Aze hit the ground hard.
Concrete shattered beneath him.
Smoke flooded his lungs.
Alarms wailed across campus.
Students screamed in every direction.
Rubble rained from above.
Aze pushed himself up, coughing.
"What… happened?"
A wave of heat rolled over him.
Then he heard it—
"AZE!"
It was Rinne.
He spun around.
She was trapped under a collapsed piece of wall, dust covering her hair, eyes wide with fear.
Aze bolted toward her.
"Hold on!"
He grabbed the slab of concrete and tossed it aside like it weighed nothing.
Rinne gasped as fresh air reached her.
"A-Are you okay?" Aze asked.
"I—I'm fine," she said, shaking. "But something hit the courtyard right after you disappeared. Something massive."
Aze looked around.
Students were running for cover.
Teachers shouted instructions.
Smoke and fire cut through the air.
But something was wrong.
Very wrong.
This wasn't a villain attack.
This wasn't an accident.
He felt it in his chest.
The lingering distortion of void energy.
The Collector's dying echo.
A "backlash."
A recoil from the collapsed pocket reality.
A tear that struck the real world like a meteor.
Rinne grabbed his sleeve.
"Aze… the world flickered."
"What?"
"I saw it," she whispered. "For a split second… everything broke. Like glass."
Aze clenched his teeth.
"Yeah," he muttered. "That tracks."
More shouts ripped through the air.
"HEY! SOMEBODY'S INJURED OVER HERE!"
Aze turned to see a boy pinned under debris. Flames licked the sides of the rubble.
He dashed forward.
Before the fire could reach the kid, Aze swept his hand through the air.
A burst of amplified force gusted outward.
The flames flickered—
—and vanished.
He lifted the rubble and pulled the student free.
The kid stared at him in awe.
"Dude… what kind of quirk is that…?!"
Aze forced a smile.
"One that helps."
He carried the student toward a group of teachers.
Cementoss ran up.
"Good work! We'll take him from here!"
Aze nodded and turned back to Rinne—
—but something made him stop.
A pressure.
An aura.
A presence.
Someone was watching him.
From the smoke.
A figure stepped out.
Ochak— no.
Not a student.
Not a teacher.
A man.
Tall.
Ragged coat.
Eyes glowing faintly purple.
Like static.
A quirk?
No.
Worse.
A distortion given shape.
A "Remnant."
A leftover piece of the collapsing void.
Aze whispered, "You've gotta be kidding me."
The figure smiled with a glitching face.
"There you are… Archivist…"
Aze froze.
Rinne screamed his name.
Teachers looked up, confused.
The Remnant flickered like corrupted video.
"You avoided retrieval. Unacceptable."
Aze stepped forward.
"You're not a Collector. What are you?"
The Remnant twitched.
"I am a shadow. A leftover instruction. A line of code still searching… for you."
Aze lowered his stance.
"Everyone get back."
Teachers didn't move.
They didn't understand the scale.
The Remnant lifted its hand.
Reality bent around its fingertips.
Students screamed as the ground warped like melting plastic.
Rinne backed up, terrified.
"Aze… what is that thing…?!"
"Something I should've destroyed before it formed."
The Remnant lunged.
Aze vanished.
He reappeared behind it and kicked.
The Remnant flew through the air, skidding across the concrete and ripping trenches through the ground.
A gust of wind forced students to cover their eyes.
A few gasped.
"That speed—!"
"Is he a pro hero?!"
"No way a student can do that!"
The Remnant glitched back onto its feet.
"You cannot stop deletion…"
Aze cracked his neck.
"You say that like I haven't done it before."
He flicked a finger.
A compressed shockwave blasted toward the Remnant.
It tried to deflect.
Failed.
Its arm shattered.
Pixel dust scattered into the air.
Aze landed in front of it.
One clean step.
One quiet breath.
Then he punched.
Just once.
The Remnant disintegrated into white static and vanished.
Silence.
Then a rush of noise as students and teachers tried to understand what just happened.
"WHAT KIND OF QUIRK WAS THAT?!"
"I couldn't even see him move!"
"That wasn't normal—!"
Cementoss pointed at Aze.
"You! Stay right there! We need—"
Aze ignored him.
He walked past the crowd.
Straight to Rinne.
She stared up at him in shock.
"You… killed it," she whispered.
"Yeah."
"You're… not from here. Not really."
Aze exhaled.
"Rinne—"
But she cut him off.
Her eyes filled with fear.
"Aze… I saw more threads."
His chest tightened.
"What did you see?"
Her voice cracked.
"Your thread is splitting."
He froze.
"What?"
"Two paths," she said. "Two versions of you. One staying in this world… and one disappearing forever."
Aze stared at her.
Time felt like it slowed.
"Disappear… where?"
Rinne swallowed.
"I don't know. It was just… darkness. A place with no threads at all."
Aze's stomach dropped.
That wasn't death.
That was erasure.
Redactor-level erasure.
He clenched his fists.
The Redactor's final words echoed in his mind.
We'll speak again.
Rinne grabbed his hand suddenly.
"Aze… which path are you going to take?"
He didn't answer.
Because he didn't know.
Not yet.
But something else pulled his attention.
An explosion of wind overhead.
He looked up—
—and saw All Might landing on campus.
His eyes locked directly onto Aze.
Serious.
Cold.
Demanding answers.
Aze muttered:
"…Perfect timing."
Author's Note
Things are heating up! The Remnant appeared, Aze's existence is now splitting, and All Might wants a word.
Ready for Chapter 6?