Chapter Text
The late morning sun filtered lazily through the wide-panelled windows of Classroom 1-A, scattering golden beams across the gleaming tiled floor and reflecting off the polished surfaces of neatly arranged desks. Dust motes hung suspended in the warm light drifting lazily through the still air.
And despite the soft quietude that settled like a blanket over the classroom, Mina Ashido’s mind was anything but still.
Slouched ever-so-slightly in her seat, she rested her chin in her hand, elbow perched on the desk as her other fingers tapped a steady, idle rhythm with her pen. Her eyes, bright and curious, weren’t focused on the whiteboard at the front of the class or the on her desk. Her thoughts, however, were occupied elsewhere, as they replayed yesterday's chaotic gauntlet: Aizawa-sensei’s Quirk Apprehension Test.
It had been brutal. Not in the sadistic way, but in the “welcome to the big leagues” kind of way, okay maybe it was a tiny-bit sadistic on their teacher’s side! Especially as he watched on with a mad grin while they committed everything—physically, mentally, and emotionally to the tests. But it made sense, they were no longer middle schoolers with dreams. They were heroes-in-training.
And today? It was… oddly quiet. Far too quiet as a Hero school could get of course, but there was a tension in the air that didn't make sense—like something was off. It wasn't loud, it wasn't obvious, but it was there, like a barely heard hum beneath her skin. She could feel it in the soles of her shoes. In the heaviness of the silence. Even in the way her pink curls felt a little heavier on her scalp—as if they too were sensing that something was... off.
She frowned. Not visibly. Her face stayed in its usual half-smile as her pen kept tapping. But inside, her gut—the very thing that had helped her navigate through fights, and school drama—was whispering.
Something's missing.
And Mina Ashido always trusted her gut.
People sometimes mistook her, y’know? They saw the bright pink skin, the neon yellow eyes, the bubbly laugh, the endless energy and thought bimbo or comic relief. But Mina wasn’t dumb, not by a long shot. Sure, she acted like she was, but it made people comfortable, and honestly, it was fun!
But beneath the bouncy pink curls and high-energy, she was a keen observer of people, especially since in her (not-so) humble opinion, she was second to none when it came to reading people. Because you learned a lot about someone just by how they stood, smiled, or fell silent.
And so far, her new classmates? Oh, they were so interesting.
There was Tenya Ida, the upright, rule-obsessed guy, especially with how he stood, the way he moved, even how his glasses gleamed—all of it screamed “student council president” from one of those romance anime. Mina could practically see the imaginary clipboard in his hands, checking off whether everyone was walking in proper formation. He probably corrected the wind for not blowing right. But she had a hunch: he had a heart the size of All Might’s muscles, he just hadn't figured out how to show it without mentioning the rules. She liked that though. He’d be fun to mess with.
And Ochako Uraraka was adorable! No question. With that big, round face and those sparkling eyes, she was warm like sunshine and surprisingly sharp when she spoke. Mina could already tell she wasn’t just some cute little Kirby-rip-off, but someone who was as intelligent as she was kind. Mina liked people like that. People who could be soft and strong at the same time. And well, people did constantly underestimate sweet things.
Tsuyu Asui was quiet, contemplative, if just a little too blunt and honest. Her monotone voice, always so composed, contrasted nicely with the chaotic energy around her. And that adorable little ribbit she occasionally let slip? It never failed to make Mina smile. She liked Tsuyu a lot. She had this no-nonsense attitude that that paired pretty well with her froggy composure. It reminded her of Kermit the frog.
Then there was Eijiro Kirishima.
Now that boy was a riot. Pun completely intended.
She’d known him back in middle school—back when he was still quieter, a bit unsure of himself, kind of forgettable if she was being brutally honest (and she was). But now? he had changed quite a bit from back then. His newfound passion and “manly!” declarations made her so proud to see him like this, even if he was a bit too much sometimes. Still, that heart of his? It was made of gold (maybe rock too?). Sincere to a fault, quick to jump into anything without hesitation. She adored him for it.
Hanta Sero and Denki Kaminari were total goofballs. They had some class clown potential, especially with how they were one bad idea away from blowing up the classroom with an electric toothbrush and duct tape. But Mina watched people and saw the way Kaminari’s jokes sometimes veiled nervousness. Like he wanted people to laugh before they could see he wasn’t always sure of himself. That kind of thing stuck with her. She got it.
Sero, though? Chillest guy in the room. Always lounging, always smirking. A prankster with too much tape and too little shame. Sometimes he took things too far, sure, but it was never malicious. Just… poorly timed. She could forgive that, no harm no foul as her dad usually said.
Then there was Bakugo Katsuki.
Now that was a whole other situation.
