Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The hero's cape swayed in the wind like a crimson flag of victory, and the crowd watching erupted in cheers and cries that rattled the windows of Izuku's apartment fourteen floors up. On the tablet's screen, Flame Wing soared through the air with practiced grace, his quirk painting trails of fire against the afternoon sky as he pursued the fleeing villain across Musutafu's skyline.

"And there we have it, folks!" The news anchor's voice crackled through the speakers, as her perfectly modulated enthusiasm cut through the ambient noise of the city and permeated into Izuku's room. "Another successful operation by our pro heroes, with minimal property damage and no civilian casualties reported! What an amazing fight!!!"

Izuku Midoriya sat cross-legged on his bedroom floor, surrounded by a fortress of notebooks, their pages worn soft from constant handling. His green eyes tracked every movement on the screen with the intensity of a hawk watching its prey, pupils dilating and contracting as he processed visual information faster than most people could follow dialogue.

At fifteen, he'd perfected his art of analysis: every gesture catalogued, every tactical decision dissected, every victory and failure documented in his careful handwriting that had grown smaller and more precise over the years to fit more observations on each page.

His current notebook, number thirteen in a series that had started when he was little, lay open beside him, filled with diagrams of quirk applications, timing charts for response rates, and profiles of both heroes and villains that might even have impressed graduate-level analysis students. The margins were crammed with additional observations, corrections to previous theories, and cross-references to other cases he'd studied.

But something was wrong with this picture.

His pen stilled against the page as he watched Flame Wing corner the villain (Smokescreen, according to the ticker at the bottom of the screen) against the glass facade of a nearby downtown office building. The crowd pressed closer, phones raised to capture the dramatic conclusion, while police cordoned off the area in a loose perimeter that left far too many potential escape routes, in his opinion. Izuku's frantic eyes immediately catalogued some usual errors he had noticed through the years: insufficient crowd control, inadequate perimeter security, and a positioning that gave the villain multiple exit vectors.

"Wait," Izuku muttered, frowning as he leaned forward until his nose was almost touching his screen. His shoulders hunched as a bit of anxiety crawled up his spine. Not his usual kind that made him want to hide, but a restless, electric type that came when his mind caught onto something that would later prove to be important. "Oh no. That's not-"

As if timed, on screen, Flame Wing launched a burst of blazing feathers at the villain's position. The direction was precise, controlled, exactly the kind of technique that had earned him his ranking as the number seventeen hero. Smokescreen's quirk activated in response, billowing grey clouds that obscured the entire intersection. The hero dove blind into the smoke.

Izuku's pen moved frantically across the page, documenting what some hadn't noticed, what the cheering crowd missed. His hand cramped from the rapid writing, but he couldn't stop. The pattern was there, clear as daylight if you knew how to look. The familiar excitement of discovery raced up his body, the same feeling he'd gotten when he'd first noticed that All Might's rescue times correlated with local traffic patterns, or when he'd identified the behavioral tells that preceded Endeavor's most devastating attacks.

The villain's smoke wasn't random, it couldn't have been: it followed a pattern, concentrated heaviest near the building's main entrance, where a steady stream of office workers had been evacuating. The gradients were subtle but consistent, creating channels that guided civilian movement in specific directions. Smokescreen wasn't trying to escape. He was herding civilians.

"No, no, no," Izuku breathed, scribbling notes in the margins with increasing urgency. His voice caught slightly as he muttered to himself, not quite a stutter, but close. When he got worked up like this, words sometimes tangled in his throat like fishing lines, thoughts moving faster than his ability to articulate them. "The smoke density near the east exit- he's forcing them toward the construction zone. Flame Wing, you need to- "

But the hero emerged from the smoke cloud empty-handed. The villain had vanished, leaving behind only the clouding scent of his smoke and a dozen confused civilians who'd taken shelter in what they thought was a safe zone: directly beneath an active construction crane whose safety protocols had been disabled three days ago, according to a building permit violation that had been buried on the municipal records.

Izuku had read those records. He read everything when he noticed the news report about this fight.

The news cameras panned to show Flame Wing's triumphant pose, arms raised to acknowledge the crowd's applause. The hero's costume was pristine except for minor soot stains, his breathing barely elevated. To any observer, this looked like a rather successful encounter: though he hadn't been caught, the villain had been driven off with no casualties and minimal property damage.

"Crisis averted!" the anchor declared, her smile bright enough to power a small city. "Though the villain escaped, no one was hurt, thanks to the quick thinking of our number seventeen hero!"

Izuku stared at the screen, his chest tight with something between frustration and disbelief. The familiar weight of being someone who saw the truth pressed down on him. This wasn't quick thinking, this was purely blind luck. No one was hurt because Smokescreen had chosen not to hurt them. The construction crane's load hadn't fallen because the villain had decided not to trigger the obvious trap he'd most likely spent setting up, probably for the hero himself.

This wasn't supposed to be a victory, at least to him. It was much more like luck masquerading as one, and everyone was celebrating.

The worst part was how obvious the deception seemed in hindsight. Smokescreen had been active for three months, with each encounter following a similar pattern: dramatic confrontation, flashy escape, minimal actual damage. The media loved him because he provided spectacle without tragedy. Heroes didn't worry about fighting him because he wasn't particularly aggressive, and it made them look good without putting themselves in serious danger. The public loved watching because it was exciting without being genuinely frightening.

Everyone was getting what they wanted. Everyone except the people who might become victims when Smokescreen finally revealed what he truly wanted.

His phone buzzed against the floor beside him, the vibration unnaturally loud in the sudden quiet of his room. A news alert: "Smokescreen Strikes Again: Third Bank Robbery This Month Baffles Heroes."

The notification sent a chill down Izuku's spine, not because of what it said, but because of what it confirmed.

The pattern crystallized in Izuku's mind with sudden, horrible clarity. Three robberies, three dramatic chases, three "narrow escapes" that weren't escapes at all: they were tests. Smokescreen had been studying hero response times, tactical patterns, and civilian evacuation procedures. Each encounter had been a data-gathering exercise, and the heroes had played right into his hands.

It was brilliant, really. Very methodical. Also terrifying in its implications.

And nobody else seemed to see it.

Izuku's breathing quickened as the full scope of what he was looking at became clear. This wasn't just a villain committing crimes, this was a researcher conducting systematic field studies on the hero system itself. Every "failed" robbery had generated massive amounts of data about police responses, hero deployment strategies, civilian behavior under stress, and media coverage patterns.

Smokescreen probably wasn't planning to steal money. He seemed to be planning to break the system.

The news feed continued scrolling across the bottom of the screen, each headline a piece of the puzzle: "Hero Response Times Increase Citywide," "New Evacuation Protocols Under Review," "Public Confidence in Heroes Remains High Despite Villain Escapes."

Each piece of information was being gathered, catalogued, and analyzed. Just like Izuku himself, yet for completely different reasons, Smokescreen was building a comprehensive understanding of how Musutafu's hero system functioned under stress. When he finally made his real move, he'd know exactly how to exploit every weakness, every blind spot, every overconfident assumption. And-

"Izuku, dinner's ready!" his mother's voice called from the kitchen, cutting through his spiraling thoughts.

"Just a minute!" he replied, already reaching for another one of his notebooks where he tracked villain behavioral patterns. His fingers flew through the pages, cross-referencing dates and locations, mapping the subtle evolution of Smokescreen's techniques. Each encounter built on the previous one, adding new variables, testing different responses, and refining the data collection process.

The villain was definitely learning from each encounter, adapting his approach based on hero responses. But the heroes? They kept using the same tactics, the same assumptions, the same blind spots that Smokescreen had already identified and catalogued. They were fighting yesterday's battle while their opponent was preparing for tomorrow's.

His tablet droned on in the background as Izuku worked, the anchor's voice a constant stream of excitement. "Sources close to Fire Wing's hero agency assure us that new strategies are being developed..."

New strategies. Izuku's pen stilled again, hovering over a half-finished sentence. What strategies? Faster pursuit techniques? Better coordination with local police? But all of those solutions addressed the same thing, they were still treating Smokescreen like a common criminal instead of the methodical researcher he most likely was.

The worst part was how obvious it all seemed now. Three months of data, all publicly available through news reports, police statements, and social media posts. Anyone with access to a computer and the patience to cross-reference databases could have pieced it together. But nobody was doing that kind of analysis, or at least none of the more authoritative figures. Nobody was looking at the big picture. They were all too focused on individual incidents to see the pattern emerging.

Just like they did with everything else. Just like they did with him.

Izuku had been trying for three years to get teachers, classmates, or anyone to pay attention to his analysis. He'd written detailed reports on hero efficiency, submitted tactical recommendations to agency websites, and even tried to present his findings at a local academic conference. The responses were always the same: polite dismissal, patronizing encouragement to "keep up the good work," suggestions that he focus on "more realistic" career goals.

Nobody wanted to hear what a quirkless kid had to say about hero work, no matter how thorough his research or how accurate his predictions proved to be.

A familiar ache of isolation settled in his chest, not sharp like physical pain but persistent like a low-grade fever. He was used to being ignored, but moments like this, when he could see disaster approaching and nobody would listen, made the loneliness feel almost unbearable.

"Izuku?" His mother's voice carried a note of concern now. "Your food's getting cold."

"Coming, Mom!" He capped his pen and set down the notebook, but his mind continued working as he made his way to the kitchen.

Inko Midoriya looked up from her place at their small dining table, her green eyes (so similar to his own) taking in his appearance with the practiced assessment of a mother who'd learned to read the signs of her son's worries. Her round face held a particular expression he knew well: loving concern mixed with gentle exasperation. She'd set the table with their usual care, proper placemats, napkins folded just so, chopsticks aligned perfectly, small rituals that imposed order on their modest life.

"Rough day?" she asked gently, gesturing to the empty chair across from her. The table was set with their usual simplicity: rice, miso soup, grilled fish, and pickled vegetables. Truly, it was nothing fancy, but he knew it was prepared with the care that had sustained them both through the years. The fish was grilled just the way he liked, the rice fluffy and warm, the miso soup still steaming in its bowl.

Izuku slid into his seat and picked up his chopsticks, though his appetite had fled somewhere between the news report and his revelation about Smokescreen's methodology. His stomach felt knotted, the way it always did when his mind was churning too fast for his body to keep up. The familiar comfort of their dinner routine felt distant, overshadowed by the weight of what he'd discovered.

"Not rough, exactly. Just... thinking."

"About heroes again?" There was no judgment in her voice, just the patient understanding of someone who'd watched her son fill more and more notebooks with hero analysis over the past years. She'd stopped asking about his future plans after the middle school career counseling meeting where his teacher had suggested "simpler options" with the delicacy of a sledgehammer. Instead, she'd learned to recognize the signs of his analytical spirals and started trying to provide a gentle anchor back to reality.

"About patterns." Izuku said, taking a bite of fish without really tasting it. His leg bounced under the table.. The food was good, he knew that intellectually, but his mind was too occupied to appreciate it properly. "Mom, do you ever wonder why smart people sometimes make the same mistakes over and over again?"

Inko tilted her head thoughtfully, setting down her chopsticks to give him her full attention. It was something he loved about her: when he talked, really talked, she listened like it mattered. She didn't dismiss his observations as childish rambling or try to redirect him toward "age-appropriate" topics. She engaged with his ideas as if they had value, even when she didn't fully understand them.

"I suppose it depends on whether they realize they're making mistakes at all. Sometimes we get so focused on doing something the way we've always done it that we forget to step back and ask if it's actually working."

The simplicity of her observation hit him like a physical blow. It was such a basic concept, so fundamental, yet somehow multiple people keep missing it entirely. Heroes weren't stupid; their training regimens were grueling, their strategic education extensive, their real-world experience vast, he knew this. But they were trapped in their own success stories, following protocols that had worked in the past without questioning whether those protocols would work against newer and evolving threats.

It was like trying to solve calculus problems with elementary arithmetic. The tools weren't inherently wrong, but they weren't sufficient for the complexity of the actual problem.

The thought sparked a cascade of connections in his mind. Hero education focused on quirk development and physical conditioning, with strategy taught as a secondary skill. Most heroes learned tactics through trial and error rather than systematic study. They developed expertise in responding to immediate threats but little understanding of long-term patterns or even evolutionary adaptations in villain behavior.

They were reactive rather than proactive, tactical rather than strategic.

"What if," Izuku said slowly, his words gaining speed as the idea took shape, "what if the way heroes approach problems is fundamentally flawed?"

His mother's chopsticks paused halfway to her mouth, her expression shifting to the focused attention she gave his more serious observations. "What do you mean?"

"I mean-" The words started pouring out before he could stop them, the way they always did when a new connection sparked in his brain. His hands began moving as he talked, sketching invisible diagrams in the air between them, his excitement overriding his usual social anxiety. "What if quirks make heroes overconfident? What if having all that power makes them rely too much on direct confrontation and not enough on actual thinking?"

The explanation tumbled out in a rush, years of observations finally finding voice. This was what happened when his anxiety transformed into excitement… the words came too fast, his thoughts racing ahead of his ability to articulate them clearly. His mother had learned to follow these rapid-fire explanations, but he could see her struggling to keep up with the connections he was making.

"Take Smokescreen, for example!!! He isn't just a villain with a smoke quirk, he's a researcher! He's been running experiments on hero response patterns, and they don't even realize it because they're too focused on the immediate threat to see the bigger picture!"

Izuku paused to take a breath, his chest tight with the effort of organizing his thoughts into coherent speech. His mother's patient attention gave him the confidence to continue, to lay out the full scope of what he'd discovered.

"Every encounter follows the same formula: dramatic confrontation, flashy quirk display, villain escapes with minimal actual harm done. But it's not random, it's systematic data collection. He's mapping response times, analyzing hero psychology, documenting tactical blind spots. The heroes think they're fighting a criminal, but they're actually participating in a research study of a soon-to-be mastermind!"

The words hung in the air between them, and Izuku realized he was breathing hard, as if he'd been running. The excited energy that had carried him through the explanation was already beginning to fade, leaving behind the familiar anxiety that came with sharing his insights with someone else.

"...and the heroes keep giving him exactly the information he wants because they can't see past their own assumptions about how villain encounters are supposed to work." he finished, his voice dropping to a more reserved volume.

Inko set down her chopsticks again entirely and leaned forward, her expression shifting from casual interest to genuine concern. Not for his ideas, but for the intensity with which he was expressing them. She'd seen this before: her son disappearing into his own mind, following connections that made perfect sense to him but left everyone else struggling to keep up.

