Chapter Text
The air in Development Studio 4 didn't just smell like ozone, burnt circuit boards, and Mei Hatsume’s seventh cup of highly caffeinated coffee; today, it had a distinct, particularly bright sparkle.
Izuku stood at a reinforced titanium workbench, his posture remarkably relaxed for someone currently creating a pressurized bazooka. His green-and-white hair was wild, and a few stray specks of holographic glitter clung to his cheek. Under his arm, his leather notebook was open to a highly classified schematic titled: "Project: Localized Aesthetic Warfare."
"The pressurized valves are holding, half-and-half!" Mei cheered, her welding goggles pushed onto her forehead, revealing her spinning, crosshair eyes. She was currently aggressively shaking a massive canister labeled 'ULTRA-FINE HOLOGRAPHIC CHAOS'. "But the micro-canisters? They need more OOMPH! If we don't increase the ignition vector, the glitter won't just spread; it will just... flop. And flopping is un-optimized! It is an administrative failure of my babies!"
"We don't need ‘oomph’, Mei, we need a calculation of resistance," Izuku corrected smoothly, twirling his fountain pen. "If the ignition is too aggressive, the glitter will be destroyed before it leaves the bazooka, making the entire invention useless. What we need is a chemical reaction that triggers an exothermic reaction upon contact with a humans heat signature. It needs to be smart, efficient, and, above all, highly irritating to the faculty."
He picked up a small, unassuming spherical canister. It looked like a standard smoke grenade, but inside rested enough micro-ground plastic shimmer to choke a seasonal fashion event.
"The students are currently moving through the central courtyard for the lunch block," Izuku noted, his crimson left eye narrowing as he checked the digital chronometer on his wrist. "The foot traffic is at peak clustering, which means our primary targeting guidelines are at their best. Pick a high-visibility target, Mei. Someone whose ego requires deflation."
Mei practically sprinted to the massive, sound-dampening glass window that overlooked the UA grounds. She slapped a localized kinetic scope against the pane, her yellow eyes widening as she scanned the crowd below.
"Oho!" Mei cackled, a manic grin spreading across her grease-stained face. "I see a big, loud, blond variable in a tailored uniform! He’s actively posturing near the fountain! It's the copy-cat from Class B! The one who thinks he’s better than everyone!"
Izuku walked over to the window, peering down. Monoma was standing near the fountain, his posture an obnoxious show of superiority, dramatically gesturing with his hands as he lectured a group of his bewildered classmates about the inherent flaws of 1A.
"Monoma Neito," Izuku confirmed, a sharp, fiercely competitive smirk spreading across his lips. "An excellent choice. His strategy is entirely dependent on other quirks, making him highly vulnerable to a distraction. The visual interference of the glitter should trigger a total crash. Calculating the trajectory now."
He picked up the primary launcher—a heavily modified pneumatic cannon that Mei had affectionately dubbed 'The Sparkle-Smasher 3000'. Izuku slid the ultra-fine chaos canister into the breach, adjusted the pressurized valve by 0.3 millimeters, and hoisted the heavy metal apparatus onto his shoulder.
"Focus your target, lock the trajectory, and... initiate the glitter purge," Izuku commanded.
Mei threw the heavy ventilation lever to create a vacuum seal around the window’s localized deployment hatch. Izuku aimed the Sparkle-Smasher and pulled the trigger.
THUMP.
The launcher didn't explode; it let out a sharp, compressed cough as the micro-canister was propelled through the ventilation hatch at a velocity that defied academic safety protocols.
Down in the courtyard, Monoma was in the middle of a grand, dramatic flourish. "And that is why Class-1B is destined to correct the market saturation of mediocrity that Class-1A has—"
POP.
The canister detonated right above Monoma’s head. There was no fire, no destructive blast. Instead, a dazzling, brilliant, radioactive cloud of neon blue and white holographic glitter violently expanded outward, catching the midday sun in a blinding explosion of refracted light.
The entire fountain plaza instantly quieted.
Monoma stopped speaking mid-sentence. His tailored uniform was completely obliterated by a thick, shimmering layer of blue plastic dust. The glitter clung to his hair, his face, and even got inside his open mouth. He stood entirely frozen, blinking his eyes frantically, looking less like a rival hero student and more like a disco ball that had experienced an existential crisis.
"Pfft... hahahahaha!" Mei burst into a wheezing, breathless fit of laughter, slamming her wrench against the reinforced glass. "Look at him! He’s twinkling!"