He was intense. Super loud, and probably angry at the very thought of existing near other humans whom he did lower than him. Mina didn’t hate him, hate was too strong—but she definitely didn’t enjoy his company, it was like standing too close to a grenade that might explode. And sure, he was strong. Maybe the strongest in the class behind the resident hot-and-cold boy, Todoroki, but with that attitude, she’d rather sit with that perv, Mineta and let him ogle her than try having a normal conversation with Bakugo.
Okay, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration.
But still—he was a total asshole.
For no reason!
“Ugh,” Mina muttered under her breath, shaking her head. Getting sidetracked again…
The point of all this wasn’t just that her class was weird—though they totally were. It was that, somehow, despite only knowing them for all of two days, she’d already grown fiercely protective of them. Like, dangerously so. The kind of protective that made you want to go feral if someone hurt them. She’d throw hands, acid, and herself if anything happened to her 1-A.
And that’s what was bugging her.
There was a hole in the classroom. A subtle absence she couldn’t stop noticing. Her golden eyes flicked toward the back of the room, narrowing slightly as the sun caught them, turning them molten as she stared at the single, empty desk.
It was desolate, pristine, as if no one had dared to touch it.
Nineteen students had shown up.
But there were supposed to be twenty.
It annoyed the hell out of her.
The math didn’t add up—and Mina hated math.
A ghost student? A transfer that bailed? Someone who got cold feet and never showed? The possibilities were almost infinite, and Mina Ashido was many things, but patient was not one of them.
This was a mystery.
And now it was about to be solved by detective Mina Ashido!
But before she could figure it out, she needed to make a move. A small one. Strategic. Sacrificial, even. If she wanted information from the cryptid known as Aizawa-sensei—their perpetually sleep-deprived, burrito-of-black-fabric homeroom teacher—then she needed bait.
Or, as she preferred to say...
A volunteer.
‘Now, who would make the perfect offering—I mean, Samaritan?’
Her eyes scanned the room, mischief lighting up her features. She clasped her hands behind her back and leaned forward, voice going up an octave in her best “adorably tragic drama queen” impression.
“Mouuuu~!” she whined, dragging out the syllables with award-winning exaggeration, “Does anyone know where our ghost pal is hiding?”
Her voice rang across the room like a bell: half playful, half serious. She tilted her head, beaming like a cat about to knock something off a table.
A few of her friends blinked, clearly caught off guard by the sudden question.
Kirishima, mid-stretch, raised a brow in confusion. “Huh?”
Tsuyu tilted her head slightly but said nothing, blinking slowly.
But Mina didn’t care. She wasn’t waiting for just anyone to answer—she was waiting for him.
And right on cue, as predictably as ever, the class’s resident rulebook straightened in his seat, adjusting his glasses with newfound purpose.
‘Bingo,’ Mina grinned.
“Aizawa-sensei,” Iida began, raising his hand with military precision. “Pardon the interruption, but it has come to our attention that there is a discrepancy in our class roster. I count only nineteen students present. As I understand from your words a few days ago, we were meant to be twenty.”
A muffled groan emerged from the front of the room, where Aizawa lay coiled in his infamous yellow sleeping bag like some kind of sentient caterpillar refusing metamorphosis. He sat up slowly, the fabric of his capture weapon still half-wrapped around him like a sluggish snake, red eyes bleary and unimpressed.
“Yes,” he said, voice gravelly with sleep. “I’m aware.”
Mina leaned forward in anticipation.
“I was going to mention it,” Aizawa continued, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “after my much-needed nap. The last student will be arriving shortly. Certain... complications delayed their admission. That’s all I’ll say for now.”
The classroom, once lulled by the warmth of mid-morning sunlight and Mina’s antics, immediately sparked to life like firecrackers tossed into dry leaves.
“Complications?” Sero leaned forward with interest. “Like, what kind of complications? Are they missing a limb or something?”
Kaminari perked up, eyes gleaming with potential drama. “Ooh, maybe it’s a girl! We could use a little more balance in the testosterone department.”
Kirishima flexed his arms with a proud grin. “Nah, bet it’s someone manly! Like, late because they were saving a cat from a burning tree or somethin’ cool like that.”
Mina leaned in with a cheshire grin, hands clawed, her eyes glinting mischievously. “Or maybe…” she said in a low, dramatic whisper, “they’re a cursed ghost student who only appears after lunch… and eats pencils.”
The classroom burst into laughter. Even Iida let out a deeply strained sigh that somehow translated to amused resignation.
But as fast as it started, the laughter vanished.
A knock.
One single, sharp, deliberate knock against the door.
It echoed through the classroom like a drumbeat in an empty church. Not frantic. Not impatient. Just… loud. Measured. Certain.