"Izuku, that's... that's a very sophisticated observation."

"But it's obvious!" he protested, gesturing with his own chopsticks in a way that would have earned a gentle scolding under normal circumstances. His voice cracked slightly on the word 'obvious', the way it sometimes did when he felt like he was shouting into the void. "Anyone who's been paying attention could see it. The timing, the locations, the way he always has an escape route planned! He's not committing crimes, he's conducting research. And the heroes keep giving him exactly the data he wants because they just can't see past their own assumptions!"

The words came out sharper than he'd intended, frustration bleeding into his voice despite his efforts to stay calm. This was the part he hated most: the moment when his excitement about a discovery crashed into the reality that nobody else seemed to care about the same things he did.

The familiar flush of embarrassment crept up his neck as he realized how he must sound - a quirkless teenager lecturing his mother about professional hero work, as if his theoretical knowledge could compare to actual field experience. But the analysis was solid. He'd checked and double-checked his work, cross-referenced multiple sources, and built predictive models that had proven accurate in previous cases.

The data didn't lie, even if nobody wanted to hear what it was saying.

"And you can?" The question was asked without skepticism, but with the careful tone of a mother trying to understand her son's perspective without inadvertently crushing his spirit.

Izuku's enthusiasm faltered slightly, deflating like a punctured balloon. The excited energy that had carried him through his explanation suddenly felt hollow, leaving behind the familiar ache of isolation.

"I... I mean, I think so? I've been tracking his patterns for weeks, and the data is right there in the public records. Anyone could access it." He paused, staring down at his barely touched dinner, his leg still bouncing under the table. "But that's the problem, isn't it? No one's looking. They're too busy being heroes to actually think like heroes. Don’t get me wrong, I still love heroes and hero work, but… this is just so frustrating."

The silence that followed felt heavier than usual, weighted with all the unspoken implications of what he'd just said. His mother reached across the table and placed her hand over his, her touch warm and grounding in a way that made his chest tight for entirely different reasons than his earlier frustration.

"Sweetheart," she said softly, "you know I've always been proud of how much you care about heroes. Your analysis, your dedication, it's remarkable. But sometimes I worry that you're putting so much energy into studying other people's work that you're not thinking about what you want to do with your own life."

That was a question that lurked beneath every conversation about heroes, every filled notebook, every late night spent analyzing footage of battles he'd never be strong enough to join. What was the point of understanding hero work better than the heroes themselves if he could never be one of them?

The familiar weight of his quirklessness settled on his shoulders like a lead blanket. For all his analysis, all his insights, all his desperate need to contribute something meaningful to the world of heroes, he was still just a powerless kid watching from the sidelines.

It was the cruel arithmetic of their society: quirk plus training plus license equaled hero. Without that first variable, the equation never balanced, no matter how high the other numbers climbed.

"I don't know," he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. His hand stilled on the table, no longer animated by excitement. "I used to think... I used to hope that maybe if I understood it well enough, if I could see things that others missed, maybe that would be enough. Maybe I could find a way to help, even without a quirk."

The words felt like admitting defeat, acknowledging a truth he'd been fighting against for years. In a world where teens with flashy quirks were already planning their hero careers, what place was there for someone whose only talent was noticing things others missed?

"And now?"

"Now I think I've been lying to myself." The words tasted bitter, like medicine that had sat too long in the bottle. His shoulders hunched inward, making him look smaller than his fifteen years. "What's the point of being able to see patterns if no one will listen to a quirkless kid? What's the point of having insights if there's no way to act on them?"

The question hung between them like a physical thing, solid and unmovable. This was the wall he'd been running up against for three years, the fundamental barrier that made all his knowledge feel worthless. Society had clear rules about who got to be a hero and who got to watch from the sidelines.

Understanding those rules didn't make them any less absolute.

"Do you think helping from the sidelines is worthless?"

The question caught him off guard, partly because of its simplicity and partly because he couldn't immediately answer it. He'd been so focused on the traditional image of heroism, as in standing in the spotlight, using quirks to save people directly, that he'd never seriously considered the infrastructure that made those moments possible.

"I..." He started to say yes, then stopped. Was it worthless? When he thought about it logically, support roles were crucial to hero operations. Command centers coordinated rescue efforts during disasters. Analysts like the famous Detective Tsukauchi solved cases that prevented crimes before they happened. Strategic planners developed the protocols that kept heroes alive and effective.

But emotionally, the idea of being relegated to the background while others claimed the spotlight felt like accepting defeat before the battle had even begun. It felt like settling for less than what he'd always dreamed of becoming.

His mother seemed to read the conflict in his expression, the way she always could. She had an uncanny ability to see past his words to the feelings underneath, to understand the fears he couldn't articulate.

"You know, when I was your age, I wanted to be a teacher. I dreamed of inspiring young minds, of making a difference in children's lives. I planned my whole future around that one goal: what university I'd attend, what subjects I'd specialize in, how I'd transform education through innovative teaching methods."

Izuku looked up from his cooling dinner, surprised by this revelation. His mother rarely talked about her own dreams.

"But I was so focused on that one specific vision that I almost didn't notice other opportunities to help people. I was convinced that classroom teaching was the only way I could make a meaningful difference in young lives."

"What changed?"

"You did." Her smile was soft, tinged with a melancholy that made Izuku's chest ache. "Becoming a mother taught me that there are many ways to nurture and guide and inspire. I may not have a classroom full of students, but I have a son who sees the world in ways that constantly amaze me. That's not the future I planned, but it's the one that gave my life meaning."

The parallel wasn't lost on him, but it also felt like cold comfort. His mother had found fulfillment in an unexpected path, but she'd also had to give up her original dream entirely. Was that what he was supposed to do? Let go of everything he'd ever wanted and hope he could find meaning in whatever scraps were left?

The comparison also highlighted another uncomfortable truth: his mother had found her alternative purpose through circumstances largely beyond her control. She hadn't chosen to give up teaching to become a mother - life had simply directed her toward a different path. But Izuku's situation was different. He was actively being excluded from his chosen field, locked out by biological circumstances he couldn't change.

"You really think my analysis matters?"

"I think your perspective matters," she corrected gently, reaching across to squeeze his hand. "Whether that becomes analysis or something else entirely, that's for you to decide. But first, you have to decide what question you're really trying to answer."

"What do you mean?"

Inko stood and began clearing the table, her movements efficient and practiced. She'd been managing their small household alone since his father's work took him overseas when Izuku was tiny, and the quiet competence she'd developed in those years sometimes made him forget how young she'd been when she'd had to figure it all out.

"You've been studying heroes for years, collecting information about their strengths and weaknesses, analyzing their methods and their mistakes. But what's the real question driving all that research? What is it that you're actually trying to understand?"

Izuku helped gather the dishes, his mind turning over her question like a puzzle box with no obvious solution. What was he trying to understand? The nature of heroism? The mechanics of quirk applications? The psychology of people who chose to dedicate their lives to saving others?

As they worked together in comfortable silence, washing and drying dishes with the rhythm of long practice, a different possibility began to emerge. Maybe he'd been asking the wrong questions all along. Instead of "How do quirks work?" or "What makes someone heroic?" maybe he should be asking something simpler and more fundamental.

The warm water and familiar routine of washing dishes helped calm his racing thoughts, creating space for deeper reflection. This was often how his best insights came—not in moments of intense focus, but in quiet spaces where his subconscious could process information without the pressure of active analysis.

"What if," he said suddenly, causing his mother to look up from the pot she was scrubbing, "what if I've been studying heroes backwards?"

"How so?"

"I've been trying to understand what makes them succeed and how their quirks make up a big part of it, but what if I should be studying what makes them fail?" The idea gained momentum as he spoke, puzzle pieces clicking together in his mind. His hands moved as he explained, sketching patterns in the soapy water. "Everyone focuses on seeing victories, the amazing saves, the moments when everything goes right. But failures... failures reveal weaknesses. They show you what doesn't work and why."

"Medical researchers don't just study healthy patients, they study diseases to understand how to prevent them. Engineers don't just analyze successful structures, they investigate failures to improve their projects. But hero work focuses almost exclusively on successes, as if we can learn everything we need from watching things go right."

The more he thought about it, the more obvious the oversight seemed, again. Failure analysis was a cornerstone of improvement in virtually every professional field. Pilots studied crashes to enhance aviation safety. Doctors analyzed medical errors to prevent future mistakes. Scientists learned as much from failed experiments as from successful ones. But hero work seemed to exist in a bubble where failures were quickly forgotten, swept aside by the next spectacular success.

"If you can understand why something failed, you can figure out how to prevent that failure in the future. And if you can prevent failures..." He trailed off as the full implications hit him, his eyes widening with the sudden clarity of it. "You can save more people."

Inko dried her hands on a dish towel and turned to face him fully, recognizing the shift in his demeanor. "So your question isn't really about heroes at all," his mother observed with a gentle smile. "It's about helping people."

The truth of that statement resonated through him like a bell. All his hero analysis, all his tactical observations, all his frustrated critiques of professional strategies, they weren't born from a desire to understand heroes for their own sake. They were born from a deep, persistent need to understand how people could be helped more effectively.

It was such a simple revelation that he almost laughed. Of course it was about saving people. Everything had always been about saving people. The rest, the hero worship, the quirk hyperfocuses, was just methodology, means to an end rather than the end itself.

The realization shifted something fundamental in his understanding of himself. He wasn't someone who just wanted to be a hero: he was someone who wanted to save people and had assumed that heroism was the only path to that goal.

But what if it wasn't?

"But how does a quirkless kid, who is barely taken seriously by others around him, truly contribute to saving people?" he asked, the familiar frustration creeping back into his voice. Even with this new understanding, the fundamental obstacle remained the same. Society had very specific rules about who was allowed to participate in life-saving work, and those rules didn't include people like him.

"Even if I can identify problems, even if I can see solutions that others miss, what's the point if I can't act on them?"

"Who says you can't act on them?"

Izuku blinked, momentarily thrown by the question. It seemed so obvious that he almost didn't know how to respond. "I don't have a quirk, Mom. I can't fight villains or rescue people from burning buildings or-"

"Those aren't the only ways to act," she interrupted gently but firmly. "You could write. Publish your analysis. Present your findings to hero agencies. Become a researcher or consultant. You could even try getting into hero work and adapting it to your liking."

The suggestion hung in the air between them, foreign but not entirely unwelcome. He'd never seriously considered academic or research paths… they seemed so removed from the immediate, visceral act of heroism he'd always craved. But maybe... maybe they didn't have to be.

"Think about that one detective you always talk about," his mother continued, warming to the idea. "I forgot his name, but he saves people by solving cases, by preventing crimes before they happen, or maybe even catching a criminal before he commits even more crimes. He uses investigation and analysis rather than quirks, though he does use his quirk to help him out based on what you’ve told me. Or what about the people who design support equipment? They save lives by making heroes more effective."

Each example she provided felt like a small revelation. He'd been so focused on direct intervention, on being the person who threw the punch or caught the falling civilian, that he'd overlooked all the other ways people contributed to saving lives.

"You think anyone would listen to a teenager?"

"I think anyone with sense would listen to good ideas, regardless of where they came from. And besides, you won't be a teenager forever. The question is: what do you want to be working toward while you grow up?"

The question settled into his mind like a seed, carrying with it the potential for an entirely different future than the one he'd imagined. Instead of dreaming about the day he'd miraculously develop a quirk, he could start building toward a career in hero research or tactical analysis. Instead of feeling frustrated by his powerlessness, he could develop the skills that would let him contribute meaningfully to saving people.

Maybe it wouldn't be the spotlight heroism he'd always fantasized about, but it would be real. It would be his.

The rest of the evening passed in comfortable quiet, both of them lost in thought as they finished the dishes and settled into their usual routines. But something had shifted between them, an understanding that this conversation had marked a turning point.

That night, Izuku lay in bed staring at the ceiling, his mother's words echoing in his mind alongside the images from the news report that had started it all. Somewhere in the city, Smokescreen was probably analyzing today's encounter, refining his understanding of hero response patterns, preparing for his next "experiment." Meanwhile, the heroes who'd failed to catch him were likely reviewing the encounter through the lens of what they already knew, missing the larger pattern because they were too close to see it.

But Izuku could see it. From his bedroom, floors above the street, surrounded by notebooks filled with observations, he could see the shape of something that the professionals had missed.

The question was: what was he going to do about it?

He rolled over and reached for the notebook on his bedside table: a new one, purchased that afternoon with his allowance money. Its pages were blank. The familiar weight of it in his hands was comforting, but tonight it felt different. Not like one of his usual notebooks, but like a tool for something he couldn't quite name yet.

On the first page, he wrote a single line that seemed to capture everything he'd been thinking, everything he'd been feeling, everything he'd been trying to understand for the past three years:

"Why do heroes consistently make the same strategic mistakes, and how can those mistakes be prevented?"

It wasn't the question he'd expected to be asking when he'd started watching that news report today. It wasn't the question a quirkless kid was supposed to ask about the heroes he was still admired so much. But it was his question, born from his observations, demanding his attention in a way that felt both terrifying and exhilarating.

The words looked small on the vast beige page, but they carried the weight of a new beginning. This wasn't about simply becoming a hero anymore - this was about becoming something else entirely. Something that maybe didn't exist yet in the narrow categories society used to organize people's lives.

He stared at the words until his eyes grew heavy, his mind already beginning to churn with possibilities. Tomorrow, he would begin trying to answer his question. He would start treating his hero analysis like the scientific research it had always wanted to be, with proper methodology, testing, and all the tools that real researchers used to understand the world.

He didn't know where that path would lead, or whether anyone would care about his conclusions, but for the first time in years, he had a direction that felt entirely his own.

The notebook waited on his nightstand, its first question written in careful handwriting. Soon, it would be joined by observations, hypotheses, experiments, and all the messy consequences of asking such a question. But tonight, it was enough to have even asked the question at all.

Outside his window, the city hummed with the quiet energy of a world where heroes and villains played their eternal game of cat and mouse, each side believing they understood the rules while missing the larger patterns that connected their individual battles into something vast and complex and beautiful.

Somewhere in that complexity, Izuku was beginning to suspect, lay the answer to questions no one else was asking. But, then again, in the morning, the real work would begin. Tonight, all he did was close the notebook and go to sleep. A researcher needs it, after all.

