The morning at Heights Alliance began with the rhythmic, mechanical hum of the dormitory's ventilation system—a sound that Sherlock Sheets had come to associate with the start of his daily "recalibration." While the rest of the world was still draped in the soft, pre-dawn greys of Musutafu, Sherlock was already awake, sitting cross-legged on his minimalist bed, his breathing measured and precise.
By 7:00 AM, the common room was a flurry of organized chaos. The scent of dark roast coffee and toasted bread filled the air as the students of Class 1-A prepared for another grueling day of "Ultimate Move" training.
"Morning, Sherlock-kun!" Midoriya called out, his voice already full of characteristic energy. He was busy checking the laces on his temporary support boots, his brow furrowed in concentration. "Are you headed to Gym Gamma already?"
Sherlock nodded, adjusting the collar of his uniform. "Time is a non-renewable resource, Midoriya. Every minute spent in the dorm is a minute the other schools are using to bridge the gap."
"Always thinking about the math," a soft voice said from behind him.
Sherlock turned to see Momo Yaoyorozu. She looked polished as always, but there was a slight tension in her posture—a lingering shadow from the previous evening. As they began the walk toward the gym alongside Midoriya and Iida, her eyes kept drifting toward Sherlock's hands.
"Sherlock-kun," Momo began, her voice hesitant. "About your costume... Hatsume-san was quite... enthusiastic yesterday. Did she give you a timeline for the 'Sanguine' prototype?"
"The logistical forecast suggests forty-eight hours," Sherlock replied, his gaze fixed on the path ahead. "Mei is currently processing the smart-fiber conduits my father provided. It is a complex integration of biological sensors and kinetic reinforcement. Until then, I must rely on my current attire and the evolution of my own technique."
Momo's face flickered with a brief, unbidden heat. The image of Mei Hatsume practically draped over Sherlock, shouting about "making babies," flashed through her mind like a corrupted data file. She felt a sharp, irrational prickle of jealousy—a variable she couldn't quite solve. Why was the "Support Genius" so comfortable with him? And why did Sherlock, who usually valued his personal space like a sanctified zone, seem to tolerate her manic proximity?
"I see," Momo said, her tone a bit more clipped than usual. "I hope the... 'delivery' goes as planned. Just ensure she doesn't add any unnecessary 'features' that compromise your focus."
Sherlock glanced at her, noticing the subtle shift in her atmospheric pressure. "Momo, you seem to be experiencing a localized spike in cortisol. If you are worried about the technical specs, I have the blueprints memorized."
"I'm not worried about the specs, Sherlock-kun," Momo muttered under her breath, though she quickly masked it with a polite smile as they reached the massive doors of Gym Gamma.
Gym Gamma felt larger in the morning, the artificial lights buzzing like a hive of insects. The terrain was a graveyard of jagged concrete pillars and rusted steel girders, a perfect mimicry of an urban disaster zone.
Sherlock didn't immediately begin manifesting. He stood in a secluded quadrant, watching the others. He needed a perspective that his own analytical mind couldn't provide—a perspective on raw, unadulterated durability.
Sherlock stood in a secluded quadrant of Gym Gamma. The terrain here was a graveyard of jagged concrete pillars and rusted steel girders, a perfect mimicry of an urban disaster zone.
"The fundamental flaw of paper is its lack of mass," Sherlock muttered to himself, his voice echoing in the vast, hollow space. He held a single sheet of white paper between his fingers. He flicked it. It fluttered, caught in a stray draft from the gym's ventilation system.
"Hey, Paper-Boy! Are you planning on staring that rock into submission, or are you actually gonna train?"
The scent of ozone and nitroglycerin preceded the speaker. Bakugo Katsuki stood a few meters away, his palms popping with small, impatient sparks. Beside him stood Kirishima, already in his hardened state, his skin resembling jagged granite.
Sherlock didn't open his eyes immediately. He was listening to the sound of Kirishima's breathing—heavy and grounded. "I am calculating the dissipation of kinetic force, Bakugo. Something you usually ignore in favor of raw noise."
"What the hell did you say?!" Bakugo barked, stepping forward.
"Wait, Bakugo! He's actually working on something cool," Kirishima intervened, his rocky fist hitting his palm with a heavy clack. "Sherlock, you said yesterday you wanted to talk to me about 'Density Distribution'?"
Sherlock stood up, brushing the dust from his trousers. He looked at Kirishima with a piercing intensity. "Correct, Kirishima. Your 'Unbreakable' form is the gold standard for defensive variables in this class. Most people see you as just 'hard,' but I suspect the logic is deeper. You don't just get rigid; you change your molecular structure to interlock, don't you? You become a singular, cohesive unit that refuses to let energy pass through."
