. "Oh! Boys... and girl." She directed a seductive wink at the sole female operative. "Leaving already?"
They managed to maintain their composure for approximately four more steps before one of them stumbled.
Midnight watched them go, then turned back to the barrier with detached interest.
"Nothing on the external surface," she said. "No thermal signature, no carbonisation, no discharge residue of any kind."
Nezu's paws moved swiftly across his tablet, pulling feeds from across campus. The gate cameras were gone, reduced to useless fragments, but other systems remained.
He played the main building's exterior camera, positioned to catch the gate's interior face in frame. He watched the exact moment the barrier crumbled, then stepped closer to examine the fracture pattern directly. The break ran in a rough vertical line, widest at approximately the midpoint of the gate's depth—the fourth or fifth layer, by his estimation. External barriers cracked outward from the point of impact. This one had cracked inward first, then outward from the middle.
Granulation. Disintegration. Transmutation. Three categories of Quirk capable of producing a crack origin that deep. But all three would leave residue. All three interacted with matter in ways that left marks.
"Mr. Hljóð," he said. A soft chime sounded. The screen flickered and a new window opened—the Heimdall subroutine, David Shield's parting gift to U.A.'s infrastructure.
[ Footage prepared for review. Anomaly highlighted and timestamped. ]
"Thank you."
He played the clip. One point three seconds of footage from the single interior-facing camera that had survived the collapse, positioned far enough inside the perimeter to catch the gate's inner face rather than the street side.
The timestamp ran. The barrier stood. The timestamp ran.
And then, in the lower-left corner, circled in the subroutine's annotation layer: a wisp. Black. Barely there. Gone before the frame fully resolved.
Midnight leaned over his shoulder. "Smoke? So heat discharge? Plasma?"
"No heat," Nezu said. "The scanner confirmed it."
"Right." She straightened, frowning. "Something that mimics the visual without the thermal signature." Her eyes moved back to the cracking pattern. "And it originated from the middle. Not the surface. Whatever this was, it bypassed all seven layers without a surface impact."
She glanced at All Might, who was eyeing the main building with unconcealed worry, and added, "One of those layers was a special alloy designed to absorb kinetic force."
All Might's massive shoulders shifted. An embarrassed cough escaped into his fist.
"You don't have to remind me of that," the Symbol said, his voice strained beneath the familiar boom. "I was... in a hurry. That day."
Neither Nezu nor Midnight commented. The silence that followed was a courtesy.
Tap. Tap.
Recovery Girl's cane announced her before she rounded the corner of the main building, her syringe cane tapping at double her usual cadence.
"Treatment's done," she said, without preamble. "Students and staff. Mostly scrapes, a few bruises. The chaos in the cafeteria lasted about forty seconds." She stopped beside Toshinori, fixing him with a look. "Then someone stepped in."
Nezu looked up from the tablet.
"Midoriya Izuku," she said.
Nezu nodded. Of course.
All Might's expression shifted, pride and relief in quick succession, relief winning in the end.
"The hot potato himself," Midnight hummed. "The Vortex wonder."
All Might went still. Recovery Girl's eyes sharpened.
Nezu remained expressionless. "You've reviewed the exam footage," he said. Not a question.
"Three times." Midnight held up fingers as she counted. "Power fluctuations that don't match any documented accumulation type. An aerial event at the end of the practical that didn't originate from Uraraka Ochako's Zero Gravity. I checked the frame-by-frame, and the force direction is wrong. And then there's our resident insomniac." She tilted her head. "Aizawa re-watched the footage as if it was his usual case files. If he hasn't already made the same connection, he wil"
Nezu did not point out that Aizawa already had. That conversation belonged to a different room.
"And then," Midnight continued, "the scheduling anomalies. Midoriya Izuku is scheduled for only one of my three weekly Hero History sessions. The other two have been restructured to accommodate what I was told are 'special electives'—with you, I presume, Principal." Her gaze settled on Nezu. "The boy has a great deal of your personal attention, it seems."