Chapter Text

The Musutafu Public Library stood like a monument made of pure accumulated knowledge, its cream facade softened by decades of aging. It was a breathtaking place, one of the biggest libraries in all of Japan, and one of the most sophisticated too. At seven in the morning on a Saturday, the building cast long shadows across the empty plaza, its windows reflecting the golden light of dawn. If the boy weren’t vibrating with excitement deep in his bones, he would have taken a moment to at least look at the sunrise. Izuku arrived thirty minutes before the opening time, his yellow backpack heavy with notebooks and his mind buzzing with the previous night's talk. The question he'd previously written had subconsciously evolved overnight into a dozen sub-questions, each demanding its own answers.

He'd barely slept, his mind churning through possibilities like a kid finding a new candy store in the background. Every time he'd closed his eyes, a new hypothesis sparked: What if support equipment could compensate for blind spots? How did other countries handle hero-villain encounters? Were there any historical examples of quirkless individuals contributing to public safety?

The security guard, an older man with a tortoise-shell quirk that made his skin look like overlapping plates, recognized him from his frequent visits and waved him through as soon as the automatic doors hummed to life. Izuku had become something of a fixture here over the past years, known among the staff as the intense green-haired boy who read everything from chemistry manuals to obscure historical texts with equal fervor.

"Good morning, Midoriya-kun," the guard said with a gentle smile that crinkled the scales around his eyes. "The reference section again?"

"Good morning, sir!” He bowed in respect, voice a pitch higher. “Actually, I was thinking about trying the archives today," Izuku replied, adjusting his backpack straps nervously. The archives required special permission to enter, containing older documents, academic papers, and materials that some could deem too specialized for general circulation. "I'm researching something specific about support roles in hero work."

The guard's expression shifted to something Izuku couldn't quite read: not quite pity, but close enough to make his stomach twist. It was a look he'd seen before, usually from adults who thought they understood what a quirkless kid was really searching for in all those hero-related texts.

"Third floor, east wing. You'll need to fill out a request form at the desk, though. Librarian Sato-san should be up there already, since she likes to sort the new acquisitions before the crowds arrive. You know of her, right?"

He perked up at the name. She was one of the most supportive people in his life when it came to his research, and she had helped him loads over the years. “Oh, yes, of course! Thank you again, hope you have a good shift!” Izuku thanked him and headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time despite the weight of his backpack. The library's morning silence felt sacred, broken only by the soft echo of his footsteps and the distant hum of the climate control systems protecting the precious documents housed within.

The archive section occupied half of the third floor, separated from the general stacks by a glass wall that made it look like an aquarium filled with knowledge instead of fish. Librarian Sato, a middle-aged woman whose quirk let her instantly memorize any text she touched, looked up from a cart of books as he approached.

"Midoriya-kun! Great to see you around here." she greeted him with the particular warmth reserved for regular patrons who treated books with proper respect. "What brings you to my domain this morning?"

"Good morning, Sato-san! I'm researching non-quirk contributions to hero work," he smiled, pulling out the notebook where he'd outlined his research parameters the night before. His handwriting from last night looked frantic in the morning light, but the logic was solid. "More specifically, I'm looking for any information about support equipment designers, tactical coordinators, intelligence analysts, just about anyone who contributes to hero operations without directly engaging in field work."

Sato's fingers drummed against the desk as she processed his request, her quirk likely helping her call up relevant catalog entries. "Huh… that's quite a specific topic. Most people interested in support roles focus on the technical aspects, like engineering, costume design, that sort of thing. You're looking for something more comprehensive, right?"

"Yes, I want to understand the full ecosystem. How things affect each other." Izuku explained, warming to the subject. His hands began their familiar dance of gesture and emphasis, mapping out invisible connections in the air. "From what I can see, heroes don't operate in isolation. There has to be an entire infrastructure supporting them, but nobody really seems to talk about it. The media focuses on the dramatic moments, like the fights and the rescues, but I’m curious about the people who plan the operations. Who analyzes the data? Who makes the decisions?"

"Ah." Sato's expression brightened with understanding. "You're not just looking for technical roles. You're interested in the more analytical and strategic positions."

"Exactly!" Relief flooded through him at being understood so quickly. Usually, he had to explain his ideas three or four times before people grasped what he was really asking.

"Well, you're in luck! We recently received a donation of papers from a retired hero coordinator who worked with the Hero Public Safety Commission in the early days of quirk regulation. There's also a collection of academic journals focused on hero support operations, though they're quite technical." She pulled out a tablet and began typing rapidly. "And if you're interested in the analytical side, you might want to look at the published works of UA's Principal Nezu. He wrote several papers on strategic thinking in hero operations before taking his current position."

Izuku's pen flew across his notebook pages, writing down every reference. Principal Nezu, he knew the name, of course. Everyone did. The high-spec quirk user who ran the most prestigious hero school in Japan. But published papers? Academic work that might be accessible to someone like him?

"His papers are particularly interesting," Sato continued, warming to the topic in the way librarians did when matching patrons with perfect resources. "He wrote them under a pseudonym initially, 'M. Mus', because there was significant prejudice against non-human-appearing quirk users in academic circles at the time. They're brilliant analyses of tactical thinking, pattern recognition, and strategic planning in crises."

She led him deeper into the archives, past shelves of bound periodicals and filing cabinets that probably contained more information than he could process in a lifetime. The air here smelled different: older, dustier, carrying the weight of knowledge like sediment at the bottom of an ocean. He loved it. If it were a perfume or a house scent, he’d buy the entire stock.

"Here." She pulled out a slim box of manuscripts, handling them with the reverence reserved for rare texts. "These are copies of the original coordinator's papers. And over here," she moved to another section, "the journal collection. The Nezu papers are in the special collection, which requires additional permissions, but I can get you photocopies of the most relevant ones."

Izuku accepted the materials like holy relics, already imagining the insights they might contain. "Thank you, Sato-san. This is exactly what I was looking for!"

"One more thing," she added, pulling out a final volume. "This might interest you. It's a comparative study of hero support systems across different countries. Japan's model is actually quite unique: most nations integrate their support staff more directly into hero operations. The separation between field heroes and support personnel that we have here isn’t universal."

The weight of possibility in that statement made Izuku's hands tremble slightly as he accepted the book. Other models. Other ways of organizing hero work that might not draw such sharp lines between those with quirks and those without.

He settled at a big table near the windows, spreading his materials out in a careful semicircle. The space was so big that it made the papers look small. The morning sun painted golden rectangles across the aged wood, and for a moment, the scene felt almost ceremonial.

The coordinator's papers came first. Written in the early days of experimental heroism, they painted a picture of chaos gradually organizing into structure. The author, Yamada Koji, had been a police officer before heroics gained its traction, and his perspective bridged the gap between traditional law enforcement and the new reality of superpowered crime fighting.

"The tendency to view quirk-enhanced individuals as fully separate from baseline humans has created an artificial division in public safety operations," one passage read. "This segregation not only limits security options but also creates dangerous blind spots in our response protocols."

Izuku's pencil quickly filled his own notebook, writing down passages that resonated with his own observations. The author had seen it too, the way quirks had created a caste system that sometimes hindered more than helped.

The man's analysis of early villain encounters read like a preview of modern problems. Heroes were charging in without properly thinking things through. Villains were exploiting the gap between the timing of the hero's response and police coordination. Civilian casualties could have been prevented with better communication systems. The same mistakes were repeated across decades, because the fundamental structure hadn't changed.

"We have replaced careful planning with raw power," the author wrote in what must have been a controversial statement at the time. "And while power has its place, it cannot substitute for strategic thinking. A well-coordinated team of baseline humans with proper planning can often resolve situations more efficiently than a team of powerful heroes acting on limited information."

The words felt like pure vindication and challenge combined. Here was proof that someone else had seen the problems Izuku observed, had documented them, and had tried to address them. But his papers were almost a century old, yellowed with age, and apparently, his warnings had gone unheeded.

The tactical journals provided a different perspective: they were dense technical analyses of specific operations, filled with terminology Izuku had to look up every few paragraphs. But gradually, a picture emerged of the complex machinery that operated behind every hero intervention.

There were dispatch coordinators who processed emergency calls and deployed heroes based on quirk compatibility and threat assessment. Intelligence analysts who built profiles of villain organizations and predicted their next moves. Equipment specialists who designed tools to enhance or compensate for specific quirk limitations. Medical teams trained in treating injuries from hundreds of different quirk types.

Each role required specialized knowledge, but none of them, at least in theory, required a quirk.

Izuku's notebook filled rapidly with observations, questions, and connections. He drew diagrams showing the flow of information during a crisis, mapping out where delays and miscommunications typically occurred. He listed the skills required for each support role, noting which ones he already possessed and which he'd need to develop.

The international comparison study revealed even more possibilities. In America, support staff were embedded directly with hero teams, participating in planning and decision-making as equals rather than subordinates. The European Union had developed a hybrid model where some support specialists could earn limited field certifications, allowing them to participate in operations within carefully defined parameters.

South Korea had taken the most radical approach, creating an entirely separate track for so-called "Tactical Coordinators", also called TCs: individuals who directed hero operations from mobile command centers, using real-time data and strategic analysis to guide field operatives. These coordinators didn't need quirks; they needed sharp minds, quick decision-making abilities, and a comprehensive understanding of both quirks and criminals.

"The Korean model has shown a 34% improvement in operation success rates and a 41% reduction in civilian casualties compared to traditional hero-centric approaches," the study noted. "However, implementation in other countries has met resistance from established hero agencies who view it as a challenge to their autonomy."

Of course there was resistance. Heroes who'd trained their entire lives to be self-sufficient warriors wouldn't easily accept direction from someone they saw as inferior, someone without a quirk, without the power to back up their decisions with force.

The social dynamics were as much a barrier as the practical ones, like how-

"Excuse me."

The voice startled Izuku from his reading. He looked up to find a man in a rumpled trench coat standing beside his table, holding a stack of files and looking apologetic. The man was unremarkable at first glance: average height, average build, the kind of face that would blend into any crowd. But something about his eyes, the way they took in the spread of materials on Izuku's table with quick, cataloging glances, suggested something else.

Don't stare, Izuku told himself, but his mind was already cataloging details automatically. The coat was well-made despite its wrinkled state, made of expensive fabric that suggested either a good salary or careful shopping. The files he held were official-looking, with the kind of tabs and organization that spoke of a really careful organization. And those hands - steady, precise, the hands of someone who worked with delicate evidence and important documents.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," the man continued quietly, gesturing to the empty chair across from Izuku. "But would you mind if I shared your table? The others are all occupied, and I have some rather extensive research to do."

Izuku glanced around, surprised to find the archive section had filled while he'd been absorbed in reading. Several researchers hunched over their own materials, the quiet rustle of turning pages creating a subtle symphony.

"Oh, of course! I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was taking up so much space." He apologized, trying to keep his voice down as he quickly began consolidating his materials, stacking notebooks and pulling books closer to his side of the table.

"No need to apologize. I can see you're conducting serious research." The man settled into the chair with a grateful sigh, placing his files down with careful precision. Those are definitely official documents, Izuku noted, trying not to crane his neck to see the letterheads. "Hero support systems, if I'm not mistaken? I’ve read some of those before. That's quite an unusual topic for someone your age."

Heat crept up Izuku's neck. Even here, in a place dedicated to learning, his age marked him as an oddity. "I- I'm interested in the analytical side of hero work. The more strategic planning and coordination that happens behind the scenes." his voice got quieter as he got more embarrassed.

"Hmm." The man pulled out a pair of reading glasses, perching them on his nose as he opened his first file. "It’s a worthwhile pursuit. Too many people focus on the flash and spectacle without appreciating the infrastructure that makes it all possible."

Something in the way he said it, casual but knowing, made Izuku study him more carefully. The files he'd brought were clearly official documents of some kind, with stamps and classification markings that suggested government or law enforcement origin. The man's clothes, while rumpled, were well-made as he had previously mentioned. And there was something about his posture, a kind of alert relaxation that Izuku associated with trained professionals.

Police? The thought made his heart rate spike slightly. Or maybe someone from a hero agency administration? Someone who actually works in the field I'm researching?

"... are you in hero support work?" Izuku hesitantly asked, curiosity overcoming his usual social anxiety.

The man looked up from his files, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "In a manner of speaking. I'm a detective with the Musutafu Police Force. Name’s Tsukauchi Naomasa." He extended his hand across the table.

Izuku's world tilted slightly. Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa. THE Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa. The name hit him like a physical impact, years of research and admiration crystallizing into the moment of meeting his subject in person. He’d never seen a picture of the man. Don't fanboy out, he commanded himself desperately, even as his mind raced through everything he knew about the man sitting across from him.

The Toxic Chain investigation. The Virvidian Incident. The trafficking ring that took three months of deep cover work to crack. The detective who works with All Might, actually works with him, not just gets in the way. The one with the Human Lie Detector quirk, but that's not why he's successful, it's his methodology, the systematic approach, the way he builds cases piece by piece until they're unshakeable-

"Midoriya Izuku," he managed, shaking the offered hand and trying to keep his voice steady. Play it cool. Don't let him know you've read literally every public case file he's ever been associated with. "I've... I've read about some of your cases."

Some of your cases. As if he hadn't spent hours analyzing the detective’s investigative techniques, as if he didn't have qa whole fledged notebook dedicated to breaking down the detective's methods, as if he hadn't written what could amount to something similar to academic papers on the man's approaches.

"The Toxic Chain investigation was particularly impressive," he continued, fighting to keep his tone casual despite the way his hands wanted to gesture excitedly. Worse of all, he had to keep in mind to keep his voice down. "The way you connected the seemingly random attacks to a single supplier through chemical analysis of the restraints. It was amazing."

Don't mention the shipping manifests. Don't bring up the interview techniques he used with the warehouse manager. Don't ask about the quirk analysis that let him predict the villain's next target. Just... be normal. For once.

Tsukauchi's eyebrows rose slightly. "Huh, thank you. You've done your homework. Most people only remember the cases where All Might makes dramatic arrests, hahah. The investigative work tends to get overlooked. I’m surprised you’ve heard of me."

That’s because they don't understand what they're looking at!!! Izuku's inner fanboy screamed. They see the flashy ending and miss the brilliant detective work that made it possible!!! They don't realize that you were the one who identified patterns weeks before the final confrontations, that you set up the entire operation that let All Might appear at exactly the right moment!

"But the investigative work is what makes those arrests possible, isn’t it?" Izuku said, leaning forward slightly despite himself. "For example, in the Toxic Chain case, All Might is an amazing hero, but he only knew where to go because you'd identified the warehouse through shipping manifests and chemical trace analysis. Without that kind of planning, the villain would have kept operating."

