The dichotomy of Izuku Midoriya's life became a razor's edge he walked with terrifying precision.
By day, he was a ghost of a boy. He sat in class 3-A at Aldera Junior High, head bowed, scribbling in a notebook that no longer contained hero analysis, but rather complex equations regarding friction coefficients and metabolic caloric burn rates.
The world around him moved through molasses. He watched the chalk dust float from the blackboard to the floor, tracking every particle. He watched Bakugo's scowl form over the course of what felt like minutes.
"Midoriya," the teacher called out.
Izuku blinked. He had to consciously downshift his brain to process the audio at normal speed. "Yes, sir?"
"You didn't submit a high school application form. The deadline is today. Are you still... aiming for UA?"
The class went silent. A few students snickered, waiting for the stutter, the blush, the defiant yet shaky claim that he would try his best.
Izuku simply looked at the paper in his hands.
"No," Izuku said. His voice was steady, devoid of the nervous tremor that had defined him for a decade. "I've decided that traditional heroics aren't practical for my skillset."
Bakugo turned around in his seat, his eyes wide with suspicion. The explosive teen was waiting for the punchline, the declaration of rivalry. But Izuku just went back to his equations.
For Izuku, UA was a temple to a false god. It was a factory that churned out celebrities, not saviors. He didn't need a license to do what needed to be done. He needed anonymity.
When the sun went down, the ghost became a lightning storm.
The "Yellow Phantom," as the internet forums had started calling him, was becoming an urban legend in Musutafu. The police reports were baffling. Gang hideouts were found decimated, weapons fused together by intense heat, criminals found tied up with steel rebar bent like twist-ties.
Tonight, the target was a warehouse in the darker district near the port. A distribution center for the quirk-boosting drug, Trigger.
Izuku stood on a rusted crane overlooking the facility. The red lightning crackled around him, responding to his heartbeat. The Negative Speed Force whispered to him, a constant static in the back of his skull, urging him to move, to run, to hurt.
He dropped.
Inside the warehouse, twenty men armed with automatic weapons and crude mutant quirks were guarding crates of the drug.
"Did you hear that?" one guard asked, looking at the roof.
"Hear what?"
VZZZT.
The guard vanished.
He didn't scream. He was just gone, snatched away by a blur of yellow and red.
"Contact!" another screamed, raising his rifle.
Izuku moved through the room like a skipped stone on water. To the guards, he was invisible. To Izuku, they were mannequins.
He walked up to the gunman. He didn't punch him. He simply tapped the barrel of the gun at superspeed. The metal heated instantly, glowing white-hot. The gunman screamed, dropping the weapon as it melted into slag.
Izuku swept the leg. Snap.
He moved to the next. A man with a hardening quirk. Izuku vibrated his hand, matching the resonance frequency of the man's rock skin. He chopped. The rock shattered like glass.
It took four seconds of real-time.
When Izuku stopped, standing in the center of the room, twenty men lay groaning on the concrete. Broken limbs. Concussions. The crates of Trigger had been smashed, the chemicals leaking onto the floor.
Izuku picked up a canister of the drug. He vibrated his hand, generating enough heat to incinerate the liquid inside the vial.
"Poison," he distorted voice growled.
"Don't move!"
Izuku turned. Standing at the warehouse entrance was a Pro Hero. Death Arms. The man who had scolded him at the sludge villain incident months ago. The man who had praised Bakugo for having a powerful quirk while Izuku was told to stay back.
Death Arms looked at the carnage. He looked at the yellow-clad figure with the glowing red eyes. He was sweating.
"You... you're the vigilante," Death Arms shouted, though his voice wavered. "Surrender! You've caused significant bodily harm to these men!"
Izuku tilted his head. The world slowed. He walked up to Death Arms, moving casually while the hero was frozen in a blink.
Izuku stood nose-to-nose with the massive hero.
"Bodily harm?" Izuku whispered, the sound vibrating the air around them.
He stepped back and allowed time to resume.
Death Arms flinched, realizing the figure was suddenly right in front of him. He threw a punch.
Izuku wasn't there. He was behind him.
"I stopped a shipment that would have ruined thousands of lives," Izuku's voice came from everywhere at once as he ran circles around the hero. "You're worried about the bruises on the drug dealers? This is why your system fails, Death Arms. You prioritize the law over the innocent."
"Stand still!" Death Arms roared, swinging wildly at the red electricity.
Izuku stopped. He caught Death Arms' fist.
The hero's eyes bulged. His strength was immense, capable of lifting trucks. But this slender figure held his fist in place with zero effort. Izuku's hand was vibrating, nullifying the kinetic energy of the punch.
"You scolded me once," Izuku hissed, the memory of the sludge incident surfacing. "You told me I was a liability. That I should leave the saving to the pros."
He squeezed. Death Arms dropped to his knees, groaning in pain.
"I am the Pro now."
Izuku shoved him backward. Death Arms flew into a stack of pallets. By the time the hero looked up, the warehouse was empty. Only the smell of burnt rubber and the echo of a sonic boom remained.
Later that night, Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi stood over the scene.
Eraserhead—Shota Aizawa—was crouching next to one of the unconscious thugs, inspecting the injuries.
"Clean breaks," Aizawa muttered, looking tired. "Surgical precision. No hesitation. Whoever did this knew exactly how much force to apply to incapacitate without killing. Just barely."
"Witnesses say it was a yellow blur," Tsukauchi said, clicking his pen. "Red lightning. They're calling him the Speedster."
Aizawa stood up, wrapping his capture scarf around his neck. "Speed quirks usually come with friction issues. This guy... he's generating heat, but his suit seems resistant. And the violence..." Aizawa narrowed his eyes. "This isn't a hero. Heroes restrain. This guy punishes."
"Is he a villain?" Tsukauchi asked.
"He took out a Trigger distribution ring," Aizawa noted. "So his targets are criminals. But his methods? They're terror tactics. He wants them to be afraid of the dark."
Aizawa looked at the melted gun on the floor.
"He's not playing hero," Aizawa said grimly. "He's declaring war on incompetence. If we don't catch him, he's going to escalate. Someone is going to die."
Izuku sat on the edge of his bed, stitching a tear in his yellow glove.
The adrenaline was fading, replaced by the cold, logical hum of his mind. He had seen Death Arms' face. The fear.
It was delicious.
But it wasn't enough. Taking out drug dealers was practice. It was maintaining the status quo.
He looked at the calendar on his wall. He had marked a date in red ink.
The USJ Rescue Training.
He had hacked the UA servers days ago. It was surprisingly easy; their cyber-security relied on the assumption that villains were brutes, not intellectuals. He knew the schedule. He knew All Might was supposed to be there.
"The League of Villains," Izuku muttered, recalling the chatter he'd picked up on the deep web. "They're planning an attack. A blunt instrument to kill All Might."
He finished stitching the glove and bit the thread.
"They'll fail," Izuku decided. "All Might will crush them. Because they are chaotic. They lack vision."
He stood up and walked to the window.
"But if I'm there..."
He clenched his fist, red sparks dancing between his fingers.
"I can show the students how fragile their safety really is. I can show All Might that he can't save everyone. I won't kill the kids," Izuku told himself. He had standards. "But I will break their spirit. I will shatter the illusion of the invincible hero society."
In the reflection of the window, Izuku smiled. It wasn't his smile anymore. It was the smile of the Reverse.
He was no longer the boy who wanted to be All Might. He was the man who would force All Might to face his failures.
"See you soon, Toshinori," he whispered.
The duality was complete. Izuku Midoriya was the mask. The Reverse-Flash was the truth. And the truth was coming for UA High.