U.A. had a way of pretending that precision was peace.Everything began on time; everything ended with a bell that promised understanding could be scheduled.
Renya learned to move inside that rhythm without breaking it.Until today.
▪ U.A. — Morning Training
The gym smelled of clean sweat and graphite.Students lined up in pairs again, under Aizawa's half-sleeping watch.
"Reaction training," he said. "Minimal thought. Maximal honesty."
That line alone made half the class blink.
He explained: one partner moved, the other followed—mirroring motion, heartbeat, and breath until the pair felt like one reflection.Simple. Difficult. Beautiful when done right.
Renya stood across from Yaoyorozu. She nodded once, professional to the end."Ready."
"Always."
They began.
Her steps were steady, rational, like math disguised as grace.Renya followed—not fast, not slow—exactly on the breath between her exhale and the sound of her shoe hitting the floor.Aizawa said mirror, but what formed was resonance.
Every move she made drew an invisible line; every line he matched wrote itself in time.Until, suddenly, her foot faltered—intentional—to test him.
He didn't hesitate.He had already stepped before she did.
The class froze for a heartbeat.
"How—?" she whispered.
Aizawa's voice was flat. "You predicted her imbalance?"
"No," Renya said quietly. "I recognized it."
He didn't explain that the air had whispered the shape of her hesitation half a second before her body did.That the rhythm of her pulse and the room's pulse had fallen slightly out of phase—and he'd felt the correction waiting to happen.
The echo beneath the floor had told him.
The square under his foot flickered once, invisible to everyone but him.
Aizawa watched long enough to make thought audible."Again," he said.
They did.This time, he followed deliberately late, human again.
Aizawa said nothing, but the chalk in his hand snapped quietly in half.
Later, in the locker hallway, Kaminari jogged up beside him. "Man, that thing you did—like, you moved before she did! You psychic now?"
Renya looked at him. "Mirrors don't see the future. They see the moment the world blinks."
Kaminari frowned. "That's deep, bro. You should, like, put that on a shirt."
"Wouldn't sell," Renya said, deadpan.
They laughed, but Aizawa—passing by—didn't.He'd noticed the subtle flicker again: air bending where Renya's shadow brushed walls that weren't supposed to have depth.
And for the first time, Aizawa wrote a note not for the school record, but for himself:"His synchronization exceeds stimulus. Investigate 'echo latency.'"
▪ Apartment — Afternoon
Aki's apartment learned to hum before she did.
At first, she thought it was the fridge again—an old compressor pretending to be thunder.Then she realized the rhythm matched her pulse.
She froze.Counted.One, two… then a third beat, faint and distant, sliding in between.
Like breathing in harmony with a room.
She pressed her hand to the wall. The vibration was gentle—not mechanical.More like something polite tapping to be let in.
"Renya," she whispered, though he was miles away. "Are you listening through this?"
Silence answered, but not empty silence—waiting silence.
She tried something impulsive.She tapped twice on the table—da-dum.The hum responded, almost shyly—da-dum.
Her breath caught."Okay," she said softly. "If you can hear me… then stop."
The hum stopped.
She didn't scream.She smiled—tired, nervous, proud. "Good," she said. "You're learning manners."
Then she laughed, because fear and affection had the same rhythm when you were used to surviving.
She texted him one word: "Quiet."
He replied a minute later: "Good."
She didn't ask what that meant.She poured tea, let the hum fade, and told herself that silence was normal.
But when she sat down, she realized something odd—her heart was beating slower.The world had matched her tempo.
▪ The Commission — Evening
Kurobane's desk light carved sharp geometry into paper.He was reading energy telemetry reports from U.A.—data streams from quirk-activity sensors buried beneath the training halls.
There shouldn't have been anything interesting.The numbers always formed tidy clusters of normal: muscle strain, oxygen output, microvoltage from sweat sensors.
Today, the graphs looked alive.
He adjusted the display.There it was again: a faint sine wave—steady, low, repeating every 5.6 seconds—across multiple devices.