The words came out more intensely than he'd intended, and he caught himself before he could launch into a detailed breakdown of the case timeline. Dial it back. He doesn't need to know you've memorized the entire investigation.

"True." Tsukauchi gave him a small smile as he studied him with those sharp eyes, the same ones that spotted the inconsistency in the Phantom Thief case, the ones that kept seeing patterns everyone else missed, seeming to reassess his initial impression. "Though I notice you didn't mention my quirk. Most people assume that's what makes me effective as a detective."

Because your quirk isn't the most impressive part! It’s truly amazing, I could rant about it for hours, but you don’t rely solely on it!!! Izuku's thoughts raced. Human Lie Detector is useful for interrogations, but it doesn't analyze crime scenes, build profiles, or recognize patterns in seemingly unrelated events. Those are skills, not supernatural abilities. That's what makes you brilliant-

"Y- your quirk helps with interrogations, that’s true," Izuku said before he could stop, "but it doesn't solve cases. It can't analyze evidence or recognize a pattern. Those are skills."

Like the way you identified the emotional triggers that let you crack the confession in the Umbrella Corporation case. Or how you recognized that the Blue Fire incidents weren't random arson but a systematic campaign to cover financial fraud.

Gosh, he should stop talking.

"A refreshingly pragmatic perspective. Truly, thank you." Tsukauchi smiled as he adjusted his glasses, returning his attention to his own files.

Don't stare. Izuku told himself, but he couldn't help noticing the way the detective organized his documents: chronological on the left, evidence photographs in the center, analytical handwritten notes on the right. It was systematic, efficient, the kind of approach that turned the chaos of his line of work into comprehensible patterns. He tried to go back into reading his own files to stop himself from embarrassing himself even more, but the man’s voice pulled him back.

"May I ask what prompted your research into support roles?" Tsukauchi continued, his tone casual but his pen poised over his notepad in a way that suggested a more professional interest. "It's not exactly a common interest, even those interested in hero work."

The question felt like a test, though Izuku couldn't say why. Maybe it was the way Tsukauchi asked it - casual but attentive - or the way his pen rested against his notepad as if ready to record the answer. He's profiling me, Izuku realized with a mixture of excitement, nervousness, and terror. Actually profiling me, the way he does with suspects and witnesses.

"I'm quirkless," Izuku said, the words coming out steadier than usual. "But I've been analyzing hero work for years. I want to find a way to contribute, even if I can't be a traditional hero."

He expected the usual reaction, as in pity, awkwardness, maybe well-meaning but ultimately hollow encouragement. Instead, Tsukauchi simply nodded, as if this were a perfectly reasonable response. No pity face. No awkward pause. Just... acceptance???

"Analytical work might very well suit you then," Tsukauchi said, and Izuku's heart skipped at the validation coming from someone whose own works he'd studied obsessively. "It requires a particular kind of mind, one that can see patterns others miss, that questions assumptions, that doesn't accept easy answers."

He's describing his own methods, Izuku realized. The approach he used in the Mirror Master case, where everyone assumed the theft was impossible until he proved the victim was actually the perpetrator. Or the way he questioned the obvious suspect in the Riverside Murders until he found the real killer.

Tsukauchi pulled out one of his files, spreading several photographs across his side of the table. "For instance, what do you see here?"

A test. He's actually testing me. Izuku's pulse quickened as he leaned forward to examine the photos. Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa is testing my analytical skills. Don't mess this up.

It was a cold case that had been marked as incomplete years ago. The photos showed what appeared to be a break-in scene. A smashed window, scattered glass, overturned furniture. Classic signs of forced entry and struggle. But Izuku found himself automatically applying the systematic approach he'd learned from studying Tsukauchi's own methods: look at the evidence without assumptions, question the obvious interpretation, find the details that didn't fit the expected pattern. Make his own ideas.

"The glass," he said slowly, forcing himself to be methodical rather than rushing to conclusions the way he did in his notebooks. "It's spread wrong. If someone broke in from outside, most of it should be inside the room. But there's too much outside the window."

He studied the furniture placement, trying to think the way Tsukauchi would think. What story does the evidence actually tell, not what it appears to tell?

"And the overturned chair… it fell toward the window, not away from it. As if someone was moving toward the exit when it got knocked over, which would explain the glass"

Like the detail that cracked the Artisan Bank case, the muddy footprints were heading out of the vault, not into it.

"This probably wasn't a break-in, like the files say," Izuku concluded, the pieces clicking together with satisfying precision. "It was staged to look like one. Someone broke the window from the inside, probably after whatever really happened. They wanted to make it look like forced entry to hide... what? Theft by someone who had legitimate access, maybe?"

Please let me be right. Please let me impress Detective Tsukauchi, even a just little bit.

"Close." Tsukauchi gathered the photos back with what might have been approval in his expression. "I suspect an insurance fraud, actually. I’m looking into this cold case because it might relate to a current one my peers and I are working on. The store owner most likely staged a robbery to claim damages. But you identified the key inconsistencies without any context or case knowledge. That's not a skill that can be taught easily, it's a way of seeing."

Pride flooded through Izuku so intensely that he had to grip the edge of the table to keep from bouncing in his seat. Detective Tsukauchi said I have "a way of seeing." He tested me and I passed. I actually impressed him!!!

"But seeing isn't enough, is it?" Izuku said, forcing himself back to reality despite his internal celebration. "I can analyze all I want, but without authority, without a position that gives my analysis weight..."

"True," Tsukauchi agreed, not sugar-coating the reality. "Which is why most analytical roles require formal education and certification. Police academy for detective work, university degrees for intelligence analysis, and technical training for support equipment designs. The pathways exist, but they're not shortcuts."

The weight of that truth settled on Izuku's shoulders, tempering his excitement with practical concerns. More years of school, specialized training, working his way up through systems that might not value his insights until he'd proven himself through traditional channels. It wasn't impossible, but it wasn't the direct path to helping people he'd hoped for.

"However," Tsukauchi continued, and Izuku's attention snapped back to him with laser focus, "exceptional analysis sometimes opens unexpected doors."

He's going to give me advice. Detective Tsukauchi is going to give me actual career advice. Holy shit.

The detective pulled out a business card, holding it for a moment before placing it on the table between them. "I can't make promises, but if you're serious about this path, stay in touch. The force occasionally uses civilian consultants for specialized analysis. It's rare, and usually requires demonstrated expertise, but..." He shrugged. "You wouldn't be the first young person to prove that age doesn't always correlate with capability."

Izuku stared at the card as if it might disappear if he looked away. Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa's business card. His actual contact information. He wants me to stay in touch. What did he see in me in this tiny conversation??

"I- thank you, this is an honor," he managed, accepting the card with hands that trembled slightly. Don't gush. Don't tell him he's your favorite non-hero professional. Just... be NORMAL. "I won't waste your time unless I have something genuinely valuable to contribute."

"See that you don't," Tsukauchi said with a slight smile that took the sting out of the words. "But also don't underestimate what constitutes 'valuable.' Fresh perspectives can be just as important as expertise sometimes."

They settled into companionable silence after that, Tsukauchi reviewing his cold case files while Izuku dove back into the support system research. But Izuku found his attention constantly drifting to the detective and the way he cross-referenced documents, built timelines, and annotated photographs with tiny observations.

This is how he works, Izuku observed, trying to memorize every detail without being obvious about it. This is the actual process behind all those brilliant investigations I've studied.

It was systematic, almost scientific in its approach. Each piece of evidence was examined individually, then in relation to others, building a web of connections that gradually revealed the truth. It reminded Izuku of his own analytical process, but refined, professional, directed toward a specific purpose.

He's not just reading those files, Izuku noticed. He's building some kind of framework, connecting details across different cases. Is this how he identifies patterns that others miss?

The detective's notes were too far away to read without being obvious, but Izuku could see the structure: dates, names, locations organized in precise columns, with lines drawn between related elements. It was like watching a master craftsman work.

I could watch him do this all day, Izuku admitted to himself. This is what professional analysis actually looks like, not just the theoretical frameworks I've been reading about.

After what felt like both forever and no time at all, Tsukauchi stood to leave, gathering his files with the same precision he'd displayed throughout his work.

"One more thing, Midoriya-kun," he said, pausing beside the table. The fact that he remembered Izuku's name sent another thrill through him. Detective Tsukauchi remembered my name!!!

"That research you're doing - don't just study the successes. The real lessons come from understanding why support systems fail. What gaps exist? What assumptions do they make? What perspectives do they miss?"

He's giving me investigative methodology advice. Actual professional guidance from Detective Tsukauchi. HOLY SHIT.

"Why do heroes consistently make the same strategic mistakes..?" Izuku murmured, remembering his fundamental question.

"Exactly." Tsukauchi's smile was sharp with approval, and Izuku felt like he'd just aced the most important test of his life. "And more importantly, who notices those mistakes but lacks the power to correct them? Sometimes the most valuable insights come from the margins, from people the system overlooks. Have a great day, Midoriya-kun."

With that, he left, leaving Izuku with more questions than answers but also with a strange sense of validation. A professional detective, THE Detective Tsukauchi, had taken his research seriously, had engaged with him as an equal rather than dismissing him as a quirkless kid with unrealistic dreams.

And he gave me his business card, Izuku thought, staring at the small rectangle of cardstock like it was made of gold. He actually wants me to stay in touch. He thinks I might have something valuable to contribute someday.

The encounter energized his research beyond anything caffeine could have ever achieved. He attacked the remaining materials with renewed focus, particularly the Principal Nezu papers that Sato-san had photocopied for him, but now with a different lens. Not just academic curiosity, but the practical perspective someone like Detective Tsukauchi might bring to these theoretical frameworks.

If Tsukauchi-sama were reading these papers, what would he focus on? What patterns would he identify that I might be missing?

The first paper, "Pattern Recognition in Crisis Management," read like a manifesto disguised as academic analysis. Nezu, writing as M. Mus, dissected several famous hero operations that had happened at the time this was written, showing how biases and institutional blindness had led to less than great outcomes.

"The tendency to view each villain encounter as an isolated incident rather than part of a larger pattern represents a fundamental failure of strategic thinking," one passage argued. "Heroes are trained to respond to immediate threats, but this reactive posture prevents them from recognizing and addressing more systematic problems."

This is just like the way Tsukauchi connected those seemingly random attacks in the Toxic Chain case, Izuku realized. He saw the pattern that everyone else missed because he was looking at the big picture, not just individual incidents.

It was also exactly what Izuku had been observing with Smokescreen. Each encounter was treated as a separate event rather than part of a deliberate campaign. Nezu's paper, written fifteen years ago, could have been describing yesterday's news.

But now he had a frame of reference: he'd seen how a professional investigator actually identified patterns, how analysis could reveal connections that weren't obvious on the surface. Tsukauchi would probably approach the Smokescreen problem the same way he approached Toxic Chain. Map out all the encounters, look for commonalities, and identify the underlying strategy.

The second paper went deeper, exploring the psychological factors that prevented heroes from adapting their strategies. "Success reinforces existing methods, even when those methods are suboptimal. A hero who defeats villains through brute force will continue using brute force, even when subtlety would be more effective. The quirk system exacerbates this by encouraging heroes to specialize in their natural abilities rather than developing complementary skills."

And that's where someone like Tsukauchi-sama becomes invaluable, Izuku thought. He's not limited by a quirk-based approach. He can adapt his methods to whatever the situation requires.

Izuku highlighted passage after passage, feeling like he'd found a kindred spirit in these academic pages. Nezu saw the same problems, the same patterns, the same systemic failures that Izuku had been documenting in his notebooks. But more importantly, he was analyzing them with the same kind of systematic approach that had impressed him in Tsukauchi's work. And better yet: he was UA’s principal. He has the power to apply his ideas.

But the third paper was the revelation.

"The Integration Problem: Why Hero Society Resists Analytical Support" laid out, in devastating detail, the social and institutional barriers that prevented people like Izuku from contributing to hero work. And reading it now, after his encounter with Tsukauchi, gave him new insight into both the problems and potential solutions.

"The elevation of quirks as the primary criterion for heroism has created a caste system that actively excludes potentially valuable contributors. Intelligence, strategic thinking, and analytical capability are treated as secondary qualities, useful but not essential. This prejudice is so deeply embedded that even those who would benefit from analytical support often reject it, viewing it as an admission of weakness or inadequacy."

But Tsukauchi doesn't think that way, Izuku realized. He values analytical thinking precisely because he understands its power. That's why he was willing to test me, to engage with my ideas seriously.

The paper went on to describe attempts to integrate analytical specialists into hero agencies, most of which had failed due to resistance from established heroes who saw it as undermining their authority. The few successes came from agencies led by heroes who themselves possessed analytical quirks, like Sir Nighteye, and therefore valued intellectual contributions.

Or heroes who work with analysts like Tsukauchi and understand their value, Izuku added mentally. All Might trusts Tsukauchi's analysis because he's seen the results.

"The solution is not to force integration but to demonstrate value through undeniable results. Analytical support must prove itself so effective that rejecting it becomes a competitive disadvantage. This requires not just capability but strategic positioning: finding the right opportunities, the right partners, the right moments to show what systematic analysis can achieve."

Izuku read the conclusion three whole times, each pass revealing new layers of meaning. Nezu wasn't just describing the problem, he was outlining a strategy for overcoming it. Work from the margins, prove your value through results, and find allies who recognize the importance of intelligence over pure power.

Like Tsukauchi-sama, he thought, touching the business card in his pocket. He's exactly the kind of ally Nezu is talking about. Someone who understands that analysis and intelligence can be as powerful as any quirk.

It was a long game, requiring patience and strategic thinking. But it was a game that could be won, especially if you had the right connections and mentors to guide you. And the determination, of course.

And I just met one of the best analytical minds in the country, Izuku realized, the full impact of his encounter finally hitting him. Detective Tsukauchi actually gave me his contact information. He wants me to stay in touch. That's... that's not nothing.

The library had filled with the usual Saturday crowd by the time Izuku began packing up his materials. Families with young children in the picture book section, students cramming for exams, elderly patrons reading newspapers in comfortable chairs. The normal rhythm of a community engaging with knowledge.

But for Izuku, the library had transformed into something else: an even bigger treasure box of possibilities, a map to futures he hadn't acknowledged existed, and the place where he'd met someone whose work he'd admired for years.

I actually talked to Detective Tsukauchi, he thought, still slightly in disbelief. I showed him my analytical skills, and he seemed impressed, or at least satisfied. He said I have "a way of seeing" and gave me his business card and told me to stay in touch.