The mood shifted. Like someone had opened a window and let something in they weren’t supposed to.
All eyes turned.
Aizawa stared at the door with an unreadable expression. Then, slowly, he exhaled.
“Come in,” he said.
The door creaked open. Not dramatically. Just… naturally, unnervingly soft. But every second of it dragged like the silence before a verdict.
Heavy boots stepped onto the tile floor.
One.
Then another.
THUD. THUD.
The footsteps weren’t heavy in sound—but they felt heavy. Slow. Deliberate. Each one measured with almost surgical precision. Like the person walking didn’t want to be noticed—but didn’t care if they were.
It made the back of Mina’s neck prickle.
The air shifted.
The temperature didn’t drop, not exactly, but it felt like the warmth of the sunlight wasn’t reaching quite as far anymore. Like a long shadow had stepped into the room before the person had.
And then they entered.
The 20th student.
Mina turned her head—and froze.
The boy who stepped through the door wasn’t just unfamiliar.
He felt wrong.
Something about him felt mismatched with the living world around them, like a misplaced figure from a horror manga that had bled its way into reality. His uniform—regulation standard—hung off his body as if it didn’t want to be worn. Baggy sleeves swallowed his wrists, the fabric clinging in strange folds like a scarecrow’s cloak. His skin was pale—too pale. Not the usual kind of flush, light complexion, but the eerie, bluish tinge of someone who had been kept away from the sun.
Shadows darkened the sockets under his eyes, not from tiredness, but from something older. Something deeper. His face was gaunt—ethereally beautiful in a way that felt inhuman and tragic. Dishevelled, moss-green curls spilled across his brow and eyes, obscuring him like ivy grown over a gravestone. He looked more like someone who’d woken up from a week-long coma rather than someone late to class.
But it wasn’t his appearance that disturbed Mina most.
It was his eyes.
Cold.
They weren’t angry, like Bakugo’s rage-filled glares.
They weren’t distant, like Todoroki’s ice-glazed focus.
They were empty. Hollowed out.
As if someone had carved something out of him. As if what once lived behind those eyes had been extinguished long ago, and now only remnants remained. Like a dying flame that had been buried beneath wet ash. His gaze drifted across the classroom not with urgency, curiosity or tension, but with complete indifference. Everyone in the room—Mina included—felt akin to insects under his scrutiny.
Not hated.
Just… irrelevant.
‘We’re insignificant to him.’
At the front, Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “Your name, Problem Child,” he muttered, stepping aside, his tone giving nothing away.
The boy didn’t flinch.
His pale lips moved barely an inch. His voice, when it came, was low and thin. It scraped against the air like brittle paper on old stone.
“…Midoriya. Midoriya Izuku.”
The name hit Mina like a slap to the face. A simple introduction, but it sank into her brain like a jagged, serrated knife. It was awkward, but unforgettable. The way he said it… like it didn’t belong to him anymore. Like he was repeating a name someone else had once worn.
Silence followed.
It was heavy, and uncomfortable. It felt like the classroom itself was holding its breath. As if the walls, the floor, the ceiling—all of it—had paused just to make room for something dreadful to settle in.
And then—
“DEKU?!”
Bakugo exploded from his seat.
His chair screeched against the tiles as he shot up, fists clenched, muscles tensed like he was ready to pounce.
Mina flinched. A couple students jumped. Even Kaminari seemed to have short-circuited and stopped breathing.
Midoriya’s eyes shifted—finally moved. They dilated for just a breath before they sharpened with a focus that terrified her very being. There no longer was that disinterest—that dullness. It was something colder. More calculating. As if, for one second, he wasn’t a student in a classroom, but an apathetic hunter who had found his prey.
And then, with a slowness that felt practiced—learned—he turned his head, and locked eyes with Bakugo.
His voice came again, but this time, there was no softness in it. No withdrawn edge. It was clean, sterile, numb.
It was as if he was dead.
“…Katsuki.”
There was a pause.
Not the kind where people just fall quiet. No—this one had weight to it. Like the tension in the room thickened like smoke, filling every corner and crevice. Mina’s stomach clenched. Her throat tightened as if something had curled cold fingers around it. This wasn’t a dramatic entrance. This wasn’t two boys with some dumb beef.
This was history.
Unspoken. Old. Ugly. Festering.
Like the dirt underneath your fingernails.
Bakugo’s steps faltered. He was unmoving, like a statue. He didn’t even speak.
He just stood there, fists twitching at his sides, as if something primal inside him couldn’t decide whether to attack or run. His anger—the fire that usually boiled over without control—was stunned. Like even he didn’t know what to make of this version of the student, Midoriya, in front of him.
Aizawa finally cut through the tension with a single word. Sharp. Authoritative.
“Sit.”