Nezu considered her. Nemuri Kayama was many things—theatrical, flirtatious, deliberately provocative—but she was not a fool. U.A. did not hire fools. She was the school's Quirk counselor for a reason.
"Let's simply say," Nezu said, "that Midoriya-kun has access to a source of historical knowledge that is, in my assessment, exceptionally credible."
After all, he mused privately, who better to teach history than through those who had lived it?
Midnight held his gaze for a moment, then shrugged. "Above my clearance, eh?"
"So." She turned back to the crumbled barrier. "If it wasn't the Commission, and I'm inclined to believe them, if only because they'd have been subtler, then who?"
Nezu looked at the destroyed gate.
"I have something in mind," he said, and glanced at the Symbol of Peace.
Toshinori's smile held. Nezu, who had known the man long enough to read the edges of it, saw that he understood.
All For One.
***
"—AND SO, WITH GREAT JOY—and only slight administrative panic—WELCOME TO YOUR FIRST BATTLE TRIAL!"
All Might's voice boomed through the monitoring room, echoing off grey walls striped with vertical black plating and banks of holographic displays. He stood at the elevated center fenced by metal rails, arms spread wide, his smile dazzling.
Class 1-A filed in through the eastern entrance, Shouta Aizawa trailing behind like a man already weighing the merits of hibernation. Class 1-B entered from the west, Sekijiro Kan's broad frame cutting an imposing silhouette against the dim lighting.
"THAT'S—" Kirishima Eijiro's voice cracked. "THAT'S ALL MIGHT!"
"He's huge," Mineta Minoru breathed.
"That's the silver age costume."
"I know he was gonna be our teacher, but wow."
"Quiet." Aizawa's voice cut like a blade, silencing even the commotion of Class 1-B.
All Might's laugh rumbled through the deck like distant thunder. "It's quite alright, Aizawa-kun! Enthusiasm is the fuel of youth!"
He swept his gaze across the assembled students. "Clothes make the hero. And I say you all look like the dashing future heroes you are."
Aizawa sighed at the Symbol of Peace's theatrics.
Still, after this morning's media circus, the barrier breach, the chaos in the cafeteria, the kids could use some livening up. He'd give All Might that much.
He scanned the assembled first-years as they filed into position, his gaze moving across the array of costumes. They always looked so polished on day one. And every single one of these outfits would go through a dozen workshop iterations before it was field-ready.
Like Bakugo's pointy explosion motif. Someone was absolutely getting poked in the eye before the year was out.
His attention snagged on something unexpected— a capture scarf wrapped around Shinsou's neck, a rudimentary one. The boy stood slightly apart from the others, shoulders tight, jaw set.
Aizawa made a mental note.
Uraraka's gauntlets caught his eye next— bulky pink and white, four raised release points along the knuckles. Newly requested, if he recalled correctly. The requisition had crossed his desk about a week ago.
Iida, unsurprisingly, wore the most complete suit. High-tech silver-grey metal armor, sleek and functional. A hero family's resources and experience meant he'd already worked out the blueprint of what worked around his Engines.
But it was Midoriya's costume that made Aizawa pause.
Black base layered with green armor, a pale silver-white V shaped plating the chest, high collar, angular pauldrons. Red bands on the forearms and shins. Solid combat boots. On the back, green strips of cape hung from each shoulder. And though the flowing waist cape was likely unnecessary, the design as a whole felt complete, finished. Not a prototype or a patchwork.
Aizawa filed that away. Along with everything else about Midoriya Izuku that didn't quite add up.
"Let's get moving you zygotes!" All Might's voice pulled attention back to the center. "Today's Battle Trial is heroes versus villains."
"Villain? We have to play villain?"
"Hn! Class 1-B has no such hesitations. We embrace all roles in our pursuit of excellence!"
"Literally no one asked."
"Kero. Habuko-chan."
"But how do we determine who wins and loses, All Might-sensei?"
"Tsuyu Chan!"
"You look amazing, Midoriya-kun."
"I can just blast them off, right?"
"Such passion!"
"Y-y-you too, Uraraka-san."
