Sorry for not being able to post any updates for 2 weeks, but I was in exams. I tried to post to let you know before the exams began, but I got caught before I could upload. As an apology, I will be posting a chapter every day for about 3 weeks.
Enjoy, and don't forget to add to the library.
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The next few days at U.A. were... interesting. For the first time in years, we had to follow a normal school schedule. It was weird.
In English class, Present Mic was as loud as ever. He shouted English words and made everyone repeat them. Nozomi just listened, already knowing everything. I spent the class secretly using my phone to talk to E.V.E. and plan upgrades for the lab.
In Hero Basic Training, All Might was the teacher. He was huge and smiled a lot. The class was a simple battle exercise. Students were put into teams to fight each other in fake buildings.
Nozomi and I were put on different teams and didn't get to fight each other, which was probably a good thing for the school building.
My partner was a quiet boy named Tokoyami, who had a bird head. His "Quirk" was a shadow monster named Dark Shadow. Our opponents were Tenya Iida and Ochaco Uraraka.
The fight was over in less than a minute. I didn't even use his claws. I just moved too fast for Iida to see. I gently tapped Iida and Uraraka on the shoulder before they could react.
"Game over," I smirked.
Iida was shocked. "Such speed! It is illogical!"
Nozomi's fight was even faster. She was on Momo's side against Kirishima and Kaminari.
Kirishima, with his hard skin, charged right at Nozomi. She didn't move. She just looked at him. A soft, golden light wrapped around his legs, and he tripped, falling hard on the floor.
Kaminari tried to shoot electricity at her. Nozomi held up a hand. The electricity hit her palm, swirled into a ball of light, and vanished.
"Thanks for the charge," she said with a small smile. Then she created a gentle pulse of golden energy that pushed both boys against the wall, sticking them there until the match was called.
Momo watched, her mouth open. She had been ready to create a shield, but she didn't even have time.
After class, their homeroom teacher, Aizawa, found us. He looked as tired as always.
"A word," he said, his voice flat.
He led us to a quiet hallway.
"Your control is good," he said, looking from me to Nozomi. "Too good. You're holding back so much it's obvious. You're trying not to break your classmates."
We glanced at each other but didn't say anything.
"I'm not going to tell you to go all out," Aizawa continued. "That would be stupid and dangerous for everyone else. But this 'playing nice' is a problem. You're not being challenged. You're not growing."
He let that sink in for a moment.
"Your real training won't be in these simple exercises. I'm giving you both a special assignment."
He handed each of us a small data chip.
"These are advanced analysis programs. Your job is to watch your classmates. Study their Quirks, their fighting styles, and their weaknesses. I want a full report on how you would defeat every single person in Class 1-A, using only the minimum amount of your own power needed. I want you to think, not just fight. Understand?"
I took the chip. "You want us to learn how to be tacticians. To win with our brains, not just our power."
Aizawa almost smiled. It was a scary sight. "Finally, someone who gets it. Don't disappoint me."
He walked away, his sleeping bag rustling.
Nozomi looked at the chip in her hand. "He's smarter than he looks."
"That's why he's the teacher," I answered. I was already thinking. How would I beat Momo? Or Todoroki, with his ice and fire? This was a new kind of challenge.
It was more interesting than I thought it would be.
Later that day, we were back in their lab with Momo. We told her about Aizawa's assignment.
"That's... actually a brilliant idea," Momo said, her eyes lighting up. "It forces you to engage with the class on a strategic level."
"Help us with yours," Nozomi said, grinning. "How would you beat Creation?"
Momo blinked, then laughed. "Well, that's a fun question. I suppose you would have to stop me from creating anything. Maybe a fast, close-range attack before I can make a tool..."
For the next hour, the three of us talked and debated. We used E.V.E. to run simulations. We weren't just planning how to win fights. We were learning how their future friends and teammates worked.
It was the most useful homework we had ever been given.
As Momo left that evening, she turned to us.
"You know," she said. "I was a little scared of you both after the first day. But now... I'm just glad you're on our side."
"I don't think the villains would say the same," I joked.
