[Emitter Trial Sequence: complete.]
[Total pillars deployed: 64. Structural integrity: 27% remain functional.]
[Peak output during final discharge: 92% of current safe limit.]
[Area control and spread efficiency: 88%. Single-point precision: 97%.]
A brief pause.
[Assessment: destructive potential confirmed. Repeated use of the final beam pattern is not recommended without reinforced infrastructure.]
AURA's comment faded into the settling dust.
Izumi lifted his hands. They were shaking faintly — controlled, but noticeable.
He studied them for a few seconds, then closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. Slow inhale. Slow exhale.
The tremor eased… slightly.
Ten minutes passed like that — rehydrating, stretching, letting the static fade from his muscles.
He pushed himself back up and walked toward the centre of the dome.
"Begin reflex test."
Panels slid open across the walls, revealing small, recessed ports.
[Projectile Storm B—commencing.]
A sharp hiss filled the dome.
Compressed air. Primed metal.
Then they fired.
Small alloy discs — thin, fast, deadly — shot toward him from every direction. Izumi's lightning rose instinctively, threading through his limbs, sharpening his focus. His senses snapped into a higher state — lines of air pressure, faint electrical fields, micro-vibrations of metal in flight.
He moved.
His body blurred from point to point, feet barely hitting the ground as he weaved through the storm. Discs skimmed past his arms, legs, cheek — he felt the ripple of their wake more than the discs themselves.
Lightning flickered across his forearms.
He snapped his wrist, releasing a small discharge that diverted a cluster of projectiles.
Another wave came from behind — he pivoted, kicked off the ground, and rolled through the narrow gap between volleys.
The dome rang with the sound of metal striking metal — discs ricocheting off conductive surfaces.
Fifteen minutes passed under the relentless barrage.
Then the rhythm shifted. The density lowered.
One last volley fired… then silence.
Izumi slowed, letting momentum bleed out of his movement before coming to a stop in the centre. He stood still for several seconds, taking one slow breath after another as his senses unwound from the heightened state.
Five minutes of quiet passed — stretching, shaking out tension.
"Next one."
A rack rose from the floor. Rows of weapons lined it — batons, combat knives, staffs, spears, curved blades, heavy blades.
He reached for a katana.
The moment his fingers wrapped around the hilt, lightning crawled over the blade, forming faint blue trails along the edge. The metal hummed in response.
[Edge Protocol—active.]
Above, drones began emerging from wall panels — the same ones used earlier for reinforced projections. They spread out, forming a loose perimeter before converging toward him in staggered rushes.
The first drone darted low. Izumi stepped forward and cut cleanly through it.
The blade sliced with almost no resistance — the drone split in two, both halves glowing red-hot at the cut line before collapsing.
More came.
He moved smoothly, each step measured.
A downward cut disassembled one.
A turning slash severed another mid-flight.
A horizontal strike sent sparks scattering as the blade carved through a thicker drone core.
He used the flat of the blade to deflect one drone, angled his wrist, and countered with a precise upward slice.
Every motion was efficient. No flourish. No wasted energy.
Fragments littered the ground.
When the drone rush slowed, a final wave descended — erratic, fast, manoeuvring unpredictably. Izumi tightened his grip and advanced, cutting through the cluster with surgical precision, lightning threading through every strike.
Once the last drone dropped, he exhaled once and placed the katana back onto the rack.
His hand shifted to a staff.
He tested its weight, spun it once, then lowered his stance.
The drones rose again.
This time Izumi didn't cut — he controlled distance.
He stepped into the first drone's path and struck with the bottom end of the staff, sending it crashing into the floor.
A second drone swooped behind him — he twisted, the midpoint of the staff whipping around to catch it and redirect it into a drone.
A third approached from above — he slid a hand upward, angled the staff, and struck upward with a controlled burst of lightning running through the wood-like alloy, sending the drone straight into the ceiling.
He moved more aggressively now — spinning the staff in tight arcs, knocking drones aside, cracking them open at seams, using the reach advantage to create space.
A drone attempted a flank manoeuvre — Izumi swept low, striking its underside, flipping it over, then followed through with a downward slam that split its casing.
The last few drones circled erratically.
Izumi stepped forward, rotated the staff behind his back, and drove its tip straight through the final drone's core. It sparked violently, then shattered.