Slurp. "The hero course is the best."
"Behold my magnificent cape."
"And the objective is—" All Might swept an arm toward the holographic displays, his voice carrying a note of strain beneath the familiar boom as the cacophony peaked. The display flickered to life: first the Ground Beta cityscape, then eight districts laid across it, then eight rooms, and last— eight cylindrical machines, one meter tall, blue stripes glowing along their housings.
"BOMBS."
That stopped the chatter.
"What the—"
"Yes," said a new voice. "It is a high-yield tactical bomb with a blast radius of exactly half a kilometre."
Nezu appeared on All Might's shoulder.
He had, apparently, climbed up there at some point during the chaos with the silent efficiency of someone who considered this a perfectly ordinary place to conduct a briefing.
"Good afternoon, students," Nezu said pleasantly. "I'll keep this brief, as I know you're all eager to begin."
He didn't need to raise his voice. The room quieted immediately.
"Each team will receive either an apparatus that will act as both a bomb defuser and tracker, or a bomb key and remote detonator, depending on your assigned role." He produced two devices— one rectangular and black, one squared and grey, each with an embedded screen. "The devices contain more clues to the task."
He held them up briefly, then set them on the Symbol of Peace's shoulder.
"So I would recommend not losing it. I'm told the tracking feature is not yet calibrated to track itself without it."
A few students laughed, some fully, some nervously.
"Twenty-minute time limit. Eight matches, running simultaneously. You will be given an earpiece for inter-team communication and monitoring. There are also cameras and sensors for that purpose. Nezu's eyes gleamed. "Speaking of which, Mr. Hljóð, if you please."
The displays shifted, replaced by a swirling interface of light and flowing data. A voice emerged: smooth, synthesized, unhurried.
"Good afternoon, students of Classes 1-A and 1-B. I am Hljóð, a subroutine of Heimdall. I have reviewed your entrance examination performances, your Quirk Apprehension Test results, and all available behavioral data."
A murmur moved through both groups.
"I have also been instructed by Principal Nezu to create teams that will maximize both educational value and personal growth. This means pairing some of you with compatible partners..."
The screens split into team rosters.
"...and some of you with partners who will make the next twenty minutes very, very difficult."
A beat of silence.
"Wait, what?"
The teams appeared on the displays one by one.
--
HERO
• Bakugo Katsuki (1-A)
• Inteli Saiko (1-A)
• Awase Yosetsu (1-B)
VS
VILLAIN
• Midoriya Izuku (1-A)
• Hekigawa Kanade (1-B)
• Kaibara Sen (1-B)
--
Izuku's head turned without conscious thought.
Across the monitoring room, through the sea of costumes and startled expressions, Kacchan was already looking at him.
Grinning. Menacingly.
The grin of someone who had been waiting for this moment.
Izuku held the gaze for a few hammering heartbeats. Then took a slow, deliberate breath.
He turned, meeting his teammates' eyes. One was a black-haired boy in a white windbreaker, sharp-eyed and quiet. Beside him stood a girl with pale mint-green hair and blue eyes, dressed in a ceremonial conductor's tailcoat—someone he remembered from the practical entrance exam briefing.
They exchanged nods.
He focused back on the displays. The list continued scrolling.
--
HERO
• Juzo Honenuki (1-B)
• Uraraka Ochako (1-A)
• Mezo Shoji (1-A)
VS
VILLAIN
• Iida Tenya (1-A)
• Togaru Kamakiri (1-B)
• Hanta Sero (1-A)
--
.
.
--
HERO
• Hitoshi Shinso(1-A)
• Neito Monoma (1-B)
• Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu (1-B)
VS
VILLAIN
• Habuko Mongoose (1-B)
• Toru Hagakure (1-A)
• Eijiro Kirishima (1-A)
--
"Hmm, doesn't it look like..." Kaminari started, squinting at the screen.
"Every team has a member from the other class." Inteli's voice cut in, finishing his thought without her eyes leaving the display. She raised her thermos. Took a measured sip.