Izuku let out a low, smooth chuckle, watching Monoma desperately attempt to wipe the highly adhesive shimmer off his tongue. "That was spectacular. The sticky properties of that specific glitter is unparalleled. It will take him mor than forty minutes to get rid of ninety-eight percent of the payload from his face. The distraction is completely, beautiful optimized."
"Success! Okay, but now... higher volume!" Mei cheered, grabbing the Sparkle-Smasher out of Izuku’s hands. "If the output was good with a single canister, imagine what the results would be with a full, uncompressed five-kilogram load of the Ultra-Fine Chaos! We can sparkle the entire western wing! It will be a total regulatory override! Let's optimize the pressurization!"
Mei aggressively cranked the high-density pneumatic valve past the established safety lock, her yellow eyes spinning. She didn't calculate the tolerance; she didn't check the thermal constraints. She just cranked the dial into the 'Danger' zone while pouring five kilograms of loose glitter directly into the main hopper.
"Mei, the valve is showing a localized pressure spike that is completely inconsistent with the chamber's structural integrity," Izuku noted, his analytical brain instantly flagging a catastrophic variable.
"Nah, it’s fine! The compression ratio is just highly responsive! Watch this!"
Mei pulled the trigger.
The Sparkle-Smasher did not launch. It didn't cough. The extreme, unregulated atmospheric pressure built up instantly in the sealed chamber. The pneumatic valves failed. The structural integrity was violated.
BOOM!
A deafening, concussive explosion rattled the entire western wing of the development building.
The massive hopper didn't just detach; it became a missile. The localized blast didn't go through the window, which was reinforced with impact-resistant polymer; instead, the excessive kinetic force reflected backward and slammed directly into the concrete wall of Development Studio 4.
The studio was instantly plunged into a thick, choking cloud of plaster dust, loose wiring, and over five kilograms of highly volatile neon-blue glitter that had been pressurized into a cloud.
Izuku coughed as he brought his hands up to wipe his eyes. He adjusted his collar, brushing a thick layer of glitter off his uniform shoulder. His green-and-white hair was a brilliant, shimmering catastrophe, and his crimson left eye was blinking through a thick layer of the Ultra-Fine Chaos.
"Mei," Izuku rasped, his voice dropping into a dangerous monotone.
He waved his hand to clear the dust. Mei was lying flat on her back next to her workbench, completely buried under a mound of glitter, her crosshair eyes blinking rapidly through her welding goggles.
"Oho... hahahaha," Mei chuckled sleepily. "That... was highly destructive optimization. The thermal feedback was spectral."
Izuku turned his gaze to the western wall of the studio. Where a solid block of reinforced concrete had stood five seconds ago, there was now a sprawling, ragged, gaping hole, roughly 2.5 meters in diameter. Through the gap, they had a perfect, sparkling view of the adjacent corridor, where a terrified janitor was standing frozen with his mop, staring directly back at them through the new doorway.
"I believe we just violated thirty-seven separate campus safety protocols, Mei," Izuku said smoothly, capping his fountain pen with a sharp click. "And probably the Geneva Convention.”
Izuku stood, grabbing his notebook. “I wonder if I could convince Aizawa-sensei to repair the wall using Tenko’s allowance.”
---
The following lecture from Aizawa was a masterclass in cosmic professional exhaustion. The homeroom teacher spent forty minutes staring at Izuku and Mei—who were still both covered from head to toe in brilliant blue glitter—with a gaze that suggested he was actively calculating the legalities of mass expulsion to an explosive support student and a hero student with a villainous brother.
"... And you will both remain in Studio 4, under the supervision of Power Loader, until every single dust particle is categorized and logged," Aizawa concluded, his voice a low, terrifying rasp beneath his capture scarf. "If I hear one more sound from that facility today that isn't a mop hitting the floor, I am suspending your lunch privileges for the rest of the semester. Midoriya, get to class. We have an announcement."
The atmosphere inside Class 1-A was typically pristine and structured, a fact that Izuku appreciated as he slide into his middle-row seat, though a visible trail of holograph shimmer followed him across the floor.
"Wow, Midoriya," Kirishima whispered nervously from the adjacent row. "You’re really, uh, shimmering today. Aizawa seems... extra unhappy."
"The previous simulation experienced a minor problem," Izuku dismissed smoothly, twirling his pen. "The data was highly informative, but the cleanup is going to be horrible. Please don't breathe too loudly, Kirishima; your respiratory vibration is messing with the adhesive properties of the glitter."
Aizawa marched to the front of the classroom. He didn't use the podium. He just stood there, his long dark hair falling over a completely flat expression as he held a digital grading ledger.