Silence returned.
He rested the staff against his shoulder for a moment, breath steadying, then placed it back onto the rack. The rack sank into the floor.
"Let's take a break. I need to eat something."
He walked to the resting area again and opened his bag.
Inside was another container his mother had packed — sliced apples, a protein bar, nuts, and a small sandwich.
He sat on the bench, eating quietly.
AURA spoke once the chewing slowed.
[Edge Protocol Analysis.]
[Drone neutralizations: 74. Blade efficiency: 92%. Staff control: 89%. Lightning-assisted precision: stable.]
[Recommendation: limit further weapon trials today to avoid grip fatigue.]
Izumi nodded slightly and returned to his food.
Half an hour passed — eating, hydrating, a moment of stillness after continuous exertion.
Izumi clipped the chest plate back into place and walked toward the centre of the dome.
"Run Unstable Environment Protocol."
AURA responded instantly.
[Unstable Environment Protocol—engaged.]
The dome shifted.
The gravity tilted, not enough to throw him, but enough to force constant correction.
Air pressure dipped, tightening the air in his lungs.
Humidity surged, dampening the charge in the room.
Then a magnetic pull tugged at him from three different directions — faint at first, then growing stronger.
His quirk, which always ran like a quiet current under his skin, reacted immediately.
Lightning routes twisted off course.
Small sparks jumped from his forearms without warning.
Izumi narrowed his eyes. "Tone it up a bit, AURA."
[Increasing environmental instability.]
The gravity leaned harder, the pressure thinned further, the magnetic forces distorted his internal currents.
Lightning flared across his arms, stuttering, chaotic.
It crawled across his skin in erratic bursts, refusing to settle into a pattern.
He closed his eyes.
Breathing slow. Controlled.
He focused inward — on every line of current inside him, every thread of charge, every spark trying to scatter.
Lightning crackled over his shoulders, climbed his jaw, spiralled around his torso, but instead of coiling neatly, it twisted and tore itself apart, forming broken arcs, unstable loops.
He stood completely still.
Gravity pulling him sideways.
Air thinning.
Magnetic fields wrenching at his internal current.
He forced the lightning inside him into alignment.
Piece by piece.
He corrected every pathway — grounding one arc, redirecting another, slowing a third, tightening the fourth.
Sparks stabilized. Then destabilized again.
His body shook with the effort of controlling something that didn't want to be controlled.
Minutes stretched.
Lightning crawled along his skin in jagged, frantic patterns.
Instead of forcing it into uniformity, Izumi adapted to the chaos — nudging one line while letting another compensate, redirecting charge through muscle rather than quirk channels, shaping the field around him instead of inside him.
Slowly — painfully — the lightning around him shifted from feral to responsive.
Still chaotic.
But obedient to him.
The environment pressed harder.
Sparks jumped in sharp bursts.
He absorbed each shift, adjusting his internal current, his breathing, his posture.
One hour passed.
Finally, AURA spoke.
[Unstable Environment Protocol complete. Lightning stability under environmental distortion: 67%. Magnetic resistance improved by 0.4%. Neural synchronization increased: 64.0% → 64.6%.]
The fields levelled. Gravity normalized. Humidity dropped.
Izumi exhaled and rolled his shoulders.
"Deactivate."
The dome steadied.
He let the chest plate disengage, the lock snapping open across his sternum. He set it down beside his foot.
"Activate Blackout Protocol."
AURA paused, then responded with a different tone — stripped of its usual diagnostic cadence.
[Blackout Protocol initialized. All sensors disabled. System awareness suspended. No data will be recorded.]
The lights dimmed in a soft pulse — a sign that the dome's intelligence had gone dark.
AURA would remember nothing from this point onward.
No logs.
No telemetry.
No monitoring.
Just silent, empty space.
Without AURA watching, the lightning inside him surged to a level he never allowed under observation — wild, dense, alive.
If anyone had been monitoring, they would've seen the synchronization spike from the mid–60s to over 73% in seconds.
But no one was.
He extended his hand toward the far wall.
Several of the embedded plates began to vibrate… then tore free of the metal with a shriek, pulled outward as if yanked by invisible hands.
They hovered in front of him — wavering, suspended.
Izumi focused.
Electromagnetic fields bent under his will, and the plates began to deform, metal rippling like liquid.