Midoriya didn’t argue. Didn’t even glance at Aizawa. He just turned—slow, almost sluggish—and started walking toward the back of the room, toward the desk that had sat untouched like it knew it was waiting for him.
He moved like gravity didn’t pull him the same way it pulled the rest of them. Like his bones were heavier. Like he wasn’t walking to his seat so much as enduring the process of arriving.
His feet dragged, soft friction whispering across tile, but there was something in the rhythm—something intentional. Every step was measured, mechanical, like muscle memory playing out a script his body had grown used to. He didn’t make eye contact again. His gaze skimmed the classroom once, like someone counting exits in a room of strangers, then dropped without interest.
No attempt to introduce himself. No smile. No awkward “hi” like a normal transfer might’ve muttered.
He just went to his desk. The farthest one in the corner. A lonely little island that had gone untouched since day one. The class hadn’t said it out loud, but no one had even glanced in that desk’s direction since orientation. Like they’d all subconsciously agreed it was off-limits.
And now they knew why.
Midoriya Izuku sat down.
And the room didn’t breathe for a long, long moment.
Aizawa, never one to linger, let out a slow, weary sigh. “Homeroom’s extended due to our last-minute addition. Gym Theta in fifteen. Don’t be late.”
He cast a glance toward Midoriya. Not a long one. Not even a curious one. Just a flicker of something between recognition and fondness.
Then, like a fading shadow, Aizawa stepped out the door and vanished, leaving the tension to hang like a corpse from the ceiling.
And the class?
The class did not know what to do.
For a while, nobody moved. Nobody anything. They just watched on in confusion and worry.
Until Kaminari leaned closer to Mina, eyes comically wide. “That guy’s got, like… Sasuke vibes,” he whispered, a nervous smile tugging at his lips. “He’s creeping me out.”
Mina didn’t laugh.
Her golden eyes stayed locked on Midoriya, watching the way his head tilted back slightly against the wall. His eyes closed, as if the conversation, the awkward stares, the whispers… none of it mattered.
He didn’t feel nervous. Or shy. Or even bored.
He felt… inconvenienced.
Like being here was something he had to tolerate. Like he had better things to deal with—worse things—and this whole “school” situation was a speed bump in the middle of a long, ugly road.
He looked exhausted.
Not the kind of tired from lack of sleep, but the kind that came from years of carrying something heavy. Mina felt a pang in her chest. Something old and awful lived behind his stillness.
Kirishima scratched at his head. “That was… weird, right?” he said, keeping his voice low. He glanced at Bakugo, who still hadn’t sat back down. His eyes were locked on Midoriya’s unmoving form like a lion sizing up a rival predator.
“Like… do they know each other?”
“They clearly know each other,” Sero said, whispering too loud, glancing nervously toward the back. “Did you see Bakugo’s face? He looked like he had seen a ghost.”
Mina’s voice finally came, quiet and cautious. “It was like… Midoriya already knew what Bakugo was gonna say. Like he’d heard it a thousand times before.”
She frowned. “And that stare—Midoriya didn’t even flinch. He just expected it.”
Kirishima nodded slowly. “That’s not the kinda look you give someone unless something really deep happened. Like… something really deep happened between two old friends.”
“I was hoping for a fun new classmate,” Kaminari muttered. “Not another broody Todoroki.”
As if summoned by name, Todoroki stood up from his seat, his expression unreadable as he watched Midoriya in silence.
There was no judgment in his eyes. No fear, no curiosity. Just quiet observation.
The rest of the class finally began to move, chairs scraping as bags were slung over shoulders and whispered conversations resumed in fragments. But even as they left, they kept glancing back. Watching him.
Watching Midoriya.
He hadn’t moved once.
Not until Bakugo finally stood. The desk in front of him screeched as it slammed forward, his fists tense at his sides. He didn’t yell. He didn’t mutter. He just stood there. But his eyes—still burning with a quiet wrath and confusion—stayed fixed on the back of the room.
And Midoriya?
He still didn’t look up. Didn’t acknowledge him. Didn’t breathe any faster.
It was like he’d already put Bakugo in a box, nailed it shut, and buried it deep years ago.
Mina swallowed hard as she left the classroom with her friends, glancing over her shoulder one last time.
She didn’t know who Izuku Midoriya really was.
But something about him felt haunted.
And whatever had happened between him and Bakugo—
It wasn’t just history.
It was something far more. Something that had etched itself like a faded scar—now awake and pulsing.
Gym Theta loomed ahead, its brutalist silhouette devouring the skyline. Forged from reinforced concrete and dark alloy panelling, the structure didn’t inspire courage so much as command submission. If you had asked Mina though? She’d say that it reminded her of one of those pre-Quirk sci-fi movies—like Terminator or Alien.