She chuckled before entering the car and heading home.
A few days later, lunch in the U.A. cafeteria was its usual controlled chaos. I was sitting with Nozomi and Momo, picking at my food while we were chatting.
Our conversation was cut short by a sudden, sharp gasp from Momo. She was staring past my shoulder, her face pale.
I turned. At a nearby table, Midoriya was hunched over, a half-eaten sandwich in his hand. His right arm was wrapped in fresh bandages, his fingers trembling so badly he could barely hold his food. The sight sent a cold, familiar feeling through my gut. I'd seen that kind of pain before—the aftermath of power that breaks the vessel it flows through.
"Oh, dear," Momo murmured, her voice tight with sympathy. "That looks... incredibly painful."
Nozomi followed our gaze, her usual playful smirk gone. "His bones turned to gravel during the entrance exam. He hasn't learned to control it yet. He's breaking himself to be strong."
We watched as Midoriya fumbled, the sandwich nearly slipping from his shaky grip. The people around him chatted, oblivious.
"He needs help," Momo said, more to herself than us. "Proper guidance. Not just recovery."
Before I could say anything, a loud, brash voice cut across the cafeteria.
"OUTTA MY WAY, DEKU!"
Bakugo stomped past Midoriya's table, not even looking at him. His shoulder clipped Midoriya's bad arm. Midoriya hissed in pain, the sandwich finally tumbling from his hand onto the floor.
Bakugo didn't stop. Didn't acknowledge it. He just kept walking, a storm cloud of anger rolling off him.
A heavy silence fell over our table. Momo looked horrified. Nozomi's eyes narrowed, her tails giving a single, sharp flick.
"That," Nozomi said, her voice dangerously quiet, "was cruel."
I watched Midoriya stare at his lost lunch, a look of pure defeat on his face. Something in me twitched. It wasn't just about the sandwich. It was the sheer, pointless cruelty of it. The waste.
I stood up.
"Hiro?" Momo asked, concerned.
"Be right back."
I walked over to the lunch line, grabbed a fresh sandwich, a bag of chips, and a carton of milk. I paid and walked straight to Midoriya's table.
He flinched as my shadow fell over him, looking up with wide, nervous eyes. "K-Kirigaya?"
I set the food down in front of him. "Eat," I said, my tone flat but not unkind.
He stared at the food, then at me, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. "I... you didn't have to... I can't accept—"
"You're shaking so bad you lost your lunch to a gust of hot air," I interrupted, nodding towards Bakugo's retreating figure. "You need the calories to heal. Consider it a tactical investment. A broken tool is useless."
It was a harsh way to put it, but it was a language I understood. A language of efficiency. His eyes widened, and for a second, I saw a flicker of understanding beneath the anxiety.
"Th-thank you," he stammered, finally.
I just nodded and turned to leave. As I passed Bakugo's table, I didn't look at him. I just let my voice drop, low enough that only he would hear.
"Real strong," I said, the words dripping with cold disdain. "Picking on the injured kid. Very heroic."
I kept walking, feeling his explosive gaze burning into my back. I didn't care.
When I sat back down, Momo was giving me a soft, approving look. Nozomi just smirked.
"Playing the white knight?" she teased.
"Playing logic," I corrected, picking up my own fork. "Aizawa wants us to analyze weaknesses. His biggest weakness isn't his Quirk. It's his body. Letting him starve mid-recovery is counterproductive to the class's overall strength."
Nozomi's smirk widened. She saw right through me. "Sure. Let's go with that."
Momo looked between us, then back at Midoriya, who was now slowly, carefully eating the sandwich. "You're right, though," she said. "He needs support. Not just medical. He needs to understand his own power."
"Good luck getting through to him," I muttered. "He's got more walls than a fortress."
The rest of lunch passed quietly. But as we were leaving, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Midoriya.
He bowed deeply, his bandaged arm held stiffly at his side. "Thank you again, Kirigaya! I won't forget your kindness!"
I just looked at him. The sheer, genuine gratitude was… overwhelming. "Just eat your food, Midoriya. And see Recovery Girl."
