The morning sunlight cut sharply through the tall, arched windows of Principal Nezu's office, casting geometric patterns of light across the polished mahogany floorboards. The room was deathly quiet, save for the soft clink of a porcelain teacup being set back onto its saucer.
Nicknamed the Number Three Hero, Hawks stood near the windows, his posture unusually rigid despite his casual aviator jacket. His massive crimson wings were tucked tightly against his back, the feathers occasionally twitching as the residual mental fatigue of Friday night's catastrophic containment still weighed on his shoulders.
Across the wide desk, Principal Nezu sat propped up on a specialized high chair. His paws were neatly folded over a tablet displaying the encrypted satellite telemetry and structural damage logs from the ruined corporate skyscraper in Musutafu. The white-furred principal looked incredibly serious, the typical cheerful glint in his dark eyes entirely replaced by a cold, calculating intensity.
Nezu stared at the data for a long, heavy minute. Then, without looking up, he spoke, his voice completely flat. "Are you sure he said he was quirkless?"
Hawks ran a gloved hand through his messy blonde hair, exhaling a slow, tense breath. "That's what all three of my interns who were directly on that roof said, Principal. Hiro, Nozomi, and Tokoyami were right inside the plume when he started screaming his manifesto. They heard him clear as day, and I don't doubt their reporting for a single second. The guy explicitly claimed he was quirkless before someone gave him a second chance and unlocked that purple vapor."
Nezu remained motionless, his small brow furrowing as his brilliant intellect began running thousands of comparative scenarios. A quirkless individual suddenly manifesting a high-tier, wide-area atmospheric accelerator was a mathematical anomaly that broke the established baseline of biological quirk society. [1]
As Nezu continued to think about it in silence, Hawks shifted his weight, his sharp eyes narrowing. "Do you suspect the League of Villains is behind this? It fits their recent pattern of trying to destabilize local jurisdictions, especially with what just went down in Hosu City with the Nomu."
Nezu slowly shook his head, his gaze drifting toward the window. "It might not be them. The League's current infrastructure is highly volatile, and their logistical focus has been entirely consumed by the Hero Killer's ideology. This... this feels like a completely different methodology. But," Nezu paused, his dark eyes locking onto Hawks with absolute finality, "I won't rule them out just yet."
The white-furred principal slid the tablet across the desk, his expression sharpening into a look of absolute administrative authority. "I am granting you full, un-redacted authority to investigate this matter, Hawks. Use your agency's deep network within the Hero Commission. Dig into the black-market supply chains, check the medical registries for recent quirkless disappearances, and get to the absolute bottom of it. If someone has engineered a method to artificially force a quirk factor into a normal human template, the structural safety of our entire society is at risk."
Nezu then let out a long, heavy sigh, the deep weight of the situation momentarily drooping his shoulders. "Though, thinking about it like this won't solve the problem today."
In a fraction of a second, the heavy tension vanished. Nezu instantly returned to his standard, cheerful persona, his face lighting up with a bright, welcoming smile as he clapped his paws together. "Now then! Let's return to the curriculum. How are your U.A. interns doing after their first major field deployment?"
Hawks let out a dry, thoroughly exhausted chuckle, scratching the back of his neck as his wings gave a slight, loose flutter. "Honestly? It's just going to be me and Fumikage handling the physical agency duties for a while. The twins' quirks are still completely locked down. Those high-density paper seals are staying firmly on the backs of their necks until the biological effects of that guy's quirk accelerator completely wear off their internal energy systems."
While Hawks finalized his briefing at U.A., the weekend inside the Kirigaya estate unrolled with a completely different, sluggish rhythm. Because their massive silver and purple soul-flux reserves were entirely compressed beneath E.V.E.'s custom paper seals, Hiro and Nozomi were effectively grounded, forced into a state of temporary physical normalcy.
Saturday morning started with the twins lazily lounging around the vast, quiet living room. Hiro was sprawled completely flat across the long leather sofa, his dark hair messy as he idly scrolled through local news forums on his smartphone, checking the massive media fallout from the Hosu City battle. Nozomi sat on the plush rug beside him, her back resting against the base of the couch as she mindlessly flipped through social media updates, her dark fox ears twitching occasionally at the ambient ticking of the grandfather clock.
"The media is completely losing its mind over the Hero Killer," Hiro muttered, his voice raspy with morning laziness as he tapped his phone screen. "Midoriya, Todoroki, and Iida are getting zero public credit because of the illegal quirk usage laws, so Manual and Endeavor are taking the official save metrics."