She swallowed hard as the class entered the facility with trepidation.
Her boots clicked softly against the polished floor, but she barely registered the sound over the buzz beneath her skin. She was bouncing slightly on her heels—not out of excitement, but because her body didn’t know what else to do. The air inside Gym Gamma was heavy, electric, like someone had cranked the atmospheric pressure up just a notch. Like the tension that had gripped the classroom earlier had followed them… and settled here in the rafters, eager to watch what came next.
Behind her, she could hear it.
Him.
Midoriya Izuku.
Silent. Wordless. Each footstep soft but purposeful. The rhythmic thud of his boots echoed like a slow countdown in her ears, as if every step forward was ticking closer to something unavoidable. Something dangerous.
She risked another glance over her shoulder.
His face had changed.
That blank, apathetic expression he'd worn when he first entered Class 1-A was gone. In its place was something colder—something sharper. A sardonic curl tugged at the corner of his mouth, like he was in on a joke no one else understood. And beneath that grin, in the hollows of his eyes, danced a flicker of intrigue.
Not curiosity.
Interest.
Mina’s brow furrowed slightly. Under the stark fluorescent lights of Gym Gamma, more details emerged.
The rigid slope of his shoulders were ever-so slightly uneven, his left raised higher than his right. A tension was entrenched in his posture, like a machine stuck half-loaded. His UA-issued gym uniform clung to a slim, defined frame—not bulky but lean in a way that suggested strength earned through countless hours of training. A fighter's physique, not an athlete’s.
But what struck her most were his hands.
They never stilled. Not fidgeting exactly—but twitching. Barely perceptible tremors in his fingers, each movement almost reflexive. Not random. Programmed. As if his body was prepared for conflict, even when there were no signs of it.
Aizawa stood waiting near the centre of the gym, arms crossed, his signature capture scarf already loosened around his neck and hanging in loops at his sides like sleeping serpents. His tired, strained eyes scanned the class as they assembled around the perimeter of a wide white combat circle.
“Eyes up,” he called, his voice flat but cutting straight through the tension. “You all had your Quirk apprehension test and entrance exam. Midoriya, being a recent and… unusual admission, didn’t. So, it’s only fair he undergoes something equivalent.”
Mina noticed a flicker in Midoriya’s shoulders. The barest flinch. If you weren’t watching closely, you’d have missed it. But she saw it.
Still, his expression didn’t change.
“And because of the nature of his entry,” Aizawa continued, “his trial will be slightly more unique in nature.”
He turned and motioned toward the centre circle. “Midoriya will be running a combat gauntlet. Fifteen minutes. As many robots as possible. Standard training models—for second year students and below.”
The class murmured faintly. A few wide eyes at the task. Kaminari let out a quiet, “Dude, seriously?”
“If he fails to neutralize a minimum of twenty targets in that time—he’s out. Expelled.”
The words hung like an axe blade above the boy’s head.
Mina’s heart clenched.
Aizawa didn’t blink. He just stepped aside.
Midoriya blinked once, then stepped forward.
No hesitation.
No dramatic reaction.
Just precise, controlled movement.
He approached the circle with the quiet, ghostly calm of someone who had long since accepted the weight of threats that threatened him. Someone who’d stopped learning to fear them and instead started embracing them.
He stopped at the edge of the ring, glanced back at Aizawa with a small curious tilt of his head, and asked, “And I assume I’m not allowed to use any equipment, Sensei?”
The teacher nodded once. “No support gear. Just your own abilities. Does that work for you, Problem Child?”
A beat.
Then came the smile.
Not cocky, nor amused.
It was a slow, creeping thing. Predatory, even in its restraint. It showed just the edge of teeth—like a wolf politely pretending it wasn’t hungry.
“It’s acceptable,” Midoriya murmured. “I’ve been needing a good challenge.”
Mina blinked.
Not just at the grin—but the tone.
That voice hadn’t held nerves or doubt. Not even pride.
It sounded like a predator who had just smelled fresh blood.
She felt her heart beat faster.
Something about it made her uncomfortable in a way she couldn’t explain. Like she was watching something unholy slip just beneath the skin of a boy wearing an impossibly, gorgeous human face.
Midoriya rolled his neck with an audible crack, then stepped forward. No theatrics. No power flexing. Just quiet movement. Clean. Controlled. Measured.
As he entered the combat circle, Aizawa gave a subtle nod as the walls on either end of the gym lit up—humming with buried machinery and hidden systems awakening beneath the compartment doors. Panels shifted and clicked into place as segmented walls slowly lifted from the far ends of the room hissed open.
Mina took an involuntary step back as the first wave emerged.
Tier 3 Training Units.
