By the end of that same day, Class 1-A returned to Heights Alliance looking like they had lost a war.
The dormitory's main door slowly opened.
Dash was one of the first to enter.
Or, at least, half of him entered under his own power.
The other half was practically hanging off Kirishima.
"I can't feel my legs."
Dash dragged his feet across the floor while keeping one arm completely slung over his friend's shoulders.
Kirishima did not exactly look like he was in any condition to support another person either.
"I can't feel mine either."
He grimaced as he took another step.
"Or anything else."
"Lucky you."
"How is that lucky?!"
Dash let out a groan.
"My legs feel like they're trying to resign from my body."
Kirishima took a deep breath.
"My entire body already handed in its resignation letter."
Behind them, Kaminari walked with the posture of someone who had just discovered that gravity was his personal enemy.
Mina walked beside him, her arms hanging completely limp.
Sero carried his own backpack as though it weighed fifty kilograms.
Ojiro looked like he was reconsidering every decision that had led him to the Hero Course.
Even Iida was moving more slowly.
"Posture..." he muttered to himself as he tried to keep his back straight. "We must maintain... proper posture..."
His knee nearly gave out.
"...Even in the face of fatigue."
Uraraka walked past him.
"Iida, you're shaking."
"I AM PERFECTLY FINE."
"No one believes that," Jiro commented.
Momo let out a small sigh.
"It was only the first day..."
The entire class stopped for a second.
Kaminari slowly turned his head.
"...Don't say that."
Momo blinked.
"I only meant that—"
"Don't say that," Sero repeated.
Mina placed her hands over her ears.
"We still have nine more days."
"MINA!"
"SORRY!"
Ryo entered last, walking normally.
That alone already felt like a provocation to everyone else.
He carried his helmet under one arm and walked with the same calmness he would have had after an ordinary class.
No heavy breathing.
No slouched posture.
No real sign of exhaustion whatsoever.
Kaminari looked back, narrowing his eyes.
"I hate him..."
Ryo raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
"Nothing."
Dash managed to lift his head enough to look at Ryo.
"You're not tired?"
Ryo thought about it for a few seconds.
"...Maybe a little."
Several people made indignant noises, causing Ryo to raise one hand defensively.
"Hey, it's not my fault I have more stamina than you guys."
"You spent HOURS fighting my dad!"
Dash pointed at him.
"The Number Two Hero in the U.S.!"
Ryo stopped.
The mention immediately brought back a memory from several hours earlier.
Bob had taken a step back after blocking a strike.
Ryo vanished from in front of him, and the hero turned around too late.
The boy slammed a powerful elbow into his back, not with enough force to cause serious damage, of course.
But definitely with enough force to make a crack echo from his spine.
Bob went rigid.
"ARGH!"
Ryo stopped.
"Are you okay?"
Bob placed a hand against his lower back.
"Y-Yeah... Just... give me a second..."
He tried to straighten up but immediately grimaced.
"Ugh... my back..."
Helen, on the other side of the field, had started laughing.
Bob pointed at her without turning around.
"Don't even start."
Back in the present, Ryo made a small grimace.
He looked at Dash.
"...Sorry for hitting your dad."
Dash blinked.
"What?"
Ryo awkwardly scratched his cheek.
"Nothing..."
The class managed to make it a few more meters into the common area before they caught the delicious smell filling the room.
Kirishima and Dash stopped.
Mina slowly raised her head.
Kaminari took a deep breath, inhaling the scent as life gradually returned to his eyes.
"...Food."
Ryo turned toward the kitchen when he heard footsteps coming from inside.
"You're back!"
Yuuko emerged with a huge smile on her face.
She was wearing much more casual clothes than the day before, with her sleeves rolled up to her elbows and an apron over them.
When she saw the state of the class, she laughed.
"My goodness."
She placed one hand on her hip.
"Why the long faces?"
Kirishima almost looked offended.
"Mrs. Takeda..."
He vaguely pointed at his own body.
"...We were destroyed."
Dash slid down onto the floor like a helpless princess.
"I was a victim of domestic violence..."