"Sit down," Aizawa commanded, and the class went dead silent. "We don't have time to review the disastrous spatial tracking failures from the USJ mock-up today. The administration has officially scheduled the next primary academic performance review. A pair-based operational project. You will work with a partner to design, simulate, and present a real-world disaster response matrix, combining your quirks and tactical analysis. This is a replacement for the… interesting situation at USJ."
"Partners?!" Iida instantly exploded out of his seat, launching into a frantic series of rigid arm chops that looked like a malfunctioning industrial ceiling fan. "To pair our analytical capabilities is an exceptional logistical challenge! Mr. Aizawa, how will the variables be allocated?! I propose a lottery system based on academic standing!"
"Sit down, Iida," Aizawa said, rubbing his eyes. "Partners have already been chosen. The goal of this exercise is to force tactical adaptability, which means I didn't let you pick your own teams. I paired you based on which combination has the highest probability of a total shutdown. The groups are finalized."
Aizawa clicked his tablet, projecting the list of partner assignments onto the main classroom screen. The students scrambled to check the list, their voices a flurry of anxious scrambles as they found their partners.
Izuku slowly leaned back in his chair, resting his chin on his palm. His emerald right eye and crimson left eye methodically scanned the primary digital roster, moving past Iida and Uraraka, past Todoroki and Yaoyorozu, until they hit the bottom of the list.
> GROUP 10: MIDORIYA IZUKU & BAKUGO KATSUKI
The entire classroom quieted. A collective, quiet gasp echoed through the front row. Kaminari looked like he was about to pass out from sheer tension, while Kirishima desperately tried to smother a laugh in his sleeve.
Bakugo, who was currently aggressively chewing on a piece of spicy chicken he’d smuggled in, choked violently, letting out a sharp, angry explosion from his palm that singed his own desk surface. "What?! The half-and-half bastard?! You’re pairing me with the nerd?! That’s fucking stupid! I don't need partners! I’ll run the simulation myself! I don't need a variable-throttling extra on my grid!"
Izuku slowly closed his leather notebook, a sharp, fiercely vindictive smirk spreading across his lips as he looked over at the blonde.
"The concept of 'partnership,' Bakugo, is designed to compensate for the glaring deficiencies of lower-tier physical builds," Izuku said smoothly, his voice dropping into its signature condescending monotone that was actively fighting against the remaining adrenaline and blue glitter in his system. "The strategy is remarkably simple. You serve as the bait, or distraction, pulling the focus of the simulated target, while I actually apply a functional understanding of physics, logistical routing, and every other subject you lack in, which lets be real, is everything, to finish the rescue. Your cognitive… limitations couldn't handle the simulation alone. Sit down before I calculate your emotional instability data and submit it as a variable for the performance review."
Bakugo glared at Izuku’s head, his jaw clenched so hard a visible muscle was twitching in his cheek, his palms twitching lamely against his sides. "If you change the Wi-Fi password while we're running the simulation, extra, I'm blowing up your desk."
"Try it, sparky," Izuku shot back smoothly, not even blinking. "Your brain continues to be a tragic bottleneck for your potential. But the data for our combined performance score are quite intriguing."
Aizawa let out a long, monumental sigh that seemed to drain the remaining life force directly out of his capture scarf. "The project is due Monday at 8:00 AM. Since the school's local defensive servers are currently being checked—thanks to… certain administrative anomalies in Development Studio 4—you will not have access to the campus networks this weekend. You are expected to coordinate your testing off-site. Now, open your textbooks to page seventy-four."
---
The front door of the Midoriya apartment didn't click open; it was shoved open with a concussive bang that carried the distinct weight of severe teenage irritation.
Izuku kicked off his red sneakers in the genkan, dropping his yellow backpack onto the floor with a dull thud. His green-and-white hair was still slightly damp, and his left eye gleamed with a cold, calculated vindictiveness. Behind him, Bakugo marched into the apartment, his face a mask of pure, explosive misery, his shoulders stiff as he glared at the generic katsudon-scented air.
"This is fucking ridiculous," Bakugo growled, crossing his arms and refusing to take off his shoes in the entryway. "I'm not working in a house. The data is horrible! This entire logistics plan is unplanned, unoptimized, and fucking stupid!"
"It is entirely optimized for domestic authority, Bakugo, a concept your fragile ego struggles to process," Izuku countered smoothly, walking down the corridor with his leather notebook tucked under his arm. "My mom is at the store, which means the administrative baseline of this house has temporarily disappeared. The Wi-Fi is currently at its maximum, and your food intake has completely collapsed into a reliance on instant carbohydrates. It is the perfect environment for data simulation. Now, move your clumsy feet into the main room before I calculate your tracking deficit and throttle your phones levels out of pure irritation."