Two dozen humanoid machines, a matte, dirty green with reinforced limbs and pulsing red optics. Standard UA bots used for low-level sparring—stronger and faster than a civilian would ever hope to handle, but usually no match for a novice student with a decent Quirk. They moved with eerie synchronicity, forming a half-circle around the centre like a pack of predators, all locking onto a single target.
Him.
Midoriya stood motionless, eyes half-lidded, his breathing steady. Unarmed. Alone. Surrounded.
The gym fell into hushed silence. It was suffocating as they all waited in anticipation.
This didn’t feel like a test.
It felt like a hunt.
These robots were the predators and Midoriya the prey.
Only… he didn’t look like the prey.
Mina’s stomach tightened.
‘But will he be able to take down twenty of them in fifteen minutes?’
There was no countdown. No dramatic announcement. Just a flashing green light at the edge of the ring—GO—and suddenly, the machines were charging.
A blur of alloy and synthetic muscle.
And still, Midoriya didn’t move.
Not until the first robot was within striking distance.
Then—he moved.
It was as if he simply vanished.
No teleportation. No Quirk.
But no, it was much simpler than that—he just moved so fast and efficiently it looked like teleportation.
Mina’s eyes widened as the first bot swung downward with a hydraulic punch—only for Midoriya to slip under the strike with a twist of his torso, drop to a crouch, and drive his elbow into the machine’s exposed inner joint.
CRACK!
It stumbled—half a second delay—before its arm burst free from the socket in a spray of sparking cables.
Midoriya rose with it, twisting behind its back, and delivered a brutal axe kick straight to the back of its head.
The robot crumpled.
One down.
Two more moved in tandem, attacking from opposite angles. Mina expected him to retreat, to reposition, but he did the opposite—stepping in. He caught one’s wrist mid-strike, twisted it into its partner’s chassis, and used the collision to vault over both.
Before they could recover, he landed atop the second bot’s shoulders, hooked an arm around its neck, and pulled back with such precision it severed its head clean from the torso using only the edge of its own broken plate.
Three.
“That’s insane…” Kaminari muttered, voice barely above a whisper. “He’s fighting like—like a ninja!”
Momo frowned deeply, arms folded, eyes scanning every movement. “No… like someone who’s done this before. Repeatedly—he’s trained.”
Todoroki didn’t speak.
Neither did Bakugo.
Mina’s hands clutched at her elbows as she stared, transfixed.
This wasn’t just efficiency. This wasn’t someone improvising.
This was a dance.
A routine.
Like his body already knew what every enemy would do before they did it. Each movement was brutally efficient—no flourish, no wasted energy. Midoriya looked barely stronger than the bots. Hell, he didn’t look faster than them either.
He was just… smarter. More practiced.
More dangerous.
The fourth bot lunged. He sidestepped, broke its knee with a sharp kick, and yanked free a section of exposed wiring as it fell—whipping the cable around the next approaching target’s throat and hurling it into the arena wall.
‘Six down in under a minute.’
Aizawa didn’t blink.
He just folded his arms tighter and murmured stoically, “Observe his rhythm. You might learn something.”
By minute four, there were sparks on the floor. Scratches across the walls. Limbs scattered across the tiles. Ten units down, with the second wave activating—these faster, with built-in shock-staves and reinforced armour. Midoriya didn’t hesitate. He ran at them.
He slid under one, vaulted off another, and landed inside their formation. His body twisted like a serpent, each motion flowing into the next, like he was fighting water rather than machines. One hand locked a baton-wielding arm mid-swing; the other struck—a vertical palm to the bot’s chin, cracking metal with focused, sudden force.
“That's Aikido blended with Krav Maga…” Yaoyorozu said slowly in amazement. “No—there’s more. Judo? Boxing footwork. Possibly Silat.”
Mina blinked.
How did he know all that?
Was it his Quirk?
She remembered how still he had been in class. How blank his face was. How quiet.
Now she understood.
That silence hadn't been weakness.
It was discipline.
Now that discipline was clearly paying off.
By the time Mina had collected her thoughts, Midoriya sidestepped a robots’ charge with a fraction of a second to spare and slammed his heel into the side of its knee joint, crumpling it. His hand shot up, gripping the bot’s arm, twisting it until metal shrieked—and snapping it off at the servo with a brutality that made a few of her classmates recoil in horror.
He threw the detached arm like a javelin into another robot’s head.
Dead centre.
Sparks flew.
Another reached out, claws outstretched.
Midoriya ducked, rolled beneath it, then sprang up behind it and jammed both hands into its spine. He pushed, twisted, and in a single fluid motion, ripped a portion of the internal core from the housing like he’d done it a hundred times before.
Mina’s mouth had gone dry.