Yuuko blinked.
"Really?"
He ran his hands over his legs.
"I can't... I can't feel them anymore..."
"Poor thing..."
Yuuko clapped her hands.
"But come on, don't look so miserable."
The class looked at her.
"I know exactly how to make up for all your hard work."
She took two steps to the side and revealed the enormous table overflowing with food, plates covering practically the entire surface and making it look as though Yuuko was trying to feed a small army.
The smell spread throughout the entire room.
Kaminari slowly opened his mouth.
Mina brought her hands to her cheeks.
And Sero stood completely still.
Even Bakugo, who had entered silently a few seconds earlier, stopped when he saw the table.
Yuuko spread her arms proudly.
"Today, you're all going to rest after such a long day of hard work."
She smiled.
"And there's no better reward than a feast worthy of all that effort."
Kirishima began to tremble.
Dash felt his eyes sting.
"This is so peak..."
Kirishima took a deep breath.
"It's a sight that could make even the manliest of men cry..."
Yuuko laughed.
"Go take a shower, relax, and change your clothes."
She pointed toward the table.
"When you come back, eat as much as you want."
For some reason, the late-afternoon sunlight came through one of the windows at that exact moment.
It illuminated Yuuko from behind.
The entire class stared at the sight in absolute silence.
To those twenty exhausted, sore, sweaty, and starving teenagers...
Yuuko looked like an angel.
An angel sent directly from the heavens to wrap them in a warm, comforting embrace after an incredibly difficult day.
Kirishima clasped his hands together.
"Thank you..."
Dash discreetly wiped the corner of his eye.
"I can't believe someone this kind actually exists..."
Yuuko started to look a little embarrassed.
"It's really not that big of a deal."
"IT IS."
Kaminari raised one arm into the air.
"MAMA TAKEDA!"
Yuuko froze.
Ryo froze too.
The entire room fell silent.
Kaminari pressed his hands together.
"Thank you, Mama Takeda!"
Sero started laughing.
"Mama Takeda!"
Mina raised her arms as well.
"MAMA TAKEDA~!"
Hagakure immediately joined in.
"MAMA TAKEDA~!"
Uraraka tried to hold back her laughter.
"Mama Takeda..."
Kirishima clenched his fists.
"MAMA TAKEDA!"
Dash was already completely gone.
"MOMMY!"
Yuuko turned completely red.
"H-Hey..."
Momo brought one hand to her mouth to suppress a laugh as she watched the chorus forming around her.
"MAMA TAKEDA!"
"MAMA TAKEDA!"
"MAMA TAKEDA!"
A vein appeared on Ryo's forehead.
"Hey... Stop that."
Nobody listened.
"MAMA TAKEDA!"
Ryo pressed his helmet tightly against his side.
"I said stop."
Kaminari raised his hands.
"Long live Mama Takeda!"
"STOP CALLING MY MOM 'MAMA'!"
The room exploded into laughter.
Dash rolled across the floor laughing.
"What's the problem, Takeda?!"
"SHE'S NOT YOUR MOM!"
Mina wiped away a tear.
Sero pointed at Yuuko.
"But she takes care of us!"
"SHE'S THE SUPERVISOR!"
"SUPERVISOR MOMMY!"
Yuuko was covering her mouth, clearly trying not to laugh.
Ryo turned toward her.
"Mom!"
"Sorry."
She failed miserably at hiding her smile.
Ryo looked back at the class.
"Enough."
He started walking toward them.
Kaminari backed away.
"Hey, hey..."
Ryo placed both hands on his back and started pushing him.
"Go take a shower."
"I can walk!"
Ryo shoved Sero along with him.
"You too."
"Calm down!"
Mina started laughing as Ryo began pushing practically anyone within reach.
"Go shower!"
Kirishima tried to protect Dash.
"He can barely walk!"
"Drag him!"
Dash's eyes widened.
"WHAT KIND OF FRIEND ARE YOU?!"
Ryo literally kicked Kaminari in the butt toward the stairs.
"OW!"
"Move!"
Another small kick for Sero.