A spike.
A shield.
A curved blade.
A folded barrier.
He lifted his other hand.
More plates ripped free from the ceiling, pulled cleanly from their frames. They floated beside the first set, rotating, shifting shape.
His breathing deepened.
The lightning weaving through him threaded into the fields around him — extending his reach, shaping, moulding.
Thirty plates.
Then forty.
Almost fifty.
He flicked his fingers, and the shapes flew apart — not away from him, but around him, orbiting in a tight, fast circle.
Metal blurred at incredible speed, becoming a rotating ring of shifting forms.
He altered a field — the ring compressed.
Another shift — a cluster broke off, attacking the main ring.
Metal clashed with metal, not chaotically, but on a command structure only he understood.
A drill-shaped construct pierced a shield.
A spear shattered into fragments and reformed mid-air.
A rotating disc sliced through a cube, which reassembled a second later.
He moved his hands subtly, guiding electromagnetic fields with precision.
The constructs fought each other — coordinated patterns, tests of form, speed, density, response.
It was quiet violence — metal deforming, reshaping, colliding — all without a single word.
Half an hour passed.
Izumi finally lowered his hands.
The objects froze in place.
Then, slowly, they reverted — metal folding back into their flat, plate-like shapes. One by one, the plates dropped to the floor in dull metallic thuds.
The air settled.
The dome fell silent.
Izumi exhaled — tired, but steady — and looked over the scattered plates around him.
'…This would've been easier if I had proper electromagnetic control… and not just lightning.'
Not frustration.
Just acknowledgement.
Izumi drew one final steady breath… then turned away from the wreckage, the faint static still rolling beneath his skin.
***
"Mom, I'm going outside. I'll be back in an hour or two."
I lean into the study.
Mom stands over Ayaka, who is surrounded by papers scattered across the table. Both look up. Ayaka freezes mid-writing, eyes wide and desperate.
A silent scream aimed directly at me.
'SAVE ME, BROTHER!'
I focus on Mom instead.
She gives me a small nod and turns back to the documents.
"Alright. Stay safe."
I ignore Ayaka's pleading stare and step out into the hallway.
Behind me, a faint cry echoes:
"Traitor!"
I keep walking.
Outside, I head toward the driveway. Our driver, Mr. Kaito, is standing beside the car, phone pressed to his ear. He notices me immediately and excuses himself from the call with a quick bow.
"Young master," he says respectfully. "Forgive me, I should've been more attentive."
"That's fine."
I approach the car.
"Can you take me to U.A.?"
"Of course."
After a drive through afternoon traffic, we pull up at the academy's main drop-off point. Students are still in class; the area is quiet.
"We have arrived, young master."
"Head home without me. I'll return by taxi."
Mr. Kaito bows slightly. "Understood."
I step out and walk toward the entrance.
Half an hour passes before students begin filing out of the building in steady clusters. Voices rise, conversations overlap, footsteps scatter across the courtyard.
I stand near the pathway lined with the statues of former pro heroes — the alumni U.A. is so proud of.
I scan the flow of students.
Familiar faces appear quickly — Tenya Iida moving with rigid posture, Itsuka Kendo laughing with her friends, Kirishima weaving through the crowd with that unmistakable bright hair.
Several others from the future 1-A and 1-B classes pass by.
The longer I stand there, the more stares I feel sliding in my direction.
Boys. Girls. Groups whispering behind hands.
It doesn't take long.
"Who is that?"
"I didn't see him during the exam."
"He's… kind of handsome."
"New transfer maybe?"
"He looks older—"
"Does he model or something?"
Thanks to my parents, I inherited good genetics.
Sharp features from my mother, build and height from my father.
Ayaka and I ended up being well-known faces in the higher social circles — dinners, gatherings, charity events.
Polished families always notice things like that.
And right now, with my tone-build showing through my clothes — a simple dark jacket over a black t-shirt — and the way I'm standing here alone… I probably stand out more than necessary.
I sigh quietly.
'I'm a hundred percent sure we're going to get complaints from students and teachers once classes start… broken bones, bruised egos, something.
Ayaka doesn't tolerate stares — I don't even need to say anything. She'll handle it on her own the moment someone breathes wrong near her.'
I rub my neck lightly.
This is going to be… something.