The day of the U.A. Sports Festival dawned under a perfect sky — too perfect, almost. The clouds hung motionless, soft like brushstrokes against blue, and the air carried that clean crispness that always seemed to precede something important. For most of Japan, it was a day of excitement — heroes in the making, competition, pride. But for the students of Class 1-A, it was also a test of something deeper: moving forward.
Midoriya stood in the locker room, tying his shoes. His fingers fumbled, not from nerves about the tournament, but from a tremor he couldn't quite name. His reflection in the small mirror above the bench looked older than before. Not by years — by experience. Ever since that day — since the "entity" vanished into the sea — he hadn't been able to shake the feeling that the world had changed in some quiet, irreversible way.
"Deku?"
Uraraka's voice broke his thoughts. She peeked around the doorway, her usual energy softened by concern. "You okay? You've been zoning out a lot lately."
He forced a smile. "Yeah. Just thinking about strategy."
She tilted her head slightly, unconvinced. "You're always thinking, but this feels different. Like your mind's somewhere else."
Midoriya looked down at his hands. "Maybe it is."
He wanted to say more — about the sleepless nights, about how he kept replaying that blinding light over Musutafu, the stillness before it disappeared. But how do you explain a feeling that had no proof?
Before he could speak, the room's mood shifted — Bakugo walked in. His presence, as always, filled the air like static.
"Quit whispering and get your head straight, nerd," Bakugo muttered. "This is the Sports Festival, not therapy."
Uraraka frowned. "Kacchan—"
"Save it," Bakugo said, but his tone wasn't full of anger — more like deflection. He tightened the strap on his gauntlet, jaw tense. "You think I don't notice it too? The way everyone's acting… like the sky might break open again any minute."
Midoriya blinked. He hadn't expected that. Bakugo's words carried no mockery, only a rare flicker of honesty.
"Yeah," Midoriya admitted quietly. "I guess it's hard not to think about it."
Bakugo snorted. "Thinking doesn't help. Winning does."
He brushed past them, heading toward the entrance tunnel — but something about his shoulders, stiff and heavy, said the same thing as his words: he was scared too.
The stadium roared. Thousands of voices collided into a single wall of sound. Flags waved, cameras flashed, and drones hovered. For the first time in weeks, Musutafu felt alive again — almost too alive, as if everyone was trying to drown out the silence that followed the "incident."
Present Mic's voice thundered through the speakers, "Welcome to the U.A. Sports Festival! Let's hear it for our first years!"
The crowd's cheer rolled like thunder.
Midoriya, standing at the edge of the field, squinted at the sunlight. It hurt his eyes — or maybe it was just the brightness of the world trying to hide its uncertainty. Around him, students buzzed with energy. Kirishima cracked his knuckles, grinning. "Man, it feels good to do something normal again, finally!"Normal," Jiro muttered. "That's one way to describe fighting your classmates in front of millions."Ashido giggled. "Better than staring at the sky waiting for aliens."Her words hung a little too long, and everyone grew quiet for a beat. Then Sero clapped his hands loudly. "Okay, wow, moving on! No aliens today, just heroes!"
Laughter rippled, thin but genuine.
For a brief moment, Midoriya felt warmth — the kind that reminded him why he was here. To prove himself. To grow. To keep going.
But as the introductions ended and the games began, that flicker of unease returned.
The obstacle race was chaos in motion — explosions of quirks, dust, and strategy. Midoriya's focus sharpened in the heat of competition. Every leap, every calculation, every countermeasure — it was instinct. And yet, amid the rush, flashes came unbidden — the silent glow above the sea, the tremor in his bones that day.
He shook his head violently, forcing himself back to the present.
He didn't notice Todoroki matching his pace until the ice hero spoke. "You're distracted."
Midoriya blinked. "What?"
"I can tell," Todoroki said, his tone calm but not unkind. "You keep glancing at the horizon between turns. Like you're expecting something."
Midoriya hesitated, then gave a half-smile. "Just… checking the weather."
Todoroki didn't respond. His eyes, however, carried something Midoriya recognised: he felt it too. That lingering echo of something too big for them to understand.
"Do you think it's really over?" Midoriya asked suddenly, voice quiet beneath the roar of the race.
Todoroki didn't answer right away. His boots slid on the ice as he steadied his balance, gaze fixed ahead.
