Summer thickened the air, pressing its humid breath against Izuku's skin like a damp blanket. He sat alone on a park bench, tucked beneath the sprawling canopy of an ancient oak. Its dense shade offered sanctuary, insulating him from the shrill shrieks of children chasing bubbles across sun-scorched grass. Izuku traced the whorls in the weathered wood with a fingertip, his attention absorbed by the intricate latticework of darkness and light beneath the swing set. Each ordinary shadow pulsed with latent whispers – fragments of fractured timelines, phantom battles fought in echoes. Then, a discordant note sliced through the quiet: sharp, arrogant voices cracking like whips. Izuku's crimson gaze lifted, drawn reluctantly from the comforting murmur of shade. Across the playground, near the sandstone fountain, Katsuki Bakugo's spiky blond hair blazed under the sun like a corona of arrogance. He loomed over a smaller boy clutching a plush rabbit doll, its fur shimmering weakly with faint pink light – a Quirk as gentle as its owner. "Stupid Glowy Bun!" Bakugo barked, kicking dust onto the boy's sandals. "Your Quirk sucks! Even Deku's dumb warp-thing is less useless!" The insult echoed hollowly, failing to stir the usual sting. Bakugo was background noise, a predictable dissonance Izuku had long learned to tune out. He sighed, a sound as soft as shifting leaves – not fear, but profound irritation, like watching a fly repeatedly buzz against a windowpane. Annoyance, pure and simple.
Uncurling slowly from his shaded refuge, Izuku slid off the bench. Dust puffed softly around his worn sneakers. He moved not with childish urgency, but with unnerving deliberation – each step measured, silent, carrying the deliberate cadence of inevitability. The humid air seemed to thicken around him; the shrill playground sounds dampened as if submerged underwater. Bakugo, hands crackling with miniature explosions that singed the dry grass, didn't notice his approach. "Crybaby!" Bakugo sneered, aiming another sparking palm toward the trembling boy. "Nobody cares about your dumb—" His taunt choked off abruptly. A sudden, unnatural coolness bloomed against his skin, prickling the hairs on his nape. He spun, crimson eyes wide, meeting Izuku's own unblinking rubies. Izuku stood barely an arm's length away, having closed the distance without sound or rush, a shadow given sudden, silent form. Bakugo's nostrils flared. "What d'you want, Deku?" His voice dripped venom, but lacked its usual unwavering certainty; Izuku's stillness unnerved him, an anchor in his turbulent world. Izuku didn't look at Bakugo. His gaze drifted past him, settling on the frightened boy clutching the softly glowing rabbit. Something ancient flickered in his eyes – not pity, but recognition. A shared understanding of being adrift in a world too loud, too bright. The boy's sniffles hitched, caught by the gravity of Izuku's silent presence.
Izuku finally turned his head. His crimson eyes met Bakugo's blazing glare. He didn't speak. Instead, a subtle tremor ran through his small frame – not fear, but a gathering resonance. The golden bands encircling his wrists flared, bathing his skin in an intense, shifting aurora of emerald green and sapphire blue. The air hummed audibly, charged with ozone and unseen tension. Beneath Bakugo's feet, his own shadow abruptly deepened, swallowing the surrounding light and solidifying into an oil-slick pool. It rippled, cold radiating upward. Bakugo instinctively stepped back, his sparking palm faltering, his sneakers scraping against the suddenly unnerving ground beneath him. Izuku tilted his head slightly. His voice, when it came, was soft, devoid of anger, yet carrying the unshakeable weight of ages: "Stop." It wasn't a plea. It was a command from something vastly older than playground rivalries. It echoed with the lingering resonance of Chaos Control, a power both alien and intrinsically woven into his being. The park seemed to hold its breath.
Then, as abruptly as he'd arrived, Izuku broke his gaze. He turned slowly away from Bakugo's bewildered fury and the trembling boy with the pink-glowing rabbit. His small shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly, the light from his bands dimming back to a muted hum. He moved deliberately, unhurriedly, away from the confrontation. Dust still floated in the humid air where he'd stood. Bakugo stared after him, momentarily speechless, his explosions fizzling out into harmless smoke against his palms. The air pressure normalized, the unnerving chill fading instantly from the ground. Izuku walked steadily across the patch of sun-scorched grass, his shadow trailing long and undisturbed behind him.
