Their first official training session was scheduled for Saturday. Rei spent Friday night in her new dorm room—1-A's Heights Alliance, third floor, next to Yaoyorozu and across from—she'd checked the roster three times—Todoroki Shoto.
She didn't sleep. She calculated.
Her Quirk's capacity: approximately 500,000 joules before critical overflow. Midoriya's recorded durability: capable of withstanding 100% of One For All's power, which All Might estimated at roughly 60 times his base strength, which meant—
The math spiraled. Rei gave up at 3 AM and stared at the ceiling.
A knock at her door. She felt the vibration through her Quirk—the kinetic signature of a fist against wood. Familiar. She'd cataloged everyone's knock patterns within three days.
"Come in, Midoriya."
He entered carefully, balancing two cups of tea. "I couldn't sleep. Thought you might be... calculating."
"Obsessively."
He sat on her floor, setting one cup beside her bed. "Can I ask something personal?"
"You will anyway."
"Why Shiketsu, originally? Your Quirk is perfect for U.A.'s style. Creative, adaptable, team-oriented. Shiketsu is... rigid. Military."
Rei took the tea. It was chamomile, perfect temperature. He'd remembered her order from the cafeteria.
"My father," she said. The words felt foreign. She didn't talk about her father. "He was a pro hero. Vector—kinetic redirection, like me, but weaker. Range of five meters. He believed in discipline. Control. The idea that a hero must be perfect, unshakeable, or they're a danger to civilians." She sipped. "He taught at Shiketsu. I enrolled to make him proud."
"Did you?"
"I ranked second. Destroyed three buildings. Got expelled." Rei laughed, hollow. "So, no."
"And your mother?"
"She died when I was young. Quirk-related. Overflow, like mine, but she didn't have..." Rei stopped, surprised by her own openness. "She didn't have anyone to discharge into. No partner. No trust."
Midoriya was quiet for a long moment. Then: "My father left. Before I was born. I don't remember him, but..." He touched his chest, where scar tissue peeked above his collar. "I spent my whole life trying to be enough for people who weren't there. Teachers who said I couldn't be a hero. Classmates who said I was useless. I thought if I just tried hard enough, proved myself enough, they'd see me."
"What changed?"
He looked up, green eyes meeting hers. "All Might. He told me I could become a hero. But more than that—he showed me that being a hero isn't about being enough for other people. It's about being enough for yourself . Saving people because you choose to, not because you're trying to earn something."
Rei felt something shift in her chest. A vector redirecting. "My father," she said slowly, "used to say that emotions were kinetic energy. Unpredictable. Dangerous. They had to be controlled, suppressed, or they'd cause collateral damage."
"Is that why you don't cry?"
The question hit her like a physical blow. Rei felt her Quirk spike—the tea in her cup sloshed upward, defying gravity.
"I cry," she said, defensive.
"When?"
"Alone. In the shower. Where no one can—" She stopped. Midoriya was looking at her with such understanding that she wanted to scream. "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like I'm brave. I'm not. I'm controlled. There's a difference."
Midoriya set down his tea. "Can I show you something?"
He stood, offering his hand. Rei stared at it.
"Trust exercise," he said. "Nezu's assignment. We're supposed to practice discharge transfer. But first, I want to show you what trust looks like."
Rei took his hand.
Midoriya led her to the window. Third floor. Thirty feet up.
"I'm going to jump," he said.
"What?"
"Trust me." He climbed onto the sill, balancing easily. "Your Quirk can nullify my fall. Catch me. Or don't. Your choice."
"Midoriya, this is insane—"
"Hero work is insane." He smiled, wild and free. "Every day, we throw ourselves into danger for strangers. We break our bodies, our hearts, our everything—and we do it because we choose to. Because someone has to."
He jumped.
Rei didn't think. Her Quirk exploded outward, fifty meters of perfect awareness, and she felt him falling—felt the gravitational vector accelerating him toward the ground, felt the air resistance, felt the terror in her own heart translating into kinetic potential.
She caught him ten feet from impact.
Nullified his momentum completely. Held him suspended in her field, floating, safe.
Midoriya laughed, breathless and alive. "See? You caught me."
Rei lowered him to the ground, then leaned out the window, shaking with rage and relief and something else, something terrifying. "You idiot ! I could have missed! I could have been too slow!"
"But you weren't." He looked up at her, grass-stained and grinning. "You chose to catch me. That's what heroes do, Rei. We choose, again and again, to be there for each other."
She felt it then. The overflow. Not of kinetic energy, but of something else—emotion, connection, the terrifying weight of caring about someone who threw himself off buildings.
"Come back up," she managed. "We need to practice discharge. Before I... before I overflow in a different way."
He climbed back up, slower this time. When he reached her room, she was shaking.
"Rei?"
"I need to discharge," she whispered. "The jump—the fear—it built up. I'm at 70% capacity."
"Okay." He stood in front of her, feet planted, arms open. "I'm ready."
"You're not ready. You're never ready. You're just willing, and that's—" Her voice broke. "That's worse. Because I could hurt you."
"Then hurt me." He stepped closer. "Better me than you. Better us than strangers."
Rei reached out. Placed her hands on his chest. Felt his heartbeat, steady and strong.
"Vector: Transfer," she whispered.
The discharge was different this time. Not explosive, but flowing . She poured her fear into him, her anxiety, her desperate need to protect—and he took it. Absorbed it. His body lit with green lightning, One For All responding to the influx, and when it faded, he was still standing.
Still smiling.
"Again?" he asked.
Rei laughed, wet and broken. "You're insane."
"Probably. Again?"
She discharged three more times that night. By the end, her Quirk was quiet, empty, peaceful. And Midoriya was still standing, offering her tea that had gone cold, talking about training strategies and Quirk applications like she hadn't just tried to blast him through a wall.
"Why?" she asked finally. "Why do this? Why me?"
Midoriya paused, notebook halfway open. "Because when you look at me, you see someone worth catching. And I'm starting to believe you might be right."