"This is abuse!"
"Shut up and walk."
Mina ran upstairs laughing.
"Someone is embarrassed~!"
"I'M NOT EMBARRASSED!"
Jiro walked past him.
"You are."
"I'm not!"
"You definitely are," Uraraka replied.
The class headed upstairs amid laughter, complaints, and occasional new cries of "Mama Takeda!", each one immediately followed by Ryo's irritated voice demanding that they stop.
Yuuko remained beside the table.
She watched her son's figure disappear upstairs while he argued with Dash about how he could not simply adopt someone else's mother.
Yuuko smiled.
Ryo had always been protective of her.
Even when he was a child.
But seeing him like that...
Defending her from something so completely harmless.
It made her realize just how much he truly loved her.
Yuuko gently crossed her arms, thinking that maybe sharing the title of "mom" a little would not be so bad after all.
As long as Ryo never found out she thought that way.
----------------------------------------
Later that night, after showers, dinner, and an absurdly long amount of time listening to Kaminari insist that "Mama Takeda" was an honorific title, Ryo finally managed to escape to his own room.
Normally, he would have stayed with the others in the living room watching whatever was on.
Playing with Dash and Sero.
Or simply taking up some couch while everyone made noise around him.
But that night, he wanted to be alone.
Ryo closed the door behind him, tossed his phone onto the bed, and sat down at his desk.
The monitors lit up.
He spent a few seconds staring at the screen.
"...Learn how to punch."
Ryo opened the browser.
Not long after, an old karate video lesson filled the screen.
Ryo immediately recognized the instructor.
"Huh."
He leaned slightly forward.
"I've seen this before."
Years ago.
After the judo classes at his old school, Ryo had developed a curiosity for other martial arts.
Karate.
Boxing.
Muay Thai.
A little taekwondo.
Some jiu-jitsu techniques.
Nothing deep.
Nothing enough for him to call himself an expert in any of them.
He researched, watched videos, repeated the movements, and kept whatever seemed useful.
Back then, he thought he was learning.
But now he realized that, most of the time, he had simply been copying.
The instructor in the video assumed a basic stance, and Ryo watched far more carefully than he had the first time.
It was the same sequence Bob had described.
The instructor explained that power should not come from the arm alone. The body had to function like a chain.
One gear pulling the next.
Ryo rested his chin on his hand.
"...Engine."
The legs created the initial force.
"Transmission."
The hips and torso carried that force.
"Whip."
The arm accelerated the movement.
"Impact."
The fist delivered everything at the end.
Ryo paused the video and stared at the screen.
"That still doesn't solve my problem."
That could make his physical strikes better. Much better, even.
But Bob had been trying to solve the problem of a body that did not fully use all of its muscular strength.
Ryo's problem, however, had more to do with his internal energy.
Whenever he activated Inner Transition, it did not matter how correct his posture was, the energy he produced always ended up overflowing.
He could learn the perfect punch and still lose eighty percent of what he generated before the strike even reached its target.
Ryo leaned back in his chair.
"But even so, the fundamentals are almost the same..."
He scrolled down the page.
"What am I missing?"
Ryo kept scrolling until a title caught his attention.
TAI CHI: HOW TO CONTROL YOUR INTERNAL ENERGY (QI)
Ryo stared at it.
"...Internal energy?"
The video began with an older man calmly explaining some basic principles of Tai Chi.
Breathing.
Relaxation.
Body awareness.
Movement guided by intention.
The instructor spoke about Qi as internal energy according to Chinese tradition, circulating through the body and being guided through breathing and concentration.
Ryo rested his face against his hand.
"That sounds kind of..."
He grimaced.
"...esoteric."
Even so, he kept watching.
Not because he immediately believed there was some mystical energy hidden inside ordinary people.
But because he literally had energy inside himself that he wanted to control.
The instructor was not simply telling him to "use energy."
He talked about feeling it first.
Recognizing where tension existed.
Becoming aware of the entire body without treating it as a single mass.
Guiding intent toward specific points.
Ryo slowly straightened before looking at his own hand.