Kirishima scratched his cheek, a sound like sandpaper on stone. "I guess? I don't really think about molecules, man. I just think about being a wall that nothing can get through. I pull all my strength into the point where I'm being hit, making sure my skin is so tight and jagged that the punch just... slides off or breaks."
"Interlocking structural integrity," Sherlock mused, tapping his chin. "And you," he turned to Bakugo. "Your explosions. They are blunt force, but they also carry a thermal shockwave. To stop you, a wall can't just be hard; it has to be porous. It has to breathe to survive the heat."
Bakugo scoffed, but he didn't walk away. His curiosity, though buried under layers of ego, was piqued. "You can't stop my 'AP Shot' with paper, loser. It'll burn through your little crafts before the pressure even hits."
"That is exactly the variable I am solving," Sherlock said. "I am moving away from the 'sheet' and toward the 'fold'."
Sherlock stepped into the center of the clearing. He took a deep breath, focusing on the sweat glands across his chest and arms. He didn't want to blast the paper out in a chaotic flurry. He wanted to weave it with the same intentionality Kirishima used to harden his skin.
"The fundamental flaw of my current defense is its lack of mass," Sherlock explained, his voice taking on a professorial tone. "A single plane is easily bypassed. But if I use the logic of the accordion..."
"Paper Art: Fortress Fold."
From his palms and shoulders, a torrent of white paper erupted. But instead of flying outward, the sheets began to stack with incredible speed. They didn't lie flat. They folded into tight, vertical accordions, interlocking like the teeth of a giant zipper.
Hundreds of sheets compressed into a wall only ten centimeters thick, but the internal structure was a complex labyrinth of honeycombed air pockets. It wasn't a solid block; it was a high-tech shock absorber made of cellulose.
"Kirishima," Sherlock commanded, his eyes glowing with a cold light. "Hit it. High-impact blunt force. Fifty percent power. I need to see if the honeycomb holds."
"You got it! Red Riot... CRASH!"
Kirishima lunged, his hardened shoulder slamming into the paper wall with the force of a runaway truck. The sound wasn't a sharp crack; it was a deep, muffled thump that seemed to vibrate through the very floor of the gym.
The wall didn't break. It compressed. The accordion folds took the energy of Kirishima's hit and distributed it through the thousands of layers, the air pockets acting as microscopic cushions. Kirishima bounced back, looking surprised, his eyes wide as he stared at the vibrating wall of paper.
"Whoa! It felt like hitting a heavy-duty spring!" Kirishima laughed, shaking his arm. "It didn't hurt, but it didn't give way either! Sherlock, that's manliness right there—absorbing the hit and standing tall!"
Sherlock didn't celebrate. He was already leaning in, inspecting the microscopic tears in the front-most folds. "Kinetic absorption is at 82%. But the lateral stability is currently 14% below my projections. I need more interlocks."
"Tch. Springs won't save you from a blast," Bakugo snarled, stepping up to the line. "Move over, Shitty-Hair. Let's see how his 'architecture' handles a real spike."
He stepped forward, his eyes gleaming with a predatory light. He didn't use a standard blast. He focused his palm, creating a concentrated, high-heat explosion. "AP SHOT!"
The beam of light and fire hit the center of the wall. The heat was immense. Sherlock winced, feeling the thermal spike through his neural connection to the paper.
Csh-BOOM!
The wall didn't just char; it shattered. The concentrated heat pierced the air pockets, and the pressure of the explosion blew a jagged hole straight through the center of the honeycomb. The burnt scraps of paper fluttered to the ground like black snow.
"Tch. Pathetic," Bakugo muttered, smoke curling from his palm. "Your 'Fortress' is a cardboard box, Sheets. One clean hit and you're dead."
Sherlock looked at the hole in his wall. He wasn't angry; he was analyzing. The thermal conductivity of the cellulose was too high. The air pockets were too large, allowing the oxygen to fuel the combustion rather than insulating the heat. The failure was inevitable.
"I need more practice," Sherlock whispered. "The math was incomplete."
"A dynamic defense is superior to a static one, young Sheets."
Four clones of Ectoplasm emerged from the shadows. The Pro Hero had been watching. "You are trying to build a castle, but the castle must move with the king. If you spend all your energy maintaining a wall that stays in one place, you are just building your own coffin."
"I understand, Sensei," Sherlock said, his voice steady despite the fatigue pulling at his muscles. "I need to master the 'Flow' of the Fortress."
"Then let us test your limits," Ectoplasm declared. "My clones will attack from three directions. They will not stop. You must maintain the Fortress Fold while navigating the terrain. If the wall breaks, you are out."
Sherlock nodded, his face set in a look of grim determination. For the next three hours, he entered the "Gauntlet."
The clones attacked from three directions. Sherlock didn't just build a wall; he began to "spin" the materialization. He learned to shift the Fortress Fold in an arc, sliding it around his body on a kinetic track.
The trial began.