"Yes, indeed." Nezu's tone carried across the room, pleasant and unhurried. "Shall we test everyone's teamwork?"
But Inteli was already moving.
She stepped forward, thermos lowering, eyes fixed on the principal with an intensity that made several students edge back slightly without noticing they'd done it.
Her posture perfect. Her expression controlled.
"Sir. I'm sorry for the interruption."
Nezu tilted his head, polite and expectant. "Yes, Miss Inteli?"
"What was your assessment of my letters of appeal?"
"Ah." Nezu's tone remained pleasant, unhurried. "Your appeals were quite convincing. Given our Quirk similarities, it's understandable you would seek guidance."
Inteli's hand tightened around her thermos, just slightly. "Then why did you reject them?"
"Miss Inteli, I don't take personal students."
"It didn't have to be form—"
"And I'm afraid my schedule is already spoken for." A small pause, almost apologetic. "Mr. Midoriya's electives are rather demanding."
The words landed like a physical blow.
Inteli's thermos lowered an inch. That carefully constructed armor of intellect and composure cracked. Just for a moment. Just at the edges.
"What?"
All heads turned.
Izuku felt the weight of nearly forty stares land on him simultaneously. He caught Uraraka-san's face in the crowd; she already knew, and was watching him with unconcealed worry.
And he saw Inteli-san.
She watched him like a problem she hadn't prepared for.
Less rage, something more calculated, and thus more dangerous. The indignation had already been cataloged.
Izuku's mouth opened. Closed.
Before anyone could speak, the overhead display pulsed.
[ REANALYSING ]
Hljóð's voice was smooth, synthesized, and utterly without irony.
[ Dynamic coefficient of Match 01 has increased from 92% to 98% ]
A beat of silence.
"...Did the AI just rate that?"
---
"Wanna wager?"
After a few more instructions, including on the capture tapes, the students were dismissed. Kan spoke up then.
Aizawa watched them go, then glanced at him.
"The team format doesn't support that prediction."
Kan just shrugged. "We go by most members of the winning team." A grin settled onto his face, slow and certain. "And the loser covers the winner's patrol shift."
Aizawa paused.
He was tempted. He was absolutely tempted.
"Let the trial begin first," he said.
He turned to the displays as feeds cycled through the eight districts, showing costumed figures fanning out across the mock city while guide bots led them to their starting points.
The twenty-minute countdown hadn't started yet.
His gaze drifted to Nezu, perched now on the monitor rail rather than All Might's shoulder, tablet in hand, apparently reviewing something.
Aizawa crossed the room.
"Sir." He kept his voice even. "I had a conversation with Midoriya at lunch today."
"Mm," Nezu said, without looking up. "You did, Aizawa-kun."
"To apologize."
"I see."
"What's this about?" All Might asked from behind him, concern plain in his voice. "Is young Midoriya—"
Aizawa didn't turn. His eyes stayed on Nezu.
"Principal." He took a breath. "Do you know what he said to me?"
Nezu looked up from the tablet, his expression exactly as Aizawa expected, neither surprised nor curious, just thoughtful.
"He said." Aizawa locked eyes with the rat.
"I was the first teacher to sincerely apologize to him."
***
Saiko Intelli believed in mind over matter in all things, especially heroics.
Heroics were simply a contest of resources: data, positioning, timing. Nothing more. Anyone who claimed otherwise was romanticizing their own ignorance.
The world was chaos, true. But chaos was just a set of variables waiting for the right mind to solve it.
And Saiko Intelli had never met a variable she couldn't solve.
Until Midoriya Izuku. First rank. Second in the written exam, just behind her.
That had been a variable she hadn't accounted for.
She had come to U.A. to become the best hero, and, of course, because of Nezu. Before the exam reforms, she had planned for Seiai. Planned for years.
Seiai ranked among the top ten hero schools, but in academics it stood in the top three nationwide, across all institutions.
She had completed her intermediate education a year early and spent the next mastering college-level coursework. With her Quirk and academic seniority, she had planned to skip the first year, whose curriculum focused on advanced academics and quirk logic. After all, not every institute had the resources of U.A. High School.
