Simulation Chamber Gamma crackled, heavy with expectancy and the low hum of anti-gravity emitters.
Painting the large space as a replica of Neo-Kyoto's downtown Sector 7, holographic projections shimmered with tall skyscrapers, small alleyways, and simulated traffic flows frozen mid-motion. It was the ideal backdrop for a Prime-Class duel—particularly one stemming from unfiltered irritation.
Ten feet off the simulated pavement, Teru Kamamiya hovered, arms crossed, a smirkier grin across his classically handsome face.
"Sure you still want to do this, Spark Fang?" His uniform appeared to shine under the chamber lights—pristine white accented with gold. "Wouldn't want you to embarrass yourself."
Stretching her arms casually, Aira Midoriya gently touched the edge of a holographic fountain. Her own black-and-green combat outfit was functional and somewhat faded from morning drills.
"Please, Kamamiya," she struggled, swinging her lengthy emerald hair over her shoulder. "The only embarrassing thing here is your haircut." She smiled, her green eyes piercing and confrontational, and perhaps that ego boosting faster than your flight speed. "Besides, weren't you the one who challenged me?"
Teru laughed lightly, stretching his absurdly defined biceps. "Just offering you a chance to back out before you owe me this date." Wouldn't want you crying when I win.
With his quirk, 'Apex Physique,' he had amazing strength, fantastic speed, and flight ability—a trifecta that placed him among the best-ranked combatants in their year. He viewed himself as the top of Prime-Class Student, and Aira's defiant attitude annoyed his narcissistic sensitivities.
"In your dreams, Muscles-for-Brains," Aira replied, getting ready into a prepared position.
"Let's just get this over with. I have real training scheduled later." The wager was absurd, a product of Teru cornering her after she had publicly corrected his flawed analysis in Quirk Dynamics class. Not only was the idea of "dating" Teru nauseating, but defeating him would definitely plose his pride.
The synthesized voice of the chamber yelled,
"Sim-Combat Protocol: Initiated!" The chamber's synthesized voice echoed. "Duel Parameters: Incapacitation or Boundary Breach. Engage!"
Teru doesn't hesitate. Fist cocked back for a catastrophic blow that might shatter reinforced steel, he shot forward like a missile and barely registered sonic boom as he closed the distance fast. His motions were sheer power and crushing speed aimed at finishing fights before it started.
Aira, though, was already in motion.
Fzzt! As Pulse Acceleration started, green-blue lightning flashed around her limbs. For her, time appeared to stretch. Moving at supersonic speed, Teru's fist seemed almost sluggish.
She pivoted her heel, the movement was too fluid, allowing the punch to lightning past and the shockwave ruffle her hair. At the same time, she sent energy into her ankle-thrust boots, propelling herself upward in a narrow spiral.
She shouted "Too slow!" then, with a brief burst, redirected mid-air and and land a sharp kick to the back of Teru's head.
Teru roared, surprised by her speed, ignoring the punch he received, his bodily toughness was great. He spun around, swatting at her like a fly, but Aira was already waiting for it. She dodged his follow-up charge with another pulse-burst, then ran sideways across the holographic street.
Teru sneered, hovering once more, "Cute trick, Midoriya!"
"Dancing around will not defeat me!" He slammed his hands together, producing a localized shock wave intended to upset balance and movement.
Aira felt the pressure wave hit, she rode the distortion by using another exactly timed burst from Pulse Acceleration, synchronizing it with the wave's impact, and used its energy to propel herself erratically toward him like a pinball. Teru's eyes opened a little. Her chained burst of speed like that made predicting her path almost impossible.
"Faster!" Aira shout, as her muscles howling from the stress of fast, continuous activation. Pulse acceleration was about timing, precision, pushing her nervous system to its total limit for milliseconds at a time. Teru relied on his raw strength, but that strength had inertia and predictability.
She feinted left, then pulsed right, appearing almost behind him. Teru spun, expecting a strike, but Aira had pulsed once more, gone low and directed the quirk into her legs for a sweeping kick aimed straight at his ankle—one of the few areas not often braced for impact during flight adjustments.
Crackk!
Teru screamed in agony and shock as his ankle buckled, causing his flight pattern to veer momentarily and erratically. This was the opening Aira sought.
Ignoring the burn in her joints, she once more activated Pulse Acceleration, pushing off the ground violently. She rose, aiming for the solar plexus—a strike meant to immobilized via nerve shock—rather than aiming at his face or chest. Green lightning covered her fist.
Teru knew it was coming but was unable to quickly adjust his flight. With perfect accuracy, Aira's fist struck. Though her punch lacks the power, but the concentrated bio-electric energy from her quirk flowed through him.