As he scurried off, Nozomi looped her arm through mine. "See? Not so bad making friends."
"That wasn't making a friend," I said. "That was fixing a problem."
"Same thing, sometimes," Momo said softly from my other side.
The bell rang, ending the school day. As the class packed up, the usual chatter filled the room. Iida was lecturing Kaminari about proper posture for backpack wear. Bakugo was shoving his way to the door. Midoriya was carefully tucking his notebooks away.
I was putting my own things away when a shadow fell over my desk. I looked up into the spiky blonde hair and furious red eyes of Katsuki Bakugo.
"The hell was that at lunch, Fox Freak?" he snarled, his voice low and dangerous. A small, warning crackle popped in his palm.
I slowly closed my bag, not breaking eye contact. "Was what?"
"You know what! That little comment. You got something to say to me?"
Around us, the class went quiet. Kirishima looked worried. Uraraka froze. I could feel Nozomi's attention sharpen from a few desks over, though she didn't move.
I stood up, meeting him at eye level. "I stated an observation. Targeting an injured classmate's physical weakness to make yourself feel bigger isn't strength. It's a flaw. It's illogical." I repeated Aizawa's favorite word deliberately.
His eye twitched. "You think you're so smart because you're fast? You don't know a damn thing about strength!"
"I know wasting potential is stupid," I said, my voice flat. "And right now, you're wasting yours on pointless anger."
For a second, I thought he might actually swing. The air around his hand grew hot. But then a voice, dry and exhausted, cut through the tension.
"Bakugo. Kirigaya. Is there a problem?"
Aizawa was still lying in his sleeping bag in the corner, just his head poking out. He looked utterly bored.
Bakugo scoffed, lowering his hand. "Tch. Nothing." He shot me one last, venomous glare. "This isn't over." Then he shouldered past me and stormed out of the classroom.
The room let out a collective, silent breath.
Aizawa's dark eyes lingered on me. "See me after school, Kirigaya. Both of you." His head disappeared back into the yellow cocoon.
Great.
Once the classroom was empty except for our teacher and us, he unzipped himself and stood, stretching like a cat.
"That," he said, pointing a finger at me, "was provocative. And logically sound." He sounded almost approving. "Bakugo's aggression is a liability. It needs to be challenged. But you," he turned his gaze to include Nozomi, "can't afford to make enemies out of your future teammates. Not like that."
"He made himself the enemy of the class the moment he decided we were all extras," Nozomi said coolly, leaning against a desk. "Someone had to draw the line."
"Your analysis?" Aizawa asked, turning it back into a lesson.
"Prideful. Insecure. Power is his entire identity, so any challenge to his 'superiority' is a threat," I recited. "Weakness: predictable linear attacks, poor crowd control, lets anger override tactics."
"Counter-strategy?" he pressed.
"Let him wear himself out. Redirect his own power against him. Or," I added, "do what I did. Attack his ego. It's his center of gravity. Tip him over, and he falls."
Aizawa was quiet for a long moment. "You two are analyzing everything, aren't you?"
"You gave us the assignment, sir," Nozomi said with a small smile.
A hint of what might have been amusement touched his tired face. "Just make sure you're analyzing how to work with them, not just how to beat them. Dismissed."
As we walked out into the afternoon sun, Nozomi bumped my shoulder with hers. "Attacking his center of gravity, huh? You're starting to sound like you enjoy this."
I thought about Midoriya's grateful bow, Momo's approving look, and the silent support from the class when I stood up to Bakugo.
"It's a different kind of challenge," I admitted. "More complicated than just hitting something hard."
"Humans usually are," she said, as if she hadn't been one for over a decade. "So, lab? We should start those reports."
I nodded. "Yeah. Let's go."
The next day, during a free training period in one of U.A.'s gyms, I kept my promise. I didn't use my speed to blitz him. I dialed it down to just a notch above what he could perceive, becoming a fast, precise target. My "claws" were just the edges of my palms, tapping against his hardened skin with sharp, percussive ticks.
"Don't just tank it!" I called out, darting around him. "Your skin is hard, not immovable. Redirect the force! Use my momentum!"