Izuku marched past his own room and kicked the door to the main living area open with the heel of his foot.
The room wasn't quiet. The smell of stagnant energy drinks and burnt motherboard hung in the air. The primary illumination came from the vibrant, shifting neon hues of the desktop cooling fans and the bright glare of two curved monitors set up in the adjoining room. Tenko was slumped so low in his ergonomic gaming chair that he looked like a discarded hoodie with limbs. His pale, scarred face was inches from the screen, his fingers flying across a mechanical keyboard in a frantic blur—always keeping his pinkies strictly perpendicular to the plastic keys.
"I told you! The tank just lost aggro! Kite the boss! You’re doing terrible!" Tenko screeched, his raspy voice hitting a pitch of pure, unadulterated gamer rage. He didn't even move his eyes as his light blue locks shifted. "What did you do, brat?! Did you reset the gateway while I was logged in?! I swear to God, if my frame rate hits single digits again, I am decaying the main circuit breaker!"
"Your frame rate is currently suffering from a severe case of chronic operator stupidity, Tenko," Izuku sighed, walking over to the dining table and slamming his replacement terminal and his leather notebook onto the polished wood surface. "We have a guest who apparently lacks the basic social awareness to close his own mouth. He’s my project partner, so try not to decay anything while he’s home. It ruins the insurance claims."
Tenko let out a long, dramatic hiss through his teeth, finally taking his hands off the keyboard. He spun his ergonomic chair around with a heavy, dramatic squeak, his red eyes narrowing violently through his messy hair as they fixed onto the blonde figure standing froze in the dining room doorway.
"What the heck?" Tenko rasped, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low pitch. "Is that... is that the over-leveled explosive extra from USJ? The one who thinks he’s stronger than the logical constraints of the server?"
Bakugo stood in the entryway of the main hub, his explosive palms frozen, his wide, confused eyes darting between Izuku, who was calmly writing standing by the coffee table, and the hunched, pale-faced, light-blue-haired individual in the gaming chair. His brain completely short-circuited. He had seen the League of Villains' leader exactly three times—once at the USJ dome when they rolled around on the floor, once at the mall when they also, guess what, rolled around on the floor, and once when he destroyed U.A’s front gate.
"The half-and-half bastard..." Bakugo murmured, his voice uncharacteristically low and fractured. "He wasn't lying. The crusty hand-bastard... he’s just... he’s a NPC who plays video games."
"Hey! Don't comment on my server, extra!" Shigaraki screeched, aggressively pointing a four-fingered hand toward Bakugo. "I’m the active guild leader! I manage over three hundred distinct digital nodes! My tracking is unparalleled! And you are a loud, primitive, one word extra that disrupts the aesthetic pacing of modern heroism!"
"Who the hell are you calling an extra, you unwashed, data-throttling basement gremlin?!" Bakugo roared back, his face instantly exploding into its standard, furious mask, his palms igniting with small, sharp pops of heat. "I'll blast your ergonomic chair into literal gray ash! I don't need tactical advice from a sub-par mob character who gets neutralized by a discount mobile terminal!"
The entire Midoriya apartment went dead silent. Izuku slowly closed his leather notebook with a sharp, heavy thud, resting his chin on his palm. His crimson left eye GLEAMED with absolute amusement as his sharp, fiercely vindictive smirk spread across his face.
"Aha," Izuku smirked, twirling his fountain pen. "The trade regarding the project simulation has just experienced a major upgrade. Tenko, Bakugo refuses to accept my amazing critique of his operational strategies. Bakugo, Tenko refuses to accept that his texturing is deteriorating due to a severe lack of regular skin care. Everything’s now perfectly aligned. If you two are going to argue over which of your egos possesses the larger cognitive deficit and largest stupidity, I suggest you do it while sorting the recycling. Mother left a note saying the plastic bin metrics are tragedies. If you don't break down the cardboard by eight-fifteen, I am setting the localized network priority to my terminal only. Your frame rate will hit four digits, and your explosions will experience a tragic processing lag. Simple logistics. Now, go make the house better."
Shigaraki and Bakugo snapped their heads toward each other, then back toward Izuku. The leader of the League of Villains and the walking dynamite of Class A were completely held hostage not by a pro hero, not by a symbol of peace, but by a sarcastic teenager with a smartphone and a severe lack of respect for authority.