The leading bot humming on the pavement stopped ahead and announced.
| STARTING POSITION REACHED |
She hummed and looked at the apparatus in her hand. Through the monocle over her eye, her white blazer with a high collar and gold trim—her costume—reflected faintly on its surface. The apparel was reminiscent of Seiai uniforms.
On its screen, it read: DEFUSE: 30 SEC—an indication that it would take thirty seconds to disarm once connected.
She took a sip from her thermos, analyzing the two teams' composition and Quirks in action, especially based on her deductions from yesterday's apprehension test and today's cafeteria incident. Midoriya—he—
"Give me that thing."
"Hmm?" She looked up.
Bakugo Katsuki was staring ahead with something like… happy anger? His left hand extended toward her.
The ability to create explosions. First in pure combat points. No other categories of points. 39.2% penalty. Ranked officially ninth.
Conclusion: High firepower. Low precision. Though his side-step task at yesterday's Quirk Apprehension Test suggested the capability of it.
She stared at his hand for a moment, then shifted focus back to the defuser-locator.
"Yes. You will conduct the search utilizing your mobility advantage. A triangular sweep pattern yields the highest probability of locating the target. When you—"
"Who died and put you in charge?"
"Huh?" She looked up at Katsuki Bakugo, a confused frown on his face.
But she was also rather confused. Wasn't it obvious who should be in charge?
"Just give me the damn thing." He growled, pointing at the machine that would signal if the bomb was in thirty-meter radius. "And stay the fuck out of my way. Especially when I'm crushing Deku."
Irrational. Totally irrational.
And Deku… the name Bakugo had been shouting at Midoriya yesterday. She had dismissed it then as just another emotional outburst—and she dismissed it now. Irrelevant.
Before she could reply—
"You damn arrogant prick." The bandana-wearing Awase Yosetsu shouted, who had remained silent since explaining his Quirk. "Who the hell do you think you are?"
"I don't remember asking for your opinion, extra."
"You already made it clear you don't need anyone. So why'd they put you on a team?"
"Tch! Who the hell are you again?"
"You didn't even remember me from the exam, did you?"
"Huh?"
"I am not your damn extra. And you're absolutely not gonna get the device."
"Yeah!" Spark!-Spark! "Wanna go at it?"
"You—"
"Stop this in an instant." She announced, but when Awase's slight retreat and Bakugo's indifference greeted her words, she gritted her teeth and continued. "We'll all be disqualified if you fight on the team."
That seemed to calm them down.
"Tch. Fine." Bakugo turned away.
"But Deku is mine."
***
"You know what he meant, don't you?"
The silence that followed was not the comfortable kind.
Nezu's paws halted mid-swipe, whiskers twitching once before going still.
All Might's smile thinned, massive frame slightly withdrawing inward. Aizawa expected outrage, denial, or the Symbol's relentless optimism. Instead, the Symbol said nothing.
The silence stretched.
Nezu set down his tablet and turned around.
"I know what he's chosen to share," Nezu said, folding his paws neatly. "And I can infer the rest. But I haven't dug deeper. That's not what he wants, or needs."
"You didn't think his homeroom teacher should know?"
"It isn't my place to tell." Nezu's tone held quiet certainty. "He has spent his life having his story told for him by others. About him. Over him. I won't do that."
Aizawa's jaw tightened. "He was quirkless until a week ago. And I'm the first teacher to apologize to him."
"Do you know what that means, headmaster?"
"I have my suspicions. I did look into the school. There was no malevolent agenda—only a systematic failure." Nezu glanced at the monitors, where: Midoriya Izuku surrounded by his team plugging the remote slash Key device to the bomb. "If you want more, speak with Hound Dog."
"He's been meeting with Inui?"
"For weeks. My recommendation." Nezu's ears tilted. "The boy is working through it. In his own time."
Aizawa stared. "You assigned him a counselor and didn't tell me."
"I gave him space," Nezu replied, sharper now. "He's not a case file. He's a fifteen-year-old who believed his future was impossible—that no adult thought he was worth the effort."