Nozomi didn't look up from her device, her thumbs flying across the screen as she stretched her legs out. "It's a necessary structural buffer for them. If the public found out three freshmen went rogue to execute a personal vendetta, the Commission would have to suspend them. Let the pros take the paperwork."
They spent the next few hours simply lazing around, losing themselves in the mundane comfort of an uninterrupted weekend. Since Akihime was away from the estate managing a high-priority corporate merger in the capital, the twins had the entire mansion to themselves, allowing them to move at a slow, unbothered pace.
By Saturday afternoon, the boredom finally pushed them off the furniture. Walking down the hidden subterranean corridor, they stepped into the cool, sterile environment of their primary laboratory.
The heavy steel doors hissed shut, and E.V.E.'s purple-haired hologram immediately materialized above the central holotable. "Good afternoon, Creator Hiro, Creator Nozomi. The atmospheric data from Friday night has been fully compiled."
"Thanks, Eve," Hiro said, walking over to the glass console and pulling up a complex, rotating molecular breakdown of the purple gas they had collected from the rooftop. "Let's run some comparative diagnostics. We need to find out exactly when the cellular acceleration effects will wear off our baseline, or if we can engineer a structural reversal matrix to flush the residue out of our systems."
The holotable hummed softly, lines of data rewriting themselves as the system analyzed the chemical compounds. For an hour, the twins stood side-by-side, their pitch-black eyes tracking the shifting formulas. But every single simulation E.V.E. ran ended in a dead-end baseline failure.
"Analytics inconclusive," E.V.E. announced. "The synthetic quirk factor within the gas utilizes an unstable, shifting molecular binder. Without direct access to the source subject's active biological quirk factor, I cannot calculate the exact degradation timeline or synthesize a reversal agent."
Hiro let out a sharp sigh, leaning his weight against the edge of the console as he crossed his arms. "Great. So we're stuck in the dark."
Nozomi leaned against the adjacent desk, a thoughtful expression taking over her dark features. "We can't find anything more without the guy, Hiro. We need to study his biological quirk factor directly to see how his cells are continuously producing that vapor."
Hiro looked over at her, an amused, sarcastic smirk creeping onto his face. "Okay, but we can't exactly go to the police station and ask for the guy, Nozomi. What would we even say to the detectives?"
Nozomi caught his eye, her lips twitching as she immediately caught the absurdity of the thought. She cleared her throat, adopting a mock-serious, formal tone. "Hello, officers. We are a pair of fourteen-year-old first-year students, and we want to conduct a highly classified human experiment. Could we please borrow that domestic terrorist guy you just locked up in maximum security? We promise to bring him back in one piece."
Hiro burst out laughing, shaking his head as he looked back at the screen. "Yeah, no. That's a one-way ticket to getting Aizawa-sensei to permanently expel us. The authorities would have a literal meltdown if they found out we have a multi-million-dollar laboratory hidden under our house."
"Exactly," Nozomi chuckled, her pitch-black eyes shifting to a blank fabrication blueprint on the lower monitor. "If we can't study the toxin, we might as well build something useful while we wait out the lockdown. We need a cleaner way to handle rogue elements with high-tier quirks without having to level an entire block next time."
The time skip unrolled smoothly over the next several hours as the twins shifted their focus entirely toward hardware fabrication. Working under E.V.E.'s guidance, they spent the remainder of the evening adjusting the molecular density of a high-end titanium alloy. By the time the automated fabrication arms hissed to a halt near midnight, a sleek, matte-black pair of custom handcuffs rested on the velvet tray.
"Fabrication complete," E.V.E. stated. "The quirk-sealing handcuffs are fully operational. Upon closure, the internal micro-needles deliver a localized, high-frequency suppression pulse directly into the target's wrist pathways, temporarily neutralizing their quirk factor communication lines with zero biological damage."
"Perfect," Hiro smiled, picking up the heavy metal cuffs and tossing them lightly in his hand. "A clean solution for the next time someone decides to go crazy on a roof."
By Sunday afternoon, the twins decided they had spent enough time locked inside the mansion. Since their mother wasn't home to protest, they changed into their high-end street clothes—Hiro in his custom leather jacket and Nozomi in an elegant trench coat—and decided to head out into the city.
Taking a private car, they traveled down to the central municipal hospital of Hosu City. The facility was heavily guarded by local police due to the high-profile nature of the Friday night incident, but the twins casually walked past the reception desk, their U.A. student IDs providing instant administrative access.