He grunted, shifting his weight, trying to slam an arm where I'd been a split-second before. "You're too damn fast!"
"That's the point! You won't always be the hardest thing in the fight. Sometimes you have to be the smartest!"
Near the wall, Nozomi was doing something similar with Uraraka, showing her how to use her Zero Gravity not just for big floats, but for subtle, unexpected changes in an opponent's balance. Momo watched, occasionally creating small tools or obstacles at their request to simulate different scenarios.
It was during a water break that I saw him. Midoriya was sitting alone on a bench at the far end of the gym, out of uniform, his right arm in a sling. He was watching the class train with that intense, analytical stare I recognized—the same one I used when running E.V.E.'s simulations. He was scribbling in a notebook with his good hand, muttering to himself.
I grabbed two bottles of water from the cooler and walked over.
He didn't notice me until my shadow fell across his page. He jumped, nearly dropping his pen. "K-Kirigaya!"
I held out a bottle. "You're supposed to be resting."
He took it with his left hand, looking embarrassed. "I know. I just... I can learn a lot by watching. Everyone's styles are so different, and the way you move is..."
"Like you're trying to tear your own skeleton out through your skin?"
He flinched, his gaze dropping to his bandaged arm.
I sat down on the bench, not looking at him, watching Kirishima try to predict Nozomi's feint. "I analyzed your entrance exam footage. And the Quirk Apprehension Test. Your power output is binary. All or nothing. It's not a Quirk problem. It's an engineering problem."
He stared at me, his green eyes wide. "An... engineering problem?"
"You have a Formula One engine," I said, gesturing with my water bottle towards the gym. "But you're trying to drive it with bicycle brakes and a wooden frame. The engine isn't wrong. The chassis can't handle it."
For a moment, he just blinked. Then, the muttering started again, but directed at me. "...chassis... structural integrity... dispersion of force... but the energy comes from everywhere, not a central point, so reinforcing the skeletal structure alone might not be sufficient unless..."
A small smirk touched my lips. He got it.
"The solution isn't to hold back the engine," I said, interrupting his spiral. "It's to build a better frame. And install better brakes. Control, not limitation."
He looked down at his trembling, sling-bound right hand. "All Might said... I have to make it my own."
"He's right. But you don't have to do it by breaking yourself into pieces to see how they fit." I stood up. "When Recovery Girl clears you, come to the estate. Nozomi and I have... resources. Scanning tech, force dispersion models. We might be able to give you a blueprint for that better frame."
His mouth hung open. "Y-you'd do that? For me?"
I shrugged. "A broken tool is useless. And frankly, watching you shatter your bones every time you throw a punch is getting tedious."
Before he could stammer out another thank you, Nozomi's voice cut across the gym, sweet as poisoned honey. "Mineta, if you try to use your sticky balls to climb the wall near the girls' changing area again, I will use them to stick you to the ceiling. Permanently."
I sighed. "Duty calls."
As I walked back to the group, I felt Midoriya's gaze on my back, no longer filled with just awe or anxiety, but with a spark of something new: hope.
Later, in the lab with Momo, I told them about the offer.
Nozomi nodded, not looking up from a hologram of a human muscular system. "Good. His destructive potential is a variable that needs to be stabilized. Unpredictable allies are worse than predictable enemies."
Momo looked more thoughtful. "It's kind, Hiro. Truly. He's been struggling alone for so long." She smiled. "The 'broken tool' speech was a bit harsh, though."
"It's the language he understands," I said, calling up E.V.E.'s files on kinetic energy distribution. "He thinks in terms of sacrifice and cost. I'm just reframing the problem."
The following week on weekend, Midoriya, his arm finally out of the sling but still looking frail, stood nervously at the gates of the Kirigaya estate after school. I could see him mentally rehearsing how to address the butler.
I opened the gate before he could ring the bell. "You're late. The scans take time."
I led the stunned boy not to the main house, but straight to the lab. When the door hissed open, revealing the technological cathedral, he made a sound like a deflating balloon.