"Gah!" Teru gas breathed, his flight dropping totally as the air left his lungs. He crashed onto the simulated pavement below, skidding several meters before coming to a stop; the nerve overload briefly paralyzed him.
"Victor: Aira Midoriya," the synthetic voice pronounced.
Aira dropped gently next to the moaning Teru, heavy breathing; the green sparks around her vfading. Her muscles throb, her grin spread across her face
"So," she said, leaning down somewhat and noting with mock sweetness her voice. "About that date... don't ever mention that again."
As Aira turned and strolled toward the simulation chamber exit, leaving Teru defeated on the hologographic streets, he could only glare, wordless with embarrassment and lingering nerve pain.
Ugh. Winning against Teru always felt fantastic, but it didnt last long.
Predictably, my wrist chimed less than ten minutes after I exited the sim chamber; the signature shining with the clear priority code of Instructor Reina Midoriya – or as I most often had to call her outside our quarters, Mom. Called upon. Probably heard about the unsanctioned duel conditions, or Teru ran off weeping already.
I slogged back toward the spire of the Prime-Class dormitory, Block Alpha. Sometimes, these hallways seemed more clinical than a medical facility.
Perfectly modulated overhead lighting was reflected in polished chrome floors; immaculate white walls were broken only by elegant holographic displays presenting Academia achievements or rotating profiles of top-ranking pupils.
Everything perfect, under control and clean. This place seemed like a golden cage compared to the films I had quietly taken of the ancient Pre-Collapse towns or perhaps the glimpses I had seen of the lower Core areas during 'slumming' expedition. Certainly a very pleasant, high-tech cage—but still a cage.
My dorm room was not much different: large, simple furniture fastened to the floor and a window viewing the carefully created Reflective Garden (because heaven forbid we see actual unregulated nature).
I had tried my best to make it mine, covering one wall with outdated, maybe banned rock band posters I had traded data chips for and keeping my training equipment always spilled out on the floor instead of storing in the auto-stowing containers.
Mom was already there, standing ramrods straight by the window, her teacher uniform immaculate, dark green hair pulled back in a tight bun that mirrored my own usual ponytail. She merely watched the artificial cherry blossoms swing outside rather than turned as I entered.
"Report," she answered, her voice lacking in warmth. Like in instructor mode, totally engross.
I flung my training pack toward the bed. "Target immobilized. Minimal property damage to Sim 7. No injuries sustained beyond Teru Kamamiya's bruised ego, which frankly, could use the workout."
She at last turned, her sharper eyes – so much like mine but colder – settling on me. "The combat itself was unapproved, Aira. Furthermore, the stakes Kamamiya apparently suggested were unsuitable and unbecoming of a Prime-Class pupil."
I flung myself on my desk chair, whirling it around. "Relax, Mom. I handled it. He needed to be put in his place. Apart from that, it was excellent practice. Today my Pulse Acceleration felt more consistent; chaining the bursts was practically natural."
"Instinct is useless when you cant control," she snapped, the first signs of maternal irritation breaking through the instructor facade." Your quirk, our quirk, requires absolute precision. Recklessness invites disaster." She moved closer, whispered a little to say, "You surge too bright, draw too much attention. As the fifth generation Midoriya bearing the promise, you cannot afford such slip-ups. "
It was there. The 'fifth generation reminder'. Like I never forget.
Five generations... really, since him. The one whose name was practically cursed in the official archives but whispered like a prayer in the fragments of stories Mom sometimes let slip in rare, unguarded moments.
Five generations of walking a tightrope, apparently. I didn't even know who the second and third were; those details were conveniently glossed over in the 'approved' family history logs.
I shot back, maybe too sharp. "So what?" I gestured vaguely at the immaculate room, the ideal view, and said, "I'm supposed to just keep my head down? Be a perfect little Academia drone? Never push back, never question anything? Is this truly what he would have wished?"
Mom's face tightened, a flash of something unknown—pain? fear?—before being flashed out.
"Aira, whatever your ancestor wished is of little importance of the facts of this world. He was not present to witness our generation how the Core Authority Council reshape the world, nor the Collapse reaching its end. We live by following the now laws, guaranteeing stability of our life. Indeed your potential is great; however, control and stability are critical. Do you understand the situation we are under?"
I turned away and concentrated on the worn leather bracer on my forearm—a repurposed piece of his former equipment, my covert rebellion and connection. Training. Pressure. Control. That was life at the upper levels of Eternal Academia. Though she stood straight, occasionally I could see the fatigue in Mom's eyes. She carried this burden too, perhaps heavier than I did. What secrets was she hiding? What compromises had she made to guarantee our 'stability'?
