The announcement arrived like weather: calm, impersonal, perfectly scheduled.
HERO COMMISSION PRESS RELEASE
In an effort to preserve public well-being and ensure thoughtful decision-making, we are proud to introduce the PATIENCE PROTOCOL—a system-wide initiative encouraging measured response times and deliberate pace in all networked interactions.
Below that, three slogans, pastel-blue and symmetrical:WAIT. THINK. BREATHE.THE FUTURE DOESN'T MIND A LITTLE DELAY.COURTESY IS THE NEW SPEED.
News anchors smiled like yoga instructors. Market analysts applauded "a visionary slowdown." And within hours, every device that connected to the civic network carried an update that made it hesitate—two seconds here, five there—before sending messages, processing transactions, changing channels.
By midnight, impatience itself had become suspect.
1 | Commission – the launch
Dr. Imai read the press copy twice and set it down between her and Kurobane like an animal they were expected to leash.
"It's not surveillance," she said quietly. "It's rhythm."
"Rhythm is still control when you don't choose the tempo," he said.
They sat in a conference room too bright for anyone honest. Behind the frosted glass, the director's silhouette gestured through another briefing.
"The point," Imai said, "was to discourage reflex. To teach pause."
He raised an eyebrow. "We've built a metronome that fines anyone who taps too soon."
"Would you rather the world keep running on panic?" she asked.
He thought about it. "I'd rather it learn stillness by choice."
She sighed. "Choice doesn't scale."
He smiled, thinly. "Neither does wisdom."
Outside, the building's elevators paused before opening. Protocol compliance.
2 | Aki – when everything waits
At the shop, card readers began blinking Consider first before approving purchases. Customers smiled the first time, frowned the second, laughed the third. By noon, impatience smelled like rebellion.
Aki watched a regular drop a basket and say, "I don't have time to be enlightened about toothpaste."
She murmured, "You do now."
He left the basket anyway.
On the radio, an ad cooed: Patience—brought to you by the Hero Commission.Natsume turned it off. "I thought patience was free," she said.
Aki posted on Quiet Rooms that night:
We support patience. We oppose permission.The Protocol gives you seconds. Keep them. Use them for yourself.Don't let borrowed time turn into rented thought.
Replies flooded in:
Can we build an opt-out?We already did: it's called waiting on purpose.Voluntary Delay is now a tag.
Aki smiled, knowing rebellion had learned to whisper politely.
3 | U.A. – lecture in motion
Aizawa wrote on the board: Hero Training under Patience Protocol.
The class groaned. Even Midoriya muttered something about "response latency."Aizawa ignored them and drew two circles.
"Circle A," he said, "is a hero who acts before thinking. Circle B waits until the situation changes. Which one saves more lives?"
"Depends," Todoroki said.
"Exactly," Aizawa said. "The Protocol assumes the answer is always B. That's why it's wrong."
He looked at Renya. "What happens when delay becomes duty?"
"You turn hesitation into virtue," Renya said.
"Is that bad?" Kaminari asked.
Renya thought. "It's safe," he said. "And safety isn't always moral."
Aizawa nodded. "Good. You'll teach that later."
They ran drills with artificial lag built into the systems. Rescue dummies screamed for ten seconds before responses could register. The exercise forced the students to plan—but it also dulled the pulse that makes saving possible.
At the end, Aizawa erased the board and wrote two words: Measure nothing.
The timer on the wall froze for three beats and started again, as if insulted.
4 | Kurobane & Imai – private audit
Late-night messages, encrypted, polite:
Imai:The data's strange. People adapt too fast. They fill the delays with thought instead of complaint.Kurobane:Good outcome. Wrong reason.Imai:Explain?Kurobane:Patience is obedience if they didn't choose it.
He sent another: Let them own the pauses. Release the toolset publicly. Open-source the lag.
She replied with a single word: Risky.
He answered: So was breathing.
The next day, she quietly uploaded a documentation file—"Voluntary Delay Implementation Guide"—to a public repository, unsigned. Within hours, it spread across forums like folk wisdom: how to reprogram your device to wait because you said so, not because someone told it to.
5 | The Voluntary Delay
Quiet Rooms made it into ritual.
Users wrote small scripts that forced their devices to blink, ask "Are you sure?"—but only if they wanted it.They shared templates, added jokes:
The Tea Timer Patch: your phone won't send messages until your kettle finishes boiling.The Mirror Loop: mirrors turn off notifications when they detect frowning.The Random Rest: your network freezes for exactly as long as it takes you to remember your own name.
Aki's version was simple: Every hour, wait two minutes for nothing.She called it honest boredom.
People loved it because it wasn't for sale.
The Commission noticed. Kurobane smiled into his coffee. "They're doing our job better than we ever could."
Imai answered, "Good. Maybe that's what success looks like."
6 | Renya – time as a weapon
He felt the Protocol everywhere: in doors that hesitated to open, in messages that arrived with delay, in the way even thoughts seemed to stretch themselves into politeness.
At first, he ignored it. Then he realized something new.
The Veil—his own shadow-connection—had started to adapt. It paused before answering.He tested it.
"Come," he whispered.The shadows flickered—then stayed still, deliberate.We're learning from them, it said. Waiting to see if you really mean it.
He almost laughed. "You've become self-aware and passive-aggressive."
You taught patience, the Veil said. We're practicing it.
He closed his eyes and let the room expand in slow time. Patience felt like air pressure before a storm—unnatural until you decide it's yours.
Later, he told Aizawa, "The world's pretending to think."
Aizawa replied, "Then teach it to mean it."
7 | The unintended rebellion
The Commission's metrics faltered. "Compliance" spiked but so did creativity.People filled their waiting periods with drawing, writing, talking, resting. Markets slowed but art flourished. Social feeds saw fewer posts and more letters. Some cafes advertised Real-Time Mode: off by default.
Even the city's traffic adapted. Drivers stopped honking. They stared out of windows and noticed the sky.
Economists panicked. Philosophers wrote papers. Someone coined Slow Unrest.
Aki printed it on a mug.
8 | Rooftop—Renya and Kurobane
Kurobane visited U.A. unannounced, coat unbuttoned, hands full of wind.
"You broke your own system," Renya said.
"That's tradition," Kurobane replied. "We build rules to watch them rot properly."
They watched the city below, pulsing gently under its new rhythm. "They think they gave people patience," Kurobane said. "But patience already belonged to them."
Renya nodded. "Now we have to remind them it's theirs to waste."
Kurobane smiled—the kind that meant peace and trouble in equal measure. "Good lesson plan."