They walked down the quiet, sterile hallway of the third floor, their boots making soft clicking sounds against the linoleum until they reached Room 315. Hiro offered a brief, polite knock before sliding the door open.
Izuku Midoriya, Shoto Todoroki, and Tenya Iida were all sitting in their respective hospital beds, surrounded by white sheets, IV stands, and trays of half-eaten gelatin. Midoriya's arms were heavily wrapped in thick white bandages, Todoroki had a minor dressing over his arm, and Iida sat rigidly in the corner bed, his gaze fixed on his wrapped legs.
The moment the door opened, all three boys snapped their heads toward the entrance, their eyes widening in total surprise.
"Kirigaya?! Nozomi-san?!" Midoriya blurted out, nearly dropping his glass of water as he scrambled to sit up straighter. "What... what are you guys doing all the way out in Hosu City?!"
"We came to see if you three idiots were still breathing," Hiro said with an easy, relaxed smile, closing the door behind him and leaning casually against the wall.
Todoroki looked at the twins, his expression completely neutral but his voice carrying a trace of genuine curiosity. "We heard from Endeavor's agency that Hawks' team dealt with a major skyscraper incident in Musutafu on Friday night. I didn't expect you to travel this far just for a hospital visit."
Nozomi walked gracefully into the room, pulling up a rolling stool and sitting down next to Midoriya's bed, her pitch-black eyes scanning their bandages with a soft, knowing look. "We had some free time on our hands since our agency duties are temporarily on pause. You look like you took a beating, Midoriya."
"Ah, yeah..." Midoriya rubbed the back of his neck with his uninjured hand, a nervous, embarrassed grin taking over his face. "The Hero Killer... he was incredibly fast, Nozomi-san. His quirk allows him to paralyze anyone whose blood he tastes. If Todoroki and Iida hadn't been there to coordinate our lines of attack, I don't think we would have made it out of that alleyway."
From the corner bed, Tenya Iida remained completely silent. His hands were clenched tightly over his blanket, his shoulders tightly hunched as the heavy weight of his actions still consumed his mind.
Hiro noticed the shift in the room's energy. He walked over to the foot of Iida's bed, looking down at the class representative with a calm, completely steady expression. "You look like you've got a lot on your mind, Iida."
Iida bit his lower lip, slowly raising his head to meet Hiro's pitch-black eyes. A shadow of immense guilt and regret clouded his face. "I... I allowed my personal desire for vengeance to completely cloud my judgment as a hero, Kirigaya. I sought out Stain out of hatred for what he did to my brother, Ingenium. Because of my reckless selfishness, I nearly caused the deaths of Midoriya and Todoroki. I... I failed the very baseline of what U.A. stands for."
Midoriya and Todoroki looked over, their expressions softening but remaining silent, letting the conversation breathe.
Nozomi offered a gentle, calm smile from her stool, her voice carrying a deep, reassuring resonance. "You made a mistake, Iida. But you're fourteen, and you faced a monster that has slaughtered dozens of seasoned pros. The important part is that you are still standing here to feel that regret. Growth requires risks, and sometimes it requires a massive reality check to understand what carrying the framework of a hero actually means."
Hiro nodded, leaning his hands on the metal bed rail. "She's right. True strength doesn't come from being perfect from day one, Iida. It comes from looking at the broken concrete after a disaster, acknowledging your failure, and choosing to rebuild yourself to be stronger for the next fight. You survived. Your brother is still with us. Use this weight as fuel, not as an anchor to sink yourself."
Iida stared at the twins for a long, quiet beat, his crimson eyes shimmering with a mixture of raw emotion and profound gratitude. The heavy, suffocating guilt in his chest slowly began to lift, replaced by a renewed, gritty determination. He raised his hand, pushing his glasses up his nose as he let out a long, steady breath.
"Thank you..." Iida said, his voice trembling slightly but his posture straightening with renewed resolve. "Thank you both. I shall take your words to heart. I will rebuild my foundation, and I will become a hero worthy of the name Ingenium."
"Good," Hiro smirked, pulling his hands into his pockets. "Because the school year is only getting started, and we're not letting our class representative slack off during the next combat drills."
The rest of the afternoon passed in a comfortable, slow-paced flow. The five students sat in the quiet hospital room, trading light-hearted banter about Gran Torino's brutal training methods, laughing at Midoriya's absolute fanboy rants about old hero histories, and completely losing themselves in the simple luxury of being normal teenagers. For the twins, watching their classmates find their own strength was the perfect confirmation that staying out of the Hosu incident had been the absolute right choice for the timeline.
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