"Yeah," I muttered, dabbling at a free thread on my uniform sleeve. Yeah, I understand. Loud and clear. But internally, the doubts just echoed even more. I couldn't fathom that somehow. Was this really all there was? Perform, obey, manage the spark inside me until it became just another expected gear in Academia's flawless machine?
Everyday is a pain.
One more cycle, one more rotation through the gold-plated Eternal Academia High's gears. Sometimes I believe the automated schedule-bots find some kind of twisted delight in making our lives as Prime-Class elites as straitjely structured as feasible.
Rinse, repeat: Combat Sims at 06:00, Advanced Quirk Theory at 08:00, Legacy Ethics (gag me) at 10:00, Applied Heroics Field Strategy at 13:00. All under the constant, quiet gaze of thousands of invisible sensors and artificial intelligence drones humming just below hearing. They monitored our movements, our vital signs, our quirk outputs, even our emotional swings—everything data returned to the big machine guaranteed we stayed predictable, controllable assets.
Today's Legacy Ethics lecture was especially disgusting. Instructor Borin droned on about the 'Sacred Duty of Bloodline' and the 'Stability Accord' achieved after the chaotic 'Heroic Age.' His version of history painted the figures from before the Collapse as powerful but dangerously unstable, their messy ideals inevitably leading to the Singularity Crisis. According to Borin and the accepted curriculum, true strength lay in order, control, and obedience to verifiable lineage. I swear, hearing the Academia motto—"Legacy is Law"—would make me cringe. Blood carries power. Once more, I might actually push the limits of the Quirk Dampeners in the classroom.
Probably developing a new support drone, Maya Ishida was casually sketched in her datapad as I stole a sideways glance. She was Prime-Class too, quirk, 'Techno-Weave,' allowing her to mentally connect with and gently change sophisticated equipment. Maya really appreciated the order here and took solace in the predictability. She drew my attention and made a slight, nearly undetectable head shake, alerting me that my boredom was probably showing on the room's emotional sensors.
I abandoned my officially assigned project on 'Analyzing Pre-Collapse Rescue Logistics Failures' (translation: more propaganda about how ineffective old heroes were) during the scheduled 'Independent Study' period in the Prime Archives—a large, frighteningly quiet hall filled with curated knowledge.
I instead steered for the limited historical servers, layering obfuscation codes Maya may have passed me over my access route. I still not know what I was seeking. Though the files on my great-grandfather were still under strict lockdown, perhaps... perhaps there were other breaches. Rumors about banned experiments, the truth behind the Cleansing of Zone-14, everything else didn't fit the ideal story.
Most queries run into ACCESS DENIED: ALPHA CLEARANCE REQUIRED or DATA CORRUPTED: FILE INTEGRITY COMPROMISED.
Standard practice for bothersome past. However, today, examining incomplete incident reports from Zone-9 border patrols roughly fifty years ago and cross-referencing references of 'Unregistered Quirk Anomalies,' I discovered something... strange. Most of it redacted or lost to data decay, a severely damaged Shepherd Corps field report said one term remained resolutely unchanged:
...Subject K-0 containment broke down. Search for Prime Evolution. Suggest Blackline sterilization for Sector. [cf: 150–151, 463, 480].
The words K-0 and Prime Evolution were not found in any usual Academia lexotic.
Though the context seemed different, "Prime Evolution" sounded really near to the official "Prime-Class" designation. Sector Blackline... According to the forbidden maps circulating among inquisitive lower-tier pupils, Underscape territory was supposedly irradiated and sealed off following early investigations gone wrong.
My heart thumped against my ribs. This felt like something actual, something purposefully buried. I tried to replicate the fragment, routing it three layers of encryption to my private safe storage—the one even Mom maybe didn't known about.
Unauthorized Access Attempt Detected. Unit 734-Alpha. Security Protocol Initiated.
Cold sweat swept over me. The archive terminal display flickered red. The quiet hum of the hall seemed suddenly more ominous, and louder. AI surveillance reacted. Grabbing my regular datapad as though I had just been reading assigned materials, I slammed the terminal shut and cut the connection. My hands trembled.
"Think, Aira, think!" Standard procedure had lockdown and interrogation. They would check my personal storage, my recent activities. Even if they couldn't decrypt the file location immediately, the attempt itself was a major violation.
My gaze roamed the large, seemingly barren archive hall. The main exits would already be monitored. Security patrols would be converging. But perhaps—just perhaps—there was another route. Maya had once said rumors, theoretical bypasses in the lower archive levels, emergency maintenance conduits supposedly linked to the deeper Foundation Sectors ... perhaps even further down. Towards the areas Academia pretended didn't exist.
My pulse thrashed from sheer excitement, not from my quirk. I turned to see the restricted sublevel access panel far down the hall, then back toward the main entrance where the first indications of lockdown lights were starting to strobe.
I had two seconds to make a choice.