He reached the shaded sanctuary beneath the ancient oak. Without pause, he climbed back onto the worn wooden bench. Knees drew up automatically, chin settling onto folded arms. His crimson gaze sank instantly back into the intricate tapestry of shade dancing beneath the climbing frame – a world of shifting patterns and murmuring echoes far more comprehensible than playground politics. The brief flare of blue-green power seemed a distant event. A stray yellow jacket buzzed near his ear; Izuku didn't flinch, his attention wholly consumed by the subtle lengthening of a shadow cast by a stray cloud drifting across the relentless summer sun. The hum of his gold bands faded to a near-silent vibration, a familiar thrumming against his bones, anchoring him back to the quietude he craved.
Across the playground, Katsuki Bakugo finally recovered his voice. "Freak!" he shouted, the word sharp but lacking its usual cutting force. He kicked at the dirt where the unnerving pool of shadow had been, scowling fiercely. The boy with the rabbit watched Izuku's retreating back, tears forgotten, awe mingling with lingering fear in his eyes. Izuku registered none of it. The whispers from the deep shade beneath the bench began again – soft, fragmented sounds speaking of void corridors and phantom stars. His fingers traced the warm metal at his wrist. The resonance faded. Only the familiar hum remained. Overhead, a plane carved a silent contrail across the azure sky. Izuku's crimson gaze didn't lift. Blue belonged to echoes; grey was real. The oak's shadow deepened around him, a sanctuary woven from silence and forgotten wars.
***
Ten years crawled by, measured in flickering jade pulses and the lengthening shadows Izuku sought like air. Aldera Junior High's third-year classroom buzzed with restless energy, thick with chalk dust and adolescent anticipation. Posters of gleaming Pro Heroes plastered the walls – All Might's triumphant grin impossibly bright against the sterile tile. Outside, spring sunlight glared harshly off the asphalt courtyard, casting stark, angular shadows that Izuku monitored, unnoticed, from his seat near the back. The golden bands beneath his sleeves hummed faintly against bone, whispering warnings only he could parse – tremors in the fabric of space too subtle for others to feel. Kacchan Bakugo occupied the neighbouring desk, radiating impatience like heatwaves. His explosions crackled faintly against his palms, contained sparks mirroring his simmering arrogance. Izuku kept his crimson eyes lowered, tracing the geometric patterns etched by the shadow of a ceiling pipe onto his worn notebook. The whispers from the deepest corners hissed *imbalance*, *collision imminent*. He didn't need the shadows to tell him that.
The homeroom teacher, Mr. Sato, a weary man with ink-stained fingers, slammed his weathered briefcase onto his desk. The abrupt sound jarred the chatter into momentary silence. He pulled out a thick sheaf of career aspiration forms – crisp white rectangles demanding futures be declared. A theatrical sigh escaped him as he held the stack aloft. "Alright, settle down! I know I know," he announced, his voice dripping with exaggerated resignation. "*Everyone* here dreams of U.A., dreams of the Hero Course!" He scanned the room, his gaze lingering pointedly on Bakugo's smirking face before flickering dismissively over Izuku's bowed head. "Filling out these forms is just the first step… for those who can actually *walk* it." He let the forms cascade dramatically onto his desk, scattering like fallen leaves. A collective intake of breath filled the room.
Before the papers even settled, Bakugo erupted. He slammed his fists onto his desk, small explosions scorching the wood veneer. "Damn right!" he roared, spiky hair bristling. Heads snapped towards him. His grin was feral, triumphant. "All you extras might as well save yourselves the embarrassment now! I aced every mock exam! My Quirk's the strongest! Hell, I'm the *only* one in this dump worthy of being a damn hero!" His crimson eyes swept the room, daring anyone to contradict him. Laughter died. Eyes dropped. Izuku remained motionless. Not cowed. Not intimidated. His gaze stayed fixed on the shifting shadow beneath Bakugo's desk – a dark pool vibrating minutely, echoing the volatile energy above it. The whispers grew sharper: *Fracture point. Noise pollution. Disrupts alignment.*
The silence stretched taut. Bakugo soaked in the fearful deference, chest swelling. "So quit wasting everyone's time with your pathetic—" His tirade choked mid-word. Izuku shifted. It wasn't sudden. It wasn't loud. He simply lifted his head from his notebook, unfolding his arms with deliberate calm. His crimson eyes, ancient and unnervingly clear, locked onto Bakugo's blazing stare. Dust motes drifted in the sunbeam slicing between them. The frantic whispers from the shadows hushed instantly, replaced by a sudden, profound stillness heavier than silence. Izuku's lips parted. His voice, when it came, was soft, utterly devoid of anger or fear, but carrying the inexorable weight of deep shadow and humming gold: "Shut up, Bakugo."