"I don't think something like that ever really ends," he said finally. "We just stop noticing."
Midoriya didn't know what to say.
For a second, nothing existed except motion. Quirks ignited around him — ice, explosions, engines, stretching limbs. Midoriya didn't think. He reacted.
The giant robots fell first.
Todoroki froze the entire field in a heartbeat, but Midoriya vaulted over the ice, muscle memory carrying him forward. His mind should've been focused only on the race — and for the most part it was — but flashes kept invading the corners of his vision:
The ocean.That falling light.The silent tremor that shouldn't have existed.
He blinked hard, shaking it off.
When the zero-pointers crashed behind them, he sprinted across scattered debris, leaping between broken metal plates, propelling himself forward with controlled bursts of One For All.
Then came the ravine.
Then the minefield.
It all blurred into instinct — until he was crossing the finish line first.
The crowd erupted.
He'd won.
But victory didn't settle anything inside him. It only quieted the noise outside.
He bent over, catching his breath. Around him, students celebrated, gawked, shouted his name.
But he felt that same whisper in his spine.
Later, in the waiting room between rounds, the atmosphere was heavier. Students stretched, strategised, joked , but there was an undercurrent of silence.
Kaminari leaned back in his chair, flipping his phone idly. "Weird thing — international networks are still blocked from sharing footage of that entity. Like, globally."
Jiro frowned. "Blocked? By who?"
"Governments, apparently. Hero Commissions. Everyone's keeping quiet. They say it's to 'prevent misinformation.'"
Ashido made a face. "So basically, we're just supposed to forget about it?"
Sero shrugged. "I mean, if it's gone, what else can we do?"
Midoriya's hands tightened on his knees. "Forgetting isn't the same as moving on," he said softly.
The room quieted again.
Ojiro broke it with gentle practicality. "Maybe that's what heroes are supposed to do — not forget, but keep walking anyway."
That line lingered longer than anyone expected.
By sunset, the air had shifted again. The cheers of the crowd had dulled into softer waves, echoing through the stadium as the final matches approached.
In the waiting hall, Uraraka sat next to Midoriya, her legs bouncing nervously. "You ever feel like… everyone's watching us?"
Midoriya blinked. "You mean the audience?"
She shook her head. "No. Not like that. Just… I don't know. Sometimes I feel like when I look up, something's looking back."
He froze — because that was exactly how he'd felt since the entity appeared.
He met her eyes. "You feel it too?"
She gave a small, uncertain nod. "Maybe I'm just tired."
He wanted to reassure her. To tell her it was nothing. But lying felt wrong. So he said the only honest thing left: "If you are, then I guess we both are."
For a while, neither spoke. The muffled sound of explosions and cheers filled the space instead — the world pretending everything was fine.
The campus had been quiet that Night Before the Sports Festival— eerily, unnaturally quiet. Not the excited hush of students preparing for a big day, but the breathless stillness before a storm.
Midoriya had stood on the dorm balcony, staring up at the sky. The stars seemed too sharp, too focused, like eyes instead of lights.
He thought of that falling radiance above the ocean.He thought of the hum in the air before it disappeared.And the instinct deep inside him whispers: This isn't over.
"Deku."
He turned.
Bakugo stood a few meters away, hands in his pockets, jaw clenched.
"What the hell are you doing?" Bakugo muttered. "It's late."
"I couldn't sleep."
"Tch. Obviously." Bakugo looked away. "Big day tomorrow."
Midoriya didn't believe it. Neither did Bakugo.
A quiet moment passed.
Then Midoriya asked, "You're thinking about it too, aren't you?"
Bakugo didn't answer at first. When he finally spoke, his voice was low.
"You feel it. The waiting."
Midoriya's heart pounded. "Yes."
Bakugo clicked his tongue. "Whatever. If it comes back, we deal with it. Until then, I'm not wasting time staring at the damn sky."
He turned to leave.
But paused in the doorway.
"Oi. Deku."
Midoriya looked up.
"Don't start seeing ghosts." Bakugo's voice was softer than he intended. "You'll miss the real fight."
Then he left.
Midoriya looked back at the sky.
One star flickered — bright, sharp — then vanished.
Maybe it was nothing.
But something cold settled inside his chest.