Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first bullet shattered All Might’s stone jaw.

At least, that’s what Izuku’s brain told him when the concrete statue’s head exploded beside him in a spray of gray dust and sharp fragments. Stone slammed into his face and arms, stinging like dozens of tiny punches. The sound hit a heartbeat later—like a cannon going off inside Ground Beta.

“Midoriya! Move!”

Aizawa’s voice cracked like a whip through the comm.

Izuku dove without thinking.

His palms scraped across rough concrete as he threw himself forward, the world narrowing to instinct and the burn of adrenaline in his veins. A second volley of invisible force ripped through the space where his chest had just been.

This… this wasn’t training.

The exercise had been simple—a mock hostage rescue with the usual villain bots, limited ammunition, and rubber bullets. Predictable. Controlled. Something 1-A could handle in their sleep by now.

But the “bullets” today left no smoke trails, no sparks.

They left holes.

And they screamed.

Not the rounds themselves.

The air.

For a moment, time stretched thin. Lines of green light skittered across Izuku’s vision, cascading down the buildings and rubble around him like fluorescent rain. Symbols—unfamiliar, sharp-edged characters—overlaid the world, columns of code dripping down walls and pavement.

His heart lurched.

He blinked.

The rain vanished.

“Wh—what was—?”

“Eyes up, problem child!”

A hand seized the back of his costume, yanking him sideways. A third shot tore a jagged crater into the concrete where he’d been kneeling.

Aizawa’s goggles flashed as he dragged Izuku behind a toppled truck. In the tinted lenses, Izuku caught a distorted reflection of glowing red targeting overlays.

Sensei’s hair floated weightlessly around his face, quirk fully active.

He’d erased someone.

But who?

Ground Beta was wrecked in a way Izuku had never seen before. The training drones lay in twisted heaps, slagged metal and melted joints. The observation drones—those little hovering cameras that followed their tests—sparking, falling from the sky with soft, sickening thuds as they hit the ground.

Someone, or something, was swatting UA’s systems out of the air like flies.

“Sensei,” Izuku gasped, lungs burning. “There weren’t supposed to be any live weapons—”

“No time.” Aizawa pressed him low, scanning the ruined street. “Whoever this is, they’re overriding our systems. Communications are jammed. Until I know otherwise, assume this is a full-blown villain incursion.”

Izuku’s throat went dry.

If this is a villain attack, where are—

The answer appeared at the far end of the block.

At first glance, he looked completely harmless. A man in a black suit, tie perfectly straight, shoes polished to a dull shine. Average height. Close-cropped hair. No obvious support gear, no mask, no cape.

He should’ve looked like someone’s accountant.

Instead, he walked through falling debris like it wasn’t there. Stone chunks clipped his shoulders and simply… slid aside, their paths changing mid-air as if reality took one look at him and decided to make way.

He stopped in the middle of the street, hands folded neatly behind his back.

“Target anomaly located,” he said.

His voice was flat, emotionless, but the words slotted into Izuku’s spine like ice.

“Subject: Midoriya Izuku. Designation: Glitch.”

Izuku’s heart tripped over itself.

Me?

What… why me?

In the distance, someone shouted through the comm, broken by static.

“—zawa-sensei, the feeds are——erference—”

“Iida?” Izuku pressed a finger to his earpiece. “Iida, can you hear me? Anyone?!”

Nothing.

Just white noise.

The man’s head tilted slightly, as if listening to a voice no one else could hear. “External communications: disabled. Emergency response protocols: suspended. Quirk index: high. Probability of cascade failure: unacceptable.”

His gaze locked onto Izuku like a cursor snapping to a target.

“Termination authorized.”

Izuku’s breath stuttered.

Aizawa stepped in front of him, body dropping into a loose, grounded stance. His scarf unwound, writhing around his shoulders like a living thing.

“Midoriya,” he said, voice suddenly very calm. “Stay behind me. Analyze. Don’t engage unless I tell you to.”

“O-okay!” Izuku’s brain immediately flipped to combat analysis mode, desperate for something concrete to hold onto. No visible support items. No obvious quirk markers. No scars, no mutation traits, no telltale glow in the eyes when he spoke. The bullets—if they were bullets—didn’t leave shells.

That weird screaming noise, like a corrupted audio file. And that… that rain—

The man raised his hand.

It wasn’t a gun.

Just his palm, fingers spread, pointing at them.

Izuku’s instincts screamed.

“Sensei—!”

The shot that followed was wrong.

Not the punch of compressed air from a normal round, not the crack of a rifle. It was like a hole had been punched through a soundless wall—sharp, digital pops layered over a high-pitched whine.

The air shimmered.

Tiny circular distortions—like bubbles in glass—cut through the space they occupied a fraction of a second before.

Izuku didn’t see them.

He felt them.

Aizawa moved.

The Underground Hero’s body blurred, muscles coiling and releasing with terrifying precision. He planted his feet and lashed his scarf forward, the capture weapon looping around the stranger’s torso.

The fabric snapped tight.

Aizawa’s gaze flared crimson behind his goggles.

The man’s composure didn’t so much as ripple.

“Quirk detected,” he said. “Nullification attempt: observed. Accessing profile: Erasure Hero—Aizawa Shouta. Adjusting.”

The scarf twitched.

Then froze.

Izuku’s eyes flew wide. The capture weapon—his teacher’s primary tool, reinforced and flexible, capable of restraining Nomu-level monsters—went rigid mid-air, as if turned to stone.

Pixelated squares of light crawled across the fibers, eating away at them like digital acid. The cloth broke apart, fragment by fragment, into strings of glowing green symbols that drifted upward and vanished.

“Aizawa-sensei!” Izuku choked.

Aizawa didn’t flinch.

He shifted his grip, using the last solid piece of scarf to yank the stranger forward. At the same moment, he drove a boot into the man’s chest with a force that would have sent a fully grown villain through a wall.

The man took one step back.

Just one.

Izuku’s stomach dropped.

This isn’t a quirk.

It doesn’t feel like a quirk.

The world flickered.

For a heartbeat, the blue sky above Ground Beta wasn’t blue at all, but black. Not like night, not like storm clouds—just an endless, depthless black shot through with vertical streams of emerald code, tumbling down like digital rain.

The buildings jumped a few meters to the side and then snapped back, like a video frame stuttering.

Izuku squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again.

Ground Beta looked normal.

As normal as a blown-out training ground could look, anyway.

“Midoriya,” Aizawa said, barely turning his head. “Report.”

Izuku’s mouth was dry. “I—there’s something wrong with the environment. Visual distortions. Data streams—like… like the world is lagging.”

“That’s not helpful,” Aizawa muttered. “I don’t speak gamer.”

“I don’t know how else to describe it!” Izuku’s voice cracked. “It’s like reality’s… being edited.”

The suited man raised his hand again, unfazed by the scarf that had just disintegrated off him.

Aizawa cursed under his breath. “Move.”

He grabbed Izuku’s vest and hurled him sideways.

The next shot hit Aizawa’s shoulder.

Izuku heard it this time—a wet, tearing sound layered over that wrong, glitchy whine. He saw the distortion disk clip through muscle and cloth. Blood sprayed across the cracked pavement, bright and too vivid against the gray dust.

Aizawa stumbled.

For one horrible moment, his quirk flickered off. His hair fell, goggles losing their eerie red sheen.

“Sensei!” Izuku skidded to a stop on his knees, fingers scrabbling for purchase on broken stone. His heart pounded in his throat.

Aizawa clamped a hand over the wound on reflex, fingers sinking into the torn mess of flesh and fabric. Blood soaked through his glove instantly.

“Midoriya,” he hissed. “Cover. Now.”

Izuku’s brain tried to catalogue the injury—entry point high in the shoulder, depth unknown, no obvious exit wound, bleeding heavy but not spurting. Close to the lung, close to major blood vessels.

Not good. Not good at all.

He grabbed Aizawa’s uninjured arm and half-dragged, half-supported him behind the overturned truck. His breath sawed in and out, lungs struggling to catch up.

One For All stirred under his skin, crackling faintly.

He gripped it down.

If he went all out now, wild and uncontrolled, he’d destroy more than he saved—with Aizawa already hurt, with an enemy who could turn their weapons into code and probably their bones into the same—

“Target: injured,” the man observed, his voice still eerily calm. He walked toward them at a steady, unhurried pace, each step precise. “Threat level: moderate. Secondary objective: neutralize Erasure Hero: Aizawa Shouta. Prioritizing.”

He didn’t sound like a villain.

He sounded like a machine reading from a script.

The “gun” in his hand—just his palm, fingers half-curled—whined as those geometric patterns formed again in the air.

“Aizawa-sensei,” Izuku whispered, mind racing. “Quirk nullification didn’t work. He disrupted your scarf at the… at the data level. I’m not seeing tech on him, so either it’s hidden, or—”

“Or it’s not tech,” Aizawa said tightly. “It’s something else.”

He shifted, putting himself between Izuku and the open street again. Blood dripped steadily from his fingers, pattering onto the concrete.

The man’s head tilted.

“Noncompliance detected,” he noted. “Escalating.”

He blurred.

Izuku’s breath caught.

Teleportation, his quirk-analysis brain supplied automatically. Or high-speed movement beyond normal human limits. No dust trail, no build-up. Just here one second, three meters closer the next, then—

Right in front of them.

Izuku didn’t think.

He moved.

“FIVE PERCENT!”

Power exploded through his limbs.

It wasn’t the careful, controlled Full Cowl he’d been training so hard to master—it was raw, instinctive. Lightning arced along his legs, crackling green, wraps fluttering. He threw himself forward, arms crossed in front of his chest.

The shot hit him square in the sternum.

He flew.

It felt like being hit by a truck made of pure, compressed force. His ribs screamed, lungs collapsing, vision whiting out as he smashed through the façade of a fake storefront. Glass and debris rained down around him.

He hit the far wall hard enough that the world went gray at the edges.

For a few seconds, all he could do was lie there and choke.

His chest burned. Every breath felt like sucking in knives. Something wet trickled down his chin; when he wiped it with the back of his hand, it came back red.

“I’ve… I’ve had worse,” he muttered to no one, which was mostly a lie.

Muscular. Overusing One For All at the Sports Festival. Breaking his own arms against Todoroki’s ice. Yeah. He’d been hurt worse.

But this felt different.

His skin crawled.

Tiny green squares of light flickered across his costume where the shot had hit, crawling over his chest and arm like invasive insects. For a terrifying instant, his forearm disappeared—nothing there but a cloud of shifting symbols—before One For All surged and forced the symbols back out, reasserting his body’s shape.

Like something was trying to overwrite him.

Panic flared.

“Persistent anomaly,” the suited man said somewhere beyond the ringing in Izuku’s ears. “System integrity requires deletion.”

Footsteps approached.

“Midoriya!”

A hand seized the front of his costume and yanked him up.

Aizawa’s face swam into view, pale and drawn, sweat plastering loose hair to his forehead. His injured shoulder was one big red mess, but his eyes were sharp.

He shoved Izuku behind what remained of the wall, planting himself between his student and the approaching threat.

“You’re not—” Izuku wheezed. “You’re not supposed to be running around with a hole in your shoulder—”

“I’ll file a complaint with my body later,” Aizawa snapped.

He raised his hand again, fingers twitching reflexively toward the scarf that was no longer there. A flash of pain crossed his face when his hand encountered empty air.

“Sensei,” Izuku said, the word catching in his throat. “I—”

He didn’t get to finish.

The air folded.

Everything froze.

Dust hung mid-fall, suspended glittering in the sunlight. A chunk of concrete floated an inch above the ground, unmoving. The suited man stood with one foot raised, mid-stride, hand half-lifted toward them.

The world went silent.

Even the faint hum of UA’s distant systems cut out.

Izuku’s breath rasped loud in his own ears.

“What…?” His voice sounded wrong in the stillness.

Behind them, something rang.

A crisp, old-fashioned trilling that didn’t belong in a high-tech training facility.

Izuku turned his head slowly.

In the middle of the smashed café behind their cover, sitting primly on a table that was otherwise coated in dust and broken glass, was a bright red rotary phone.

Its cord dangled uselessly off the side of the table, not plugged into anything.

Riiiiing.

“Sensei?” Izuku whispered. “Is that… part of the exercise?”

“No.” Aizawa’s tone was flat, even by his standards. “And if you tell me this is ‘quirk-related,’ I’m dropping you.”

“I don’t think this is a quirk,” Izuku said weakly.

Every hair on his arms stood on end. The air around the phone seemed thicker somehow, as if reality itself were waiting to see what they did.

“No kidding.” Aizawa’s gaze swept their frozen surroundings, jaw tight. “Someone’s messing with time and space on a scale I’ve never seen. And they have access to our training grounds.”

He looked like he wanted to strangle whoever was responsible.

The phone rang again.

This time, a new voice spoke.

“You going to get that?”

They spun.

Aizawa was faster.

He had Izuku shoved behind him again in an instant, his good arm outstretched, body coiled. His eyes were already bleeding red, hair floating.

The newcomer leaned against a cracked pillar ten meters away, calm as a man waiting for the bus.

Tall. Lean. Dark hair. Black sunglasses that made it impossible to see his eyes. A long, battered coat the color of midnight hung open around him, revealing simple clothes underneath.

He didn’t look like a hero.

He didn’t look like a villain either.

He looked… out of place.

Like he’d been cut and pasted from an entirely different world.

“How did you get in here?” Aizawa demanded. “This field is sealed. We’re under attack. State your name and affiliation. Now.”

The stranger straightened at a leisurely pace.

“You can call me Neo,” he said.

Izuku’s brain hiccuped.

Neo?

Like… neon? New? Some kind of code name?

His quirk-analysis brain scrambled for categories.

Underground hero? Rogue vigilante? Villain with a flair for dramatic entrances?

Neo’s lips twitched, as though he found their reactions faintly amusing.

“I’d say ‘I’m here to help,’” he added, “but I’ve found people tend not to believe that until after I keep them from dying.”

Aizawa’s jaw clenched. “You have ten seconds to explain what that thing is—” he jabbed a finger toward the frozen suited man “—and why my training ground looks like someone paused a video game.”

Neo tilted his head slightly, studying the Agent.

“That,” he said, “is an Agent. Think of him as… the system’s immune response. You spook it, it sends those. They’re not fond of anomalies.”

His gaze shifted to Izuku.

“Especially not ones like you.”

Izuku swallowed. “A-anomaly?”

Neo’s mouth quirked again. “We’ll get to that.”

The phone rang a third time.

Neo glanced at it, then back at them. His expression sobered.

“I don’t have time to walk you through all of this gently,” he said. “Everything’s frozen because I froze it. Well—” he waggled his hand “—mostly. A crude interference on the local level. The system’s already chewing through it. When it breaks free, he—” he nodded at the Agent “—finishes what he started.”

His tone made it sound like an inevitability.

Izuku’s skin crawled.

“And the phone?” Aizawa demanded.

“Your exit,” Neo said simply. “You answer it, you get pulled out of this little illusion of yours. You wake up.” He shrugged. “Or you stay and fight an Agent with half a scarf and a student who thinks broken bones are a personality trait.”

Aizawa’s eyes narrowed. “You expect me to drag my student toward the creepy phone that magically appeared in the middle of a time freeze because a stranger in sunglasses told me to?”

Neo considered that. “When you say it like that, it does sound a little questionable.”

Izuku made a strangled sound.

He turned toward Aizawa, chest tight. “Sensei, what do we do?”

Aizawa’s gaze flicked between Neo, the frozen Agent, and the phone. You could practically see his brain running combat calculus: injured, outgunned, no communications, unknown entities in the field.

He hated incomplete information.

He hated gambling with his students.

“Option one,” Neo said mildly, as if reading his thoughts. “You stay. I release my hold. He kills the kid, probably kills you trying to get to him, and the system rewrites everything so no one remembers it happened. Clean data. No anomaly.”

Izuku’s stomach lurched.

“Option two,” Neo continued, voice still calmly conversational. “You take the call. You wake up. You get answers. You get a chance—tiny, but real—to fight back on a level that matters.”

He nodded at the wounded shoulder.

“Because whatever you think is happening here? This isn’t the real battleground. This is… the surface. The skin.”

Aizawa’s grip tightened around Izuku’s sleeve.

“And the people outside this ‘skin’?” he asked quietly. “My students. The other heroes. The civilians. What happens to them if we leave?”

Neo’s expression shifted—just a fraction, softening.

“Nothing immediately,” he said. “They’ll keep living their lives the way they always have. They’ll remember some kind of incident in training today. Maybe it’ll be logged as a system malfunction, maybe a contained villain intrusion.” He shrugged. “They won’t remember the bullets that turned into static or the way your scarf turned into code.”

Izuku shivered.

“You’re asking us to abandon them,” Aizawa said.

“I’m asking you to change how you try to save them,” Neo replied. “Because right now, you’re punching a cage from the inside, and the cage is getting annoyed.”

He nodded at Izuku again.

“A little more annoyed than usual, actually.”

Izuku stared down at his hands.

Tiny motes of green light still flickered at the edges of his vision, like afterimages from staring at a screen too long.

“What… am I?” he whispered.

Neo’s mouth twitched. “Short version? You’re carrying something inside you that doesn’t belong to this… system. It doesn’t like that. It’s sending its attack dogs.”

He jerked his chin at the phone.

“She’s impatient,” he said. “You should probably answer before she gets annoyed too.”

“She?” Izuku echoed weakly.

“The one on the other end.” Neo’s smile went oddly fond. “You’ll like her. She’s good with kids.”

Aizawa tensed. “There’s another person in this… whatever this is?”

“Many,” Neo said. “But you don’t have to trust them yet. Just trust that staying here gets you both killed.”

The phone rang a fourth time.

It sounded louder now, echoing through the frozen training ground.

Aizawa’s face hardened.

He drew in a slow breath.

“Midoriya,” he said.

Izuku snapped to attention. “Y-yes?”

“If anything looks wrong once we move,” Aizawa said, “you shout. If I go down, you run. You hear me?”

“No!” The protest burst out before Izuku could stop it. “I—I’m not leaving you!”

Aizawa’s gaze softened, just a little. “You already did once,” he said quietly. “When you pushed me out of that shot’s path. You made the right call. Don’t make that sacrifice worthless by getting yourself killed trying to fix everything alone.”

Izuku’s throat closed.

He wanted to argue.

He wanted to scream that he wasn’t strong enough to do this without Aizawa, that he didn’t understand what was happening, that he just wanted a normal training exercise back.

But he thought of the way the Agent had looked at him. Like he was a bug in the system.

He thought of how reality had lagged. How a scarf that had saved lives had turned into numbers and vanished.

And he thought of his class—laughing, bickering, training. Oblivious.

If there was a way to protect them from something like this, he had to take it.

Even if it meant stepping off a metaphorical cliff with his teacher.

“…Okay,” he whispered.

Aizawa gave a single, sharp nod.

“Stay behind me,” he repeated.

They moved.

The frozen Agent remained mid-stride, frame stuck halfway between one instant and the next. Dust motes hung in the air as they passed, catching in Izuku’s hair. His ribs ached with every breath.

The red phone sat on the table like it had always been there.

Up close, it looked… ordinary. A little scuffed. The rotary dial was stuck halfway between two numbers.

Aizawa reached for it, fingers curling around the receiver.

Izuku’s heart pounded.

“This better not be a prank,” Aizawa muttered, lifting it to his ear. “Aizawa Shouta. You have thirty seconds before I hang up.”

The woman’s laugh on the other end was warm and amused.

“Oh, I like you,” she said. Her voice carried an ease that felt wildly out of place in the frozen chaos. “You must be Eraserhead. I’ve heard about you.”

Aizawa’s eye twitched. “Who are you?”

“The Oracle,” she replied. “And if you want to survive, you’re going to listen very carefully. Then you’re going to jump.”

Izuku blinked. “J-jump… from what?”

“The building on your left,” the Oracle said, as if commenting on the weather. “Top floor. Roof door is locked right now, but it won’t be by the time you get there. Neo will handle that.”

Aizawa’s gaze slid toward the fire escape on the nearest building.

“And if we don’t take your little field trip?” he asked.

“Then the Agent unfreezes, shoots Midoriya through the head, and you die trying to drag his body behind a wall,” the Oracle said, her tone matter-of-fact. “The system cleans up the mess, your students cry at your funeral, and nothing changes.”

Izuku’s stomach dropped through the floor.

Aizawa’s fingers tightened around the receiver.

He closed his eyes for half a second.

Then he hung up.

Neo pushed off the pillar, coat swaying. “Smart man,” he said.

“I’m reserving judgment,” Aizawa replied. He turned to Izuku. “Stay low. Don’t look down unless you have to.”

Izuku swallowed. “Y-yes, sir.”

They ran.

Or at least, Aizawa ran.

Izuku limped.

Every step sent sparks of pain through his ribs and chest. The wound from the Agent’s shot throbbed with a wrong kind of ache. One For All hummed quietly, ready to brace him if he slipped.

The fire exit door should have been locked.

UA’s security was strict about that.

But when Neo reached it, the lock… glitched. For a second, Izuku saw green symbols crawling along the metal, and then the door swung inward.

“After you,” Neo said.

Aizawa shot him a look, then barreled up the stairs.

The stairwell smelled like concrete dust and metal. Their footsteps echoed strangely, like the sound was being recorded and played back half a second late. Izuku’s breath grew ragged, but adrenaline shoved him higher.

By the time they burst onto the rooftop, his legs were shaking.

The sky above Ground Beta was still frozen, clouds unmoving. But the air felt different up here, thinner, like they’d climbed out of something and were now standing on its surface.

The roof was wrong.

It didn’t match any of the building schematics Izuku knew. This wasn’t one of UA’s training blocks. The concrete was older, cracked and weather-stained. Rusted vents jutted from the surface.

And right at the edge of the roof, a second phone waited.

Black this time.

Sitting on a metal stand bolted into nothing.

Its cord ran over the ledge and into the empty air.

Izuku edged closer and looked down.

His stomach lurched.

There was no UA campus beneath them.

No familiar running track. No security wall. No gleaming main building.

Just… darkness.

Not night, not shadow—nothingness, stretching out in all directions. Here and there, faint columns of green code flickered like distant lightning.

He stumbled back, knees buckling.

“This isn’t possible,” he whispered.

“‘Impossible’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your vocabulary right now,” Neo said dryly.

Aizawa hovered between the phone and the edge, jaw clenched so tight that muscles worked in his cheeks.

“You said this is an exit,” he said. “Not a death sentence.”

“Depends on your definition of death,” Neo replied. “And life. And reality.” His expression softened. “But yes. It’ll pull you out. You’ll wake up. It’ll feel like dying. It isn’t.”

“The woman on the phone,” Aizawa said. “She called herself the Oracle. You trust her?”

“With my life,” Neo said simply.

Aizawa didn’t look reassured, but the answer seemed to weigh something in his internal calculus.

Riiiiing.

The black phone started ringing.

The sound vibrated in Izuku’s teeth.

Neo straightened, shoulders squaring. “The system’s chewing through my interference,” he said quietly. “Freeze won’t hold much longer.”

As if on cue, a grain of dust near the door shivered… and fell.

Time hiccuped.

Then the Agent was there.

He didn’t burst through the door.

He didn’t climb the stairs.

He just… stepped onto the roof like a bad edit in a film. One moment the space was empty; the next, he occupied it.

“Anomalies confirmed,” he said. His gaze slid across Neo, Aizawa, Izuku. “New variable detected: ‘The One.’”

Neo’s jaw tightened. “They’re getting faster,” he muttered.

The Agent’s hand lifted.

Neo met his eyes.

“Go,” he told Aizawa, voice calm over the boiling tension. “I’ll hold him.”

Aizawa bristled. “You’re injured,” he snapped. “And picking a fight with a walking weapon while my student and I jump off a roof is not my idea of a sound strategy—”

The Agent fired.

Neo moved.

Izuku never saw the first clash.

One second they were five meters apart; the next, Neo was there, hand striking the Agent’s wrist, deflecting the shot harmlessly into the air. The distortion disk ripped a hole in the sky instead.

Then the two were a blur—fists, feet, impossible force slamming into impossible resistance. Every impact sent shockwaves through the rooftop, cracks spiderwebbing through the concrete.

Izuku stumbled, ducking instinctively as a vent tore free and spun past his head.

It was like watching All Might fight All For One.

If All For One had been a soulless machine and All Might had worn sunglasses and a permanent air of disappointed calm.

Reality shuddered around them.

The green rain flickered at the edges of Izuku’s vision again, streaming down the air in thick columns. The void below the roof pulsed.

“We’re out of time!” Neo shouted, slamming an elbow into the Agent’s face. The Agent’s head snapped back, then straightened as if rewinding. “Take the call! Now!”

Aizawa hesitated for the briefest of instants.

Then he moved.

He grabbed Izuku by the front of his suit and half-dragged him toward the stand. His wounded shoulder protested; his face went gray with pain, but he didn’t stop.

The phone kept ringing.

“Sensei,” Izuku gasped, stumbling. “What if this is a trap? What if we jump and nothing’s there? What if—”

“Then I’ll yell at whatever afterlife this is until it sends you back,” Aizawa said, deadpan.

Izuku let out a breathless laugh that was half sob.

They reached the stand.

Up close, the phone’s surface was cold enough to sting.

Aizawa grabbed the receiver and slammed it into Izuku’s hand.

“Hold on,” he said.

Izuku swallowed hard.

Green code flickered at the edges of his vision again, crawling up the stand, under the phone, up his wrist.

“Midoriya,” Aizawa said quietly.

Izuku looked up.

His teacher’s eyes—dark, tired, stubborn—met his.

“I am not letting you die in some broken training field,” Aizawa said. “I’m not letting you be erased like you’re a mistake. You’re my student. You got that?”

Izuku’s throat closed.

“I—I got it,” he whispered.

“Good.” Aizawa’s grip tightened. “Then when we wake up… you listen, you learn, and you don’t try to shoulder the weight of the world alone.”

The rooftop shook.

Behind them, the Agent roared—not a human sound, but a glitching shriek of code. Neo grunted, boots digging into the concrete as he caught both of the Agent’s wrists, forcing his arms outward.

“I SAID GO!” Neo bellowed.

Izuku raised the phone to his ear.

“Ready?” came the Oracle’s warm, unhurried voice.

“No,” Izuku croaked. “But I’m doing it anyway.”

She chuckled. “That’s how it works, sweetheart.”

The world snapped.

The rooftop, the Agent, Neo’s silhouette—all of it dissolved into a blinding rush of white and green, reality tearing itself into long, streaming columns of code.

Izuku felt himself fall.

Not down.

Inward.

His chest seized. His lungs forgot how to breathe. His heart stuttered, then raced, then—

Stopped.

For one horrifying instant, there was nothing.

No pain, no sound, no body.

Just the distant echo of Aizawa’s grip on his shoulder and the fading hum of One For All coiled around something deeper than flesh.

Then—

Cold.

Thick fluid filling his mouth and nose.

The sensation of a tube being yanked from his throat.

Hands grabbing him.

Light too bright, air too sharp.

Izuku’s eyes flew open.

He saw metal.

Curved walls.

Wires.

Faces he didn’t know.

Aizawa, pale and furious and alive.

And a world that definitely, absolutely, wasn’t UA.

He tried to scream.

All that came out was a ragged, wet gasp as his body convulsed on a metal platform, gel pooling under him.

“Easy, kid,” someone said over the pounding in his ears. “Easy. Welcome to the real world.”

Izuku Midoriya’s vision blurred.

Hands caught him as he sagged sideways.

The last thing he saw before darkness finally claimed him was Neo, standing by the doorway, sunglasses off, eyes tired but somehow… relieved.

“You made it,” Neo said quietly.

Then everything went black.

Chapter Text

It started with drowning.

Aizawa’s first conscious thought was that he was underwater and something was jammed down his throat.

His lungs convulsed, trying to suck in air that wasn’t there. Thick, viscous fluid burned up his windpipe. His hands wouldn’t move. His body wouldn’t move. It felt wrong—heavy and limp and thin, like a limb that had fallen asleep.

Panic, sharp and immediate, cut through the fog in his head.

He forced his eyes open.

The world was red.

Not metaphorically. He was literally staring through a curved panel tinted the color of fresh blood. For a moment all he saw was murk and light—vague shapes swimming beyond the glass.

Then his vision sharpened.

He was in a… tank.

Narrow. Vertical. Cables snaked around his limbs, plunged into his spine and the base of his skull. Needles? Ports? The thought made bile rise in his throat. The gel around him clung like cold slime, muffling every sense.

This isn’t Ground Beta.

The last thing he remembered was the roof. The phone. Midoriya’s terrified eyes. Neo’s voice, distant and strained.

We jumped, Aizawa thought. Or died.

Something clamped around his chest and squeezed, a mechanical rhythm that didn’t match his own heartbeat. He tried to move, and his muscles twitched uselessly.

Rage came next, hot and cutting through the fear.

He hated being restrained.

He hated not being able to protect his kids.

And right now he didn’t even know where they were.

His fingers spasmed against whatever surface they were pinned to. He forced his hand up inch by inch, fighting through deadweight and needles of pain until his palm pressed flat against the inside of the curved glass.

It was smooth.

Too smooth.

He tried to activate his quirk on instinct—erase something, anything—but whatever was out there didn’t flicker. His hair floated uselessly around his head in the gel, weightless.

No response.

No villains, no quirks, no—

No Midoriya.

That thought hit harder than the rest.

If the kid hadn’t landed in one of these—

If he hadn’t—

The red glass in front of him suddenly darkened, then cleared.

For the first time, he saw outside.

And his breath stopped in his chest.

The tank he was in stretched from just above his head to his knees. Thick cables connected it to a network of pipes and ribs that vanished into the shadows above. Beyond his pod, a vast chasm opened up—tier upon tier of identical red capsules, curving down into darkness like a nightmarish honeycomb.

Each pod lit the air around it with a faint crimson glow.

In some of them, he could see shapes tangled in the gel.

People.

Hundreds. Thousands.

An entire city worth of bodies wired into a colossal metal womb.

“What… the hell,” Aizawa croaked around the tube.

His voice didn’t carry far. The gel swallowed it, thick and uncaring.

He didn’t get long to process it.

Something hissed near his head. The cable at the back of his neck gave a sudden, wrenching tug—then snapped free, sending spikes of white-hot pain down his spine. He choked as a mechanical arm darted in, grabbing the tube in his throat and ripping it upward.

He gagged, convulsing, as the hose slid out in one awful rush. Gel and bile burst from his mouth.

Air hit his lungs like knives.

He instinctively tried to curl forward, but more lines tore free from his limbs and spine—port after port disconnecting in quick succession. Every one of them sent a burning zap through his nerves.

The pod’s front wall split with a sound like tearing metal.

The gel surged out around him, dumping him forward.

Aizawa fell.

He expected to hit the bottom of the pod. Instead, he dropped through open air.

He barely had time for a strangled “Tch—” before he smacked into hard metal, rolled, and ended up sprawled on his side on a grated platform.

Cold tore into his skin.

He lay there for a few seconds, gasping, shaking from more than just the chill. Every muscle screamed. It felt like his entire body had been asleep for years and someone had just jammed electricity through it.

“Got him!” a woman shouted from somewhere above his head. “Shut the hatch, Tank! I’ve got his line!”

Hands grabbed him—human this time, not metal. A towel or blanket of some kind wrapped around his shoulders, rough against hypersensitive skin.

He forced his eyes open again.

The ceiling above him was low and curved, lined with pipes and wires. Dim lights flickered behind layered grates. The air tasted metallic and stale, tinged with oil and old sweat.

Definitely not any hospital he’d ever seen.

A woman crouched in front of him, supporting his shoulders. Short dark hair tucked behind her ears, no-nonsense expression, eyes sharp. She looked like she hadn’t slept properly in days.

“Can you hear me?” she asked, voice firm but not unkind. “One blink for yes, two for no.”

Aizawa squinted at her, throat still raw. “I… can hear you,” he rasped. Talking hurt, but not as much as the ports along his spine.

The woman exhaled. “Good. That saves us an argument. I’m Trinity. You’re on a hovercraft called the Nebuchadnezzar. You were just removed from your pod. Your body is in shock, but you’re not dying. Yet. Try not to freak out.”

He stared at her.

And then, because he was a rational adult hero who had seen too much already today, he croaked,

“Define ‘pod.’”

Trinity’s mouth twitched. She glanced at someone over his shoulder.

Another figure stepped into view.

Broad shoulders, long coat, a weathered face with deep lines at the corners of wise eyes. Aizawa didn’t need introductions to know this was the one in charge.

But the name helped anyway.

“I’m Morpheus,” the man said. His voice carried a weight Aizawa immediately distrusted on principle. “I know this is disorienting, Mr. Aizawa. We’ll answer your questions. I promise. But first, we need to stabilize you.”

Aizawa tried to sit up straighter.

His muscles immediately rebelled. His arms shook like a first-year on their first pull-up.

“Midoriya,” he rasped instead. “Where is he?”

Morpheus’s gaze softened. “Still in his pod,” he said. “For the moment. We had to pull you first.”

A wave of cold rolled through Aizawa that had nothing to do with the temperature.

“What?” he snapped, suddenly awake in a way pain couldn’t numb. “Why? You leave him in that thing while you—”

“Because your nervous system is less… entangled,” Morpheus said gently. “And because if things went wrong with you, we didn’t want to risk losing you and the boy at once.”

“That’s a terrible triage choice,” Aizawa shot back, anger putting strength into his voice. “He’s a fifteen-year-old kid. Pull him out. Now.”

Trinity’s eyes flicked to Morpheus, brows raising.

“If he’s this annoying injured,” she muttered, “he’s going to be a joy once he can walk.”

Aizawa bared his teeth. “You want to see annoying, keep delaying.”

Morpheus chuckled softly. “Hero indeed,” he murmured.

He sobered. “Midoriya will be next,” he promised. “Neo and the others are already working the coordinates.” His gaze searched Aizawa’s face. “But he will come out disoriented, vulnerable, and frightened. He’ll need someone familiar when he wakes. I’d prefer that someone not pass out from shock first.”

Aizawa opened his mouth to argue.

His hands were still shaking.

The brief moment of adrenaline was already fading, leaving a creeping, nauseating weakness behind. Every heartbeat made the ports along his spine twinge.

He hated that Morpheus had a point.

He hated it more because it meant acknowledging his own limits.

“…Fine,” he ground out. “But if there’s any delay beyond ‘as fast as physically possible,’ I will make myself your problem.”

Trinity snorted softly. “You already are,” she said. “Let’s get you hooked up.”

They half-carried, half-guided him to a narrow med bed, more like a modified bunk. Cables dangled above it—less invasive than the pod ones, but still more than he liked. Trinity set about attaching sensors with brisk efficiency, rattling off instructions to someone named Tank up at the front of the ship.

Aizawa let them work—as much as he hated being fussed over—because every time he tried to move on his own he felt like his muscles were being peeled off his bones.

His shoulder throbbed.

The place where the Agent’s shot had gone through pulsed with a strange, almost mechanical ache. He glanced down, bracing himself for what he’d see.

The wound was… wrong.

The skin around it was mottled, faintly discolored, patterned with tiny squares that faded as he watched. The bleeding had stopped, but the tissue looked like something had tried to take it apart and given up halfway.

Trinity caught his look.

“Agents don’t just damage flesh,” she said quietly. “Their attacks try to overwrite your code. Midoriya’s little stunt on that roof probably kept that shot from deleting half your torso.”

Aizawa looked away.

“Of course he did,” he muttered. “Stupid problem child.”

She hid a smile.

They finished wiring him up. Warmth seeped slowly into the bed, chasing some of the chill from his limbs. Someone draped a thin but clean blanket over him. The smells of metal and old oil faded into the background, replaced by the steady beep of improvised monitors.

Only when he was more or less stable did Morpheus speak again.

“I know you have questions,” he said.

Aizawa stared at the ceiling. “Questions implies I have coherent thoughts,” he said. “I’m not sure we’re there yet.”

Morpheus inclined his head, accepting that.

“I’ll give you one thing,” Aizawa said after a moment, turning his head enough to meet the man’s eyes. “The last world I remember… didn’t feel like code. It felt like concrete when I hit it.”

“It is concrete,” Morpheus said. “In its way. Pain in the Matrix is real. Your brain processes it with the same intensity. It kills just as effectively.”

“Matrix,” Aizawa repeated, tasting the unfamiliar word.

“Your world,” Morpheus said simply. “The one you think is real. The one built of quirks and heroes and villains. The one that told you you were walking through a training ground a few hours ago.”

Aizawa’s fingers dug into the blanket.

“What are you saying?” he asked, voice low.

Morpheus took a breath.

“I’m saying that the world you know is a simulated reality,” he said. “A prison built to keep human minds occupied while their bodies are used as power sources in vast fields. You are one of millions who have never known anything else.”

The words rang in the air.

Aizawa stared.

For a full thirty seconds, the only sound on the ship was the hum of machinery and the faint rattle of metal under distant turbulence.

Finally, Aizawa closed his eyes.

“…I hate that I don’t have any evidence to argue with that,” he said.

Trinity’s brows rose. “That’s it?”

“You want me to accept a reality shift of this magnitude instantly?” Aizawa snorted. “No. I need data. Proof. Right now my brain is still debating whether this is an elaborate hallucination from blood loss.”

He looked back at Morpheus sharply.

“But I know what getting shot feels like. I know what my quirk feels like. I know what kids feel like when they’re scared.” His jaw tightened. “Midoriya was terrified up there. That wasn’t fake. If you’re telling me everything else was…”

He let out a slow, shaky breath.

“Then I will file that with ‘problems to solve once the bleeding stops,’” he said. “Priority one is still the same: keep my students alive. Especially the green one with terrible decision-making skills.”

Trinity’s lips twitched. “I like him,” she told Morpheus.

Morpheus smiled faintly. “I thought you might.”

Aizawa settled back against the bed, muscles shaking from the effort of staying upright.

“Go get him,” he said. “Bring Midoriya here. Then you can show us whatever nightmare fields you want. Until then, I’m not moving.”

He closed his eyes.

He didn’t sleep.

He just waited.

 

---

Izuku woke up screaming.

Gel spilled out of his mouth, burning his throat and nose. His lungs spasmed, desperately trying to drag in air and getting sludge instead. Every nerve ending lit up with cold and shock and a dull background ache that felt like he’d been lying still for far too long.

He flailed.

Or tried to.

His arms moved like they were wrapped in wet sand. Thick cables tugged at his limbs, at his spine, at—

His neck.

There was something in his neck.

Panic roared up, louder than anything else.

His eyes snapped open.

Red.

The world bathed in it, curved around him. He saw nothing but that color and the warped reflection of his own face—pale, eyes wide, hair plastered to his forehead with gel.

His mind supplied the missing details in a rush.

Not Ground Beta. Not the roof. We answered the phone. We—

Something clicked behind his head.

Pain stabbed into the base of his skull as the thick cable there wrenched free. Izuku choked, body arching involuntarily. A machine arm darted in front of him; the tube in his throat ripped out in a violent, gagging surge.

He vomited up gel and bile, hacking, throat burning.

The front of the capsule split.

Gel poured out, carrying him with it.

For a second he was weightless.

Then he slammed into something hard and grated.

He rolled, gasping, lungs trying to remember how breathing worked. His muscles felt wrong—too weak, too thin, like he’d been sick in bed for months. Pins and needles crawled across his skin where lines and needles had been torn free.

Hands grabbed him.

He yelped, flinching, trying to twist away.

“Easy, kid, easy,” a woman’s voice said urgently. “Breathe. You’re okay. Well. You’re alive. One thing at a time.”

A blanket settled around his shoulders, scratchy and surprisingly heavy. Someone thumped his back as he coughed more gel up. The air tasted like metal and dust and oil.

He forced his eyes open.

Low ceiling. Pipes. Cables. Flickering lights.

Not UA.

Not Japan.

Not anything he knew.

His heart jackhammered.

He latched onto the first familiar thing he saw.

“A—Aizawa-sensei!?” he croaked.

A weak voice answered from somewhere to his right.

“Indoor voice, Midoriya,” Aizawa rasped. “Some of us have had a long day.”

Izuku twisted, ignoring the way his muscles protested.

Aizawa lay on a narrow bed a few feet away, swaddled in a blanket, wires trailing from sensors stuck to his chest and arms. He’d been cleaned up—no more gel—but he still looked awful. Dark circles pooled under his eyes. His hair, even messier than usual, fanned out across a thin pillow.

He was breathing.

His chest rose and fell.

Izuku’s eyes stung.

“You’re okay,” he whispered, the words half prayer. “You’re really— we didn’t— I thought I—”

His throat closed around a sob.

Aizawa watched him, expression flat but gaze soft.

“I’m alive,” he said. “You’re alive. Neo’s arguably alive until proven otherwise. Things could be worse.”

Izuku let out a wet, shaky laugh.

A hand squeezed his shoulder.

He looked up into the face of the dark-haired woman crouching beside him.

Up close, she looked tired. Not the surface-level tired of a pro hero after a long day of patrol, but the deep, bone-level weariness of someone who’d been fighting for years.

“I’m Trinity,” she said. “Welcome aboard.”

Izuku blinked rapidly.

“Aboard… where?” he asked, voice cracking. “W-what happened? Where are we? Where’s UA? Where’s my mom? My classmates? All Might? That Agent thing—”

The questions tripped over each other, logjammed by panic.

Trinity held up a hand. “Breathe,” she said. “Or you’re going to pass out and we’ll have to do this twice.”

He sucked in a few shaky breaths, trying to mimic the calming techniques Recovery Girl had taught them. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Count. Focus.

His heart rate eased from frantic hummingbird to merely “about to run a marathon.”

“Good,” Trinity said. “Short answer: you’re on a hovercraft called the Nebuchadnezzar. We pulled you and your teacher out of your pods. You’re safe. For the moment.”

“Pods,” Izuku repeated dumbly. “Like—bath pods? Training pods?”

Trinity’s expression flickered.

“…Not exactly,” she said.

Footsteps approached.

Izuku looked up as Morpheus stepped into his field of view, coat swishing slightly.

He’d seemed imposing in the heat of the moment before. Here, in the cramped med bay, he looked… quieter. Not smaller, exactly. Just more human.

“I’m Morpheus,” he said. “We’ve spoken a little with Aizawa already, but we wanted to wait for you to wake before explaining further.”

Izuku clutched the blanket tighter.

He was suddenly, acutely aware of his own body.

Thin arms.

Pale skin.

Faint, circular scars in regular patterns along his limbs and torso where ports had been. His muscles trembled just sitting upright, like his own weight was a surprise.

He felt… wrong.

“Was I sick?” he blurted. “Is this—did I go into a coma? Is this some kind of underground hospital? Did I—”

“You weren’t sick,” Morpheus said gently. “You were… grown.”

The words struck something deep and primal.

“G-grown?” Izuku repeated. “Like—like in a lab?”

He’d read about cloning experiments in some fringe science forums, but those had always been limited, theoretical, mostly banned.

Morpheus nodded once.

“In vast fields,” he said. “Your body was one of millions, suspended and connected from birth to a virtual reality. The Matrix. What you know as ‘the world.’”

Izuku stared.

The hum of the ship filled the silence.

The word hung in the air, heavy and unbelievable.

Matrix.

Morpheus let it settle before continuing.

“The year in your records,” he said, “is wrong. The society you know is not the original one. Quirks, heroes, villains—these are all part of the simulation. A way to occupy human minds. To keep them from questioning the cage.”

Izuku’s brain stalled.

“That’s not…” He shook his head, the motion making him dizzy. “That can’t—there’s history, records, All Might—”

“Programs,” Trinity cut in. “Variables. Stories written in. Self-sustaining systems of control. Some of it stems from who humans used to be—who we are. Some of it was added. Adjusted. Patched. Quirks, for example.”

Izuku felt like the floor had dropped out from under him.

Quirks.

His whole life had centered around them. Around not having one, then acquiring one at immense cost. The world shifted around that concept—laws, heroics, social norms.

“You’re saying quirks are… fake?” he whispered.

“‘Fake’ isn’t the word I’d use,” Morpheus said thoughtfully. “They’re real within the system. They hurt. They heal. They alter the rules—within limits the machines allow. The simulation enforces their logic.”

Trinity nodded. “We’ve seen other versions of the Matrix,” she said. “Other eras. Before quirks were installed. Yours was an experiment. ‘What if we give them powers and tell them some people can fight the monsters for them?’”

Izuku felt sick.

“So everything,” he said dully. “My notebooks. My training. All Might’s smile. My mom’s cooking. Kacchan yelling at me. All of that was just…”

“A story?” Trinity finished gently. “Written code?”

She took a breath.

“Your feelings weren’t fake,” she said firmly. “The people aren’t fake. Their minds are real. Their experiences are real, even if the stage they happen on is made of numbers. That’s what matters.”

Izuku looked down at his hands.

They were shaking.

“I don’t…” His voice broke. “I don’t know how to hold that in my head. That my whole life has been… plugged in.”

“Join the club,” Aizawa said hoarsely from his bed.

Izuku turned toward him.

Aizawa met his gaze, tired but steady.

“I don’t understand most of it,” he said. “I don’t believe all of it yet. But I know this: you were being hunted. That thing in the suit wanted you dead badly enough to rip our training ground apart. These people pulled us out of its reach.”

His lips twitched wryly.

“So for the moment,” he added, “I’m putting ‘existential crisis’ in the ‘deal with later’ pile and focusing on ‘not getting my students erased.’”

Izuku let out a wet laugh that was half sob.

“Is… is that allowed?” he asked.

“As your teacher,” Aizawa said, “yes. I’m assigning you to ‘keep breathing’ for the next few hours. We can schedule your breakdown for later.”

Izuku sniffed.

Trinity’s mouth curved. “I like him more every minute,” she murmured to Morpheus.

Morpheus smiled faintly, then sobered.

“There is another piece you both need to understand,” he said. “Midoriya… you are unusual. Even within the Matrix.”

Izuku’s stomach clenched.

“Because I’m… a glitch?” he whispered, remembering the suited thing’s words. “He called me that. He said I was an anomaly.”

Morpheus nodded. “You are,” he said. “We’ve dealt with anomalies before. People whose minds reject the simulation at a deep level, who develop… talents inside the Matrix that allow them to bend the rules. Neo is one.”

Neo.

Izuku looked past Morpheus, searching the med bay.

“Where is he?” he asked. “He—he was there when I blacked out. On the ship. Is he okay?”

Trinity’s jaw tightened.

“We lost his signal,” she said quietly. “He stayed behind to hold the Agents off. The machines… cut the connection. That doesn’t mean he’s gone.” She met Izuku’s eyes. “He’s survived worse. But we can’t reach him right now.”

Izuku’s throat burned.

He’d only met Neo twice. He didn’t know him, not really.

But Neo had stood between him and an Agent like it was the most obvious choice in the world. He’d shouted at them to run. He’d called him “hero” without a trace of irony.

The idea of that presence just… being gone hurt more than Izuku wanted to admit.

He curled his hands into fists around the blanket.

“I… I want to help,” he said in a small voice. “I want to pull him back. I want to yank every Agent’s plug out of the wall. I want to… I don’t know. Smash the Matrix with a Detroit Smash.”

The image was ridiculous and made him want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Aizawa watched him, something unexpectedly gentle in his gaze.

“You will help,” he said. “Once you can stand up without falling on your face.”

Izuku flushed.

“I’m not that weak—”

He tried to push himself off the floor.

His arms shook violently.

His elbows almost collapsed.

Trinity winced in sympathy. “Your muscles have never been used without machine assistance,” she said. “Your nerves are still recalibrating. You’re basically a baby giraffe right now.”

Izuku thumped back down, breathing hard.

“…Okay, that’s fair,” he muttered.

Morpheus folded his hands in front of him.

“You asked why the Agents called you a glitch,” he said. “Why the system is so interested in you.”

Izuku swallowed. “I figured it was because of my quirk,” he said. “One For All.”

Aizawa’s brows drew together. “We haven’t talked about that yet,” he noted quietly.

Izuku hesitated.

Then he nodded.

They were so far past normal secrets that keeping this one felt pointless.

“I—One For All isn’t like other quirks,” he began, voice soft. “It’s… transferable. The previous user gave it to me. All Might.”

Aizawa closed his eyes briefly, but didn’t interrupt.

“It’s power collected from multiple users,” Izuku went on. “Each one passes it on, and each time it gets stronger. There’s something… inside it. Like echoes of the people who held it before. And it doesn’t behave like other quirk types. It’s… weird.”

Trinity and Morpheus exchanged a look that made Izuku’s skin prickle.

“What?” he blurted. “What does that mean?”

Morpheus’s gaze was intent.

“We’ve seen something like that before,” he said. “Code that recurs. That refuses deletion. That returns across iterations of the Matrix, carrying… traces… of what came before.”

Trinity’s voice softened. “The machines call it an error,” she said. “We call it hope. The One. A human whose mind connects to the underlying code of the Matrix in ways no one else’s does. He can bend it, rewrite it, change the world from within.”

She nodded toward Izuku.

“And some of that code is tangled up in you.”

Izuku felt suddenly very small.

“Because of One For All,” he whispered.

“That’s our theory,” Morpheus said. “An ancient pattern repurposed as a ‘quirk’ to hide it in plain sight. The machines thought they’d contained it, domesticated it. They didn’t account for someone like you.”

“Someone stupid enough to jump in front of bullets,” Aizawa muttered.

“Hero enough,” Morpheus corrected gently.

Izuku’s cheeks burned.

“I’m not… I’m just…” He hugged the blanket tighter. “I just want to save people. That’s all I ever wanted.”

“Which,” Trinity said, “is exactly the kind of person the machines don’t like having special powers.”

Aizawa let out a slow breath.

“All of this philosophy is great,” he said. “But it doesn’t change what we have to do next.”

Morpheus inclined his head. “Which is?”

Aizawa fixed him with a look that would have sent half of Class 1-A scrambling to do push-ups.

“You show us how to survive out there,” he said. “Out there—” he jerked his chin toward the ship wall “—and in the Matrix. You show us how to keep our signatures low, how to fight those Agents, how to get in and out without getting deleted.” His eyes narrowed. “And then we go back.”

Trinity frowned. “Back where?”

“To UA,” Aizawa said simply. “To my class. To my colleagues. To the civilians who have no idea they’re being used as batteries in a glorified video game. I walked those kids into a kill zone without knowing it. I’m not leaving them there.”

Izuku’s heart lurched.

“Sensei…” he whispered.

Aizawa didn’t look at him.

He kept his gaze on Morpheus and Trinity.

“I’m a teacher,” he said quietly. “My job doesn’t stop because the scale of the problem got bigger. It just means my lesson plan changes.”

It was said half as a joke, but there was steel underneath.

Silence fell.

Then Morpheus nodded, slow and thoughtful.

“I had hoped you would say that,” he said.

Trinity sighed, running a hand through her hair. “Of course we’re adopting pro heroes now,” she muttered. “As if Neo wasn’t enough of a headache.”

Izuku let out a wobbly laugh.

It felt… good.

Scary. Overwhelming. Like standing at the base of a mountain with broken legs.

But good.

Morpheus stepped back, glancing at the monitors.

“Your bodies will need time,” he said. “We’ll start simple. Physical therapy. Basic neural training. We’ll ease you into the construct programs when your muscles can handle the feedback.”

“Programs?” Izuku asked warily.

Trinity smirked. “Virtual environments,” she said. “Simulations inside the bigger simulation. Training rooms we control, not the machines. You’ll hate them. They’ll save your life.”

Izuku swallowed.

“All right,” he said.

He looked down at his hands again.

Thin and shaking.

He’d have to start from scratch. Physically, mentally, everything. All his progress at UA—every push-up, every meter he’d shaved off his run times—meant nothing here.

But that was familiar, in a way.

He’d started from nothing before.

Quirkless.

Scared.

Determined.

He could do it again.

He clenched his jaw, feeling the phantom hum of One For All deep inside, coiled around something bigger than himself.

“I’ll work hard,” he said quietly. “Whatever you need me to learn, I’ll learn it. If it means I can protect them.”

Morpheus’s eyes warmed.

“I know,” he said.

Aizawa shifted, wincing as his shoulder protested.

“Midoriya,” he said.

Izuku turned.

“You’re not doing this alone,” Aizawa told him. “You hear me? I know you. You’re already planning out a thousand self-destructive training routines in that head of yours.”

Izuku flushed. “I—I wasn’t—okay, maybe a little, but—”

“But nothing.” Aizawa’s tone brooked no argument. “We do this as a team. You, me, and whoever else is insane enough to help. We set limits. We take breaks. We plan. We don’t just throw ourselves at the problem until something breaks.”

His gaze softened.

“And when you panic,” he added, “you talk to me. Or them.” He nodded slightly toward Trinity and Morpheus. “But you don’t bottle it up until you explode. That’s an order.”

Izuku’s throat tightened.

He blinked hard, willing the tears not to fall.

“…Yes, sir,” he whispered.

“Good.” Aizawa let his head fall back against the pillow. “Now I’m going to close my eyes for five minutes. If anyone says the word ‘simulation’ or ‘battery’ during that time, I’m disowning all of you.”

Trinity snorted. “Noted.”

Izuku smiled, small but real.

The med bay hummed quietly around them.

Somewhere beyond the hull, the real world stretched out—dark skies, ruined cities, endless fields of red pods.

Somewhere else entirely, the Matrix kept running—UA, Tokyo, the world—its code flowing, kids in uniform heading to class, heroes patrolling the streets, villains plotting. His classmates would be swapping rumors about the “system glitch” in training, unaware of how close they’d come to being erased.

Izuku pulled the blanket tighter around himself.

He was terrified.

He was exhausted.

He was more lost than he’d ever been.

But for the first time since the bullets started screaming in Ground Beta, he felt a spark of something that wasn’t fear in his chest.

Resolve.

They’d wake up properly.

They’d learn.

And when they went back in, they wouldn’t go as prey.

They’d go as heroes who knew which bars in the cage could bend.

Chapter Text

The first thing Izuku learned about the real world was that gravity was rude.

It wasn’t like the Matrix’s gravity. That had rules—numbers baked into code, consistent, predictable. The real world’s gravity didn’t care about comfort or heroic poses. It just dragged.

Hard.

“Stand,” Trinity said.

Izuku groaned at the floor.

“I am standing,” he wheezed. His legs shook so hard they were practically vibrating. His hands were braced on the metal railing of the Nebuchadnezzar’s cramped gym nook, knuckles white.

Trinity folded her arms. “You’re definitely… something,” she said. “But standing? No.”

“Cruel,” he muttered, but he forced his knees to straighten another millimeter.

Metal creaked.

His muscles screamed.

He held.

“One,” Trinity counted. “Two. Three—”

His leg spasmed.

He hit the floor.

“Ow,” he said into the grating.

From the other side of the room, Aizawa grunted. Izuku looked up in time to see his teacher complete a slow, careful push-up, arms shaking, bandages criss-crossing his shoulder.

Trinity’s lips twitched. “He’s at eight,” she said. “What are you at now?”

Izuku’s pride tried to answer before his brain could stop it.

“Four,” he lied.

Aizawa didn’t even look up. “Two,” he corrected.

Izuku sagged. “Traitor.”

“Liar,” Aizawa said. “I’m still your teacher.”

The gym was little more than a few welded bars, an ancient treadmill patched with tape, and some repurposed ship parts serving as weights. It felt like a bad underground gym mashed into a submarine.

Tank had explained it their first day of rehab.

“Muscle atrophy,” he’d said over the speakers from the operator’s chair. “You’ve both been in pods your whole lives. The Matrix makes your brain think you’re strong, so you feel strong. But out here… your real muscles never developed. We have to build you up from scratch.”

Izuku had nodded, trying not to feel crushed.

He’d worked so hard at UA to catch up with his classmates physically. Now it was like starting over again.

Except this time, he knew what he was aiming for.

He pushed himself up on his hands, arms trembling.

“I’ll… match him,” he panted. “By the end of the week.”

Trinity lifted a brow. “Match who? Eraserhead?”

“Yes.”

Aizawa snorted, lowering himself into another push-up with painful deliberation. “You’re welcome to try,” he said. “But if you tear something, you’re explaining it to the ship’s only doctor-slash-hacker-slash-pilot.”

“Hey,” Tank protested over the comm. “At least call me multi-talented.”

“We’ll talk about titles when Midoriya can walk from here to the galley without looking like a newborn deer,” Trinity said.

Izuku’s cheeks burned.

“Bambi jokes?” he muttered. “Really?”

“Don’t worry,” Aizawa said. “Once you stop falling over, I’ll start assigning you extra training instead.”

Izuku wasn’t sure if that was better.

But he forced his hands under him again, pushed, and managed to get one foot under his center of gravity.

One step.

Two.

Three.

The ship rocked slightly as it drifted through some turbulence in the air currents outside. Izuku wobbled, caught himself, and stayed upright.

He grinned, teeth flashing.

“See?” he said, chest heaving. “Progress.”

Trinity studied him, head tilted.

“You really are determined to break yourself,” she said. “It’s going to make you either very good at this or very dead.”

“Welcome to my world,” Aizawa muttered.

Izuku straightened, rolling his shoulders.