That was the exact opposite of what he did.
Ever since developing Inner Transition, his method had always been brutally simple.
He treated his own body like a single circuit: he activated the energy and dumped it through the entire network at once, simply trying to minimize how much potential was lost along the way.
Ryo placed his headphones on the desk and closed his eyes.
"Alright."
He took a deep breath.
"Let's try this."
At first, he felt absolutely nothing.
Just his own body.
The weight of his arms.
His breathing.
His heartbeat.
The distant sounds of the dorm.
Kaminari shouting something about yanderes being dream girls to Sero in the room next door.
Ryo opened one eye.
"...Hard to meditate with idiots living here."
He closed his eyes again and slowed his breathing.
This time, he tried doing something he rarely did when using his Quirk.
Trying to focus on the sensation that always came right before Inner Transition.
On that strange heat and pressure inside his body.
The impulse that seemed to emerge from somewhere buried deep within him.
For a few minutes, nothing happened.
Then...
Ryo felt it.
Very faintly and almost imperceptibly.
Like static electricity beneath his skin.
His eyes moved beneath his eyelids.
"Focus."
The sensation was not spreading randomly. It followed pathways.
Ryo took a deeper breath and focused even more on that feeling.
His perception sharpened to the point that his brain began creating an interpretation of the sensation.
He started to see it mentally.
Lines.
Thousands of them.
Beginning from the brain as they traveled down the spinal cord and spread throughout the nerves.
The energy was not simply "inside his body."
It seemed to use his nervous system as a distribution network.
That made sense.
Inner Transition already increased reaction speed, coordination, strength, and perception.
All of those depended on nerve signals.
So why had he always treated the energy as though he were pouring water into a container?
Ryo took another deep breath.
"Inner Transition."
A minuscule amount of energy awakened.
Immediately, he felt the old pattern.
From the brain...
To everything.
All at once.
Every route open.
Every muscle receiving energy simultaneously.
Even the ones that did not need it.
Ryo frowned.
"That's it."
Until now, his brain had only known a single command.
Release.
It did not know how to direct, divide, or prioritize the energy it released.
Only release it.
It was like an electrical grid where every house received maximum power at the same time, regardless of consumption.
The excess had nowhere to go.
So it leaked out.
Ryo slowly raised his right hand.
"Let's try focusing only here."
He tried sending energy only into his arm.
But nothing changed.
His entire body continued to receive power.
"Hmm..."
He tried again, but the result was the same.
Ryo grimaced.
"Let's take it slow."
He deactivated Inner Transition and breathed deeply, remembering the explanation from the video.
"Feel... Guide..."
Ryo activated an almost insignificant amount again.
This time, instead of trying to send energy directly into his arm, he focused on the path leading toward it.
From the brain to the neck.
From the shoulder to the arm.
From the forearm to the hand.
He imagined every other route closing.
Not completely, just reducing the amount of energy he sent through them.
Ryo felt a faint shiver from the numbness in his arm before slowly moving it and opening his eyes.
A small green line appeared beneath the skin of his arm before fading away.
Ryo froze.
"...I did it."
He looked excitedly at his hand before trying it with his left arm.
Then both arms.
Then one leg and his torso.
Each combination demanded a little more concentration than normal.
Some even failed immediately, causing cramps to seize Ryo.
But little by little, something began to change.
He no longer saw his entire body as a single structure.
His body felt more like a tree now, with his brain serving as the central trunk.
The spinal cord, the main root.
And the nervous system as thousands of smaller roots.
Ryo simply had to choose which pathways among them to feed.
He stood up and once again assumed the stance from the karate video before throwing a punch using the movements he had learned.
WHUMP!
The air in front of him cracked, and a shockwave blasted across the entire room.
The curtains near the balcony whipped violently, and his Lego Death Star broke apart as it crashed onto the floor.
Ryo stood there with his fist extended.
His eyes widened.
He had barely used any energy.
More specifically...
He had used only 0.01% of his total energy.
Ryo looked at his own hand.
"So that was it."
All this time, he had been trying to build a better container.
