By the way.... this is the best author out there... Just saying....
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The hallway was much quieter now.
After Endeavor left, the heat had faded, and the students of Class 1-A had slowly started to disperse.
Honoka stood in front of Akira as she took his hand. The bandaged one. She unwrapped the cloth carefully, peeling back the layers until the cut was visible.
She sighed.
"Why did you have to cut this deep?" she said, looking at the wound. "This isn't a scratch, Akira. This will need stitches."
Akira smiled at her and explained to her calmly.
"It's a blood oath, Mom. Gotta make it stand out."
Honoka stared at him and started laughing.
"That sounds just like you," she said, shaking her head. She began rewrapping the wound with fresh bandaging she had pulled from her purse, because, of course, Honoka Shuzenji carried medical supplies in her purse. She was always prepared.
As she finished the wrap, she looked past Akira's shoulder toward the hallway behind them.
"MOMO!!"
A head poked out from around the corner. Momo had been waiting there with Shoto, giving Akira and his mother their moment.
Honoka waved her over. "Come. Your parents are going to sprint down here if we don't go back to the box right now. Your mother was already halfway out of her seat when I left."
Momo's eyes widened slightly at the thought of her mother charging through the stadium corridors in full panic mode. She nodded quickly and walked over to join them.
Honoka turned and started walking down the hallway, heels clicking on the concrete, back straight, composure fully restored as if she hadn't just kicked the Number Two Hero in the face five minutes ago.
Akira and Momo fell into step behind her.
As they walked, Momo glanced at Akira.
"How was Mr. Number Two?"
Akira thought about it for a moment.
"Nothing much," he said. Then he paused, his brow furrowing slightly. "But for some reason, he looked more confused than angry."
He thought about it a while longer. The way Endeavor's flames had dimmed. That looked weird.
"Or maybe I was tripping," Akira added with a shrug.
Momo laughed as she followed him.
***
Elsewhere in the stadium.
In the faculty observation, it was dead quiet.
It was a private space above the main commentary booth — a room with a long window overlooking the arena, several monitors displaying camera feeds, and a row of seats reserved for U.A.'s staff. During the Sports Festival, it served as the centre for the teachers monitoring the event.
Most of the staff had left to oversee the intermission. Cementoss was repairing something. Ectoplasm was coordinating the medical teams. Midnight was still on stage, keeping the crowd entertained during the break. And Power Loader was collecting the drones, making sure all of them were undamaged.
Only two figures remained in the observation room.
One of them sat in a chair by the window, staring out at the stadium below with a troubled expression.
This was All Might, AKA The Symbol of Peace.
He had watched the entire Sports Festival, but only one moment repeated in his mind.
The blood oath.
The scene kept replaying in his mind. Young Shuzenji, standing on the stage, cutting his palm open with a blade of his own fire. Blood dripping onto the white platform. A hundred thousand people watching a fifteen-year-old boy declare himself the Symbol of Fear on national television.
The surprising part? The crowd had loved it; they cheered for it. The internet was already ablaze with support. #SymbolOfFear was the number one trending topic in the country. Fan art was being drawn. Merchandise was being designed. A fifteen-year-old had ignited a movement with a speech and a bleeding fist.
And All Might didn't know what to think about it.
He knew Akira was a good kid. He had seen the boy's kindness. But he had a darkness deep in his heart, and he could feel it.
Symbol of Fear.
Fear was a tool of villains, not heroes. Heroes inspired hope. Heroes gave people something to believe in, something to aspire to. They were beacons of light in a dark world, and the moment they stopped being that, the line between hero and villain began to blur.
All Might had spent his entire career being the opposite of fear. He smiled so that people wouldn't be afraid. He laughed so that the children would feel safe. He stood tall so that the world could stand behind him.
And now a boy was proposing the exact opposite to do the same thing.
All Might remembered the crowd's reaction.
The man who had screamed about his murdered father. The woman clutching her dead husband's photo. The old man who had just nodded, silently, as if someone had finally said what he had been thinking for decades.
These weren't bloodthirsty people. They weren't calling for violence. They were simply tired. Exhausted by a system that gave villains second chances and gave victims nothing. Worn down by decades of watching the people who destroyed their lives walk free, over and over, while they were told to be patient and to trust the process.
