Gray leaned back in his seat and thought about it for a minute before replying. "I can train the kids if that's what you're asking me. But if you're asking me if I'm willing to be a babysitter, then no, I won't do it."
Nezu simply laughed, his tail twitching merrily. "Good enough for me." Before the principal stepped out of the interrogation room, he turned back over his shoulder. "This will probably take a few hours to officially clear up through the legal channels, but hang in tight. Don't go causing more issues now."
"Deal," Gray said, waving his hand lazily.
Gray remained inside the concrete room, waiting patiently as the afternoon ticked away. Around three hours into his wait, his passive gold accumulation finally hit the threshold required for his next automated upgrade. He opened his system interface and purchased it right away.
[New Upgrade]
(100 Gold) 15 Gold/Hour
[New Hourly Rate]
36 (33) Gold/Hour
Gold: 1
Seeing that it was now a bit after 6:00 PM, Gray did the quick mental math and calculated that the next upgrade would be available in exactly 9 hours. Satisfied with the upgrade, he closed the system interface and casually continued pulling fresh fruit out of his inventory to snack on.
Outside the heavy steel door, a rotation of police officers and a few local pro heroes had been keeping watch over him through the monitoring feeds. Seeing that the powerhouse suspect was just sitting peacefully in the interrogation room eating fruit without causing any destruction, they all let out a massive, collective breath they had been holding. Everyone knew that if a guy who effortlessly toyed with Japan's top heroes decided he wanted to wreck the police station, there was nothing they could do to stop him.
Aizawa had been staying on the other side of the two-way mirror longer than anyone else. At regular intervals, the underground hero kept flashing his red eyes and activating his Erasure quirk, desperately trying to figure out if any of the physical traits or abilities Gray displayed were actually quirk-based. But no matter how many times he stared at the young adult, his quirk came up empty-handed. Gray's physical power didn't waver for a single second.
Gray continued waiting patiently in the quiet room. Finally, at around 8:00 PM, exactly two hours after he had unlocked his latest gold upgrade, the door clicked open, and Principal Nezu walked back inside.
Nezu walked back inside the room, adjusting his red tie. "I have some good news and some bad news." He climbed onto a metal chair and continued, "The good news is that I can take you to UA right now."
Gray leaned in. "And the bad news?"
"The bad news is that you're not allowed to leave UA until we can figure out a better way to handle this mess," the principal explained. "So, before we leave, can you tell us how your powers work?"
"I can, but not here," Gray said, standing up. "I don't want these people listening to anything we say. Shall we go?"
Before he stepped out of the room, he took a quick look at his torn attire from the battle. "Actually, give me a second." He activated his clothes beam, instantly making brand-new, pristine set of weighted Xeno Goku clothes on his body. "Good as new."
Nezu simply had a sparkle in his eyes but chose to keep quiet. Gray was escorted out to a secure police van, placed in the back, and transported directly to the academy grounds.
Once they arrived, he finally got a real look at the inside of the campus. He had taken a few high-altitude scouting trips over the school before, but actually walking through the interior was a completely different experience. Coming straight from a brutal post-apocalyptic world, his automatic instinct upon seeing a massive space surrounded by reinforced walls was that this place would make an incredible, heavily fortified survival settlement.
He shook his head to clear the thought. This is a different world. Besides, after working myself to the bone to rebuild North America in the Walking Dead universe, I want to lay back and take a much different approach this time, he thought.
Nezu began leading Gray through the campus, showing him the different training grounds, academic blocks, and facilities. The detailed tour took them around two hours to complete.
Finally, Gray turned to the mouse-like principal. "So, where am I staying?"
Nezu kept walking toward the administration tower. "Before that, there is something else we need to discuss." He led Gray into the main building and opened the door to his private office. "Please, take a seat."
Gray sat down in a leather chair and crossed his arms. "What's going on?"
Nezu let out a sigh, climbing up to his desk. "The Hero Public Safety Commission didn't want to agree to our terms. Apparently, they wanted to take custody and do their own thing with you. After I made a few calls, they finally backed off. But there was one condition I was unable to avoid." Nezu reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a heavy, high-tech electronic ankle monitor. "They only agreed to let you stay under UA's supervision if you wear this at all times to 'monitor' your exact movements."
Gray's brow furrowed into a deep frown. "And if I don't?"
"Then you go right back to being a wanted fugitive," Nezu replied. "I tried to fight back against it, but the live news broadcasts and recordings didn't help our case. If your fight with the Top 10 had stayed a secret, it wouldn't be an issue... but alas, here we are."
Gray reached out and took the electronic tracker, weighing the plastic-and-metal device in his hand while calculating his options. He knew he could easily wear it for now to keep the peace. But if the corrupt Hero Public Safety Commission tried to abuse their power, or if they tried to make his mission of saving Eri even a fraction harder, he wouldn't mind completely eliminating them. He was fully prepared to level their entire headquarters or hunt down their high-ranking officials one by one until there was no Commission left to track him.
Gray reached down and snapped the ankle monitor onto his leg. As the latch clicked shut, he remembered a potential issue.
"Actually, this might be an issue," Gray said, looking at the principal. "It might not show my location for a full 24-hour period."
Nezu tilted his head, his ears twitching. "Does this have to do with your powers?"
"Yes, it does," Gray replied. He decided to let Nezu in on the existence of his pocket dimension since he fully intended to use it to train the UA students anyway...they were bound to find out sooner or later. "I have access to something called a 'Training Dimension.' Inside that void, I control everything from the local terrain to the gravity settings. I can also manifest simulated enemies or teachers out of thin air. That's what I planned on using when I told you and All Might I could train his successor."
Gray leaned back, pointing down at the tracker. "The thing is, once I step inside that dimension, I spend 30 full days training, but only 24 hours pass out here in the real world."