When what he should have been building were valves.
Ryo pulled the chair back and sat down again.
He needed to test this in a more controlled way.
He closed his eyes.
Activated Inner Transition.
1%.
Normally, even at that level, a large portion of the energy disappeared almost immediately.
Ryo felt the leakage and began organizing the pathways so they would stop functioning as a single current and instead behave more like individual systems.
The energy loss decreased.
Ryo took a deep breath.
2%.
Still stable.
3%.
The green lines began to faintly appear across his body.
But there was none of that familiar sensation of excess.
Ryo opened his eyes.
"More."
5%.
The chair creaked beneath the pressure.
Nothing violently overflowed.
Ryo felt his heart accelerate.
Until now, using higher levels had simply meant accepting that almost all of the energy would be wasted.
But now...
"...7%."
A faint green aura began to emerge.
Ryo immediately adjusted the pathways.
The aura diminished.
His eyes widened.
He had just contained energy that would normally have escaped.
"This is..."
Ryo slowly stood up.
8%.
The glowing lines spread across his arms and neck.
But they did not burst outward.
9%.
His body began to vibrate.
Ryo clenched his teeth.
"I can still go further..."
He separated the flows again.
Brain.
Torso.
Arms.
Legs.
Distinct routes.
Like the roots of a tree receiving water separately instead of a flood covering everything.
10%.
Ryo's pupils dilated, and time seemed to slow for an instant before returning to normal.
A thin, controlled green aura surrounded his body.
Ryo breathed slowly as he looked down at his own hands, which had taken on a faintly negative hue.
That should have been impossible for him in this state.
But he had done it.
Ryo could still feel some of the energy escaping between the pathways, especially whenever he had to rapidly change its distribution.
But it was drastically less.
Before, his energy-loss rate had been 80% of everything he produced.
Now...
The loss rate had dropped from approximately 80% to 55%.
In one night.
Ryo deactivated Inner Transition and slowly sat down on the bed, still unable to believe what he had done.
It had all started with Bob trying to teach him how the body transmitted force.
Then watching a Tai Chi video explaining Qi.
And then somehow reaching... this.
Ryo let out a small laugh.
"Dash's family truly brings incredible things into my life..."
----------------------------------------
The next day, T.K.L. once again had the same battlefield-like atmosphere it had on the first.
Concrete pillars rose and sank under Cementoss's command, Ectoplasm clones patrolled different platforms to assist the students and, scattered throughout the enormous facility, the members of Class 1-A trained with a much sharper focus than on the first day. The initial shock of the training had already passed. Now everyone seemed to understand that those ten days would be a brutal race against time.
Some of them had even already returned from the Development Studio with small improvements to their own costumes.
Kirishima was one of the most satisfied with that.
His new Costume Gamma maintained the overall identity of his previous outfit, but now the look was even more aggressive and imposing, with reinforced details that gave him a fiercer appearance, almost as though the uniform had finally begun to truly match the kind of tough, manly heroism he wanted to convey. He looked so happy with it that he trained with even more enthusiasm than usual, trading violent blows with an Ectoplasm clone while shouting things about manliness and burning spirit.
Kaminari had also returned with visible upgrades.
The new devices on his costume seemed much better prepared to channel and make practical use of his electricity in combat, and the blond had spent a large part of the training testing different ways of discharging energy without frying his own brain in the process. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.
Dash, meanwhile, seemed particularly proud of the improvement he had gotten.
The new helmet or mask with visors was exactly the kind of piece he had been wanting, something more functional, more personal, more his. The entire costume still resembled his family's heroic identity, but it was already beginning to distance itself from the standard outfit he had worn for so long and still wanted to change. And, above all, it protected his face mainly from insects.
Which, for a speedster like Dash, was already more than enough of an argument to consider it a technological revolution.
But in contrast to all of them, Ryo remained practically the same.
Or almost.