The words landed like stones dropped into frozen water. Not a shout. Not a plea. A simple command, delivered with unnerving calmness. Bakugo's sneer froze. His explosions flickered out. The classroom air crackled, thick with disbelief. Every eye widened – Mr. Sato's jaw slackened, ink-stained fingers hovering over the scattered forms. Bakugo stared, utterly blindsided. His face cycled through shock, disbelief, then a volcanic fury that turned his cheeks crimson. He took a half-step forward, fists trembling, knuckles white, sparks threatening to reignite. "You little—!" he snarled, voice laced with venom. But the threat died unfinished. Izuku hadn't moved. He hadn't flinched. He simply held Bakugo's gaze, crimson meeting crimson, a quiet ocean meeting a raging firestorm. His golden bands pulsed faintly beneath his sleeves, a low thrum resonating through the charged air – a silent reminder of the blue flash ten years past, of power that cared nothing for playground bluster. The shadows beneath Bakugo's feet seemed to deepen, cold radiating upward. He faltered. The sheer, unnerving *stillness* emanating from Izuku was a shield more impenetrable than any taunt Bakugo knew how to breach.
Izuku broke the stare as abruptly as he'd initiated it. He lowered his gaze back to his notebook as if nothing had happened. His fingers resumed tracing the pattern of pipe-shadow, movements precise, unhurried. The classroom remained suspended in shock, breaths held. Bakugo's fists trembled, sparks fizzling against his palms, face contorted in silent fury—utterly disarmed by the sheer, unnatural calm radiating from the boy he'd dismissed as background static for a decade. Izuku's golden bands pulsed once beneath his sleeve, a low thrum resonating through the charged silence like a tuning fork struck deep underground. The shadows beneath Bakugo's desk deepened infinitesimally, cold leaching upward.
The dismissal bell rang like a physical release. Students surged toward the exits, whispers erupting—"Did Midoriya just—?" "He told Bakugo to shut up!"—but Izuku moved against the current. He slid his notebook into his bag, shouldered it deliberately, and walked out the back door unnoticed, slipping into the lengthening afternoon shadows as if dissolving into them. Aldera's chaos faded behind him. He cut through a narrow alley choked with dumpsters, the reek of rotting food thick in his nostrils. Above, traffic roared unseen on an overpass; beneath his worn sneakers, the asphalt vibrated with the rhythm of distant trains. His bands hummed louder here, a dissonant chord scraping against unseen fractures in reality.
He emerged onto the riverbank path near the Kiyashi Ward underpass, a concrete throat swallowing fading daylight. The air grew damp, smelling of wet stone and stagnant water. Halfway under the bridge, shadow swallowing him whole, the hum in his bands spiked into a screeching, high-frequency alarm. Before he could react, the grating beneath his feet exploded upward in a spray of rust and foul-smelling liquid. A towering mass of viscous, pulsating green sludge surged from the sewer, reeking of methane and decay. Glowing yellow eyes locked onto Izuku with manic desperation. "*You!*" it gurgled, mucus-thick voice echoing under the concrete arch. "*Small…tight…perfect skinsuit! Need to hide!*"
Izuku froze, not in fear, but in predatory stillness—ruby eyes narrowing, calculating trajectories. The sludge villain lunged, amorphous tendrils stretching toward his face. Gold bands ignited beneath his sleeves, bathing the underpass in sudden, actinic cyan light—Chaos Control flaring not as escape, but as coiled readiness. The air crackled with spatial distortion. "*Too slow,*" Izuku murmured, the words swallowed by the roaring sludge. Then, darkness swallowed him whole. Not movement—*absence*. One instant he stood before the villain; the next, only a fading sapphire afterimage remained, swallowed by the deep shadows clinging to the bridge's damp pylons. The sludge monster crashed into empty air, splattering wetly against the concrete where Izuku had stood milliseconds before.
Silence, thick and unnatural, descended. Izuku reappeared behind the villain, soles touching the slick pavement without a sound. Shadows pooled intensely around him, deepening as if drawn to his presence. He raised his left hand, fingers loose—golden rings pulsing fierce emerald light. A single, sharp snap echoed like a gunshot under the bridge. Instantly, the world froze. The dripping sludge halted mid-drip. Dust motes hung suspended in shafts of dying light. The villain's gurgling fury solidified mid-roar. A pale, sickly green aura—like corroded jade—bleached the entire scene, leaching color from the concrete, the stagnant water, the villain's quivering form. Time itself crystallized. Only Izuku moved within the frozen tableau, a dark silhouette against the eerie glow, his crimson eyes coldly analytical.