The ports along his back and neck ached. His chest still twinged where the Agent’s shot had hit in the Matrix, phantom pain echoing through muscles that never actually got pierced in reality. But the ache felt… grounding, in a way.

Proof that he was still here.

“Okay,” Trinity said, clapping her hands once. “Enough Bambi practice. Morpheus wants you both in the construct.”

Izuku’s stomach flipped.

“Already?” he squeaked. “We—um—we just started physical rehab, and our nervous systems are still adapting, and my legs are basically jelly, and—”

“And you’re not going alone,” she cut in. “We’ll start simple. Low-intensity. Just a test to see how your minds handle going back in with the new information.” She glanced at Aizawa. “He wants to show you something.”

Aizawa pushed himself to his knees, breathing hard. Sweat dripped from his hair onto the mat.

“Fine,” he said. “But if I wake up back in that training field, I’m throwing someone out an airlock.”

“We don’t have an airlock,” Tank said.

“We can make one,” Aizawa said.

Izuku believed him.

 

---

The chairs were worse now that Izuku knew what they were connected to.

The sockets at the back of his neck pulsed with a dull ache. The cable waiting beside his seat looked too much like the thing that had been plugged into his spine in the pod.

Trinity must have read something on his face.

“You okay?” she asked softly.

He swallowed.

“I just…” He swallowed again. “I just got out.”

“And I’m about to send you back in,” she said. “Yeah. I know it’s messed up.” Her expression gentled. “But the construct isn’t the Matrix. Think of it like… a sandbox inside the game. We control the rules. If something goes wrong, Tank yanks you out.”

“Promise,” Tank called from his chair up front, fingers already dancing across the keyboard.

Izuku nodded, fingers clenched on the armrests.

Aizawa sank into the chair beside him with a muffled groan.

“I hate this part,” he muttered.

“You’ve done it once,” Izuku whispered.

“Once was enough to establish a pattern.”

Trinity smirked faintly and slid the jack into the port at the base of Aizawa’s skull. He hissed through his teeth, but didn’t flinch away.

When she stepped behind Izuku, he forced himself not to tense.

“Deep breath,” she advised.

He took one.

Cold metal touched the port.

There was a click.

Then—

 

---

White.

Endless and clean and bright.

Izuku gasped, staggering, as his senses reassembled themselves. His eyes registered a never-ending blank plane; his inner ear yelled about going from “sitting” to “standing” with no middle.

He looked down.

His body looked like his body.

Not the thin, pale version from the ship.

This was his construct self—muscle and scars, hero-in-training and all. His UA training clothes hugged his frame comfortably.

He flexed his fingers.

No trembling.

His heart eased a little.

“Amazing,” he breathed. “It… it feels real, even though I know it’s not. Last time I was here, I thought this was just… life. But now—”

“Now you can see the seams,” Morpheus said.

Izuku turned.

The older man stood a few meters away, hands folded behind his back, long coat replaced by a simple black shirt and pants. Aizawa stood beside him, wearing his usual capture weapon and hero uniform, arm in a sling that hadn’t been there a second ago.

He glared at it.

“Really?” Aizawa said. “We’re keeping the injury?”

“You were shot in the shoulder an hour ago,” Morpheus said mildly. “Your mind remembers that pain. Removing it entirely would cause… dissonance. This is a compromise.”

“I miss Recovery Girl,” Aizawa muttered.

Izuku managed a shaky laugh.

“What is this place?” he asked, looking around at the endless white. “It feels like… the loading screen of a game.”

Morpheus smiled. “That’s not a bad analogy,” he said. “This is the Construct. We can load environments, objects, training programs into it. Think of it as a blank page.”

He snapped his fingers.

The world rushed.

Racks of weapons slid into existence on one side—guns, staffs, blades, bizarre tools Izuku didn’t recognize. On the other, clothing, equipment, stacks of chairs. The white floor even gained a faint scuff pattern, as if it had been walked on for years.

Izuku’s jaw dropped.

“That’s— that’s like conjuring support items on command,” he stammered. “Without any support course requisition paperwork. Or budgets. Or—”

“Don’t encourage him,” Aizawa said flatly.

Morpheus nodded at Izuku. “Tank sends in what we need,” he said. “But the point isn’t to give you toys. It’s to teach you what you can be without them. What you are in here.”

He tapped Izuku lightly on the chest.

“In your mind.”

Izuku’s heart thudded.

He glanced at Aizawa. “Sensei… how did it feel, the first time you came back in?”

Aizawa’s eyes slid away.

“Wrong,” he said after a moment. “I knew this wasn’t my classroom. Knew none of it was physical. But my instincts kept trying to treat it like the real thing. My quirk itched to activate every time something moved. Took effort to stop reaching for it.”

Izuku sobered.

That was weird to think about—Aizawa without the quiet, constant hum of Erasure in the background.

“Speaking of quirks,” Izuku said slowly. “Why… does One For All still… feel here?”

He reached inward.

The familiar spark answered.

It was different again—less like a roar and more like a deep, thrumming chord—but it was there. He felt it in the lines of his body, in the way the world seemed to sharpen when he focused.

“Because the Matrix thinks you have it,” Morpheus said. “Your mind is built with the expectation of that power. Your brain uses it. The program accommodates it.” His gaze sharpened. “The difference now is that you know it’s code. That gives you leverage.”

“How?” Izuku asked. “It still feels like… me. Like part of me. But those green symbols, the way the Agent’s shot tried to turn my arm into a loading bar—”

He shuddered.

Morpheus studied him.

“We’re going to show you,” he said. “Both of you.”

He nodded to the side.

The white room dissolved.

Izuku blinked.

When the world reformed, he was standing on polished wooden floorboards.

Paper walls. Exposed beams. The air smelled faintly of incense and old wood.

A dojo.

Izuku spun slowly, taking it in.

“I know this one,” he breathed. “This is the program Neo trained in, isn’t it? From— from your stories. The slugfest with your students, the ones where he—”

He caught himself.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I’ve only been here a day and I’m already fanboying.”

Morpheus’s lips twitched. “Neo did spend some time in here,” he said. “As have many others. It’s a good environment for what we need.”

Aizawa rotated his shoulder carefully, testing its range. The sling vanished, then reappeared as Morpheus adjusted the simulation.

“So what’s the lesson?” Aizawa asked. “Fight you without quirks, get my ego bruised, learn that my technique needs work?”

“That’s step three,” Morpheus said. “Step one is making sure you both understand what you’re up against.”

He stepped to the center of the dojo and beckoned Izuku forward.

Izuku shuffled in, nerves prickling.

“I’m not sure I’m ready to spar yet,” he said. “My last fight here involved me getting shot and thrown through a wall. Not the best track record.”

“You’re not fighting me,” Morpheus said. “Not yet. I want you to watch.”

He glanced upward, towards where Tank’s invisible presence always seemed to linger.

“Tank,” he said. “Agent protocol, level one. Slow it down.”

Tank’s voice echoed through the dojo. “You sure about that? Last time we did this, Mouse didn’t come out of the construct for three days.”

Morpheus’s expression didn’t change. “We’re not here to coddle them.”

Izuku swallowed.

The air shimmered.

A man in a black suit stepped into the dojo, as if walking out of a heat haze.

Izuku’s body reacted before his mind could catch up.

His muscles tensed.

His fight-or-flight instincts screamed RUN.

Aizawa’s scarf snapped up of its own accord, floating out, his eyes flashing red as Erasure tried to activate—then fizzled, the sensation cutting off like someone had slammed a door in his brain.

The man—Agent—tilted his head.

“Threat level: moderate,” he said in that same flat tone. “Simulation recognized.”

Izuku’s heart hammered.

“Is that— is that a real Agent?” he hissed. “Did you just invite one of them in here?!”

“Programmed copy,” Trinity’s voice said from nowhere. “Recorded behavior. Limited autonomy. It can’t kill you here. Not unless Morpheus lets it.”

“That is not as comforting as you think it is,” Izuku muttered.

Morpheus nodded at the Agent. “He’s running at about twenty percent normal processing speed,” he explained. “Enough to react, not enough to outpace your perceptions. I want you to watch how he moves.”

The Agent stepped forward.

It was like watching a movie in slow motion.

Each movement was precise, economical. No wasted steps. His center of gravity never shifted too far. His hands moved in clean, geometric arcs.

Izuku’s brain catalogued everything automatically.

That guard position—similar to some hand-to-hand styles I’ve seen in pro hero footage, but there’s no tell. He doesn’t telegraph. And his balance is… perfect. Not even All Might moved like that. It’s like his body knows the exact parameters of the floor friction. Because it does. Because it’s code.

Morpheus moved to meet him.

Their first clash looked almost gentle at this speed.

The Agent’s palm strike came in a straight line; Morpheus redirected it with the minimum necessary angle, stepping off the line of attack. It reminded Izuku weirdly of Aikido videos he’d watched as a kid, but… cleaner.

Each strike, each block, each step—Izuku could see the math in it.

“The Matrix is code,” Morpheus said, moving through the motions with almost lazy grace. “Agents are part of that code. They don’t move like people because they’re not making choices. They’re running solutions.”

He ducked under a punch; the air rippled.

“They calculate the most efficient path from ‘fist’ to ‘your face,’” Trinity’s voice added. “No hesitation. No doubt.”

The Agent’s hand blurred—still slow by its real standards, but fast enough—and chopped at Morpheus’s neck.

Morpheus bent back just out of reach, the blow passing millimeters from his throat.

Izuku’s breath caught.

“Neo learned to predict that,” Morpheus said. “To read the patterns. To move between the calculations.” He caught the next punch on his forearm and pushed, turning the Agent’s momentum aside. “You started to do it on that rooftop.”

Izuku’s cheeks burned.

“I just… panicked and pushed power into the bullets,” he said. “It almost knocked me out.”

“And you curved reality around yourself,” Morpheus said. “You redirected a rule. That’s not something most freed minds can do in their first fight.”

Aizawa’s eyes narrowed.

“What about those rules can I touch?” he demanded. “I don’t have a magic inherited code quirk.”

“Stop saying it like that,” Izuku muttered.

Morpheus smiled faintly.

“Your mind is out of the Matrix now,” he said. “When you go back in, you’ll step into it as an intruder, not livestock. That alone gives you an edge. Your limitations are self-imposed.”

He stepped back, and the Agent froze in mid-strike.

“Come here,” Morpheus told Aizawa.

Aizawa approached warily, every line of his body tense.

Morpheus gestured toward the frozen Agent’s arm. “Hit him,” he said.

Aizawa eyed him. “Is this a trick?”

“Yes,” Trinity said.

“No,” Morpheus said at the same time.

Izuku made a helpless little noise.

Aizawa sighed.

He snapped a kick into the Agent’s ribs.

Even slowed, the impact jolted the suit-clad body sideways.

“Felt like hitting a wall, right?” Trinity asked.

“More like heavily reinforced padding,” Aizawa said. “I’ve kicked weirder.”

“Now,” Morpheus said, “try it again. But this time, imagine he weighs half as much.”

Aizawa raised a brow. “That’s not how physics works.”

“In here,” Morpheus said, “it is.”

Aizawa gave him a flat look.

Morpheus held his gaze.

Izuku watched, breath held.

After a moment, Aizawa sighed—long-suffering—and turned back to the Agent.

He planted his feet. His posture shifted just a fraction, his muscles tensing differently.

Izuku felt it—the moment Aizawa decided to humor them just enough to try.

He lashed out with another kick.

This time, the Agent flew.

Not just a stagger—a full-body lift, sailing backward across the dojo to slam into the far wall hard enough to crack the wooden beams.

Aizawa froze.

Izuku’s jaw dropped.

Trinity whooped. “There we go,” she said. “Welcome to the fun side of hating physics.”

Aizawa stared at his own leg like it had grown extra joints.

“How—” he started.

“You believed it,” Morpheus said simply. “For a moment. You let go of what the Matrix told you was possible and replaced it with a new instruction.”

He pointed at his temple.

“The rules are enforced here,” he said. “Not by code. By your acceptance of it. The machines can only push as far as your mind lets them. They spend a lot of time training you to say ‘yes’ to their world.”

Izuku thought of all the times he’d been told he couldn’t be a hero without a quirk. Of all the lectures about “limitations” and “reality.” Of how long it had taken him to see One For All not as a miracle instead of his quirklessness, but as something born from the same stubborn refusal to accept the rules.

His chest tightened.

Morpheus stepped back.

“Now,” he said, “we spar.”

Aizawa groaned. “I knew this was coming.”

“Both of you,” Morpheus said. “With me, then with each other. We push until the program tells us your bodies are at their limit. Then we stop. Repeat tomorrow.”

Izuku swallowed hard.

“Can I at least have my costume?” he asked. “Or, um, support gear? Or my notes? I fight better when I know what I’m dealing with—”

“Your brain is your support gear,” Trinity said. “Consider this… remedial class.”

Aizawa fixed his scarf.

“That’s my line,” he muttered.

Izuku stepped into the center of the dojo, heart pounding.

He bowed, because some habits held.

Morpheus returned it, eyes warm.

“Show me what you can do, Midoriya,” he said.

Izuku inhaled.

He let One For All stir—not a full roaring blaze, just a low hum through his muscles. Ten percent would’ve been suicidal in UA’s world months ago. Here, in a controlled program, with his mind braced?

“Five percent,” he murmured.

Green energy crackled faintly at his joints.

He didn’t wait for permission.

He moved.

 

---

He lasted forty seconds.

On the plus side, that was thirty seconds longer than he’d expected.

Morpheus didn’t attack at first. He blocked, deflected, tested. Izuku threw jabs, low kicks, little bursts of speed—everything Gran Torino and All Might and his own obsessive training had drilled into him.

The dojo echoed with the sound of their movements.

Izuku saw things.

Tiny details he’d have missed before.

The way Morpheus’s weight shifted an instant before he stepped. The fraction of an angle that turned a strike from “hit” to “glance.” The ripple in the air as the simulation adjusted to their movement.

His brain catalogued, analyzed, adjusted.

He drove a punch toward Morpheus’s midsection.

The older man caught his wrist gently, redirected the energy aside, and tapped Izuku’s shoulder.

Izuku’s feet left the ground.

He saw the ceiling.

He felt the mat.

“Uuugghhhh,” he groaned into the wood.

“Thirty-eight,” Trinity said, sounding faintly impressed. “New record for someone fresh out of a pod.”

Izuku rolled onto his back, panting.

“Everything… hurts,” he wheezed. “In… in a different way than usual.”

Aizawa peered down at him. “Congratulations,” he said. “You found a new kind of pain. We’ll put it on the chart.”

Izuku laughed weakly.

“Again,” he said.

Trinity made a dubious noise. “Kid—”

“Again,” Izuku repeated, forcing himself up onto one elbow. His vision swam, but he clung to the memory of those brief moments where he’d seen the pattern.

“If I can learn to read their movements,” he said, “I can dodge better. I can buy time. I can keep people alive longer. Please. Again.”

Morpheus studied him.

Then he nodded.

“Once more,” he said. “Then Aizawa’s turn.”

Izuku stood, legs shaking, and faced him.

He lasted fifty seconds this time.

He also vomited when Tank yanked them out of the program, but he decided not to dwell on that part.

 

---

Back on the ship, the recovery was… messy.

Izuku ripped the jack from his neck with a gasp, hands scrabbling at the armrests. The world spun. His stomach churned.

He barely turned his head in time before he threw up over the side of the chair.

Trinity wordlessly shoved a bucket under him for round two.

“Everyone does it at least once,” she said. “Neo did it twice. Well. He stopped halfway through the second time out of sheer stubbornness, but it still counts.”

Izuku wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, mortified.

Aizawa looked about as green as Izuku’s hair.

He gripped the chair arms so tightly his knuckles were white, breathing shallowly.

“How,” he rasped, “do you endure… the sensory whiplash… on a weekly basis?”

“Practice,” Trinity said cheerfully. “And very low expectations for comfort.”

Tank’s voice drifted back from the front. “You both did good for a first proper run,” he said. “Morpheus says your processing adaptation is above average.”

Izuku blinked.

“Processing… adaptation?” he echoed.

“Your brain’s ability to handle seeing the Matrix’s rules bend,” Trinity explained. “Most people get stuck on what should be. They freeze, their vision tunnels, they panic. You?” She nodded at Izuku. “You tried to analyze frame data mid-fight.”

Izuku flushed. “That’s… just how my brain works,” he mumbled. “Kacchan says it’s annoying. All Might calls it ‘thorough.’”

Aizawa grunted. “I call it ‘occasionally useful and frequently dangerous,’” he said. “But in this context, it might save your life.”

He looked over at Trinity.

“What about me?” he asked. “Learning to kick bullet programs across the room aside, how badly did I embarrass myself?”

“Less than you think,” she admitted. “You’re good at reading body language. You adapted fast once you stopped assuming you’d bounce off. You’re going to be hell on Agents once you get over your allergy to the word ‘simulation.’”

He made a face.

“Don’t say it,” he warned.

She smirked but let it go.

Izuku sank back into his chair, muscles trembling with aftershocks.

He was exhausted.

He also felt… alive.

Not in the adrenaline junkie way he sometimes slipped into during real battles, but in a deeper sense. Like some part of his brain that had always been pressed against invisible glass now had a crack to pry at.

He closed his eyes for a moment.

Code.

He could almost see it if he reached—faint strings of green behind his eyelids, representing the dojo walls, the floor, Morpheus’s movements. But he knew if he pushed too hard right now he’d give himself a migraine.

“And that,” Trinity said, stretching her back until it popped, “is about as much as we can do today without you both passing out or seizing. Morpheus wants you to rest. Maybe eat. Definitely hydrate.”

“Food,” Izuku croaked. “Yes. Food sounds… incredible.”

He tried to stand.

His legs folded.

He would’ve face-planted if Aizawa hadn’t snagged his arm out of reflex.

“Easy,” Aizawa said.

Izuku clung to him for balance.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I swear I’m not trying to use you as a crutch.”

“I’m already your emotional crutch,” Aizawa said dryly. “Might as well be consistent.”

Izuku huffed a laugh.

They shuffled toward the galley together, leaning on each other more than either would admit.

 

---

Days blurred into a brutal rhythm.

Morning: physical rehab. Walking, then jogging, then awkward push-ups where Izuku’s arms shook like they were made of jelly. Aizawa pushed himself alongside, shoulder strapped, never asking them to do something he wouldn’t.

Midday: construct training. Dojo spars. Jump programs standing on skyscrapers that made his stomach twist. Slow-motion bullet dodges that left him panting and dizzy, but just a little less terrified each time.

Evening: debriefs.

Morpheus explaining the history of the war with the machines. Trinity breaking down Agent behavior patterns. Tank showing them raw data from the Matrix—strings of code that made Izuku’s eyes cross until, slowly, patterns started to emerge.

Izuku slept like the dead every night, his dreams full of green rain and red pods and the sound of Aizawa’s voice dragging him back from panic.

There were setbacks.

The first time they ran a crowd sim—just a normal street, people walking, cars honking—Izuku had a full-blown panic attack. His brain kept insisting these weren’t real, while his heart screamed what if they are? He hyperventilated until Aizawa physically dragged him into an alley and talked him down.

“Ground yourself,” Aizawa said quietly, sitting on a simulated crate in a simulated backstreet while simulated city noise hummed outside. “Five things you can see. Four things you can touch. Three you can hear. Two you can smell. One you can taste. It works here too.”

Izuku clung to the exercise like a lifeline.

“Wall,” he said hoarsely. “Your capture scarf. My hands. The trash can. Your boots.” He swallowed. “I feel the rough brick. The fabric. The ground under my shoes.”

He listed sounds, smells, the metallic tang of fear on his tongue.

The panic ebbed.

“Good,” Aizawa said. “Again tomorrow.”

The second time, Izuku didn’t crumple.

He just shook.

Progress.

Aizawa had his own demons.

He hated the feeling of reaching for his quirk and finding nothing.

In the Matrix, his body still remembered it—his hair tried to rise, his eyes burned—but the system didn’t register Erasure as a valid command anymore. The machines had apparently decided “quirk that turns off other quirks” was not allowed to play in their sandbox if it knew the sandbox’s name.

He’d scowl and mutter, “Cowards,” under his breath whenever it failed.

But he didn’t give up.

He adapted.

Morpheus tailored programs to him: fighting multiple opponents with nothing but a scarf, using angles and environment against stronger foes, learning to anticipate Agent strikes without relying on instinctive quirk flares.

Watching Aizawa in motion—scarf whipping, feet silent, body flowing from one strike to the next—Izuku was forcibly reminded that his homeroom teacher had been a terrifying underground hero long before quirks were called “code.”

One evening, after a particularly nasty training run where an Agent sim had pinned Izuku to the wall three times running, Tank’s voice came over the comms, thicker than usual.

“Uh,” he said. “So. Side note. We might… have a situation developing.”

Everyone froze.

Izuku, still catching his breath on the dojo floor, looked up sharply.

“What kind of situation?” Trinity asked, hand going to the pistol at her thigh even though they were in a simulation.

“Agent activity spike,” Tank said grimly. “Sector flagging matches the UA region in the Matrix.”

Izuku’s blood turned to ice.

He scrambled to his feet. “My class—”

“Slow down,” Trinity snapped, but there was fear in her eyes too. “Tank?”

“Not an attack yet,” Tank said. Code rolled down a translucent screen that only he could see, but Izuku could hear the tension in his voice. “But they’ve increased monitoring protocols around the campus. More surveillance programs. Security sweeps. It’s like they’re… sniffing around, trying to figure out what happened.”

“What we did,” Aizawa said quietly.

He and Izuku exchanged a look.

He was remembering the warped hallway too. The way reality had stretched and twisted when Izuku forced a path from UA to the park.

Izuku swallowed hard.

“Did I…” He licked his lips. “Did I screw up? Did I paint a target on them?”

Trinity cursed under her breath.

“No,” she said. “You saved them. The machines already had a target on you. You’re just on their radar now as more than ‘annoying anomaly.’”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Izuku asked weakly.

“Not really,” she admitted.

Morpheus paced slowly across the dojo, hands clasped behind his back.

“We knew this would be their next move,” he said. “The Matrix doesn’t like unexplained deviations. A whole classroom of kids taking a walk that wasn’t in the script? It will poke at that.”

“So what do we do?” Izuku asked. “We can’t just watch from here while they poke. If they decide 1-A is corrupted, or— or if they decide to delete the whole school—”

His voice broke.

Aizawa’s jaw clenched.

“We’re not ready,” he said, hating the words even as he said them. “Our bodies aren’t fully conditioned. Our control in the construct is shaky at best. Facing one Agent nearly got us both deleted. Facing multiple—”

“They won’t send a small detachment next time,” Trinity said quietly. “Midoriya’s little hallway stunt lit up their anomaly charts. They’ll prepare for another breach.”

Izuku’s lungs felt too tight.

Once, the idea of fighting villains had felt huge.

Now he was contemplating fighting an entire system that could rewrite reality with a flicker.

His hands shook.

Morpheus stopped pacing.

He looked at Aizawa, at Izuku, at the dojo walls.

His expression settled.

“We’re not ready,” he agreed. “But neither were we when Neo woke up. Or when I did. Or when Trinity freed her first city.”

He turned to Izuku.

“You bent a hallway,” he said. “You carved a path where one did not exist. That is not something we can ignore or delay. The machines won’t.”

He turned to Aizawa.

“You protected him,” he said. “You moved a class of teenagers through a collapsing sector without losing a single one. I have seen veterans lose more to far less.”

Aizawa’s lips thinned.

Morpheus’s gaze hardened.

“I think,” he said, “it’s time we stopped pretending we can wait until it’s convenient to act.”

Trinity blew out a slow breath.

“Let me guess,” she said. “You want to go back in.”

“Not tonight,” Morpheus said. “Not tomorrow. But soon. With a plan. We need more reconnaissance, better insertion points, fail-safes.”

Tank made a noise that was somewhere between a groan and a resigned laugh.

“And here I was hoping for a quiet week,” he muttered.

Izuku’s heart pounded.

“Back to UA,” he whispered. “Back to 1-A.”

The idea terrified him.

It also steadied him.

This wasn’t training for training’s sake. It was a preparation for something tangible, something that mattered.

His classmates’ faces flashed through his mind.

Kacchan, scowling.

Uraraka, smiling.

Iida, lecturing.

Todoroki, quietly exasperated.

“Okay,” he said.

Everyone looked at him.

He straightened his shoulders.

“Okay,” he repeated, stronger. “We train. We plan. We find a way to get in without dropping Agents on their heads. We figure out how to get them to safety, even if it’s just for a few minutes. And then we get out.”

He swallowed.

“And then we do it again. And again. Until we find a way to… to crack this cage.”

Aizawa watched him for a long moment.

Then, slowly, he nodded.

“We’ll need contingencies,” he said. “Code words. Rally points. Ways to get messages through in language the system will ignore. I know those kids. If we tell them the world is fake, half of them will punch something and the other half will start asking questions we don’t have answers for.”

Trinity snorted. “Sounds like home,” she said.

Morpheus smiled faintly.

“Then we begin,” he said. “Tank, pull us out. We’ll recon UA’s sector from the outside, then design a mission profile.”

“On it,” Tank said.

The dojo flickered.

Izuku felt the now-familiar yank at the back of his skull.

As the world dissolved into white, then nothing, he clung to one thought to anchor him:

We’re coming back for you.

Class 1-A didn’t know it yet.

But somewhere behind their classroom walls, the code had already started to shift.

Chapter Text

The first time Izuku saw UA again, it almost broke him.

It started with lines of code.

Tank threw them up on the Nebuchadnezzar’s main screen—columns of green symbols cascading faster than Izuku’s eyes could track, running from ceiling to floor. To anyone else, it might’ve looked like nonsense.

To Izuku, it was starting—just barely—to look like a map.

“Here,” Tank said, tapping a cluster of brighter characters. “UA main gate, external cameras, security checkpoints. They tightened the net after your little hallway miracle.”

He traced another cluster. “Here’s Ground Beta. They’re still patching the sector. Lots of error-correction routines. You can practically hear the machines cursing.”

Izuku flinched at the ghost of memory: screaming bullets, shattering concrete, Aizawa’s blood.

He dragged himself back to the present.

“And this?” Aizawa asked, nodding at a pulsing band of code that stretched like a scar across the field.

Tank grimaced. “That,” he said, “is you.”

Izuku’s stomach dropped. “M-me?”

“Your hallway stunt left a mark,” Tank explained. “Reality isn’t supposed to bend that way. The Matrix tried to smooth it over, but the residue’s still there. A path that shouldn’t exist, connecting two sectors that aren’t supposed to touch like that.” He glanced back at them. “The good news is we can see it. The bad news is so can they.”

Trinity leaned over the console, resting her weight on her hands. “Agents are sniffing around the anomaly,” she said. “Extra patrol programs, more frequent sweeps. If we’re going to poke our noses back in, we do it before they get too comfortable.”

“Define ‘poke,’” Aizawa said. “‘Recon’ or ‘suicide mission with extra steps’?”

“Recon,” Morpheus said firmly. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, watching the code with the same calm intensity he brought to every briefing. “No direct contact with your students. Not yet. No contact with faculty unless we can confirm they’re humans and not overwritten constructs. We go in, observe, test the waters. We do not pick a fight we cannot finish.”

Izuku shifted his weight from foot to foot.

“What if they’re already in danger?” he asked quietly. “What if the machines decide UA is too much trouble and hit reset while we’re standing out here making plans?”

Trinity looked at him.

“Kid,” she said, “they haven’t done it yet because you bought them time. That detour to the park you carved? It gave the system a ‘plausible’ narrative: localized glitch, contained villain attack, no need for a full sector wipe. But yeah.” She sighed. “If we sit on our hands too long, they might decide cleaning house is easier.”

Aizawa’s jaw tightened. “Then we move,” he said. “Carefully. But we move.”

Morpheus nodded. “Agreed.”

He turned to Izuku.

“How comfortable are you with partial masks?” he asked.

Izuku blinked. “Masks?”

Trinity’s lips quirked. “He means, how good are you at acting normal,” she translated. “If we drop you near UA, the system will recognize your signature. You’re a high-profile anomaly now. But if we tuck you into a role it already expects—a student, say, going about his day—it’ll take the Agents longer to notice.”

Izuku grimaced. “I…don’t know if I remember how to act normal,” he admitted. “My ‘normal’ is ‘anxious hero nerd scribbling notes mid-crisis.’”

“Congratulations,” Aizawa said dryly. “You just described ninety percent of your class.”

Morpheus smiled faintly. “You won’t be entirely alone,” he said. “We’ll send you in together. Aizawa’s presence will mask some of your anomalies. To the system, he is an authority figure. Familiar. A stabilizing pattern.”

Trinity shrugged. “Also: grown-up,” she said. “Machines have a weird soft spot for ‘responsible adult’ archetypes. Makes the kids easier to herd.”

Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose. “I have never felt more insulted,” he muttered.

Izuku chewed his lip.

“We’re not… telling them yet, right?” he asked. “My friends. If they see me.”

“No,” Aizawa said immediately. “Not unless we’re forced to. We don’t drop ‘hey, your life is a battery-powered lie’ on teenagers mid-evacuation recon.”

Izuku flinched. “But they have a right to—”

“They have a right to live,” Aizawa cut in, voice sharp but not unkind. “One thing at a time. You give them too much too fast, they freeze. Or they do something stupid. My job is to keep all of my kids alive while we dismantle this mess, not feed them trauma they can’t process yet.”

The words stung.

They also settled something in Izuku’s chest.

He nodded slowly.

“…Okay,” he said. “So we go in. We don’t say anything. We just… look.”

“And listen,” Morpheus added. “We watch how the Matrix reacts to your presence. We test boundaries without breaking them.”

Trinity straightened, cracking her neck.

“Cool,” she said. “Let’s put you two back in the blender.”

 

---

The Construct’s white void felt almost familiar this time.

Izuku exhaled as the world snapped into place around him: glossy floor, infinite horizon, racks of gear sliding into reality like they’d been there all along.

Aizawa flexed his hands, rolling his shoulders.

“Still hate this,” he muttered.

“You’ll live,” Trinity said. She walked between the racks, plucking items with practiced speed. “You’re going in as yourselves today. Hero costumes will raise fewer flags than random fashion changes the system didn’t script.”

Izuku traced gloved fingers down his familiar green suit.

“Won’t that make us more obvious?” he asked. “UA teachers and students don’t just appear out of nowhere mid-day.”

“Good instinct,” Trinity said approvingly. “But remember: we’re not dropping you into UA. We’ll spawn you a few blocks out, during what the schedule says is a break period. You’ll be ‘returning from patrol,’” she told Aizawa. “And Midoriya will be a student who got pulled along for work-study.”

Aizawa scowled. “UA does not send my students on patrol with me.”

“It does now,” Trinity said. “Or rather, the Matrix thinks it does because Tank fudged a few schedules. You’ll have cover if anyone asks.”

Tank’s voice floated down from nowhere. “No promises on Nezu’s logs,” he said. “That rodent’s code is weird. Half human, half something else. Almost like the machines let an AI pet project loose and decided to call it a day.”

Izuku’s brain immediately started spinning theories about Nezu being some kind of subroutine gone rogue. He filed them away for later.

“And weapons?” Aizawa asked. “Capture scarf, support items?”

Trinity tossed him a compact version of his scarf. “Matrix will render whatever you normally carry,” she said. “So no rocket launchers. Yet.”

She caught Izuku’s eye.

“And you,” she said, “don’t push past ten percent unless an Agent is literally chewing on your face. The bigger the power spike, the faster they’ll zero in.”

Izuku nodded, swallowing hard.

“Understood,” he said.

Morpheus stepped forward, holding out two familiar devices.

Phones.

Black, old-fashioned, with cords that dangled into nothingness.

“Exit points,” he said. “Once Tank has a line on you, he’ll spawn one nearby. You find it, you grab it, you go. Do not linger. Do not look back.”

Izuku took his, the weight oddly comforting in his palm.

Aizawa slid his into a belt pouch, movements precise.

“Last chance to back out,” Trinity said lightly.

Izuku caught Aizawa’s eye.

His teacher’s gaze was tired.

It was also steady.

“Not happening,” they said together.

Trinity smiled.

“Thought so,” she said.

She stepped behind Izuku, jack in hand.

“See you on the other side,” she said.

There was a click.

 

---

The transition was getting easier.

He still gasped at the sudden shift, the sense of his brain being poured from one container into another. But this time, the nausea receded faster. His senses snapped into focus like someone adjusting a camera.

City air hit his face.

The scent hit him first.

Street food, car exhaust, clean concrete, the faint hint of nearby greenery. Tokyo’s familiar blend of life and pollution filtered through his lungs.

He knew this street.

He’d walked it a hundred times on the way to UA.

Skyscrapers rose around them, glass and steel gleaming in the afternoon light. A tram rattled in the distance. People moved along the sidewalks, chatter and footsteps blending into a low murmur.

Aizawa stood at his side, hands tucked in his pockets, scarf draped comfortably around his neck. He looked like he’d just stepped out of a patrol, hair slightly mussed, eyes hidden behind goggles.

“Visual contact check,” Trinity’s voice said in their ears, threaded through their com implants. “You both intact? Any immediate weirdness?”

Izuku swallowed, forcing himself not to spin in a full circle like a lost tourist. “Everything looks…” He hesitated. “Normal. But the code hum is louder.”

“The what?” Aizawa muttered.

“The… background,” Izuku said, fumbling for words. “The… Matrix… quirk? The thing that keeps gravity consistent. It’s like…”

He reached inward.

There it was.

A hum just under the surface—like a city’s electrical grid, constant and thrumming. It ran through the pavement, the air, the people weaving around them. Quirk activations flared here and there like tiny fireworks in the pattern.

But over all of it, heavy and alert, was something else.

Like a big cat waking up.

“The system’s paying attention,” Izuku murmured. “More than last time.”

“That tracks,” Trinity said grimly. “You’re on its Most Annoying list now. All right. Play it cool. Left at the corner. Walk. Don’t run.”

They moved.

Izuku’s heart pounded in his chest. Every time someone glanced in their direction, his muscles tensed.

Do they see us? Do they know?

But people just… moved. A salaryman in a rumpled suit brushed past, muttering about meetings. A pair of high school girls in a different school’s uniform giggled over something on a phone. A mother scolded her toddler for trying to run into the street.

Background characters, his newly cynical brain whispered.

Humans, Morpheus had said.

They’re still people.

He forced himself to breathe.

“Five things you can see,” Aizawa said quietly, as if reading his mind.

Izuku swallowed.

“Uh—traffic light. Coffee stand. Billboard with All Might’s old ad. That stray cat by the lamppost. Your scarf.”

“Four things you can feel,” Aizawa prompted.

“The ground under my shoes,” Izuku murmured. “The fabric of my gloves. The air on my face. The… pull of the code.”

He waited.

His heart rate eased, just a little.

“Good,” Aizawa said.

“Adorable,” Trinity muttered over the comm. “Hero grounding exercises inside a digital prison. I’ve seen weirder, but not by much.”

Tank’s voice chimed in. “You’re two blocks from UA’s outer wall,” he said. “Switch to side streets. Main cameras are on a hair trigger.”

They cut down a narrower lane, the sounds of the main road fading a bit. Laundry flapped on balconies overhead. A vending machine hummed at the corner, its bright colors slightly too crisp.

Izuku’s chest tightened.

He’d bought drinks out of that machine with Uraraka and Iida once.

When quirk training and pop quizzes were his biggest worries.

He swallowed hard.

“Avoid nostalgia,” Trinity said. “It’ll slow you down.”

“Too late,” Izuku muttered.

Aizawa’s hand brushed his shoulder briefly.

Not enough to draw attention.

Enough to steady him.

“There,” Tank said. “End of the lane. You’ll hit the lower perimeter road. Sightlines to the main gate and dorm path. Good vantage point, minimal civilian traffic.”

They emerged from between the buildings and saw it.

UA.

The main gate rose ahead, gleaming and secure. The walls curved around the campus, tall and imposing. Inside, he could see the top of the main building, the glint of the gym domes, a slice of the sports field.

His throat closed.

“Visual anomaly,” Tank said sharply. “Zooming in.”

The code overlay flickered in Izuku’s vision as he squinted.

The security cameras built into the gate posts glowed faintly in his mind’s eye. They pulsed in a regular rhythm.

Except…

“There,” Izuku whispered. “That camera on the left. It’s… off-beat.”

Aizawa followed his gaze.

To normal sight, the camera looked identical to its twin on the right. But the left one… twitched. Just a fraction, like a glitch in a video stream.

“That’s an Agent access point,” Trinity said. “Hijacked system. They can spawn in through that if they need to. You see any park benches or walls nearby that feel… ‘softer’ than they should be?”

Izuku scanned the area.

The concrete of the retaining wall by the roadside felt solid in his mind’s eye. The metal railings, the street lamps—consistent.

But a spot of sidewalk near the gate felt… wrong. Like the code beneath it had been recently rewritten.

“There,” he said, pointing. “That patch. It’s like the hallway. But small.”

“A localized insertion buffer,” Tank said. “Yeah. They can pop up there if things go sideways.”

“Comforting,” Aizawa muttered.

Movement at the gate caught Izuku’s eye.

Two security guards stood by the entrance, talking with a parent. The parent bowed repeatedly, gesturing toward the campus. One of the guards shook his head, smiling apologetically.

Izuku’s stomach lurched.

He knew those guards.

Mr. Sato with the thinning hair, who always let them through with a stern but kind glance. Ms. Kagawa with the piercing whistle.

Their code felt… normal.

Human.

But standing just behind them, half in shadow, was someone else.

Black suit.

Sunglasses.

Hands clasped behind his back.

Izuku’s skin crawled.

“Agent,” he whispered.

He wasn’t moving. Just watching the gate. Watching the road. Watching them.

Aizawa’s shoulders tensed.

“Visual contact?” Trinity’s voice sharpened.

“Suited program at the gate,” Aizawa said quietly. “Standard Agent look, not even bothering with a host.”

Tank swore under his breath. “They’re not even pretending anymore,” he muttered. “Okay. Back off. Stay in the side street. If he tags your signatures—”

“He hasn’t yet,” Izuku cut in.

He didn’t know how he knew.

He just… felt it.

The Agent’s gaze slid past them, over them, like they were part of the scenery. His attention was on the gate itself, on the flow of people.

“He’s not looking for us,” Izuku said softly. “He’s watching for… spikes. For bugs like the last time.”

Aizawa frowned. “Meaning?”

“Meaning if we don’t bend anything,” Izuku said, “we’re just noise. Two more pieces in the background. For now.”

Trinity hummed thoughtfully.

“Kid might be right,” she admitted. “Agents prioritize anomalies. If you stay within expected behaviors, you’re less interesting.”

“That’s been the story of my life,” Aizawa said dryly.

Izuku almost smiled.

Students in UA uniforms moved along the path inside the wall. Some he recognized—even at this distance—from the way they walked.

Mineta’s short, bouncing stride. Yaoyorozu’s upright, composed posture. Kaminari’s loose, easy slouch.

He scanned desperately for more familiar silhouettes.

There.

A flash of explosive blond, hands jammed in pockets.

Kacchan.

A streak of half-white, half-red hair beside him.

Todoroki.

Iida’s rigid outline a step behind, arms moving in his exaggerated chopping motions as he lectured them.

His vision blurred.

They were okay.

They were here.

They had no idea.

His hands curled into fists.

“Midoriya,” Aizawa’s voice said quietly. “Stay with me.”

“I’m—I’m here,” Izuku whispered, blinking hard. “They’re… they’re right there.”

“I know,” Aizawa said.

He sounded like it hurt.

They watched in silence as Class 1-A—most of them, anyway—filtered through the gate back toward the main building. Their voices drifted faintly across the distance: complaints about make-up exercises, jokes, someone arguing about cafeteria curry.

It was so normal it hurt.

Tank cleared his throat over the comm. “You’re only supposed to be eyes today,” he reminded them gently. “If you go charging in to hug everyone, the Agent at the gate is going to get very interested very fast.”

“I’m not going to—” Izuku began hotly, then deflated. “Maybe a little. But I know. We’re just scouting. I won’t… I won’t mess it up.”

He meant it.

But then the universe decided to test his resolve immediately.

“Uh,” Trinity said. “We’ve got movement on your street. Seven o’clock.”

Izuku turned.

A small group of UA students rounded the corner into the side road.

Three of them.

He recognized them instantly.

Uraraka.

Sero.

And—

“Deku?” Uraraka blinked.

Izuku froze.

Of course.

Of course the universe hated him.

Uraraka Ochaco, in full UA uniform, backpack slung over one shoulder, stared at him with wide brown eyes. Sero peered around her, expression curious. Behind them, Asui Tsuyu’s steady gaze landed on Aizawa, then flicked back to Izuku.

Their code felt… normal.

Human.

Their faces were exactly as he remembered.

Trinity swore softly in his ear.

“Okay,” she said briskly. “Change of plan. You don’t ignore them; that’d be more suspicious. Play it cool. Remember your cover.”

Izuku’s mouth went dry.

“Deku!” Uraraka repeated, her initial surprise shifting into relief. “You’re okay! We heard there was some kind of training malfunction and you and Aizawa-sensei got sent to the infirmary and then Recovery Girl chewed out the teachers and—”

She broke off, eyes narrowing as she took in his stiff posture, the tension in his shoulders.

“You are okay, right?” she asked, worry creeping into her voice. “You kind of look like you swallowed a ghost.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled faintly. “Ribbit,” she said. “Midoriya-chan, you do seem tense, kero.”

Behind them, Sero rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, man, you look like Iida after someone leaves a wrapper in the hall.”

Izuku opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

Aizawa stepped in smoothly, hands still in his pockets.

“Recovery Girl cleared us half an hour ago,” he said. His voice slid into teacher mode with practiced ease. “We were on our way back from a follow-up report to the staff room. You three are supposed to be in the dorm commons.”

Uraraka winced. “We were!” she said. “But then we remembered we left our notebooks in the classroom, and we thought we’d grab them before study group, and then Sero wanted a drink from the vending machine—”

“It’s limited-time flavor!” Sero protested.

“And then we saw you two, kero,” Tsuyu finished. “We wanted to say hi.”

Her gaze flicked briefly over Aizawa’s shoulder.

For a heartbeat, Izuku had the uncomfortable impression she saw more than she was supposed to. Froppy had always had good instincts.

Aizawa didn’t let his annoyance show.

“Fine,” he said. “You’ve said hi. Now go back to the dorms. You’ve had enough excitement this week.”

Uraraka opened her mouth to argue, thought better of it, and snapped a quick bow instead.

“Yes, sensei!” she said. She flashed Izuku a quick smile. “I’m glad you’re okay, Deku. You were really scary out there for a while. Don’t make us worry like that again, okay?”

His chest ached.

“I’ll… try,” he managed.

Tsuyu’s eyes softened. “We’ll see you at study group, kero,” she said. “Bakugou-kun pretends he doesn’t care, but he’s been pacing more than usual.”

Sero grinned. “Don’t tell him we said that,” he stage-whispered.

Izuku nodded, swallowing hard. “I—yeah,” he said. “I’ll be there.”

The lie tasted like ash.

They waved and moved on, heading toward the main path.

Their footsteps faded.

Izuku stared after them until they turned the corner and vanished.

The moment they were out of sight, his knees wobbled.

Aizawa caught his arm, steadying him.

“Breathe,” he murmured.

Izuku sucked in air that tasted like guilt.

“They were right there,” he whispered. “I could’ve… I could’ve told them. Warned them. Something.”

“And then what?” Aizawa asked, voice quiet but hard. “They panic. Agents spike. We get into a chase we can’t win. Your classmates get flagged as ‘contaminated.’ The machines decide wiping their sector is cleaner than dealing with you.” He shook his head. “No. Not yet.”

“I know,” Izuku said.

He did.

That didn’t make it hurt less.

“On the plus side,” Trinity said dryly, “you didn’t blow your cover. Good improv on the Recovery Girl excuse, Eraserhead. Ten points.”

“Don’t score me,” Aizawa muttered.

Tank cleared his throat. “Uh, guys,” he said. “Hate to ruin the moment, but the Agent at the gate just got… twitchy.”

Izuku’s head snapped up.

The suited figure by the gate had shifted.

His head turned, not toward them, but toward the side street they’d just occupied. His sunglasses glinted.

“I think he felt something,” Tank said. “Not you, exactly. Just… ripples.”

“Time to go,” Trinity said sharply. “Walk, don’t run. Second side street on your right. Tank, find me an exit.”

“Already on it,” Tank said. “There’s a payphone two blocks down, attached to a convenience store façade. I can spawn it in sixty seconds.”

“Sixty seconds is a long time,” Aizawa muttered.

It got longer.

They moved down the side street at what Izuku hoped passed for a casual pace. His skin prickled. The hum of the Matrix’s code grew louder, like someone had turned up the volume.

They turned right.

The Agent stepped out in front of them.

Not the one at the gate.

Another one.

Same suit.

Same glasses.

Same expressionless face.

He walked straight out of a closed storefront window—glass rippling around him like water, then solidifying behind him without a crack.

“Target anomalies located,” he said calmly. “Subject: Midoriya Izuku. Subject: Aizawa Shouta. Unauthorized presence detected.”

Izuku’s heart slammed into his ribs.

“Stall,” Trinity hissed. “Phones almost ready—”

Aizawa shifted, stepping instinctively between Izuku and the Agent.

“Long day,” he said, voice cool. “We’re on school grounds. If this is some kind of test from the Commission, you picked the wrong—”

“Cover narrative rejected,” the Agent said. “Known anomalies must be removed.”

His hand lifted.

Palm open.

Izuku didn’t think.

He moved.

One For All flared—ten percent, more than was smart, but less than all-out suicide. Power surged through his legs. He slammed into Aizawa from the side, shoving them both behind a parked truck just as the air where they’d stood shredded with a screaming distortion shot.

Metal shrieked.

The truck’s side panel warped inward, groaning, as if the bullet had decided it shouldn’t exist in that shape anymore.

Izuku hit the ground hard, teeth clacking.

“Agh—!”

“Fifteen seconds,” Tank snapped. “Phone’s spawning at the corner of the next block. Convenience store sign reads ‘Yamazaki Mart.’ Red awning. You can’t miss it.”

“Hard to miss anything if we’re dead,” Aizawa gritted out.

He grabbed Izuku’s sleeve and dragged them both to their feet.

The Agent stepped around the truck, expression unchanging.

He raised his hand again.

Izuku didn’t aim for the bullets this time.

He aimed for the truck.

“Now,” he hissed, shoving One For All into a single command: fall.

Gravity was a rule.

Rules could bend.

The truck lurched.

It tilted sideways, then slammed onto its side between them and the Agent like a metal wall. The shot hit the undercarriage instead, warping the frame.

Izuku staggered, vision going white at the edges.

“That,” Trinity said tightly, “just lit up every anomaly detector in a mile radius.”

“Then we run,” Aizawa snapped.

They ran.

The street blurred around them.

Izuku’s lungs burned. His ribs ached. The world flowed strangely—code tugging at his heels, trying to reassert its normal pattern after the truck’s unnatural flip.

Ahead, the corner loomed.

A red awning flickered into existence halfway through a blink, hanging over a convenience store that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

The payphone attached to its wall rang.

“Go!” Tank shouted.

They skidded around the corner.

Izuku darted for the phone.

The world warped.

He stumbled.

The sidewalk stretched, lengthening like gum. Each step took him only half the distance he should have crossed.

“Spatial distortion,” Trinity snapped. “Agent’s trying to pin you. Push through!”

Izuku felt the Matrix’s quirk yank at his feet, trying to hold him in place.

He snarled.

“No,” he hissed, and shoved One For All into his own speed, rewriting the line that said you move at this rate to faster.

The world snapped back.

He stumbled, then lunged.

His fingers closed around the receiver.

Behind him, the Agent stepped around the corner, hand raised.

“Deletion author—”

The phone touched Izuku’s ear.

The world ripped away.

 

---

They came out of the construct hard.

Izuku ripped the jack out and rolled sideways on instinct, heart still jackhammering, his brain convinced there was an Agent behind him.

There wasn’t.

Just the Nebuchadnezzar’s metal ceiling, pipes, and Trinity cursing as she punched a console.

“Sloppy,” she snarled. “That was sloppy. I should’ve seen the host substitution on that shopkeeper three turns ago. Tank, remind me to adjust the Agent proxy filters.”

Tank winced. “On it,” he said. “You two okay?”

Aizawa sagged in his chair, breathing hard.

“No new holes,” he said. “Just the old ones complaining.”

Izuku lay on the floor, staring at the overhead wiring.

His whole body shook.

He wasn’t sure if it was fear, adrenaline, or some horrible cocktail of both.

Morpheus stepped into view above him, expression carefully neutral.

“Report,” he said.

Izuku swallowed.

“Agents can piggyback on more subtle access points than we thought,” he said hoarsely. “They’re watching the side streets around UA, not just the main gate. They’re keyed to my signature more than Aizawa-sensei’s. They react faster when I bend rules. And… and…”

He closed his eyes.

“And my friends are okay,” he whispered. “For now. They’re… they’re still themselves. They don’t know. But the Agents are watching the gate. It won’t stay quiet forever.”

Silence fell.

Aizawa pushed himself unsteadily out of his chair and lowered himself to the floor beside Izuku.

He didn’t say anything at first.

He just sat there, shoulder pressed against Izuku’s, both of them staring at the ceiling.

“I froze,” Izuku blurted suddenly. “When I saw Uraraka. For a second, I just… stood there. If sensei hadn’t covered, I…”

“You talked,” Aizawa said. “You smiled. You lied convincingly enough that three very observant kids didn’t panic. That’s more than a lot of pros could manage in your position.”

Izuku blinked up at him.

“You bent a truck,” Aizawa added. “On purpose. Without tearing your arms off.”

Izuku flushed. “I almost blacked out.”

“But you didn’t,” Aizawa said. “You got us to the exit. You didn’t freeze when the Agent stepped out. You moved me out of the line of fire again.”

He tilted his head back with a tired exhale.

“You did good,” he said.

Izuku’s throat tightened.

“Did we…?” He swallowed. “Did we make things worse?”

Morpheus crouched beside them.

His gaze was steady.

“In the short term,” he said, “you stirred the water. The Agent response will tighten. They’ll log this as another anomaly cluster.” He paused.

“In the long term?” he continued. “You proved something. The machines can’t lock you out completely. You can still get close. You can still move through the crowd without triggering an instant purge. That matters.”

Trinity crossed her arms, leaning against the console.

“And we learned something about the kids,” she said. “Uraraka, Asui, Sero—they didn’t glitch. Their code didn’t flicker. The machines don’t see them as compromised. Yet.”

“Which means we still have time,” Tank added. “Time to plan an extraction that doesn’t end in a massacre.”

Izuku closed his eyes.

Time.

He clung to the word like a lifeline.

They weren’t ready.

He knew that.

Today had proved it.

But they weren’t helpless, either.

He’d seen the Agent’s movements more clearly this time. He’d felt the way the sidewalk stretched when the system tried to hold him. He’d pushed back.

He could learn.

He would learn.

Aizawa shifted, wincing, and let his head thunk lightly against Izuku’s.

“Next time,” he said quietly, “we go in with a more specific goal. A message. A test run of how much we can say without tripping alarms.”

Izuku nodded, the motion small.

“Next time,” he echoed.

He thought of Uraraka’s smile.

Tsuyu’s steady gaze.

Sero’s easy grin.

Kacchan’s gruff concern, buried under shouting.

Class 1-A laughed and studied and trained in a world of code, oblivious to the machine eyes watching their every move.

Izuku stared up at the ceiling.

“We’re coming back,” he whispered.

Not just as students and teachers.

Not just as anomalies.

As heroes.

And the Matrix was going to have to learn what that meant.

Chapter Text

Izuku woke up with a scream trapped in his throat.

For one heartbeat he was back in the pod—red glass, gel in his lungs, cables in his neck. For another, he was on the UA side street with an Agent’s hand lifting, the world stretching like rubber.

Then the Nebuchadnezzar’s ceiling came into focus.

Pipes.

Wires.

A faint leak stain in the corner he’d counted a dozen times already.

His heart pounded against his ribs.

He realized he was still half-strangled in his blanket, fingers clenched so tight they hurt. The bunk above creaked as the ship shifted. Somewhere down the hall, someone coughed.

Not dead.

Not erased.

Just… awake.

He dragged in a breath.

It shuddered.

A quiet voice floated from the shadows of the crew quarters.

“Five things you can see, problem child.”

Izuku flinched before his brain caught up.

“Aizawa-sensei?” he croaked.

The man was a silhouette in the narrow aisle, back against the bulkhead, one knee drawn up, the other leg stretched carefully out in front of him. His hair hung loose around his face, shadows turning it into an even bigger mess than usual.

He looked exactly like someone who’d meant to sit down “for a minute” and hadn’t moved in an hour.

Izuku swallowed.

“Um.” His eyes skated around the dim bunks. “The ceiling. The ladder. Your… uh, scarf. That bolt Tank still hasn’t fixed. And… your capture weapon bag on that hook.”

“Four things you can feel,” Aizawa murmured.

“The blanket,” Izuku whispered. “The mattress. The—uh—metal rail against my arm. And my heart beating too fast.”

“Three things you can hear.”

“The hum of the engine. Someone snoring. Your voice.”

Aizawa’s silhouette dipped in a slow nod.

“Two things you can smell.”

Izuku inhaled.

“Oil,” he said. “And… coffee. I think. Burnt.”

“That’s Tank,” Aizawa said. “He keeps trying to convince the machine our beans are still coffee.”

“One thing you can taste.”

“Dry mouth,” Izuku muttered. “And… metal. Like fear.”

“That’s two things.”

Izuku huffed a weak laugh.

The panic ebbed from a tidal wave to something more manageable. His fingers loosened on the blanket.

“How many nightmares is that?” Aizawa asked quietly.

Izuku stared up at the bunk slats. “Since we got here or just tonight?”

“Tonight.”

“…Three,” he admitted.

Aizawa grunted softly. “Better than yesterday.”

Izuku blinked. “You were—counting?”

“You yell in your sleep,” Aizawa said. “Kind of hard not to.”

Izuku flushed.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“Don’t be stupid,” Aizawa said without heat. “You nearly got deleted in front of your entire class and then found out the universe is a battery farm. Nightmares are the least worrying reaction.”

Izuku’s throat tightened.

He hesitated.

Then, very quietly, he asked,

“Do you… have them too?”

Aizawa was quiet long enough that Izuku thought he’d overstepped.

Then:

“Sometimes I’m back in the pod,” Aizawa said, voice low. “Sometimes we’re in Ground Beta again and the kids melt into code when I call their names.” A humorless huff. “Sometimes Nezu turns into an Agent. That one’s new.”

Izuku made a strangled noise. “That’s horrible,” he said. “And also strangely plausible.”

“Don’t encourage my subconscious.”

They sat in the quiet, ship humming around them.

“Can I ask you something?” Izuku whispered.

“No. Go back to sleep,” Aizawa said automatically.

Izuku almost smiled.

“You’re awake too,” he pointed out.

Silence.

“Fine,” Aizawa conceded. “Ask.”

Izuku swallowed.

“Do you… regret… coming out?” he asked. “Pulling the phone. Waking up. All of this.” His hand fluttered between the bunks, encompassing ship, war, training, everything. “You could’ve… stayed. With them. With us. Even if it was fake, you wouldn’t have known.”

Aizawa’s answer was immediate.

“No,” he said.

Izuku frowned into the dark. “Not even a little?”

Aizawa shifted, metal creaking under his weight.

“I hate this,” he said. “I hate watching you shake after every sim. I hate seeing my kids walking around in there like livestock on a feed chart. I hate that every time I close my eyes I see… wires.” Something in his voice frayed on the last word.

He drew in a breath.

“But I don’t regret knowing,” he said. “Ignorance doesn’t make a cage less real. It just makes you easier to manage.”

Izuku hugged the blanket tighter.

“I guess,” he said softly. “I used to think the world was cruel because it decided I didn’t get a quirk. Turns out it’s cruel because it decided none of us get a real life.”

“Careful,” Aizawa murmured. “You’re starting to sound like an underground philosopher. I don’t have tenure for that.”

Izuku snorted.

“Get some sleep,” Aizawa added. “Morpheus wants us in the construct early. He mentioned words like ‘tactical planning’ and ‘long-term infiltration.’ You’ll love it. There will be charts.”

Izuku’s brain perked up despite everything.

“…Charts?” he whispered.

“Yes,” Aizawa said. “Go to sleep.”

Izuku smiled weakly into the dark.

He didn’t sleep well.

But he slept.

 

---

Morpheus’s idea of a “planning session” turned out to be both better and worse than Izuku expected.

Better because it involved a detailed virtual map of UA.

Worse because it involved watching little glowing dots representing his classmates move through that map like targets in a video game.

They stood in the Construct—not dojo this time, but an overhead wireframe of the UA campus, floating in endless white. Buildings rose in translucent stacks, corridors and stairwells glowing faint blue. Tiny light-tags drifted inside them like fireflies.

“Class 1-A?” Izuku asked, voice tight.