The words landed like physical blows.
Nezu exhaled, softening. "Even Hound Dog doesn't know everything. Midoriya speaks when he's ready... and he's getting there."
The observation room hummed with the low murmur of battle trial comms.
Aizawa's fist tightened. "If he was quirkless for fourteen years, he was failed. By teachers. By the system—"
"By you," Nezu said quietly. "Yesterday. You didn't know. But he didn't know that."
Aizawa closed his eyes.
"What do I do?" he asked, voice low.
"Exactly what you did today," Nezu said. "Apologize. Keep reaching. When he's ready, he'll tell you."
Behind them, All Might cleared his throat. "Aizawa-kun…"
Aizawa raised a hand. "I'll talk to Inui." He paused. "Not for details. Just… to know how to help."
Nezu's ears perked.
"I think that would be appreciated."
***
Kanade Hekigawa had never decided if she wanted to be a hero.
Wanting something meant claiming it. And her Quirk had never felt like something she could claim.
Siren, her Quirk. A voice that made other Quirks stronger. A force multiplier. Support.
Useful. But never central. Never hers.
She might have stayed undecided, if not for the day the Trigger incident hit the news.
A classmate pointed at the phone's screen and said, "Isn't that basically your Quirk?"
The words had been careless.
But the way they lingered wasn't.
After that, people stopped seeing her. They saw a risk. A variable. Something that could make their Quirk go out of control.
So when U.A. changed its entrance exam—catering to subtle Quirks—she applied.
Her parents worried. They had reason to. A Quirk like hers needed direction, needed someone to stand in front of it.
Otherwise, it was just a voice with nowhere safe to land.
But she was tired of being defined by what her Quirk resembled instead of what she chose to do with it.
She passed by making others stronger.
Faster. Sharper.
She hated how good it felt to be useful—because it felt like proof they were right about her.
That she wasn't meant to stand at the center.
That she wasn't meant to choose.
Click.
She looked at the bomb pulsing at the center of the eighth floor, blue stripes flickering as Izuku Midoriya locked the remote into place.
00:15:00
A stilled timer flickering.
"Okay." He straightened. "Let's discuss our Quirks."
Kaibara Sen spoke first, lifting his hand. His index finger, wrapped in a spiral-patterned glove, began to spin like a drill. "Gyrate. I can spin any part of my body at high velocity." His finger blurred, a faint whirring cutting through the bomb room. "It drills through most things. Good for close combat, breaking through defenses."
Izuku Midoriya stumbled back, his breathing growing ragged.
Kaibara's finger slowed. His eyes moved. "You okay?"
"I—" Izuku's hand pressed briefly against his temple. Then dropped. "Yes. Sorry. Just—"
"You werat the station incideent, weren't you."
Kanade went still.
Kaibara's voice was quiet, not quite gentle. "Reiko Yanagi from our class flinched like that this morning when I used my Quirk near her." He paused. "I asked her why. She said she was there that day. At U.A. Station."
Midoriya didn't answer immediately.
Kanade's throat tightened.
She remembered the classroom. The phone screen turned toward her. The face of the classmate who'd said it, already looking away before she could respond.
"Isn't that basically your Quirk?"
Her hand curled against her side.
Midoriya exhaled. When he looked up again, his expression had settled into something steadier.
"Fifteen minutes," he said, pointing at the bomb's timer. "The remote needs to stay attached for the full duration to arm the detonator. After that, we have to clear the half-kilometer blast radius within the remaining five minutes before using it. So we plan for both. Holding the floor, and getting clear."
He looked between them.
"About my Quirk… it's an emitter-type physical enhancer with limited flight, and…"
He trailed off, glancing at her.
She caught on and gave a small nod. "My Quirk, Siren, enhances Quirks through my voice—"
She stopped at the sight of his sparkling eyes and shaking hands, as if he were holding himself back from pulling something out .
"That's a very amazing, versatile Quirk."
The praise caught her off guard. But—
"Ah, just… don't use it on me."