Nezu's eyes widened slightly as his hyper-intelligent brain instantly calculated the implications. "So you spend 30 days inside the training dimension, but only a single day passes in the real world?"
Gray nodded.
"So that's why you're as absurdly strong as you are?" Nezu asked, adjusting his vest. "You've been inside this dimension a lot?"
"Something like that," Gray said with a small smile. He wasn't planning on giving away all the fine details of his system or his rebirth, just enough to keep them guessing.
"And is that also where you keep getting those fresh fruits and that magical bean you gave All Might to keep fighting?" Nezu questioned.
"Yes," Gray lied smoothly. "Now that you know about my powers, what about the other thing I asked? Are you guys actually going to help me find Eri? Or did I just waste my time?"
"Yes, we are absolutely going to help you," Nezu answered, pouring himself a fresh cup of tea. "I don't know if the government will allow you to legally join the frontline fight just yet, but I asked around. A pro hero named Sir Nighteye is apparently already independently investigating the Shie Hassaikai. He has already accumulated some highly useful intelligence on a few of their operations. We asked him to cooperate with our school network, and he should be reaching out to us very soon."
Nezu took a slow sip of his tea, his dark eyes locking onto Gray's. "Now, are you going to tell us how exactly you know about All Might's condition and All For One?"
"No, I won't," Gray said bluntly. He stood up from his leather chair and stretched his arms. "How about you show me where my room is?"
"You're a really problematic individual, you know that?" Nezu sighed, a small smile returning to his face as he hopped down from his giant desk. "Fine. Follow me."
Nezu took Gray over to the teachers' housing block within the campus. "Your official title is still undecided, and since regular classes don't start for two more weeks, we have plenty of time to come up with something appropriate," Nezu explained. He opened a door, revealing a space that looked like a comfortable one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment. It came with a fully stocked kitchen and was completely furnished. "We usually all eat over at the main cafeteria, but Lunch Rush is currently on vacation, so you'll have to cook for yourself for the time being."
"Thanks," Gray said, immediately scanning the corners of the ceiling and checking the light fixtures to see if he could spot any hidden government cameras or microphones just in case.
Nezu chuckled, watching his movements. "Paranoid much?"
"Can't be too careful these days," Gray replied, continuing his visual sweep of the living room.
"Well, I'll leave you to it then. Once I hear anything concrete back from Sir Nighteye, I'll let you know immediately." Nezu placed the room key directly onto the kitchen counter and calmly walked away.
"Thanks," Gray called out. He closed the door, locked it, and finally sat down on the plush couch in the living room.
'That worked out way better than I hoped,' he thought, leaning his head back. 'Looking over at my current gold generation, it shouldn't take too long to save up for a magical compass just in case Nighteye takes too long to deliver. And since classes don't start for another two weeks, I should have plenty of time to get at least one training session in with Midoriya. I can't wait to see just how much stronger he'll be compared to canon.'
Hoping to find something to pass the time, Gray grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, but he was quickly let down. Absolutely everything on the local channels was completely hero-related, and worst of all, he kept seeing commercial ads featuring Endeavor's face. Before the media could make him any more upset, he clicked the screen off, stood up, and decided to slip outside to personally check out UA's training facilities.
Gray walked down the corridor of the massive training gym, checking out the equipment until he came across an advanced combat simulation room. It was filled with hovering security drones designed to zip through the air and fire low-output training lasers to sharpen a hero's reaction speeds.
'This could actually be perfect for building up baseline Observation Haki,' Gray thought, his eyes lighting up.
He walked over to the main terminal console to configure the settings. The difficulty levels scaled all the way from 1 to 20, so he decided to start right in the middle at level 10 to test the waters. He stepped onto the center of the reinforced gym floor, rolled his shoulders, and waited. The digital wall clock ticked down, and the moment the countdown hit zero, a dozen drones activated, swarming the airspace and firing a dense web of red lasers straight at him.
Gray, keeping his arms relaxed at his sides, relied entirely on his enhanced Saiyan reflexes, using the absolute bare minimum movement, slight tilts of his head and minor shifts of his torso, to let every single laser beam pass harmlessly by his skin. He kept this up effortlessly for five minutes until the system timer chimed and the drones powered down.
'This is pretty good actually,' Gray thought, dusting off his vest. 'I wonder if these facilities are available to all the students right from the start...'
Just outside the gym glass, Aizawa had been walking back to the faculty dorms after a long evening of paperwork when he noticed the high-output arena lights humming inside the facility. Curious, the underground hero detoured into the observation deck, his eyes narrowing as he watched Gray effortlessly dodge a level 10 laser sequence with practically zero wasted motion.
Before Aizawa could turn on his heel and slip back into the shadows, Gray heard his footsteps.
"Wait up, Eraser Head," Gray called out, turning toward the glass with a smirk. "I heard you'll be teaching the incoming kids over at Class 1-A. How about it? Wanna step into the ring and spar for a bit?"
Aizawa let out a long, exhausted sigh, stepping through the automated door into the gym. "I'm rational enough to know I don't stand a chance in there. I just watched you block strikes and go head-to-head with All Might on live television. I already know my quirk does nothing to disable your power source, so what, you just want an excuse to beat me up?"
Gray burst into a hearty laugh. "Well, you have a point." He walked closer. "If you ever change your mind and want to get stronger, just let me know. I'm officially here to make the kids stronger, but I wouldn't mind helping a few of you get stronger."
Before Aizawa could respond to the offer, the doors of the training facility hissed open, and a confident voice echoed through the gym.
"How about me?"
Gray and Aizawa both turned their heads toward the entrance. Standing in the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest, a massive grin plastering her face, was Mirko.