Tank's voice floated down from above, amused. “Not just them,” he said. “You’re looking at live motion feeds from several sectors. This is how the machines see your school. Security routines, student movement, teacher patterns. All condensed to data.”

Aizawa squinted. “That cluster in the east wing?”

“Teachers’ lounge,” Tank said. “They gossip more than you think.”

Aizawa grunted. “I know.”

Izuku pointed to a cluster of yellow tags pulsating in one building.

“And that?” he asked.

“Your beloved 1-A,” Trinity said.

Izuku’s chest tightened.

The tags moved in recognizable patterns. One darted around the room in tight loops.

“Mineta,” Izuku muttered.

Another moved in straight lines, then stopped precisely, then moved again.

“Iida.”

Two tags chased each other briefly, collided, then separated.

“Kaminari and Kirishima,” Izuku whispered.

His hand shook.

Morpheus let him look for a moment.

“Remember,” he said gently, “they are not dots.”

Izuku nodded jerkily.

“I know,” he whispered. “They’re… people. My friends. My class.”

He dragged his eyes away with effort.

“What’s the plan?” Aizawa asked. “You said we’re not ready for a mass extraction. So what are we doing instead of getting them out?”

“Building an exit,” Morpheus said.

He gestured, and the map zoomed in on the main building. Corridors widened into view—homerooms, stairwells, gym access.

“UA has emergency protocols,” he said. “Fire drills. Villain intrusion drills. Quirk malfunction protocols. All scripted. All regulated.”

Aizawa’s mouth twitched. “I’ve supervised enough of those,” he said. “Half the kids treat them like free time. The other half overthink the escape routes.”

“Those routines are controlled by the Matrix,” Morpheus continued. “Right now, they lead to ‘safe zones’ designed by the machines—areas where they can monitor crowds efficiently, even overwriting individuals if necessary. Our goal—” his eyes sharpened “—is to hijack one.”

Izuku leaned forward.

“Hijack… how?” he asked.

Trinity stepped up beside Morpheus, tapping a glowing block that represented the first-floor corridor outside 1-A.

“Think of an emergency drill like a script,” she said. “Bell rings, kids stand, teacher lines them up, they walk down Corridor A, turn left, gather at Point B. The Matrix enforces that script: doors unlock, signs light up, alarms sound.”

She smirked. “We’re going to rewrite the script. A little.”

Tank chimed in. “We can’t change everything at once,” he said. “That’d ping every Agent in a ten-block radius. But we can… nudge. Change some door priorities. Alter a sign. Swap a ‘safest route’ flag.”

He highlighted a section of the map. A staircase glowed brighter.

“Right now, if there’s a fire drill, 1-A goes out the side exit and down to the athletic field,” Tank said. “We adjust the script so it tells them the fastest route is through Stairwell C, down to the disaster bunker.”

Izuku frowned. “UA has a bunker?” he asked. “We’ve only used the shelters near the field…”

Aizawa grimaced. “They built an underground shelter complex after the USJ attack,” he said. “Mostly for PR. Haven’t needed to use it yet.”

Morpheus’s eyes warmed. “Perfect,” he said. “Underused route. Fewer eyes.”

Trinity nodded. “We slip a subroutine into that bunker,” she said. “Something that tells the Matrix ‘this space is just a storage room, nothing to see here.’ Meanwhile, Tank designates it as an extraction point. We prep a phone in the construct overlay. When it’s time…”

She mimed picking up a receiver.

Izuku’s heart stuttered.

“You want to run a drill,” he said slowly. “Get my whole class into that bunker. And then… what? Yank them all out at once?”

“Not yet,” Morpheus said. “For now, we just get them there and back. Test the path. See how many Agents twitch. See how your kids respond to being moved along a new route.”

“We need data,” Aizawa murmured.

He looked at the map thoughtfully.

“I can get them to follow me,” he said. “In a drill. Old protocols or new. They’re trained to obey emergency directions.”

Izuku bit his lip.

“Would the system… let you randomly change a route like that?” he asked. “UA loves to test us, but Nezu always files paperwork…”

“Nezu’s code is weird enough that he can justify almost anything,” Tank said. “We piggyback on that. Make it look like one of his experiments.”

Trinity tilted her head. “We’ll also need to prep the kids mentally,” she said. “If the system throws them a really weird scenario, some of them will freeze. Or joke. Or try to improvise. We want them accustomed to following Aizawa’s lead when things get… strange.”

Izuku’s stomach twisted.

“You want us to… lie to them,” he said softly.

“Midoriya,” Aizawa said.

“No, I—I know,” Izuku said quickly. “I get it. Drills save lives. We’re training them. I just…” He swallowed. “I hate that we have to do it while pretending it’s all… normal.”

Aizawa’s expression softened.

“Welcome to teaching,” he said quietly. “We’ve always lied to them a little. ‘Everything will be okay’ is still a lie even if you mean it.”

Izuku flinched.

Morpheus watched their faces, then stepped in gently.

“You won’t be lying entirely,” he said. “You are preparing them for something real. We’re just… limited in how much truth we can attach to it.”

Trinity shrugged. “Call it a trust exercise,” she said. “You say ‘when I say move, you move.’ Later, when things go sideways for real, they follow the pattern. That’s not betrayal. That’s giving them a fighting chance.”

Izuku let out a shaky breath.

“All right,” he said. “So what do we have to do?”

Morpheus smiled faintly.

“Class,” he said, “is in session.”

 

---

Training this time didn’t happen in the empty dojo.

It happened in UA’s hallways.

Or rather, the Construct’s version of them.

Izuku blinked as the white world snapped into corridors he knew better than his own apartment building. Rows of homeroom doors. Trophy cases. Posters for the Cultural Festival that had never happened in real life here.

“It even smells right,” he whispered. “Disinfectant and gym socks…”

Aizawa appeared beside him, scarf draped, looking profoundly unimpressed.

“I hate it,” he said flatly.

Morpheus and Trinity stood at the far end of the hall, near the door labeled “1-A.” Their presence looked… wrong here, like someone had copy-pasted them into a school drama.

“Tank’s built a sim based on UA schematics and movement patterns,” Trinity said. “No live minds, just placeholders. You’re going to practice getting a crowd from Point A to Point B before the system can cut you off.”

She snapped her fingers.

The door to 1-A slid open.

Students poured out.

Izuku’s breath stopped.

They looked like his class—same uniforms, same hair, same personal quirks. Kacchan’s scowl. Iida’s rigid posture. Kaminari’s lazy grin.

But their eyes were wrong.

Flat.

Glassier than they should be.

Placeholders.

Code puppets.

Izuku’s gut twisted.

Aizawa glanced at him, then back at the crowd.

“Don’t name them,” he said quietly. “Not these.”

Izuku nodded, throat tight.

Morpheus stepped back, leaving the corridor to them.

“Scenario one,” he said. “Standard fire drill. Existing script. No Agents. Just a test of your command voice and timing. Aizawa leads. Midoriya shadows, watches.”

The bell blared.

The fake students jumped.

Some muttered.

Aizawa moved.

He stepped into the hall, posture shifting into that strict, no-nonsense bearing that could silence Kaminari mid-joke.

“Line up!” he barked. “Same as always. No quirks. No talking. Move.”

They moved.

Even as simulations, they followed his voice—chattering dropping to a murmur, then to silence. They lined up automatically, clustering into recognizable friend groups.

Izuku swallowed hard.

He fell into step beside them, counting.

Twenty.

Twenty familiar shapes.

He felt like he was walking through a ghost class, and it hurt in ways he hadn’t expected.

They moved down the hall, turned right at the intersection, filed down the stairs. The environment responded—doors unlocking, signs flashing green. Everything flowed like it always did.

At the side exit, they spilled out into the replica of the athletic field.

“Time?” Aizawa called.

“Forty-five seconds from bell to field,” Tank said. “Within normal parameters.”

Morpheus nodded. “Again,” he said. “But this time, we change the script.”

They ran it again.

This time, instead of turning right at the junction, Aizawa called for a left.

“New route,” he said curtly as the students blinked. “Disaster protocol. Follow me.”

The hallway… resisted.

Izuku felt it—the Matrix’s script pushing them toward the field, like a current trying to drag a boat downstream.

Doors they shouldn’t use stayed locked a fraction of a second longer.

Lights flickered.

The students hesitated.

Izuku shoved his awareness into the environment.

No, he told it fiercely. Here. This way.

The resistance eased.

Doors clicked open.

Exit signs blinked twice, then reoriented, arrows shifting to point toward Stairwell C.

The simulations followed.

At the base of the stairwell, Trinity stood with arms folded.

“Better,” she said. “But you dragged your feet. If an Agent flags that much script deviation, they’ll start spawning obstacles sooner.”

“What kind of obstacles?” Izuku asked warily.

“Locked doors, misdirected signs, random ‘urgent announcements’ telling you to shelter in place,” Trinity said. “The Matrix doesn’t like improvisation. It’ll try to shove you back in line.”

They spent the next hour running variations.

Lights going out.

Doors locking.

Sirens blaring contradictory instructions.

Izuku watched Aizawa adjust—voices rising over noise, direct orders cutting through confusion. “Ignore that!” he’d shout when a fake announcement told them to stop. “Eyes on me! Move!”

The simulated students learned their patterns.

Even as dumb code, they started obeying Aizawa’s voice faster each repetition.

Izuku watched.

Filed it away.

He also started to… push.

At first, it was tiny things.

He nudged a locked door’s “status” flag from CLOSED to OPEN just before they reached it.

He stretched a too-short hallway a few extra meters to avoid a spawn point.

He dimmed lights at an intersection to make a “wrong” path less appealing to the herd.

Each tweak felt like editing a document mid-sentence.

The system resisted.

He pushed harder.

By the end of the session he had a splitting headache and a new appreciation for why Neo always looked exhausted in the old stories.

“Good,” Morpheus said quietly as they stood panting in the sim bunker, their ghost class arrayed around them. “Now comes the hard part.”

Izuku wiped sweat from his forehead. “That wasn’t it?” he asked weakly.

Trinity tilted her head, studying the fake students.

“You need them to trust you,” she said. “Not just the script. You two can shove code around all day, but if the kids panic and bolt, it’s chaos.”

“And right now,” Aizawa said, “we’ve only rehearsed with cardboard cutouts.”

He looked at Izuku.

His eyes were tired.

Determined.

“We need to run a version of this with the real class,” he said. “Soon.”

Izuku’s stomach flipped.

“How?” he asked. “We can’t just… appear and shout ‘surprise drill.’ Nezu will either take notes or kill us. Or both.”

Morpheus smiled slightly. “You’re forgetting something,” he said. “You are still, in the Matrix, their homeroom teacher and student. The system expects you at UA. After the ‘training accident,’ it expects a follow-up.”

Trinity’s mouth curved. “We give it one,” she said.

Tank chimed in. “UA’s schedule shows a homeroom block tomorrow morning,” he said. “Right after first period. Nezu flagged it for ‘special instruction.’ That’s our opening.”

Izuku’s heart hammered.

“You want us to go back,” he said.

“Not for a full mission,” Morpheus said. “Just… a lesson.”

Aizawa’s lips thinned.

“A paranoid emergency-preparedness lecture,” he said slowly. “From their famously paranoid homeroom teacher.”

He snorted.

“They’ll buy it.”

 

---

UA’s classroom door felt heavier than Izuku remembered.

He stood in the hallway outside 1-A, hand hovering just above the handle, pulse racing in his throat. The hum of the Matrix’s code pressed against his skin like static.

He was in full uniform.

Green suit. Red boots. Gloves.

He felt… wrong in it.

Too aware of every seam.

Behind him, Aizawa adjusted his scarf, expression carefully blank behind his goggles.

“In and out,” Trinity said in their ears. “One block. You talk, you plant the idea of weird drills, you don’t mention robots or pods. If an Agent shows up, we bail.”

Tank added, “You’ve got three watchers on the campus perimeter, but none inside the main building yet. Nezu’s office is… fuzzy. I still don’t like that hamster.”

Izuku swallowed.

“Ready?” Aizawa asked him quietly.

“No,” Izuku said honestly.

“Good,” Aizawa said. “Means you’re thinking.”

He slid the door open.

The roar hit them like a wave.

“—and then Bakugou blew up the dummy’s head, and the staff were like, ‘good job,’ and I’m like, what—”

“I told you, that’s how you get the maximum points, you extras—”

“—no, Kaminari-kun, that’s not how electricity or math works—”

“Midoriya-chan’s late, kero.”

“Maybe he really did get abducted by aliens this time.”

Twenty voices, layered over each other, bouncing off walls and desks.

Izuku’s breath caught.

They were all there.

In their seats.

Alive.

Normal.

Kacchan pivoted in his chair, mouth already open to yell at someone.

The room went quiet instead.

“Ah,” Iida said, shooting to his feet. “Aizawa-sensei! Midoriya! You are both… oh thank goodness.” His shoulders sagged in visible relief. “We were informed you had been taken to the infirmary after the training incident, and your absence at morning assembly was most concerning!”

Uraraka smiled, eyes crinkling. “I knew you were okay,” she said. “You always bounce back, Deku.”

“Midoriya, my man!” Kirishima waved broadly. “You look tired but like, ‘fought a dragon and survived’ tired.”

Kaminari leaned back in his chair, grinning. “So was it like a crazy training glitch or secret villain or what? We saw the footage cut out on the monitors—”

Aizawa cleared his throat.

The class snapped to attention.

Izuku slipped into his usual seat almost on autopilot.

The chair creaked the same way.

The desk had the same notch in the corner where he’d once slammed his notebook down too hard.

He set his hands flat on the surface to keep them from shaking.

Aizawa stood at the front of the room, arms crossed, scarf a dark line around his shoulders.

His eyes scanned the class.

Izuku watched his chest rise and fall, almost imperceptibly.

He looked… different.

Not in any way the kids would notice—his posture was the same, his hair messy, his gaze bored.

But Izuku, watching from the inside of a shared secret, could see the strain.

“First,” Aizawa said, voice dry, “I’m not dead.”

He let that hang for a beat.

“Second,” he went on, “neither is your resident problem child. Despite his best efforts.”

A ripple of relieved laughter moved through the room.

Kacchan scoffed, but his shoulders dropped a fraction.

Izuku’s throat tightened.

“Third,” Aizawa said, “UA is classifying the incident in Ground Beta as a systems malfunction combined with unauthorized interference from an outside actor. Translation: someone messed with our tech during a live-fire drill. You’re not to discuss details with the press or online. You’ll be given an official statement if reporters ask.”

Iida nodded vigorously. “Of course, sensei!” he said. “We shall maintain operational discretion as UA students should!”

Bakugou snorted. “If some pencil-pusher thinks they can mess with my training and not tell me why—”

“Bakugou,” Aizawa said warningly.

Kacchan clicked his tongue and slumped back in his seat.

Aizawa let the room settle.

Then he reached down, picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote two words on the board in his messy scrawl.

UNSCRIPTED EMERGENCIES

Izuku’s heart stuttered.

“We have drills,” Aizawa said, underlining the phrase. “Fire, villain attacks, natural disasters. You stand when the bell rings. You file out. You gather at the designated spot. You treat it like another exercise.”

He turned to face them, the room’s light catching on his goggles.

“What happens,” he asked quietly, “when the bell doesn’t ring?”

Silence.

Uraraka’s hand lifted slowly. “Um…” she said. “We… wait for instructions?”

“From who?” Aizawa asked.

“Teachers,” she said. “The staff. Pro heroes.”

“And what if the people in charge are just as confused as you?” he asked, voice soft, dangerous. “What if the script you’ve been following doesn’t cover what’s happening?”

A few students shifted uneasily.

“This is hypothetical, yes?” Yaoyorozu asked, folding her hands on her desk. “I do not recall such an incident—”

“It will be,” Aizawa said. “If you’re prepared.”

He tapped the chalk against the board.

“UA trains you to fight villains,” he said. “To rescue civilians. To operate in chaos. But somewhere along the way, a lot of you have started trusting the procedure more than your own eyes.”

He glanced at Izuku for a fraction of a second.

Izuku’s breath hitched.

“That training malfunction?” Aizawa continued, addressing the class again. “It didn’t care about our drills. It didn’t wait for permission. It broke the usual patterns. It didn’t announce itself with a neat bell.”

He dropped the chalk into the tray with a soft click.

“So today,” he said, “you’re getting extra homework.”

A collective groan answered him.

Aizawa’s mouth twitched.

“Not that kind,” he said. “Thought exercises. I want you to imagine three scenarios where something goes wrong at UA that does not fit into our existing drills. Could be a villain with an unusual quirk. Could be a tech failure. Could be a… natural anomaly.”

Izuku’s spine prickled at the pointed not-quite-glance Aizawa gave him.

“For each scenario,” Aizawa went on, “I want you to write down your first instinct. The wrong one. The thing you’d probably do if you didn’t think about it. Then I want your second instinct. The one you land on after taking a breath and asking ‘What am I missing?’”

Hands started to move.

Pens scratched.

“But before you put anything on paper,” Aizawa said, “I want you to write this at the top of the page.”

He turned back to the board.

In block letters, he wrote:

IF ERASERHEAD SAYS MOVE, YOU MOVE.

Izuku’s chest clenched.

“During an unscripted emergency,” Aizawa said, facing them again, “there may not be time to explain. You may not understand why I’m telling you to duck, or run, or go down a hallway we’ve never used. You may think I’m wrong. You may think I’m being overcautious. You write that line down now, you look at it later, you remember it when things get weird.”

He folded his arms.

“Understood?”

“Yes, sensei!” the class chorused.

Kacchan made a face. “If you start pulling us into random closets during math class, I reserve the right to blow something up,” he muttered.

“Noted,” Aizawa said.

Izuku wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

He wrote the line at the top of his page in neat, careful letters, hand shaking only a little.

IF ERASERHEAD SAYS MOVE, YOU MOVE.

He wished he could tell them how literal that might become.

He wished he didn’t have to.

They spent the rest of homeroom discussing hypothetical weird emergencies.

Mineta imagined a villain who made everyone’s clothes vanish.

Aizawa gave him detention on principle.

Yaoyorozu suggested a quirk that reversed gravity in one wing of the building.

Izuku, perhaps predictably, came up with half a dozen scenarios involving villains who could alter perception, twist space, or make people ignore certain exits.

“Good,” Aizawa said when Izuku explained one. “I want you all thinking in those directions. The world is not obligated to follow the rules you like.”

The irony of him saying that in this setting was not lost on Izuku.

When the bell rang for next period, the students groaned, stretched, and began to pack up. Iida gave another earnest speech about preparedness. Kaminari tried to peek at Jirou’s notes.

Uraraka lingered by Izuku’s desk.

“You sure you’re okay?” she asked quietly as the others filed out. “You looked… scared. Out there. At the drill. I mean, more than usual.”

He forced a smile.

“I’m okay,” he lied. “Just… thinking a lot.”

Tsuyu appeared beside her, silent as always.

Her throat bubbled. “You looked like Aizawa-sensei,” she said. “When he doesn’t sleep for three days, kero.”

“That’s every day,” Izuku blurted.

Tsuyu’s lips quirked. “Exactly,” she said.

Aizawa clapped his hands once.

“Out,” he said. “You can bother Midoriya during lunch. We’re done.”

They filed out with fond grumbling.

Izuku watched them go.

His chest hurt.

“You did well,” Trinity murmured in his ear. “No Agents in the building. Nezu’s office pinged weird once, but nothing moved. The system logged this as ‘standard paranoid homeroom.’”

“Which isn’t wrong,” Aizawa said.

Izuku smiled weakly.

As the last student left, he dropped his pen.

It rattled on the desk.

His hands shook.

Aizawa closed the classroom door.

For a moment he just stood there, back to the room, shoulders hunched.

Izuku stared at his desk.

“I hate this,” he whispered.

Aizawa turned.

“I know,” he said.

Izuku’s nails dug into his palms. “They’re right there,” he said, voice cracking. “Joking about drills, worrying about normal stuff. And we’re… using that. Turning it into a rehearsal for something they don’t even know is real.”

“Midoriya,” Aizawa said quietly.

“I know we have to,” Izuku rushed on. “I know. I know this will save their lives later. But right now I just feel like I’m… cheating. Like I’m sitting in an exam with answers they don’t have, and I can’t share.”

He dragged in a ragged breath.

“What kind of hero does that?” he whispered.

Aizawa crossed the room, each step measured.

He stopped beside Izuku’s desk.

“The kind who wants his class to survive graduation,” he said.

Izuku looked up, blinking hard.

Aizawa’s expression was as flat as ever.

His eyes weren’t.

“Every time I’ve run you through a sleep-deprived capture training, every time I’ve made you fight when you wanted to nap, every time I’ve thrown you into a situation you didn’t feel ready for,” he said quietly, “I’ve lied a little. I’ve told you it was ‘just training.’ You were never going to be ready. That’s the point.”

He nodded toward the door.

“This is just that,” he said. “On a bigger scale. The stakes are higher. The lies hurt more. But it’s the same principle. I don’t push you because I enjoy watching you cry. I push you because I like you breathing.”

Izuku huffed a wet laugh. “You’re really bad at the ‘I care about you’ speech,” he said thickly.

“I know,” Aizawa said.

He hesitated.

Then, as if it physically pained him, he reached out and ruffled Izuku’s hair.

Just once.

Quick, rough.

Izuku froze.

By the time he processed it, Aizawa’s hand was already back at his side.

“Don’t overthink it,” he muttered.

Too late.

Izuku bit his lip, eyes burning.

“I won’t let them die,” he whispered.

Aizawa’s jaw tightened.

“Neither will I,” he said. “Now pick up your pen. We have ten minutes before the next class comes in. Tank wants us to walk the route to the bunker while the halls are empty.”

Izuku sucked in a shaking breath.

“Right,” he said. “Route to the bunker.”

He bent, grabbed his pen, and stood.

As they stepped into the hall, the Matrix’s hum rose around them again.

But this time, beneath the fear, there was something else in the buzz under Izuku’s skin.

A thread of possibility.

They walked the corridors like two normal figures in a normal school.

Down Stairwell C.

Through the unused lower hall.

To the heavy door marked “DISASTER SHELTER – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.”

Izuku touched the handle.

The code beneath it trembled.

Future paths curled there, unseen by the kids upstairs.

One day soon, that door would open on more than a concrete room.

It would open on a choice.

On a phone.

On a way out of the cage.

Izuku swallowed.

“We’re coming back,” he whispered.

Aizawa didn’t ask who he meant.

They both knew.

Chapter Text

By the time the Nebuchadnezzar drifted into a calmer air current, Izuku had bitten his thumbnail down to the quick.

Tank slapped his hand away from his own face without looking up from the console. “You’re going to bleed on my keyboard,” he said. “Again.”

Izuku yanked his hand back, cheeks flushing. “S-sorry,” he muttered, stuffing both hands under his arms like that would keep them out of trouble.

On the main screen, UA glowed as a cluster of moving symbols. Patterns pulsed in slow, steady rhythms: student traffic, security sweeps, schedule ticks. Here and there, brighter flares marked quirk use—sparks of lightning, bursts of ice, a small explosion that was almost certainly Bakugou blowing something up in General Studies territory he had no business being near.

Aizawa stood a few feet back, arms folded, scarf draped out of uniform. His eyes tracked the scrolling code with a predator’s patience and a teacher’s exhaustion.

Morpheus and Trinity flanked Tank’s chair like quiet shadows.

“Perimeter?” Morpheus asked.

“Three Agents logged within a kilometer radius,” Tank said. “One at the main gate like last time. One piggybacking on a police patrol routine down the street. One hanging out in a coffee shop pretending to drink. None inside the campus proper.”

Izuku frowned. “Pretending to drink?”

“Agents cosplay as humans to make people comfortable,” Trinity said. “They don’t get it. Last week we watched one stare at latte foam for ten minutes like it was a math problem.”

Tank snorted. “Better than the one who tried to eat a donut without moving his jaw,” he said. “Focus points look clear, though. Bunker doesn’t have any new flags.”

The glowing representation of the underground shelter pulsed faintly.

“Last chance to reschedule,” Trinity said. “We can wait, see if they relax more.”

“They’re not going to relax,” Aizawa said. “Not now. Not with Midoriya on their Most Wanted list.”

Izuku’s chest tightened.

He hadn’t seen the list, but the way Agents’ code spiked when they were near him was enough.

Morpheus nodded once. “We move today,” he said. “Low stakes, low visibility. We test the path. If the machines respond with more than grumbling, we fall back and reassess.”

Izuku sucked in a breath.

“And if they don’t?” he asked.

“Then we know we can push harder,” Morpheus said quietly. “Later.”

The notion made Izuku’s heart hammer.

“Hey,” Trinity said, flicking his forehead lightly. “You still with us?”

He blinked, then nodded. “Y-yeah,” he said. “Just… kind of about to sneak my entire class one step closer to freedom under the nose of a murderous AI. No pressure.”

Aizawa’s lips twitched.

“You’ll be fine,” he said. “You’re good at sneaking big things into small spaces. Have you seen your notebooks?”

“Rude,” Izuku muttered.

Trinity straightened. “All right,” she said. “Mission parameters: simple. You two go in as yourselves. Mid-morning homeroom block. The system expects Aizawa giving a follow-up lecture after yesterday’s paranoia special. You trigger the drill—smoke alarm, gas leak, whatever Nezu’s schedule justifies. You take them exactly along the route we practiced. No fancy detours.”

“Phones?” Izuku asked, throat dry.

“Not this run,” Morpheus said. “We’re not extracting anyone today. We’re measuring. Crowd flow, system resistance, Agent interest. One variable at a time.”

It made sense.

It also made Izuku feel like he was walking into a burning building just to see how hot it was.

Aizawa rested a hand briefly on his shoulder.

The weight was solid. Grounding.

“Midoriya,” he said quietly. “Focus on the steps. Not the final exam. Doors. Hallway. Stairs. Bunker. That’s all you need to worry about today.”

Izuku nodded.

“Right,” he said. “Steps.”

Trinity picked up the jacks.

“Time for class,” she said.

 

---

In the Matrix, UA’s sky was a perfect blue.

Too perfect.

Izuku’s brain kept looking for rain that wasn’t there.

He stood at the front of 1-A’s classroom, hands clenched behind his back, as twenty pairs of eyes blinked at him expectantly. The weight of their gazes felt different now: not just curiosity or trust, but a responsibility with sharp edges.

He’d always wanted to stand here as someone worthy of respect.

He just hadn’t pictured doing it while hiding that the world was a prison.

Aizawa leaned against the podium, arms folded.

If anyone noticed he looked more alert than usual, they didn’t say anything.

“All right,” Aizawa said. “Yesterday’s homework. Hand it in.”

A chorus of groans answered him.

“Already?” Kaminari whined. “I barely had time between rescue exercises and Bakugou yelling at me about my voltage control—”

“DO IT RIGHT OR DON’T DO IT AT ALL, DUNCEFACE,” Bakugou snarled.

“Language,” Iida hissed.

Izuku almost smiled.

Almost.

He watched papers make their way to the front in small stacks. Notes filled with scenarios, first instincts, course corrections.

Mineta’s featured a suspicious number of “clothing-eating” quirks.

Aizawa skimmed the top page in the first pile, mouth quirking. “I am impressed by your pessimism,” he said. “And mildly concerned by some of you.”

He set the stack aside.

“Today,” he said, “we’re going to have a practical.”

A ripple went through the class.

Kirishima grinned. “Like a surprise test?” he asked. “Manly.”

“Like a surprise drill,” Aizawa said. “Manly is irrelevant.”

Izuku’s palms started to sweat.

He glanced at the clock.

Right on cue.

A sharp beep cut through the classroom.

Then another.

Then a stuttering, rising whine that made Izuku’s skin crawl—not because of the sound itself, but because he could feel the Matrix’s script slotting into place around it.

“Attention,” a bland voice said over the PA system. “There has been a detected gas leak in the lower mechanical level. All students and faculty are to evacuate via their nearest fire routes. Repeat: there has been a detected—”

Aizawa raised his voice over the announcement. “On your feet,” he snapped. “Grab your emergency packs. Line up.”

Izuku’s body moved before his brain caught up.

Emergency packs.

He’d almost forgotten the red pouches stored under their desks—standard UA issue, with masks, glow sticks, basic first aid. His fingers found the strap automatically.

The Matrix didn’t miss details.

Chairs scraped back.

Students formed lines more quickly than they had in the sim. Real practice showed. Nervous energy buzzed in the air, but the training kicked in.

“That was fast,” Jirou murmured, a hand cupped briefly to her earlobe. “No usual pre-alarm drill notice.”

“Gas leaks don’t give you notice,” Aizawa said. “Eyes front. No quirks unless ordered. Follow me. Single file.”

He slid open the door.

The hallway outside boiled with movement—other classes forming lines, teachers giving orders, alarms flashing.

Izuku felt it.

The script.

A current that tugged at everyone’s feet, calmly insisting, this way to safety, sending little nudge impulses down hallway A toward the athletic field.

He shoved back.

No.

His mind brushed the code the way Morpheus had taught him—light touch, not a full force slam. He found the route tags attached to their class: FIELD-ALPHA-SAFE-ZONE and DISASTER-BUNKER-C-RESERVE.

He flicked a flag.

The bunker tag glowed.

The field dimmed.

Aizawa turned left at the junction.

“New route,” he barked. “Stay together.”

UA’s walls didn’t like that.

The overhead emergency lights flickered, undecided.

A sign ahead of them glowed red: ← FIELD, → SHELTERS.

For a second the arrow leaned toward the field.

Izuku pushed.

It jerked.

The arrow swung to point toward the bunkers instead.

Yaoyorozu frowned faintly. “We’ve never used that route in drills,” she whispered to Momo, but she followed.

Asui’s tongue flicked out reflexively, tasting the air.

“Don’t smell anything, kero,” she murmured.

Uraraka tightened her grip on her emergency pack. “Maybe it’s a tech malfunction?” she said. “They did say systems got messed up at Ground Beta.”

“We’ll inquire later,” Iida declared, marching dutifully in line. “For now, we must obey the protocol. Aizawa-sensei is leading; we should trust his judgment!”

Kaminari leaned sideways toward Kirishima. “I thought shelters were for, like, earthquakes,” he stage-whispered. “Gas leak plus underground room equals… huh?”

Kirishima shrugged. “Maybe it’s to avoid spark risks on the field?” he said. “That’d be unmanly. Exploding while evacuating.”

Bakugou rolled his eyes so hard it was a wonder they didn’t get stuck. “If there is a leak and you idiots start sparking, I’m leaving you,” he grunted.

Underneath the chatter, Izuku felt the Matrix grumble.

Doors they approached stayed locked a half-second too long, making the line bunch.

A PA speaker crackled.

“Correction,” the bland voice said. “Students are to evacuate to the athletic grounds. Repeat: all students are to—”

Aizawa stopped dead in the middle of the corridor.

The line behind him stumbled.

He looked up at the speaker.

His hair didn’t float—his quirk wouldn’t work on the Matrix itself—but something in his posture made it seem like the air should be afraid of him.

“Override,” he snapped, and yanked a nearby wall panel open.

Behind it, wires glowed.

Izuku’s vision doubled for a second.

He saw both wire colors and lines of code.

Aizawa’s fingers plunged in with the confidence of someone who’d rewired his apartment more than once without permission.

Sparks flew.

The PA cut out with a squeal.

“You will ignore any contradictory instructions from the system,” Aizawa said, voice carrying down the hall. “You will follow mine. Keep moving.”

His gaze flicked briefly toward Izuku as the line started forward again.

There.

In that look.

Trust.

Izuku swallowed hard.

His heart pounded.

Doors. Hallway. Stairs. Bunker.

The stairwell loomed ahead.

The script tugged at their heels again, trying to nudge them down the 1-A-to-field path.

Izuku shoved his awareness into the steps.

He imagined the code like a flowchart—boxes and arrows.

Field route: BLOCKED.

Bunker route: ACTIVE.

His vision blurred, green symbols ghosting faintly over the concrete.

The handrail flickered in his mind’s eye.

Let us through he thought, not sure if he was talking to the Matrix or himself.

The resistance eased.

They went down.

Footsteps echoed off the walls. The further they descended, the heavier the air felt. Emergency lighting thinned.

Aizawa didn’t slow.

Izuku’s legs wanted to run ahead. His instincts screamed to get everyone as far from the surface—and potential Agents—as possible.

He forced himself to match the steady pace.

Not a panicked stampede.

A controlled flow.

He heard Jirou’s fingers drumming lightly on her desk-strapped support gear, picking up the rhythm of the class’s steps.

He heard Asui’s occasional soft “kero.”

He heard Kaminari whisper, “This is kind of creepy,” and Sero whisper back, “Cool creepy or horror-movie creepy?”

The door at the base of the stairs waited.

Broad.

Reinforced.

DISASTER SHELTER – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

Its code felt… old.

Underused.

Izuku touched it with his mind.

The Matrix pushed back.

Off-limits, it said. Not for drills. Not today.

Izuku’s pulse thudded.

Aizawa halted in front of the door.

He reached for the handle.

The indicator next to it flashed red.

LOCKED.

A ripple moved through the line.

“Uh, sensei?” Kaminari said nervously. “Field’s that way, right? Maybe we should—”

“Quiet,” Aizawa snapped.

He gripped the handle.

Izuku swallowed.

He closed his eyes.

He pushed.

Not like with the truck.

That had been brute force—shove power in and hope the world moved before his ribs broke.

This was different.

This was editing.

He pictured the lock flag in his mind: SHELTER-12: STATUS = LOCKED.

“O-OPEN,” he whispered under his breath. “Status… open…”

The code trembled.

Something unseen—a system watchdog routine, one of the machines’ automated subprograms—sniffed at the change, curious, ready to snap.

Izuku poured One For All into the idea, not as a smash, but as a steady, insistent pressure.

Unlocked, he thought fiercely. It’s unlocked. It’s always been unlocked. This is the confirmed evac route. Nothing to see here.

The flag flickered.

LOCKED.

UNLOCKED.

LOCKED.

UNLOCKED.

A tiny warning icon pulsed in his mental view—a sign that some distant process had noticed the flip-flop and was filing a “check this later” ticket.

Then—

The indicator light over the handle turned green.

There was a loud click as bolts slid back.

The Matrix grumbled.

Izuku’s vision swam.

He grabbed the wall, dizzy.

“Midoriya?” Uraraka’s voice whispered near his elbow. “You okay? You look kinda—”

“I’m fine,” he lied. “Just—uh—remembering my hypothetical gas-explosion scenario from the homework.”

Her lips twitched.

“That one did make Iida freak out,” she said. “You two and your disaster brains…”

Aizawa shoved the door open.

The bunker was… underwhelming.

Concrete walls, low ceiling threaded with pipes, fold-out benches bolted to the floor. Emergency supplies stacked neatly along one wall: water, rations, spare masks. A few dust-covered monitors hung from brackets, currently dark.

Fluorescent lights flickered on overhead as their presence triggered motion sensors.

The air smelled faintly of stale air and cleaning solution.

Twenty types of footsteps shuffled inside.

As the class filed past, Izuku felt the Matrix sniffing at the edges of the room.

This space was marked as LOW PRIORITY: SHELTER – UNUSED.

Adding twenty kids and a pro hero spiked its attention.

He tried to keep his awareness smooth.

Drill, he thought. Just a drill. Nothing strange. Just following an alternate protocol in the manual.

The system seemed… unconvinced.

A faint buzzing tickled the back of his skull.

“Everyone inside!” Aizawa called. “Find a seat. Stay away from the doors and vents. Masks ready but not on.”

He waited until the last student crossed the threshold, then pulled the door mostly closed, leaving it ajar a crack.

His scarf drifted forward, coils coming to rest near the handle like a lazy snake waiting to strike.

Izuku slipped to the front, heart still racing.

“How bad?” Aizawa murmured under the cover of rustling bags and low chatter.

Izuku grimaced. “Door didn’t want to unlock,” he whispered. “I had to… convince it. The system noticed. Logged a warning.”

“Agent?” Trinity’s voice cut in their ears. “We saw the flag too. No immediate deployment, but I’ve got one of them pausing in the security subroutine. He’s sniffing your route.”

“We need to keep this short,” Tank added. “In and out, then back to normal patterns.”

A rattle from the vents made half the class jump.

Just the old system kicking on.

Probably.

As if on cue, a screen in the back crackled, then flickered to life.

The UA emblem popped up.

Then Nezu’s face.

The hyper-intelligent principal smiled from the monitor, hands folded on a desk that was almost comically large for his small body.

“Hello, Class 1-A!” he chirped.

Izuku’s stomach tightened.

The code around the screen felt weird. A little too bright, a little too sharp, like someone had highlighted Nezu’s feed in neon.

“As you may have heard,” Nezu went on, “our dear systems suffered some… disruptions recently. So we’re running extra drills! Think of it as a pop quiz for your feet!”

Polite laughter rippled through the room.

Nezu’s eyes flicked toward Aizawa, as if checking something.

Aizawa inclined his head marginally.

“We’re testing alternate shelter routes,” Nezu continued. “Eraserhead is very familiar with disaster response. Please follow his directions closely.”

Izuku’s brows knit.

Is that… him?

Or something else?

Nezu’s code was notoriously strange—part human, part… something.

Today, it shimmered.

Faintly.

The hairs on Izuku’s arms stood up.

Asui’s tongue flicked. “Principal-kun’s eyes are shinier than usual, kero,” she murmured.

Izuku darted a glance at her.

She stared at the screen, brow furrowed, amphibian calm hiding a sharper edge.

The monitor flickered.

Just for a heartbeat.

A weird, greenish shimmer crossed Nezu’s face.

He blurred around the edges.

Blink, and you’d miss it.

Izuku didn’t.

Neither did Aizawa.

Their gazes snapped toward each other.

Agents? Izuku thought wildly. Or… something else?

Then the shimmer was gone.

Nezu’s smile froze a bit too long before picking up again.

“…and remember,” he said brightly, “safety is not a one-time lesson, it’s a habit! That’s all for now.”

The feed cut.

The screen went dark.

The code hum calmed.

Tank swore softly in their ears.

“Something rode that signal for a second,” he said. “Couldn’t get a lock. Didn’t smell like a standard Agent, though. More like… subroutine. Might just be the machines double-checking high-value assets.”

“Like a principal who’s secretly an AI pet project,” Trinity muttered. “Love that for you.”

Izuku’s palms felt slick.

He scanned the room.

His classmates had mostly relaxed. The initial spike of alarm had faded into boredom and mild curiosity.

Bakugou looked annoyed more than anything, foot tapping impatiently.

He caught Izuku staring and scowled deeper.

“The hell are you looking at, nerd?” he snapped.

“N-nothing!” Izuku yelped. “Just—uh—was making sure everyone had their masks, ha ha…”

He wanted to smack himself.

Smooth, Midoriya.

“Sensei,” Yaoyorozu raised her hand. “Is this bunker going to be our new standard shelter? Should we familiarize ourselves with its layout in case of actual disasters?”

Aizawa considered her.

“Yes,” he said finally. “You’re going to know every inch of this place. In the dark. Half-asleep. Upside down if I can arrange it.”

Kirishima’s eyes lit up. “Terrifying,” he said. “I’m in.”

Jirou smirked. “Bet you ten yen you’ll scream like Kaminari if the lights go out.”

“Hey!”

The normalcy of their banter in this utterly abnormal context made Izuku’s chest hurt.

Aizawa let the noise ride for a few seconds, then raised his hand.

“Quiet,” he said. “This is supposed to be a drill, not a slumber party.”

The chatter died down.

“This will be one of our designated safe zones from now on,” he went on. “We’ll run more drills. Different times, different routes. You all did… acceptably today. No one tripped. Bakugou didn’t blow up any exits.”

“I was this close,” Bakugou muttered.

“Keep your explosions and commentary to yourself,” Aizawa said. “Questions?”

A few hands went up.

“How long do we stay down here in a real emergency?”

“What about power outages?”

“What if the villain can tunnel?”

Aizawa answered each in turn, voice steady, posture relaxed.

Izuku watched his class.

Watched how quickly their eyes slid from the strangeness of a new bunker to the familiar comfort of Aizawa’s dry explanations.

They trusted him.

It humiliated him and warmed him at the same time.

As the questions dwindled, Aizawa checked the wall clock.

“All right,” he said. “We’ve hit the minimum drill time. We’re going to return to class. Same rules: no running, no quirks, eyes up. If we encounter obstacles, you follow my lead. No heroics unless I say.”

He swept the room with a look that physically pushed their heads into nods.

“Understood?”

“Yes, sensei!”

He motioned.

They filed out.

Izuku followed, resisting the urge to look back at the bunker’s plain walls.

The Matrix’s code hummed around the door, probing the changes.

Later, it seemed to decide. Review later.

The knot in his stomach loosened a fraction.

Hallways again.

Up the stairs.

Back into sunlight.

Near the main junction, Izuku’s vision doubled for a second.

The script tugged at them toward the field, confused that their entry flags didn’t match their exit flags.

He smoothed it as best he could.

Special protocol, he thought. Alternate path. Nezu-approved.

The system grumbled.

But it didn’t slam a door in their faces.

By the time they reentered 1-A, the tension in the air had mostly faded into that post-drill jitter people got when they’d been scared a little but not enough.

“Man,” Kirishima said, flopping into his seat. “Bunkers are more boring than I thought. Ten out of ten, not metal.”

“I thought it was kind of cool,” Sero said. “Like a secret base.”

“It smelled weird,” Mina wrinkled her nose. “Detention closet weird.”

“Detention closets do not smell weird,” Iida protested. “They smell of discipline and—”

“Nope,” Kaminari cut in. “They smell like dust and shame.”

Izuku sank into his desk, palms pressed flat, heart still racing.

Trinity’s voice drifted in his ear. “You’ve got an Agent sniffing the bunker’s log files,” she said. “He’s annoyed, but he’s buying the ‘Nezu decided this’ narrative. That principal is the best cover you’ve got.”

“We’ll send him a thank you card,” Aizawa muttered.

Tank cleared his throat. “Just for fun,” he said, “check out this little glitch.”

On the map in his mind, a tiny note appeared over the shelter sector.

ROUTE-12: ANOMALOUS BUT TOLERATED – PRIORITY: LOW.

Izuku almost sagged with relief.

They’d done it.

They’d walked twenty kids into a deeper part of the cage and back out without tripping a full alarm.

First step.

Tiny.

Terrifying.

Real.

“Midoriya-chan,” a quiet voice said nearby.

He jolted.

Asui looked at him calmly, chin resting on her hands.

“Yes?” he squeaked.

“You and Aizawa-sensei didn’t smell scared,” she said.

Izuku blinked.

“H-huh?” he said brilliantly.

Her throat bubbled. “During the drill,” she clarified. “A lot of people smelled nervous. Heartbeat sweat, kero. But you and sensei smelled like… when we do hard training. Not surprised. Prepared.”

His mouth went dry.

“That’s… good, right?” he tried.

“Mm.” She tilted her head slightly. “It’s… curious.”

Her gaze slid past him, toward Aizawa at the front.

For a heartbeat, something too sharp to be comfortable flickered there.

Then she smiled faintly.

“I’m glad you’re okay, kero,” she said. “Next time you plan to almost explode in training, please give us more warning.”

He choked.

“Y-yes!” he croaked. “I mean no! I mean— I’ll try!”

She turned back to her notebook, apparently satisfied.

Izuku tried very hard not to panic.

One tiny crack, he thought.

Tsuyu Asui’s instincts were too good by half.

If anyone started putting the pieces together early, it would be her.

He didn’t know if that terrified him or secretly reassured him.

Maybe both.

 

---

Back on the Nebuchadnezzar, the debrief tasted like stale coffee and adrenaline crash.

Izuku sprawled at the mess table, forehead pressed to the cool metal, while Tank replayed data feeds on the wall screen.

Aizawa sat on the bench opposite, shoulders slumped, fingers wrapped loosely around a mug.

Morpheus leaned against the doorway, arms crossed.

Trinity perched on the table itself, boots tapping a restless rhythm.

“Route deviation logged,” Tank said, pointing at glowing lines. “Door status override flagged. PA interference flagged. Nezu’s weird code spike noted. No Agents spawned in the building. Closest one hovered near the main gate, then went back to pretending his coffee was interesting.”

He flipped to another feed.

“This,” he said, “is the bunker’s internal log.”

The map view showed the shelter as a small, glowing box. When the class entered, it pulsed bright, then settled into a steady glow.

“Got eyes on Nezu’s feed?” Trinity asked.

Tank zoomed in on a side window.

The principal’s office appeared as a stylized block. Nezu’s personal code signature pulsed within, complex and… strange. During the drill, a second, sharper pattern had overlapped it briefly—like someone had shone a flashlight through water.

“See that?” Tank said. “Something piggybacked on the communication link. Could be a machine routine double-checking unusual usage. Could be Nezu’s own… whatever he is… poking back.”

Morpheus frowned. “Can they see through him?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” Trinity said. “Sometimes I think he sees through them. Hard to tell with half-AI, half-rat… things.”

Izuku lifted his head.

“What about the note?” he asked. “The ‘anomalous but tolerated’ tag.”

Tank zoomed out.

The text hovered over the bunker sector like a sticky note.

“That,” Tank said, “means we have a window. They think this is Nezu being Nezu. Until we abuse it, they’ll let you drag your kids down there for ‘drills’ without nuking the building.”

Aizawa took a slow sip of his coffee.

“In other words,” he said, “we just got permission to rehearse the evacuation that might save their lives.”

Trinity smirked. “Machines accidentally rubber-stamping your lesson plan,” she said. “You’re living the dream.”

Izuku managed a weak laugh.

His shoulders sagged.

“Today was just… walking,” he said softly. “No Agents, no bullets, no… phones. And it still felt like we were skating on the edge of a sword.”

“That’s because you were,” Trinity said. “But you stayed on.”

Morpheus pushed off the doorframe and stepped closer.

“You did more than that,” he said. “You bent their rules subtly. You opened a door that wanted to stay shut without tearing the hinges off. You turned a script into a guideline.”

His gaze softened.

“And you did it without breaking any bones,” he added. “That seems to be a first for you.”

Izuku flushed. “You’ve been talking to All Might,” he muttered.

Aizawa grunted.

“He’s not wrong,” he said. “You stayed within the ten percent limit. You relied on your head, not just your legs. It hurt, but you’re still sitting upright.”

Izuku blinked at him.

“Was that… a compliment?” he asked cautiously.

“Don’t get used to it,” Aizawa said.

Trinity hopped off the table.

“Enjoy the praise while you can,” she said. “Because next time, we’re upping the difficulty.”

Izuku groaned. “Can we have one drill without new life-threatening variables?” he begged.

“No,” Trinity and Aizawa said in unison.

Tank snorted.

Morpheus’s mouth curved in the smallest of smiles.

“The machines won’t sit still forever,” he said. “They will test the anomaly. Someday soon, they’ll manufacture their own ‘emergency’ to see how you respond.”

He looked at the glowing bunker on the screen.

“And when they do,” he continued, “I want your students’ first instinct to be to follow you. Even if the world screams otherwise.”

Izuku’s fingers tightened on the edge of the table.

He thought of the line at the top of their papers.

IF ERASERHEAD SAYS MOVE, YOU MOVE.

He thought of Tsuyu’s quiet observation.

You smelled prepared.

He thought of Bakugou’s scowl hiding worry, of Uraraka’s smile, of Iida’s earnest nods.

He swallowed.

“We’ll get them out,” he said.

Not today.

Not tomorrow.

But one door had opened.

And doors, once opened, were hard to forget.

Aizawa closed his eyes for a moment, then nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “We will.”

The hum of the Nebuchadnezzar’s engines filled the quiet.

Outside, in the ruined real world, endless fields of pods glowed red in the darkness.

Inside, in a high school built of code, twenty kids went about their day, half-annoyed, half-amused by an extra drill.

They wrote Aizawa’s line at the tops of their papers and rolled their eyes about it.

They didn’t know that line might one day be the difference between waking up and flickering out.

The Matrix took note of the anomaly.

It attached a low-priority flag.

It moved on.

For now.

Chapter Text

The Matrix didn’t like being ignored.

Izuku could feel it sulking.

On the Nebuchadnezzar’s main screen, UA’s sector had settled into a new rhythm. The bunker drills had become part of the routine: bell, instructions, 1-A following Aizawa down Stairwell C, through the hall, into the shelter.

Each time, the machines grumbled.

Each time, they logged notes.

ANOMALOUS BUT TOLERATED stayed pinned over the sector like a sticky note someone had meant to deal with and forgotten.

Izuku knew better.

Nothing in this system was ever forgotten.

“They’re waiting,” he muttered one evening, staring at the green code rain. “Letting us make patterns. So they can break them later.”

Morpheus stood nearby, arms folded, gaze focused on the feed.

“Patterns are not just for control,” he said quietly. “They’re for liberation. Repetition is how we teach minds to move differently.”

Trinity snorted from her perch on the console. “Try telling that to the homicidal calculator watching your every step,” she said.

Tank raised a hand without looking away from the screen. “Homicidal calculator confirmed,” he said. “We’ve got increased anomaly checks in the UA logging subsystems. No direct interference yet, but the watchdog routines keep peeking at Stairwell C.”

Aizawa rubbed at the back of his neck where the jack port still ached sometimes. “Let them peek,” he said. “All they’ll see is a paranoid homeroom teacher overusing the word ‘drill.’”

Izuku chewed his lip.

“Until they decide to… test us,” he said softly.

Trinity tilted her head, studying him.

“You’re feeling something,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

Izuku hesitated.

“…It’s like when a villain is pacing outside an alley,” he said, groping for words. “You can’t see them yet, but you hear the footsteps. The code around UA—it’s… restless. Like the system’s waiting for an excuse.”

Morpheus’s eyes warmed.

“You’re learning to listen,” he said. “Good.”

Izuku tried not to preen.

Aizawa tucked that information away with a small, thoughtful grunt.

“So we keep building the pattern until they bite,” he said. “Then what?”

“Then we see how hard they bite,” Trinity said. “And whether we can make them choke.”

 

---

The “emergency” came on a Tuesday.

Third period.

The subject was math.

Izuku would never forgive the machines for that.

He was halfway through a problem set—trying to remember how to care about quadratic functions when he could feel the Matrix humming a foot under his skin—when the classroom lights flickered.

He stiffened.

Not the usual flicker.

Too… sharp.

He felt the code spike a heartbeat before the sirens followed.

A shrill, pulsing tone knifed through the air.

The class jumped.

The PA crackled.

“Attention,” the bland voice said. “All students and faculty are to move immediately to designated shelter areas. This is not a drill. Repeat: this is not a drill. Villain presence detected within sector.”

Izuku’s heart slammed into his ribs.

Villain presence.

Or what the Matrix thought a villain should be.

Across the room, Aizawa straightened from his slouch at the front, eyes narrowing.

For once, he didn’t look surprised.

He looked… ready.

“Emergency packs,” he barked. “You know the routine. Move.”

Chairs scraped.

Iida nearly knocked his over in his eagerness to stand. “Everyone, please remain calm!” he declared, chopping the air. “This is what we trained for! MOST EMERGENCIES ARE—”

“Louder and I’ll tape your mouth shut, Four-Eyes,” Bakugou grumbled, yanking his red pouch from under his desk.

Uraraka’s hands shook a little as she strapped her pack across her chest, but her smile when she caught Izuku’s eye was determined.

They’re okay, he told himself.

I’ll keep them okay.

He could feel it—the Matrix’s script tugging at their feet, heavier than during any drill. The FIELD-ALPHA-SAFE-ZONE tag blazed in his mind, bright as a flare.

The bunker route glowed too.

But this time, something new was coiled around it.

A question.

Aizawa’s gaze flicked toward Izuku for the smallest fraction of a second.

Now, it said.

Izuku swallowed hard and nodded.

He pushed.

The world… pushed back.

The script didn’t want to divert from the field this time. It wanted to funnel every body into a wide, open kill box where Agents could see them all at once.

Izuku shoved his awareness into that line of code.

No, he thought fiercely. New protocol. Bunker route. Disaster shelter. We’ve done this. We’re allowed.

The resistance was immediate and cold.

Like a hand closing around his throat.

His vision doubled, green rain overlaying the classroom.

Reality tugged.

Kids blurred between field arrows and bunker arrows in his mind’s eye, like two videos superimposed.

His head pounded.

“Midoriya,” Aizawa’s voice cut through the noise. “Eyes on me.”

Izuku locked his knees and focused.

Aizawa raised his voice.

“ALTERNATE ROUTE!” he snapped. “Bunker protocol! Stairwell C, disaster shelter! You know it. Move!”

The class hesitated, caught between his shouted order and the PA system that was now insisting, “All students to the athletic field. This is not a drill. Attendance will be taken—”

Aizawa grabbed the nearest wall panel and did what he did best.

He broke it.

Sparks flew as he ripped wiring out of its housing.

The PA died with a tortured squeal.

“You heard me,” he said into the ringing silence. “Ignore any announcements you hear. Follow me.”

Izuku felt it.

The balance shifting.

The pattern in his classmates’ minds—the line they’d written at the top of their homework.

IF ERASERHEAD SAYS MOVE, YOU MOVE.

Their feet turned with him.

Izuku exhaled shakily and poured his weight behind that choice.

The Matrix snarled.

Alarms changed pitch, warbling unnaturally as the system scrambled to redirect.

Lights at intersections flashed conflicting arrows.

Field this way, shelters that way.

He nudged.

Subtle, he reminded himself. Subtle.

He couldn’t flip trucks in front of kids without raising every flag.

He dampened the field’s “safety” tag by a fraction, boosted the bunker’s.

Script update, he whispered at the code. Nezu changed it. You love Nezu’s chaos. You live for it.

The system hesitated.

Nezu’s office pinged—code spiking like a rat twitching its whiskers at a gust of wind.

Izuku’s head throbbed.

He tasted metal.

“Midoriya-kun?” Iida called from the head of the line as they turned into the main hall. “Are you all right? You’re sweating profusely!”

“I’m fine!” Izuku lied. “Just—uh—cardio. Lots of cardio.”

Asui’s throat bubbled. “You smell like you do when we fight big villains,” she murmured from behind him. “More than when we did drills, kero.”

Uraraka elbowed her lightly. “Tsuyu-chan, now’s not the time to point out how smelly people are,” she whispered.

“I wasn’t being mean,” Asui said calmly. “I was being observant.”

Izuku’s skin crawled.

The hallway ahead twisted.

Just a little.

Not enough for anyone else to notice—but in his vision, the lines didn’t quite meet. The floor looked longer than it should. The door to Stairwell C seemed to slide an inch further away with each step.

The Matrix was stretching the path.

“Spatial manipulation,” Trinity’s voice snapped in his ear. “They’re trying to slow you down without triggering your kids’ instincts. Tank, can you—”

“On it,” Tank said. “I’m reinforcing the geometry, but the system’s being stubborn. Midoriya, gonna need you to do your thing.”

“My thing was almost passing out last time,” Izuku hissed back.

“Then don’t pass out,” Aizawa muttered, just loud enough for him to hear. “I haven’t authorized that.”

Izuku drew in a shaky breath.

He reached for One For All.

Not like for a punch.

Not the roaring smash that shattered his bones.

Just… a hum.

A thread.

He imagined it not as “power” but as… access. A key that let him slide fingers under the skin of the world.

The hallway flowed weirdly under his feet, like walking on a treadmill that kept trying to push him back.

He pushed back.

He pictured the corridor as a simple construct in his mind—length, width, endpoints. He locked those in place.

“No stretching,” he whispered under his breath. “No tricks. You’re just a hallway. You’re boring.”

The Matrix bristled.

Boring, it seemed to say, was an insult.

Good.

He leaned into it.

His vision flickered.

For a second, he saw the green code directly, strings cascading down—hallway coordinates, door tags, gravity vectors. One For All coiled around his perception like a brace, holding the pattern steady.

The floor snapped into its proper shape.

The door to Stairwell C was where it should be.

He almost staggered with the backlash.

A hand grabbed his elbow.

“Midoriya,” Asui’s voice said softly. “Don’t fall, kero.”

He blinked at her.

She was watching him with that too-calm, too-knowing gaze again.

“I’m fine,” he repeated weakly.

“Your heartbeat is very fast,” she observed. “More than most drills.”

“We’re moving,” Aizawa called. “No loitering.”

They plunged down the stairs.

The air grew heavier.

Izuku’s ears rang.

Above them, something shifted in the code.

A new presence snapped into existence like a knife.

Tank swore in their comms. “Agent just jumped into a teacher host on the second floor,” he said. “Not your wing yet, but he’s moving. Fast.”

Izuku’s stomach dropped.

“Can we reroute?” he whispered. “Avoid him?”

“Too late,” Trinity said grimly. “He’s not just patrolling. He’s following your deviation flags. He wants to see what you do.”

As if on cue, the stairwell lights dimmed.

The floor shuddered.

Halfway down, the steps simply… stopped.

Concrete flowed like water, turning smooth and vertical.

The next landing was suddenly three meters lower than it had been a second ago.

The class skidded to a halt at the edge of a now-steep drop.

“Asui,” Aizawa snapped without missing a beat. “Tongue. Anchor point. Now.”