His notebook now contained not just observations but action items. Skills to develop: statistical analysis, criminal psychology, pattern recognition software, multiple languages (since villain organizations were increasingly becoming international). Credentials to pursue: university degree in criminology or strategic studies, possible police academy training, certifications in specific analytical methods.

Resources to explore: professional journals on intelligence analysis, case studies of successful civilian consultants, networks of quirkless individuals in adjacent fields who might share advice and opportunities. And now, potentially, guidance from an actual professional detective who'd taken him seriously.

It was very overwhelming but also exhilarating. For the first time, he had not just a concrete path forward but also a connection to someone already walking that path successfully.

As he headed toward the exit, Sato called him over to the reference desk. "Find what you were looking for?"

"More than I expected," Izuku admitted. So much more. "Thank you for your help. The Nezu papers, especially, they're exactly what I needed to read."

"Hmm." She studied him with the particular intuition of someone who'd watched countless young people struggle with difficult questions. "You know, Principal Nezu occasionally gives public lectures at UA. They're technically for university-level students and professionals, but they're open to anyone who registers in advance. The next one is in three weeks.” Izuku's breath caught. A chance to hear Principal Nezu speak in person, to see how that brilliant analytical mind worked in real-time? After reading his papers, after understanding the depth of his strategic thinking? "How do I register?"

Sato smiled and pulled out a flyer from beneath the desk. "I had a feeling you might be interested. The registration is online, but spaces fill quickly. You'll want to apply today."

He accepted the flyer with gratitude that went beyond words. Another door opening, another possibility emerging from what had seemed like a dead end just yesterday.

And Detective Tsukauchi said to stay in touch, he reminded himself, touching the business card again. Maybe... maybe someday I could actually contribute to one of his investigations. Maybe I could be the kind of analyst he'd want to consult with.

The thought was almost too exciting to contemplate seriously.

The walk home took him through downtown Musutafu, past the site of yesterday's encounter between Flame Wing and Smokescreen. The intersection had been cleaned up, the broken glass swept away, life returning to normal as if nothing had happened.

But Izuku could still see some remnants, like the smoke residue on certain buildings showing where Smokescreen had concentrated his quirk, the construction site that had been the real target, the security camera angles that would have captured everything if anyone bothered to analyze the footage properly.

What would Tsukauchi do with this scene? Izuku wondered, stopping to examine the area with new eyes. He'd probably start by mapping the smoke patterns, identifying the best exit points, and analyzing the timing of the hero's response versus the villain's objectives.

His phone buzzed with a news alert: "Smokescreen Spotted in Industrial District - Heroes Responding."

He grimaced. Another encounter, another test, another set of data for the villain to collect while the heroes involved repeated the same mistakes. And worse, the ‘attacks’ seemed to be happening even more now. The last one had been yesterday, for gosh’s sake. The man must be getting more confident in his ways.

But now, Izuku found himself thinking about it differently, not just as a frustrated observer but as someone who might someday have the tools and position to do something about it.

If I were analyzing this for Detective Tsukauchi, what would I focus on? The thought felt presumptuous but also thrilling. Pattern analysis. Geographic distribution of incidents. Timing correlations. Resource requirements for each attack.

He pulled out a notepad and started writing as he walked, but now his analysis had a structure borrowed from what he'd observed of Tsukauchi's methodology hours before. Categories for different types of evidence. Cross-references between incidents. Questions that built on each other systematically rather than randomly.

Date and time of each encounter. Location and target significance. Heroes who responded and their quirk limitations versus Smokescreen's strategy. Civilian casualties and property damage. Duration of engagement. Method of escape.

It was still the same analytical drive that had always consumed him, but now it felt less like an obsessive hobby and more like... preparation. Training for the kind of work he might actually do someday.

Back in his apartment, Izuku spread his new materials across his desk, organizing them into categories: immediate learning opportunities, long-term educational goals, networking possibilities, and practical skill development. But now he had a fourth category: Professional connections.

Detective Tsukauchi's business card occupied the place of honor on his bulletin board, right next to the Principal Nezu lecture registration information. Two actual professionals who had taken him seriously, who might, someday, if he proved himself, be willing to guide his development.

I could actually do this, he realized with a mixture of excitement and terror. Not just dream about contributing to hero work, but actually build the skills and connections to make it happen.

The Principal Nezu lecture registration went through immediately. Apparently, not many teenagers were interested in academic discussions of this sort on a Saturday afternoon. But Izuku felt like he'd just won the lottery. Three weeks to prepare, to formulate intelligent questions, to make the most of an opportunity to interact with one of the most brilliant strategic minds in the country.

What would I ask him if I had the chance? The question consumed him as he organized his research materials. How do you identify which assumptions are worth questioning? What's the most effective way to demonstrate analytical value to people who are skeptical of non-quirk contributions? How do you maintain objectivity when analyzing systems you're personally invested in changing?

But it was Detective Tsukauchi's business card that really captured his imagination. The detective had said to stay in touch, but what did that actually mean? When would be appropriate to make contact? What kind of analysis would be worth sharing? Should he even share things if the detective hadn’t personally requested?

He said exceptional analysis sometimes opens unexpected doors, Izuku remembered. He was talking about civilian consultants, about demonstrated expertise. What if I could actually develop something worth consulting about?

The Smokescreen case seemed like the obvious choice. A current, ongoing investigation where traditional hero approaches were consistently failing. If Izuku could develop a comprehensive analysis, not just observations but actionable plans, maybe that would be worth sharing.

But I'd have to be sure it was actually valuable, he warned himself. Tsukauchi is a professional. He doesn't have time for amateur theories or half-baked ideas. Whatever I develop would have to be rigorous, systematic, and actually useful.

The challenge excited rather than daunted him. For the first time, his obsessions had a concrete goal beyond his own curiosity.

He pulled out his fresh notebook, which he had inaugurated yesterday (his collection was growing rapidly), and began outlining a comprehensive analysis framework for the Smokescreen case. Not the scattered observations he'd been making, but a systematic investigation using principles borrowed from what he saw today of Tsukauchi's methodology, and structured according to the academic approaches he'd learned from the research materials.

Timeline analysis: Map every known encounter chronologically, looking for patterns in timing, location, and strategic objectives.

Geographic analysis: Plot incident locations against city infrastructure, identifying the tactical significance of each site.

Behavioral analysis: Examine Smokescreen's evolution across encounters: what's he learning, how is his strategy adapting?

Response analysis: Document hero deployment patterns, identify systematic weaknesses being exploited.

Predictive modeling: Based on established patterns, where and when is the next encounter likely to occur?

It was ambitious, maybe impossibly so for a teenager with limited resources and no official access to case files. But every professional investigation started with ambitious goals and systematic methodology, right?

Plus, I have advantages the official investigators might not have, Izuku realized. I've been tracking this case from the beginning. I don't have limitations or bureaucratic constraints. I can look at patterns across multiple agencies and time periods.

The work stretched late into the night, but it felt different from his usual late-night analysis sessions. Instead of the frantic energy of obsession, he felt the focused determination of purpose. He was building something that might actually matter, that might someday catch the attention of someone like Detective Tsukauchi.

Timeline analysis first, he decided, spreading out papers across his desk. Start with what's concrete and documented, then build outward to inference and prediction.

He began with the first confirmed Smokescreen sighting six months ago: a seemingly minor incident at an electronics warehouse that had been dismissed as standard villain activity. But looking at it now, patterns emerged that hadn't been obvious at the time.

The warehouse specialized in communication equipment. The timing coincided with a major hero agency upgrading its dispatch systems. Smokescreen's escape route took him directly past three other potential targets, but he didn't engage with any of them.

Hypothesis: the attack wasn't about theft but intelligence gathering. He was testing response times, communication protocols, and hero deployment patterns.

Each next incident fit the pattern when examined carefully. Not random criminal activity, but systematic intelligence gathering disguised as ordinary villainy. Smokescreen was studying the heroes, learning their weaknesses, preparing for something larger, just like he’d suspected the day before.

This is exactly what Tsukauchi would look for, Izuku thought excitedly. The underlying pattern that explains seemingly disconnected events. The strategic thinking that everyone else might be missing.

By 2 AM, he had filled twenty-five pages of his brand-not-so-new notebook with analysis, cross-references, and conclusions. The geographic pattern was particularly revealing: Smokescreen's incidents formed a rough circle around the city's central hero dispatch center, each attack probing a different aspect of the response system.

He's mapping their capabilities, Izuku realized. Testing response times from different districts, identifying which heroes respond to which types of incidents, learning how they coordinate with each other and with the police.

It was brilliant, in a terrifying way. While heroes treated each encounter as an isolated incident, Smokescreen was conducting a gigantic operation, gathering data for some future campaign that would exploit every weakness he'd identified.

The analysis was far from complete, but it already revealed insights that weren't apparent from individual incident reports. This was the kind of pattern recognition that he had just learned about, the systematic thinking that could transform scattered observations into something concrete.

Is this good enough to share, once I’m done? Izuku wondered, staring at his pages of notes and diagrams. Would Detective Tsukauchi consider this valuable, or would he see it as speculation?

The uncertainty gnawed at him, but underneath it was a growing confidence. He'd applied professional methodology to a real case and discovered patterns that weren't obvious from surface analysis. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but it was the kind of work that might catch the attention of someone who valued this way of thinking.

I need to develop this further, he decided. More data, statistics, predictive models. If I'm going to contact Detective Tsukauchi, I want to have something that demonstrates my real capability.

But still, the foundation was there. For the first time, his analytical obsessions had produced something that might have actual professional value. The thought energized him despite his exhaustion.

Three weeks until Nezu’s lecture. Enough time to refine this analysis, maybe develop preliminary predictions that could be tested against future incidents. And if those predictions prove accurate...

The possibility was almost too exciting to take seriously. Real analytical work that could prevent villain successes, protect civilians, and help heroes operate more effectively. The kind of contribution that might earn recognition from professionals.

His mother knocked gently on his door. "Izuku? It's very late, sweetheart."

"Just finishing up, Mom!" he called back, but he made no move to put away his materials. The analysis was calling to him, patterns demanding exploration, connections waiting to be discovered.

Just a little more, he promised himself. Just enough to test one more hypothesis.

But hours later, he was still working, driven by the intoxicating possibility that his analytical mind might finally have found its proper application.

Outside his window, the city slept peacefully, unaware that somewhere in the darkness, a villain was likely planning his next intelligence-gathering mission. But in his small apartment, surrounded by endless papers and websites, Izuku worked toward the day when his analysis might help catch that villain and protect those innocent people.

The background research phase was ending, but it had accomplished more than just gathering information. It had connected him with potential professionals who might see what he can do, revealed concrete paths forward, and given him the theoretical framework to transform his obsessions into a future.

Tomorrow, later today, actually, he would begin the development of his analytical skills, the careful building of a body of work that might someday earn him a place in the professional community.

It would take years to achieve the level of expertise needed to be taken seriously. But every expert started as a beginner, every authority was once dismissed as inexperienced. And now he had a concrete start for the journey, connections to guide him, and actual evidence that his mind worked in ways that professionals might value.

The research part was done - he’d virtually looked at every website, PDF, news articles, and everything he could. Now it was time to prove that a quirkless kid with a notebook and too many questions could actually contribute to keeping people safe.

Chapter Text

The past three weeks had been a special kind of hell.

Izuku hunched deeper into his uniform blazer as he walked through UA's gates, trying to make himself as invisible as possible. The prestigious school's campus sprawled before him like something from a dream: after all, the gleaming glass and modern architecture really did make this place seem like something no human could possibly construct. A group of students in their crisp uniforms moved in clusters, their animated conversations about quirk training creating a buzz of excitement that made Izuku's stomach twist with familiar longing.

He didn't belong here. The guest lecture registration had been open to the public, sure, but that didn't make him any less of an outsider.

It had already been three weeks since his encounter with Detective Tsukauchi at the library, and those three weeks had been a masterclass in why hope was a dangerous thing for someone like him.

It started the Monday after his library research session. Izuku had made the mistake of being visibly excited, even though he was by himself (as usual), about something during lunch break. He had been hunched over one of his notebooks, writing with a visibly rejuvenated kind of focus that his classmates had learned to recognize as a warning sign. His enthusiasm had been infectious in the worst possible way: it had drawn attention.

"What's got Deku so worked up now? Stop muttering!" Bakugou's voice had cut across the classroom like a blade, and Izuku had felt his stomach drop even before he looked up to see the boy approaching with a familiar predatory gleam in his eyes.

"I- I- it's nothing," Izuku had said, trying to close his notebook casually. But casual was a foreign concept when Bakugou was involved, and his attempt at discretion had only made things worse.

"Nothing? You've been scribbling like a maniac for the past ten minutes, hah! Even more than your usual!" Bakugou had snatched the notebook before Izuku could stop him, holding it high enough that Izuku's attempts to retrieve it were useless. "Let's see what kind of delusions you're working on now!"

The silence that followed had been the worst part. Not the laughter, that came later, but the moment of absolute quiet as Bakugou read pages of tactical analysis, resource constraint mapping, and behavioral pattern documentation with growing disbelief.

"Holy shit," Bakugou had said finally, his voice carrying across the classroom with perfect acoustic efficiency. "Deku thinks he's going to play analyst! What a joke!"

The words had hit the classroom like a declaration of war. Within seconds, twenty-three pairs of eyes were focused on Izuku with the kind of attention usually reserved for particularly fascinating train wrecks.

"What's that?” someone had asked, and Bakugou's grin had turned razor-sharp.

"It's what losers do when they can't accept reality," he'd announced, flipping through pages with theatrical flourishes. "Look at this shit: he's got diagrams and graphs and fucking timelines about villain attacks. As if anyone would pay a quirkless nobody to tell real heroes how to do their goddam jobs."

The laughter had been immediate and sharp, cutting through any pretense that his research might be taken seriously by anyone his own age. Izuku had sat there, watching his classmates pass his notebook around like evidence of mental illness, pointing at his careful analysis and making jokes about his delusions of grandeur.

"Maybe Deku can be All Might's personal advisor." someone said sarcastically, which had prompted another wave of laughter.

"Yeah, I'm sure he'd love to hear about quirk theory from someone who doesn't have one," another classmate had added, and the comment had landed with the precision of someone who knew exactly where to twist the knife.

Even the teacher, when he'd returned from the faculty meeting, had looked uncomfortable but hadn't intervened. That always happened, so Izuku wasn’t particularly surprised. Mr. Hayashi had taken one look at the situation and had simply started the next lesson without comment. At least Mr. Hayashi was one of the better ones… some would also openly mock him. He knew some lowered his grades so it would match his status. At least this one just stayed quiet.