"Welcome to the workshop, Problem Child," Nozomi said from the central holotable, where a schematic of a human skeleton was already rotating. "Let's see if we can stop you from turning your bones into dust."
Midoriya stood frozen in the doorway, his head swiveling as he tried to take in the soaring high-tech ceiling, the floating holograms, the arcane sector's glowing sigils. His muttering kicked into overdrive. "...impossible energy signatures... quantum-locked processing units?... Is that a contained plasma filament? The scale... this surpasses even the U.A. support department's main..."
"Breathe, Midoriya," I said, steering him by the shoulder toward the holotable. "You'll hyperventilate."
Momo, who was already there reviewing a lipid conversion chart, gave him a warm, reassuring smile. "It's a lot to take in. It was for me, too."
"Yaoyorozu! You're here too? Of course, it makes logical sense given your quirk's synergy with advanced material science, but I didn't expect—"
"E.V.E., initiate full-spectrum diagnostic scan on Subject: Midoriya," Nozomi interrupted, her voice all business. "Focus on musculoskeletal integrity, neural pathways associated with quirk activation, and energy emission points."
"Understood," E.V.E.'s calm voice filled the room. A ring of soft blue light descended from the ceiling, passing over Midoriya from head to toe. He yelped but held still.
Holographic data began populating the air around him. A 3D model of his body appeared, his bones highlighted in red at the joints and right arm, showing microfractures and old, thickened scar tissue. Energy pathways, normally invisible, glowed a chaotic, violent green, concentrated in his limbs but surging unpredictably like lightning in a storm cloud.
Nozomi whistled. "Wow. It's even worse than the footage suggested. You're not channeling power. You're detonating it inside your own meat suit."
Midoriya flinched. "I... I know."
I zoomed in on the energy flow in the hologram. "See this? The power isn't the problem. The delivery system is. It's a firehose attached to a garden sprinkler head. You're trying to control the pressure at the nozzle, but the hose itself is what's bursting." I pointed to the chaotic green surges in his arm. "You need to reinforce the hose. Build conduits. Spread the load."
"B-but how?" Midoriya asked, his analyst's mind fighting through his awe. "One For All is... It's a stockpiling quirk. The energy fills my entire body all at once."
"Then we change the body," Momo said, stepping forward. She manipulated the hologram, creating a transparent overlay of muscle fibers and tendon groups. "Or more accurately, we change how the body responds. Kirishima's Hardening is a conscious reformation of his skin's structure. What if you could do something similar, but internally? Create micro-channels of reinforced tissue to direct the flow?"
"Bio-feedback conditioning," Nozomi mused, tapping her chin. "Instead of trying to hold back the ocean, you dig rivers for it to flow through. It would require insane levels of control and cellular awareness."
Midoriya was scribbling furiously in a notebook he'd somehow produced, his good hand a blur. "Rerouting the power through predetermined pathways... reducing instantaneous load on any single point... it would require a complete re-mapping of my neural activation sequences..."
"Exactly," I said. "Which is why you start small. Not 100% of One For All. Not even 5%. We find the minimum viable output. The smallest spark you can produce without breaking anything." I looked him dead in the eye. "Your goal isn't to hit something. It's to turn on a lightbulb without shattering it. Can you do that?"
He looked terrified, but he nodded, jaw set. "I have to."
"Good. E.V.E., design a graduated resistance and monitoring regimen. Start with passive reinforcement exercises, then move to directed micro-emissions." I turned back to Midoriya. "You'll come here after school, twice a week. We'll monitor your progress. No secrets from Recovery Girl or All Might—this is supplemental, not a replacement. Understood?"
"Understood! Thank you, Kirigaya, thank you so much! This is... this is more than I ever..."
"Save the waterworks," Nozomi said, but her tone wasn't unkind. "You can cry when you manage to punch the air without sounding like a bag of popcorn. Now, first lesson: sensing your own energy flow without activating it. Sit. Close your eyes. And for the love of chaos, stop muttering."
As Midoriya sat cross-legged on the lab floor, trying to find a quiet center in his storm of power and thoughts, Momo leaned over to me.
"You're building quite the team down here," she whispered.