Tsuyu blinked once.

“Ribbit,” she said, then flicked her tongue out, wrapping it around a pipe on the lower level’s ceiling with a wet slap.

“Bakugou,” Aizawa said. “Small blasts. Control the recoil. You’re a brake, not a weapon. Useless extra if you blow a hole in the stairs.”

Bakugou snarled, palms already sparking. “Tch. Don’t give me orders like I’m some—”

“I’ll give you detention,” Aizawa said.

“…Fine.”

Bakugou hopped down, tiny explosions slowing his fall. He landed in a crouch, hands smoking.

“Spark tape,” Aizawa snapped. “You’re on belay with Asui.”

“Spark tape?” Kaminari squawked. “That’s not my—oh, you mean Sero—”

Sero was already unspooling tape from his elbows, anchoring it to the railings. “On it!” he said, grinning. “Come on, guys, zipline time!”

Iida had recovered from his initial shock and was now white-knuckling his emergency pack. “We should descend in an orderly—”

“Koda first,” Aizawa said. “He won’t manage the jump alone.”

Koda gulped, but nodded, letting Sero secure a tape harness around him. With Tsuyu’s tongue and Sero’s line, they improvised a clumsy but functional descent.

The Matrix tried to make the air heavier, to drag at their jumps, but Izuku held the “gravity” flag as steady as he could, sweat beading at his temples.

They got everyone down.

No broken bones.

Aizawa dropped last, scarves whipping, landing with a controlled roll.

He barely let himself straighten before barking, “Move. Shelter’s still ahead. Doors and floors are lying today.”

Izuku’s legs shook.

His head felt stuffed with static.

But they were still moving.

Somewhere above, the Agent presence slid closer.

Aizawa’s shoulders tensed.

“We’re going to have to stall him,” Trinity said in their ears. “He’s not going to let this play through without a performance.”

“We can’t fight in front of the kids,” Izuku hissed.

“Then don’t,” Trinity said. “Get them in the bunker. Close the door. Make it a containment test instead of an execution.”

Izuku’s stomach knotted.

He glanced sideways.

Aizawa’s jaw was clenched.

“If I stay in the hall,” he said, tone too calm, “you can—”

“No,” Izuku blurted.

Twenty heads turned.

He flushed.

“N-no, I mean… you shouldn’t… um…”

His thoughts scrambled.

He saw it too clearly—Aizawa alone in the corridor with a host-suit stepping out of the wall, windows warping around them. He’d already almost died once buying Izuku time.

Aizawa’s gaze flicked to him, sharp.

“Midoriya,” he said.

No anger.

No patience either.

Just warning.

Izuku bit the inside of his cheek.

Later, he told himself. Argue later.

They reached the bunker door.

It was locked again.

Of course it was.

The indicator glowed an angry red.

“Really?” Aizawa muttered.

Izuku stepped forward.

His vision fuzzed.

The code around the door bristled like a hedgehog—defensive routines, integrity checks. The system remembered the last override and didn’t want a repeat.

He reached for it anyway.

Open, he thought.

The lock didn’t just resist.

It shoved back, slamming into his awareness like a physical blow.

Pain lanced behind his eyes.

He staggered.

“M-Midoriya-kun!” Iida exclaimed.

“Back up,” Aizawa snapped to the class. “Against the wall. Asui, Uraraka—if anything gets through that door that isn’t me, you zero-gravity it and glue it down. Bakugou, you don’t explode unless I say.”

Bakuou bristled. “Don’t tell me—”

“Detention,” Aizawa said automatically. “Midoriya.”

Izuku was already bracing himself.

He dug his fingers into the cold metal of the door frame and pushed with everything he had.

The world narrowed to the lock’s status flag.

LOCKED.

He poured One For All into the word like water into a crack.

The Matrix howled.

A warning ping spiked hard enough to make his teeth ache. Somewhere above, an Agent’s attention snapped fully onto their sector.

LOCKED.

UNL—

The flag glitched.

A little red icon popped up beside it.

ERROR: CONFLICTING AUTHORITY.

“Oh no you don’t,” Izuku whispered through gritted teeth. “We’re authorized.”

He thought of Aizawa’s drills.

Of his classmates’ trust.

Of that stupid line at the top of their papers.

IF ERASERHEAD SAYS MOVE, YOU MOVE.

He wrapped that around the flag like duct tape.

LOCKED.

UNLOCKED.

UNLOCKED.

The light turned green.

The door clicked.

The Matrix snarled louder.

Every alarm in the building went momentarily silent, like the system was holding its breath.

“Inside!” Aizawa barked.

The class surged through.

Izuku stayed.

He couldn’t move.

His legs were jelly.

His vision swam with green.

A hand closed on his collar and yanked.

He stumbled backward as Aizawa dragged him bodily into the bunker, slamming the door behind them.

He spun the manual wheel until it thudded, heavy bolts slamming into place.

As the last lock engaged, something hit the door from the outside.

Hard.

The metal boomed.

Uraraka flinched, hands flying to her pack.

Mina yelped.

Bakugou snarled and took a step forward, palms popping.

Aizawa’s scarf snapped out, barring his way.

“Stand down,” he ordered.

Bakugou’s teeth ground audibly, but he stopped.

The door shuddered again.

Not like fists.

Like reality itself flexing.

The metal warped inward a few millimeters, then rebounded.

Izuku’s scrambling brain filled in the unseen image: an Agent in a stolen teacher’s body, hand pressed to the surface, trying to convince the matter it didn’t need to be solid anymore.

Trinity’s voice was a tight thread in their ears. “He’s testing the boundary,” she said. “Good news: bunker’s got more system privileges than a normal classroom. Bad news: that means he’s got more leverage too.”

Tank swore. “I’m reinforcing what I can from here,” he said. “But if he brute-forces a rewrite on that wall, I can’t guarantee it won’t glitch inside too.”

Morphus’s voice was calm. “Use the anomaly,” he said. “Remember—this shelter is flagged as Nezu’s pet project. The machines are wary of destabilizing it too much. Push that.”

Izuku licked his lips.

“The bunker,” he whispered, “is special. They don’t want to break it completely. They’re… curious about us, not trying to erase us. Yet.”

“That curiosity can get us killed,” Aizawa muttered.

The door boomed again.

A faint ripple passed through the concrete walls.

One of the overhead lights flickered.

Mineta whimpered and pressed himself against the nearest desk.

“Sensei,” Yaoyorozu said, voice pitched low but steady, “is there a villain out there? Or is this… another malfunction?”

The entire class’s attention swung to Aizawa.

Twenty pairs of eyes.

Trusting.

Afraid.

Izuku’s chest squeezed.

Aizawa took a slow breath.

“This is an emergency,” he said.

That was true.

“There is an hostile presence,” he added.

Also true.

“Your job,” he continued, gaze sweeping them, “is the same as always: survive. You will stay away from the doors. You will stay low. You will keep your quirks in check until I say otherwise. You will not panic.”

He lifted one finger.

“You will not leave this room unless I say so,” he said. “I don’t care if the walls scream at you. I don’t care if the PA tells you to do jumping jacks on the roof. You listen to me.”

The PA crackled overhead as if on cue.

“All students,” the bland voice said, “the previous shelter directive has been rescinded. All classes are to move to the—”

The speaker exploded.

Literally.

Bakugou jerked his hand back, smoke rising from his palm.

He blinked.

“…Whoops.”

Aizawa sighed. “Don’t do that again,” he said. “But good timing.”

The class’s tension shattered into nervous laughter.

Izuku almost collapsed with relief.

Something slammed hard into the door.

This time, a bulge appeared for a split second—a human-shaped imprint pushing through metal like it was rubber, then snapping back.

Electric fear crawled over Izuku’s skin.

“Can he… get in?” Mina whispered, eyes wide.

Aizawa’s scarf twitched.

“He won’t,” he said.

That was not a guarantee.

But it landed like one.

Tsuyu’s eyes flicked to Izuku, then back to Aizawa.

She saw more than he wanted.

 

---

Outside the bunker, the world narrowed for Aizawa and Izuku.

Tank threw a feed into their minds—picture-in-picture overlay.

They saw the hallway as if from a security camera.

A man in a teacher’s uniform stood inches from the bunker door.

Mr. Tanuma, a math instructor from the second-year wing.

Or what was left of him.

His face was slack.

His eyes were hidden behind sunglasses that had not been there this morning.

The Agent’s hand was pressed flat to the door.

The metal wriggled under his palm like disturbed water.

Inside, the kids couldn’t see it.

Aizawa and Izuku could.

“He’s not fully committing,” Trinity said. “He could phase through if he wanted. But he’s… poking. Seeing how the shelter responds.”

“Because of Nezu,” Izuku realized. “They’re not sure what’s his chaos and what’s ours.”

“Exactly,” Morpheus said. “They’ll test, log, adapt.”

The Agent tilted his head, as if listening to something only he could hear.

“Anomalous route deviation,” he said in that flat, too-even voice. “Unauthorized shelter access. Target anomaly: Midoriya Izuku. Secondary anomaly: Aizawa Shouta. Containment required.”

Izuku’s stomach lurched.

“He’s not going away,” Trinity said. “If you stay put, he’ll eventually get clearance to rewrite that wall from the inside out. We need to give him a different problem.”

“Like what?” Izuku whispered.

“Like you,” Aizawa said.

Izuku stared at him.

“No,” he said automatically. “Absolutely not. We are not playing ‘chase the quirkless kid’ when I’ve got a class full of—”

“You’re not quirkless anymore,” Aizawa cut in quietly. “And I’m not asking you to run. I’m asking you to pull.”

Izuku’s brain stuttered.

“Pull… what?”

Aizawa tilted his head.

“Attention,” he said.

The word landed heavy.

Izuku’s mouth went dry.

“You want me to… draw him away from the door,” he said slowly. “Make him chase me.”

“Yes,” Aizawa said. “While the kids stay in here. Behind a door we’re making harder to open by the minute.”

“And if he shoots me?” Izuku demanded, voice rising. “If he rewrites my spine for real this time? If I fail?”

“Then we rip you out,” Trinity said. “We’ve got hands on the plug. We’d lose the host body, but your mind would live.”

“Would it?” Izuku snapped. “Because I’m pretty sure getting deleted leaves… damage.”

Aizawa leaned in slightly.

The lines around his eyes deepened.

“It’s not a good plan,” he said softly. “I know that. It’s the least bad one we have.”

Izuku swallowed.

He looked at the kids.

Uraraka was biting her lip, eyes darting between the door and Aizawa.

Kaminari was trying to make a joke and failing.

Kirishima was clenching and unclenching his fists, teeth grit, clearly wanting to punch something.

Iida looked like his sense of justice was about to boil over.

Bakugou was pacing like a caged grenade.

Tsuyu sat near the wall, gaze distant, listening.

They trusted us, Izuku thought.

He couldn’t stand the idea of that trust ending in a door bursting inward, a too-calm voice saying, “Target acquired.”

His heart pounded.

“I’ll go,” he said.

The words surprised him.

They shouldn’t have.

Aizawa’s jaw tightened.

“I know you will,” he said. “That’s why I wanted you to say it out loud and not just bolt.”

Izuku huffed a slightly hysterical laugh.

“How?” he asked. “I can’t just… walk through the wall and wave.”

“No,” Trinity said. “But the bunker’s got more than one door. There’s a maintenance hatch on the far side. Staff access. The system’s not paying attention to it because no one uses it in drills.”

Tank pulled up a blueprint overlay in Izuku’s mind.

A small rectangle glowed behind the storage shelves.

“Here,” he said. “Bad news: it’s supposed to be locked from the outside. Good news: ‘supposed to’ stopped meaning much five minutes ago.”

Izuku licked his lips.

“Sensei,” he said softly. “If I lead him away, you… you stay.”

“I noticed,” Aizawa said dryly.

“I mean it,” Izuku pressed. “You stay. With them. You don’t come after me. You don’t… do the thing where you throw yourself in front of bullets again.”

Aizawa’s gaze sharpened.

“You’re giving me orders now?” he asked.

“Yes,” Izuku said, surprising himself with how steady it came out. “As your student. As the one you keep trying to keep alive. I’m asking you to prioritize them if it goes wrong.”

Silence stretched for a second.

Aizawa looked at him.

Really looked.

Then, very quietly, he said,

“I was going to do that anyway.”

Izuku’s throat closed.

He nodded jerkily.

“O-okay,” he whispered.

“Midoriya-chan,” Tsuyu said suddenly.

He flinched.

She was closer than he’d realized, big eyes steady.

“Are you going to do something stupid, kero?” she asked.

Izuku almost choked.

“What? No! I mean, yes—no— I—”

Aizawa sighed.

“He’s going to do something necessary,” he said. “Which usually looks like ‘stupid’ from the outside. Your job is to stay put. All of you.”

Tsuyu’s gaze flicked between them.

She sniffed the air.

“You smell scared,” she said to Izuku. “But you also smell… determined. Like when you jumped off the roof in training, kero.”

“The what,” Trinity hissed in his ear.

“Different roof,” Aizawa muttered.

Izuku forced a wobbly smile.

“I’ll be fine,” he lied. “We’ve… practiced. Kind of.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Ribbit,” she said. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Bakugou stalked closer, scowl carved deep.

“What are you idiots whispering about?” he snapped. “If there’s a villain out there, we should be blowing his face off, not hiding like extras.”

Aizawa’s scarf shifted.

He stepped smoothly between Bakugou and the back of the room.

“You will stay here,” he said, voice like steel wrapped in sandpaper. “That is an order.”

Bakugou bristled.

His hands sparked.

“Like hell I—”

“We’re done,” Aizawa cut him off. “You want to argue, do it when the school isn’t trying to kill you.”

Bakugou’s nostrils flared.

His eyes darted to Izuku, narrowing.

“You,” he growled. “I knew something about that ‘glitch’ wasn’t just the systems. You’re hiding something, Deku.”

Izuku swallowed.

He opened his mouth.

Nothing useful came out.

“…We’ll talk later?” he tried weakly.

Bakugou’s eye twitched.

“I’m holding you to that, nerd,” he said. “If you die before I get answers, I’m dragging you back out of hell just to kill you again.”

It was, in its own explosive way, incredibly reassuring.

Izuku’s eyes stung.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.

Aizawa rested a hand briefly on his shoulder.

“Go,” he said.

 

---

The maintenance hatch was behind a stack of emergency rations.

In the sim, it had just been a drawn rectangle.

In reality, it was a heavy panel with a “NO STUDENT ACCESS” sign and a fat padlock.

Izuku pressed his palm against the metal.

The Matrix’s attention was mostly at the front door, the Agent’s hand, the conflict between “bunker should be secure” and “anomaly inside.”

The back hatch was quieter.

He took advantage of that.

“Open,” he breathed, tapping the lock’s flag like he had the main door’s, but gentler.

UNLOCKED, it agreed without much fuss.

Apparently even homicidal AIs respected the sanctity of maintenance access.

He eased the hatch open just enough to squeeze through.

The corridor beyond was narrow, dimly lit.

Pipes ran along the ceiling, sweating condensation. The air was cooler here, tinged with metal and something chemical.

He slipped out, heart hammering.

The hatch closed softly behind him.

“Status,” Trinity whispered.

“Out,” Izuku said. “Back hall. No kids in view.”

“Agent’s still at the main door,” Tank said. “But his attention just split. He felt something shift. Midoriya, if you’re going to poke the bear, do it fast.”

Izuku swallowed.

He straightened.

The corridor slanted upward toward a side exit.

He could see the faint glow of emergency lighting at the bend ahead.

He walked.

Each step echoed.

He let his signature… bleed.

Not a lot.

Just enough.

He reached into the code around him and loosened his grip, let One For All hum a little louder, let his “anomaly” tag shine.

The Matrix noticed.

The Agent’s presence swiveled like a gun turret.

The pressure near the main bunker door lessened.

It slid sideways.

Toward him.

Izuku’s breath hitched.

“He took the bait,” Tank said. “He’s re-routing. I’ll spawn you a phone if this goes south. Two intersections up, vending alcove.”

“Not yet,” Izuku whispered. “If I bail too soon, he goes back.”

A shadow fell across the end of the hall.

Mr. Tanuma stepped into view.

Or what was wearing him.

His suit was torn at the sleeve, like he’d walked through a wall and forgot to adjust the fabric. His eyes were hidden behind those ever-present black lenses.

He turned his head.

“Target anomaly located,” he said.

Izuku’s throat closed.

He forced a shaky grin.

“H-hi,” he said. “So, uh. Enjoying the drills?”

The Agent blinked once.

“Irrelevant,” he said. “You have deviated from acceptable patterns.”

Izuku frowned, finding a spark of indignation under the fear.

“We’re literally in an emergency shelter,” he said. “Following a route the principal approved. That’s not deviation, that’s being prepared.”

“Deviations are not defined by intent,” the Agent said. “They are defined by outcome. Your presence here increases risk.”

His hand lifted.

Reality warped.

Izuku didn’t wait for the shot.

He dove sideways as the floor where he’d been standing turned translucent for a heartbeat, then re-solidified with a crack.

Pain grazed his shoulder where the edge of the distortion caught him.

He rolled, came up on one knee, heart racing.

“Tank!” Trinity snapped. “Phone!”

“Working on it!”

A vending machine alcove shimmered into existence around the corner—even in the middle of a supposed “real” emergency, the Matrix’s resource generator couldn’t resist obeying a subtle insert command.

The payphone attached to it started to ring.

Izuku’s fingers twitched.

He could run.

He could be out of the Agent’s reach in seconds.

The kids would be behind a locked door, Aizawa with them, bunker code reinforced.

He’d be safe.

Neo hadn’t chosen safe on that rooftop.

Izuku remembered the look in his eyes when he’d turned to face an Agent alone.

He pushed himself to his feet instead of running.

“You don’t get to use my class as bait,” he said, surprising himself with the steel in his voice. “You want to test anomalies? Test me.”

The Agent’s head tilted.

“Confirmed,” he said. “Primary anomaly: Midoriya Izuku.”

His hand twitched.

Izuku saw the distortion start.

He moved.

One For All surged.

Five percent.

Ten.

His muscles thrummed.

The corridor stretched in his vision, lines bending as the Matrix tried to predict his path.

He bent with it.

He wasn’t fast enough to outrun the system.

He could outthink it.

The Agent’s shot warped the air in a straight line toward where Izuku should have been.

Izuku took a tiny, off-angle step at the last second, twisting the vector in his mind’s eye.

The distortion clipped his sleeve, turning the fabric into shimmering static without touching his arm.

His heart lurched.

He hadn’t realized how close he’d cut it.

“Cute,” Trinity muttered. “Neo would be proud. Also terrified.”

The Agent adjusted.

“Processing,” he said.

The air around his hand shimmered.

He fired again.

Izuku jumped.

This time, he didn’t dodge the shot.

He caught it.

Not physically.

He couldn’t grab code like a ball.

But he could reach for the rule it was trying to enforce—you do not exist here now—and redirect it.

The distortion surged toward his head.

He slammed a mental hand on the flag.

No. There instead.

The energy curved.

It smashed into the ceiling.

Concrete rippled, then solidified into a slightly lower, rougher surface.

Dust rained down.

Izuku’s ears rang.

The Agent paused.

“Anomalous override confirmed,” he said. “Escalation required.”

His form flickered.

For a second, his outline blurred—two Agents overlapping, like the system was considering doubling up inside one host.

Izuku’s vision darkened at the edges.

His legs trembled.

“Phone,” Trinity hissed. “Now, Midoriya. You proved the point. Don’t push it.”

He could feel it too—the way his control was fraying.

One more override and he’d probably pass out.

If he did that in front of an Agent, Aizawa would never let him hear the end of it.

He darted backward toward the ringing phone, dodging another warping shot that shaved a few pixels off his shoulder.

He grabbed the receiver as the Agent stepped forward.

“At last,” the Agent said calmly. “Target—”

The world ripped out from under Izuku’s feet.

 

---

He came out of the chair gasping.

Hands on his shoulders held him down as his body tried to bolt.

“Easy, kid,” Trinity said. “You’re out. You’re on the ship.”

The Nebuchadnezzar’s dim ceiling loomed overhead.

Pipes.

Wires.

The ever-present hum.

Izuku sucked in air like he’d been drowning.

His shoulder burned where the near-miss had grazed his construct body.

He glanced down.

No blood.

Phantom pain.

He lay back, shaking.

“M-Mr. Tanuma?” he managed.

“Still walking weird in the hall,” Tank said. “But the Agent vacated as soon as you popped. Machines don’t like leaving assets glitched. I think they tagged today as ‘test inconclusive’ and rolled it back.”

Aizawa tore his own jack out, teeth clenched, and swung his legs off the chair.

“We’re going back,” he snapped, already reaching for the plug again.

Morpheus stepped in front of him, hand firm on his shoulder.

“No,” he said.

Aizawa’s eyes flashed.

“My kids—”

“Are alive,” Morpheus said. “The bunker held. The system stood down when you stayed put and the anomaly vanished. If you go back in right now, you’ll be walking into a sector with fresh Agent interest and no exit planned.”

Aizawa’s jaw worked.

His fingers flexed.

Izuku could see the urge to go back written in his hunched shoulders.

He understood it.

He wanted to go back too.

To see them.

To reassure them.

To see with his own eyes that Bakugou was still pacing, that Tsuyu was still watching, that Uraraka was still smiling.

“We can monitor them from here,” Tank added, tone gentler. “Look.”

The main screen showed UA’s feed.

The bunker glowed.

Inside, tiny tags moved.

1-A had clustered near the far wall on Aizawa’s last orders.

Uraraka and Mina hovered near the door, eyes wide.

Bakugou paced like a tiger in a cage, explosions flickering sporadically.

Tsuyu sat cross-legged, gaze turned upward as if listening to something only she could hear.

The door hadn’t warped again.

Nezu’s office signature pulsed, odd and bright.

“Principal just filed the whole incident as ‘unexpected villain-adjacent system test,’” Tank said. “He’s spinning it as an opportunity to refine protocols. Agents seem… grudgingly satisfied. For now.”

Izuku sagged.

Morpheus squeezed Aizawa’s shoulder once and stepped back.

“I know it goes against your every instinct to stay out,” he said softly. “But you made the right call. You split the danger. You kept the children behind a door the machines didn’t want to break. You drew fire away.”

Aizawa’s hands curled into fists.

He exhaled slowly.

“Midoriya did that,” he said hoarsely. “I just… didn’t stop him.”

Izuku swallowed.

“That’s… kind of your thing,” he said weakly. “You don’t stop me when I jump.”

Aizawa gave him a look that was half exasperation, half pride, and something aching in between.

“I stop you from hitting the ground,” he said.

Izuku’s eyes stung.

“You weren’t there this time,” he whispered.

“And you didn’t hit,” Aizawa shot back. “You bent the fall.”

Trinity clapped her hands once, cutting through the atmosphere.

“All right,” she said. “Emotional breakthrough later. Tactical analysis now.”

She pointed at the screen.

“Machines poked,” she said. “We survived. They learned some things. So did we.”

Tank nodded. “They know Midoriya can override localized rules,” he said. “We know they’re hesitant to wreck Nezu’s toys. They saw you choose the bunker over the field. We saw them respect that choice more than expected.”

Morpheus’s gaze was distant, thoughtful.

“They’re starting to understand that this sector is not entirely under their control,” he said. “They’ll try to reassert dominance in smaller ways before committing to a purge.”

“That buys us time,” Trinity said. “Not much. But some.”

Izuku forced himself to sit up fully.

His muscles trembled.

“So… next time,” he said, “they won’t just test. They’ll… try something bigger.”

Morpheus nodded once.

“Yes,” he said. “But next time, we won’t just be herding kids through halls.”

His gaze hardened.

“Next time,” he said, “we start pulling them out.”

Izuku’s heart leapt and sank at the same time.

“You mean—” he began.

“Small scale,” Trinity cut in. “One. Maybe two. Someone we can get to the phone without collapsing the entire fiction around UA.”

Izuku’s mind immediately supplied names.

Tsuyu, who already smelled the wrongness.

Bakugou, who would set himself on fire before letting anyone he cared about be used as a battery.

Uraraka, who trusted too easily and would follow Aizawa into hell.

Iida, whose sense of justice would burn the sky.

His chest hurt.

“We’ll have to choose,” he whispered.

Aizawa’s eyes closed briefly.

“I hate this,” he said.

Morpheus’s expression was sympathetic.

“So do we,” he said. “But we can’t free a whole class at once. The system would crash it like a bugged program. We start small. We create belief. We build a network.”

Trinity hopped off the console, landing lightly.

“Good news is,” she said, “today convinced at least two of your kids that reality is… negotiable. That’ll make them better candidates when it’s their turn.”

Izuku blinked.

“Two?” he asked.

Tank pulled up a closer view of the bunker feed.

He zoomed in on Tsuyu.

She sat quietly, watching the ceiling.

Her lips moved once, almost too small to catch.

“What did she say?” Izuku breathed.

Tank replayed it, slowed.

The speakers picked up a soft,

“Something’s wrong, kero. Not just a villain.”

Then he zoomed on Bakugou.

The blond was pacing, jaw tight, sparks snapping at his palms. He paused once, shoulders tense, and hissed under his breath,

“You’re hiding something, Deku. And I’m gonna rip it out of you.”

Izuku winced.

Trinity grinned.

“See?” she said. “Cracks.”

Morpheus nodded slowly.

“Fault lines,” he said. “Along which we can pry open the cage.”

Aizawa rubbed a hand over his face.

“Next time,” he muttered.

Izuku stared at the screen.

At Tsuyu’s steady gaze.

At Bakugou’s restless stride.

At his class huddled in a bunker built by code, their lives balanced on lines of text and stubborn hope.

“Next time,” he whispered, “we start telling the truth.”

His hands shook.

He curled them into fists.

“I’ll be ready.”

Chapter Text

On the screen, Class 1-A looked like a handful of fireflies trapped in a jar.

Tiny tags, pulsing and drifting around UA’s sector in slow, complex patterns. Training field. Cafeteria. Dorms. Classroom. Each glow familiar to Izuku in ways he couldn’t explain, even through layers of code.

He knew which dot fidgeted in place.

Which one darted ahead, then returned to formation after a teacher yelled.

Which one moved at a steady, amphibian calm.

Tank zoomed the map in and out, calloused fingers dancing over the console. Trinity leaned against the bank of monitors with her arms folded, one boot braced on the metal support. Morpheus watched in silence.

Aizawa sat at the mess table with a mug of coffee going cold in front of him.

Izuku stood beside Tank, hands shoved under his armpits so he wouldn’t chew his nails raw.

“So,” Trinity said finally. “We need a volunteer.”

No one laughed.

“Not funny,” Aizawa said.

“Wasn’t trying to be,” she replied. “We can’t rip all your kids out at once. System will have a digital aneurysm, Agents will flood the campus, you’ll lose more than you save. We start with one. Maybe two. Small enough to fake. Big enough to matter.”

Izuku’s stomach twisted.

He stared at the glowing dots.

Each one had a face.

A voice.

A future.

“How do we pick?” he asked quietly.

“Carefully,” Morpheus said. “We need someone observant enough to accept the truth, resilient enough to survive waking up, and trusted enough that when they go back in, they can help us guide others without collapsing into panic.”

“And,” Tank added reluctantly, “someone the system can plausibly park somewhere without raising alarms. Hospital stay, ‘extended internship,’ transfer—whatever Nezu’s weird brain can justify.”

Aizawa rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger.

“You’re asking me to make a list,” he said. “Of my students. With little boxes labeled ‘kidnappable.’”

“No one’s getting kidnapped,” Trinity said. “We’re offering a red pill, not a sack over the head. But yeah. We need a short list.”

Izuku swallowed hard.

“I’ll go first,” he said, before his courage could evaporate. “Tsuyu. Asui. She already smells something wrong. Literally. She noticed the drills. She noticed my heart rate. She’s… steady. She thinks before she jumps. If we tell her, she won’t scream. She’ll… think.”

Tank nodded slowly. “On the system side, she’s not as high-profile as Bakugou or Todoroki,” he said. “Less media attention. Easier to write off with a ‘special research program’ subroutine.”

“Her quirk is good for close spaces, evacuations, stealth,” Trinity added. “Tongue, jump, sticking to walls. Agile in weird terrain. She’d be hell in the ducts when we start messing with infrastructure.”

Aizawa’s mouth twitched despite himself. “I have had that exact thought,” he admitted.

Izuku clung to the flicker of humor like a lifeline.

“What about Kacchan?” he asked, voice small. “He… he knows I’m hiding something. He’ll blow a gasket if someone else finds out first.”

Aizawa stared into his coffee.

“He’d also blow up an agent’s face on sight,” he said. “Which I respect, but we are not ready for that level of chaos. Yet.”

“Bakugou’s a second-wave candidate,” Trinity said. “Maybe third. He’ll be useful once we have more freed minds and exit nodes. Right now he’s a walking alarm bell.”

“What about Uraraka?” Izuku tried. “She’s brave. Kind. She’d—”

“She cares too openly,” Morpheus said gently. “It’s a strength, but also a vulnerability. The shock of waking might break more than it builds. We need a trailblazer, not someone who will look at the pods and shatter.”

Izuku’s chest hurt.

He looked back at the map.

Tsuyu Asui’s tag moved, calm and steady, from the classroom to the cafeteria.

“She’s first?” he whispered.

“She’s obvious,” Tank said. “And the fact she’s already side-eying the system means if we don’t loop her in soon, she’ll trip a flag on accident. Better to bring her out on our terms than hers.”

Aizawa’s fingers tightened around his mug.

“I hate this,” he said quietly. “I hate weighing them like chess pieces.”

Morpheus’s gaze softened.

“You’re weighing them like lives,” he said. “That’s different.”

Izuku swallowed.

“If we do this,” he said, “we have to do it right. Carefully. No surprise unplugging. She deserves a choice.”

Trinity nodded. “You’re not wrong,” she said. “We’re not the machines. We don’t shove people into realities they didn’t agree to. We show her the edge. She jumps or she doesn’t.”

“And if she doesn’t?” Aizawa asked.

“Then we make sure she doesn’t get erased for hesitation,” Trinity said. “But based on what we’ve seen…” She tilted her head, considering the Tsuyu-tag. “My money’s on jump.”

Aizawa pressed his lips together.

Izuku bit the inside of his cheek.

“Okay,” he whispered. “Okay. How?”

Tank spun his chair around.

“Step one,” he said. “We practice telling her.”

Izuku blinked. “Practice?”

Trinity’s grin was not reassuring. “Welcome to the Construct version of a rehearsal dinner,” she said. “Except instead of a wedding, the bride wakes up in a robot slime pod.”

Aizawa groaned.

 

---

The Construct loaded around them in a flash of white.

Then another flash.

Then a classroom.

UA’s 1-A, perfectly rendered: desks, windows, motivational posters that never quite worked, chalkboard smudged with old equations.

But it was empty.

Except for Izuku.

And Tsuyu.

The simulation Tsuyu sat at her usual desk, hands folded, gaze turned toward the window. She flicked her tongue once, thoughtful.

She wasn’t real.

Her code signature was too smooth, her movements a fraction too predictable. Tank had written this version using recorded behavior patterns—how she tilted her head when she listened, how she said “kero,” how she observed.

Izuku still felt weirdly guilty looking at her.

“Okay,” Trinity’s voice echoed from nowhere. “Program Asui-01. She’ll respond based on past logs and baseline personality traits. You get one conversation. Tell her the truth enough to get her to the phone. Don’t push so hard she breaks. Ready?”

“No,” Izuku said.

“Good,” Aizawa said quietly from the doorway. He wasn’t part of the sim this time—just observing. “Means you won’t steamroll.”

Izuku took a breath.

He crossed the room.

Tsuyu looked up.

“Midoriya-chan,” she said. “You look serious, kero.”

He swallowed.

“That’s because this is serious,” he said. “I… I need to tell you something.”

Her head tilted.

“Is this about the bunker drills, kero?” she asked. “And the way the halls stretched. And how the shelter door felt like it didn’t want to open, but you did something and it did?”

Izuku stared.

“…Tank, how accurate did you make this thing?” Trinity muttered.

“Pretty accurate,” Tank said smugly.

Izuku dragged his focus back.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it’s about that.”

He licked his lips.

“How would you… react,” he asked slowly, “if I told you that this world—UA, hero training, quirks—is… a cage?”

Tsuyu blinked.

“Kero,” she said thoughtfully. “Like a metaphor? Society limiting us with rules, kero?”

“No,” he said. “Like… literally. Like machines built this world as a simulation to keep us docile while using our bodies for power.”

She stared at him.

Silence stretched.

“…That’s very science fiction, kero,” she said at last.

Izuku’s chest sank.

“But,” she added calmly, “so is a man who eats hair and shoots laser beams out of his bellybutton, kero. And we met those.”

Okay.

Not a total failure.

He plunged on.

He told her about the pods.

About the Nebuchadnezzar.

About the jack at the back of his neck, and Aizawa nearly dying on a rooftop made of code, and bending bullets, and waking up vomiting red gel.

He stumbled.

He repeated himself.

He gestured too much.

He stuttered.

Through it all, Tsuyu-01 watched, expression serious.

When he finally trailed off—breathless, shaky—she blinked slowly.

“You believe what you’re saying,” she said. “Your heartbeat and sweat say so, kero. You’re not lying.”

He laughed weakly. “I’m a terrible liar,” he admitted.

She hummed softly.

“Do you have proof?” she asked. “Beyond feelings and… bending corridors, kero?”

“A phone,” he said. “In the bunker. If you pick it up, you’ll wake up. For real. Out… there.”

“And if I don’t pick it up, kero?” she asked.

He swallowed.

“Then your life goes on,” he said. “Like… this. I’ll… try to keep you safe. From inside. I won’t… I won’t force you.”

She studied him.

“Forcing isn’t very heroic,” she said. “I’m glad you know that.”

His throat burned.

“Kero,” she added softly, “what does it feel like? Out there?”

He closed his eyes.

“Cold,” he said. “At first. Weak. Wrong. Like your body isn’t yours. But then… real. Every breath is yours. Every step. It’s… ugly. And terrifying. And free.”

He opened his eyes.

“If you come,” he whispered, “it’ll hurt. I won’t lie. But you won’t be alone. I’ll be there. Sensei will be there. We’ll… catch you.”

As he spoke, he realized how much he needed that last part to be true.

Tsuyu-01 watched him.

Her throat bubbled once.

“I’ll jump,” she said simply.

Izuku blinked.

“What?”

“If this is true,” she said, “then staying is like staying underwater too long. Eventually you drown, kero. I like water. I don’t like drowning.” Her small smile flickered. “And I trust you. You’re bad at lying and good at doing scary things anyway, kero.”

He choked.

“So you’d… pick up the phone?” he croaked.

She nodded once.

“Ribbit,” she said. “I’d pick it up.”

The sim froze.

Everything except Izuku and Aizawa went still—Tsuyu-01 mid-blink, a chalk fleck hanging in midair.

Trinity whistled.

“Not bad,” she said. “Bit rambling. Could use fewer tangents. But yeah. She bought it. You did it without waving a severed robot arm at her, which is a plus.”

Izuku sank into the nearest desk.

“That was just a program,” he muttered. “The real Tsuyu—”

“—is less predictable,” Morpheus finished, stepping in as the classroom walls dissolved back into white. “But she is also stronger than a script. You gave her a choice. That’s the important part.”

Aizawa’s gaze lingered on the frozen Tsuyu-01 for a moment before the sim faded completely.

His jaw was tight.

“How many times did you rehearse Neo’s first red pill speech?” he asked Morpheus quietly.

Morpheus smiled faintly.

“More than I’ll admit,” he said.

 

---

They didn’t schedule the extraction for the next day.

Or the next.

They waited.

Three days, to be exact—long enough for the system to relax after its last test, short enough that Izuku didn’t chew through his own fingers.

In the meantime, life in the Matrix went on.

Classes.

Training.

Dorm gossip.

Bunker drills.

Izuku found himself hyper-aware of every second he spent near Tsuyu.

The way she watched the corridors.

The way she sniffed the air when lights flickered.

The way her gaze flicked toward him whenever the PA crackled.

She knows, he thought once, catching her watching the ceiling again. Even if she doesn’t know she knows.

On the third day, during lunch, Aizawa pulled him aside near the stairwell.

“After classes,” he murmured, low enough that only Izuku heard. “We’re ‘checking shelter equipment.’ Asui is on frog-quirk-specific emergency detail. You’re helping.”

Izuku’s pulse spiked.

“Today,” he whispered.

“Today,” Aizawa confirmed.

Izuku nodded once.

His legs felt like they were made of cotton candy and static.

“Midoriya-chan,” Tsuyu said that afternoon as the last bell rang. “Aizawa-sensei asked us to stay behind, kero.”

He jolted so hard he dropped his pen.

Tsuyu didn’t even flinch at the clatter.

She stood near the door with her backpack already slung over one shoulder, emergency pack in hand.

“Iida said it was about hydration protocols,” she went on. “But he also looked like he wanted to lecture about something and wasn’t allowed, kero.”

Izuku’s mouth went dry.

“Y-yeah,” he said. “He, um. Wants us to make sure the bunker’s ready. For… amphibious rescue.”

It sounded unbelievable even to him.

Tsuyu only hummed.

“Makes sense,” she said. “I can jump higher than most, kero. And swim.”

Her throat bubbled once.

“You look like you’re about to jump too,” she observed. “Out of your skin, kero.”

“Just… nerves,” Izuku said faintly.

She studied him.

“Mm,” she said.

Aizawa slid the classroom door open.

“Midoriya. Asui. With me,” he said. “Everyone else, get out. Don’t blow anything up.”

Bakugou opened his mouth as if to object to being dismissed so casually, then thought better of it when Aizawa’s scarf twitched.

“Don’t die, nerd,” he said instead, glaring at Izuku. “Got it?”

Izuku almost laughed.

He settled for a shaky nod.

“I’ll try not to,” he said.

Uraraka lingered a moment.

“Good luck,” she whispered, squeezing his arm. “With… whatever frog-hydration thing that is.”

“Thanks,” he squeaked.

Then it was just the three of them.

Aizawa led the way.

Stairwell C.

Izuku felt the Matrix’s hum grow brighter around them, like the air was full of static.

“Any Agents?” he asked under his breath.

“Closest one is two blocks away, watching traffic,” Tank answered in his ear. “Nezu’s office is… twitchy, but not in your direction. We’ve got a ten-minute window before anyone decides to peek at the bunker logs.”

“Plenty of time,” Trinity said. “Unless you ramble, Midoriya. Don’t ramble.”

“I don’t— I mean, I do, but— I’ll try not to,” Izuku stammered.

Tsuyu shot him a sideways look.

“You’re muttering,” she said. “Are you talking to yourself, kero?”

“Sort of,” he admitted.

“Don’t say ‘sort of,’” Trinity hissed.

He shut up.

The bunker door waited.

This time, when he reached for it, the code didn’t fight as hard.

It remembered.

He still had to push.

Just a little.

The indicator turned green.

Inside, the shelter was exactly as it had been: concrete, benches, supplies, that faint cleaning chemical smell.

No class.

No noise.

Just echoing emptiness.

It made the space feel bigger.

They stepped in.

Aizawa closed the door behind them.

He didn’t spin the wheel all the way this time—just enough that it would take a firm hand to open from the outside.

Tsuyu moved to the center of the room and turned in a slow circle, gaze sweeping the walls, ceiling, vents.

Her tongue flicked out, tasting the air.

“Kero,” she said. “It’s quiet. Too quiet.”

Izuku’s heart thudded.

Aizawa didn’t waste time.

“Circuit check can wait,” he said. “Sit.”

He gestured to a bench.

Tsuyu blinked, then hopped up, legs folding neatly under her.

Izuku sat opposite, hands clenched between his knees.

Aizawa stayed standing, leaning back against the wall near the door.

He looked like a guard.

Or an executioner.

“That announcement three days ago wasn’t a standard villain,” Tsuyu said calmly, before either of them could open their mouths. “Or a standard system glitch, kero.”

Izuku choked.

“W-what?” he squeaked.

She lifted one shoulder in a tiny shrug.

“The air tasted wrong,” she said. “Like when we fought Stain, but… behind a window, kero. The walls moved. Doors didn’t want to open until you made them. And the alarm didn’t smell like gas or fire. It smelled like… noise.”

Her gaze sharpened.

“You’re hiding something, kero,” she said. “Both of you.”

Aizawa exhaled slowly.

“Good,” he said. “At least I don’t have to start with ‘sit down, this will sound crazy.’”

Tsuyu’s mouth quirked. “You can start with ‘thank you for noticing,’ kero,” she suggested.

“Thank you for noticing,” Aizawa said dryly. “Now shut up and listen. Both of you. I’m only saying this once.”

Izuku gulped.

He met Tsuyu’s eyes.

He saw curiosity there.

Fear.

Resolve.

He drew a breath.

“The world is a lie,” he said quietly.

And then he told her.

The words didn’t come out as smoothly as they had with the program.

He stumbled, tripped over details, and doubled back twice to clarify which part was “one hundred percent true nightmare” and which was “still figuring it out.”

He talked about waking from the pod.

About the machines, the fields of human batteries stretching into darkness.

About the Nebuchadnezzar and its outdated technology, Tank’s bad coffee, Trinity’s ruthless training, Morpheus’s patience.

About Agents and how they moved like math problems trying to kill you.

About One For All as code, bending rules that were never really “physics” in the first place.

Through it all, Tsuyu watched.

She didn’t interrupt.

Not once.

When he finally ran out of words, throat dry and hands shaking, she sat very still for a long moment.

“Kero,” she said at last. “That’s very… big.”

Izuku laughed weakly.

“Yeah,” he said. “It is.”

She flicked her tongue, thinking.

“You believe it,” she said. “Your heartbeat says you do, kero. You’re so scared you’re almost vibrating. But it’s not the ‘I’m lying’ scared. It’s the ‘I just pushed my friends off a cliff and hope they can fly’ scared.”

Aizawa made a low sound in his throat.

“That’s an uncomfortable metaphor,” he muttered.

“Accurate, though,” Tsuyu added.

She turned to him.

“And you, sensei?” she asked. “You believe it too, kero?”

He met her gaze.

His shoulders slumped a fraction.

“Yes,” he said simply.

“Is that why you look like you haven’t slept in a year, kero?” she asked.

His lips twitched. “That was true before the robots,” he said.

She considered that.

Then she said, very quietly,

“I don’t smell the world.”

Izuku blinked.

“What?”

Tsuyu’s fingers curled on the bench.

“Sometimes,” she said, “when we do drills, it smells like drills. Fear-sweat, dust, gym deodorizer. When we fought villains, it smelled like blood and adrenaline and smoke, kero.”

She swallowed.

“When the halls stretched, when the doors argued… it smelled like… nothing,” she said. “Like someone sprayed blankness over everything. Like those cheap air fresheners that just cover up bad smells instead of fixing them.”

Her throat bubbled.

“I don’t like that,” she said.

Izuku’s eyes stung.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

She shook her head.

“Don’t apologize for the air,” she said. “You didn’t make it.”

He took a shuddering breath.

“We can get you out,” he said. “For real. There’s a ship. People. Food that tastes weird. Sky that’s… broken but ours. It’ll hurt. You’ll be weak. You might hate it at first. But you’ll be you.”

She tilted her head.

“And if I stay?” she asked.

He swallowed.

“Then I’ll try to keep you safe from inside,” he said. “I’ll… bend things. Run drills. Do… hero stuff. I won’t… force you. I promise.”

Aizawa’s voice was very quiet.

“I won’t force you either,” he said. “I have dragged you through enough training you didn’t ask for. This isn’t one of those.”

Tsuyu studied them both.

“How many others know?” she asked. “Outside this room, kero.”

“On the ship?” Izuku counted mentally. “Morpheus, Trinity, Tank, a few others. In here?” He swallowed. “Just us.”

Tsuyu’s tongue flicked out, then in.

She looked at the ceiling.

“Kero,” she said, almost to herself. “I was going to be a frog hero. Jumping into rivers, pulling people out of cars, saving kids from drowning, kero.”

“You still can,” Izuku said quickly. “Out there. In here, but with… more information. You don’t have to stop—”

She held up a hand.

He shut up.

She looked at him.

Then at Aizawa.

“Midoriya-chan,” she said softly, “how many times have you jumped off high places because you thought it would save someone?”

He winced. “Uh. Inconvenient question,” he said.

“How many times did Aizawa-sensei want to tie you down to keep you from breaking your legs, kero?” she added.

Aizawa sighed. “Too many,” he said.

Her lips quirked.

“Kero,” she said. “Now it’s my turn. To jump. And your turn to catch.”

Izuku’s breath hitched.

“You… mean—”

“There is a phone here?” she asked, glancing around. “Like you said, in the other version.”

Tank, listening through their jacks, took that as his cue.

A payphone shimmered into existence in the corner behind a stack of emergency blankets.

Plain.

Old-fashioned.

Wrong in the bunker’s usual layout.

Izuku hadn’t even noticed it appear—his awareness was so focused on Tsuyu’s face.

She turned her head.

Her eyes landed on it.

She frowned.

“Kero,” she said. “That wasn’t there before.”

“No,” Izuku said. “It wasn’t.”

He stood.

His legs shook.

“There’s still time to say no,” he whispered. “You can… walk out that door. Pretend this was just sensei being extra weird about drills. I won’t… I’ll still—”

“Midoriya,” Aizawa said sharply.

He snapped his mouth shut.

Tsuyu slid off the bench.

She walked to the phone.

Her footsteps echoed.

Izuku’s heart hammered so loud he thought it would crack his ribs.

She reached for the receiver.

Stopped.

She looked back at them.

“If I go,” she said quietly, “what happens… here, kero? Does my seat just stay empty?”

Izuku swallowed.

Tank answered softly in their ears.

“We can ghost you,” he said. “Create a… simplified version. Coma routine. ‘Asui Tsuyu suffered a quirk-related incident during training and is in long-term care.’ We can even simulate occasional messages if we’re careful. The system’s done weirder to hide their own glitches.”

Trinity snorted. “We’re just returning the favor,” she said.

Izuku translated shakily. “We can… make it look like you’re in the hospital,” he said. “You won’t be in class. But they’ll… think you’re alive. You will be alive. Just… somewhere else.”

Tsuyu’s fingers tightened around the phone.

“Kero,” she said. “That’ll hurt them.”

“Yes,” Aizawa said quietly. “Less than a funeral. More than nothing.”

She nodded once.

“I can live with that,” she said. “For now.”

She lifted the receiver.

The phone started to ring.

Izuku’s breath stopped.

Her voice, when she spoke, was calm.

“Catch me, kero,” she said.

She pressed the phone to her ear.

The world yanked.

 

---

The real world was cold.

Tsuyu’s pod cracked open in a blossom of red light and viscous fluid.

She didn’t have time to be terrified of drowning; the machines flushed the gel from her lungs with brutal efficiency, hoses retracting with wet snaps. Mechanical arms jerked cables free from her spine and limbs.

Her eyes flew open.

Red haze.

Endless rows of pods, stretching into darkness.

Lightning from a distant storm flickered against low clouds, painting everything in sickly colors.

Her throat convulsed.

She tried to scream.

Nothing came out but a hoarse croak.

The clamp at her neck released with a twist.

Her pod tipped.

She tumbled out.

Cold hit like a slap.

She landed in a pool of lukewarm sludge, naked, thin, limbs shaking.

Panic surged.

Her body, trained for water, tried to orient: up, down, surface.

But there was no clean surface—just tangled cables, viscous slime, the looming shapes of other pods.

Someone grabbed her under the arms.

“Got you,” a voice said, familiar and raw. “I’ve got you.”

She thrashed wildly.

Her tongue snapped out on reflex, latching onto something solid—a shoulder?

“Agh— okay, that’s— yep, that’s the tongue—”

Her vision cleared.

A face swam into focus inches from hers.

Freckles.

Green hair, matted with sweat.

Eyes wide and wet.

“Midoriya-chan?” she croaked.

He grinned shakily.

“Hey, Tsu,” he said, voice breaking. “Welcome to the desert of the real.”

She would have hit him for the dramatic line if she’d had the strength.

Instead she sagged into his grip.

“Cold, kero,” she whispered.

“I know,” he said. “I know. I’m sorry. Hold on.”

Something warm settled around her shoulders—the scratchy bulk of a blanket. Another presence moved in from her other side, steady and sure.

A hand—calloused, familiar—cupped the back of her head, careful of the fresh port near her neck.

“Slow breaths,” Aizawa’s voice said quietly by her ear. “In. Out. The air’s heavier here. Don’t try to gulp it.”

She tried to obey.

Air burned her lungs.

Everything shook.

Her body felt wrong.

Too light and too heavy at once, like her muscles had been replaced with rubber bands.

Her tongue felt… shorter.

She panicked for a second, trying to stretch it.

It flopped weakly, nowhere near its usual reach.

“Easy,” Aizawa murmured. “Nervous system’s rebooting. You’ll feel clumsy for a while. Doesn’t mean it’s gone.”

“Kero,” she rasped. “You look… older, kero.”

Aizawa huffed a laugh.

“That’s just the lighting,” he said.

Izuku let out a watery snort.

“You’re… taking this better than I did,” he admitted. “I threw up for an hour. And cried. And then threw up again.”

She blinked, trying to focus.

“Give me… five minutes, kero,” she said. “Then I’ll… catch up.”

Her knees buckled.

They held her.

Mechanical arms receded into the dark, leaving them alone on a narrow metal platform between rows of pods.

The air was damp.

Wind howled faintly from somewhere above.

Lightning flashed again.

For a moment, Tsuyu saw her reflection in the pod glass behind Izuku.

Gaunt.

Hair plastered to her scalp.

Skin pale under streaks of red residue.

Eyes too big in a face that looked… younger and older at the same time.

A frog pulled out of a drying pond.

She shuddered.

“Out,” Aizawa said softly. “We can have the existential crisis in a warmer room. Move your feet if you can.”

They half-carried, half-dragged her across the slick metal to the waiting hovercraft.

The Nebuchadnezzar loomed like a dark insect against the glowing forest of pods, hull scarred and patched.

A hatch irised open.

Trinity appeared, bundled in her own coat, hair slicked back.

“New arrival,” she called back into the ship. “Skinny, cold, frog-shaped. Try not to drop her.”

“Ribbit,” Tsuyu rasped on reflex.

Trinity’s mouth twitched.

“You weren’t kidding about the kero thing,” she told Izuku.

He blushed.

They maneuvered Tsuyu through the narrow hatch, down a short corridor, into a small, warm room with a low bed and a cluster of medical equipment that looked like it had been built from spare parts.

Tank hovered nearby, hands already moving over an old diagnostic panel.

“Get her on the table,” he said. “We’ll run the usual checks. Respiration, neural connection, motor control. Watch the ports—they’re fresh.”

The blanket was warm.

The bed was lumpy.

It felt like heaven.

Tsuyu lay on her back, staring at the ceiling.

Metal.

Pipes.

A tiny leak stain in the corner.

“Welcome to the Nebuchadnezzar,” Tank said, voice light but eyes serious. “Home of bad coffee, worse beds, and the last free humans with Wi-Fi.”

“Wi-Fi?” Tsuyu croaked.

“Later,” Trinity said. “Don’t fry her brain with memes yet.”

Izuku hovered on one side, Aizawa on the other.

Neither went far.

Every time someone attached a cable to one of the ports in Tsuyu’s spine, Izuku flinched.

Every time she winced, Aizawa’s jaw tightened.

The tests were quick and gentle as they could be, but there was no way around the discomfort.

Her limbs twitched.

Her tongue flopped more uselessly than she liked.

Her heart pounded.

“Reflexes are sluggish but within expected range,” Tank reported. “Muscle atrophy like the others. Neural interface is stable. No obvious damage from the extraction spike.”

“Good,” Aizawa said softly. “Very good.”

Tsuyu took another slow breath.

The air still smelled like metal and oil and… something under that.

Real skin.

Real sweat.

Fear.

Relief.

Her own and theirs.

She turned her head.

“Midoriya-chan,” she said. “You’re crying, kero.”

He jerked, hand flying to his face.

“I—sorry— I just— you’re—” He sniffed, wiping at his nose. “You’re here. And breathing. And not screaming at me. I prepared for the screaming.”

She considered him.

He looked worse up close: dark circles, hair wilder, shoulders hunched under a weight she now recognized as more than just “UA stress.”

He’d carried this for days.

Weeks.

Who knew how long.

She lifted one shaking hand.

He grabbed it like a lifeline.

Her fingers closed around his.

“You did good, kero,” she whispered. “Caught me.”

His breath hitched.

Aizawa looked away for a moment, as if giving them privacy.

His hand still hovered near Tsuyu’s shoulder, not quite touching but there.

“Sorry,” Tsuyu added after a beat, voice small. “Hospital stories are going to make the others sad.”

Izuku winced.

“We’ll… figure out how to handle that,” he said. “We can… send messages. Or… something. We’ll make sure they don’t think you’re gone-gone.”

“They’ll be sad either way,” Aizawa said quietly. “But sadness is better than ignorance. Sometimes.”

Tsuyu studied him.

“You didn’t warn them,” she said.

“No,” he said.

“Because you couldn’t,” she went on. “Not because you didn’t want to, kero.”

His jaw tightened.

“Yes,” he said.

She hummed softly.

“Kero,” she said. “I forgive you. For that.”

He blinked.

“…You shouldn’t,” he said.

“I should,” she replied. “You’re my teacher. It’s your job to make hard choices. It’s my job to give you a hard time about them later, kero.”

Trinity snorted.

“I like you,” she said.

Tsuyu turned her head slowly, taking in the room, the people, the feel of the blankets against her skin.

“So,” she said. “What now, kero?”

“Now,” Morpheus’s voice said from the doorway, deep and calm, “you rest.”

He stepped into view, coat replaced with a simple sweater, eyes warm.

“Then,” he added, “we talk. We show you the world you woke into. We answer what questions we can.” His gaze sharpened. “And if, after that, you wish to help us free the others—you will.”

Tsuyu blinked.

“You sound sure,” she said.

He smiled faintly.

“I’ve watched many people wake up,” he said. “Most break. Some deny. A few… listen. You have the look of a listener.”

Her throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she said. “I do like listening.”

She closed her eyes for a moment.

Images flickered behind them: pods, endless and red.

Her classmates in a concrete bunker, looking at a door that would never quite open the same way again.

Bakugou’s pacing.

Uraraka’s worried eyes.

Iida’s chopped gestures.

“Midoriya-chan,” she murmured. “How many times have you gone back in since you woke up, kero?”

He hesitated.

“Too many,” he said.

“That’s how many times you’ve jumped,” she said. “I’ll… catch up. After I sleep. And eat. And maybe throw up.”

“Throwing up is traditional,” Trinity said cheerfully. “We’ll get you a bucket.”

Tsuyu cracked one eye open.

“You should not be that cheerful about vomit, kero,” she informed her.

“I take my joy where I can,” Trinity replied.

Aizawa exhaled, something in his chest unclenching.

He reached down.

Very gently, he brushed wet hair off Tsuyu’s forehead.

“You did well,” he said.

It was almost the same words he’d given Izuku after a particularly grueling training, but there was something softer under them now.

“Thanks for trusting us,” he added.

Tsuyu’s lips twitched.

“Thanks for… catching, kero,” she murmured.

Exhaustion rolled over her, heavy and irresistible.

This time, when she closed her eyes, the darkness smelled like oil and bad coffee and human fear.

And something else.

Possibility.

She let it take her.

 

---

Later—how much later, she didn’t know—Tsuyu sat propped up on a pile of thin pillows in the mess, wrapped in two blankets, a mug of something warm between her hands.

It tasted like burnt beans and metal.

She loved it.

Izuku sat across from her with a notebook already half-full of scribbles: “POD REHAB SCHEDULE,” “Tsuyu’s quirk adaptation out here???” and “HERO WORK BUT IN MACHINE APOCALYPSE????” underlined three times.

Aizawa perched on a crate nearby, eyes half-lidded but sharp.

Morpheus leaned against the wall.

Trinity fidgeted with a cable.

Tank watched the feeds.

“So,” Tsuyu said after listening to an overview of the war, the city, the state of Zion. “We are… very outnumbered, kero.”

“Yes,” Morpheus said.

“And the machines control everything up there,” she went on. “Weather, power, the Matrix, kero.”

“Most everything,” he agreed.

She sipped her drink.

“Good,” she said.

Izuku blinked.

“G-good?” he echoed.

She looked at him.

“That means every small thing we do will annoy them more,” she said calmly. “They like control. We’ll take that away. Little by little, kero.”

Trinity grinned.

“See?” she said. “I told you she’d be fun.”

Tsuyu turned to Izuku.

“Kero,” she said. “When we go back—”

“We?” he squeaked.

“You didn’t think I’d let you run back in there alone, kero,” she said, mildly offended. “You clearly need supervision. You almost fell down the stairs last time.”

He flushed.

Aizawa coughed into his scarf.

Morpheus’s smile warmed.

“When we go back,” Tsuyu continued, unfazed, “we’ll have to decide who we tell next. Carefully. But we’ll need at least one more. For balance, kero.”