Izuku flowed like liquid shadow. He blurred forward, a streak of darkness within the green-stasis field. His fist snapped out—a piston blow cracking against the sludge monster's gelatinous core. Impact echoed strangely in the silent timestop. Kick followed kick—a rapid-fire barrage driving deep into yielding slime. Over a dozen strikes landed: precise, economical, devastating—each impact sending concentric ripples through the frozen villain's form, visible only because *he* moved. The air hummed faintly with displaced force. No wasted motion. Each blow resonated with centuries of phantom battles, instincts etched into bone deeper than memory. He landed a final spinning heel kick directly between the glowing yellow eyes—a punctuation mark delivered with detached, brutal efficiency. Stepping back, he surveyed the frozen, rippling mass. Deep within the sludge, a faint sapphire pulse echoed his own bands' light—a trapped, flickering signature of Chaos Control's initial distortion.
Another sharp snap echoed. The sickly green aura vanished. Time slammed back into motion—sound, sensation, the world crashing back. The sludge villain's body *detonated*. Not from impact, but from the unleashed kinetic energy trapped within its frozen form. Fist-sized chunks of viscous green matter sprayed across the tunnel walls like grotesque paint, splattering thickly onto the pavement and dripping into the stagnant water below. A single, choked gurgle escaped the largest remaining chunk near the sewer grate before it slumped, utterly inert. The reek of sewage thickened. Izuku lowered his hand, the fierce light in his bands dimming back to a muted hum. He adjusted his sleeve, covering the golden metal. Crimson eyes scanned the dripping carnage without flinching, then turned away. He began walking towards the tunnel's brighter end, footsteps silent on the wet concrete, leaving the shattered villain behind.
A thunderous *BOOM* shook the tunnel entrance, followed by a blinding rush of displaced air that whipped Izuku's hair forward. Dust billowed from a newly shattered manhole cover clattering aside. A colossal silhouette filled the tunnel mouth, backlit by the fading afternoon sun. "HAVE NO FEAR!" The voice boomed, impossibly loud, shaking loose concrete dust from the ceiling. "FOR I AM HERE!" The Symbol of Peace, All Might, landed with a ground-shaking impact, his iconic grin radiant even in the murky light. His eyes scanned the scene instantly—the dripping green carnage splattered everywhere, the slumped villain core—a hero arriving at the crescendo of destruction. His gaze snapped forward, past the wreckage, locking onto the lone figure already walking away. The boy didn't pause, didn't turn, didn't react to the arrival of the world's greatest hero. All Might's grin faltered for a fraction of a second, replaced by pure, unadulterated shock. "*Young man?!*" he boomed, incredulous disbelief warping his usually booming tone. He gestured wildly at the ruined villain. "What— How did—?"
Izuku kept walking. He didn't acknowledge the booming voice or the legendary hero at his back. His focus remained fixed on the shifting rectangle of sunlight at the tunnel's end—an escape from the damp silence and the reek of sewage and splattered villain. His crimson gaze didn't waver from the exit. The golden bands beneath his sleeve pulsed once, a low thrum against his bone. He crossed the threshold into the slanting afternoon light, leaving the tunnel's gloom and All Might's bewildered shout behind. The hero's outstretched hand hung uselessly in the air, dwarfed by the sheer strangeness of the scene: a child walking calmly away from annihilation he couldn't possibly have wrought. Silence descended in the tunnel, heavy with the drip of sludge and All Might's stunned paralysis.
The fading daylight outside felt harsh after the gloom. Izuku walked along the riverbank path, the breeze carrying the faint scent of the river and distant city smog. He didn't glance back at the tunnel entrance where All Might undoubtedly stood staring. The whispers from the shadows beneath the nearby trees murmured *disruption*, *exposure*, *unnecessary attention*. He quickened his pace slightly, slipping into the dense shade of a park bordering the path. Moss grew thick on ancient stone lanterns; the air cooled instantly. Deep within the grove of gnarled cherry trees, Izuku stopped. He leaned against rough bark, letting the shadows envelop him like a cloak. His bands pulsed softly, emerald light bleeding briefly into the gloom—not power, but fatigue. He closed his ruby eyes, listening only to the rustle of leaves and the distant hum of the city. The splattered villain, All Might's booming shock—it felt like static already fading. The shadows deepened around him, whispering fragments of void corridors and phantom stars. Blue was memory; grey was sanctuary. Here, the silence was whole.