Bakugo didn’t speak. His jaw was clenched so tightly it looked like his teeth might shatter.
When the clock hit six minutes, Midoriya’s uniform was torn at the elbow. A gash leaked blood down his arm from where a shock-staff grazed him, but he didn’t slow down.
If anything, he smiled.
A flash of teeth. A feral, exhilarated gleam in his now shining emerald eyes.
Like this—this—was where he felt alive.
Not in classrooms. Not at lunch. Not even around people.
But here.
In the heart of combat. Surrounded by violence and destruction.
Mina’s chest was tight.
She didn’t know if she was scared of him… or for him.
And she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.
“What the fuck?”
Blood trickled down his nose now. A line of crimson that curved along his jaw and vanished beneath the collar of his pristine gym shirt. His left arm trembled with the telltale signs of fatigue, fingers twitching from excitement, and his breath came in short, steady bursts.
Even though nine minutes had passed, his stance—his stance hadn’t even changed.
Not once.
There he was, still low. Still steady. Still waiting.
Seven robots remained.
The hobo had said that these were tier four units.
Not built for training anymore. These were borderline military-grade—designed to test final-year students under live-combat conditions. Larger, heavier, faster. Each had a different build. One used compressed air propulsion to dash and strike. Another had retractable blades laced with shock nodes. One had adaptive defence protocols that scanned weaknesses in real time.
These were made to break the extras. To push them to their absolute limit.
And yet that damned bastard was still keeping up—barely winded too.
It was maddening to say the least.
He idly noted how Round Cheeks, whispered aloud, “He’s not gonna stop, is he?”
No. He fucking wasn’t.
Because even as the robots formed a semi-circle and recalibrated, Deku wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his shaking hand… and smiled again.
It wasn’t smug.
It wasn’t cocky.
It was grateful.
Like this whole shitshow was something he had missed.
And somehow Bakugo Katsuki couldn’t look away once, even while his gut churned away in envy and disgust.
His eyes tracked every movement—the twitch of his dominant leg, the tension in his hip before he rotated into a spin-kick, the way he constantly shifted his centre of gravity to remain impossible to pin down.
This was the sort of shit seasoned Pro Heroes did while in battle, not a fucking Quirkless pebble. And yet here it was. Plain as day.
Bakugo clenched his fists so tight his knuckles went white.
Deku fought like someone who had no one left to protect him. Like someone who expected the world to come for his throat the second he slowed down.
‘But that’s how it always was, wasn’t it?’
He shook his head at the morbid thought, guilt pooling deep in his gut.
He couldn’t ignore how every feint, every parry, every brutal strike—looked like it was all practiced.
Too real.
He had to be dreaming.
The boy he knew wasn’t supposed to be like this. The damn nerd wasn’t supposed to move like a shadow and tear through things like a weapon with skin.
He was supposed to cower.
He was supposed to lose.
But there he was—beating down Tier 4 bots with his bare hands and with that grin—that feral joy carved across the boy’s bruised and bloodied face, looking like he was finally, finally free.
Bakugo’s lip curled.
It made him sick.
The final robot lunged at him, slashing low.
Deku caught the fucking blade.
Not by strength.
By geometry. It was a technique he was keenly aware of.
By redirecting the kinetic angle with a downward palm at just the right moment, using the enemy’s own momentum to throw it off balance. The bot skidded past him.
He didn’t waste the chance.
He spun, heel catching the back of the machine’s joint, sending it crashing forward. His foot slammed into the exposed reactor casing on its spine with the force of a piledriver.
BOOM!
Sparks exploded.
Another down.
And another.
And another.
Each takedown faster, more precise, more decisive than the last.
14 minutes, 43 seconds.
One bot remained.
The nerd’s chest heaved. His fists were bleeding now. His arm hung lower than before. But his eyes—his goddamn eyes—still shone with that fire.
And he moved once more.
The final unit fell with a brutal throat punch followed by a driving knee that shattered its spine.
15 minutes – Combat Simulation Complete.
The buzzer rang out and the lights dimmed.
There stood Izuku Midoriya, amongst the destroyed remains of the droids, basking in the silence.
There was no cheers, nor applause for him.
Just static in the air and the scent of scorched rubber.
Bakugo turned away, jaw tight, voice low.
“…where the hell have you been, Deku?”
Flashback: 9 Months Ago
The rooftop was eerily quiet.
It wasn’t the kind of quiet that came with peace.
No.
It was the kind of quiet that followed rejection, when the heart had stopped pounding and the mind had given up on arguing with itself.
Wind whispered through the cracks of the city skyline, tousling Izuku Midoriya’s messy hair and tugging at his damp shirt. He stood alone, trembling in the golden afterglow of sunset, though there was no warmth to it—only a pale, indifferent light.