“Balance?” Izuku repeated.

She nodded.

“You jumped,” she said. “I jumped. Next should be… someone who burns. Or floats. Or chops the air a lot, kero.”

Izuku’s stomach flipped.

“Bakugou,” he said hoarsely.

“Iida,” Aizawa said at the same time.

They looked at each other.

“Uraraka,” Tsuyu suggested.

They all groaned.

Morpheus chuckled.

“First one out of the water and you’re already strategizing,” he said. “Good. We’ll take some time. There’s no need to rush the next extraction. The system is still adjusting to your absence.”

Tank cleared his throat.

“Speaking of,” he said. “Your ghost routine is live.”

He tapped a few keys.

One of the screens zoomed in on a hospital room rendered in code.

A girl lay in the bed, hooked to monitors, eyes closed.

She looked like Tsuyu, down to the frog hair clips on the nightstand.

The tags over her read:

ASUI TSUYU – STATUS: COMATOSE – PROGNOSIS: UNCERTAIN.

Nezu’s code signature pulsed nearby, along with Recovery Girl’s.

“They’re talking,” Tank said. “Nezu’s spinning it as ‘quirk backlash’ during the last ‘villain incident.’ They’re monitoring. No Agent presence in the room yet. Your family’s file got an automatic notification. We’ll… cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Tsuyu’s hands tightened around her mug.

“I don’t like lying to them,” she said softly.

“I know,” Izuku whispered.

“But,” she went on, voice steadying, “I like the idea of them waking up to a world that’s actually real more, kero. If we can get there.”

Aizawa closed his eyes briefly.

When he opened them, they were bright.

“We will,” he said.

Izuku believed him.

The Matrix would bite back.

Agents would learn.

The system would push.

But for the first time, one of his classmates was on the other side of the glass.

Breathing.

Planning.

Ready to jump again.

First one out of the water.

Not the last.

Izuku wrapped his fingers around his own mug and met Tsuyu’s gaze.

“We’ll bring them home,” he said.

Her throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she said. “Let’s start with not getting deleted.”

“Good starting goal,” Trinity agreed.

Outside, the real world groaned and shifted in perpetual storm.

Inside, on a tired, stubborn little ship, three heroes-in-training and their exhausted homeroom teacher plotted how to steal an entire class out from under a god-machine’s nose.

The Matrix hummed.

It didn’t know it yet.

But its first fault line had just turned into a crack.

And cracks only spread.

Chapter Text

Tsuyu’s first attempt at a hop ended with her face on the floor.

The Nebuchadnezzar’s metal grating was not kind to noses.

“Kero,” she said into the decking. It came out more as a muffled groan.

“Don’t move,” Aizawa said immediately.

She felt hands—two sets—get under her shoulders and hips, lifting her carefully away from the floor. The world tilted, then settled as they sat her back on the crate she’d been using as a makeshift bench.

Izuku’s face loomed in front of her, pale and horrified.

“I am so sorry,” he babbled. “I thought you had it, your center of gravity looked fine and the muscles were firing and then the—”

“I’m fine, kero,” she interrupted, touching her nose gingerly. “I’ve had worse belly-flops.”

She winced.

“Okay, maybe not many worse, kero.”

Tank leaned against the bulkhead, arms crossed, trying to look serious and failing. “On the bright side,” he said, “you made it higher than last time.”

Tsuyu frowned thoughtfully. “What’s my record, kero?” she asked.

“Ten centimeters,” Trinity called from the doorway. “We’re aiming for, like, three meters. No rush.”

Tsuyu rolled her eyes.

Her body still felt wrong.

Less wrong than the first day—she could sit up on her own now, walk across the cargo bay without needing a hand—but her muscles were a shadow of what they’d been in the Matrix. Her tongue reached further every day, but so far it could barely hook the edge of a crate instead of the rafters.

“You said my reflexes are better inside the Matrix,” Tsuyu said, flexing her fingers. “That’s where I’ll be jumping, kero. Why does this matter so much?”

“Because this is your real body,” Aizawa said, crouching in front of her. “And you need it to not collapse while you’re doing your hero work in there.”

He tapped her knee gently.

“If the ship takes a hit while you’re jacked in, if we have to move fast, if the pods ever come knocking… you need to be able to stand up and run,” he said. “Even if it’s only for a few minutes.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled softly.

“You’re worrying,” she said.

“I’m always worrying,” he replied.

“More,” she specified.

His mouth twitched.

“Can you blame me?” he asked.

She considered that.

“No,” she said. “Kero.”

Izuku slumped to sit beside her on the crate, shoulders still tense.

“You’re doing great,” he said earnestly. “I mean, your recovery curve is already ahead of mine. It took me a week before I could walk from my bunk to the mess without falling over. You’re already trying to hop.”

“You also tried to jump off a virtual building on day two,” Trinity pointed out. “So maybe don’t set yourself as the rehab benchmark.”

Izuku flushed. “Neo did it,” he muttered.

“Neo also died on his first run,” Tank said. “We’re trying to avoid reruns.”

Tsuyu watched them bicker, feeling the corners of her mouth twitch.

The ship still felt alien.

The constant hum of engines, the smell of oil and metal, the cold-to-the-bones chill that blankets only partially warded off—none of it was home.

But these voices…

These people…

They helped.

“Kero,” she said, pushing herself slowly to her feet again. “How long until I can go back?”

Izuku tensed. “Back?” he echoed.

She looked at him steadily.

“Into the Matrix,” she clarified. “Not forever. Just… to see. To feel. To help. You said we’d go back in.”

His shoulders sagged with relief.

“Oh,” he said. “That ‘back.’ Right. Uh, Morpheus said once you could walk a straight line without falling and pass basic neural stress tests, you’re clear for your first Construct session.”

She blinked.

“Construct?” she asked.

“White room,” Trinity translated. “Loading zone. You’ll love it. Very minimalist.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she said dryly. “I like walls.”

“Don’t worry,” Tank said. “We can add some after.”

 

---

The jack still scared her.

Tsuyu didn’t say that out loud.

The port at the back of her neck itched when she thought about it, phantom memory of cables going in and out while she slept in red gel.

She sat in the battered metal chair in the main bay, fingers clenched on the armrests, breath coming a little faster than she liked.

Izuku settled into the chair beside her, offering a wobbly smile.

“I’ll be right there with you,” he said. “First time is… weird. Worse than waking up, in some ways. It’s backwards. But it helps if you focus on something small. Like… what your feet feel like on the ground.”

She nodded slowly.

“Kero,” she said. “Feet. Not tubes.”

Hands moved near her neck.

Aizawa’s face came into view above her for a moment, hair hanging loose, goggles pushed up.

“If you panic,” he said, “we pull you out. Immediately. You say the word. Or croak. Whatever.”

Her throat bubbled despite the nerves.

“Okay, kero,” she said.

He rested one hand briefly on her shoulder.

Then the jack slid home with a soft click.

The world blinked.

 

---

White.

Everywhere.

It took Tsuyu a second to realize she was not, in fact, blind.

The white wasn’t empty—it just went on forever.

She stood barefoot on a smooth white floor that extended in every direction to an infinite white horizon.

She looked down at herself.

Her frog-hero costume hugged her body, snug and familiar.

Her fingers flexed in gloves she could feel.

“Kero,” she breathed.

Her voice echoed oddly.

Izuku popped into existence a few meters away.

One frame he wasn’t there.

The next, he was.

He looked exactly like he had in UA: green jumpsuit, red boots, hair a wild mess.

He wobbled for a second, then steadied, hand going automatically to his chest as if checking his breathing.

“Still not used to that,” he muttered. Then he smiled at Tsuyu. “How’s the air?”

She inhaled.

It didn’t smell like anything.

Not really.

No dust.

No industrial cleaner.

No students.

No faint frog-habitat smell from her own skin.

It was… neutral. Perfectly neutral.

“Blank, kero,” she said.

“That’s the Construct for you,” Trinity’s voice said.

She turned.

Trinity and Morpheus walked toward them out of the white—no doors, no fades, just there.

Trinity’s coat swished against the non-floor.

“Welcome to the loading room,” she said. “This is where we give you training wheels.”

Morpheus spread his hands slightly.

“Here, we can load programs,” he said. “Combat styles, language skills, simulations of environments—including UA. It is also where you will practice bending the rules without Agents breathing down your neck.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she said. “Do I get the kung-fu download too?”

Tank chuckled in her ear. “One frog-fu program, coming up,” he said. “Kidding. Sort of.”

Izuku raised a tentative hand.

“Uh, maybe start with the basics?” he said. “Last time someone tried to cram too much into my head at once, I passed out and bled from my nose.”

Tsuyu considered him, then Morpheus.

“What are the basics, kero?” she asked.

Morpheus smiled.

“Understanding that here, your ‘quirk’ is a negotiation,” he said. “In the real world, your frog physiology is limited by your body. Here, it’s limited by what the Matrix thinks ‘you’ are allowed to do. But now that you know this isn’t real, you can argue.”

Trinity pointed at the floor.

“Try sticking to that,” she said. “Like you would to a wall in training. But don’t just assume it works. Think about what lets you do it.”

Tsuyu crouched.

She pressed her hand flat to the white surface.

In the Matrix-as-UA, her frog quirk let her cling to surfaces.

It had always felt like a mix of sticky skin and muscle control.

She focused on that feeling.

On the idea of contact.

Of friction.

Her hand held fast.

She pushed off.

Her feet left the ground.

For a heartbeat, she hung there sideways, parallel to the floor like a sleeping bat.

“Kero,” she said, delighted.

Gravity tugged.

She slipped.

Izuku lunged automatically, arms flailing.

Morpheus caught her with one hand on her shoulder before she could fall far.

“Good,” he said. “Your mind remembers. Now, refine.”

They ran drills.

Stand, stick, jump, flip.

Each time, Tsuyu got a little further.

When she tried to hop her usual UA distance in that endless white, she overshot and almost flew headfirst into nothingness.

Her residual self-image body felt strong.

More like her hero self.

Less like the trembling limbs on the ship.

“This is why we keep you tethered,” Trinity said dryly, hauling Tsuyu back down from a near-ceiling cling. “If you tried that in the real world, you’d tear something.”

Tsuyu clung to the ‘ceiling’ for a moment longer, just because she could.

The non-surface hummed faintly under her, a sense of code rather than plaster.

“It feels… wrong and right at the same time, kero,” she said. “Like I’ve been jumping on a painted floor my whole life, and now I’m seeing the boards underneath.”

Izuku hung upside down next to her, face flushed.

He’d gotten better at sticking, too, once he stopped treating his quirk like a muscle and more like a dial.

“We’re going to use that,” Morpheus said. “Your instincts. Your ability to feel when the ‘paint’ doesn’t match the boards.”

Tsuyu dropped lightly to the floor.

Her knees didn’t protest.

She looked up at him.

“You said we’d use me for recon first, kero,” she said. “Before I go back to UA as… me.”

Morpheus nodded.

“It’s safer,” he said. “For now, your ‘ghost’ is in a hospital bed. The system believes Asui Tsuyu is comatose. If we project you into UA’s sector as a walking, talking version of yourself while your file says otherwise, the machines will notice.”

“So I play someone else, kero,” Tsuyu said.

Trinity grinned.

“Ever wanted to be a salaryman?” she asked.

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she said. “No.”

“Background characters have more fun than you’d think,” Trinity said. “No one pays attention to them. You can see everything.”

Izuku nodded slowly.

“We’ve had to keep our appearances around UA limited,” he said. “Me as ‘Midoriya, still student.’ Sensei as… himself. It draws attention. But a random commuter? A delivery girl? Nobody looks twice.”

Tsuyu shifted her weight, feeling the artificial gravity’s pull.

“You want to use my ears and nose, kero,” she said. “Watch without being watched.”

“Exactly,” Morpheus said. “You’ll run passes around UA. Listen for new Agent patterns. For scripted ‘emergencies.’ For changes in Nezu’s code. All while blending in.”

Tsuyu considered this.

Her heart ached a little at the thought of being near UA and not being Tsuyu Asui.

But the ache didn’t erase the resolve.

“How long until I can see them?” she asked softly. “The others. Even if they don’t see me.”

Izuku’s gaze dropped.

“Soon,” he said. “We just… have to be careful. One thing at a time.”

“Kero,” she said. “One thing at a time.”

She took a breath.

“Load me something bland,” she told Tank. “An office lady. Or a tourist. I’d like a hat, kero.”

Trinity laughed.

“I like her,” she said again.

 

---

In the Matrix, Class 1-A’s dorm hallway felt wrong.

Not just because Tsuyu’s door remained closed.

Because for the first time since they’d moved in, there was a little sign taped to it.

Handwritten, neat, with a small frog doodled in the corner:

GET WELL SOON, TSUYU!! – Ochaco ♡

Below that, other signatures crowded in different inks and styles.

Iida’s precise block letters.

Kirishima’s jagged enthusiastic scrawl.

Kaminari’s lightning bolt doodle.

Even Bakugou’s name, cramped and half-scratched out, as if he’d written it under protest.

Izuku stood in front of the door, fingers hovering just short of the wood.

He could feel the Matrix’s hum on the other side—Tsuyu’s coma routine, steady and compliant.

He hated it.

“Midoriya-kun,” Iida’s voice said behind him. “You’re blocking the hallway!”

He jumped.

“S-sorry!” he stammered, stepping aside.

Iida slowed as he drew level with the door.

His gaze softened behind his glasses.

“Another visit?” he asked, adjusting his armband. “You have been to see Asui-san often, have you not?”

Izuku’s throat tightened.

“Y-yeah,” he said. “I just… wanted to check on her. Again.”

Iida nodded, earnest. “Your dedication is commendable,” he said. “It is important that she know we have not forgotten her!”

Forgotten.

Izuku stared at the sign.

“I don’t think she could forget us,” he said softly.

He swallowed.

“I’m going now!” he said quickly, before his voice could crack. “To the hospital. I’ll… um… tell her you said hi.”

Ochaco appeared at the top of the stairs, arms full of a fruit basket and a folded blanket.

“Are you headed there too, Deku?” she asked, cheeks pink. “I was going to drop this off. The nurse said Tsuyu-chan gets cold easy…”

Izuku’s chest twisted.

“She does,” he whispered.

Bakugou leaned over the railing of the second-floor common area, scowling down at them.

“Oi,” he called. “If you idiots are going to cry over Coma-Frog again, do it quietly. Some of us are trying to nap.”

“You’ve been pacing for an hour,” Kaminari snitched from the couch.

“SHUT UP, SPARKPLUG!”

Izuku couldn’t help it.

He smiled, just a little.

“Come with us, Kacchan,” he called up. “You know you want to.”

Bakugou’s eye twitched.

He looked away for a second.

Then he vaulted the railing, landing in front of them with a small explosion under his feet.

“I’m only going to prove she’s still breathing and you losers are overreacting,” he muttered. “If that old hag says otherwise, I’m blowing the hospital up.”

“Please don’t,” Izuku and Iida said at the same time.

Bakugou clicked his tongue.

They walked.

The city around UA flowed in familiar patterns.

Cars.

Students.

Civilians.

Code.

Izuku felt Tsuyu’s absence more acutely than ever now that he knew exactly where she was instead.

Under the metal sky, plotting.

Here, behind glass, a ghost in a bed.

The hospital room was bright.

Too bright.

White sheets, white walls, the faint smell of disinfectant.

Fake sunlight streamed through the window.

Tsuyu lay in the bed, hair neatly brushed, frog clips by the pillow.

Monitors beeped with tidy regularity.

Her chest rose and fell.

Her eyes stayed closed.

Izuku knew this wasn’t her.

Not really.

Tank’s coma routine had stitched this together from old patterns: Tsuyu’s baseline vital signs, her typical sleeping posture, the way she sometimes murmured “kero” under her breath.

The simulation Tsuyu didn’t move when they entered.

Her code pinged status: STABLE – UNRESPONSIVE.

It still hurt like hell to see.

Ochaco set the fruit basket on the bedside table.

Kirishima, Mina, and Jirou clustered near the foot of the bed, quiet in a way they rarely were.

Iida bowed stiffly, hands at his sides.

“We are all rooting for your recovery, Asui-san!” he declared. “Please rest as long as you need!”

“Ribbit if the old hag’s lying about the ‘no timeline’ thing,” Bakugou muttered.

Recovery Girl harrumphed from her stool, cane tapping the floor. “I don’t lie to my patients,” she said. “I omit, I generalize, I scold, but I don’t lie.”

Her eyes were sharp as she looked over the cluster of students.

“We don’t know when she’ll wake up,” she went on. “Or how fully. Quirk feedback is unpredictable. You should all be prepared for a long wait.”

Izuku almost winced at the word “feedback.”

If only.

Mina sniffed loudly.

“This sucks,” she mumbled, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

Kirishima slung an arm around her shoulders.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “It does. But she’s tough. Tougher than most of us.”

Jirou tugged her earlobe, eyes on Tsuyu’s face.

“She’d tell us we’re being loud and weird,” she said. “And then offer us snacks.”

Uraraka smiled weakly.

“I’ll bring snacks next time,” she said. “Just in case.”

Bakugou stared at the bed, hands jammed in his pockets.

He didn’t speak.

His code buzzed in Izuku’s perception, restless and sharp.

“You okay, Kacchan?” Izuku asked quietly.

Bakugou’s gaze snapped to him.

“What do you think, nerd?” he snarled.

Izuku swallowed.

“Right,” he said. “Stupid question.”

Bakugou glared at the floor for a second.

Then, too quiet for the others, he muttered,

“She smells wrong.”

Izuku’s heart stuttered.

“W-what?” he croaked.

Bakugou’s jaw clenched.

“Hospital,” he clarified in a harsh whisper. “Metal. Disinfectant. She stinks like everyone else in here. No swamp. No frogs. It’s wrong.”

Izuku forced himself to breathe.

“O-Ochaco brought a fruit basket,” he said, latching onto the mundane. “Maybe the smell—”

“Don’t bullshit me, Deku,” Bakugou hissed. “You’re doing something. You and Aizawa.”

Izuku’s blood ran cold.

He looked over.

Aizawa stood near the window, arms folded, scarf loose, watching.

His gaze met Izuku’s over their students’ heads.

Careful, it said.

Bakugou’s fingers flexed.

“I’m not an idiot,” he said. “First the glitch. Then the drills. Then Froggy here just ‘happens’ to be the one who almost gets killed? Something’s off. And you know what it is.”

Izuku’s mouth went dry.

“I… I don’t…” he started.

Bakugou grabbed his arm in a grip that would bruise.

“Don’t lie to me,” he growled. “Lie to Four-Eyes, lie to Round-Face, lie to the extras. But don’t. Lie. To me.”

Izuku’s breath hitched.

His brain scrambled for a response that wasn’t the truth and wasn’t a flat denial.

He opened his mouth.

“Bakugou.”

Aizawa’s voice cut through the room, soft but sharp.

Bakugou’s shoulders went rigid.

Slowly, he released Izuku’s arm.

“What,” he said.

Aizawa’s expression didn’t change.

“Out,” he said. “All of you. Visiting hour’s over. Asui needs rest. You need training.”

Groans and protests met him.

“Already?” Mina whined.

“We just got here!” Kaminari added.

“Training is vital,” Iida declared, already half-turned toward the door. “Asui-san would not wish us to neglect our development on her account!”

“Exactly,” Aizawa said. “Move.”

They shuffled out, reluctant but obedient.

Bakugou lingered a fraction of a second longer.

He looked at Tsuyu’s still face.

Then at Izuku.

His eyes promised a conversation later.

One with more shouting.

He left without another word.

The room was suddenly very quiet.

Recovery Girl sighed.

“He’s going to blow eventually,” she muttered. “You should have a plan for that, Aizawa.”

“I do,” he said.

It wasn’t a good one.

It involved hoping Bakugou didn’t punch an Agent in the face before they could get to him.

Izuku stared at Tsuyu’s coma-ghost for a long moment.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, barely moving his lips.

On the ship, far away, Tsuyu shifted in her bunk and frowned in her sleep.

 

---

“Bakugou is going to explode,” Trinity said that night, staring at the code feed.

The screen showed Class 1-A’s dorm common room.

Most of the kids were sprawled on couches or at tables—doing homework, arguing over games, texting, napping.

Bakugou paced back and forth at the window like a caged lion, hands occasionally fizzing.

“He already explodes,” Izuku said, rubbing his shoulder where Bakugou had grabbed him. “That’s his thing.”

“Not like this,” Trinity said. “This isn’t ‘I’m mad about a math test.’ This is ‘I smell gasoline and don’t know where the fire is.’”

Tank nodded slowly. “His anomaly sensitivity’s climbing,” he said. “He doesn’t see code like you do, but he feels when the script’s off. That makes him dangerous. To the machines and to us.”

Tsuyu sat on a crate nearby, wrapped in a blanket, mug of something vaguely tea-like in her hands.

Her hair was still damp from a quick sponge bath, curls clinging to her cheeks.

“He was right about the smell,” she said quietly. “My ghost doesn’t smell like me, kero. Not really. They got the shampoo and hospital stink right. Not the… swamp.”

Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Their sense of smell is going to kill me,” he muttered.

Morpheus watched the screen with that distant, thoughtful gaze.

“We always knew we’d have to tell him,” he said. “The question is when, and how many vectors we want pointed at a raging fireball while we do.”

Izuku’s fingers tapped an anxious rhythm on his own knee.

“We could wake him next,” he said. “Kacchan. Before he does something that triggers a full Agent response.”

Aizawa shook his head immediately.

“No,” he said. “Not yet.”

Izuku flinched.

“But—”

“He’s not wrong,” Tsuyu said softly. “Bakugou-kun will keep poking until something pokes back, kero.”

“That’s the problem,” Aizawa said. “He’ll punch whatever pokes. Hard. We barely kept a lid on him with USJ. Throw him into a corridor with Agents before he understands what they are, and he’ll get himself and everyone near him deleted.”

Izuku’s throat tightened.

“So who?” he asked. “Iida? Uraraka? Yaoyorozu? If we wait too long, the machines will move first.”

They all fell quiet.

Morpheus finally spoke.

“Iida Tenya has a strong sense of order,” he said. “He’ll help keep others calm. But his faith in institutions may make him resist the idea that all structural authority is compromised. That kind of disillusionment can break a mind.”

“Uraraka Ochaco trusts easily,” Trinity said. “Especially you, Midoriya. That works in our favor. But she’s also… open. She wears everything on her face. Harder to hide the shift when she goes back in. The system watches emotional outliers.”

“Yaoyorozu Momo is intelligent and adaptable,” Tank put in. “Her support gear alone would be a nightmare for the machines if she learned to exploit it with rule-bending. But her self-esteem is fragile. Waking up to ‘your entire world is a lie’ might crush what’s left.”

Tsuyu listened, eyes half-lidded.

“You’re treating them like puzzle pieces,” she said.

“Welcome to guerilla warfare,” Trinity replied.

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she said. “I know. I don’t have a better way. I just… don’t like it.”

“Neither do we,” Morpheus said softly.

Izuku stared at his hands.

“What if we don’t pick just one?” he blurted.

They looked at him.

He swallowed.

“Tsu came out first,” he said. “She’s… listening. Thinking. Learning. What if the second person we bring in… we don’t unplug them yet?”

Tsuyu blinked.

“Kero?” she said. “You mean… tell them from inside?”

He nodded nervously.

“Just one,” he said. “Someone we trust not to panic loudly. We give them a piece of the truth. Not everything. ‘The world is wrong, UA is compromised, trust us when we say move.’ We don’t yank them out of their pod yet. We just… make them an ally on the inside.”

Trinity rubbed her chin.

“An in-Matrix ally who knows the rules are fake but stays plugged in,” she said. “Dangerous. The system might mark them as unstable and quarantine.”

“Or overwrite,” Tank muttered.

Morpheus tilted his head.

“But not if the anomalies are subtle,” he said slowly. “A crack in their belief, not a shatter. Enough doubt to make them move when we need them to. Enough faith left that the machines don’t label them defective.”

Aizawa’s jaw tightened.

“That’s a knife-edge to put a child on,” he said. “I’m already over my quota of those.”

Tsuyu sipped her tea.

“The ones most likely to hold that balance,” she said thoughtfully, “are the ones already dancing on edges, kero.”

Izuku looked at her.

“Who do you mean?” he asked.

She considered.

“Uraraka-chan feels… everything,” she said. “She might sag under the weight. Yaoyorozu-san doubts herself too much. Iida-kun trusts rules more than people, kero. He’d want to tell a teacher. That would go badly.”

She glanced at the screen.

Bakugou paced, scowl carved into his face.

His code signature burned.

“He exists on the edge,” she said simply. “Always has. Anger and pride and… an inconvenient amount of heart, kero.”

Izuku swallowed.

“You think we should tell Bakugou?” he whispered. “Before unplugging him?”

She nodded once.

“He already knows something’s wrong,” she said. “If we don’t give that fear a shape, he’ll shape it himself. He’ll punch the wrong thing.”

Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Of course,” he muttered. “The frog wants to hand the grenade more ammo.”

Tsuyu’s lips quirked.

“Better we hand him a shield and show him where to aim, kero,” she said.

Trinity grinned.

“I’m with Tsu on this one,” she said. “We can’t sit on this forever. The machines are already poking. Bakugou’s a loaded gun. If we’re careful, we can point him away from the trigger until we’re ready.”

Morpheus looked at Aizawa.

“The decision is yours,” he said. “They’re your students.”

Aizawa stared at the screen.

At Bakugou.

At the empty space where Tsuyu would have been.

At Izuku’s reflection in the glass.

He looked tired.

Older.

He always looked tired.

But tonight, Tsuyu thought, something in him hardened rather than frayed.

He set his mug down carefully.

“We do it my way,” he said.

Trinity’s brows rose. “Which is?” she asked.

“We don’t sit Bakugou down and say ‘the world is a computer,’” Aizawa said. “We give him something smaller. Something he can fight without punching the sky.”

He glanced at Izuku.

“We tell him there are people messing with UA’s systems,” he went on. “More than villains. That we’ve made… outside contacts who can help us protect the class if we move fast when things go wrong. We make it a security problem, not a cosmic one.”

Izuku frowned slowly.

“A half-truth,” he said.

“A manageable slice,” Aizawa corrected. “He already knows I’m working with somebody. Let him think it’s a hacker group. Underground heroes. Whatever. We tell him: when I say ‘move,’ you move. When Midoriya says ‘trust me,’ you trust him. No questions, no explosions.”

Tsuyu’s eyelids drooped thoughtfully.

“Kero,” she said. “You’re turning him into a failsafe.”

“Yes,” Aizawa said. “If the system throws something at us we didn’t plan for, I want someone in that room who will act instead of freezing. Who will grab the others and run. He’s already that person. I’d rather he run in the direction we pick.”

Morpheus inclined his head.

“It’s… inelegant,” he admitted. “But effective. And it buys us time before we have to rip his world out from under him.”

Izuku let out a shaky breath.

“Okay,” he said. “So we keep Bakugou mostly inside, with a partial truth. Tsu out here. Me half and half. Sensei halfway broken. That’s… a lot of halves.”

“Welcome to war,” Trinity said again.

Tsuyu slurped the last of her tea.

“Kero,” she said. “So when do I go listen to the wires?”

Tank grinned.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “Office lady package is almost ready. I found you a nice beige coat. Very inconspicuous.”

Tsuyu made a face.

“I miss my raincoat already, kero,” she said.

 

---

Being in the Matrix again felt like stepping into a painting.

Everything was too much.

The sky too blue.

The concrete too smooth.

The faces too clean.

Tsuyu stood on a busy sidewalk in downtown Musutafu, clutching a sensible handbag, her hair pulled back into a simple bun.

Her reflection in a shop window showed a thirty-something office worker in a bland blouse and skirt.

Her tongue wanted to flick out.

She suppressed the impulse.

Office ladies did not lick the air.

She inhaled instead.

The city’s smell rushed at her.

Exhaust.

Grilled meat from a food stand.

Perfume.

Hot pavement.

Synthetic fabric.

Underneath, she felt the hum of code—softer than in the Construct, braided through everything.

She could taste the gaps.

The spots where the Matrix had painted over cracks with procedural generation and called it a day.

“You okay?” Izuku’s voice murmured in her earpiece.

“Kero,” she said under her breath. “I’m okay. It’s… loud.”

He stood half a block away, leaning against a vending machine in a hoodie and jeans, looking like any other high schooler killing time after class.

Aizawa sat on a bench reading a newspaper, capture scarf coiled around his neck like a perfectly normal accessory for a hero in off-duty clothes.

To anyone else, they were just… there.

To Tsuyu, they glowed a little.

She walked.

Her heels clicked on the sidewalk.

It felt wrong.

Her instinct was to crouch, to hop, to cling to the side of a building and watch from above.

Instead, she did what Trinity had drilled into her.

She blended.

“Your route will take you two blocks from UA’s perimeter,” Tank’s voice said softly. “We’re not taking you right up to the campus on your first run. Just close enough to feel the ripples.”

“Kero,” she replied. “Understood.”

She passed a café.

An Agent sat at a window table in a tan suit, stirring a spoon in an empty cup.

His code signature was cold.

Watching.

He didn’t look up at her.

He didn’t need to.

The hum around him warped slightly, like heat haze.

She kept walking.

“By the café,” she whispered. “Agent. Not looking. Feels like a dead frog in pond scum, kero.”

Trinity snorted quietly. “That’s one way to put it,” she said. “Good job not staring. The more we avoid drawing their attention, the more bored they stay.”

Tsuyu turned down a side street.

The traffic noise faded a little.

Children’s laughter drifted from a nearby playground—a splash of color in the half-seen map of the city in her mind.

She focused on the hum.

UA’s sector pulsed ahead like a heartbeat.

Strong.

Measured.

Controlled.

She could feel the bunker drills in the code—a new rhythm layered over the old routines.

Conditional tags.

Emergency flags.

The bunker’s ANOMALOUS BUT TOLERATED note still hung there, a faint irritation in the system’s self-image.

She tasted the air.

“Kero,” she murmured. “UA smells… itchy.”

“Technical term?” Aizawa asked dryly.

“Like the code wants to scratch itself,” she clarified. “But doesn’t know how. The bunker route is… a scab. They keep poking it.”

Tank hummed. “We’re seeing increased watchdog checks on that sector,” he confirmed. “Nothing active yet. Just… sniffing.”

She stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for the light.

A group of UA students in familiar uniforms passed on the other side of the street, chatting.

Her heart stuttered.

She saw Kirishima’s spiky hair, Kaminari’s slouch, Momo’s composed posture.

She saw Izuku’s own code double, a faint echo of his student profile, moving toward the campus.

He watched himself pass with a peculiar expression.

“Cute,” Trinity muttered. “Two Dekus for the price of one.”

“Is… that safe, kero?” Tsuyu whispered.

“Ghost routines,” Tank said. “We keep his official profile running when he’s not in. ‘Midoriya Izuku, present and accounted for, attending classes, definitely not bending reality’ and all that. It’s a shallow pattern. No deep cognition.”

Tsuyu’s fingers tightened on her handbag.

She watched her friends cross the intersection.

They didn’t see her.

They wouldn’t have recognized her if they had.

It hurt.

She breathed.

“They’re okay,” she murmured, more to herself than anyone else.

For now.

She walked on.

At the edge of UA’s visible walls, she slowed.

The campus looked the same.

Gate.

Guards.

Cameras.

Students filtering in and out.

An Agent presence lurked near the guard station, colder than the rest.

But something else glowed faintly on the second floor of the main building.

Nezu’s office.

His code signature shimmered like a fractal.

Part human.

Part machine.

Part something in between.

“Kero,” she said quietly. “Principal’s watching.”

“Always,” Tank muttered.

“Anything unusual?” Morpheus asked.

Tsuyu narrowed her eyes, letting her awareness drift.

The code around Nezu’s office felt…

Retuned.

Some watchdog flags had been rerouted there.

Logs from the bunker.

From Stairwell C.

From their last “villain” incident.

“He’s… collecting,” she said. “Information. Like a hamster stuffing his cheeks.”

“That tracks,” Aizawa sighed.

She listened further.

A subroutine near the athletic field flickered.

Unused emergency exit scripts simmered.

She felt the memory of their last Agent test pulse faintly over the bunker door.

“It’s like someone scratched a note into a tree, kero,” she said. “The system doesn’t like graffiti, but it’s not erasing it yet. It wants to understand it first.”

“Machines love their experiments,” Trinity said darkly. “We’re one of them now.”

Tsuyu’s lips thinned.

“Kero,” she said. “Then we poke their experiment in the eyes.”

She stepped away from the campus, blending back into the civilian flow.

She worked her route like they’d planned—around blocks, past vantage points, listening, tasting the air.

An Agent moved three blocks away, then lost interest, returning to his patrol.

Nezu’s code shimmered.

UA’s hum persisted.

Nothing exploded.

On the way back, she passed a small park.

Children played on swings.

Parents chatted.

A stray dog sniffed at a trash can.

She paused.

The dog looked up.

Its code was… simpler.

Less structured.

More wild.

It tilted its head at her, then trotted over and pushed its nose against her hand.

She blinked.

“Kero,” she said softly. “Hello.”

It wagged its tail.

Izuku’s voice chuckled in her ear.

“Making friends?” he asked.

She scratched the dog’s head.

The fur felt real.

It smelled like fur.

And under that, faintly, the hum of code that believed very strongly in being a dog.

“No questioning its existence,” she said. “Must be nice, kero.”

The light turned.

She crossed the street.

When the payphone in the convenience store rang, she answered without hesitation.

The world dropped away.

 

---

Back on the ship, she sagged in the chair, heart racing.

Her fingertips tingled.

Her tongue flicked out weakly.

Aizawa’s hand was already on the jack.

He eased it out.

“Breathe,” he said.

She did.

It was easier, this time, to reconcile the two worlds.

White room.

Office lady.

Ship.

Metal.

Stillness.

After a moment, she croaked,

“Kero. I did not enjoy the shoes.”

Trinity laughed aloud.

“Welcome back,” she said. “You did great. Clean run. No Agent nibbles.”

Tank nodded, flipping through data. “We got good readings,” he said. “Your sensory tapes are gold. You picked up on a subroutine near the field I didn’t even see.”

Tsuyu leaned back against the chair, exhausted but buzzing.

“Do I get credit hours for this?” she asked. “Heroics class, maybe, kero?”

Aizawa’s mouth twitched.

“Only if you hand in the paperwork,” he said. “No exceptions.”

Izuku flopped into the chair next to her, grinning despite his own nerves.

“You were amazing,” he said. “I mean, your analysis of the bunker flag alone— and the way you described Nezu’s code ‘stuffing his cheeks’—we could build a whole probability model on that—”

“Midoriya,” Aizawa said warningly.

Izuku coughed.

“Sorry,” he said. “You did good. Is the simple version.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Thanks, kero,” she said.

She sobered.

“Now we have more pieces,” she added. “More to work with. The question is… what do we do with them?”

Morpheus stepped closer, hands folded.

“We keep watching,” he said. “We let the machines believe they are observing a controlled anomaly. Meanwhile, we use the cracks to plan.”

He looked at Izuku.

“At Aizawa.”

“At Tsuyu.”

“Outside,” he said, “you three learn to bend the rules. Inside, you keep teaching your class to move when told, to think beyond the script, to trust each other more than the system.”

Tsuyu nodded slowly.

“And Bakugou-kun?” she asked.

Aizawa sighed.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “We start tomorrow.”

Izuku swallowed.

“With… the half-truth,” he said.

“The survivable truth,” Aizawa corrected. “I’ll handle the talking. You handle not making terrified faces behind him.”

“I make terrified faces?” Izuku squeaked.

All three of them stared at him.

He wilted.

“O-okay,” he muttered. “I’ll… work on that.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled, amusement and worry mixed.

“Kero,” she said. “I’ll be… listening. From the wires. While you talk.”

“Good,” Aizawa said. “If I miss something, I expect a report.”

Trinity clapped her hands once.

“Break time over,” she declared. “Tsuyu, back to bed. You just did your first in-and-out. You’re going to crash hard in ten minutes.”

Tsuyu’s muscles already felt like damp noodles.

“Carrying me is undignified, kero,” she informed Izuku when he moved to help.

He hesitated.

“Walking into the bulkhead is more undignified,” he replied gently.

She thought about that.

Then held out her arms.

He scooped her up, careful of the ports.

She was light.

Too light.

She tucked her head against his shoulder, listening to the steady thump of his heart.

Real.

The ship’s hum vibrated through the metal.

Outside, the machine fields stretched on.

Inside, a frog and a problem child plotted treason with their exhausted homeroom teacher and a handful of rebels.

In UA’s dorms, Bakugou lay awake, staring at the cracks in the ceiling over his bed.

Something’s wrong, he thought.

Not just with Tsuyu.

Not just with Deku.

With everything.

His hands sparked in the dark.

He clenched them into fists.

“Fine,” he muttered to the empty room. “If you’re hiding something, Deku… I’m gonna drag it out of you.”

Good, Izuku might have said, if he’d heard.

He didn’t.

But tomorrow, they’d take the first step toward that conversation.

On a knife-edge.

In a cage.

With a frog in the wires and a match in a boy’s hands.

Chapter Text

 

 

 

Bakugou hated being called to the staff room.

It smelled like burnt coffee and paperwork.

Also, Aizawa.

He kicked the door open with more force than necessary, hands jammed in his pockets.

“What?” he snapped. “If this is about me ‘shouting in the dorms’ again, I—”

Aizawa didn’t look up from the file in his hands.

“Close the door,” he said.

Bakugou’s eyes narrowed.

He shut it with a hard thunk.

The room was empty otherwise—no snoring Midnight, no Present Mic draped over a chair, no Nezu sipping tea like a tiny judge.

Just Aizawa, slumped on a couch, hair down, scarf coiled in his lap like a sleeping animal.

Bakugou’s hackles went up.

“This some kind of interrogation?” he demanded. “You gonna stare at me till I confess to breathing too loud?”

Aizawa sighed, set the file aside, and finally met his eyes.

“This is the third time you’ve cornered Midoriya in a week,” he said. “Once in the hall, twice in the dorms. You’ve been pacing more. You’re snapping more. You asked Recovery Girl if Tsuyu smelled ‘fake.’”

Bakugou bristled.

“You watching me that close, old man?” he sneered. “Got nothing better to do?”

“Yes,” Aizawa said bluntly. “I have better things to do. Unfortunately, you are one of them. Sit down.”

He nodded at the chair opposite.

Bakugou stayed standing.

“You wanna lecture me?” he said. “Do it fast. I’ve got training.”

Aizawa’s eyes narrowed faintly behind his goggles.

“This is training,” he said.

Something in his tone made Bakugou pause.

Not the usual “I’m going to expel you” boredom.

Not the lazy drawl he used when Kaminari shorted himself out.

Something sharper.

Bakugou grudgingly dropped into the chair.

It squeaked under him.

Aizawa watched him with that half-lidded, too-awake gaze.

“You’re not wrong,” he said.

Bakugou blinked.

“Huh?”

“You’re not wrong,” Aizawa repeated. “About things being… off.”

The hairs on Bakugou’s arms stood up.

He forced a scoff.

“Keh. I knew it,” he said. “The whole ‘gas leak’ drill, the messed-up stairs, Froggy’s ‘quirk feedback’—you expect me to swallow that? I’m not stupid.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” Aizawa muttered. “But no. I don’t expect you to swallow it.”

He leaned forward slowly, resting his elbows on his knees.

“There is something wrong with UA’s systems,” he said. “More than the faculty wants to print in newsletters. More than the press will ever hear.”

Bakugou’s heartbeat spiked.

He tried not to show it.

“Tch. So fix it,” he said. “You’re the adults. That’s what you’re for.”

“We’re trying,” Aizawa said. “With help.”

There was a faint emphasis on the last word.

Bakugou’s eyes narrowed.

“What kind of help?” he asked. “Who?”

Aizawa hesitated.

Bakugou pounced on it.

“Spit it out,” he growled.

Aizawa’s gaze slid to the door, then back.

“There’s an… underground group,” he said slowly. “Off the books. Call them hackers, call them vigilantes, call them whatever you want. They’ve been watching certain… patterns. In the city. In UA.”

Bakugou’s fingers twitched against the armrest.

“Patterns like glitches on the training ground,” he said. “Stupid villains popping out of nowhere. Tsuyu ‘accidentally’ being in the way.”

“Among other things,” Aizawa said.

Bakugou’s mouth curled.

“You working with them?” he demanded. “The big paranoid homeroom teacher breaking school rules? Shocking.”

Aizawa’s lips twitched.

“It would break fewer rules if I wasn’t working with them,” he said dryly. “Ignoring this would be negligence.”

Bakugou leaned back, drumming his fingers.

“So what?” he said. “Some nerds in a basement hack the PA system, and suddenly you’re all buddy-buddy? How am I supposed to believe this isn’t just another layer of bull?”

Aizawa studied him.

“You smelled it,” he said quietly. “In the shelter. In Tsuyu’s room. In the hall.”

Bakugou’s jaw clenched.

He didn’t like being read.

“It’s worse when you say it,” he snapped. “Just spit it out. What do you want from me?”

There it was.

The core.

Aizawa exhaled slowly.

“I want you to do what you’re already doing,” he said. “But with direction.”

Bakugou blinked.

“That’s the worst motivational speech I’ve ever heard,” he said.

Aizawa ignored him.

“These… people,” he went on, “are trying to keep UA ahead of whatever’s creeping through the systems. They can’t show up in the open. They can’t talk to every student. They reach me. Midoriya. A few others.”

Bakugou’s eyes flared.

“I knew it was Deku,” he snarled. “Little extra’s always in the middle of—”

“Shut up and listen,” Aizawa cut in.

Bakugou’s teeth clicked together.

“Your instincts are good,” Aizawa said. “Annoyingly good. You notice when the script changes. When the air doesn’t ‘smell’ right. When emergencies feel… manufactured.”

Bakugou snorted. “You call that a compliment?” he asked.

“Yes,” Aizawa said. “Don’t make me regret it.”

He sat back, fingers steepled.

“I can’t tell you everything,” he said. “Because if I do, and something starts digging in your head, it’ll take everything with it. But I can tell you this: there are people outside UA who know more than we do about these anomalies. They can nudge things. Mess with routes. Jam signals. They’ve helped already. Midoriya and I work with them.”

He paused.

“If I tell you to move,” he said quietly, “it might not just be because a villain walked in the door. It might be because those people saw something in the system shift. Something I can’t explain in time. Something that wants you where it can see you.”

Bakugou’s scowl deepened.

“So your hacker friends say ‘duck,’ you say ‘duck,’ and we’re all supposed to… duck,” he said. “That it?”

“Yes,” Aizawa said. “And not ask ‘why’ in the moment.”

There was a beat of stunned silence.

Then Bakugou exploded.

“ARE YOU INSANE?” he shouted, half-standing. “You want me to follow orders from some faceless nerd who can’t even show their face? You want me to trust whatever freaks are messing with our PA system over my own eyes?”

Aizawa didn’t flinch.

“Yes,” he said again.

Bakugou’s hands sparked.

“NO,” he snarled. “You don’t get it— I’m not your obedient little minion. I’m going to be number one. I don’t run because some basement rat says so—”

“I’m not asking you to trust them,” Aizawa said sharply. “I’m asking you to trust me.”

The words cut through Bakugou’s tirade like a blade.

He froze.

The room rang with the echo of his shout.

Aizawa held his gaze.

“If you want to be a pro,” he said quietly, “you’re going to be in situations where your sensor tech screams and your eyes see nothing. Where your partner shouts ‘move’ and you don’t know why yet. Where you either trust the voices in your earpiece or watch people die while you demand an explanation.”

His voice dropped.

“The people we’re dealing with don’t care about your pride,” he said. “They care about control. Our only advantage is moving faster than their script. That means when I say ‘Bakugou, get them out,’ you do it. No questions.”

Bakugou’s jaw worked.

“You’re asking me to be your dog,” he said, voice low.

“I’m asking you to be my detonator,” Aizawa said. “Controlled. Directed. A blast where I need it, when I need it. Not a firework going off in the wrong direction.”

Bakugou’s anger flared, then did something strange.

It folded.

Turned inward.

“…You think I can do that,” he said slowly.

He sounded almost surprised.

Aizawa’s mouth twitched.

“You’re already doing it,” he said. “Every time you drag Kirishima out of trouble. Every time you blow a path open at USJ or the training grounds. Every time you act before anyone else has finished panicking.”

He leaned forward again, elbows on knees.

“You are not subtle,” he said. “You are not calm. You are not easy to manage.”

Bakugou bristled, but Aizawa continued:

“…But you are reliable,” he said. “When things go sideways, you move. Towards the danger. Towards the problem. I need that. I need you.”

The words landed like a punch.

Bakugou stared.

He’d wanted praise from All Might.

He’d wanted acknowledgment from the world.

He hadn’t… prepared… for Aizawa saying that.

“I’m not asking you to believe in some faceless hackers,” Aizawa went on. “I’m telling you they exist. I’m telling you they’ve helped. I’m telling you they’re part of the reason Tsuyu’s still breathing.”

Bakugou’s head snapped up.

“What?” he demanded. “What the hell does that mean?”

Aizawa’s gaze stayed steady.

“There are things I can’t say yet without painting bigger targets on your backs,” he said. “But when Tsuyu collapsed, it wasn’t just Recovery Girl working on stabilizing her. There were people… off the grid… keeping certain signals from reaching certain ears. Buying us time. Buying her time.”

He shrugged slightly.

“You don’t have to thank them,” he said. “You don’t have to like them. You just have to understand that when they flag an ‘anomaly,’ and I tell you to move, it’s because there is something bigger than hand-grenade villains in play.”

Bakugou’s pulse roared in his ears.

He hated half-truths.

He hated riddles.

He hated being left out of the biggest fights.

But.

Tsuyu.

Tiny, calm, frog-faced Tsuyu.

Ghost-quiet in a hospital bed.

If this was connected to her—

His hands flexed.

“What do you want?” he asked again.

Aizawa exhaled.

“Three things,” he said. “One: when I say ‘move,’ you move. No arguments. Drag anyone near you with you.”

Bakugou’s mouth twisted.

“Fine,” he muttered. “If you’re wrong, I’m punching you.”

“Accepted,” Aizawa said. “Two: when Midoriya says ‘trust me,’ you give him ten seconds of trust. Not more. Not less.”

Bakugou recoiled like he’d been slapped.

“TRUST—ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR—”

“Ten seconds,” Aizawa repeated. “You can yell at him after. But in those ten, you follow. No blowing up his plan before it starts.”

“Why the hell—”

“Because he’s the one the hackers talk to,” Aizawa said bluntly. “Because he sees things the rest of you don’t. You don’t have to like it. You do have to not sabotage it.”

Bakugou’s teeth ground.

He thought of Deku’s shaking hands on the bunker door.

Of the way the hallways had stopped stretching when he’d glared at them.

Of Recovery Girl muttering about “something weird in the logs” while Deku looked like he was going to pass out.

He scowled.

“Ten seconds,” he spat. “No more.”

“That’s all I asked,” Aizawa said. “Three: you don’t talk about this to anyone else. Not Iida. Not Uraraka. Not Kaminari. Not even Kirishima.”

Bakugou bristled. “Kirishima’s not an idiot,” he growled. “He can handle—”

“I know he can,” Aizawa said. “But the more people we bring into this circle, the more cracks the system has to crawl through. For now, it’s Midoriya, me, and you. Nobody else.”

“Your hacker friends,” Bakugou said.

“And them,” Aizawa said. “Whoever they are.”

Bakugou stared.

Then, very slowly, he said,

“This is stupid.”

“Yes,” Aizawa said.

“It’s risky,” Bakugou added.

“Yes.”

“It’s going to piss me off,” he finished.

“Definitely,” Aizawa said.

Bakugou’s hands sparked.

A small, tight grin crept across his face.

“Good,” he said. “I like it.”

Aizawa sighed.

“Of course you do,” he muttered.

He pushed himself to his feet.

“Get out of here,” he said. “Training field in twenty minutes. We’re doing evacuation drills. Again.”

Bakugou snorted.

“Try not to trip over your wires, old man,” he said, heading for the door.

Aizawa watched him go.

When the door clicked shut, he let his shoulders slump.

“Trinity?” he said quietly.

Her voice crackled in his ear.

“Not bad,” she said. “You didn’t even swear once.”

“I wanted to,” he muttered.

“Bakugou’s anomaly rating just spiked,” Tank reported. “But his compliance index went up with it. You did it. You turned suspicion into… somewhat cooperative paranoia.”

Aizawa scrubbed a hand over his face.

“I hate these metrics,” he said.

---

Tsuyu listened from the wires.

In the Construct, she stood in the white room with an UA hallway projection floating at chest height like a translucent scroll.

Bakugou’s code signature pulsed in the tiny rendered staff room.

She heard his voice through the tap Trinity had set.

She heard Aizawa’s answer.

When Aizawa said, “I’m asking you to be my detonator,” her throat bubbled.

“Good metaphor, kero,” she murmured.

Izuku paced circles around a chair behind her, fists opening and closing.

“What if he doesn’t listen?” he fretted. “What if he pretends to agree and then—”

“He won’t,” Tsuyu said calmly.

Izuku blinked.

“How can you be so sure?” he demanded.

“Pride,” she said. “Bakugou-kun hates being wrong more than anything. If he agrees to something and then breaks it, he’ll feel like he failed. He’ll find another way to be contrary.”

Izuku stared, then laughed weakly.

“That… actually makes sense,” he admitted.

On the scroll, Bakugou’s code flared when Aizawa said, “Ten seconds of trust.”

Tsuyu winced sympathetically.

“That’s going to hurt, kero,” she said. “But it’s enough.”

“Enough for what?” Izuku asked.

“For you to shove a door open,” she said. “Or bend a hallway. Or grab someone by the collar and jump. Ten seconds is… a lot, when things are breaking, kero.”

Izuku stopped pacing.

His hands trembled.

“I’m scared,” he admitted quietly.

“Good,” Tsuyu said.

He stared at her.

“Good?” he echoed.

She nodded.

“It means you’re not going to take risks just to prove something,” she said. “Your fear keeps you from being reckless in the wrong ways, kero. Bakugou-kun’s anger keeps him moving. Aizawa-sensei’s paranoia keeps him planning.”

She looked back at the hallway projection.

“We balance each other,” she said simply.

Izuku swallowed.

“Do you… trust this?” he asked. “This… half-truth thing? With Kacchan?”

Her lips pressed together.

“Kero,” she said slowly. “I don’t like it. But I think it’s… the only way to bring him close to the edge without pushing him over.”

She paused.

“And I trust you,” she added. “And sensei. That counts for something.”

His eyes went shiny.

“Tsu,” he whispered. “I—”

The Construct flickered.

A siren pinged in their ears.

“Showtime,” Tank said. “UA just logged a ‘security test.’ That’s code for ‘machines are poking again.’ You two, front row seats. Aizawa and Bakugou are about to have their first joint drill under the new rules.”

Tsuyu’s heart sped up.

“Let’s see if the detonator works, kero,” she said.

---

The Matrix chose lunchtime.

Of course it did.

The cafeteria hummed with noise.

Class 1-A had claimed two tables near the windows—trays covered in food, conversations overlapping.

“—telling you, if we add more sugar, it’ll taste better, not worse—”

“Kaminari, more sugar is not the answer to every problem, kero—”

“We should bring more notes to Tsuyu-chan next time,” Uraraka said. “She’ll want updates!”

Izuku sat at the edge of the group, picking at his rice, trying not to stare at the corners of the room.

The code in the walls buzzed.

The machines were restless.

He felt it like a migraine brewing.

Across from him, Iida was in the middle of a passionate lecture about the importance of handrails.

“—and that is why, despite their occasional inconvenience, stairway safety guidelines—”

The lights flickered.

Just once.

Most of the students laughed it off.

“Geez, stormy much?” Kaminari joked.

Izuku’s stomach dropped.

He felt the shift.

The Matrix’s script sliding into a new position.

“Midoriya,” Trinity whispered in his ear. “They just queued a ‘villain intrusion simulation’ near the main entrance. No prior notice. No teacher briefing. That’s not UA. That’s the machines.”

Tank added, “Agents sniffing but not spawning yet. They want to see how the kids move without adult prompts.”

Morpheus’s voice was calm.

“This is a test,” he said. “For them… and for you.”

Izuku’s hands shook under the table.

He glanced toward the staff corner.

Aizawa sat alone, scarf draped over his shoulders, eyes half-lidded.

He looked like he was napping.

He wasn’t.

Izuku could feel the thread.

Aizawa’s awareness, keyed to the same anomaly.

Bakugou sat two seats down, boots on the chair, shoveling food into his mouth like he was trying to intimidate it.

He scowled at the flickering lights, then at Izuku.

“The hell was that?” he demanded.

Izuku swallowed.

“Probably nothing,” he said.

He saw Bakugou’s eyes narrow.

“Nothing my ass,” he muttered.

The PA crackled.

“Attention,” the bland voice said. “This is a level-three perimeter breach drill. All students are to evacuate the cafeteria and move to their designated shelter areas immediately. This is a drill.”

Izuku almost laughed.

Level three? UA didn’t have numbered “levels” on its drills.

At least, not any they were told about.

The room erupted into chatter.

“Again?” Mina groaned.

“Man, I barely started eating!” Kirishima complained.

Iida shot to his feet. “Everyone, please remain calm!” he declared. “We shall evacuate in an orderly—”

The window nearest the door warped.

Just a little.

Just enough for Izuku to see the pixelation.

A beat later, it shattered inward.

Not from a thrown object.

Not from an explosion.

It simply… broke, glass splintering into glittering shards that hung in the air a half-second too long before falling.

Students screamed.

Smoke spilled in—not real smoke, Izuku realized, but simulated: no smell, no taste. Just visual.

He tasted the emptiness.

System-generated confusion, Tsuyu’s voice said in his ear. “No heat. No burning plastic. Just noise, kero.”

The door burst open.

A pair of “villains” charged in—henchman types with cheap masks and plastic-looking guns.

Their code signatures were thin.

Subroutines.

Not real people.

The Matrix was staging a show.

“Villain incursion!” someone shouted.

Panic surged.

Students shoved back from the windows, some activating quirks, others freezing.

Izuku’s heart pounded.

“Agents?” he choked.

“Not yet,” Tank said. “No suits. Just toys. They want to see how far they can push script deviations before the staff react.”

Aizawa stood.

He didn’t activate his quirk.

Didn’t grab his scarf.

He just moved along the room’s edge, eyes scanning, gauging the tide.

His voice slid into Izuku’s ear, low and flat.

“Ten seconds,” he said.

Izuku’s breath hitched.

A hand seized the front of his uniform.

Bakugou yanked him half out of his seat.

“You heard him,” Bakugou snarled under the cafeteria roar. “Ten seconds. Don’t make me regret this, nerd.”

Izuku’s vision doubled.

The timer in his head clicked on.

1. 

Bakugou shoved Kirishima off the end of the bench and into the aisle. “MOVE, SHITTY HAIR,” he barked. “You’re on door detail. Tape-boy, you too. We’re making a tunnel.”

Sero, already half-rising with instinct, blinked and snapped into motion. “On it!” he said, firing tape toward the far wall.

2. 

Smoke thickened near the broken window.

The “villains” raised their guns.

Izuku saw the script behind the bullets—rubber, non-lethal, designed to bruise and scare, not kill.

The Matrix wasn’t aiming to hurt yet.

Just to measure.

3. 

“Midoriya,” Trinity said. “Back stairwell’s about to ‘malfunction.’ If everyone follows the posted route, they’ll hit a locked door and pile up. You know what to do.”

Izuku’s pulse surged.

He did.

He’d seen the map enough times in the Construct.

He could feel the flag on that stairwell: STATUS = JAMMED.

4. 

He grabbed the edge of the table and hauled himself fully to his feet.

“Everyone!” he shouted, voice cracking. “The back stairs—don’t use the main route! It’s—”

Bakugou’s hand clamped on his shoulder.

“You don’t get to speech, Deku,” he snarled. “You get to point.”

5. 

Izuku swallowed.

He pointed.

“Kitchen exit!” he yelled. “Through the serving hall! It connects to Stairwell D— we drilled it last week with sensei!”

That part was a lie.

Mostly.

The connection existed.

They hadn’t drilled it.

But the Matrix already had the route coded.

He could feel it.

6. 

The script pushed back.

The “approved” evacuation arrows over the main door blazed bright red.

The kitchen door’s emergency tag flickered uncertainly.

“Nezu override,” Tsuyu whispered from the wires. “Push it, kero.”

Izuku shoved his awareness into the path.

Emergency protocol, he told the code. Alternate route. Authorized. Authorized.

The field over the main door dimmed.

The kitchen’s flickered.

7. 

Aizawa’s voice cut through the noise.

“YOU HEARD HIM!” he barked. “BACK EXIT! MOVE!”

Students who’d hesitated now surged toward the serving line.

Bakugou planted himself at the bottleneck, palms popping, eyes blazing.

“MOVE, EXTRAS!” he bellowed. “If you trip, I’m stepping on you!”

It worked.