But the worst part hadn't been the immediate mockery. It had been the way it had continued, day after day, with the relentless persistence of water wearing away stone.

"How's the hero consulting fuckery, Deku?" Bakugou would ask every morning, his voice carrying an absurd amount of sarcasm for someone awake at 7 AM.

"Have you written any reports for Endeavor lately?" another classmate would chime in during lunch, and the comment would be followed by snickering that felt like insects crawling under Izuku's skin.

The social isolation he experienced there was already quite bad, but it had become total in a way that even Izuku hadn't expected. Students who had previously ignored him now actively avoided him, as if his delusions might be contagious. Group projects became exercises in being grudgingly tolerated rather than being at least included for his smarts (which only some acknowledged). Even teachers seemed to look at him differently, with the kind of concerned pity usually reserved for students showing early signs of serious psychological problems.

The worst incident had happened just last week, during career counseling day. Each student was supposed to meet with their homeroom teacher to discuss their post-graduation plans, and Izuku had made the catastrophic mistake of being honest.

"Hero support work…" he'd told Mr. Hayashi when asked about his interests. "Analysis, coordination, that kind of thing."

The pause that had followed felt like falling off a cliff in slow motion. Mr. Hayashi had set down his pen and looked at Izuku with the expression of someone trying to figure out whether he was dealing with delusion or simple naivety.

"Midoriya-kun," the teacher had said carefully, "Hero roles, even if only in support, require extensive training or university education. Analysis positions typically require advanced degrees. These aren't entry-level career paths."

"I-I understand that," Izuku had replied, trying to keep his voice steady. "I'm planning to pursue the necessary education. I've been conducting independent research to develop my skills, and I think I have the foundation to build on."

Mr. Hayashi had picked up one of the forms from his desk, the standard career guidance worksheet that every student was required to complete. "Your grades are good, which is commendable. It could be better in some classes, but still. We need to discuss realistic expectations. These roles are competitive, and preference is typically given to candidates with relevant quirks. Someone with a tactical analysis quirk, or enhanced pattern recognition, or cognitive acceleration abilities."

The subtext had been clear: someone with a quirk. Someone who wasn't fundamentally lacking the most basic qualification for any career in the hero industry.

"...what would you recommend instead?" Izuku had asked, and the question had felt like surrender.

"...well, your attention to detail suggests you might excel in accounting. Or perhaps library science, you seem to enjoy research. There are also opportunities in technical writing, which values precision."

Each suggestion had landed like a physical blow. Safe careers. Boring careers. Careers for people who had given up on their dreams and accepted the boundaries that society had drawn around their lives.

"I'll… consider those options." Izuku had said, because arguing would have been pointless and embarrassing for both of them.

But the real damage had come later, when word of the career counseling session had somehow reached his classmates. Izuku had never figured out who had leaked the information. Maybe Mr. Hayashi had mentioned it to another teacher, maybe someone had overheard through the classroom's thin walls, but by the next day, everyone knew.

"I heard the quirkless kid is going to be an accountant," someone had announced during lunch, and the comment had been met with the kind of delighted laughter that suggested perfect comedic timing.

"Hah! Makes sense," Bakugou had added with his characteristic tone. "Counting other people's money is about the right level for someone who can't do anything else."

The comment had hurt worse than usual. Accounting, library science - they were fine careers, respectable careers, but they were also consolation prizes to some. Some thought they were what people did when what they really wanted was impossible. Izuku knew that all careers had their values and that it had been just plain rude to say that, but the comment still stung.

Those doubts had made the next three weeks of research feel simultaneously vital and pointless. Every insight felt like it might be meaningless. Every connection he drew between seemingly unrelated points could just be coincidence that had been elevated to significance by his desperate need to be special, to matter, to have something valuable to contribute.

The Smokescreen analysis had grown to fill almost the entire notebooks, now cross-referenced and color-coded with details that came from having too much need to prove himself. Geographic patterns, temporal analysis, behavioral evolution, resource requirements, he'd approached the case from every angle he could think of, building what he hoped was a comprehensive picture of the villain's methodology.

But was it actually good? Was it the kind of professional-level work that might impress someone like Principal Nezu, Detective Tsukauchi, any professional, or was it just the elaborate fantasy of a quirkless teenager who'd been trying too much?

The uncertainty gnawed at him as he navigated UA's security checkpoint, which was unsurprisingly thorough: metal detectors, quirk suppressors (people had to sign an agreement form to those in the sign-up page), and guards whose sharp eyes catalogued every visitor with efficiency. When Izuku presented his registration confirmation, the security guard's expression shifted from neutral professionalism to poorly concealed confusion.

"Lecture hall B-7," the guard said, handing back Izuku's ID with the kind of polite disinterest reserved for people who clearly didn't matter. "Follow the blue line on the floor. The lecture begins in ten minutes."

Izuku nodded his thanks and followed the indicated path, his footsteps echoing too loudly in the pristine corridors. The walls were lined with trophy cases and photographs of famous alumni, heroes whose names were known worldwide. All Might's portrait dominated one entire wall, his brilliant smile seeming to track Izuku's movement with impossible warmth. He had been a previous student here too, after all.

You could have gone here, a treacherous part of his mind whispered. If you'd been born different, if you'd had a quirk, any quirk at all, you could have walked these halls as a student instead of a visitor.

He pushed the thought away. Today was too important to waste on self-pity.

The lecture hall was smaller than he'd expected but still impressive, with stadium seating that allowed every attendee a clear view of the stage. About seventy people were scattered throughout the space. He could see students with notebooks and laptops, older professionals in business attire, and a few individuals who had the unmistakable bearing of off-duty heroes. The average age appeared to be somewhere in the mid-twenties to thirties, making Izuku feel embarrassingly young in his high school uniform.

He chose a seat toward the back, settling into the cushioned chair with his notebook clutched against his chest like armor. The conversations around him were intimidating, he could hear graduate students discussing their known topics with casual expertise, professionals debating, some heroes silently sharing stories from their field.

Maybe I should leave, he thought, watching a group of university students set up recording equipment with the confidence of people who belonged in academic spaces. This is for real academics, people who actually know what they're talking about. What am I doing here?

But then the lights dimmed and Principal Nezu took the stage, and Izuku's doubts were temporarily forgotten.

The principal of UA was... not quite what Izuku had imagined from reading his papers and from seeing occasional pictures. He was small, remarkably so, a white-furred creature that looked more like a mouse or stoat than a human, dressed in an impeccably tailored suit that somehow made him look both adorable and unsettling. But it was his eyes that caught Izuku's attention: bright, intelligent, and carrying a gleam that suggested he found something deeply amusing about the world at large.

When Nezu smiled at the audience, Izuku felt a chill run down his spine. It was a polite smile, friendly even, but there was something predatory underneath it. Not malicious exactly, but the look of someone who saw seventeen steps ahead in every conversation and found the gap in understanding delightful.

"Good evening!" Nezu began, his voice surprisingly rich and warm for someone of his stature. "Today's topic will be 'Educational Psychology in High-Stress Environments, and How Cognitive Load Theory Applies to Hero Training.” He said, pointing a laser to the projection he had on the walls. “But before we begin, I must warn you-" his smile widened, showing just a hint of teeth, "I do so enjoy when my lectures challenge assumptions. Please feel free to disagree with me. It makes things so much more interesting."

The last word carried a weight that made several audience members shift uncomfortably. Izuku found himself leaning forward despite his nervousness. Izuku knew this lecture might not really help him with his own studies. These meet-and-greets were organized in a way that the topic discussed was never openly divulged, he enrolled knowing. So, everyone came in blind. But then again, the people here weren’t here to learn a specific topic: they were here to see the brilliant principal talk.

"Now, let me establish a fundamental premise that many of you might find uncomfortable: the human brain is remarkably bad at learning under stress. Yet hero work is defined by high-stress decision making. This creates what I call a 'training paradox': we must prepare students for conditions that actively inhibit the learning process. Fascinating, isn't it?"

A hand shot up in the audience - a woman in her thirties wearing what looked like a teacher's badge. "Excuse me. With respect, Principal Nezu, isn't that just the nature of emergency response training? Police, firefighters, and military personnel all face the same challenge."

"Oh, an excellent point!" Nezu's eyes gleamed with what looked like genuine delight. "Emergency response training does face similar challenges. But, and here's where it gets delicious, there's a crucial difference."

He clicked a remote, and the screen behind him displayed a brain imaging scan. "Most emergency responders have clearly defined protocols to follow under stress. Hero work, by its very nature, requires improvisation and creative problem-solving in situations that simply cannot be anticipated through training scenarios. We're not teaching students to follow a script, we're teaching them to write new scripts in real-time while someone is actively trying to kill them. Doesn't that sound wonderfully inefficient?"

There was something unsettling about the way he said it, as if he found the entire system both absurd and amusing. Izuku found himself captivated despite his discomfort.

"This is a neurological scan of a student during a standard written exam," Nezu continued, his tone shifting to something more clinical. "Note the areas of activity in the prefrontal cortex: the region responsible for analytical thinking, pattern recognition, and complex decision making."

The next slide showed a dramatically different image. "And this is the same student during a simulated villain encounter in our training facilities. The prefrontal cortex activity has decreased by nearly sixty percent, while limbic system activation, which is the fight-or-flight response, has increased proportionally. In more extreme words, the moment students need their brains the most, their brains essentially... abandon them. Isn't biology cruel?"

The words were delivered with a cheerful tone that made them somehow more disturbing. Murmurs ran through the audience as people absorbed the implications.

"The implications are quite profound," Nezu said, pacing across the stage with his paws clasped behind his back. "Under stress, students typically become less capable of using their own intelligence. They revert to more instinctive responses, and rely on muscle memory. This is, in my opinion, why so many heroes develop tactics that emphasize raw power application over strategic thinking.”

He paused, his expression shifting to something that might have been sympathy if it weren't for the calculating gleam in his eyes. "Of course, this presents a wonderful puzzle for someone like me. How do we design education systems that account for our students' brains working against them at the worst possible moments?"

The lecture continued for the next hour, exploring the cognitive mechanisms that influenced learning under pressure. Nezu discussed how different types of stress affected information processing, why traditional training methods often reinforced suboptimal decision-making patterns, and how educational environments could be restructured to promote better adaptation to high-stress.

Throughout it all, his delivery was a masterclass in controlled chaos. He kept alternating between genuine academic insight, slightly sadistic observations about failures, and moments of what seemed like deliberate mischief. He would make a serious point, then follow it with a cheerful anecdote about a training exercise that had nearly hospitalized several students ("But they learned so much from the experience!").

Izuku found himself filling pages with notes, not just about the academic content but about Nezu's methodology itself. The principal was teaching them about stress and learning while simultaneously putting them under mild stress through his unpredictable delivery. It was manipulative, brilliant, and more than a little concerning.

"This brings us to a critical question! You may think about it as this lecture comes to a close." Nezu said, his smile widening in a way that suggested he'd been building toward this moment all along. "If we truly have understood that stress does impair complex thinking, how do we design training that actually prepares students for the cognitive demands of real hero work?”

He paused, his bright eyes scanning the audience with predatory interest. "More importantly, should we even try? Or should we perhaps... acknowledge that some roles require minds that remain calm during chaos? That perhaps not everyone needs to be in the field to save lives?"

The question hung in the air with deliberate weight, and Izuku realized it connected directly to his own situation. If heroes struggled with complex thinking under stress, then support systems that could provide analytical insights in real-time became invaluable. Remote coordinators who could process information without the limitations imposed by the immediate physical danger could potentially compensate for the constraints.

When Nezu opened the floor for questions, hands shot up immediately throughout the audience. Graduate students posed theoretical challenges, educators asked about practical implementation in training programs, and some that looked like off-duty heroes inquired about techniques for maintaining analytical clarity under pressure.

As the questions wound down, Izuku found himself hesitantly raising his own hand before he could stop himself. The motion was automatic, and he regretted it as soon as he did it. But before he could bring his arm down, Principal Nezu's sharp eyes found him in the back of the hall, and Izuku could have sworn the principal's smile shifted into something more genuinely interested.

"Yes, the young man in the school uniform. How delightful!! We have a high school student attending an academic lecture. Please, do share your thoughts."

Every head in the hall turned toward him, and Izuku felt the familiar flush of embarrassment and submission creep up his neck. But something about Nezu's tone made him push forward.

"I-" His voice cracked slightly, and he cleared his throat. He knew he would stutter, which brought yet another wave of embarrassment. "S-sir, you mentioned that stress impairs pattern recognition and analytical thinking in field operatives. I was w-wondering... in situations where heroes consistently make the same strategic errors across multiple similar encounters, would that suggest that their training environment isn't providing adequate stress management? A-and if so, would external analytical support be more effective than trying to improve individual stress tolerance?"

The hall went quiet in a way that made Izuku's stomach clench. His question had been longer and much more detailed than he'd intended, delivered in the rapid-fire style that emerged when his enthusiasm, even with the stutter, overrode his social anxiety.

Principal Nezu's expression had shifted during the question, his head tilting slightly in a gesture that somehow managed to look both curious and calculating.

"Oh my!" the principal said happily, and there was something delighted in his voice. "That's a very sophisticated synthesis of the material. Your question touches on several advanced concepts, in both cognitive psychology and organizational behavior."

He stepped forward, his bright eyes fixed on Izuku with an intensity that felt like being examined by something far more dangerous than his cute appearance suggested. The boy couldn’t help but shiver.

"The idea that external analytical support could compensate for stress-induced limitations is particularly interesting. Tell me, young man, did you develop that connection during this lecture, or have you been thinking about these issues for some time?"

It was a test, he could feel it in the way Nezu asked, in the sharp attention of those too-intelligent eyes. The principal wasn't just asking about his thought process, he was evaluating something that he wasn’t sure he even wanted to know what.

"I've... -bthinking about it for a while, sir," Izuku admitted. "I've been studying hero-villain encounters independently, trying to understand why certain errors seem to recur across different heroes and situations."

"Independently," Nezu repeated, and his smile widened slightly. "How wonderfully ambitious. And what, may I ask, prompted such unusual research interests for someone your age?"

Why was the principal still laser-focused on him?? He hadn’t done any follow up questions with the other attending people!!! Trying to deal with his own stress, he started to think.The question felt loaded with implications. Izuku could deflect, could give a safe answer, but something about Nezu's expression suggested that dishonesty would be immediately detected and far more problematic than the truth.

"I've been trying to find ways to contribute to hero work without being in the active field." he said carefully.