His costume had not undergone any visible changes yet, and at the moment he was without his helmet. The piece had been left at the Development Studio for a few adjustments. After the last time in Hosu, Ryo had come to the conclusion that his helmet broke far too easily to be truly reliable as protection and a data display. Reinforcing it to a level compatible with the rest of the suit or with his own body was out of the question because it would completely change the design, so the best solution he had been able to imagine was requesting a retractable system, something that would allow him to pull it back when it was unnecessary or before it became a hindrance in the middle of a fight.
The problem was that this had inevitably caused a question to sprout in his mind.
"Isn't my face tougher than the helmet that's supposed to protect it?"
Ryo stood still on his platform for a few seconds, staring into nothing with a slight crease between his eyebrows.
"What are you thinking about?"
Bob's voice pulled him out of his trance.
Ryo raised his eyes and saw Mr. Incredible a few meters in front of him, already in a fighting stance, his feet firmly planted against the concrete and his arms relaxed, but ready to act at any moment.
Ryo shook his head.
"It's nothing."
Bob raised an eyebrow.
"You sure? Because you had a pretty serious look on your face for someone thinking about nothing."
"I was just thinking about some silly stuff."
Bob smiled.
"Silly thoughts are a distraction in a real fight."
Ryo let out a small sigh through his nose.
"I know."
Bob continued staring at him, but without pressing.
That was when Ryo interrupted him before the training could resume.
"By the way..."
Bob tilted his head slightly.
"Hm?"
"Thank you."
The hero seemed caught off guard by the sudden change of subject.
"Thank me?"
Ryo nodded.
"For what you told me yesterday."
There was a brief silence.
Then Bob pointed a thumb at his own chest and gave a proud grin.
"Ah, of course. No need to thank me. I do this kind of thing all the time."
Ryo let out a short laugh.
"You're bragging."
"It's called educating the next generation, kid."
Ryo shook his head, still wearing a small smile, but his expression soon became more serious and focused.
"Anyway..."
He raised his gaze toward Bob.
"That's why I'm going to show you what I learned."
Bob blinked.
"Now?"
"Yeah."
The boy then closed his eyes.
For a moment, the only things that existed on that platform were the distant sounds of the rest of T.K.L., the strikes, explosions, and the commands of the Ectoplasm clones to the students. Ryo remained completely still in the center of the area, as though he were simply breathing deeply.
Until the air around him changed.
Small pebbles scattered across the concrete around his feet trembled.
Then rose a few centimeters.
Bob frowned slightly when he saw it.
The air around Ryo seemed to compress and distort, almost as though the atmosphere itself were growing heavier around him.
One or two particles of dust began to rise along with the stones.
Bob's eyes widened slightly.
"What...?"
In the next instant, Ryo's eyes snapped open.
BOOOM!
The air exploded around him.
A brutal wave of pressure swept across the entire platform and spread throughout T.K.L., kicking up dust, whipping clothes, sweeping away small debris, and forcing the class and even some of the Ectoplasm clones to cover themselves with their arms on instinct.
Across several areas of the field, heads immediately turned toward the source of the impact.
Midoriya's eyes widened and he held his breath at what he was seeing.
At the center of the cloud of dust, Bob coughed twice, waving away the powder still swirling in front of his face with one hand. He tried to look forward, toward the spot where Ryo had been standing only seconds earlier.
Then his expression froze.
A bead of sweat slowly rolled down his forehead.
"...You've gotta be kidding me."
The smoke began to settle.
First came the small stones, floating around a motionless silhouette.
Then the aura.
Waves of green energy rippled around Ryo's body in a smooth, almost liquid flow (just like Goku's aura in his Blue form). The energy seemed to circulate through him in distinct currents, rising along his body like flames, except green.
His skin had taken on a slightly altered tone beneath that glow, while his hair, previously black, had turned green as a result of the energy temporarily affecting his capillary hemoglobins and altering its pigmentation.
Ryo lowered his gaze toward his own hand, slowly opening and closing his fingers.
Then he raised his eyes toward Bob.
A smile appearing on his face.
Ryo extended his fist toward the hero.
"This is my new form."
Inner Flow
Hero Course Class 1-A: Ryo Tanaka is ready for the Provisional Hero License Exam!