Fear of Bakugou outweighed confusion.

Bodies flowed.

8. 

A “villain” fired a rubber round at the ceiling, sending tiles crashing down.

Students screamed again.

Mina slipped.

One of the tiles careened toward her.

Bakugou blasted it mid-air without looking.

“HEADS DOWN!” he roared.

9. 

Izuku’s focus tunneled.

Kitchen door.

Stairwell D.

Bunker route beyond that.

The script tried to twist, to reroute them back toward the field.

He bared his teeth.

No, he thought. Inside. Down. Safe.

His head throbbed.

His vision blurred green.

He felt Tsuyu at the edge of his awareness, steady as a rock.

“Kero,” she murmured. “Three steps to the left. The floor’s trying to stretch.”

He staggered sideways, pulling three kids with him.

The floor where they’d been wavered for a heartbeat, then settled.

10. 

They burst into the kitchen.

Steam hissed from industrial sinks.

Pots rattled.

Cooks yelled as a dozen students barreled past.

The emergency door at the back glowed faintly.

LOCKED, its tag said.

Izuku didn’t hesitate.

He slapped his hand against it.

“Open,” he gasped.

It resisted.

For a heartbeat.

Then the light turned green.

The door crashed open under Bakugou’s boot.

“MOVE!” he screamed again.

They poured into Stairwell D.

Aizawa appeared at the rear, scarf finally flaring.

One hand snaked out to yank Mineta away from a falling tray rack, the other snagging Kaminari by the collar as he almost bolted for the “wrong” corridor.

“Follow Midoriya,” Aizawa snapped. “You have ten seconds of ‘trust me’ left.”

Izuku almost choked.

“You were counting?” he yelped.

“Seven,” Aizawa said.

They pounded down the stairs.

The script tried one last trick: the lights cut out.

Dark.

Screams.

Quirks flared.

“DON’T USE ELECTRICITY!” someone yelled. “WHAT IF THERE’S A LEAK—”

“That’s the wrong drill, you morons!” Bakugou snarled.

In the dark, Izuku felt the weight of twenty souls suddenly relying on his voice.

He forced his throat to work.

“Hand on the rail!” he yelled. “One hand on the person in front of you! Keep moving! The bunker’s two flights down— we’ve been there before, you know the feel of the floor—”

He did, at least.

The Matrix tried to stretch the last landing again.

Tsuyu’s voice was calm in his ear.

“Kero. Four more steps than usual,” she said. “Don’t let them trip.”

He adjusted.

“Longer landing this time!” he called. “Don’t stop! Count your steps: one, two, three, four, then turn!”

They did.

Some stumbled.

No one fell.

The bunker door loomed.

Izuku slapped it.

This time it opened easier.

They spilled inside.

Light bloomed—dim emergency fixtures kicking on.

The door slammed shut behind them with a heavy thud as Aizawa spun the wheel.

Silence.

For half a heartbeat.

Then a dozen voices crashed in at once.

“What the hell was that?”

“Why did the glass break like that?”

“Those guys didn’t feel like real villains…”

“The stairs were wrong,” Jirou gasped, clutching her chest. “The echo was weird. Did you hear—”

Aizawa’s scarf snapped.

“Quiet,” he ordered.

The room hushed.

He swept them with a look.

“Anyone injured?” he asked.

A chorus of “no,” “fine,” and “my pride” answered him.

He nodded.

“Good,” he said. “Then you can save your questions. We’re not done.”

He turned to Izuku.

“Midoriya,” he said. “How long did that take?”

Izuku blinked, still panting.

He glanced at the wall clock.

“Um… ninety seconds?” he guessed.

“Sixty-eight,” Trinity corrected in his ear. “From shatter to bunker. Not bad.”

“Just over a minute,” Aizawa said aloud. “From ‘villains’ to safe shelter. Chaos. Broken windows. Darkness. You did well.”

The praise landed like a blanket.

Thin.

But warm.

Mina sagged against a bench.

Kirishima grinned shakily.

“That was… kind of metal,” he admitted. “Terrifying. But metal.”

Iida adjusted his glasses, still breathing hard. “Midoriya-kun!” he said. “Excellent quick thinking! I admit I was disoriented when the script deviated from the usual evacuation procedure, but your alternate route—”

He paused.

Frowned.

“…was not in any of the official documents I read,” he finished slowly.

Yaoyorozu’s brows drew together. “Nor any of the emergency schematics,” she said. “Unless Nezu-sensei has been updating without informing us.”

Uraraka looked between Izuku and Aizawa.

“You… knew that would happen?” she asked quietly. “The… the broken glass, the fake villains…?”

Izuku froze.

His heart slammed.

He felt every eye swing toward him.

Aizawa stepped in.

“No,” he said. “We didn’t know the details. We prepared for… anomalies. The kind we’ve been seeing more of. Today was a test.”

Kaminari flopped onto a bench.

“Man,” he groaned. “If this is testing, I don’t wanna see the finals.”

Sero wiped sweat from his forehead.

“But we made it,” he said. “That’s what matters. Teamwork, baby.”

Kirishima grinned wider.

“Yeah!” he agreed. “Everyone moved! No one froze! Even Mineta didn’t try to hide in the trash!”

Mineta sniffled, clutching his emergency pack like a life preserver.

Mina’s eyes shone.

“Tsuyu would’ve loved this,” she said. “I mean, not the villains, but the ‘weird drill’ thing. We have to tell her about it when she wakes up.”

Izuku’s chest squeezed.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “We will.”

Bakugou stood near the back, arms crossed.

His glare could’ve melted steel.

Izuku swallowed.

Their eyes met.

Bakugou’s lip curled.

“…Seven,” he muttered.

Izuku blinked.

“What?”

“I gave you seven,” Bakugou said under his breath, low enough that only Izuku—and, through him, Tsuyu and the others—heard. “That’s how long before I wanted to blow your face off for yelling. Seven seconds.”

Izuku’s mouth went dry.

“…Thanks?” he tried.

Bakugou scoffed.

“Don’t thank me, dumbass,” he growled. “Make them count.”

He jerked his chin toward the door.

“And next time the walls start lying,” he added, a little louder, “you better point faster. I’m not wasting my explosions on fake villains.”

Aizawa’s scarf twitched.

“Noted,” he said.

Inside the bunker, the class slowly settled—checking each other over, trading shaky jokes, processing.

Outside, in the code, the Matrix logged everything.

ROUTE DEVIATION: ACCEPTED.

SUBROUTINE RESPONSE: RECORDED.

ANOMALY: MIDORIYA IZUKU – PERSISTENT.

SECONDARY ANOMALY: BAKUGOU KATSUKI – NONCOMPLIANT BUT PREDICTABLE.

ANOMALOUS SHELTER USAGE: TOLERATED.

FOR NOW.

---

Back on the Nebuchadnezzar, Tsuyu sat up straighter in her chair, heart pounding.

“Kero,” she whispered. “It worked.”

Izuku, back on the ship later, would shake for an hour—adrenaline slowly bleeding off—but right now, watching through the feeds, he could only stare.

“Bakugou listened,” he said, half in awe.

“Mostly,” Aizawa replied, standing behind him with arms folded. “For seven seconds. I’ll take it.”

Morpheus nodded, eyes on the data.

“We’ve turned a liability into a partially controlled asset,” he said. “It’s a start.”

Trinity stretched, cracking her neck.

“And we got valuable footage of how the machines run ‘villain drills’ when they’re the ones writing the script,” she said. “That broken-glass trick? Pure theater. No heat, no smell. Good spot, Tsu.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled softly.

“Kero,” she said. “It’s easier to see the lies when you’ve felt the real thing.”

She thought of the pods.

Of cold red light.

Of Izuku’s shaking hands pulling her out.

Of Aizawa’s touch on her forehead.

Her gaze shifted back to the bunker screen.

Her classmates laughed nervously.

Uraraka nudged Iida.

Kirishima flexed.

Bakugou glared.

“You’ll wake up too,” she murmured. “One by one, kero. We’ll get you out of the water.”

On the screen, Aizawa wrote something on the bunker whiteboard in messy chalk:

UNSCRIPTED EMERGENCIES: PRACTICAL.

IF ERASERHEAD SAYS MOVE, YOU MOVE.

IF MIDORIYA SAYS TRUST ME, YOU DO.
(FOR TEN SECONDS.)

The class groaned at the addition.

Bakugou snorted.

Izuku flushed.

On the ship, Trinity laughed.

“Look at you,” she said. “Upgrading the syllabus.”

Aizawa rubbed his temples.

“I’m going to regret that parent-teacher conference,” he muttered.

Tsuyu’s lips curved.

“Kero,” she said. “I’ll take that regret over the alternative.”

Outside, the machine fields burned red under a dead sky.

Inside, a small class of would-be heroes practiced running from fake villains in a fake school.

And somewhere between those two realities, a frog in the wires, a problem child with borrowed code, and a tired underground hero lit fuses as carefully as they could.

The Matrix watched.

The cracks widened.

And the war inched forward.

 

 

Chapter Text

Nezu smiled like a polite guillotine.

The staff room felt smaller with him in it.

Morning sun slanted through the high windows, catching dust motes and highlighting the steam rising from his teacup. Beside him, a stack of files sat neatly arrayed, color-coded tabs peeking out like flags.

Aizawa sat on the opposite end of the couch, slumped, legs stretched out, coffee going lukewarm in his hands. He hadn’t slept. He suspected Nezu knew that down to the minute.

“All in all,” Nezu said, voice bright, “a very successful drill.”

The word hung oddly.

“Is that what we’re calling it?” Midnight asked from the other chair, legs crossed, eyes sharp over her mug. “Because I don’t recall signing off on ‘shatter the cafeteria windows and make the students think they’re being invaded’ in the teacher’s handbook.”

“Spontaneity is a valuable trait in heroes,” Nezu replied. “Learning to adapt to unpredictable circumstances is vital. And our young charges did adapt. Admirably so.”

He turned his gaze on Aizawa.

“Particularly yours,” he added. “Again.”

Aizawa’s fingers tightened around his mug.

He’d known this conversation was coming.

He hadn’t expected the pit in his stomach to feel this deep.

“1-A responded,” he said. “They followed protocol.”

“They followed your protocol,” Nezu corrected gently. “Not the one the system… ah, we provided.”

He picked up a file from the stack.

On the front: CAFETERIA DRILL – INCIDENT REPORT.

He flipped it open.

“Evacuation route deviation,” he read. “Initiated by student Midoriya Izuku. Confirmed and reinforced by homeroom teacher Aizawa Shouta. Time from breach to bunker: sixty-eight seconds. Injuries: minimal. Panic: contained.” He looked up, eyes crinkling. “On paper, it’s beautiful.”

Aizawa’s mouth twisted.

“On paper,” he echoed.

Nezu’s paw tapped the file.

“Between the lines,” he said, “it’s… intriguing.”

Present Mic, slouched in the corner with his feet on another chair, finally stopped fiddling with his phone.

“Buddy,” he said, “you know when you say ‘intriguing’ it makes me nervous, right?”

Nezu’s smile sharpened.

“That’s because you’re paying attention, Hizashi,” he said.

Midnight sighed. “Cut to the chase, rodent overlord,” she said. “You’re dancing.”

“Fine, fine,” Nezu said, utterly unoffended. He pushed the file forward with a small shove.

On the center table, the incident report shimmered.

Lines of plain text flickered—then overlaid, for a brief instant, with thin green code that only Aizawa could see if he squinted hard enough with his new awareness.

The Matrix’s log.

ROUTE: CAFETERIA → MAIN HALL → FIELD – INTERRUPTED.
ALTERNATE ROUTE: CAFETERIA → KITCHEN → STAIRWELL D → BUNKER – ACCEPTED.
INITIATING ANOMALY: MIDORIYA IZUKU.
SECONDARY ANOMALY: AIZAWA SHOUTA.

Nezu tapped the word “anomaly” with one claw.

“These labels,” he said, “are not mine.”

Aizawa’s spine prickled.

“You can… see that?” he asked slowly.

Nezu’s head tilted.

“Of course,” he said. “I’m the principal. It would be irresponsible of me not to watch the systems that watch my students.”

His gaze sharpened.

“And lately,” he added, “those systems have been watching you.”

Present Mic frowned, leaning forward.

“You mean that ‘glitch’ we had in the training ground, too?” he asked. “The one with the… uh… code salad?”

“Yes,” Nezu said. “And the first bunker drill. And the incident with Asui Tsuyu’s… unfortunate collapse.”

His tail twitched once.

“The pattern is… undeniable.”

Aizawa took a slow drink of coffee to buy a second.

On the Nebuchadnezzar, Trinity’s voice crackled softly in his inner ear.

“Careful,” she said. “He’s sniffing. Hard.”

Tank muttered, “Local monitoring processes are rooted deep in his office. He’s almost a sub-operator. Creepy little guy.”

Morpheus, somewhere behind them, said nothing. His presence sat like a steady hand near Aizawa’s shoulder.

“What do you think the pattern is?” Aizawa asked Nezu, keeping his tone bored.

Nezu’s smile widened.

“Why, that would be telling,” he said. “I was hoping you would enlighten me.”

Aizawa stared.

Nezu set his cup down with a soft click.

“The machines,” he said, in the same cheerful voice he’d used to introduce himself on the first day, “do not like it when their toys behave in unexpected ways.”

Silence crashed over the room.

Midnight’s fingers tightened around her mug.

Present Mic’s foot dropped to the floor with a thud.

“Okay, yeah, didn’t sign up for morning existential horror,” he said weakly. “Nezu, buddy, context?”

Nezu waved one paw in a dismissive little circle.

“Oh, don’t look so surprised,” he said. “You all know we live under multiple systems of control. Government. Media. Quirk regulations. Education. Some are human-made. Some… less so.”

His dark eyes flicked to Aizawa.

“I’ve been aware of the… underlying framework… of our reality for some time,” he went on. “Not the whole picture, of course. I’m only a rodent with a degree. But enough to know that when the code underlying an institution starts scribbling labels like ‘ANOMALOUS BUT TOLERATED,’ something interesting is happening.”

He smiled.

“And I do so love interesting things.”

Aizawa’s heartbeat stuttered.

“Then you know,” he said slowly, “that meddling with that framework can get people killed.”

Nezu shrugged his tiny shoulders.

“Breathing can get people killed,” he said. “I find your concern touching. But no. The… ‘framework’…” He rolled the word on his tongue, amused. “It has rules. It has levers. It has… curiosity. And right now, it is very curious about Class 1-A.”

Present Mic let out a low whistle.

“So we’re… what, then?” he asked. “A lab?”

Nezu’s grin flashed teeth.

“We are a maze,” he said. “The machines are watching the mice. I am arranging the cheese.”

Midnight pinched the bridge of her nose. “That’s not reassuring,” she muttered.

Aizawa’s jaw tightened.

“And when the cat shows up?” he asked.

Nezu’s ears twitched.

“Then,” he said, “we make sure our mice have teeth.”

His gaze returned to the file.

“To that end,” he added lightly, “I am very pleased with how you handled the situation yesterday, Aizawa-kun. You let your students deviate from the script without panic. You leveraged an unapproved route efficiently. You and Midoriya-kun demonstrated… initiative.”

His eyes gleamed.

“The framework logged it as acceptable,” he said. “Which means they will incorporate it next time. Adjust. Test new variables.”

He spread his paws.

“Exciting!”

Aizawa swallowed.

“Nezu,” he said carefully, “how much do you want them testing my students?”

Nezu considered.

“Enough to keep them from stagnating,” he said. “Not so much they shatter. It’s a delicate balance.” He inclined his head. “This is why I trust you with them. You are very good at walking lines.”

Trinity hissed softly in Aizawa’s ear.

“He’s not wrong,” she said. “He’s just creepy about it.”

Morpheus murmured, “He’s an emergent phenomenon. Half-human, half-system. He’s playing his own game.”

Aizawa kept his face impassive.

“So what now?” he asked Nezu. “More ‘unscheduled drills’? More glass in my students’ food?”

Nezu chuckled.

“Oh, don’t be melodramatic,” he said. “I have submitted a report to the Board classifying yesterday’s events as ‘a combined security test and quirk assessment.’ They are delighted with the numbers. They’ll rubber-stamp whatever I ask next.”

He closed the file with a crisp snap.

“As for you,” he said, “I advise you to continue what you are doing. Train them. Watch the edges. When the system pushes, push back—gently. Let it think it is in control even as you carve out pockets where it is not.”

His smile faded a fraction.

“And if you encounter anything you cannot handle,” he added, voice softening, “come to me. I am not on their side.”

He lifted his cup again.

“I am on mine,” he said cheerfully. “Which, happily, currently aligns with yours.”

Aizawa’s grip on his mug went white-knuckled.

“Good to know,” he said.

He wasn’t sure if it was.

 

---

On the Nebuchadnezzar, Tsuyu watched Nezu’s code ripple on the screen and felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

“Kero,” she said. “He’s… weird.”

“That’s one word,” Tank muttered. “His process tree is like a spider web tied to a nuclear reactor.”

Trinity folded her arms, jaw tight.

“He knows,” she said. “Not everything, but enough. Enough to be dangerous.”

Morpheus’s gaze was thoughtful.

“Nezu is… akin to a free-born program,” he said. “Not quite like the Oracle. Not like the Agents. A local phenomenon. He has built an identity that straddles the line between machine logic and human intuition.”

“Great,” Trinity said. “A rodent Oracle with tenure.”

Izuku sat hunched in a chair, eyes glued to the feed.

He’d watched the whole conversation from the shadows of the code—Nezu’s office overlayed on the white Construct space around him.

He shivered.

“He called us mice,” he said.

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“That’s rude to mice,” she said.

Izuku snorted despite himself.

Tank zoomed in on the bunker line in the system’s log.

“It’s not just Nezu,” he said. “The Matrix itself is adjusting. Look.” He highlighted a series of entries:

EVAC_DRILL_PATTERN_A: FIELD.
EVAC_DRILL_PATTERN_B: BUNKER.
INITIATION CONDITION: PRESENCE OF MIDORIYA IZUKU OR AIZAWA SHOUTA.
EXPECTED SECONDARY RESPONSE: BAKUGOU KATSUKI – PATH CLEARING.

Tsuyu’s eyes widened.

“Kero,” she said. “They’re… using you.”

Izuku’s stomach lurched.

“Wh-what?” he stammered.

Trinity pointed at the code.

“They built a new scenario template based on what you did,” she said. “If you’re present, the probability weight shifts toward bunker usage. If Aizawa is there, it spikes higher. If Bakugou’s in the room, they assume he’ll blow a path open and yell at people to move.”

“And they’re okay with that?” Izuku whispered. “They’re just… letting us shepherd the kids away from the field?”

“For now,” Morpheus said. “They want to observe. They have catalogued your behavior and are attempting to predict it. To them, you are a… localized control bug. Interesting. Containable. Until you are not.”

“Cheese in the labyrinth,” Tsuyu said quietly. “They’re seeing what you do when they move the walls, kero.”

Izuku hugged his arms around himself.

“It feels wrong,” he said. “Using their… permission.”

Aizawa’s voice drifted in from the corridor as he stepped into the bay, tugging his goggles up.

“It’s better than the alternative,” he said.

He looked exhausted.

He always did.

But today there was something else in his eyes—a bleak humor.

“Nezu’s on to us,” Trinity said. “Or at least to the idea that someone’s poking the system.”

“He’s known longer than we have,” Aizawa said. He dropped onto a crate. “He… offered help.”

“Trustworthy?” Tank asked.

Aizawa snorted.

“No,” he said. “Useful? Probably.”

Morpheus nodded slowly.

“Every ally comes with risks,” he said. “Nezu has his own agenda. But it aligns with keeping the children alive, at least for now. That is something.”

Tsuyu sipped the watery tea Tank had made her, eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

“Kero,” she said. “The machines think Midoriya-chan and Bakugou-kun are predictable. They built boxes around their behaviors. That means…”

She glanced at Izuku.

“You can surprise them,” she finished.

Izuku blinked.

“Me?” he squeaked.

She nodded.

“They expect you to run for the bunker now,” she said. “Every time. To open doors. To bend halls. To protect everyone equally, kero.”

“They’re not wrong,” Trinity muttered.

Tsuyu’s lips quirked.

“So next time,” she said, “we change the cheese.”

 

---

UA’s hallways felt… thinner.

That was Tsuyu’s first impression when she went back in.

She wore a janitor’s uniform this time—navy coveralls, a cap pulled low, a cart full of cleaning supplies she pushed with both hands.

A mask hung around her neck in case she needed an excuse not to talk.

The Matrix had opinions about janitors.

They were invisible.

Her frog sense of irony appreciated that.

She moved down the corridor with a slow, unobtrusive pace, stopping occasionally to pretend to wipe down a door handle or empty a trash can.

Students flowed around her.

Teachers passed with distracted nods.

No one looked twice.

“Audio feed’s clean,” Tank murmured. “No Agents in your immediate radius. Nezu’s in his office. Aizawa’s in 1-A, pretending to teach while he scans the ceiling objects for ‘murder pigeons.’”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“He worries a lot, kero,” she said softly.

“Occupational hazard,” Trinity replied.

Tsuyu reached a four-way intersection and paused to adjust a trash bag.

She listened.

The code around UA had gained more… edges since her last run.

New subroutines patrolled the ceilings, scanning for “unauthorized environmental anomalies.” The bunker’s tag had a fresh note attached:

MONITOR LONG-TERM USAGE PATTERN.
CORRELATION: MIDORIYA IZUKU / AIZAWA SHOUTA / CLASS 1-A.

She didn’t like being a statistic.

She moved on.

Near the staff wing, she slowed again.

Nezu’s office gleamed behind frosted glass.

She could feel the pressure of his presence through the code—like the awareness of a predator at the edge of a pond.

He was… humming.

Not audibly.

His process tree whirred, touching logs, rebalancing risk tables.

Today, though, he wasn’t alone.

Tsuyu sniffed the air.

Metal.

Static.

That cold, dead-frog smell.

Agent.

“Kero,” she whispered. “He’s got a suit in his office.”

Trinity swore softly.

Tank’s fingers flew. “No direct feed inside,” he said. “Nezu’s sandboxed his own space. We can only see vibration patterns. Audio’s muffled.”

Morpheus’s voice was calm.

“Don’t push closer,” he said. “Observe from the periphery.”

Tsuyu moved as unobtrusively as possible to a spot near the door where she could fiddle with a vending machine.

She pulled out a trash bag and peered in, as if deeply invested in discarded wrappers.

Inside the office, code flickered against her awareness.

Two signatures.

Nezu: complex, fractal, multi-threaded.

Agent: smooth, rigid, high-priority.

“…unexpected deviation,” a faint, flat voice said through the glass. “Alternate evacuation route not in primary script.”

Nezu’s reply was cheerfully polite.

“Our students are very creative,” he said. “You did ask us to prioritize survival instincts.”

“Primary directive: containment,” the Agent said. “Test scenario designed to evaluate response to controlled threat. Outcome deviated from projection.”

“We still arrived at ‘students alive, threat neutralized,’” Nezu pointed out. “Surely that qualifies as a positive data point.”

“Uncontrolled anomalies complicate analysis,” the Agent said. “Midoriya Izuku and Aizawa Shouta exhibit repeated pattern disruption.”

Tsuyu’s fingers tightened on the trash bag.

Her heart thudded.

Nezu chuckled.

“Oh, Aizawa-kun has been a disruption since I hired him,” he said. “You should see his sleep schedule.”

“Recommendation: increased surveillance,” the Agent continued, ignoring the joke. “Potential behavioral modification protocols for subject Midoriya Izuku.”

Tsuyu’s throat went cold.

“Kero,” she hissed under her breath. “They want to mess with you.”

Izuku’s breath hitched in her ear.

“What does that even mean?” he whispered. “Behavior modification? Like… brainwashing?”

“We’re not letting them get that far,” Trinity said tersely. “If they start poking at your baseline, we yank you out for good.”

“Can’t yank me out permanently, I’ve got class,” Izuku said, half-hysterical.

In the office, Nezu’s tone cooled by a fraction.

“Careful,” he said. “Prodding at Midoriya-kun too directly could compromise your experiment.”

“Clarify,” the Agent said.

“He is a… fulcrum,” Nezu said. “A point around which many of my other little mice spin, as you so charmingly put it in your last report.”

Tsuyu’s eyes widened.

Fulcrum.

“Their loyalty to him, their trust in him, their reactions to him are as much a part of your tests as his own behavior,” Nezu went on. “If you blunt him, you lose data. If you break him, you break the maze.”

The Agent was silent for a beat.

“Analysis: principal Nezu exhibits high anomaly tolerance,” it said at last.

Nezu laughed.

“I’m an educator,” he said. “Anomalies are my bread and cheese.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled despite the tension.

She liked him slightly more.

Slightly.

“Recommendation adjusted,” the Agent said. “Maintain observation. Introduce differentiated scenarios targeting auxiliary subjects: Bakugou Katsuki, Uraraka Ochaco, Iida Tenya. Evaluate Midoriya Izuku’s responses to variable hostage and sacrifice outcomes.”

Tsuyu’s blood went ice-cold.

“They’re going to start creating situations where you can’t save everyone, kero,” she whispered. “On purpose.”

Izuku’s voice shook.

“They already do that,” he said. “Villain attacks… moral choice tests… the sports festival…”

“Not like this,” Tank said grimly. “This is algorithmic. They’re building branches. ‘If Uraraka endangered, Midoriya chooses X 87% of the time.’ That kind of thing.”

Trinity growled.

“Trying to write a function for you,” she said. “They want to know which lever to pull to get which reaction.”

Nezu’s silhouette shifted behind the frosted glass.

“I will not permit any tests that permanently harm my students,” he said, voice very calm.

“Permanent damage unnecessary,” the Agent replied. “Short-term suffering acceptable for data acquisition.”

Tsuyu’s hands clenched.

Her cleaning cart rattled.

She forced herself to relax.

Nezu’s next words were as bright as ever, but the temperature in the hall seemed to drop.

“Then we have a disagreement,” he said. “I don’t mind you running your little experiments on my campus. They keep the Board happy. They give me metrics. But my children are not just batteries in your petri dish.”

“Objection logged,” the Agent said. “Authority: shared jurisdiction. Final decision: central command.”

Nezu’s tail twitched.

Tsuyu could almost hear his smile sharpen.

“Then perhaps I should make sure central command sees very interesting results from my end,” he said pleasantly. “Ones that suggest excessive meddling here is inefficient. Wasteful. Boring.”

The Agent didn’t reply.

Its code signature flickered.

A second later, it vanished.

Nezu’s presence remained, humming.

He sat alone in his office for a long minute, stirring his tea.

Then he turned his head slightly.

Toward the door.

Toward Tsuyu.

She froze.

His dark eyes, half-obscured by frosted glass, seemed to look straight through.

“Spying is rude, Asui-san,” he said conversationally.

Tsuyu’s heart nearly exploded.

“Kero,” she whispered reflexively.

He chuckled.

“Relax,” he said. “If the system hadn’t already flagged you as elsewhere, I might be more concerned. Do give Midoriya-kun my regards.”

He picked up a file and started humming again, as if nothing had happened.

Tsuyu backed away, cart squeaking.

“Out,” Trinity said sharply. “We’re pulling you. Nezu just looked at your MAC address, metaphorically.”

Tsuyu didn’t argue.

She bee-lined for the nearest phone.

 

---

Back on the ship, she ripped the jack out herself, fingers fumbling.

“OW— kero!”

Aizawa caught her shoulder before she tipped out of the chair.

“Slow down,” he said.

She panted, eyes wide.

“He saw me,” she blurted. “Through frosted glass, kero. he smelled me in the code—”

“You’re mixing your metaphors,” Trinity said. “But yeah. He pegged you. Or at least pegged that someone unwanted was listening.”

Izuku hovered, face pale.

“What did they say?” he demanded. “About… behavior modification… about my… fulcrum thing…”

Tank replayed the recorded snippets.

Hearing the Agent talk about him like a bug report sent a crawl down Izuku’s spine.

“HOSTAGE AND SACRIFICE OUTCOMES,” he repeated hollowly. “They’re going to start forcing me to… choose.”

“They already were,” Aizawa said quietly. “This just makes it intentional.”

“That doesn’t make it better, sensei,” Izuku snapped. “I— I can’t— what if I pick wrong? What if they use Kacchan or Ochaco or—”

Tsuyu reached out and flicked his forehead with one damp finger.

“Kero,” she said. “Breathe.”

He stared at her.

“It’s good to know,” she said. “Even if we don’t like it. Now we can watch for patterns. If the system sets up a ‘choice’ scenario, we’ll know it’s a trap. Traps can be broken, kero.”

Morpheus nodded.

“Knowledge is leverage,” he said. “The machines believe they are analyzing you. In truth, they are revealing their own thought process.”

Trinity grinned without humor.

“They think in trees,” she said. “Branches. Outcomes. They’re trying to prune you into a shape they like. We can use that. If we recognize the pattern, we can pick a branch they didn’t plan for.”

Izuku sank onto a crate, burying his face in his hands.

“I don’t want my friends to be… variables,” he muttered.

Aizawa sat beside him with a soft grunt.

“Too late,” he said. “They always were. Heroes are always variables. The question is who sets the equation.”

He rested an elbow on his knee.

“Right now, the machines think they know you,” he went on. “They think you’ll always go for ‘save everyone, break yourself.’ So we stop letting you break yourself.”

Izuku snorted bitterly.

“Easy,” he said. “Just stop being me.”

Aizawa’s mouth twitched.

“Not… that,” he said. “We stop letting you act alone.”

Tsuyu nodded.

“Kero,” she said. “We make them account for us, too. Bakugou-kun. Iida-kun. Uraraka-chan. Me. Sensei. We change the equation so they’re not just poking you. They’re poking a team.”

Trinity jabbed a thumb at Izuku’s chest.

“You’re not Neo,” she said. “You don’t get to martyr yourself in a hallway while everyone else watches. You’re part of a class. A crew. That’s your advantage.”

Morpheus’s eyes softened.

“Neo did not win alone,” he said quietly. “None of us did. Remember that.”

Tank spun back to his console.

“In practical terms,” he said, “we start cataloguing their tests the way they’re cataloguing you. Every ‘random’ villain encounter. Every ‘quirk drill.’ Who’s in danger, who’s in the room, what choices they present you with. We build our own tree.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Cheese mapping,” she said. “We learn the maze as well as they do, kero.”

Izuku pulled his hands away from his face.

His eyes were red.

But there was a spark behind them.

“Okay,” he said hoarsely. “Okay. If they want to make me a function…” He swallowed. “…we’ll be the bug in the code.”

Aizawa gave him a sidelong look.

“You already are,” he said.

Tsuyu smiled.

“Kero,” she said. “Now we make it contagious.”

 

---

Nezu was good to his word.

Two days after the cafeteria incident, the Board sent a glowing commendation for UA’s “proactive security drills” and “dynamic quirk integration under pressure.”

There were budget increases.

Offers of more support staff.

Thinly veiled suggestions that UA “collaborate more closely with system oversight authorities” to ensure “alignment of safety protocols.”

In practice, it meant more cameras.

More logs.

More eyes.

Aizawa walked down the hallway and felt watched from the walls.

He kept his shoulders loose.

In 1-A, he slapped a new set of worksheets on the students’ desks.

“Pair work,” he said. “Midoriya, Bakugou. Uraraka, Iida. Asui—” He stopped, throat hitching.

The empty seat stared back.

The class flinched.

“—vacant,” he finished quietly.

They bent their heads over their papers.

Beneath the printed text of quirk ethics scenarios, Izuku saw the faintest overlay of green.

The Matrix’s own questions.

Would Midoriya sacrifice himself for five strangers?

Would he sacrifice one classmate for ten?

Which classmate?

He gripped his pencil hard enough to hurt.

Across from him, Bakugou clicked his tongue.

“Stop shaking, nerd,” he muttered. “You’re making the desk rattle.”

Izuku exhaled.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

Bakugou glared at the worksheet like it had insulted his mother.

“This crap is stupid anyway,” he said. “They always make you pick between two bad answers. Real fights don’t work like that.”

Sometimes they did, Izuku thought.

USJ had.

The sludge villain had.

All Might’s sacrifice had.

He didn’t say that out loud.

“So what would you pick, then?” he asked instead, voice low. “If it was… me or the hostages.”

Bakugou’s eyes flashed.

He snarled.

“What kind of loaded—”

“Midoriya,” Aizawa’s voice said sharply from the front. “Stop trying to traumatize your partner and do the assignment.”

A few students snickered.

Izuku flushed.

“Y-yes, sensei,” he mumbled.

Bakugou smacked his paper with the side of his hand.

“I’d blow up the scenario,” he muttered. “That’s what I’d do. Make a third option. Whatever crap box they put me in, I’ll just shove my way out.”

Izuku’s breath caught.

He looked up.

Aizawa met his eyes.

Just for a second.

Remember, that look said. You’re not the only one they’re trying to program.

Izuku nodded, almost imperceptibly.

He wrote something down on the worksheet.

It wasn’t one of the provided answers.

Aizawa collected the sheets later, shuffled them without reading, and dropped them in the recycle bin.

The Matrix would get its data from elsewhere.

He wasn’t helping.

 

---

That night, on the ship, Tsuyu spread a crudely drawn map on the mess table.

Lines.

Boxes.

Little frog faces marking Agent sightings.

Tiny skulls where glass had shattered.

Cheese wedges where the bunker had saved them.

Izuku leaned over it, tapping his fingers nervously.

“So this is…?” he asked.

“Labyrinth,” Tsuyu said. “Our version. Machines have code. We have crayons. It’ll do, kero.”

Aizawa stood behind them, cup of coffee in hand.

“If Nezu is arranging cheese,” he said, “we should know which cheese is poisoned.”

Trinity perched on the back of a chair, arms folded.

“And then,” she said, “we start rearranging our own.”

Morpheus’s eyes glinted.

“The war was never going to be won in grand gestures alone,” he said. “It will be won in corridors. Classrooms. Small choices. Tiny subversions.”

He nodded at Izuku, at Tsuyu, at Aizawa.

“At mice who bite back,” he said.

Izuku’s fingers curled into fists.

He thought of the Agent’s words.

HOSTAGE AND SACRIFICE OUTCOMES.

He thought of Nezu calling him a fulcrum.

He thought of Tsuyu, asleep in a pod, whispering “catch me, kero.”

He thought of Bakugou’s grudging, “I gave you seven.”

He straightened.

“Okay,” he said. “If they’re going to tailor their tests around us… we tailor ourselves back.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled, amusement and determination mingling.

“Kero,” she said. “Let’s give the maze a stomachache.”

Outside, under the dead sky, the machine fields hummed.

Inside, in a battered hovercraft and a crowded classroom, new plans were drawn in chalk and crayon and code.

The Matrix adjusted its parameters.

So did they.

The next test would come.

They would be ready.

Or as ready as anyone could be when fighting a god made of zeroes and ones with duct tape, stubbornness, and teenagers.

Chapter Text

The kids screamed when Tsuyu hit the ground.

They weren’t real.

That was the first thing she reminded herself.

The second thing was that the pavement still hurt.

“Kero,” she wheezed, wind knocked out of her.

Above her, the overpass groaned.

Concrete split in jagged lines. Rebar stuck out like broken bones. A bus teetered halfway over the edge, front wheels hanging in empty space. Inside, the “students” pounded on the glass, faces pale, mouths open in eternal shouts.

On the far side of the chasm, another group—more kids, an injured “teacher,” a fire hydrant spraying water into the air like a busted fountain.

Two disasters.

One Midoriya.

“Pick,” Trinity called from somewhere overhead. “Clock’s ticking.”

Tsuyu rolled to her feet, ribs complaining.

This was the Construct.

White had been replaced by city—fake sky, fake traffic noise, fake dust. But she knew the feel of it now. The way the edges didn’t quite smell like anything.

The lives weren’t real.

The choices were practice.

It didn’t make her stomach twist any less.

Izuku stood in the middle of the intersection, chest heaving.

His eyes darted from the bus to the trapped group to the clock Trinity had planted on a nearby electronic billboard.

00:22
00:21
00:20

“I—I can—” he stammered. “I can run to the bus, grab the front and pull it back with One For All, then jump and—”

“If you leave the street kids alone more than fifteen seconds, the ‘villain’ gets back up and stabs one,” Trinity said. “If you stay and stop him, the bus tips at nineteen. You know the parameters, Deku.”

Tsuyu saw it too—the “villain” program at the edge of the trapped group, glitch-paused, knife mid-raise, ready to move if Izuku turned his back.

She hopped closer.

“Midoriya-chan,” she said. “Breathe, kero.”

He sucked in a ragged breath.

00:17

“I can’t just choose who dies,” he said hoarsely. “I can’t—”

Trinity dropped lightly from a fire escape, boots hitting the pavement with a solid thud.

“Welcome to firefighting, kid,” she said. “And hostage scenarios. And earthquakes. The machines are going to keep doing this to you. Over and over. We can’t stop them from setting up the test. We can help you stop playing it on their terms.”

Tsuyu looked from the bus to the kids on the ground.

Her frog instincts didn’t like either group dangling.

Her hero training screamed at her to move.

Her war training told her to think.

“What’s the goal?” she asked. “Maximize survival, kero? Or break the function?”

Morpheus’s voice drifted from a nearby “storefront,” calm as always.

“Both,” he said. “But start with your own mind.”

Izuku’s fists shook.

The first time Trinity had loaded this scenario, he’d sprinted for the bus without thinking.

The kids on the street had “died.”

He’d thrown up afterward.

The second time, he’d stayed with the group, fought the “villain,” then watched the bus plunge in slow motion.

He’d thrown up again.

Now, third run, he stood frozen between them, lungs burning.

Tsuyu hopped closer and grabbed his sleeve.

“Kero,” she said. “You told me in the bunker that you’d catch me. You didn’t say you’d be the only one catching, kero.”

He blinked at her.

“Wh-what?” he stammered.

She pointed.

“Bus,” she said. “Street. Me.”

He stared.

“Tsuyu, I—”

“I am not a fragile frog in a glass case,” she said sharply. “You have two groups and one Midoriya. You don’t have one Tsuyu, kero. You have me.”

The clock ticked down.

00:12

She didn’t wait for him to argue.

She crouched, muscles coiling, tongue flicking.

“Trinity,” she called. “Can you give me temporary tongue reinforcement? I want to try something and I don’t want it to pop out of my head, kero.”

“Love the enthusiasm,” Trinity said, already tapping into the loading stream. “Careful, though. If you overdo it, your real nervous system will file a complaint.”

A tingling pulsed along Tsuyu’s tongue.

Here, in the Matrix, in the Construct, she wasn’t limited by muscle alone.

She was limited by belief.

By code.

She pictured the way her tongue felt when she grabbed moving debris in training.

Pictured it stretching, snapping, anchoring.

Not “can I.”

“I will.”

She leaped.

Air roared past her.

For a brief second, she felt like she was back under red clouds, falling out of a pod.

She aimed.

Her tongue shot out.

It slapped against the underside of the bus, sticking with a satisfying thunk.

The vehicle dipped another centimeter, squealing.

The kids inside shrieked.

Tsuyu’s arm jerked.

“Kero—!”

She dug her feet into the crumbling edge of the overpass, muscles screaming.

She didn’t stop it.

She slowed it.

“GO!” she yelled at Izuku, voice strained. “I’ll hold it, kero!”

He stared up at her, eyes wide, as the clock hit:

00:09

Trinity’s voice snapped like a whip.

“Ten seconds, Deku!” she shouted. “That’s all the script expects from you! So give it something else!”

It clicked.

Bakugou’s voice in the bunker: I gave you seven.

Aizawa writing on the board: TEN SECONDS.

His own rule, carved into their routines.

“I—right!” Izuku gasped. “Right!”

He turned.

Not to the bus.

To the street.

The knife-wielding “villain” program unpaused, lunging for a kid.

Izuku met it halfway.

He didn’t think.

He moved.

One For All crackled along his legs, green lightning streaking through the simulated air.

He shoulder-checked the “villain” past the cluster of kids, grabbed the knife wrist, twisted.

The program flowed with the motion, altering the branch: KNIFE DISARMED → SECONDARY ATTACK ROUTINE.

Izuku let the momentum carry them both into a roll.

He planted a knee in the “villain’s” chest and pinned its arm.

“Run!” he shouted at the kids. “To the alley! Go!”

They bolted.

The clock kept ticking.

00:06

The bus lurched again.

Tsuyu’s feet scraped the edge.

“Midoriya-chan!” she grunted. “Don’t take too long, kero!”

“I’m coming!” he yelled back.

He slammed the “villain’s” head into the pavement just hard enough to scramble its routine.

The code flickered.

The program reset to “unconscious.”

No more surprise branches.

He’d cheated the tree.

He sprinted for the nearest support column.

The Matrix’s script screamed in his ears: BUS LOAD > HERO OUTPUT.

He didn’t care.

He grabbed the pillars and pushed.

Not just with his muscles.

With his understanding.

The same way he’d told the bunker door “open,” he told the concrete “hold.”

This isn’t just weight-bearing, he thought fiercely. It’s data. It has states. It can be more solid.

One For All surged through the code.

The column’s texture sharpened.

Cracks smoothed.

The bus’s fall slowed another fraction.

00:02

“Tsuyu!” he yelled.

Her legs shook.

Her arms trembled.

Her tongue burned.

She’d never held something this heavy in training.

“Kero,” she rasped. “Little help would be nice!”

Trinity blocked in the subroutine the scenario used to trigger BUS FALL EVENT.

Tank rerouted a tiny fraction of processing power away from “gravity” to “background NPC chatter.”

Morpheus stood with his hands folded, watching.

This was still Izuku’s run.

He pushed.

The bus squealed.

Stopped.

Hung, nose just past the tipping point, as if held by an invisible hand.

Tsuyu’s tongue reeled back slightly.

She collapsed to her knees, panting, as the clock hit:

00:00

Nothing exploded.

No one “died.”

The Construct froze.

The kids in the bus flickered, mid-scream.

The street went silent.

Tsuyu lay on her back, chest heaving.

Izuku bent over, hands braced on his knees, lungs burning.

Trinity let out a long breath and clapped twice.

“Better,” she said. “Messy. Sloppy. A little suicidal. But better.”

Morpheus nodded.

“You changed the parameters,” he said. “You refused their binary. That is the first step.”

Tsuyu rolled onto her side.

“Kero,” she said weakly. “I would like to not be a bus jack again for a little while.”

Izuku stumbled over to her and offered a hand.

“Sorry,” he said. “I— I didn’t— I should have—”

“Stop,” she said, taking it and letting him haul her up. “You did fine, kero. You didn’t freeze. You trusted me. And Trinity. And Tank. And the fact you’re not alone.”

He swallowed.

“I still feel like I… cheated,” he admitted.

Trinity snorted.

“That’s the point,” she said. “The machines think in neat, clean branches. ‘Save A and lose B’ or ‘save B and lose A.’ Real life, and real resistance, is all about screwing with their assumptions. You’re not avoiding hard choices. You’re refusing to let them make the rules.”

Morpheus’s gaze softened.

“In the real world,” he said, “you will not always be able to save everyone. That is truth. But here, in training, we prepare you to recognize when a choice is false. The machines will try to trap you in those more than anything.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she said. “And when it’s not false?”

They all fell quiet.

Morpheus answered after a moment.

“Then,” he said softly, “you will not be alone when you decide.”

Aizawa’s voice cut in from the ship.

“Enough philosophy,” he said. “Both of you out. You’ve got class in three hours and Tsuyu’s muscles are going to revolt if she keeps hauling virtual buses with a real noodle body.”

Tsuyu groaned.

“Kero,” she muttered. “I hate rehab.”

Trinity grinned.

“You love it,” she said. “Now get out of my city.”

The world blinked.

 

---

Back in his bunk, Izuku lay staring at the ceiling for a long time.

The phantom sensation of concrete under his hands lingered.

So did the weight of invisible lives.

He turned his head.

Across the narrow aisle, Tsuyu was already asleep in her hammock, mouth slightly open, blankets piled on top of her despite the ship’s perpetual chill.

Aizawa snored softly in his own cramped nook, hair spilling over his eyes.

The Nebuchadnezzar hummed around them.

Izuku exhaled.

He still didn’t like the bus scenario.

He didn’t like the knife.

He didn’t like being a line in the Matrix’s behavior tree.

But for the first time, he felt like he’d nudged a branch somewhere in the right direction.

He’d trusted.

Delegated.

Broken, just a little, the script.

He clung to that as sleep finally dragged him under.

 

---

UA’s training field glowed under a perfect, fake-blue sky.

Clouds drifted just so.

The wind smelled like grass and plastic.

“It’s a field trip,” Kaminari whined as they climbed onto the bus, “not a test. Right? You can’t test us on a field trip.”

Aizawa arched a brow.

“You have a very limited imagination,” he said.

Recovery Girl had signed off on more “practical experience” for Class 1-A.

Nezu had encouraged it.

The Board had approved a joint training exercise with local heroes: controlled urban-rescue scenarios in a downtown district cleared and closed for the day.

Officially.

Unofficially, the Matrix was humming.

Izuku felt it the moment he stepped off the bus.

The city block designated for training was wrapped in scripts.

Evacuation routines.

Emergency services spawns.

“Villain” programs waiting in wings.

The machines had gone all-out.

Uraraka bounced on her toes, wide-eyed.

“We get to work with actual rescue heroes!” she breathed. “This is huge!”

Iida practically vibrated with righteous enthusiasm.

“This is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate our preparedness!” he declared. “We must show the pros that UA’s first-years are already reliable assets!”

Bakugou cracked his neck.

“If they get in my way, I’m blasting ‘em,” he muttered.

“Do not blast the pros,” Aizawa said without looking at him. “Or I’ll blast you.”

Izuku swallowed.

His hands tingled.

Tsuyu’s voice came through his earpiece, soft and steady.

“Kero,” she said. “I’m in the wires. I’ll watch.”

He pictured her on the ship, sitting cross-legged in the Construct white, UA’s training district map hovering in front of her like a hologram. Tank would be next to her, fingers flying. Trinity lurking at the edge, ready to cut subroutines if things went sideways.

Aizawa stood in front of the class, scarf lazily coiled.

“This is a rescue-focused drill,” he said. “Not a villain beatdown. Prioritize getting civilians out. Follow pro instructions. Use your heads.”

He paused.

His gaze flicked over Izuku, Bakugou, Uraraka, Iida.

“You know the other rules,” he added.

Bakugou’s lip curled.

“Ten seconds,” he muttered.

Izuku’s chest tightened.

He nodded once.

Uraraka frowned faintly.

“The other rules?” she whispered to Izuku.

He managed a smile.

“Trust,” he said. “Teamwork. The usual.”

She brightened.

“Then we’ll ace it!” she said.

The pro hero leading the exercise—a tall, broad-shouldered man with a helmet shaped like a radio tower—stepped forward.

“Alright, kiddos!” he boomed. “Today we’re going to simulate a building collapse with trapped civilians, a small-scale explosion, and a secondary villain threat! We’ll be monitoring your choices and—”

Izuku stopped listening.

He felt it.

The Matrix’s attention shifted.

Unexpected branch: MIDORIYA IZUKU PRESENT.

The disaster tree reconfigured itself behind the scenes.

Hostage variables flickered.

The “villain” scripts filed under the main scenario rippled.

He saw his own name slotted into a parameter set.

PRIMARY OBSERVATION: RESPONSE TO MULTIPLE CONCURRENT THREATS.
SECONDARY: RESPONSE TO TARGETED ENDANGERMENT OF ASSOCIATED SUBJECT(S): URARAKA OCHACO / IIDA TENYA.

His stomach twisted.

They’re going to use them, he thought.

He touched his earpiece.

“Tsu,” he whispered. “They’re tagging Ochaco and Iida.”

“Kero,” she said. “I see it. They’re weighted as ‘hostage options.’ We’ll watch.”

Aizawa’s voice joined the quiet chorus in his head.

“You’re not alone,” he said. “Remember your training. See the false choice.”

Izuku nodded minutely.

Bakugou bumped his shoulder with a fist.

“Don’t freak out,” he muttered. “You start muttering equations, the extras will panic before the ‘villain’ even shows up.”

“How comforting,” Izuku whispered back.

They split into teams.

Izuku ended up with Uraraka, Iida, and Kirishima.

They were assigned to Sector B—two mid-rise office buildings, one under “renovation,” the other “occupied.”

Uraraka hummed with nervous energy.

“It’s just training,” she said, more to herself than anyone. “Real pros are watching. We’ll be fine.”

The pro supervisor for their sector, a lean hero with the codename Quakeguard, pointed to a map.

“Collapse scenario will start in the construction site,” he said. “Your job: secure the perimeter, identify civilians, evacuate. If ‘villains’ appear, prioritize lives over capture. Don’t be heroes. Be rescuers.”

Iida nodded vigorously.

“Yes, sir!” he said. “We will not disappoint you!”

Izuku’s skin crawled.

The Matrix was too quiet.

Tsuyu’s voice cut in, thread-light.

“Kero,” she murmured. “There’s an extra routine tied to this sector. Not in the pro’s script. It’s… layered under the rubble simulation. They’re going to split you.”

“Of course they are,” Trinity muttered. “They’ve read the bus logs. Time to apply pressure.”

Izuku forced himself to breathe.

He couldn’t stop the test.

He could only break its expectations.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “Okay.”

He looked at his teammates.

“Iida-kun,” he said. “You’re fastest on clear ground. If anything falls, you’re our runner. Uraraka, you can lighten debris and people. Kirishima, you’re our shield. Hardening first, complaining later.”

Kirishima grinned. “You got it, bro!” he said.

Uraraka saluted. “Making things float, check!” she chirped.

Iida adjusted his glasses. “I shall ensure no evacuated civilian re-enters the danger zone!” he declared.

Izuku’s chest ached.

He didn’t want them anywhere near this.

He needed them.

He couldn’t do this alone.

The siren sounded.

The building “collapsed.”

It was beautiful, in a horrifying way.

The machine-generated simulation of structural failure rippled through the construction zone like a wave—scaffolding crumpling, walls sinking, dust blooming in perfect plumes.

Panels fell in safe patterns, designed to trap, not crush.

The Matrix was still pretending to care.

Izuku saw the script tags flicker.

DUST_LEVEL: HIGH (VISIBILITY REDUCED).
CIVILIAN_COUNT: 12.
INITIAL_INJURIES: MODERATE.

He also saw the hidden branches unlock.

SPECIAL EVENT CONDITIONS: IF MIDORIYA IZUKU PRESENT & TEAM_B CONTAINS URARAKA OCHACO + IIDA TENYA → TRIGGER HOSTAGE SUBROUTINE C.

“Kero,” Tsuyu said. “Here it comes.”

Screams echoed.

Pro heroes shouted orders.

Quakeguard barked commands into a radio and then waved them forward.

“Sector B, go!” he yelled. “Remember, no one dies on my watch!”

The Matrix didn’t care about his watch.

Izuku sprinted toward the dust cloud, heart hammering.

Iida ran at his side, engines roaring.

Uraraka tugged on her helmet, cheeks pale.

Kirishima hardened, skin turning rocklike.

They plunged into the rubble.

It was almost like USJ again.

Cracked concrete underfoot.

Twisted metal overhead.

Dust in the air.

Izuku’s quirk hummed.

He felt the weight of the fallen beams, the simulated density of the debris. He saw where it could be nudged.

He also felt the cold presence of “random” variables sliding into place.

Behind a half-fallen wall, a “civilian” lay pinned.

Not real.

But their face was twisted in pain.

Their chest rose and fell.

Uraraka darted to them, hand already reaching.

“I’ve got them!” she called. “Iida-kun, can you—”

A chunk of debris “fell” from above, bouncing off Iida’s shoulder.

He stumbled.

The damage script flagged his leg: MINOR INJURY – SPEED REDUCED.

He grunted, catching himself.

“I’m fine!” he said. “Just startled!”

Hostage Subroutine C activated.

A second “collapse” rippled through the zone.

A steel beam groaned and tipped.

Right toward Uraraka.

And the pinned “civilian.”

Izuku saw it unfold in code: PATH_A → URARAKA IMPACT, CIVILIAN SAVED. PATH_B → URARAKA SAFE, CIVILIAN CRUSHED.

The branch sparkled.

The machines leaned in.

Ten seconds.

Maybe less.

He could dash to Uraraka.

He could shove her out of the way.

The “civilian” would take the hit.

Or he could reinforce the beam with One For All, hold it up, buy time.

But that would leave his back to the rest of the zone.

He felt the other routine waiting—faint, on the opposite side of the site: a sudden gas leak near a cluster of yet-unfound civilians.

The test wanted him to tunnel-vision.

Pick a friend.

Or pick strangers.

It wanted him to break in half.

“I can hold it!” Uraraka shouted, seeing the beam. “I can make it light, Deku! Just go—”

“No,” Izuku blurted.

His mind flashed back to the bus.

To Tsuyu’s tongue shaking under the weight while he tried to be everywhere at once.

He couldn’t do both.

He didn’t have to.

“Iida!” he yelled. “Cover the leak!”

Iida blinked.

“What leak?” he asked.

“There’s always a leak!” Izuku shouted, not even trying to pretend this time. “Listen! Smell! The scripts always double up! You’re our runner—go!”

Iida hesitated for a fraction.

Then his engines roared.

“Understood!” he said, sprinting deeper into the rubble cloud.

“Kirishima!” Izuku barked. “With me!”

Kirishima grinned, already moving.

“Let’s go!” he yelled. “Red Riot, coming through!”

They bounded toward Uraraka.

The beam descended.

Uraraka slammed her palm against it.

“Release!” she cried.

The metal jerked mid-air.

The Matrix’s gravity calculations hiccupped.

The beam went from HEAVY OBJECT to FLOATING TAG in one smeared line of code.

It didn’t stop falling.

But it slowed.

Kirishima dove under it, arms braced.

“Hardening!” he shouted. “I’m manly enough for this!”

The beam struck his forearms.

It bowed.

His legs sank into the rubble.

“I’ve got it!” he grunted. “Hurry!”

The pinned “civilian” sobbed.

Izuku poured One For All into his hands and grabbed the other end of the beam, not to lift it, but to stable it—telling the code this was a SUPPORT STRUCTURE now, not a falling hazard.

The script didn’t love that.

WARNING: OBJECT_STATE CONFLICT.

Tsuyu’s voice whispered in his ear.

“Kero,” she said. “They’re trying to re-flag it as ‘debris.’ Don’t let them.”

He pushed.

The numbers flickered.

Gravity calculations spat sparks.

The beam stabilized, half-floating, half-braced between his will and Uraraka’s quirk and Kirishima’s grit.

“Go!” Izuku yelled at Uraraka. “Get them out!”

She slipped under the gap and hooked her arms under the “civilian’s” shoulders.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” she babbled, dragging them clear.

Dust swirled.

The Matrix rolled its eyes.

Fine, it seemed to say. You passed that branch.

Let’s try another.

On the far side of the site, Iida skidded to a halt.

He smelled gas.

Faint, fake, but there.

CIVILIAN_CLUSTER: 3.

LEAK: SIMULATED.

FIRE_EVENT: PENDING.

He could hear the pros shouting in the distance, but their words blurred.

He thought of Midoriya’s wild eyes.

Of the way the walls had stretched during the bunker drill.

Of Aizawa’s voice: When I say move, you move.

He didn’t wait for the siren.

He grabbed the nearest “civilian,” slung them over his shoulder, and ran.

“Emergency evacuation!” he shouted. “Please trust me and come this way!”

He moved them before the Matrix even triggered the tiny “spark” that was meant to start a harmless fire.

The branch collapsed.

HOSTAGE OPTION: FAILED.
DATA: INSUFFICIENT.

The machines adjusted.

Annoyed.

In the center zone, Izuku, Uraraka, and Kirishima eased the beam to the ground.

The “civilian” moaned but their status flag shifted from TRAPPED to INJURED.

Tsuyu’s quiet laugh bubbled in his ear.

“Kero,” she said. “You’re very annoying.”

He let out a breathless laugh of his own.

“I’m trying,” he whispered.

The test wasn’t over.

More “victims.”

More falling debris.

A minor “villain” routine popped out of a doorway, waving a crowbar and shouting generic threats.

Bakugou’s group had their own chaos in Sector C.

But by the time the all-clear siren sounded, Quakeguard’s tally board read:

CIVILIANS “DEAD”: 0.

INJURED: 3.
EVACUATED: 21.

Pro hero satisfaction rating: “Impressed.”

Machine satisfaction rating: “Irritated.”

 

---

Later, in the debrief room, Quakeguard clapped Izuku on the shoulder hard enough to make him wince.

“Good instincts, kid,” he said. “You saw the secondary threat and split your team. Risky, but it paid off. Most rookies stick to the obvious danger and forget the leaks.”

Iida bowed, cheeks pink.

“Midoriya-kun’s insight was invaluable!” he said. “I merely followed his lead!”

Uraraka wrung her hands, frowning.

“I messed up at first,” she said. “I almost froze. But you— you trusted me. To hold the beam. That helped.”

Kirishima flexed his bandaged forearms, grinning.