He expected the usual questions, the probing that would eventually lead to the uncomfortable admission. But Nezu simply tilted his head, studying Izuku with those too-bright eyes.

"I see." the principal said. "So you've concluded that analytical work might be your path forward," Nezu continued, his smile widening slightly. "How interesting."

The way he said it made it sound less like praise and more like he'd just discovered a fascinating puzzle to solve. Izuku internally prayed that he got out alive from this.

"May I ask your name, young man?"

"M-Midoriya Izuku, sir."

"Well, Midoriya-kun, your question deserves a thorough answer!" Nezu's tone shifted slightly, becoming more academic but retaining that edge of playful menace. "Yes, repeated strategic errors often indicate inadequate stress regulation. And yes, external analytical support can be highly effective, though heavy implementation still faces significant cultural barriers in hero work."

He paused, still watching Izuku with that unsettling intensity. "But more importantly, your question reveals something fascinating. You're not asking whether analytical support could work, you're asking whether it would be more effective than current methods. That's a critical distinction. One suggests curiosity, the other suggests you've already conducted significant independent research and developed working hypotheses."

"Fascinating." Nezu continued, and the word carried both approval and something that might have been concern. "Would you be interested in discussing your analytical approach in more detail after the lecture? I do so enjoy conversations with people who think unusually."

It wasn't really a question. The way Nezu phrased it made clear that declining would be both rude and pointless. The principal had already decided this conversation would happen.

"Y-yes, sir," Izuku managed. "If you think it would be worthwhile."

"Oh, I'm quite certain it will be very worthwhile. For both of us."

The rest of the Q&A session passed in a blur of anxiety and anticipation. Izuku tried to focus on the other questions and answers, but his mind kept circling back to Principal Nezu's words and that unsettling smile that suggested he'd just walked into something far more complex than a simple academic discussion.

As the audience began to disperse, Nezu made his way up the aisle with surprising speed for someone of his stature, moving with the efficient grace of a predator who'd spotted interesting prey.

"Midoriya-kun," the principal said, settling into the seat beside him with an air of polite formality that somehow made the conversation feel both important and dangerously unpredictable. "I must admit, your question caught my attention in ways that university students' questions rarely do. The connection you’ve made between my own lecture and your own previous knowledge is seriously impressive, especially at your age. But, it also suggests you've been thinking about these issues from multiple perspectives." The principal's smile grew slightly sharper. "So tell me, Midoriya-kun, how extensive has your independent research been? And more importantly, have you been conducting active analysis of ongoing situations?"

The question hit Izuku like a bucket of ice water. Nezu knew. Somehow, from one question and a few sentences of conversation, the principal had deduced that Izuku wasn't just theorizing, he was actively analyzing real cases.

"I..." Izuku's voice faltered. "I've been tracking patterns in hero-villain encounters. Using publicly available information to develop analytical frameworks, of course. I'm working on a personal case study about systematic data collection by villains, and I’m trying to understand their methodology."

Nezu's paws folded neatly in his lap, but his bright eyes never left Izuku's face. "Is that so? Then, let me be direct: show me your analysis. Given your dedication, I’m sure you brought at least one notebook regarding this topic."

It wasn't a request. Despite the polite phrasing, the tone made clear that refusal wasn't really an option.

Izuku's hands trembled slightly as he pulled out a notebook from his backpack, the one containing his most recent Smokescreen analysis. Watching Nezu examine his work felt like standing before a judge who could see that he wasn’t fit for this.

Still, the principal's examination was methodical and unsettlingly thorough. His small paws turned pages with delicate precision, his eyes scanning each diagram and notation with the kind of attention that suggested he was processing information at speeds Izuku could barely imagine.

"Hmm," Nezu murmured occasionally, the sound carrying layers of meaning that Izuku couldn't decipher. "Interesting choice here... clever cross-reference... oh, that's a dangerous assumption..."

Finally, after what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, Nezu closed the notebook and looked up at Izuku. His expression was unreadable, though he wore a smile with sharp teeth.

"This is remarkably comprehensive work!" the principal said, enthusiastically.. "Your methodology shows clear influences from multiple analytical frameworks. I’d say criminology, behavioral psychology, tactical analysis, at least these definitely played a role here. You've developed a very interesting systematic approach that most students here at UA would struggle to achieve."

Izuku felt a flutter of hope, but it was immediately tempered by the 'but' he could hear coming.

"However," Nezu continued, his tone shifting to something more cautious, "You're conducting independent analysis of what is an active criminal investigation. Using publicly available information, yes, but developing predictive models and strategic recommendations without proper oversight or authority."

The principal's smile had faded into something more neutral, though his eyes still held that calculating and interested gleam.

"Tell me, Midoriya-kun, do you understand why that might be problematic?"

"I... yes, sir," Izuku admitted, his voice small. "I'm working with incomplete information and making assumptions about things I don't really have the authority or expertise to truly address. I k-know my analysis could be wrong, or could even interfere with official investigations if I ever acted on it. Also, if this were to fall into the wrong hands, it would cause serious trouble."

"Good!" Nezu said, and Izuku was surprised by the genuine approval in the word. He expected to be shunned. "You understand your current limitations. Many people don't. They conduct amateur analysis and convince themselves they've solved mysteries that trained professionals somehow missed."

The principal leaned back slightly, his expression thoughtful. "But here's what interests me: despite those limitations, your analysis reveals genuine capability. You've identified patterns that aren't obvious from surface observation, and that some bad professionals might not notice. Your modeling is sophisticated, your geographic analysis is sound, and your predictions, while based on incomplete data, shows logical progression."

Nezu paused, his head tilting slightly. "You have talent, Midoriya-kun. Raw, undeveloped, unique, extraordinary, potentially dangerous talent. The question is: what should we do about it?"

The phrasing made Izuku nervous. 'We' implied that Nezu had already decided to become involved somehow, and that this wasn't just a friendly academic discussion. How in the world did he catch the attention of a professional detective and THE UA PRINCIPAL WITH A HIGH-SPECS QUIRK???

"I've been trying to develop my skills responsibly," Izuku said, knowing how imature it sounded even as he spoke. "Reading academic papers, studying methodology, trying to understand the ethical and practical constraints. I- Detective Tsukauchi gave me a bit of guidance about systematic thinking, and I've been trying to apply it carefully."

"Tsukauchi Naomasa?" Nezu's ears perked up slightly. "Oh, he and I are great comrades! You've been in contact with him?"

"We met at the library a few weeks ago. He looked at some of my preliminary analysis and seemed... not unimpressed. He gave me his business card and told me to stay in touch if I developed anything genuinely valuable."

"How wonderfully coincidental," Nezu said, and his smile returned with a mischievous edge. "Or perhaps not coincidental at all. Detective Tsukauchi has excellent judgment about talent, after all"

The principal stood, smoothing his suit with precise movements. "Midoriya-kun, I'm going to make you an offer, but I want you to understand something first: I am not being kind. I am not offering charity or pity to a quirkless student with analytical interests. I am offering this because your capabilities, if properly developed, could be genuinely valuable. And if left undeveloped, could be genuinely dangerous, both to you and others around you.”

Izuku's breath caught. Dangerous. Nezu thought his analysis could be dangerous. Wait- did he say quirkless?? “Wait. How-”

"You need guidance, proper oversight, and access to resources that can help you understand the difference between theoretical analysis and practical application.” The principal interrupted, not even acknowledging his question. “You also need to understand the ethical and legal constraints that govern investigative work, and the consequences of amateur interference in active cases."

The principal's expression shifted into something that might have been enthusiastic if it weren't for the calculating gleam that never quite left his eyes.

"I'd like to arrange for you to work with some professionals who can evaluate your analytical approach more thoroughly than I can in a brief conversation. People who can teach you about the practical realities of investigative work while keeping you from accidentally interfering with active operations."

"W-what kind of professionals?" Izuku asked, his voice barely above a whisper. Was this truly happening?

"Detective Tsukauchi, certainly, since you've already established that connection and he's expressed interest in your capabilities. But I was also thinking of someone else. I have a specific hero in mind. Someone who understands both the value of systematic thought process and the dangers of overconfidence in one's conclusions."

Nezu glanced toward the back of the lecture hall, and Izuku noticed for the first time that someone had been standing in the shadows there throughout their conversation.

"Eraserhead, would you care to join us? I believe you've been listening long enough."

The man stepped forward into the light, and Izuku's world tilted sideways.

Eraserhead. He'd heard of the man, he's gotten so interested he'd tried with all his might to find every information he could on the man. But the amount of data about him on the internet was so scarce the analysis had been much smaller than he'd have hoped for.

The underground hero moved like a shadow, gaining physical form. His capture weapon hung around his shoulders like a sleeping serpent, and his dark eyes fixed on Izuku.

"Nezu-sensei," Aizawa said, his voice a low rumble, "are you seriously considering involving a high school student in active investigative work?"

"Oh, he's already involved, Aizawa-san," Nezu replied cheerfully. "The question is whether we provide proper guidance or allow him to continue conducting independently. Which option do you think is more dangerous?"

Aizawa's expression didn't change, but something in his posture suggested resignation. He turned to the boy. "Show me the analysis."

Izuku handed over his notebook with trembling hands, watching as Eraserhead (Aizawa?) examined his work with the same methodical attention Nezu had shown. The hero's face revealed nothing, but occasionally his eyes would narrow slightly at particular pages, or his finger would trace a connection between different sections.

The silence stretched until it became almost unbearable.

"This is very well made," Aizawa finally said, closing the notebook. "More detailed than some official case files, and much more than I see with my usual students. Your methodology is impressive, your observations are thorough, and your conclusions follow logically." He paused, and his expression shifted almost imperceptibly. "You have real talent for this."

Relief flooded through Izuku so intensely he nearly swayed.

"However," Aizawa continued, his tone becoming more measured, "As Nezu said, you're working with incomplete information, making assumptions about operational constraints you don't yet understand, and developing strategies that ignore practical limitations you haven't considered. And you're treating this like an academic exercise when it's an active situation involving real people who could be harmed by poorly executed interference."

The criticism landed like physical blows, each one accurate and devastating. He tried to at least not let it show.

"Oh, show some mercy, Aizawa-san!" Nezu chirped. Aizawa ignored him, still looking at Izuku.

"Your analysis shows incredible capability, but it also shows dangerous gaps in your understanding of how this type of thing actually works in practice. You need proper training, oversight, and guidance on the difference between theoretical analysis and real, operational support." His voice dropped slightly. "But those gaps can be filled. That's what training is for."

Aizawa looked at Nezu, his expression unreadable. "You want me to take him on as a project. Is that why you messaged me with such urgency?"

"I think he could benefit enormously from your guidance," Nezu replied, his smile widening. "And I think you might find his analytical capabilities truly interesting. At the very least, it would give you someone to direct besides your students when you're in a particularly critical mood. Especially since only 5 students remain in this year's class."

"I'm always in a critical mood."

"Exactly! It's perfect. Besides," Nezu's expression shifted into something more serious, "you know that if we don't provide proper guidance, he'll continue conducting independent analysis. I don't judge, I was exactly the same in the past. But, eventually, he'll either interfere with an active case and get himself in serious trouble, or, worst case, actually be right about something and have no idea how to properly report it to authorities."

Aizawa studied Izuku for a long moment, his dark eyes assessing in a way that made Izuku want to fidget.

"Can you follow instructions?" the hero asked finally.

"Yes, sir."

"Can you accept criticism without making excuses?"

"I... yes, sir. I want to learn."

"Can you admit when you're wrong?"

The question felt more important than the previous ones. Izuku thought about his analysis, about all the assumptions he'd made, all the gaps in his knowledge that professionals had immediately identified. He didn't know what gaps were so apparent, but it must be catastrophic if both of them noticed.

"Yes, sir. I don't know more than I do know. I just want to learn how to do this properly. It would mean the world to me."

Aizawa's expression didn't soften, but something in his posture shifted slightly. "That's the right answer. Good." He paused. "There are going to be rules, and if you break them, this arrangement ends immediately. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

His mouth curled into a slight smile that held a hint of challenge. "Rule one: No independent analysis of active cases without explicit permission. Everything goes through me or Detective Tsukauchi before you act on it in any way. If you'd like, you may work on cold cases or completed ones."

"U-understood."

"Rule two: You will complete whatever educational assignments I give you, even if they seem unrelated to your analytical interests. You have gaps in your knowledge that need to be filled, but that's normal for someone your age."

"Of course, sir."

"Rule three: If I tell you to drop something, you drop it. No arguments, no exceptions. Some information is classified or dangerous for good reasons. I'll always give you a sound explanation on why I'm asking you to stop, but sometimes, things may be urgent enough I need to know you'll listen if I utter a single word."

Izuku nodded, his throat tight with a mixture of anxiety and hope.

"Good," Aizawa said, nodding. "We'll start with a meeting next Saturday. Bring your notebooks, your analysis, and a willingness to have your assumptions challenged. I'm sure Nezu is already arranging to have Detective Tsukauchi be there as well. I'm not qualified to teach investigative methodology alone, and this needs to be done properly."

Nezu looked up from his phone with a cheeky smile.

"I- thank you," Izuku managed, the words feeling inadequate for what was being offered. "I won't let you down, sir."

"You'll make mistakes," Aizawa replied, and something in his expression shifted almost imperceptibly. Not quite softening, but perhaps recalibrating. "Everyone does when they're learning. The key is learning from them." He paused. "You have the foundation worth building on. That's more than most people start with."

The last sentence was delivered in a tone that was almost encouraging, and Izuku caught it: an acknowledgment that Aizawa saw something in his work beyond just problems to fix. Thank gosh.

Principal Nezu clapped his paws together with obvious delight. "Wonderful! This should be absolutely fascinating to observe. Aizawa-san mentoring someone just as analytical as him… I can already imagine the chaos!"

"You're not going to observe," Aizawa said flatly.

"Oh, but I am," Nezu replied cheerfully. "Not directly, of course, that would be intrusive. But I'll want regular reports on Midoriya-kun's progress. After all, if he develops his capabilities properly, he might eventually become quite valuable to UA. We could always use skilled analysts."

The implication hung in the air: this wasn't just about helping Izuku develop his skills. Nezu was evaluating him as a potential future asset, someone who might eventually contribute to UA in an official capacity. He felt used, sure, but he wasn't about to miss this opportunity.

"We'll discuss that if and when he proves capable of meeting professional standards," Aizawa said. "Right now, he's a high school student with raw talent and potential. Let's focus on developing that before we discuss career prospects."