Not from one student.Not from one quirk.From the entire room.
Each student's data spiked together—then fell together—like a shared breath.
He leaned forward.That shouldn't be possible unless they were being externally paced.
He pulled audio logs.Aizawa's voice, distant but clear:
"Minimal thought. Maximal honesty."
And the pulse began exactly at that line.
He opened a secure channel. "This is Kurobane," he said. "Flag U.A. sensor batch T-043 under 'resonance anomalies.' Keep it internal."
A voice on the other end—mechanical, uninterested: "Source classified?"
"Not hostile," he said carefully. "But aware."
Pause. "Aware of what?"
He looked at the wave still pulsing across the monitor. "Of us, maybe."
He closed the line before the question could echo.
He sat back, the office hum surrounding him. The pattern still traced the screen, repeating.For a moment, it almost looked like a heartbeat.
He whispered—half to himself, half to the system. "If you're listening, don't answer."
The monitor flickered once. Then stayed still.
Kurobane exhaled through his teeth. "Damn."
He shut the terminal off.
▪ U.A. — Twilight
Renya stayed late.
The gym was empty except for echoes pretending to stretch.He stood in the center and let his own breathing become metronome—inhale, exhale, repeat.
The floor remembered the morning drills.The air remembered Aizawa's command.
And somewhere between those two memories, the pulse returned—soft at first, then clearer, threading between his heartbeat and the building's quiet.
He didn't summon the square. It arrived anyway, a thin outline under his feet, more suggestion than shadow.
He spoke without sound."You're learning to listen."
The air shifted, like approval.But then, as he closed his eyes, the pulse… changed.
It split.Two rhythms—one his, one echoing just off-time.Then, for an impossible instant, they aligned.
A warmth spread—not power, not hunger—presence.Like someone standing behind him, hand raised but not touching.
He exhaled."You're not copying anymore," he whispered. "You're remembering."
He opened his eyes. The room looked the same, but the colors had edges sharper than comfort.Aizawa's voice drifted in from the corridor: "Still here?"
"Yes," Renya said.
"Training?"
"Remembering," Renya said.
Aizawa stopped in the doorway, eyes unreadable. "Don't stay too late. Even memories get tired."
Renya nodded.When the door closed, the echo lingered.
He stood until the pulse matched the sound of his heartbeat again. Then slower. Then gone.
▪ Apartment — Night
Aki lay in bed with the lamp off and the window half open.The night breeze moved the curtain like a calm breath.
The hum was gone now. But in its absence, her heartbeats felt too loud.She pressed her hand over her chest and felt something underneath—not painful, not alien, but… parallel.
"Stop worrying," she murmured. "He's fine."
The parallel pulse agreed.
She laughed softly, almost crying. "Oh, you're worse than him."
The silence after was companionable.
▪ The Commission — Same Night
Kurobane's sleep never went deep enough to hide in.He dreamed in data: graphs that breathed, rooms that blinked.
In his dream, the pulse was there too, glowing across the map of the city—weak in some districts, strong near U.A., faint but definite near one apartment block he knew too well.
He woke before the alarm.The last echo of the dream still pulsed behind his eyes.
He didn't report it.
He sat up, stared at the ceiling, and whispered: "We're all hearing it now, aren't we?"
The air didn't answer, but the silence was shaped like yes.
▪ U.A. — Dawn
Renya didn't sleep either.He'd sat by the window until the first light made the city into geometry.
He thought about the hum, about Yaoyorozu's heartbeat, Kaminari's warmth, Aizawa's command, Aki's text: Quiet.Every sound had become a pattern. Every pattern, a pulse. Every pulse, a memory that wasn't his.
He stood, stretching the stiffness from his spine, and whispered to the room:"You're still here."
The square answered with a faint shimmer—neither shadow nor light.
He smiled without warmth. "Good. I'd hate to be the only one awake."
He closed his eyes. The pulse matched him, breath for breath, perfect.
And for the first time since he'd fallen into this world,he wasn't sure who was following whom.