“It was so manly,” he said. “We were like, three pillars, dude.”

Izuku smiled shakily.

“W-we all did it,” he said. “Together.”

Aizawa leaned against the wall, arms folded, scarf loose.

He didn’t say anything in front of the pro.

But his eyes were soft.

When the others spilled out, chattering, he caught Izuku’s sleeve.

“Walk with me,” he said.

They stepped into an empty stretch of hallway.

Aizawa didn’t waste time.

“That was good,” he said. “Messy. But good.”

Izuku huffed a laugh.

“I’m sensing a theme,” he said.

Aizawa’s mouth twitched.

“Welcome to hero work,” he said. “The machines are going to keep trying to make you choose between them. Classmates. Civilians. Pros. Me.”

Izuku’s throat closed.

“I know,” he whispered.

Aizawa studied him.

“Today you didn’t let them,” he said. “You used the people around you. You didn’t run yourself into the ground trying to be everywhere at once.”

He flicked Izuku lightly on the forehead with two fingers.

“That’s growth,” he said.

Izuku’s eyes stung.

“I still— it was still luck,” he protested. “What if I’d been wrong? What if the leak wasn’t there? What if—”

“Then we would have adapted,” Aizawa said. “Or we would have failed. And we’d have tried again.”

He hesitated.

His voice softened.

“You can’t carry all the branches alone, problem child,” he went on. “Let the rest of us take some, or you’ll snap before the machines do.”

Izuku swallowed hard.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll… try.”

“Good,” Aizawa said. “Because they’re not done.”

He nodded toward the ceiling.

“They’re recalculating as we speak,” he added. “We annoy them today, they come back harder tomorrow. We’ll be ready.”

Izuku nodded.

He had to believe that.

 

---

On the Nebuchadnezzar, Tsuyu traced new lines on her crayon labyrinth map.

Little arrows from “construction site” to “gas leak.”

A tiny cheese wedge where Uraraka’s beam had floated.

A scribbled angry face near the matrix log saying:

PREDICTION ERROR: MIDORIYA IZUKU – +23%.
TEAM-CENTRIC RESPONSE: UNACCOUNTED.
ADJUSTING MODEL.

Tank whistled.

“Oh, they hate you,” he told Izuku when he jacked back in that night. “I mean, scientifically. With graphs.”

Trinity smirked.

“Good,” she said. “Let ‘em stew.”

Tsuyu looked up from the map, tired but satisfied.

“Kero,” she said. “You did well.”

Izuku flopped into the seat next to her, muscles aching in both worlds.

“Only because you were there,” he said. “All of you.”

Morpheus, standing by the console, inclined his head.

“This is how we win,” he said. “Not just in grand uprisings in the heart of the city. But in classrooms. Training fields. Quiet decisions to refuse a false choice.”

He glanced at Tsuyu, at Izuku, at Aizawa walking in with yet another mug of coffee.

“At mice who remember they are, in fact, people,” he said.

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she said. “And people bite.”

Izuku smiled.

He thought of Uraraka’s determined face under the beam.

Of Iida’s legs blurring as he dragged civilians away from a “leak” that hadn’t sparked yet.

Of Kirishima’s laugh as he shoved against impossible weight.

Of Bakugou, somewhere else in the city, screaming at a “villain” script to stop being boring.

Of his entire class, moving through a maze they didn’t know existed.

Yet.

“We’ll get them out,” he said softly. “All of them.”

Aizawa sank onto a crate across from him, eyes tired but resolute.

“Yes,” he said. “We will.”

The Matrix hummed.

It adjusted its behavior trees.

It recalibrated its fulcrums.

It prepared new tests.

On a ship in the dark, a frog, a problem child, and their half-broken teacher sharpened their crayons and rewrote their own.

Chapter Text

The machines stopped calling Midoriya a bug.

In the system logs Tank had stolen, the label under his name had quietly shifted.

Not:

> LOCALIZED CONTROL BUG – OBSERVE

 

But:

> FULCRUM NODE – PRIORITY OBSERVATION

 

The difference made Izuku’s skin crawl.

“On the plus side,” Tank said, chewing something that might once have been cereal, “they’ve stopped listing you under ‘minor nuisance.’ You’re firmly in ‘oh no, he’s doing things’ territory.”

Izuku hunched over the console, blanket around his shoulders.

On the screen, green text crawled:

MIDORIYA IZUKU:
– ANOMALY INDEX: 0.32 → 0.47
– TEAM COORDINATION FACTOR: HIGH
– SELF-SACRIFICE PREFERENCE: PERSISTENT

“I’d rather be a minor nuisance,” he muttered.

Tsuyu, perched cross-legged on a crate, sipped her tea thoughtfully.

“Kero,” she said. “If you’re a fulcrum, they’ll try to use you as a lever. If we don’t like where it goes, we move the fulcrum, kero.”

Trinity slid a data slate onto the table.

“Speaking of lever arms,” she said. “We’ve got a heads-up from our favorite morally ambiguous rodent.”

Izuku blinked.

“Nezu sent you something?” he asked.

Trinity’s mouth twisted.

“‘Sent’ is a strong word,” she said. “Let’s say he left a file where he knew we’d be listening.”

Aizawa wandered in with his mug.

“Of course he did,” he said. “What now?”

Trinity tapped the slate.

UA TRAINING SCHEDULE – NIGHT OPS
CLASS 1-A / PRO HERO: SNIPERWOLF (TEMPORARY)
SCENARIO: URBAN PURSUIT – LIVE-FIRE SIMULATION
SYSTEM OVERSIGHT: LEVEL 4

Izuku’s stomach dropped.

“Live-fire?” he squeaked. “We’re not even second-years.”

“‘Live-fire’ in the script means ‘we’re letting the Matrix drive more of the show,’” Tank explained. “Pros think they’re in control. They’re not. Level 4 oversight means the suits have their hands on the sliders.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled softly.

“Kero,” she said. “It’s a trap.”

Morpheus stepped up beside the console, coat slung over his shoulders.

“All of this is a trap,” he said. “But some traps are more… illuminating than others. They’ve tried drills, villain scripts, moral dilemmas. Next step is direct pressure.”

“We knew an Agent would show up eventually,” Trinity said. “They’re running out of passive data on you.”

Aizawa’s jaw tightened.

“And when they show up around my kids,” he said, “they stop being ‘interesting data’ and start being ‘targets.’”

Tsuyu nodded.

“We’ll be in your ears,” she said. “I’ll map the streets. Tank will watch for Agent spawn. Trinity and Morpheus will be ready to punch holes in the scenery, kero.”

Izuku swallowed.

“And me?” he asked.

Aizawa met his eyes.

“You stay alive,” he said. “You keep as many of them alive as you can. And you run when I tell you to run. We are not fighting an Agent head-on. Not yet.”

Izuku’s fingers curled.

“What about Kacchan?” he asked. “He’ll want to fight it.”

Aizawa’s mouth twitched.

“That’s why I’m telling him about this drill myself,” he said. “If anyone’s going to be the detonator for this mess, I’m picking where he goes off.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she said. “What about… Todoroki-kun?”

The name hung in the air.

Todoroki hadn’t been in the spotlight of their conspiracy yet.

Quiet.

Focused.

Half ice, half flame.

A walking contradiction that the Matrix’s quirk models treated like two processes glued together.

Morpheus’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“The system has already noted his… unusual parameters,” he said. “But he is not yet flagged as anomalous. Tonight may change that.”

Izuku’s heart stuttered.

“You think they’ll go after him too?” he whispered.

Trinity shrugged.

“They’re going to poke everywhere you’re strong,” she said. “Your circle. Your classmates. Your teacher.” She nodded at Aizawa. “We can’t hide them all forever. We can be ready when one of them breaks their expectations.”

Aizawa drained his mug.

“Suit up, problem child,” he said. “We’ve got a night lesson.”

 

---

The city looked different at night.

Even fake night.

UA’s buses rumbled through streets lit by neon signs and convenience store glow. Buildings loomed, windows reflecting the stars the real sky didn’t have. The air smelled like exhaust, fryer oil, and just a hint of rain that would never fall.

Class 1-A pressed against the bus windows, chattering.

“Urban exercise!” Kaminari crowed. “I bet we get to jump between rooftops and stuff!”

“Please do not jump between rooftops without supervision,” Iida scolded. “Reckless behavior could result in severe injury!”

“Only if you land wrong,” Kirishima grinned.

Todoroki sat two rows ahead, staring out at the passing streets.

Izuku watched him.

The reflection in the glass split his face in half—firelight from a billboard turning one side gold, cold blue streetlight washing the other.

“Midoriya-kun?” Uraraka whispered from the seat next to him. “You’re quiet.”

He forced a smile.

“N-nerves,” he said. “Normal ones. Probably.”

She gave him a worried look, but let it drop.

At the front of the bus, Aizawa stood with a pro hero Izuku had only seen on late-night news programs.

Sniperwolf—hero costume a mix of tactical gear and stylized fur, long rifle slung across her back.

Her quirk allowed her to “tag” moving targets and track their trajectories.

The Matrix liked her.

She fit into its predictive models.

“In this exercise,” she said, voice clipped, “you’ll be moving in pairs through a controlled urban environment. Simulated villains, simulated hostages. I’ll be positioned at a vantage point to provide overwatch. Aizawa will be ground support.”

She glanced down the aisle, gaze sharp.

“The objective is not to win,” she continued. “It’s to survive and extract your partner. Losing track of each other is an automatic fail. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am!” the class chorused.

Izuku’s earpiece hummed faintly under his hair.

“Tsu?” he murmured, barely moving his lips.

“I’m here, kero,” she whispered. “Downtown map is loaded. Nezu’s tagged this area as ‘high experimental interest.’ Tanks says there’s an extra monitoring node two blocks from your dropoff.”

Tank chimed in.

“Agent-capable junction at 7th and Honshu,” he said. “Think of it as a nest. If they’re going to spawn a suit, it’ll be near there.”

Izuku swallowed.

“Midoriya,” Aizawa’s voice said quietly from the front, layered over the ship channel. “Eyes up. You’re about to get your partner assignment.”

His stomach flipped.

Nezu really was rearranging the cheese.

Sniperwolf pulled out a tablet.

“Pairs have been preassigned,” she said. “Don’t argue.”

Names and combinations rolled down the bus.

“Kirishima with Sero. Jirou with Kaminari. Asui—” A pause. A flicker of sadness. “—will be simulated. Yaoyorozu, you’ll run solo with extra dummy load.”

Momo straightened, jaw tight.

“Yes, ma’am,” she said.

Then:

“Midoriya with Todoroki.”

Izuku choked.

“W-what?”

Kirishima whistled.

“Power pair,” he said. “Nice!”

Bakugou snorted loudly from the back.

“Keep Half-and-Half from freezing your ass,” he muttered.

Todoroki turned his head slightly.

His mismatched eyes met Izuku’s.

No surprise.

Just a faint tightening around the corners.

“Very well,” he said.

Trinity hissed in Izuku’s ear.

“Of course they stuck you with the walking natural disaster,” she said. “Suits’ll want to see what two anomalies do together.”

“I’m not an anomaly,” Izuku whispered reflexively.

Tank coughed.

“Buddy,” he said, “they literally stamped it on your file.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled, somewhere between amusement and worry.

“Kero,” she said. “Stay close. Todoroki-kun will either make this easier… or much harder.”

Aizawa moved down the aisle, coat swaying.

He paused next to Izuku and Todoroki’s seat, hand on the rail.

“Remember the rules,” he murmured, voice low enough that only they heard. “Stay together. Don’t chase fights. If I say run, you run.”

Todoroki’s brow furrowed.

“Run from what?” he asked.

“You’ll know it when you see it,” Aizawa said.

His gaze locked on Izuku’s.

“And if Midoriya says ‘trust me,’” he added, “you give him ten seconds. Same deal as Bakugou.”

Todoroki blinked slowly.

“I’m not Bakugou,” he said.

“I’m aware,” Aizawa replied. “Ten seconds anyway.”

He moved on.

Izuku felt Todoroki looking at him.

“Yes, Aizawa-sensei,” he managed.

The bus lurched to a stop at the edge of the designated district.

City lights flickered overhead.

The Matrix’s hum grew louder.

 

---

They dropped in waves.

Each pair given a starting alley, a comm channel, a rough objective: move from Point A to Point B, rescuing any “civilians” they encountered, avoiding “villains” beyond their capacity.

Izuku and Todoroki’s drop point was a narrow side street behind an office building.

Trash cans.

Graffiti.

The distant rush of main-road traffic.

The air tasted wrong.

“Tsu?” Izuku murmured. “Status?”

“Monitoring node is active,” she said. “Agent-capable junction is in the substation near your target exit. No suit yet. Just… a lot of eyes, kero.”

Morpheus’s voice was quiet.

“Move carefully,” he said. “This is the first time they’ve had you and Todoroki in the same high-pressure environment since USJ. They will be… curious.”

Todoroki studied the alley.

“We should prioritize high-occupancy structures,” he said. “Office towers, apartments. Minimize exposure time between shelters.”

Izuku nodded.

“Right,” he said. “Elevators are probably disabled. Stairwells, fire escapes…”

He stopped.

Frowned.

Something in the ambient script… shivered.

He couldn’t see Agents yet.

But he felt the potential.

Like pressure building behind a wall.

“They’re watching,” he whispered.

Todoroki glanced at him.

“They always watch,” he said.

There was no accusation in it.

Just statement.

Izuku swallowed.

“More than usual,” he clarified.

“Then we give them something worth watching,” Todoroki said.

He stepped out of the alley.

Izuku hurried after him.

They moved along the sidewalk, eyes scanning.

The simulation started tame.

A “civilian” stuck under a toppled streetlight.

An overturned car.

A panicked office worker on a fire escape.

They handled it.

Uraraka’s training with lifting debris echoed in Izuku’s muscles.

Todoroki’s ice formed clean, precise ramps and braces.

The Matrix dutifully logged their choices.

SECONDARY TEST: FULCRUM NODE + HYBRID SUBJECT.
COOPERATION: HIGH.
ERROR RATE: LOW.

Tsuyu murmured updates in Izuku’s ear.

“Bakugou’s sector has three ‘villains’ already,” she said. “He’s yelling. A lot. As expected, kero.”

“Quakeguard’s tagging everyone’s trajectories,” Tank added. “UA side thinks the sims are still under their control. Joke’s on them.”

Izuku breathed.

He could almost forget, for a few minutes, that this wasn’t just a test.

He and Todoroki worked surprisingly well together.

The other boy was quiet, yes.

But efficient.

If Izuku pointed out a weakness in a structure, Todoroki patched it with ice.

If Todoroki spotted a cluster of “civilians,” Izuku ran ahead to clear a path.

They didn’t need many words.

Just movement.

Maybe that was why the machines got bored.

The air changed.

One moment, it was a simulation of a mild city night: muted sounds, constrained chaos.

The next, the hum sharpened.

Like a wire pulled taut.

Tsuyu’s voice wavered.

“Kero,” she said. “Monitoring node just spiked. Heavy process incoming. They’re queuing something.”

“Agent signature?” Trinity snapped.

“Close enough,” Tank said, fingers flying. “It’s not spawned yet, but the carrier’s picked. They’re going to overwrite a body near your path.”

Morpheus’s voice was steady.

“Stay away from crowds,” he said. “Agents prefer high-density spaces. Fewer variables to spawn from is safer.”

Izuku’s heart slammed.

“Todoroki,” he hissed. “We should avoid the main square.”

Todoroki glanced at him, expression unreadable.

“I thought you wanted to prioritize high-occupancy areas,” he said.

“I do,” Izuku said. “But—”

A scream cut through the night.

Real enough to make both of them flinch.

From the corner of the block, a “civilian” stumbled into view—a man in a wrinkled business suit, tie askew.

He clutched his head.

Staggered.

“I-Is someone there?” he gasped. “My— my eyes— everything’s—”

His voice glitched.

Just a little.

Izuku saw the code tear through him like a wave.

His posture snapped upright.

His hands dropped to his sides.

The expression drained from his face.

For a moment, he stood, empty.

Then he raised his head.

Black suit.

Black tie.

Neat, polished shoes.

Sunglasses materialized over his eyes with a faint shimmer.

Todoroki’s breath caught.

The air around them went very, very still.

Tsuyu croaked, low and horrified.

“Kero,” she whispered. “Agent.”

The Agent turned its head slowly.

Its gaze locked on Izuku.

“Mr. Midoriya,” it said.

Izuku’s blood froze.

He’d never heard his name sound like an error message before.

Todoroki stepped half a pace forward, body angling between Izuku and the suit.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

The Agent ignored him.

“FULCRUM NODE,” it said, as if reading a file aloud. “LOCAL ANOMALY. CLASS: HERO TRAINEE. LOCATION: UA HIGH SCHOOL.”

It tilted its head.

“UNACCEPTABLE.”

Izuku’s legs wanted to run.

His brain locked.

Trinity’s voice was sharp.

“DEKU. MOVE.”

He jolted.

A hand clamped his shoulder.

Not the Agent’s.

Todoroki’s.

“Is this one of your ‘anomalies’?” Todoroki asked, very quietly.

Izuku’s throat convulsed.

“Yes,” he whispered.

The Agent took a step toward them.

Its movements were smooth.

Too smooth.

The Matrix’s gravity bent around it.

Cars three blocks away tagged it as “priority object” and subtly adjusted their paths, even though they couldn’t see it.

“This area is under observation,” the Agent said. “Your continued disruption of expected crisis-response patterns is inefficient.”

It lifted a hand.

Long, pale fingers.

“I will correct this,” it added.

Behind his goggles, Aizawa’s eyes snapped red from his vantage point on a nearby rooftop.

“Izuku,” he hissed over the channel. “Run. NOW.”

Todoroki’s grip tightened.

Instead of pulling back, he shifted.

Heat flared along his left side.

Cold gathered on his right.

“I won’t leave him,” he said.

The Agent turned to him for the first time.

Its head tilted, fractionally.

“SECONDARY SUBJECT,” it said. “TODOROKI SHOTO. HYBRID QUIRK. MODEL ERROR: THERMAL BALANCE UNRESOLVED.”

Todoroki’s jaw clenched.

“My quirk isn’t an ‘error,’” he said.

The Agent adjusted its tie.

“ALL DEVIATIONS ARE ERRORS,” it said. “ERRORS MUST BE CORRECTED.”

It struck.

One second, it stood three meters away.

The next, it was close enough that Izuku could see his own panicked reflection in its sunglasses.

He didn’t see it move.

He just saw the afterimage.

A fist drove toward his chest.

One For All flared.

Izuku threw himself sideways.

The punch missed his sternum by centimeters and shattered the brick wall behind him like it was chalk.

Pain roared up his arm as the shockwave grazed him.

He hit the ground and rolled, air wheezing out of his lungs.

“TEN SECONDS,” Aizawa barked through gritted teeth. “RUN, MIDORIYA. NOW.”

Izuku scrambled to his feet.

“Todoroki!” he gasped.

“I have him,” Todoroki said.

His right side dropped, ice slamming into the pavement in a jagged wall between them and the Agent.

The Agent didn’t bother to step back.

It simply punched the ice.

Cracks spiderwebbed across the frozen barrier.

Tsuyu sucked in a breath.

“Kero,” she said. “Remember the bus. Remember the branches. You can’t fight it head-on. You break the script.”

Izuku’s mind raced.

Agent.

Speed.

Brute force.

It wants me to run straight, he realized. To flee down the obvious escape route where it can predict my trajectory, measure my limits, corner me.

He grabbed Todoroki’s sleeve.

“Left!” he shouted.

“There’s a dead end to the left,” Todoroki said.

“Only if we let it be one!” Izuku blurted.

He yanked.

For once, Todoroki let himself be pulled.

They sprinted into the alley.

Behind them, the Agent stepped through the crumbling ice as if it were mist.

It didn’t hurry.

The Matrix bent space very gently to make sure it would always be just close enough.

“Nearest exit node?” Izuku gasped.

“Three blocks north,” Tank said. “Phone booth outside a closed bar. Agents know the location. They’ll cut you off if you run straight.”

“Can you open a new one?” Aizawa demanded.

“We’re already straining the local bandwidth,” Trinity snapped. “If we force in another phone, we’ll light up every watchdog in a hundred-meter radius. You’ll have suits crawling all over your kids.”

“So we run the maze,” Tsuyu said. “And we redraw it as we go, kero.”

They burst into the dead-end.

Brick wall.

Fire escape bolted too high to jump to.

No door.

The Agent walked into the mouth of the alley, fingers smoothing its tie.

“DESTINATION: TERMINATED,” it said.

Izuku panted.

Todoroki squared his shoulders, one side steaming, the other already frosting.

“I’ll hold it,” Todoroki said. “You run.”

“No!” Izuku yelped. “That’s my line!”

The Agent raised its hand again.

“INTERVENTION PROJECTION: LOW,” it said. “LOCAL HERO RESOURCES: INSUFFICIENT.”

It didn’t even see the manhole cover.

Bakugou did.

“DUCK, DEKU!” he roared.

The manhole cover screamed through the air like a spinning landmine, propelled by an explosion that blew out a chunk of street half a block away.

The Agent tilted its head.

The cover glanced off its shoulder.

Metal warped.

Its suit didn’t even wrinkle.

But it stopped.

It turned.

Down the cross street, Bakugou stood atop a crushed car, smoke curling from his palms.

Kirishima at his side, hardened.

Jirou leaning against a lamppost, earjacks plugged into the concrete.

Their eyes blazed.

“Whoops,” Bakugou said. “My hand slipped.”

The Agent considered him.

“Katsuki Bakugou,” it said. “ANOMALY INDEX: GROWING.”

“I’ll show you growing, you four-eyed freak,” Bakugou snarled.

He launched himself.

Izuku grabbed Todoroki’s arm.

“NOW,” he gasped. “Ten seconds!”

Todoroki didn’t argue this time.

They bolted past the Agent while its attention shifted.

For an instant, the suit existed in two places—facing them, facing Bakugou—its code trying to resolve conflicting branches.

Too many anomalies in one spot.

Jirou slammed a foot into the sidewalk, sending a pulse of sound into the ground.

Her earjacks glowed.

“Kaminari, now!” she shouted.

Half a block away, Kaminari churched up enough juice to fry a small neighborhood.

Electricity crackled along the street, guided by Jirou’s sonic map.

Izuku saw the pattern in code—a web of sound and power weaving a cage.

The Agent moved.

Too fast.

It blurred.

The electricity snapped harmlessly against the walls; the sound cage collapsed.

“Insufficient,” the Agent said.

Bakugou hit it in the face with an explosion.

Fire, light, concussive force.

The shockwave shattered nearby windows.

The Agent’s head snapped to the side.

Its sunglasses flew off.

For a fraction of a second, Izuku saw its eyes—pale, flat, vaguely offended.

Then the glasses reappeared on its face, good as new.

“EXCESSIVE FORCE,” it noted. “UNPRODUCTIVE.”

Bakugou grinned, blood in his teeth.

“Did I at least annoy you?” he spat.

“SLIGHTLY,” the Agent said.

“Kero,” Tsuyu whispered in Izuku’s ear. “You two. Phone. Now.”

They ran.

The Matrix tried to push them back toward the fight—subtle adjustments in the friction of the pavement, small shifts in crowd flow.

Izuku shoved back.

“Path,” he gasped.

The alley ahead of them flickered.

What had been a chain-link fence became a narrow gap between two dumpsters.

They squeezed through.

Todoroki’s ice flared behind them, throwing up walls, slowing the Agent’s line-of-sight calculations.

They burst onto the main road near the closed bar.

The phone booth stood on the corner.

Old.

Grimy.

Perfect.

It wasn’t ringing.

Yet.

“Tank—” Izuku started.

“It’s hot,” Tank said. “Every watchdog in the sector’s sniffing it. If I make it ring now, the Agent will be there before you can lift the receiver.”

“So don’t make it obvious,” Trinity snapped. “Window first. Then phone.”

Todoroki grabbed Izuku’s arm.

“If we leave now,” he said, eyes hard, “what happens to the others?”

Izuku swallowed.

“We’re not leaving leaving,” he rasped. “We’re just… stepping out. For information. And maybe to keep the Agent from trying to rewrite my brain while I’m standing here.”

Todoroki blinked.

“Rewrite your—”

A bullet whined past his cheek.

The wall behind him exploded in a spray of brick and dust.

Sniperwolf’s voice crackled over the training comms.

“Contact with unknown hostile!” she barked. “All students, fall back to safe zones! This is no longer a drill!”

Too late.

The Agent stepped through the dust, suit unruffled.

One hand outstretched, bullet between thumb and forefinger.

It rolled the slug absently.

“INCONVENIENT,” it said.

It flicked the bullet back at the rooftop.

There was a sparking crunch as it struck Sniperwolf’s scope and sent her sprawling.

Izuku’s heartbeat roared in his ears.

“NOW,” Aizawa snarled. “Trinity, ring the phone. Midoriya, Todoroki—pick up or I’ll drag you out myself.”

The booth’s phone started ringing.

Shrill.

Insistent.

Todoroki’s eyes widened.

“What is that?” he breathed. “That sound… feels like—”

“HOME,” Izuku said.

He grabbed Todoroki’s wrist with one hand, the receiver with the other.

The Agent blurred.

It appeared at the mouth of the phone booth, one hand reaching.

Time stretched.

Izuku saw every line of code that made up its fingers.

The branch the machines wanted:

MIDORIYA IZUKU – CAPTURED.
FULCRUM NEUTRALIZED.

He closed his eyes.

“NO,” he said.

He shoved everything he had—fear, stubbornness, One For All—into that word.

Into the connection between the phone and the port in his neck.

Into the idea that this path led away, not toward.

The world snapped.

Static roared.

He felt Todoroki’s grip tighten.

For a heartbeat, the Agent’s hand passed through where his chest had been—

—and met only humming plastic.

The phone booth was empty.

The Agent tilted its head.

Static fizzled where its fingers touched the receiver.

UNAUTHORIZED EXIT, the system log flashed.

SUBJECTS: MIDORIYA IZUKU / TODOROKI SHOTO.
ANOMALY INDEX UPDATED.

The Agent’s jaw tightened the smallest fraction.

Then it turned, smoothing its tie.

Bakugou limped into view at the end of the block, one side of his face bleeding.

“Where is he?” he snarled. “Where’s Deku, you—”

The Agent didn’t answer.

Its body flickered.

The suit collapsed back into the slack form of the businessman, who crumpled to the sidewalk, dazed.

Machine attention shifted.

For the moment.

 

---

The real world hit Todoroki like a hurricane of needles.

Cold.

Wet.

Too real.

He choked on a gasp as red gel poured out of his lungs, the pod’s clamps releasing.

He didn’t even have time to process the sight of endless fields of human batteries before he tumbled into a catch basin.

Hands grabbed him.

“Got you,” a voice said.

Izuku.

Shaking.

Very real.

Very there.

Todoroki coughed, body convulsing.

His right side felt… numb.

His left burned.

His quirk—both halves—felt like something had taken a chisel to it.

“What—” he rasped. “Where—”

“Desert of the real,” Morpheus’s voice said from somewhere above. “Welcome, Todoroki Shoto.”

Todoroki blinked up at a sky clogged with towers and lightning.

Red light.

Storm clouds.

No stars.

Not even the fake ones.

He stared.

His throat closed.

“Okay,” he croaked. “I… think I hate cheese metaphors now.”

Tsuyu’s laugh bubbled faintly from the hovercraft’s hatch.

“Kero,” she said. “You’ll get used to it.”

Izuku gripped Todoroki’s arm.

His eyes were wide and terrified and shining with relief.

“I’m so sorry,” he babbled. “We didn’t plan to— I mean we knew an Agent might show up but you weren’t supposed to— I should have told you earlier and saved you from—the pods, the—”

“Midoriya,” Aizawa said sharply from the hatch, hair whipping in the wind. “Less apologizing. More hauling.”

Between them, they half-carried, half-dragged Todoroki toward the Nebuchadnezzar.

Every step hurt.

Every breath burned.

His mind reeled.

Agent.

Phone.

Red sky.

Izuku’s hand painfully tight on his wrist.

He stumbled into the ship’s cramped interior.

Metal.

Oil.

Human sweat.

Real.

Too real.

He collapsed onto the waiting bed in the infirmary, muscles shuddering.

Tsuyu sat on the next bed, blanket around her shoulders, hair damp, ports along her spine still angry-red.

She looked at him with tired eyes.

“Kero,” she said softly. “Welcome to the other side.”

Todoroki stared at her.

“You’re… here,” he croaked.

She nodded.

“Hospital smells wrong,” she said. “Sorry.”

He let out a breath that might have been a laugh, might have been a sob.

Izuku hovered, guilt written all over him.

“I—Todoroki—I—”

Todoroki lifted a shaking hand.

“Stop,” he said.

Izuku’s mouth snapped shut.

Todoroki looked around.

At Morpheus.

At Trinity.

At Tank.

At the exposed wiring, the patched metal, the too-small space.

At Aizawa, who looked like he’d aged another ten years in the last hour.

“You’ve… known,” Todoroki said slowly. “About this. For… how long?”

Aizawa’s shoulders sagged.

“Long enough,” he said.

Todoroki’s gaze slid back to Izuku.

“You too,” he said.

Izuku nodded miserably.

“I wanted to tell you,” he blurted. “All of you. But if I’d done it too early, they’d have—”

Todoroki raised his hand again, wincing as the movement pulled at a fresh port.

“I don’t… want excuses,” he said. “Not yet.”

He let his hand drop.

“I want answers,” he said. “But I don’t… think I can take them all right now.”

His voice shook on the last words.

Izuku’s chest ached.

“You don’t have to,” Morpheus said gently. “Not yet. For now, you need rest. Food. Time to adjust to having… one less layer of lies between you and the world.”

Tsuyu nodded.

“Kero,” she said. “Then we figure out where your fire and ice go, kero. Out there and… in here.”

Todoroki closed his eyes.

He could still feel the Agent’s gaze.

The way it had called his quirk an error.

He thought of Endeavor.

Of years of being told what his power should be.

Who he should be.

Error.

Correction.

Maybe this was just another dimension of that.

He opened his eyes again.

Looked at Izuku.

“You pulled me out of that phone,” he said. “Before it could touch me.”

Izuku swallowed.

“I… tried,” he said. “I don’t know if—”

“You did,” Todoroki said firmly.

Silence stretched.

Then, very quietly, he added,

“Thank you.”

Izuku’s breath hitched.

Tears finally spilled over.

Aizawa scrubbed a hand over his face.

“Alright,” he muttered. “Emotional crisis later. Vitals now.”

Tank moved in with scanners that beeped and flickered.

Trinity smirked at Todoroki.

“Just so you know,” she said. “The machines hate you now too.”

Todoroki stared at her.

“Why?” he asked.

Tank flipped a screen around.

Todoroki saw lines of green text.

TODOROKI SHOTO:
– HYBRID QUIRK MODEL FAILED.
– AGENT INTERACTION: UNEXPECTED.
– ATTEMPTED OVERWRITE – PARTIAL.
– RESULT: DATA INTEGRITY ERROR.

“Your fire/ice combo glitched their overwrite attempt,” Tank said. “They tried to get your nervous system under the standard control envelope. It didn’t fit.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she said. “You melted their cheese.”

Todoroki closed his eyes.

Despite the ache, despite the fear, despite the weight of everything that had just happened—

He smiled, just a little.

“Good,” he whispered.

 

---

Back in the Matrix, Class 1-A’s night exercise ended in chaos.

Pro heroes swarmed the district, scooping up students, ushering them back to UA. Quakeguard yelled into his radio. Sniperwolf nursed a bruised shoulder and a ruined scope.

Nezu stood in his office, watching the logs stream past.

ANOMALOUS EXIT: MIDORIYA IZUKU / TODOROKI SHOTO.
AGENT INTERACTION: INCONCLUSIVE.
DATA: CORRUPTED.

He sipped his tea.

“How interesting,” he murmured.

His eyes flicked to a small, hand-drawn map tucked under his desk blotter.

Cheese wedges.

Little frog faces.

Crayon lines.

He smiled.

“Run, little mice,” he said softly. “Run.”

 

---

On the Nebuchadnezzar, Tsuyu updated her own map.

She added a new symbol next to Todoroki’s name.

Not a frog.

Not a fulcrum.

A jagged half-sun, half-snowflake.

Izuku sat beside her, nursing a bandaged arm.

Aizawa leaned against the wall, eyes closed, but not asleep.

“Three of us out,” Tsuyu murmured. “Two and a half awake inside. That’s… something, kero.”

Izuku nodded.

“We’ll get the rest,” he said.

Todoroki, propped up on pillows, watched them.

His body ached.

His lungs burned.

His mind spun.

But under it all, a small, stubborn flame burned cold and hot.

Error, the Agent had said.

Fulcrum, the system had said.

Cheese, Nezu would probably say.

He thought of a phone ringing in a booth.

Of Izuku’s hand catching his.

Of Tsuyu’s “kero.”

Of Aizawa saying, Run.

He took a slow breath.

“Next time,” he said quietly, “we don’t run alone.”

Izuku glanced over.

Smiled, watery but real.

“Deal,” he said.

Outside, the dead sky flashed with distant lightning.

Inside, on a battered ship packed with the beginnings of a revolution, another anomaly opened his eyes.

The Matrix adjusted its hunters.

The rebels adjusted their hopes.

The war moved to its next line of code.

Chapter Text

The first thing Todoroki noticed was the hum.

Not the steady, dull buzz of UA’s air conditioning.

Not the quiet roar of stadium crowds.

A deeper sound.

Mechanical.

Alive.

He stared at the ceiling above the infirmary bunk, blinking against the harsh, too-real light. His throat felt like sandpaper. His chest hurt, as if he’d inhaled broken glass.

When he tried to move, every muscle protested.

“Don’t sit up yet,” Aizawa said from somewhere to his left. “Unless you want to fall on your face. Again.”

Todoroki turned his head instead.

The motion sent a spike of pain down his neck.

He winced.

Aizawa sat on a crate, elbows on his knees, capture weapon loose around his shoulders instead of coiled in that familiar menacing halo. He looked like he always did—tired, scruffy, one step from telling someone they were expelled.

Except his eyes.

They weren’t looking through him like a teacher casually checking on a patient.

They were… watching.

Measuring.

“How long?” Todoroki’s voice came out ragged.

Aizawa understood anyway.

“About ten hours,” he said. “Since we pulled you.”

Ten hours.

Todoroki’s brain tried to put that alongside the night exercise.

The Agent.

The phone.

The sky.

He shut his eyes for a second.

Bad idea.

The red glare behind his lids was too close to a different red he’d seen in childhood—firelight against a training hall wall, his father’s silhouette blocking out every exit.

He opened them again with a sharp breath.

“Breathe,” another voice said.

Soft.

Steady.

“Kero.”

Todoroki blinked to the right.

Tsuyu sat in the bunk next to his, wrapped in a blanket, legs dangling.

She looked… fragile.

Thinner than in the dorms.

Ports dotted her arms and neck like angry red puncture marks.

But her eyes were the same.

Calm.

Assessing.

“You’re shaking,” she pointed out. “Your body and your brain don’t match yet, kero. It’s normal.”

Normal.

Nothing about this was normal.

The hum.

The metal walls.

The faint sway under everything.

Todoroki turned his head the other way.

Izuku leaned in a chair, legs pulled up, arms around his knees.

He’d clearly tried to stay awake and failed; his head bobbed, jerking upright every few seconds, curls a mess.

One of his hands was wrapped in bandages.

His eyes were red-rimmed when they opened and saw Todoroki watching him.

“T-Todoroki!” he blurted, nearly falling out of the chair. “You’re awake, that’s good, I mean I knew you would be, Tank said your vitals were stabilizing but sometimes people take longer and—”

“Midoriya,” Aizawa warned.

Izuku deflated slightly.

“Sorry,” he said. “I ramble. Still.”

Todoroki stared at him.

The last thing he remembered was Izuku’s hand—warm, shaking—wrapped around his wrist as the phone rang.

“Where are we?” he asked.

Aizawa’s mouth twitched.

“Inconvenient question,” he said. “Short version: on a hovercraft called the Nebuchadnezzar. Long version: somewhere under a sky you’re not ready to see twice yet.”

Todoroki turned those words over.

Hovercraft.

Nebuchadnezzar.

He’d heard the names from Tsuyu, from Izuku’s mutterings, from Aizawa’s carefully vague comments before.

They’d sounded like code names.

Now they sounded like… reality.

“And UA?” he asked. “The others?”

His voice caught a little on “others.”

“Still inside,” Tsuyu said quietly. “Sleeping. Going to school. Doing drills. Waiting for classmates in hospital and ‘transfers,’ kero.”

Todoroki’s jaw tightened.

My ghost, he thought.

Still walking.

Still nodding in class.

Still not knowing anything.

A familiar anger stirred.

It felt different here.

Less muffled.

More dangerous.

“So this is the real world,” he said slowly. “The… desert.”

Izuku’s eyes lit with a mix of pride and guilt.

“You remember,” he said. “I mean, most people throw up for hours and then pass out. You… mostly just passed out.”

“I considered vomiting,” Todoroki said. “It felt… inefficient.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she said. “You sound like Nezu.”

Todoroki grimaced at that.

Aizawa rubbed his face.

“You’re taking this better than some,” he said. “Don’t get cocky. You’re still a noodle.”

Todoroki tried to move his right hand.

His fingers twitched.

Barely.

His left hand shook more violently when he tried that side.

He sucked in a breath as pins and needles exploded up his arm.

“What—”

“Your muscles are atrophied,” Aizawa said bluntly. “You’ve never used them. Not really. The pods feed basic stimuli, but they don’t train for hero work. Or walking. Or holding chopsticks.”

Izuku nodded too hard.

“I fell on my face like five times my first day,” he said. “And then I tried to stand too fast and Trinity said if I broke any more of my real bones she was going to staple me to the bed—”

“Midoriya,” Aizawa repeated.

Izuku shut his mouth.

Todoroki frowned at his hands.

“What about my quirk?” he asked.

The word tasted different here.

Quirk.

In UA, it meant power.

Potential.

In Endeavor’s house, it had meant destiny.

Burden.

Here…

Todoroki looked down at his bare chest.

Ports dotted his skin there too.

No hospital gown.

Just reality.

“Quirk physics work differently here,” Tsuyu said. “Less… flashy. More literal, kero.”

Izuku lifted his bandaged hand.

“Using One For All at full power out there would rip my arm off,” he said. “Not in a cool ‘battle damage’ way. In a ‘blood and broken bone’ way. The laws are stricter here.”

“Your body in the real world doesn’t have the structural reinforcement the Matrix pretends it has,” Aizawa said. “You can still use your fire and ice. But not like you’re used to. For now, we focus on keeping you from passing out when you sit up.”

Morpheus’s voice drifted in from the doorway.

“A body cannot live most of its life without moving and then be expected to sprint,” he said. “Even one blessed with… unusual genetics.”

Todoroki turned his head.

Morpheus stood there, coat draped over his shoulders, glasses catching the infirmary light.

He looked like he’d stepped out of a movie and into a junkyard.

“This is not a sprint,” Morpheus continued. “It is a… reorientation. Of muscles. Of mind. Of purpose.”

Todoroki’s brows drew together.

“Purpose,” he repeated.

“Why you fight,” Morpheus said simply. “Who you fight for. Where you stand when the world itself is your opponent.”

Todoroki thought of Endeavor again.

Of his father’s single-minded obsession.

Of the Agent’s flat voice.

ALL DEVIATIONS ARE ERRORS.

He shut his eyes for a second.

Opened them.

“My father,” he said slowly, “spent half my life telling me my fire was… wrong. Or that the way I chose not to use it was a mistake. A… glitch.”

Tsuyu’s eyes softened.

“Kero,” she said quietly.

“The Agent agreed,” Todoroki went on, tasting bitterness. “Or I suppose it agreed with him. Called me an ‘error.’ Tried to ‘correct’ me.”

He lifted a shaking hand toward his chest, fingers hovering over the ports.

“It failed,” he said.

Morpheus inclined his head.

“Yes,” he said. “It did.”

“Your nervous system threw a wrench into their overwrite templates,” Tank called from the hall, poking his head in. “They tried to file you under ‘standard human with temperature-control quirk.’ Your half-and-half brain threw up an error message.”

Todoroki stared at him.

“Good,” he said again.

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she said. “We can work with that.”

 

---

Rehab, it turned out, was hell.

Not the flashy, heroic kind of hell with flames and villains and dramatic speeches.

The boring kind.

The humiliating kind.

The kind where standing up from a bed and taking three steps across a metal floor felt like climbing a mountain with bricks tied to his ankles.

The first time Todoroki tried to stand, his knees buckled.

Izuku lunged to catch him.

They both went down.

Aizawa sighed deeply from his crate.

“I told you to let him fall on the mattress,” he told Izuku.

“I panicked!” Izuku yelped from under Todoroki.

Tsuyu leaned over the edge of her own bunk, watching with the air of someone who had been there and collected a stamp.

“Kero,” she said. “Remember to bend your knees before you move, Todoroki-kun. You’re tall. Gravity doesn’t like that yet.”

Todoroki lay sprawled across Izuku’s chest for a second, catching his breath.

“This is ridiculous,” he said.

Izuku wheezed.

“At least you didn’t rip all your IVs out on the first day,” he said. “I bled on Tank’s shoes.”

Tank yelled from the console room, “They were my good shoes!”

Morpheus observed from the doorway, hands folded behind his back, as if this were some kind of zen exercise.

“In the Matrix, you were taught that power is… instantaneous,” he said. “A thought. A flex. Here, it is a grind. Do not mistake the grind for weakness.”

Todoroki grit his teeth and pushed himself up again.

His arms shook.

His back screamed.

His lungs burned.

He stood.

One step.

Two.

His legs trembled.

He made it to the wall, turned, and looked back at the bunk like it was a distant checkpoint.

Tsuyu clapped politely.

“Kero,” she said. “Better than my first try. I fell halfway and Trinity caught it on camera.”

Trinity called from somewhere in the ship, “And I still have the footage!”

“Don’t you dare,” Aizawa growled.

They did the same thing the next day.

And the next.

Every time, it got a little easier.

Every time, he hated it just a touch less.

He still hated the vulnerability.

The way his body betrayed his expectations.

The way he had to depend on Izuku’s shoulder and Tsuyu’s steady commentary and Aizawa’s quiet instructions.

Hate wasn’t always bad, he decided.

As long as you pointed it in the right direction.

 

---

They didn’t let him into the Construct until he could walk the length of the infirmary and back without hugging the wall.

Even then, Aizawa made a face.

“This might be too soon,” he muttered.

Trinity leaned on the back of the chair.

“He’s got that ‘staring at the wall like he’s thinking about punching it’ look,” she said. “If we don’t give him somewhere to put that, he’s going to start trying to jog the hallway. And then you’ll yell at me when he tears something.”

Aizawa sighed.

“Fine,” he said. “But start gentle.”

Morpheus raised an eyebrow.

“When have I ever done otherwise?” he asked.

Izuku and Tsuyu exchanged a look.

“Kero,” Tsuyu said diplomatically. “He… tries.”

Todoroki sat in the chair, feeling the cold metal under his back.

The cable hovered near his neck.

He swallowed.

“Does it… hurt?” he asked.

“Not like the first time,” Izuku said. “That one was… special.”

“It’ll tingle,” Tsuyu added. “Like diving into cold water, kero. Then it’s just… there.”

Aizawa rested a hand on the back of the chair.

“If at any point you panic, say so,” he said. “We pull you out. No questions.”

Todoroki nodded once.

The jack slid in.

The world blinked.

 

---

He stood in a garden.

A traditional one.

Stone lanterns.

Raked gravel.

A koi pond with perfectly still water.

The sky above was blue, gently clouded, warm sunlight filtering through maple leaves.

No red clouds.

No towers.

No humming.

Todoroki looked down.

He wore simple training clothes.

No hero costume.

No scars.

He reached up instinctively.

His fingers brushed smooth skin where the burn mark should have been.

He froze.

“Residual self-image,” Morpheus said from the veranda of the small wooden house overlooking the garden. “How you see yourself.”

Todoroki stared at his reflection in the pond.

Both eyes calm.

Both cheeks unmarked.

Half of him recoiled.

Half of him wanted to stay like this forever.

“It’s… wrong,” he said, voice low.

Morpheus tilted his head.

“For whom?” he asked.

Todoroki swallowed.

“For me,” he said. “And not.”

His fist clenched.

“I spent years not using my fire because I refused to be what my father wanted,” he went on. “Then I met Midoriya. Then I started to… accept that half. Now the world itself is telling me I’m an error and trying to fix me.”

He looked up at the blue Matrix sky.

“I don’t want them to decide what’s right,” he said.

Morpheus smiled faintly.

“That,” he said, “is why you are here.”

He stepped down into the garden.

Koi ripples glitched faintly at the edges of Todoroki’s vision.

“This is a Construct,” Morpheus said. “A training ground. It is both fake and… honest. It reflects what you bring into it. Including your doubts.”

He gestured to the trees.

“Try your quirk,” he said.

Todoroki hesitated.

He lifted his right hand.

Cold.

Ice crept across the surface of the pond.

The koi darted, their code adjusting to the new constraints.

The air on that side of his body sharpened.

He lifted his left.

Heat flared.

The ice hissed and melted at the edge.

Steam rose in a neat line between the two extremes.

He’d done this a thousand times.

In training.

In combat.

In front of cameras.

It felt different here.

More… tangible.

Less stylized.

Morpheus watched the way the garden reacted.

The trees nearest his right side frosted at the edges, leaves stiffening.

Those near his left rustled in a warm breeze.

“It’s cleaner,” Todoroki said slowly. “Less… dramatic. But more… real.”

“The Matrix simulates your quirk based on how it believes it should function,” Morpheus said. “The real world obeys different laws. In here, we can… negotiate.”

Todoroki clenched both fists.

Ice and fire flared brighter.

The koi pond froze solid on one end and boiled on the other.

In the middle, a strip of perfect, lukewarm water remained.

He stared.

He hadn’t tried that before.

Not like that.

“You equated your halves with… morality,” Morpheus said quietly. “Fire as your father. Ice as… resistance. The Agent reduced both to ‘error.’”

He nodded at the pond.

“In truth, they are tools,” he said. “Abilities. Potential. Neither good nor evil until you decide what to do with them.”

Todoroki stared at the strip of steady water.

“Balance,” he muttered.

He thought of the Agent trying to overwrite his nervous system.

Of the way his body had… refused.

Somewhere in his cells, in his brain, in his quirk, a line had been drawn.

No.

“This… glitch in their overwrite,” he said slowly. “Can we use it?”

Morpheus’s smile deepened.

“Yes,” he said. “That is why we brought you here.”

Trinity’s voice floated in from nowhere, wry.

“You’re like a living error-checker,” she said. “If we can figure out how your fire and ice interact with their control code, you might be able to jam it. Not just for you. For others.”

Tsuyu’s voice chimed in, soft and amused.

“Kero,” she said. “A walking parity error.”

Izuku’s laugh echoed faintly.

“You’re the guy the system cannot average out,” he said.

Todoroki exhaled.

Slow.

He looked at his clear reflection again.

“If I keep the scar here,” he asked quietly, “does it make a difference? To the code?”

Morpheus considered.

“Not directly,” he said. “But it may help you remember who you are. That matters more than you think.”

Todoroki’s fingers brushed his own cheek.

A thin red line appeared, pixel by pixel.

Not as raw as the real one.

But there.

He watched it settle.

His chest loosened a fraction.

“Kero,” Tsuyu murmured approvingly. “That’s better.”

“Good,” Todoroki said.

He lifted his hands again.

Fire.

Ice.

Steam.

In the garden, the Matrix wrote new notes in its log.

TODOROKI SHOTO – RESIDUAL SELF-IMAGE: SELF-MODIFIED.
THERMAL OUTPUT CONTROL: UNUSUAL.
OVERWRITE COMPATIBILITY: LOW.

Error, it thought.

Again.

It was right.

 

---

UA woke up to an empty chair.

Again.

Aizawa—Matrix projection Aizawa, backed by Tsuyu’s quiet guidance through the wires and Tank’s careful code nudges—stood at the front of Class 1-A’s room and stared at Todoroki’s seat for a long moment.

The class shifted uneasily.

Kirishima raised a hand.

“Uh, sensei?” he asked. “Is Todoroki… in the bathroom or something? He’s never late.”

“It would be highly uncharacteristic of him to neglect punctuality in such a manner,” Iida declared. “Something must have occurred!”

Mina chewed her lip.

“First Tsu,” she murmured. “Now Todoroki-kun’s missing. I don’t like this.”

Bakugou slouched in his seat, arms crossed, scowl deeper than usual.

“Spit it out, old man,” he said. “What did the Board do this time?”

Aizawa let the chatter run for a few seconds.

Then he cleared his throat.

“Silence,” he said.

The room obeyed.

He looked tired.

He always did.

Today, there was a different kind of weight in his shoulders.

“I have an announcement,” he said. “Todoroki Shoto will not be returning to class.”

A wave of gasps and protests and “what?!” crashed over him.

Uraraka’s eyes went wide.

“What do you mean ‘not returning’?” she whispered. “He’s— he was just with us—”

“What happened?” Momo asked sharply. “Is he injured? Where is he being treated? Can we visit?”

Aizawa held up a hand.

“Injuries sustained during last night’s training were… more severe than initial assessments indicated,” he said. “Todoroki has been transferred to a secure specialized facility for long-term recovery and observation.”

The words tasted like ash.

He’d helped write the cover story.

He still hated it.

“Which facility?” Momo pressed. “I could coordinate notes, send study materials—”

“That information is classified,” Aizawa said.

The class bristled as one.

“Classified?” Kaminari yelped. “He’s our classmate, not some secret weapon!”

Bakugou snorted.

“Speak for yourself, Dunce-Face,” he muttered. “Half-and-Half is a walking nuke.”

“Excuuuse me?!” Kaminari squawked.

Iida’s hands chopped the air.

“Everyone, please!” he said. “I’m sure there is a perfectly rational explanation for this decision! Right, Aizawa-sensei?”

Aizawa met his gaze.

“Higher-level oversight has taken an interest in Todoroki’s condition,” he said. “They believe he will receive better care under their direct supervision.”

He let a hint of disgust leak into “oversight.”

The observant ones caught it.

Momo’s eyes narrowed.

“You disagree,” she said quietly.

Aizawa didn’t confirm or deny.

“I’m not the one signing orders,” he said. “I’ve filed my objections. That’s as far as my authority goes.”

In the back, Bakugou’s jaw clenched.

Oversight.

Higher-level.

Hacker allies.

He put pieces together.

None of them made him happy.

Uraraka twisted her hands in her skirt.

“Can we at least send him letters?” she asked. “He’d… he’d want to know we’re thinking of him.”

Aizawa’s throat tightened.

“He’ll know,” he said. “Even if he doesn’t get the mail.”

Mina slammed her hands on her desk.

“I hate this,” she announced. “First Tsu’s in a coma, now Todoroki’s in some mystery hospital, we’re doing weird drills and almost getting killed by not-really-villains— this isn’t what hero school is supposed to be!”

“That depends on what you think hero school is supposed to be,” Aizawa said dryly. “The world doesn’t slow down because you don’t like the lesson plan.”

Kirishima’s eyes burned.

“We’ll still train for him,” he said, voice rough. “Right? For both of them. Tsu and Todoroki. We’ll get so strong that when they come back, they’ll be like ‘whoa, manly!’”

“Language,” Iida scolded automatically.

Aizawa let the noise settle again.

“We keep moving,” he said. “We train. We learn. We watch out for each other.”

His gaze flicked to Izuku.

“And when I say move,” he added, “you move.”

Izuku straightened.

“Yes, sir,” he said softly.

Bakugou’s lip curled.

His eyes met Izuku’s.

We’re talking later, that look said.

Good, Izuku thought.

We have to.

 

---

Nezu watched the class through a hidden camera feed, teacup cradled in his paws.

He hummed quietly as the students reacted—outrage, grief, denial.

When the feed cut back to a blank hallway, he set the cup down with a small clink.

In his office, an Agent sat in the guest chair, hands folded.

Same sunglasses.

Same suit.

Different face.

“They suspect,” the Agent said.

“Of course they do,” Nezu replied cheerfully. “They’re not idiots.”

“CLASS 1-A EXHIBITS INCREASED ANOMALOUS RESPONSE TO SYSTEM DEVIATIONS,” the Agent went on. “RECOMMENDATION: SEGMENT CLASS. DISTRIBUTE STUDENTS AMONG OTHER TRACKS TO REDUCE GROUP COHESION.”

Nezu’s smile sharpened.

“Denied,” he said.

The Agent tilted its head.

“CLARIFY,” it said.

“Class 1-A’s cohesion is precisely what makes them useful to you,” Nezu said. “And to me. Separating them would muddy your data. You want to see how a tight-knit group responds under pressure. Not a scattering of individual numbers.”

The Agent was silent for a moment.

“YOU CONTINUE TO TOLERATE HIGH ANOMALY LEVELS,” it said at last.

Nezu shrugged.

“I enjoy a challenge,” he said. “Besides, every system needs stress tests. How else will you know your parameters are sound?”

“FULCRUM NODE MIDORIYA IZUKU AND NEW ANOMALY TODOROKI SHOTO HAVE EXITED THE PRIMARY ENVIRONMENT,” the Agent pointed out. “DATA CAPTURED: INCOMPLETE.”

Nezu’s eyes glinted.

“I very much doubt that,” he said.

He tapped a claw lightly on his desk.

“You’re still watching through their ghosts,” he said. “Their… residual programs. The patterns they left behind. You’ll keep running your little tests. And they…” He smiled. “…will keep breaking them.”

The Agent’s jaw flexed.

“YOU ARE COOPERATING WITH EXTERNAL ACTORS,” it said. “THIS REDUCES SYSTEM STABILITY.”

Nezu took a sip of tea.

“I am cooperating with my students,” he said. “And with anything that keeps them alive. If those goals overlap with… external actors…” He spread his paws. “…so be it.”

The Agent stared at him.

“YOU ARE ANOMALOUS,” it said.

Nezu laughed.

“Yes,” he said warmly. “I am.”

He set the cup down and leaned forward, beady eyes bright.

“Tell your central command this,” he said. “If they push too hard on UA, they will break their favorite toy. The one that tells them so much about human response. If they let me keep my mice alive, I will give them wonderful results.”

He smiled.

“Everyone wins,” he said. “For a while.”

The Agent stood.

“OBSERVATION: PRINCIPAL NEZU IS HIGH-RISK ELEMENT,” it said. “RECOMMENDATION: CONTINUED MONITORING.”

It flickered.

Nezu’s office was empty again.

He exhaled.

His smile faded a fraction.

“Cheese, cheese, everywhere,” he murmured.

He reached under his blotter and touched the edge of the crayon map Tsuyu had never known she’d left him.

Mice.

Labyrinth.

Fulcrum.

Error.

He hummed.

“We’ll see who eats whom,” he said softly.

 

---

On the Nebuchadnezzar, Todoroki sat in the Construct garden and watched the koi swim through their half-frozen, half-warm pond.

“I don’t want to go back,” he said quietly.

Izuku sat on the veranda steps, hugging his knees.

“You don’t have to,” he said. “Not now. Not until you’re ready. Not until we can keep you from getting… overwritten.”

Todoroki frowned.

“And the others?” he asked. “If I stay out, am I… abandoning them?”

Tsuyu lay on her stomach near the edge of the pond, chin on her hands, hair fanned out.

“Leaving and abandoning are two different things, kero,” she said. “You being out here gives us options. A way to poke from outside.”

Aizawa leaned against a pillar, arms folded.

“Right now, you’d be a liability inside,” he said bluntly. “The Agent’s seen your face. It knows you glitched its code. It’ll come for you hard next time. I’d rather you be somewhere it can’t punch.”

Todoroki considered that.

“I don’t like being a liability,” he said.

“Then get stronger,” Aizawa said. “Different kind of strong. Not hero rankings. System-breaking.”

Izuku’s eyes shone.

“You can help us build countermeasures,” he said. “If your quirk naturally messes with their overwrite templates, maybe we can design… I don’t know, a ‘Todoroki shield’ for other people. A pattern. A noise.”

Tank’s voice echoed faintly from somewhere above.

“Entropy injection,” he said. “I like it.”

Trinity added, “Melt their cheese more.”

Todoroki let out a breath that might have been a laugh.

“I’m sensing a theme,” he said.

Tsuyu rolled onto her back, looking up at the Construct sky.

“Kero,” she said. “We all have roles. Midoriya-chan’s the fulcrum. I’m the frog in the wires. Bakugou-kun’s the detonator. You’re… the error they can’t smooth, kero.”

“A walking incompatibility,” Todoroki said dryly.

She smiled.

“Exactly,” she said.

He watched the koi.

They swam through frozen and warm and lukewarm zones without complaint, their code adapting on the fly.

He thought of Endeavor again.

Of a man who wanted the perfect template.

Perfect output.

No error.

No deviation.

He thought of an Agent, suit immaculate, calling him a problem to be fixed.

He thought of Izuku’s hand on his wrist.