A process that never delivered justice. And so... the people had stopped believing.
Akira hadn't created that anger. He had given it a voice. He had stood on a stage and said what millions of people had been thinking but were too polite, too afraid, or too broken to say themselves.
As much as All Might hated to admit it, it made sense. The logic was sound. The emotion was real. The boy had read the room better than any politician, any pundit, any pro hero had managed in years.
But where did it lead?
A Symbol of Fear could do incredible good. Villains who were afraid to act would never become villains in the first place. Crime rates would drop. Attacks would decrease. People would be safer — not because a hero saved them, but because the threat was never made.
Or it could go the other way. Fear could breed resentment. Resentment could breed rebellion. A hero who was feared could become a tyrant. The line between protector and dictator would become thinner than most people realised, and history was full of men who had crossed it with the best of intentions.
All Might sighed as he leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.
"Symbol of Fear," he murmured to himself.
He sat with the thought for a long time, turning it over and over in his mind. The good. The bad. The possible futures branching out from a single speech made by a boy who was too young to understand the weight of what he had started.
"Quite the charismatic moment, wasn't it?"
A calm voice came from beside him.
All Might turned his head.
Nezu sat in the chair next to him with the ever-present cup of tea in his hand.
All Might sighed again.
"Nezu," he said. "We need to talk about Akira."
"Do we?" Nezu took a sip of tea.
"We need to calm him down. I understand where he's coming from, I really do. The boy has been through things that no child should have to endure. But this... this is too much. The blood oath? The speech? He's building something that could destabilise the entire foundation of hero society."
"Heroes are supposed to inspire hope, Nezu. Not fear. If we let this continue, if we let a student brand himself as something that, we're setting a precedent that could undermine everything we've built. Everything I've spent my life fighting for."
He looked at Nezu with eyes that were tired but sincere.
"I'm not saying he's wrong. I'm just saying he's going too far."
Nezu set his teacup down on the armrest. He was quiet for a moment as if thinking of something.
Then he smiled.
"You don't."
All Might blinked. "I'm sorry?"
"You don't understand where he's coming from," Nezu said, his voice still calm, but with an edge of hostility. "You said you do, but you don't. You don't know why Akira is the way he is. You don't know what he went through. You don't know what shaped him, what broke him, or what rebuilt him."
The smile remained, but the warmth was gone.
"You see a boy making a dangerous speech. I see a boy who watched people he cared about die and decided that the system that allowed it to happen needed to change. You see a threat to the status quo. I see someone willing to carry a burden that no one else has the guts to pick up."
All Might opened his mouth to respond.
But Nezu raised a paw.
"I knew you would do something like this," Nezu said. "So I will say this once, in the most polite way I can manage."
"Stay away from his path."
All Might stared at him. "Nezu, what he's doing could be morally-"
"I have watched that boy grow," Nezu said, cutting him off gently, as his voice softened. "I have watched him suffer, watched him fight, watched him fall and get back up and fall again and get back up again. I've watched him carry grief that would have crushed most adults, and I've watched him turn that grief into something that could change the world."
He paused.
"Somewhere along the way, I started to care about him. I don't know when it happened. Maybe it was when he was ten and was called up for beating some bullies, and I had to pick him up because his mother and grandmother were busy. Maybe it was when he told me about his dream."
Nezu picked up his teacup again and took a sip.
"I see him as family, Toshinori. And for my family, I am ready to go to any lengths."
All Might said nothing. He had known Nezu for years. He had worked beside him, strategised with him, and trusted him with the future of hero education. In all that time, he had never heard Nezu speak about anyone this way.
Not about a student. Not about a colleague. Not about anyone.
Nezu stood up from his chair. He straightened his tie, adjusted his vest, and walked toward the door of the observation room.
As he reached the door, he stopped and slowly turned.
"Stay away from my boy," Nezu said. "Please."
Then he walked out, closing the door softly behind him.
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You dont mess with Nezu's boy, LOL. How did you like this development? Let me know people.
Now bye... I got a little Promised Consort Radahn to beat... I have been stuck on this boss for quit some time..... wish me luck.
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