The first Ectoplasm clone lunged with a high kick. Sherlock manifested the Fortress Fold in an arc, blocking the strike. But as he did, two more clones flanked him, their movements a blur of professional efficiency.
Variables: Three attackers. Vector: 45 degrees left, 90 degrees right, 180 degrees rear, Sherlock's mind raced. I cannot build three walls. I must build one that rotates.
He shifted his stance. He didn't just push the paper out; he began to "spin" the materialization. The Fortress Fold became a curved shield that slid around his body on a kinetic track.
Thump! Crack! Boom!
The clones hammered against the paper. Sherlock's face was pale, sweat pouring down his neck. He wasn't using his "Blood Paper," but the sheer mental strain of coordinating ten thousand compressed folds was pushing his brain to its limit.
"More speed!" Ectoplasm shouted.
Momo, who had been training nearby, stopped to watch. She saw the way Sherlock was moving—it was a dance of geometry. He wasn't just blocking; he was redirecting. He would catch a kick in the "spring" of the paper, then release the tension to shove the clone back.
"He's learning to use the enemy's energy against them," Momo whispered, her eyes filled with admiration. "He's not just a Magician anymore. He's becoming the Architect of the battlefield."
Sherlock's vision began to blur. His heart hammered against his ribs—a steady, fast rhythm that teased the edge of the doctor's "Red Zone."
Five more minutes, he told himself. Calculate the cycle. Move the burnt sheets. Keep the honeycomb intact.
Suddenly, one of the clones broke through a weakened seam in the paper. A heavy fist moved toward Sherlock's ribs.
Without thinking, Sherlock didn't move his hand. He manifested a small, high-density Fortress Patch directly from his side. The fist hit the compressed paper and stopped dead.
"Time!" Ectoplasm called out.
As the training session neared its end, Bakugo was walking toward the exit, his gear bags over his shoulder.
"Bakugo," Sherlock called out.
The explosive blonde stopped and turned, a look of annoyance on his face. "What now, Paper Boy? You want me to turn the rest of your trash to ash?"
"One more test," Sherlock said, stepping into a combat stance. "The same attack. AP Shot. But this time, don't hold back."
Bakugo dropped his bags, a smirk playing on his lips. "Fine. Don't cry when I blast you into the infirmary."
Sherlock closed his eyes. He didn't manifest a huge wall this time. He focused all 500 sheets of his current limit into a singular, rotating Fortress Fold shield, only two meters wide but incredibly dense. The sheets were woven with the "Molecular Glaze" logic, reflecting the gym lights.
"Go," Sherlock said.
Attack One: Bakugo lunged, his palm igniting. "DIE!" A massive explosion rocked the gym. The shockwave hit the wall, but the honeycomb compressed and expanded instantly, spitting the kinetic energy back out. The paper charred, but it didn't break.
Attack Two: Bakugo growled, immediately following up with a heavy kick augmented by an explosion. The wall shifted, the burnt layers cycling to the back as fresh paper surged forward. The wall absorbed the impact with a heavy thud.
Attack Three: "STOP MOVING!" Bakugo roared. He used his "Stun Grenade" at point-blank range. The flash was blinding, the heat enough to melt plastic. Sherlock's heart hammered, his mind screaming under the strain of maintaining the rotation. The wall smoked and glowed orange, but it held its shape.
Attack Four: Bakugo lost his patience. He pulled back his arm, his gauntlet clicking. He fired a maximum-output AP Shot, a piercing beam of pure destruction.
The beam hit the wall. The sound was like a thunderclap. Sherlock was shoved back five meters, his boots carving grooves into the concrete floor. The wall began to groan, the compressed folds finally reaching their physical limit. A massive crack webbed across the surface, and 50% of the wall's mass was pulverized into dust.
But it didn't shatter. Sherlock was still standing behind it.
Bakugo stood there, his hand smoking, his breathing heavy. He looked at the wall—half-destroyed, smoking, but still standing. He looked at Sherlock, whose emerald eyes were glowing with a cold, triumphant light.
"Tch," Bakugo spat, turning around and grabbing his bags. "Waste of time. Your wall is still ugly."
He walked away without another word, but the silence from the "King of Explosions" was the highest praise Sherlock could have received. He had taken four direct hits from the strongest offensive power in the class, and he was still on his feet.
Sherlock let the wall dissipate into dust. He fell to one knee, his body trembling with exhaustion.
50% damage after four strikes, Sherlock thought, a small, genuine smile touching his lips. The math is finally starting to add up.
the defense is ready! Sherlock has pushed his white paper to its absolute limit, creating a move that can even frustrate Bakugo.
Read My another Fanfic
Mha:- The Grand illusionist
Also you can suggest attack for sherlock I will consider it as I want to add 1 more attack that he will learn in this arc
Thankyou
Iamone