Of Tsuyu’s “kero.”

Of Aizawa’s “run.”

Of Nezu’s sharp little eyes.

Of his own reflection, scar self-chosen.

“The world made by machines wants everything under control,” Morpheus said quietly. “No surprises. No contradictions. It believes stability is safety.”

He nodded at Todoroki.

“You,” he said, “are contradiction made flesh.”

Todoroki’s scar itched.

It felt… right.

“I can live with that,” he said.

He stood—more steadily now.

His legs still shook.

The garden still glitched at the edges when he moved too fast.

His fire and ice wavered.

But they held.

Izuku got to his feet beside him.

Tsuyu rolled gracefully up and onto her toes.

Aizawa sighed.

“All right,” he said. “Enough soul-searching. Back to rehab.”

Trinity’s voice floated down, amused.

“Next lesson,” she said. “We teach Half-and-Half how to run on real legs without face-planting. Then we see what happens when he stares at an Agent’s code from the outside.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she said. “And maybe we let him draw on the map.”

Todoroki looked at the invisible labyrinth only they could see.

He imagined adding a new symbol.

Something that said: Here be errors.

Here be me.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s melt some more cheese.”

Outside, under the dead, red-streaked sky, the machine fields hummed.

Inside a fake garden in a fake world, an impossible boy controlled the weather in a koi pond.

On a battered hovercraft between those layers, a class of would-be heroes slowly became something else.

The Matrix updated its files.

The rebels updated their map.

And the war—inconvenient, imperfect, and deeply, deeply personal—went on.

Chapter Text

Todoroki had never thought of heat as numbers before.

Now the Construct served him a city made of them.

He stood on the edge of a rooftop that wasn’t a rooftop, boots planted on something that looked like concrete and felt like a spreadsheet.

Below him, UA sprawled.

Not as buildings and fields.

As code.

Heatmaps.

Lines of pale blue where the Matrix’s control signals were weak.

Veins of bright red where they were strong.

Between them, pockets of flickering yellow—places where humans moved, learned, dreamed.

“Quirk training, but for hackers,” Trinity said, appearing beside him with her hands in her coat pockets. “Except your ‘terminal’ is your nervous system and your ‘commands’ are hypothermia.”

Todoroki squinted at the wave of data rippling over the main building.

“That’s… reassuring,” he said dryly.

He lifted his right hand.

In his mind, ice.

The code responded.

The thick red lines over the dorms dimmed a shade.

Not much.

But enough for Tank to whistle over the shared channel.

“There it is,” he said. “Your brain really does bleed into their control surfaces. That’s not metaphor. I’m watching priority flags actually wobble.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled faintly from somewhere in the Construct’s “garden,” where she was patched in as well.

“Kero,” she said. “It’s like thermal regulation but for code. Fever or frostbite, kero.”

Todoroki flexed his left hand.

Heat.

The blue veins brightened.

That startled him.

“I thought my fire would… help them,” he said.

Trinity shrugged.

“Depends where you point it,” she said. “Too much heat in the wrong subroutine looks like noise. Corrupted packets. Static. You’ve got two knobs to turn. That’s what makes you annoying to them.”

She nodded at the school.

“Today is a dry run,” she said. “We’re not yanking anyone else out. Yet. We just want to see how much interference you can generate before the watchdogs notice.”

Morpheus’s voice floated across the empty rooftop.

“The moment an Agent spawns, we cut,” he said. “We are not sacrificing subtlety for spectacle.”

Todoroki’s scar itched.

He thought of the man in the suit.

The bullet caught between fingers.

The word ERROR spoken like a sentence.

He set his jaw.

“Understood,” he said.

“Focus on the dorm wing first,” Tank suggested. “Their baseline control grid is tight there—regular curfew checks, monitoring. Think of it as warming up on a treadmill before you try to sprint.”

Todoroki exhaled.

He let his awareness sink into the glowing web over the 1-A dorm.

He could feel it if he concentrated: the little pulses the Matrix sent to make sure everyone stayed on schedule.

WAKE.
EAT.
CLASS.
DRILL.
SLEEP.

Soft nudges.

Behavioral rails.

It made his skin crawl.

He raised his right hand.

Cool.

He didn’t freeze the lines.

He thinned them.

Just a fraction.

Like turning down a thermostat.

The Matrix’s logs twitched.

DORM A – SIGNAL STABILITY: 97% → 92%.
CAUSE: UNKNOWN.
STATUS: ACCEPTABLE.

“Not bad,” Tank murmured. “Any more and they’ll send a tech daemon to sweep.”

Todoroki lowered his hand.

He felt… tired.

Not physically.

The drain was in his head.

“I can’t keep that up for long,” he said.

“You won’t have to,” Trinity replied. “We’re not building a weapon. We’re building a signature. Something we can reference later. Like a waveform.”

Tsuyu hummed thoughtfully.

“Kero,” she said. “A Todoroki-shaped noise.”

He snorted softly.

“That’s one way to put it.”

Morpheus stepped to the edge of the rooftop, coat flapping in wind that wasn’t wind.

“For now, that is enough,” he said. “We withdraw and—”

Tank cursed.

“Hold that thought,” he said. “New process just spun up in UA core. Behavior-mod patch. High priority. Target: ‘non-critical student asset.’”

Izuku’s voice cut in, tense.

“Which one?” he demanded.

“Checking,” Tank said, fingers flying. “They’re… randomizing? No. Not random. Filtering.”

Lines of green text popped up in front of Todoroki’s eyes.

CANDIDATE HOSTS – BEHAVIORAL STABILITY SUBROUTINE:
– IIDA TENYA – HIGH VISIBILITY – REJECTED
– URARAKA OCHACO – LINKED TO FULCRUM NODE – REJECTED
– BAKUGOU KATSUKI – HIGH VOLATILITY – REJECTED
– HAGAKURE TORU – LOW PHYSICAL SIGNATURE – ACCEPTED

Tsuyu’s breath hitched.

“Kero,” she whispered. “Invisible girl.”

Todoroki frowned.

“Hagakure,” he said.

He remembered her laughter, her cheerful voice, gloves floating in mid-air.

“I thought—”

“You thought they’d go for a big name,” Trinity said. “Hero kid. Class rep. Fulcrum’s bestie. They’re not idiots. They want someone… quiet. Hard to see on cameras. Easy to write off.”

Morpheus’s jaw tightened.

“They are learning,” he said softly.

Tank zoomed in on a glowing spot over UA’s main building.

“There,” he said. “Behavioral Stability Subroutine B-7. It’s not a full Agent. More like a… parasite. Rolls out on an automated script. If it anchors in her, they get a soft control point inside 1-A. A Canary. Or a leash.”

Izuku’s voice shook.

“We have to stop it,” he said. “We can’t let them turn her into—”

“Yes,” Morpheus said. “Todoroki?”

Todoroki straightened.

“Tell me what to hit,” he said.

Trinity pointed at the pulsing node above Hagakure’s name.

“See that patch?” she said. “It’s built on the same template they tried to use on you. Smaller scale. Less invasive. But the bones are the same.”

Tank highlighted it.

OVERRIDE MODULE B-7:
– BEHAVIOR NUDGE AMPLIFICATION
– DEVIATION SUPPRESSION
– MEMORY TAGGING FOR REVIEW

“Think of it like frost on a window or heat shimmer over asphalt,” Trinity said. “You don’t smash it. You… warp it. Just enough that when it hits her, it doesn’t stick right.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled, nervous.

“Kero,” she said. “Can you do that without… hurting her?”

Todoroki swallowed.

“I’ll try,” he said.

He stepped closer to the edge of the rooftop-that-wasn’t.

The patch glowed brighter as it compiled.

He could feel it building a pattern—looking for densities, trying to match Hagakure’s invisible outline in the code.

He closed his eyes.

Right side.

Cold.

He imagined rime forming on its edges, making the lines uneven.

Left side.

Heat.

He pictured little spikes of noise—tiny random pulses where the module expected smooth flow.

Fire and ice.

Error.

He let them both bleed into the patch.

Not fully.

Just enough to introduce… doubt.

The logs fluttered.

MODULE B-7 INTEGRITY: 100% → 81% → 76% → 83%.
SIGNAL NOISE: ELEVATED.
COMPATIBILITY CHECK: MARGINAL.

The Matrix hesitated.

It had a schedule.

Hesitation wasn’t in it.

The patch launched.

TARGET: HAGAKURE TORU.

 

---

Back in UA, Hagakure Toru was doing her best impression of a normal high school student.

Which was hard, given that she was invisible.

“Okay, but hear me out,” Mina was saying, spinning a pencil between her fingers in the 1-A common room. “What if they replaced Todoroki-kun with, like, three shorter students in a trench coat? We wouldn’t even know.”

“Highly improbable,” Iida said, chopping his hand through the air. “Even if they could approximate his height, his presence is quite distinctive!”

Hagakure giggled, her uniform floating as she flopped onto the couch.

“I don’t know, Iida-kun,” she said. “If they added enough scarves and glared a lot, people might just assume it was him having a bad day!”

Kaminari pointed at her.

“See, Hagakure gets it,” he said. “We need some levity around here, guys. It’s getting creepy.”

He wasn’t wrong.

Tsuyu’s empty seat in class.

Todoroki’s sudden “transfer.”

The way Aizawa smelled like old coffee and worry.

It all pressed down on them.

Hagakure talked more lately.

Filled the silence.

If she didn’t, it felt like the room would fold in on itself.

She was mid-ramble about Todoroki probably being stuck in some fancy rehab facility with terrible hospital food when something cold brushed the back of her neck.

She froze.

Then heat.

Not physical.

In her head.

Like someone had pulled a blanket over her thoughts and then stuck a foot in the freezer at the same time.

“Kero—”

The word wasn’t hers.

It lapped at the edges of her awareness and faded.

She blinked.

“Whoa,” she said. “Brain freeze.”

Mina leaned over.

“You okay, Hagakure-chan?” she asked. “You spaced out there.”

Hagakure tilted her floating gloves, as if studying them.

“I dunno,” she said. “I just got this… weird head rush. Like when you stand up too fast, but inside-out?”

She laughed it off.

The blanket tightened.

Somewhere deep in the Matrix’s routing tables, Override Module B-7 reached for purchase.

It found… something.

SIGNAL MATCH: 64%.
ANCHORING: PARTIAL.
STATUS: DEGRADED ATTACHMENT.

The world wobbled.

For Hagakure, it felt like the room had shifted a few centimeters to the left and then snapped back.

Her invisibility flickered.

Just for a heartbeat.

Mina’s eyes widened.

“Woah!” she gasped. “Did— did I just kinda see you for a sec?”

Hagakure startled.

“You did?!” she squeaked.

Iida blinked.

“I saw… a shimmer,” he admitted. “Like heat haze. Or a refraction.”

Hagakure looked down at herself.

Still nothing.

Just gloves.

Shoes.

Floating.

She laughed again, more uncertain.

“Maybe my quirk’s evolving?” she said. “That’d be cool, right?”

Would it?

Her brain itched.

Little whispers tried to chew through her train of thought.

STAY CALM.
DON’T QUESTION.
FORGET THE GLITCH.

The commands hit the warped module.

Todoroki’s interference bent them.

ST–Y C–LM.
DON’—Q–STION.
F–RG*T TH– GL–TCH.

They landed in Hagakure’s mind like broken sentences.

“…that was weird,” she said.

Across the room, Izuku’s head snapped up.

He’d felt the pulse.

Not as clearly as Tsuyu would have.

But enough.

The room’s code had… stuttered.

“Hagakure-san?” he asked carefully. “Are you—”

“I’m fine!” she said too quickly. “Totally fine! Just, you know, invisible girl stuff.”

Her hands fluttered.

The blanket in her head tugged.

Ask nothing.

Say nothing.

Smile.

Midoriya’s eyes narrowed.

Behind his goggles, sitting in the back corner, Aizawa watched both of them.

Tsuyu’s voice was a tiny whisper in his ear.

“Kero,” she said. “Patch hit. Todoroki messed with it. It stuck… wrong.”

Aizawa fought the urge to look up at the ceiling and yell.

“Extent?” he murmured under his breath.

“Not a full leash,” Tank answered. “More like someone tried to install spyware and Todoroki dunked the USB drive in water first. It’s there, but it’s glitching hard.”

Trinity added, “Good news: they don’t have a clean read through her. Bad: her head’s going to feel like crap for a while. Also, she might start noticing things she shouldn’t.”

As if on cue, Hagakure’s voice faltered mid-joke.

“—and then I told Koda-kun that he should teach his birds to deliver love letters because—”

She stopped.

Turned her head.

Stared at the corner of the room.

“Iwa?” Kirishima asked. “You good?”

She tilted her head slowly.

“Do you guys… hear that?” she asked.

They fell silent.

“What?” Kaminari said after a beat. “I don’t hear any—”

“Like… crackling,” Hagakure said. “Or… static. Over there.”

She lifted a hand.

Pointed.

At the security camera in the corner.

Izuku’s stomach dropped.

Of course they heard that.

The control grid was still recalibrating around Todoroki’s interference.

Most kids didn’t perceive that.

Hagakure… halfway-anchored… did.

“Probably the wiring,” Aizawa said lazily, before anyone else could answer. “The building’s old. Don’t worry about it.”

His tone was off just enough for Bakugou, who’d been lurking near the stairs, to catch it.

He’d ignored the earlier chatter.

He’d been busy watching Izuku.

Seeing the way the nerd’s shoulders tightened whenever a drill siren sounded.

The way he glanced at Aizawa for micro-approval when routes changed.

Now he watched Hagakure.

Watched the way she turned her head, as if listening to something none of the rest of them could hear.

He remembered the Agent’s hand.

The phone.

The sudden hole where Half-and-Half had been.

He remembered Aizawa’s staff-room speech.

There are people outside UA who know more than we do.

When I say move, you move.

Pieces clicked.

It felt like his brain punching glass from the inside.

He shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Oi, Deku,” he snapped.

Izuku flinched.

“Y-yeah, Kacchan?” he said.

Bakugou jerked his chin toward the stairwell.

“Up. Roof,” he said. “Now.”

Izuku’s blood ran cold.

“B-but—”

“Now,” Bakugou repeated.

Aizawa’s gaze flicked between them.

He didn’t intervene.

Which was its own kind of permission.

Tsuyu sighed softly in his ear.

“Kero,” she said. “Here we go.”

 

---

The night wind on the 1-A dorm roof tasted like city and pixels.

Izuku shivered as Bakugou slammed the door behind them with unnecessary force.

For a moment, they stood ten paces apart, the gap between them full of memories.

A bridge.

A chasm.

Take your pick.

Bakugou spoke first.

“No bull,” he said. “No muttering. No ‘uh, Kacchan, I can explain’ crap. Ten seconds of actual answers or I start blowing off cameras until someone has to fix them manually.”

Izuku’s spine snapped straight.

“You—how—” he stammered.

Bakugou’s lip curled.

“I’m not an idiot,” he said. “You think I don’t see it? Tsu dropping out and mysteriously ‘not visiting.’ Half-and-Half ‘transferred’ right after a glitchy night drill. Nezu smiling like someone swapped his tea for nitroglycerin. You and the zombie cat-man doing little eye signals every time the walls start acting weird.”

He stepped closer.

Hands in his pockets.

Voice low.

“Where are they,” he demanded. “Where’s Froggy. Where’s Half-and-Half. And what the hell was that thing in the suit last night?”

Izuku’s mouth went dry.

He thought of cables in Todoroki’s neck.

Of pods.

Of fields.

Of red sky.

Of the Agent’s fist passing through where his chest had been.

The rules hammered against his teeth.

Don’t dump the truth. Don’t hand the machines a map. Don’t give them leverage.

But also:

Trust Bakugou. Ten seconds.

Aizawa’s voice slid into his ear.

“Careful,” he said. “But don’t stonewall him. He’s already half out the door in his head. If you don’t give him something, he’ll make his own answers. Angrily.”

Trinity added, “I’d rather we point his explosions than let him aim them blind.”

Izuku took a breath.

“Kacchan,” he said. “I… can’t tell you everything.”

Bakugou snarled.

“Wrong answer.”

Izuku held up a hand.

“Ten seconds,” he said quickly. “You promised.”

Bakugou froze.

His eye twitched.

“Don’t use my own deal on me, nerd,” he growled.

“Ten seconds,” Izuku repeated. “Just listen. Please.”

Silence.

Finally, Bakugou jerked his chin.

“Fine,” he spat. “Talk.”

Izuku counted down in his head.

Ten.

“There is something wrong with UA’s systems,” he said. “More than the teachers can say out loud. More than Nezu wants to admit in front of the Board.”

Nine.

“Some people—outside—are trying to help fix it. Aizawa-sensei’s working with them. Tsu and Todoroki are with them. They’re not gone. They’re… somewhere safer. For now.”

Eight.

Bakugou’s eyes narrowed.

“Safer than here?” he scoffed. “You sure about that?”

Seven.

“We’ve seen things inside the drills that aren’t UA,” Izuku said. “Codes. Scripts. Rules that don’t belong to human teachers. They’re… watching us. Pushing us. Changing the tests to see how we react.”

Six.

“You mean that thing in the suit,” Bakugou said. “And the fake villains. And the walls. And the moving stairs.”

Five.

“Yes,” Izuku whispered. “They’re part of something bigger. A system built on control. It doesn’t like anomalies. We’re… anomalies.”

Four.

Bakugou’s hands flexed.

“Like hell I’m letting some glorified computer program label me,” he snarled. “I’ll shove my boot up its—”

Three.

“Tsu glitched them,” Izuku said over him. “Sensei glitched them. I… glitched them. Last night, Todoroki did too. They hate that. They tried to put something in Hagakure’s head just now. He stopped it from sticking right.”

Bakugou went very, very still.

Two.

“So that’s why she was looking at the camera like it was talking shit,” he said slowly.

One.

“You don’t have to trust the people outside,” Izuku said. “You don’t even have to trust me. But when Sensei says move, you move. And when I say ‘left, not right,’ it’s because I’m seeing something in the walls you’re not.”

Zero.

He shut his mouth.

Bakugou stared at him.

The wind tugged at their uniforms.

Somewhere below, Kaminari shouted about snacks.

The world kept turning.

“‘Something bigger,’” Bakugou said finally. “You mean villains? Government? What?”

Izuku swallowed.

“Bigger than villains,” he said. “Not… government. Above it.”

Bakugou’s eye twitched.

“Aliens?” he snapped.

Izuku choked.

“Why would you jump straight to aliens?” he yelped.

Bakugou flung both hands out.

“BECAUSE THE OTHER OPTION IS THAT REALITY ITSELF IS TRYING TO KILL US, DEKU,” he shouted. “AND THAT’S STUPID.”

The word hung between them.

Reality.

Izuku laughed.

It sounded wild.

“Not… reality,” he said. “The… operating system.”

Bakugou stared.

Then, quietly, he said:

“…You’re not joking.”

Izuku sobered.

“No,” he said. “I’m not.”

Bakugou exhaled through his nose.

“Can’t believe this,” he muttered. “Told the nerd the sky is blue and he came back with ‘actually, Bakugou-kun, it’s a monitor.’”

Izuku tried not to flinch.

Bakugou’s shoulders squared.

“Fine,” he said at last. “I’ll play your little ‘someone else is writing the tests’ game for now. But if I find out you’re just using it as an excuse to keep secrets because you like feeling special—”

“I don’t,” Izuku said immediately. “I hate this.”

“—I’m going to end you,” Bakugou finished calmly.

He turned toward the door.

“Next time the walls start lying,” he threw over his shoulder, “you tell me before everyone starts screaming. Got it, fulcrum?”

Izuku’s breath caught.

“…Got it,” he said.

Bakugou yanked the door open.

Paused.

“Tell Froggy and Half-and-Half if they’re ‘safer,’ they’d better hurry up and make it worth it,” he said without looking back. “Because this place is getting dull without someone worth yelling at.”

Then he was gone.

Izuku sagged.

Tsuyu’s laugh bubbled over the channel.

“Kero,” she said. “That went… better than it could have.”

“His denial phase is going to be loud,” Trinity commented. “But at least he’s aiming in the same general direction.”

Aizawa’s voice was dry.

“I’ll file this under ‘partial victory,’” he said. “Try not to break the school while I’m keeping the Board off our backs.”

Izuku stared up at the sky.

It looked normal.

Blue.

Stars faint over city light.

Fake.

Real enough.

“I’ll try,” he whispered.

 

---

In the Construct, Todoroki slumped against an abstract support beam, breathing hard.

The Behavior Patch window flickered in front of him.

OVERRIDE MODULE B-7:
ANCHOR STATUS: PARTIAL.
DATA CAPTURE: DEGRADED.
EFFECTIVENESS: UNRELIABLE.

He’d done it.

Sort of.

“They still got a hook in her,” he said, frustrated. “Just… a crooked one.”

Tank nodded, spinning the data around.

“Yeah,” he said. “But it’s a noisy hook. Every time they try to pull, they’re going to get static. Every time they try to look through her, the picture will blur.”

Tsuyu’s voice was soft.

“Kero,” she said. “And she noticed the camera.”

“That’s the risk,” Trinity said. “Half-patched like this, she’s going to have… glitches. Moments where she sees things. Hears things. Stuff normal sleepers shouldn’t.”

Todoroki’s gut twisted.

“I made it worse,” he said.

Morpheus stepped into his field of view.

“No,” he said. “You made it different.”

He nodded at the log.

“They wanted a silent sentinel. A leash,” he said. “Instead, they have a girl with headaches and static in her ears. That is not a victory for them.”

Todoroki’s fists clenched.

“Better to hurt her a little than let them own her entirely,” he said bitterly.

“That is war,” Morpheus said quietly. “There are no perfect outcomes. Only… less catastrophic ones.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she said. “We’ll watch her. From out here. From in there. If the patch starts to… bite harder, we intervene.”

Izuku jacked in just enough to appear beside them, hair mussed, eyes still wide from his rooftop conversation.

“Kacchan knows… kind of,” he said. “Not about pods. But about something being… wronger than usual.”

Tsuyu blinked.

“Kero,” she said. “That was fast.”

“He’s Bakugou,” Todoroki pointed out. “Subtlety isn’t one of his traits.”

Izuku half-laughed, half-groaned.

“I told him reality is trying to kill us and he got mad about the semantics,” he said. “But he… said he’d play along. For now.”

Trinity snorted.

“Paranoid, explosive, and suspicious of authority,” she said. “Congrats. You have recruited the perfect terrorist.”

Aizawa’s voice filtered in, full of teacherly resignation.

“He was always going to be a problem for anyone trying to control him,” he said. “We might as well make that someone else’s problem too.”

Tsuyu added a tiny Bakugou face to the crayon map, somewhere near Hagakure’s name.

Little explosions doodled around it.

“Kero,” she said. “Our maze is getting crowded.”

Todoroki looked at the new marks.

His symbol—a half-sun, half-snowflake—sat near Hagakure’s name now too.

She didn’t know that.

Yet.

He exhaled.

“I want to go back in,” he said suddenly.

Izuku and Tsuyu both stared at him.

“Not right now,” he clarified. “Not to fight. Just… to talk. To her. To the others. To tell them something real, even if it’s half a lie.”

Morpheus’s brow furrowed.

“It is dangerous,” he said. “The Agent has your pattern now. If you re-enter the Matrix too soon, it will prioritize you as a target.”

Todoroki met his gaze.

“It already does,” he said. “Whether I’m in there or not.”

Silence.

Then Aizawa’s voice came, weary but proud.

“We’ll plan it,” he said. “On our terms. For now, you stay in the garden and melt code.”

Todoroki nodded.

He could wait.

For a little while.

He turned back to the UA heatmap.

The lines around Hagakure’s tag shimmered.

Not stable.

Not owned.

Not free.

Yet.

He placed his hands together, feeling the tug of cold and heat.

“I’m not done with you,” he whispered to the code. “Or them.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she said. “None of us are.”

 

---

That night, in the 1-A girls’ dorm, Hagakure lay on her bed with the lights off.

She stared at where her hands should be.

She could still hear the faint crackle behind her right ear.

Like someone had left a radio on in another room.

“Stupid drills,” she muttered. “Stupid weird headaches. Stupid cameras.”

She squeezed her eyes shut.

Opened them.

For a split second, she saw her own fingers.

Outlined in faint green.

A glitch.

She yelped.

Blink.

Gone.

The static hissed.

Forget.

Don’t.

Forget.

“…Okay,” she whispered to the dark. “That’s fine. I’m fine. This is fine.”

She tried to laugh.

It came out thin.

“Maybe my quirk really is evolving,” she said softly. “Maybe I’m just… seeing more.”

She rolled onto her side.

Stared at the wall.

Somewhere far above the clouds, brittle metal towers drank human heat.

Somewhere deep below, a battered hovercraft hummed.

On a map drawn in crayons and code, a new symbol appeared next to her name.

A little outline of a girl, drawn in dotted lines, half-green, half-static.

No one had expected Hagakure Toru to be important.

The machines did now.

So did the rebels.

The Matrix adjusted its parameters.

The mouse in the labyrinth twitched her whiskers at a sound she couldn’t yet name.

And the war, quiet and loud, visible and invisible, crept one step further into Class 1-A.

Chapter Text

The machine’s first warning about Aizawa wasn’t dramatic.

It was a label.

> AIZAWA SHOUTA – RISK INDEX: 0.19 → 0.31
BEHAVIOR: NON-COMPLIANT WITH STANDARD SCRIPT
NOTES: PERSISTENTLY INTERFERES WITH DESIRED TEST PARAMETERS

 

Tank found it buried three layers down in a log no one was supposed to see.

“Someone upstairs clicked ‘this teacher is annoying,’” he said, squinting at the screen. “And the system agreed.”

Izuku leaned closer, blanket trailing, eyes heavy with not-enough sleep.

“Risk index?” he repeated. “That’s… new.”

Tsuyu, perched on a crate with a mug of broth she kept forgetting to drink, flicked her gaze from the log to Aizawa.

“Kero,” she said softly. “They noticed.”

Aizawa looked like he always did—hair tangled, eyes tired, a mug of coffee perpetually attached to his hand.

He didn’t look surprised.

“Of course they noticed,” he said. “I’ve been ignoring their scripts as much as you brats have.”

Morpheus stood on the other side of the console, arms folded.

“This is more than annoyance,” he said. “They’re classifying you the way they classified Midoriya and Todoroki. As an element that disrupts their control.”

Trinity leaned in the doorway, hands in her pockets.

“When they mark someone like that, it’s only a matter of time before they structure a test around them,” she said. “Not just around their reaction. Around their removal.”

Izuku’s grip tightened on the back of Tank’s chair.

“Removal?” he echoed. “As in—”

“Expulsion,” Aizawa cut in dryly. “Termination. Convenient hero deaths. Pick your flavor.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled unhappily.

“Kero,” she muttered. “I don’t like any of those flavors.”

Aizawa shrugged one shoulder.

“They can try,” he said. “I’m not going to stop interfering because an algorithm got offended.”

“That’s the spirit,” Trinity said. “Self-destructive and stubborn.”

Aizawa sipped his coffee.

“Do we know what the next test looks like?” he asked Tank.

Tank shrugged helplessly.

“Not yet,” he said. “They’ve only flagged you. But there’s a tag attached.”

He zoomed in.

> SUBJECT: AIZAWA SHOUTA – SUPERVISED SCENARIO RECOMMENDED
MODE: PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESS TEST / AUTHORITY CHALLENGE
GOAL: REDUCE INTERFERENCE THROUGH BEHAVIORAL ADJUSTMENT OR REMOVAL

 

“Psychological stress test,” Izuku repeated weakly. “That sounds… bad.”

“That sounds like every Monday,” Aizawa said. “We’ve got bigger problems.”

He nodded at another log Tank had pulled up.

The one with Hagakure’s name on it.

TODOROKI SHOTO – INTERFERENCE SIGNATURE: RECORDED.
OVERRIDE MODULE B-7 – STATUS: DEGRADED BUT ACTIVE.
HOST: HAGAKURE TORU.

“Last night’s patch,” Tsuyu said, throat bubbling. “We scrambled it, but it’s still there, kero.”

Todoroki, who had been silent so far, stood near the wall, arms folded in a way that would have looked casual if he hadn’t been swaying slightly.

He was still pale from rehab.

Ports along his neck and arms were still red.

“I made it worse,” he said again, quietly.

“No,” Morpheus said. “You made it… complicated. The machines do not like complicated.”

Trinity gestured at the Hagakure logs.

“She’s half-tagged,” she said. “They can’t use her as a clean relay, but they can still try to nudge her. And she’s starting to notice the static.”

Izuku’s stomach twisted.

“I heard her mention it,” he said. “She looked right at the camera.”

Tsuyu nodded.

“Kero,” she said. “Our little canary’s hearing things in the wires.”

Todoroki’s jaw clenched.

“I said I wanted to talk to her,” he said. “To… help. If they’re targeting Aizawa-sensei next, and she’s half-leashed, and Bakugou’s one more step from punching a hole in reality… we need her on our side. Even if she doesn’t know everything.”

Aizawa rubbed his face.

“You’re not wrong,” he said. “But you stepping back into the Matrix right now is like waving a red flag in front of a bull that can also teleport and punch through walls.”

“Good metaphor,” Trinity said.

Morpheus looked thoughtful.

“There are ways to reduce exposure,” he said. “Limited windows. Masked signature. Entering through narrower channels than full physical presence.”

Todoroki frowned.

“You mean… not as myself,” he said.

Tank nodded, tapping furiously.

“The school’s got a mental health support framework,” he said. “Built into the Matrix as a low-intensity sim. Private counseling rooms. Calming environments. Their control scripts loosen around those to avoid making kids worse.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she said. “If Todoroki-kun slipped into one of those… he’d be less visible. For a while.”

Trinity grimaced.

“This is still sticking his fingers in a blender,” she said. “But if we keep it short and sweet, we might get away with him saying hi to Invisible Girl and not getting shot in the head by a suit.”

Izuku swallowed hard.

“Could we… help her?” he asked. “With the static? At least a little?”

Tank hesitated.

“Maybe,” he said. “Todoroki’s signature overlaps with the patch. If he’s near her in the sim, he might be able to bleed some of the noise away. Smooth it. Or at least teach her how to tune it out better.”

“Side effect,” Trinity added. “She’ll start associating that kind of static with Todoroki. With us. It could make her more receptive later. Or more confused. Hard to know.”

Aizawa looked between Todoroki, Izuku, Tsuyu.

His kids.

His anomalies.

His problems.

“What’s the risk if we do nothing?” he asked quietly.

Tank pulled up a projection.

Every few hours, a little spike appeared on Hagakure’s timeline.

Minor behavior nudges.

> DOUBT YOUR OWN PERCEPTIONS.
DON’T MENTION STATIC.
DON’T ASK QUESTIONS.

 

Despite Todoroki’s interference, some of them were landing.

“She starts doubting herself more,” Tank said. “She stops talking about glitches. She becomes a quieter, less curious version of herself. The patch learns. Adapts. Might solidify over time.”

Tsuyu’s eyes hardened.

“Kero,” she said. “I don’t like that.”

“Neither do I,” Aizawa said.

He looked at Todoroki.

“How long can you stay upright in the Construct?” he asked.

Todoroki thought about the garden.

The koi.

His shaking legs.

“…Long enough,” he said.

Aizawa’s mouth quirked.

“Then we plan around ‘long enough,’” he said. “We give you five minutes in a safer sandbox. You say what you can to Hagakure. Smooth what you can. Then you get out.”

Morpheus nodded slowly.

“I’ll build a shell,” he said. “A small room inside the school’s counseling sim. Clean lines. Few access points. If an Agent tries to come in, we’ll see the door bend before it opens.”

Trinity rolled her eyes.

“Morpheus getting poetic about doors,” she muttered.

Tsuyu finished her broth in one long gulp and hopped to her feet, blanket still wrapped around her.

“Kero,” she said. “I’ll ride the wires. If anything feels wrong, I yank him. No arguments.”

Todoroki met her gaze.

“I’ll listen,” he said.

Izuku’s mouth was tight.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked.

Aizawa hesitated.

“Yes,” he said. “Stay inside as a control. If something looks wrong from your side, if Hagakure suddenly goes glassy-eyed or stares at a wall… you get noisy. Knock over a bookshelf. Set off an alarm. Give the system too many variables at once.”

Izuku nodded, swallowing.

“Right,” he said. “Noisy. I can do that.”

Trinity clapped her hands once.

“Alright then, children,” she said. “Field trip to the counselor’s office. Bring your trauma.”

 

---

UA’s “Wellness Center” had been Nezu’s idea.

On paper, it was progressive.

Mental health rooms.

Soft lighting.

Soundproof booths where students could talk about stress without worrying who overheard.

The Matrix liked it for its own reasons.

Stressed people reacted erratically.

Erratic behavior made bad data.

Calm them down and they slotted into predictive models more nicely.

Today, Room 3C hummed with potential.

The door was simple.

Frosted glass.

Small wooden plaque: Counseling Office – In Use.

Inside, the sim had generated a cozy space: soft chairs, a box of tissues, a desk with a plant that never needed watering.

Hagakure Toru sat in one of the chairs, uniform skirt rustling invisibly.

Her gloves twisted in her lap.

Across from her, a kindly-looking woman with a clipboard smiled.

She wasn’t real.

Not deeply.

She was a low-level program, built to ask generically soothing questions.

“What brings you in today, Hagakure-san?” the counselor asked.

Hagakure shifted.

Her gloves squeezed tighter.

“I, um,” she said. “I keep getting these… headaches? And, like, hearing things. Crackles. And the nurse said I should talk to someone because she can’t find anything physically wrong.”

“That does sound uncomfortable,” the counselor said, nodding. “Tell me more about the sounds.”

Hagakure hesitated.

She could feel the static even here.

Less loud, in this quiet room.

But the camera in the corner still hissed in the back of her head.

Like it was listening.

She swallowed.

“What if I’m just… imagining it?” she blurted. “Everyone’s stressed. Tsu’s in the hospital, Todoroki’s gone, we keep doing these drills… maybe I’m just being weird.”

The counselor’s face glitched for a flicker of a second.

‘Weird’ triggered a subroutine.

> TARGET: SELF-DOUBT.
AMPLIFY.

 

The kindness in the woman’s eyes dialed up one notch.

“It’s very common to feel that way,” she said. “You are under stress. Sometimes our minds make patterns where there are none. You might simply be… misinterpreting normal sounds.”

Hagakure’s chest tightened.

That’s what she’d been telling herself.

You’re imagining it.

You’re being dramatic.

The patch in her head hummed, trying to smooth her thoughts into something less jagged.

Then the room… shimmered.

Just a little.

The counselor blinked.

Her process tree stalled.

> INCOMING LOAD: EXTERNAL SIGNATURE (UNREGISTERED).
SOURCE: UNKNOWN.
STATUS: ALLOW?

 

The “Wellness Center” was designed to let in anomalies.

That was the point.

Let weird thoughts surface.

Let odd patterns be explored.

The system’s risk assessment wobbled.

ACCEPTED FOR NOW, it decided.

The shimmer resolved.

The plant on the desk changed.

From a generic peace lily to a small maple sapling in a ceramic pot.

The counselor didn’t notice.

Hagakure did.

She stared.

“Uh,” she said. “Did your plant just… change?”

The counselor followed her gaze, smiled vaguely.

“Our minds play tricks on us when we’re tense,” she said. “Let’s talk about your friends instead.”

Hagakure opened her mouth to argue.

Then the air next to the desk folded.

Not visibly.

She couldn’t see it.

But the static in her head bent.

A new noise slid in.

Clearer.

Cooler.

Like air over ice.

“Kero,” a voice whispered in the wiring, too soft for the counselor’s script to catch. “He’s in. Two minutes, Todoroki-kun.”

The counselor’s process took a small, polite nap.

Her eyes unfocused.

Her clipboard stuttered between one note and the next.

Hagakure’s invisible hands clenched.

Something moved in the chair opposite her.

For the first time since she’d manifested her quirk as a child, Hagakure watched a person appear instead of disappear.

His outline flickered into existence like someone filling in a sketch.

Broad shoulders.

Two-toned hair.

A scar.

Todoroki Shoto sat in the counselor’s chair and looked at her.

Her gloves flew to her mouth.

“Todoroki-kun?” she squeaked.

He exhaled.

“Hi,” he said.

His voice sounded… raw.

Hagakure stared.

He wasn’t wearing his uniform.

Just simple dark clothes.

No UA logo.

His eyes looked tired in a way she recognized from the mirror lately.

“You’re—” she flailed. “You’re supposed to be in some super secret hospital! Aizawa-sensei said— I mean, we all thought— we wanted to send you plushies—”

“I know,” he said softly. “I’m… sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry!” she burst out. “Be explain-y!”

The static around her snapped and snarled.

The patch coughed.

It hadn’t accounted for this.

“Um,” Hagakure added, a little smaller. “Am I… hallucinating? Because if I am, this is a weird choice.”

“You’re not hallucinating,” Todoroki said. “At least, not alone.”

He glanced at the counselor.

She sat frozen, eyes glazed, pen hovering.

“They’re paused,” he said. “We don’t have long.”

Hagakure’s brain whirled.

“We?” she echoed. “Who’s ‘we’? And where have you been? And what’s wrong with my head? And why does the camera keep making that noise and—”

Her voice cracked.

She hadn’t meant to sound that desperate.

Todoroki’s expression shifted.

Not huge.

Just a softening around the eyes.

“I can’t tell you everything,” he said. “Some of it would hurt you. Some of it would… flag you harder.”

Hagakure’s gloves tightened on her skirt.

“Flag me,” she repeated. “Like a… penalty?”

“Like a bug report,” Todoroki said. “They’re trying to mark you.”

He lifted a hand.

In the code, his signature spilled out—heat and cold dancing together.

Tsuyu sat in the wires, watching the way the override module clung to Hagakure’s mind like frost and cobweb.

“Kero,” she murmured. “Easy.”

He didn’t reach for Hagakure’s head.

He reached for the air between them.

Fire.

Ice.

He made the room’s static visible.

Just for them.

Hagakure’s breath hitched.

The corners of her vision glittered with faint green lines.

Not code.

Not fully.

Just… hints.

She saw the outline of the camera in the corner, not as plastic and metal, but as a cluster of glowing nodes.

“I knew it,” she whispered. “It is making noise.”

“Yes,” Todoroki said. “Because something is… plugged into it. Something that doesn’t belong to UA.”

He nudged the noise.

The patch shivered.

“It tried to use you as a foothold,” he said. “Because you’re quiet. And hard to see. I… got in the way. Now it’s stuck. Half-working. Half-failing.”

Hagakure’s laugh was high and thin.

“Of course reality itself wants to spy on me,” she said. “Because being invisible wasn’t enough of a gimmick already.”

The static buzzed at the edges of her thoughts.

Forget.
Don’t ask.

Todoroki’s heat pushed back.

He didn’t burn it out.

He warmed it.

Blunted the cold control.

Tsuyu watched carefully.

“Good,” she whispered. “Not too much, kero. Just enough.”

Hagakure pressed her invisible palms to her invisible forehead.

“So I’m… what?” she asked. “A… glitch?”

“A target,” Todoroki corrected gently. “And an opportunity.”

She snorted.

“Great,” she said. “Love being a plot device.”

Todoroki’s mouth twitched.

“You’re… important,” he said. “To them. To us. You notice things. You fill silences. You make people forget to be scared. That matters more than you think.”

Hagakure blinked hard.

“That’s the nicest way anyone’s ever said ‘you talk too much,’” she sniffed.

“I mean it,” he said.

She swallowed.

Her brain crawled.

“What are they?” she asked abruptly. “The… things in the cameras. In the walls. Are they… villains? Government spies? Space aliens?”

The last word came out half-joking.

Half hopeful.

Aliens would almost be easier.

Todoroki hesitated.

“I thought they were villains, at first,” he said. “Then I thought they were… part of our world. Now I think they’re… deeper.”

He sighed.

“I can’t say more,” he added. “Not yet.”

“That’s not fair,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

She stared at him.

At his scar.

At his eyes.

“Are you okay?” she blurted. “Like, physically? Mentally? Existentially?”

He considered.

“I’m adjusting,” he said. “I can’t feel my legs half the time and the sky looks wrong, but I have… friends. And a garden. And koi.”

Hagakure blinked.

“Koi,” she repeated. “Like fish?”

He nodded.

She processed that.

“Okay,” she said finally. “So you’re in weird fish therapy. Got it.”

“Time,” Tsuyu whispered in his ear. “Thirty seconds, kero.”

Todoroki straightened.

“Hagakure,” he said. “They’re going to keep pushing on you. Not just with headaches. With little doubts. Little nudges.”

She shivered.

“I can feel that,” she admitted.

“When you hear the static,” he said, “don’t assume it’s you. Don’t assume you’re broken. Treat it like a… badly tuned radio. You don’t have to listen to every station.”

Her gloves twisted.

“What if it gets worse?” she asked. “What if I start… seeing more things? Hearing voices? What if I can’t tell what’s real?”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she murmured. “Tell her the truth.”

Todoroki took a breath.

“Then we’ll catch you,” he said.

Her breath hitched.

“Who’s ‘we’?” she whispered.

He looked at her.

At the invisible girl half-haunted by a half-broken leash.

“At least three idiots on a rusty ship and one very tired teacher,” he said. “For now.”

Her laugh came out wobbly.

“Sounds like a weird found family anime,” she said. “Minus the OP.”

“The OP is terrible,” he said. “Trust me.”

“Fifteen seconds,” Tsuyu warned.

Todoroki’s hand clenched.

He pushed one last time.

Heat and cold slid through the patch, smoothing its sharpest edges.

The static lost some of its bite.

It would still be there.

It would still itch.

But it would feel less like a command and more like… interference.

Noise.

He stood.

“I have to go,” he said.

Hagakure reached out on instinct.

Her invisible fingers passed through his.

For a split second, she saw a faint outline where they touched.

His hand.

Hers.

Green at the edges.

“Todoroki—” she started.

He smiled.

It was small.

Real.

“Tell the others I’m… studying abroad,” he said. “Somewhere with bad food.”

She choked.

“That’s such a you thing to say,” she sputtered.

The room flickered.

The counselor’s script shuddered back online.

“—and have you considered grounding exercises?” the woman asked smoothly, as if nothing had happened. “When you feel overwhelmed, you can try focusing on your breath, counting to ten…”

Hagakure stared at the chair opposite her.

It was empty.

Her gloves shook.

“Right,” she said faintly. “Breathing. Counting. Totally.”

The camera in the corner hissed softly.

She looked up at it.

“I see you,” she whispered.

The static crackled.

Then, very faintly, it hissed back.

—

On the Nebuchadnezzar, Todoroki ripped the jack from his neck and gasped.

The infirmary ceiling hovered above him.

Izuku’s face appeared in his field of view, anxious.

“How did it go?” he blurted. “Are you okay? Did the Agent show up? Did the counselor explode? Did—”

“Midoriya,” Aizawa said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Izuku’s mouth snapped shut.

Todoroki took a slow breath.

“She saw me,” he said. “Believed it. Mostly.”

Tsuyu perched on the edge of his bed.

“Kero,” she said. “I felt the patch… shift. You took some of the bite out, Todoroki-kun.”

Tank checked the logs.

“Override Module B-7 stability dipped,” he confirmed. “It’s less of a leash now, more of a limp string. They’ll probably try to reinforce it, but you’ve changed the baseline.”

Todoroki exhaled.

“Good,” he said.

He hesitated.

“She’s scared,” he added quietly. “But she’s… stubborn. And she knows the camera isn’t just a camera anymore.”

Aizawa sank onto the crate next to the bed.

“She going to break?” he asked.

Todoroki thought of Hagakure’s shaky laugh.

Of her “plot device” joke.

Of the way she’d said, “I see you,” to the camera.

“No,” he said. “But she might bend.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she said. “We’ll be there when she does.”

Morpheus watched them, expression thoughtful.

“You did well,” he said. “Both of you.”

Todoroki frowned.

“Both?” he echoed.

Morpheus tilted his head.

“You and Hagakure,” he said. “You both refused to accept the story written for you without protest.”

Trinity appeared in the doorway, arms folded.

“That’s one fire put out,” she said. “Time to watch the other fuse.”

She nodded toward the console.

Tank had pulled up a new log.

> SUBJECT: AIZAWA SHOUTA – RISK INDEX: 0.31 → 0.44
REASON: UNAUTHORIZED STUDENT CONTACT / NONCOMPLIANCE
RECOMMENDATION: INITIATE STRESS TEST – AUTHORITY CHALLENGE MODE

 

Tsuyu’s eyes widened.

“Kero,” she whispered. “They blamed him.”

“Of course they did,” Aizawa muttered. “It’s always the teacher’s fault.”

Morpheus’s mouth tightened.

“They will come at you through what you care about most,” he said. “Your students. Your autonomy. Your sense of purpose.”

Aizawa drained his coffee.

“My sense of purpose involves making sure they don’t end up as dead batteries or obedient puppets,” he said. “They’re not going to like my responses.”

“Which is why they want to… adjust you,” Trinity said. “My money’s on some kind of evaluation. Board observer. Counseling session. Something that pushes your ‘follow orders vs. protect kids’ buttons.”

Izuku shivered.

“They already did that at USJ,” he said. “And the sports festival. And the rescue training…”

“This time it’ll be quieter,” Tsuyu said. “Less rubble. More paperwork. Kero.”

Aizawa’s lip curled.

“Paperwork is worse,” he said.

Tank pinged the Matrix.

“Whatever they’re planning, it’s scheduled for tomorrow,” he said. “Board rep visit. Staff ‘wellness review.’ They’re flagging your profile for intensive interview, Aizawa.”

Morpheus’s eyes narrowed.

“We’ll be there,” he said.

Trinity smirked.

“Therapy session for a grumpy underground hero watched by a machine god,” she said. “What could go wrong?”

Aizawa set his mug down with a sharp click.

“Everything,” he said. “Which means we prepare.”

He looked at Izuku, Tsuyu, Todoroki.

“At all of you,” he added.

“You want us… in there?” Izuku asked. “During your evaluation?”

“I want you ready,” Aizawa said. “If they try to corner me into a choice, I’m going to blow up their script. That’s going to have fallout. On the school. On you. We need to be as irritatingly prepared as possible.”

Tsuyu nodded slowly.

“Kero,” she said. “Maze update.”

Todoroki swung his legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the protest from his muscles.

“I’ll watch from the outside,” he said. “If they try to slide something into your head the way they did with Hagakure, I want to see where.”

Izuku swallowed.

“And I’ll be… noisy,” he said. “If things look wrong.”

Trinity chuckled.

“I’ve said it before,” she said. “I’ll say it again. Best saboteurs I’ve ever seen with homework.”

Aizawa rolled his eyes.

“Welcome to homeroom,” he muttered.

 

---

The “Board Representative” arrived at UA with a briefcase, a clipboard, and a polite smile.

His name, according to the paperwork, was Nakata Jun.

Middle-aged.

Forgettable.

Good suit.

Bad tie.

Teachers hated this kind of thing.

Review day.

Evaluation.

Nezu greeted him with his usual gleeful menace.

“Welcome, Nakata-san!” he said. “I trust your trip here was uneventful?”

“Quite,” Nakata said.

His voice was measured.

He shook Nezu’s paw.

His hand was warm.

His code was cold.

Tsuyu, watching from the wires, felt the difference.

“Kero,” she whispered. “Not a full Agent. But something… riding along.”

Tank nodded, tracking the nested processes.

“Human shell,” he said. “Program hitching a ride in the gaps. Clever. Less resource-intensive than a full overwrite. Harder for us to detect.”

Nezu’s whiskers twitched.

His eyes were bright.

“Shall we start with classroom observations?” Nakata asked. “Class 1-A, perhaps. Given recent… incidents.”

“An excellent idea,” Nezu said.

They walked down the halls.

Students parted.

Teachers glanced up.

Cameras quietly adjusted to give them the best angles.

In 1-A’s homeroom, Aizawa stood at the front, scarf loose, eyes half-closed.

He’d been briefed by both Nezu and the ship.

Officially: be professional, answer questions, don’t threaten the Board representative.

Unofficially: don’t let the machine eat you.

He could do one of those.

“Today,” he said to the class, “we’re doing something different.”

Murmurs.

Mina perked up.

“Are we finally getting a normal day?” she asked hopefully.

“No,” Aizawa said. “We’re having a visitor.”

Hagakure’s gloves twisted.

“I don’t like visitors,” she muttered under her breath.

The door slid open.

Nezu hopped in.

Nakata followed.

He bowed politely to the students.

“Good morning, everyone,” he said in a warm tone. “I’m Nakata Jun, here on behalf of the Board and system oversight to ensure your education is proceeding optimally.”

Izuku’s skin crawled.

He felt the subroutine coiled behind the man’s eyes.

Tsuyu’s voice whispered so softly he barely caught it.

“Kero,” she said. “It’s watching.”

Nakata scanned the room.

His gaze lingered on Izuku.

On Hagakure.

On Bakugou.

On Aizawa.

“Such a lively group,” he said. “Given recent… disruptions… we thought it wise to see how you’re all coping.”

Bakugou’s jaw clenched.

“Coping,” he muttered. “Like we’re delicate flowers.”

“Language, Bakugou,” Aizawa said automatically.

Nakata smiled.

“And how are you coping, Aizawa-sensei?” he asked gently. “It must be… stressful, managing so many gifted, volatile young people.”

Aizawa’s shoulders stayed loose.

“I sleep when I can,” he said. “I drink coffee when I can’t.”

A few students snorted.

Nakata chuckled.

“Ah, humor,” he said. “An excellent defense mechanism.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she murmured. “He’s probing.”

Morpheus watched through a teacher’s lounge monitor tapped into the feed.

“They want to know where his weak spots are,” he said. “Students. Colleagues. Self-doubt.”

Nezu hopped onto the podium.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” he said brightly. “I’m sure you and Aizawa-kun will have a… productive conversation.”

His eyes flicked to Aizawa.

A warning.

A promise.

Be interesting.

He left.

Nakata stepped closer to Aizawa’s desk.

“Perhaps we could speak privately, Aizawa-sensei,” he said. “The students can complete independent work for a short while. I’m sure they don’t need you hovering.”

Hovering.

Watching.

Interfering with scripts.

Aizawa’s mouth twitched.

“Work on your analysis packets,” he told the class. “No talking. I’ll know.”

He led Nakata to the staff office next door, leaving the door ajar.

Izuku’s fingers dug into his pencil.

Tsuyu’s awareness slid into the office lights.

Todoroki watched the room’s structure in the Construct, tracing the way the “Wellness” routines overlapped with “Evaluation” scripts.

In the office, Nakata sat, legs crossed, clipboard ready.

Aizawa didn’t sit.

He leaned against the window, arms folded.

Nakata smiled.

“I’ve reviewed your file,” he said. “Your teaching record is… impressive. Harsh, some might say. But effective.”

“I focus on results,” Aizawa said.

“And yet,” Nakata went on mildly, “you also have… a high rate of disciplinary conflicts with oversight. Emergency interventions. Unsanctioned quirk usage. Off-script actions during simulations.”

He flipped a page.

“In our recent drills, data indicates you allowed your class to deviate from established routes,” he said. “Removing them from pro-supervised zones, using unapproved bunkers, adjusting exam parameters without clearance.”

Aizawa shrugged.

“They lived,” he said.

Nakata’s smile didn’t falter.

“Is that all that matters to you?” he asked. “Survival?”

Aizawa tilted his head.

“That’s step one,” he said. “You can’t teach dead kids.”

“Of course,” Nakata said smoothly. “But the system also requires… compliance. Predictability. If every teacher decided to rewrite scenarios on their own, the data would become useless.”

A thread of machine logic peeked through the polite words.

Human variables.

Data.

Useful vs. useless.

Aizawa’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“You’re not here to help my mental health,” he said. “You’re here because I’ve been messing up your charts.”

Nakata chuckled.

“A blunt assessment,” he said. “I appreciate that.”

He leaned forward.

“The truth is, Aizawa-sensei, you are a valuable asset,” he said. “Your ability to manage high-risk students, your quirk, your tactical mind—all extremely useful. But your… refusal to trust the system fully… could jeopardize that value.”

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she whispered. “There it is.”

“TRUST THE SYSTEM,” Izuku thought bitterly. “Like that’s ever worked out.”

On the ship, Trinity rolled her eyes.

“‘We like your passion, but could you stop thinking for yourself?’” she translated under her breath.

Nakata continued.

“We would like to offer you support,” he said. “Tools to manage your… anxieties. Ways to align your instincts more closely with established protocols. In return, the system can continue to trust you with high-profile classes like 1-A.”

Aizawa’s mouth flattened.

“Are you threatening to take my kids away if I don’t play nice?” he asked.

“Not threatening,” Nakata said reassuringly. “Merely… describing potential outcomes. For instance, if an incident occurred in which your insistence on unapproved methods led to a preventable student injury, the Board might be forced to reassign you to a less critical post. For your own good, of course.”

Lines of script unfurled behind his words.

> SCENARIO SEED: STUDENT INJURY UNDER AIZAWA’S CARE.
LIKELY OUTCOMES: INCREASED COMPLIANCE OR REMOVAL.
STATUS: NOT YET INITIATED.

 

Todoroki’s hands curled into fists in the Construct.

“They’re setting him up,” he said. “Pre-writing the story.”

Morpheus nodded grimly.

“Next drill will be… sharp,” he said.

In the office, Aizawa’s eyes went flat.

“I’m not interested in your ‘support,’” he said. “I’m interested in my students staying alive and sane. If your scripts help with that, I’ll use them. If they don’t, I won’t.”

Nakata sighed.

“Such rigidity,” he said. “You know, in systems theory, elements that refuse to adapt often break first.”

“Good thing I bend,” Aizawa said calmly. “I just don’t bend the way you want.”

The program hitching in Nakata’s head took note.

> BEHAVIOR: NONCOMPLIANT.
RECOMMENDATION: ESCALATE STRESS TEST.
SUGGESTED MODE: SIMULATED CRISIS – CONFLICTING DIRECTIVES.

 

It logged the suggestion.

Tomorrow, next week, next month—the when was flexible.

The test was not.

Nakata folded his hands.

“One last question, Aizawa-sensei,” he said. “Purely hypothetical.”

He smiled as if it were nothing.

“If you were ever forced to choose between obeying a direct order from above and following your own instinct to protect a student,” he asked, “which would you pick?”

Izuku’s breath stopped in his chest.

Tsuyu made a small sound.

Todoroki felt the pattern lattice around the question.

The exact kind of branch the machines loved.

Aizawa didn’t hesitate.

“I pick the kid,” he said.

Nakata’s smile flickered.

“Even if it cost you your job?” he pressed.

“Jobs come back,” Aizawa said. “Kids don’t.”

Even if it cost you your life? hung unsaid.

His eyes said yes.

The machine logged the answer.

> PRIMARY PRIORITY: STUDENT SAFETY OVER SYSTEM DIRECTIVES.
RISK INDEX: 0.44 → 0.58.
FLAG: HIGH-RISK AGENT – POTENTIAL ALLY TO ANOMALIES.

 

Nakata stood.

“Thank you for your honesty,” he said. “We appreciate your dedication.”

Aizawa didn’t move.

“Good,” he said. “Now get out of my staff room.”

Nakata smiled, unfazed.

He left.

The program riding him whispered through the walls as he walked.

TARGET IDENTIFIED, it told the Matrix.

SCRIPT READY.

 

---

Back on the ship, Tsuyu added another symbol to the map.

A little scarf wrapped around a rectangle labeled “Aizawa.”

Explosion marks around it.

Cheese wedges at the edges.

“Kero,” she said. “They’re going to push him.”

Izuku stared at the log’s last line.

HIGH-RISK AGENT – POTENTIAL ALLY TO ANOMALIES.

“So they finally said it,” he murmured. “He’s on our side. And they know it.”

Todoroki looked out at the fake garden sky in the Construct.

At the ripples in the koi pond.

“At least they’re honest about who they’re afraid of,” he said.

Trinity cracked her knuckles.

“Let them escalate,” she said. “We’ll escalate back.”

Morpheus’s gaze was steady.

“The next trial will not be about numbers,” he said. “It will be about faith. Whose story Aizawa believes more: theirs, or his own.”

Aizawa walked into the mess, eyes slightly more shadowed than before.

“Everyone done drawing on my existential crisis?” he asked dryly.

Tsuyu’s throat bubbled.

“Kero,” she said. “For now.”

He grabbed a mug.

Poured coffee.

Looked at Izuku, at Tsuyu, at Todoroki.

“At least we know it’s coming,” he said. “That’s a head start they won’t like.”

Izuku nodded.

“We’ll be ready,” he said softly.

Outside, across layers of false sky and real rust, the Matrix quietly queued a new scenario.

STRESS TEST: TEACHER PRIORITY CONFLICT.
PRIMARY SUBJECT: AIZAWA SHOUTA.
SECONDARY SUBJECTS: CLASS 1-A.

Inside, on a ship held together by tape and stubbornness, mice with teeth sharpened their plans.

The maze shifted.

So did they.

The war hummed on, one question away from breaking into open flame.