Behind him, the door to the rooftop clicked shut, and ahead of him, the city stretched endlessly.
But Izuku didn’t see any of it.
His world had shattered five minutes ago.
“I’m sorry, young Midoriya. You can't become a hero without a Quirk.”
The words had been spoken softly. Not cruelly, but the mercy in his tone didn’t soften its’ meaning.
All Might—the symbol of peace, his lifelong idol, his reason for breathing—had said it plainly, with finality. Without room for hope.
Gone in a flash of wind and steam. Leaving behind only the faint scent of burnt ozone... and the crushing weight of reality that shut out the echo of a future that would never come.
Izuku’s legs gave out. He sank down, crumpling like wet paper until he sat with his knees tucked to his chest at the edge of the rooftop, his shoulders hunched forward. The stone felt cold beneath him.
He didn’t cry.
He couldn't.
Not anymore.
His eyes were dry—Hollow. Unblinking.
He stared at his hands as if seeing them for the first time.
Small. Dirty. Useless. Pathetic. A Deku, after all.
The words played on loop in his head, louder than the sounds of the city below, louder than the wind, louder than the distant sirens and honking horns of a world that didn’t care.
He had dreamed of being a hero his entire life.
‘I jumped in to save Kacchan.’
He had risked his own life for him.
‘I moved when no one else did. Wasn’t that what heroes do?’
His throat burned as bile began to rise.
‘Isn’t that enough?’
And it still wasn’t enough.
There was no justice. No reward. No salvation. Not for him.
Not when he was born without a Quirk.
All he had gotten throughout his life was a swift "no."
He was never looked at twice. He was an abomination. A genetic anomaly that disturbed the very order of things. A null among Quirks.
'I'd be better off gone! Far away from Kacchan or All Might...'
A sudden gust swept across the rooftop, but Izuku didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. Still buried deep within his suffocating thoughts.
Not until the air behind him bent.
It didn’t make a sound at first—not a bang, not a rumble. Just a strange, soft warping, like the sky was being folded. The temperature dropped. Shadows twisted.
Then came the hum. It was low, mechanical. Wrong.
Izuku turned slowly—heartbeat thudding like war drums in his ears.
And saw it.
A rift, torn jagged into the fabric of space itself. Thick mist poured from its edges like a bleeding wound. It pulsed—alive and hungry. Wanting with a malevolent energy that made his skin crawl.
Izuku stumbled to his feet, mouth opening in mute disbelief. He took a cautious step backward, but the rooftop offered no escape. Just empty air behind him, a city too far below to matter.
It wasn’t wind anymore.
It was suction.
Then—
From the portal, a hand emerged.
Thin. Deathly pale. Each finger grotesquely long and tipped in blackened nails. The hand spasmed in the cold air as it reached forward, grasping at nothing.
Another hand followed.
Then three more.
Then ten.
Dozens of them, sprouting like diseased roots from the portal’s void. Some crawled across the ground, others groped at the air. All of them moved with unnatural fluidity, like spiders with human skin, as they groped and searched.
For him.
Izuku’s breath hitched. “Wh—What is that...?”
He stumbled back, his shoes scraping against the rooftop gravel.
His instincts screamed to run, but the creeping terror rooted him in place.
He had to escape, but alas it was far too late.
For the hands had found him.
One snatched his ankle, yanking him off balance. Another seized his wrist, twisting it painfully behind his back. More gripped his thighs, his waist, his chest. They were cold and clammy and inhumanly strong.
He screamed.
“NO! SOMEBODY—! HELP ME—!!”
His voice echoed into the empty sky, but no answer came.
The portal widened, warping into a gaping, swirling maw—dark as pitch and rimmed with mist.
Izuku fought. Kicked. Bit down on one of the hands with all his might.
He had to get out. To escape.
But it didn’t matter for there were too many.
One hand slammed over his mouth. Another cradled his face with sickening tenderness, like a mother comforting a child.
His body was dragged backward—inch by inch—toward the black mass of the rift.
He clawed at the rooftop floor. His fingers left thick, wet streaks of blood where his nails tore away from the force.
He turned his head, eyes wild with desperation and tears, silently pleading for someone—anyone—to come.
But there was nothing.
No All Might. No heroes. No rescue.
Only the chilly, unwilling wind.
That left just Izuku Midoriya and this malevolent void.
And then—just before the darkness swallowed him whole—
A voice slithered from within the darkness.
Low. Smooth. Cruel.
It was amused at seeing him despair.
“Don’t worry, little hero… We’ll make you into something far greater.”
The words wrapped around his mind like chains.
And then—
FWOOOSH!
The portal vanished.
And so did Izuku Midoriya.
As if he had never existed at all.