I watched Nozomi guide Midoriya through a basic meditation technique we'd refined over years of handling Soul-Flux. "He's got the heart of a hero," I said quietly. "And a puzzle worth solving. This is more useful than any combat simulation."
The next two weeks passed in a new, focused rhythm. Midoriya's progress was microscopic, but it was progress. He hadn't broken anything new. In class, he still flinched when Bakugo yelled, but there was a new layer of concentration beneath the anxiety. He was working on a problem, and it showed.
It was a Thursday morning, right after homeroom. Aizawa stood at the podium, looking more exhausted than usual, which was saying something.
"Don't get comfortable," he began, his deadpan voice cutting through the post-roll-call chatter. "Your foundational hero training isn't just about fighting. A pro hero is more likely to handle a natural disaster or a structural collapse than a villain who monologues." He let that sink in for a beat. "That's why tomorrow, instead of regular classes, you'll be taking a special course off-campus."
The class perked up immediately. Murmurs of excitement rippled through the room.
"We'll be going to an off-campus facility," Aizawa continued, unfazed by the growing energy. "The Unforeseen Simulation Joint…"
"THE U.S.J.!" several students, including Kirishima and Ashido, exclaimed in unison, their faces lighting up.
Aizawa's eye twitched at the interruption. "…Yes. It's a specialized training ground designed to simulate various disasters. You'll be under the supervision of me and one of our rescue specialists, Thirteen."
Thirteen's name caused another wave of excited whispers. The Space Hero was a legend in rescue work.
"Your hero costumes have been approved and will be ready for you at the facility," Aizawa said, his gaze sweeping over the room and lingering for a fraction of a second longer on Midoriya, then on me, and then Nozomi. "This is a practical exercise in rescue and disaster mitigation. Control, observation, and rational thinking will be more important than raw power. Understood?"
"YES, SIR!"
As the class buzzed with planning and speculation, I glanced at Midoriya. He was pale, his good hand clenched into a fist on his desk. He wasn't thinking about floods or fires. He was thinking about control. About not shattering in the middle of a simulated crisis.
Nozomi leaned back in her chair, a contemplative look on her face. 'A large, complex, controlled environment,' her voice echoed in my mind. 'The perfect stress test.'
At lunch, we found Midoriya picking at his food, lost in thought.
"Nervous?" Momo asked gently, sitting beside him.
"It's… It's a huge opportunity," he stammered. "But what if… what if I…"
"What if you need to use your Quirk to lift a beam off someone and you paste them across the wall instead?" Nozomi finished for him, blunt as ever.
He winced but nodded.
"Then you use your head and find another way," I said, taking a bite of my own lunch. "That's the whole point. It's not a combat trial. It's a thinking trial." I met his worried gaze. "The glass, Midoriya. Just focus on not spilling."
He took a deep breath, the mantra from our lab sessions visibly calming him. "Right. The glass."
After school, in the lab, the mood was different. There were no scans or meditation exercises.
"E.V.E.," I said. "Pull up all publicly available architectural schematics and safety protocols for the U.S.J. facility. Run disaster scenario simulations with a focus on non-destructive resolution."
"On it," the AI responded, screens lighting up with blueprints and flowing data.
Momo was already sketching potential creation ideas—inflatable supports, heat-resistant blankets, multi-tools. "The key will be versatility and speed of creation," she murmured.
Midoriya watched it all, his earlier anxiety hardening into a sharp focus. He wasn't just a student anymore. He was part of a team preparing for a mission. He pulled out his notebook, not to mutter, but to quietly take notes on the facility layouts E.V.E. displayed.
Nozomi watched him, then looked at me. 'He's building a new instinct,' she sent. 'Replacing panic with procedure.'
I nodded. The U.S.J. was no longer just a field trip. It was the first real exam for everything we'd been working on. For our power, for our analysis, and for the fragile control of a boy who held a storm in his bones.
Tomorrow, we'd see if the frame we were helping him build could hold.
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This entire chapter was full of slice of life, but the next will have more action. Leave a review to help me write my book better, and don't forget to drop the power stones.
Peace out.