"Of course, of course!" Nezu agreed, but his smile suggested he'd already thought of multiple potential futures and found them all intriguing. "Midoriya-kun, I look forward to seeing how you develop. Do try not to interfere with any active investigations before your first training session."

"I won't, sir. I promise."

"Excellent! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have several other matters to attend to. Aizawa-san, the details?"

Aizawa pulled out his phone and handed it to Izuku. "Put in your contact information, and your guardian's. I'll be personally sending them what we plan on doing. Do know that, if they refuse, we'll have to stop this short. I'll send you the time and location for Saturday's meeting. Be on time, bring everything relevant to your analysis, and be ready to work hard."

Izuku entered the information with trembling fingers, still not quite believing this was actually happening. Eraserhead was going to, apparently, train him. He was scary, but seemed like a good teacher. Detective Tsukauchi was also going to be involved. Principal Nezu thought he might eventually be valuable to UA.

It felt surreal, like he'd stepped through some invisible barrier into a version of reality where his obsessions were actually taken seriously.

"One more thing," Aizawa said as Izuku handed back the phone. "Your hypothesis, the one you've been developing about the issues of the hero system. Write it out formally before Saturday. Clear statement of the hypothesis, the evidence supporting it, the assumptions you're making, and the limitations of your current analysis. If you're going to do this work, you need to learn to document your thinking in ways that others can evaluate and critique. I will be sending you references you may use."

"Like the scientific method?" Izuku said, the connection clicking into place.

"Exactly like the scientific method. Analysis is science. From now on, you're conducting research, not just making observations. Treat it that way."

After exchanging a few more practical details, Aizawa departed with the same silent efficiency he'd arrived with, leaving Izuku alone with the empty lecture hall and the surreal awareness that his life had just shifted in ways he couldn't fully process.

He pulled out his notepad and stared at the blank page. A formal hypothesis. Clear documentation of his thinking, his assumptions, his limitations. Okay. He needed to identify what he had to change. He’d redo the hypothesis once he received whatever Eraserhead was planning on giving him.

On the page, he began to write:

Assumptions that I need change: that I have accurately identified genuine tactical errors rather than context-dependent decisions. That publicly available information provides sufficient data for meaningful pattern recognition. That cognitive limitations observed in training environments always translate to field conditions. That heroes would accept/implement analytical support with no issue if properly demonstrated.

My limitations: no access to classified operational data or internal agency communications. No formal training. No understanding of practical constraints faced in the field. Analysis based on incomplete information filtered through media coverage. No actual field experience to validate the theoretical frameworks.

He stared at what he'd written, seeing his work through new eyes. Everything he’d done till now was potentially flawed. Each one of his limitations represented gaps in his knowledge that could invalidate his entire approach. And yet...

The patterns were still real. The cognitive limitations Nezu had described were documented scientific fact. The potential value of external analytical support was supported by both research and international examples.

He wasn't wrong to pursue this. He'd just been naive about how much he still needed to learn.

The walk home from UA felt different than the walk there. Izuku still didn't belong at the prestigious hero school, still wore a middle school uniform among students preparing for careers he'd never have access to. But now he had something he hadn't had before: a path forward.

Not because they pitied him. Principal Nezu personally said so, and Eraserhead didn’t change the way he acts just because of him. Not because they wanted to encourage a quirkless kid with impossible dreams. But because they saw genuine capability that, with proper development, might actually contribute to keeping people safe.

His phone buzzed as he waited at a crosswalk. A text from an unknown number:

’Saturday, 9 AM. Musutafu Police Headquarters, Conference Room C. Bring notebooks, formal hypothesis documentation, and realistic expectations. I will send you the documents I want you to read as soon as I get home. - Aizawa’

Izuku saved the number and read the message three more times, letting the reality sink in. Saturday. Five days away. Five days to prepare, to review his analysis, to document his thinking in ways that would withstand professional scrutiny.

Five days to construct a hypothesis that might actually be worth testing. Five days to transform his observations into something resembling actual research methodology. Five days to prove he deserved the opportunity he'd been given.

When Izuku arrived home, his mother looked up from dinner preparation with the particular expression she'd developed over the years, one that meant she could tell something significant had happened just from the way he carried himself.

"How was the lecture?" she asked, her tone carefully neutral in the way that invited honesty without demanding it.

"It was..." Izuku paused, trying to find words adequate to describe what had happened. "It was life-changing, Mom. Principal Nezu of all people saw my analysis, and hethink I have genuine capability. Mom, mom, he called in a hero and they plan to help me! They're going to help me develop things properly!!!" he nearly screamed.

Inko's expression shifted through several emotions too quickly to catalog: surprise, concern, pride, worry, hope. "That's wonderful, sweetheart! Though I have to ask... is this safe? Working with heroes and police investigations?"

"Safer than what I was doing before," Izuku admitted. "They're going to teach me about practical part of things and ethical limitations. Make sure I understand the difference between the theoretical analysis I’ve been conducting and real operational work. Mom, this is an opportunity I just can’t miss! It’s so serious they’ll even send you messages informing you about it!!!”

His mother studied him for a long moment, then nodded slowly with a watery smile. "I'm… I’m just so proud of you." Inko said, and the simple statement made Izuku's chest tight with emotion. "For pursuing this seriously, for being willing to learn, for finding people who will help you do it properly. Just promise me you'll be careful, and that you'll tell me if anything feels wrong or unsafe."

"I promise, Mom."

That night, Izuku worked late into the early morning hours, transforming scattered observations into systematic documentation, with the help of the documents Eraserhead (Aizawa? Should he call him Aizawa-sensei?) sent him. The Smokescreen analysis was reorganized into clear sections, each conclusion traced back to specific evidence. Each assumption was explicitly noted.

It was meticulous, exhausting work, the kind that made his eyes burn and his hand cramp from constant writing. But it was also deeply satisfying in ways his previous analysis hadn't been. This wasn't just note-taking or pattern observation. This was now actual research, structured and documented in ways that others could evaluate and build upon.

By 3 AM, he had a comprehensive document that laid out his analysis with brutal honesty about its limitations and gaps. It wasn't perfect, he himself could already see flaws in his reasoning, places where he'd made assumptions he couldn't fully justify, but it was honest.

And maybe, just maybe, it was good enough to be the foundation for something better.

Chapter Text

The Musutafu Police Headquarters building loomed against the Saturday morning sky like a fortress. An intimidating one, at that.

Izuku arrived twenty minutes early, clutching his backpack with both hands as if it might try to escape. Inside were three notebooks, his formal hypothesis documentation (revised four times in the past five days), and a printed copy of every reference Aizawa had sent him, each one thoroughly annotated in increasingly small handwriting as his anxiety had mounted.

His mother had insisted on walking him to the building despite his protests, and now stood beside him on the sidewalk with a particular expression of concern that made him feel simultaneously supported and embarrassed.

"You're sure this is safe?" she asked for the third time that morning.

"Mom, it's a police headquarters. It's literally one of the safest buildings in the city." Izuku adjusted his backpack straps, a nervous habit he couldn't quite break. "And Aizawa-sensei said you'd receive regular updates. Plus, you have his contact information."

"I know, I know." Inko smoothed down his hair with gentle fingers, the same gesture she'd been making since he was small. "I'm just... this is a big step, sweetheart. Working with actual heroes and detectives. I want to make sure you're ready."

Am I ready? The question had been circling his mind like a vulture for five days straight. He'd read every document Aizawa sent him: academic papers on cognitive skills applied to investigative work, case studies of analytical failures that had led to operational disasters, as well as many other topics. Each one had revealed new gaps in his understanding, new ways his previous analysis had been dangerously incomplete.

Honestly, even after all of that, the formal hypothesis he'd constructed felt simultaneously like his best work and a comprehensive list of everything he didn't know.

Hypothesis: Heroes consistently make repeated tactical errors in similar situations due to multiple distinct but interconnected factors: stress-induced cognitive limitations that impair complex decision-making during field operations, institutional resistance to changing successful methods, training protocols that reinforce reactive rather than strategic thinking, and systemic undervaluation of analytical support that could compensate for these limitations.

Reading it now, in the harsh light of actually having to defend it to professionals, the hypothesis felt both too broad and too specific. Too many variables, too many assumptions, too many places where his logic might collapse under scrutiny. And dear gosh, he couldn't bear to lose this opportunity due to a big enough flaw.

"I don't know if I'm ready," Izuku admitted quietly. "But I think... I think that's okay? Aizawa-sensei said to bring realistic expectations. I'm expecting to be wrong about a lot of things."

His mother's expression softened into something that looked like pride mixed with concern. "That's very mature of you. Just remember: being wrong is how we learn. Don't let criticism make you give up on this."

"I won't." The words came out more confidently than he felt. "This is too important."

She hugged him then, quick and fierce, before stepping back with suspiciously bright eyes. "Go on. Show them what that brilliant mind of yours can do."

Izuku watched her leave before turning to face the building. The entrance was guarded by two officers whose casual alertness suggested extensive training: weight balanced, eyes tracking movement patterns, hands positioned for quick response despite their seemingly relaxed postures. He catalogued the observations automatically, then caught himself. Stop analyzing everything. You're nervous enough without turning the security guards into a research project.

The lobby was exactly what he'd expected, basically made up of utilitarian furniture, reinforced walls, and security checkpoints that looked capable of containing quirk-enhanced individuals. Still, it was quite well decorated, more than he expected.

His visitor badge felt heavy around his neck as he followed the directions to Conference Room C. His footsteps kept echoing too loudly in the corridors that smelled faintly of coffee. Gosh, he could use some caffeine right now.

Conference Room C turned out to be smaller than he'd imagined but significantly more intimidating.

It was a bright room with a big window making up for one of the walls. It went from the floor to the ceiling, showing a neat view of the streets. The rest of the walls were covered in whiteboards already filled with diagrams and notes he didn't recognize. A large table dominated the center of the room, surrounded by chairs that looked more comfortable than standard police issue.

Detective Tsukauchi sat at one end of the table, reviewing documents with the same methodical attention Izuku remembered from the library. He looked up as Izuku entered, and his expression shifted into something that might have been a smile.

"Midoriya-kun, welcome! Punctual. Good." The detective gestured to a chair. "Aizawa should be here shortly. He's just finishing some paperwork related to this arrangement. And bringing a few treats."

Treats? What does he mean? Izuku sat, deciding not to ask as he tried not to fidget while pulling out his materials. "Thank you for agreeing to help with this, Tsukauchi-sense... san? Uh, what would you like me to call you? I know you must be very busy."

"Hahah, call me whatever you like. Don't worry about it. And busy, yes, but Nezu can be... persuasive when he thinks something is worthwhile." Tsukauchi's tone carried layers of meaning that Izuku couldn't quite decipher.

A selfish part of him really hoped the only reason he was here wasn't because Nezu pulled strings and that this wasn't actually about Izuku's merit, just convenient timing and a principal's favor.

"Besides, your analysis at the library showed genuine potential. I'm curious to see how you've developed it."

The praise made Izuku's chest tight with a mixture of pride and anxiety. He thinks it shows potential. Don't mess this up. Don't prove him wrong about you. What if he's lying? What if he's actually hiding his pity? What if they're all just humoring Nezu and don't actually think I'm worth the time?

"I've been working on formalizing my methodology," Izuku said instead, pulling out his documentation with hands that trembled slightly. "Following the frameworks you and Aizawa-sensei recommended. I, um, I revised my hypothesis four times. I kept finding assumptions I hadn't acknowledged or gaps in my reasoning."

"Four times in five days?" Tsukauchi's eyebrows rose slightly. "That's... thorough. Possibly excessive, but thorough."

"I wanted to be sure it was good enough to..."

"It will never be good enough." Aizawa's voice came from the doorway, making Izuku jump. The hero moved into the room with the same silent efficiency he'd displayed at UA as he threw a bag of... something across the table. "That's not an insult, it's a fact. Every hypothesis has flaws. Every analysis has gaps. The question isn't whether your work is perfect, it's whether it's rigorous enough to be worth testing."

He pulled out a chair across from Izuku and sat with the particular grace of someone whose body was a weapon he'd spent years perfecting. His dark eyes fixed on Izuku with an intensity that made the boy want to look away, but didn't dare.

"Show us what you've prepared."

Izuku slid his formal hypothesis documentation across the table, trying to ignore how his handwriting looked increasingly frantic toward the later revisions. Aizawa picked it up without comment and began reading with the same attention he'd given the notebooks at UA.

The silence stretched. Tsukauchi had returned to his own documents, apparently content to let Aizawa lead this initial evaluation. Izuku forced himself to sit still, to not fidget or ramble or try to fill the quiet with explanations that would surely only make things worse.

Finally, Aizawa set down the papers and looked at Izuku. "Your hypothesis is too broad."

The criticism landed like a physical blow, despite Izuku having suspected exactly that. "I... I was trying to account for multiple factors. The limitations you described, the institutional problems, the training issues..."

"You're mixing distinct problems into one unified hypothesis," Aizawa interrupted. "The stress-induced limitations we discussed during Nezu's lecture are a neurological issue. Institutional resistance is an organizational problem. Training gaps are an educational failure. These aren't the same thing, and they don't have the same solutions. By lumping them together, you've created a hypothesis that's impossible to test properly."

Izuku felt his face flush. Of course. How had he missed that? He was so focused on showing he understood the problem that he made it too complex to actually be useful.

"However," Aizawa continued, and Izuku's attention snapped back to him, "your acknowledgment of the limitations is exceptional. Most people trying to impress professionals hide their weaknesses. You've documented yours explicitly. Intellectual honesty is rarer than you'd think, and is quite valuable."

The praise felt unearned after the criticism, but Izuku latched onto it anyway. "H-how do I fix the hypothesis?"

"You don't fix it. You break it apart." Tsukauchi spoke up, setting aside his own work to focus on Izuku. "Each of those factors you identified could be their own hypothesis. You need to decide which one you're actually testing."

"But they're all connected," Izuku protested. "No offense, but we can't understand the tactical errors the heroes are making without accounting for all the factors that contribute to them."

"True," Aizawa agreed. "But you can't test everything at once. That's not how scientific research works. You identify one variable, control for others as much as possible, and test your specific prediction. Once you understand that one piece, you can move to the next."

He pulled out a tablet and called up what looked like a case file. "Let's use a practical example. This is a completed operation from two months ago. The Flame Hero: Endeavor responding to a villain attack in downtown Kyoto. The operation was successful in that the villain was captured and there were minimal casualties, but the hero's execution showed several decision-making errors that could have led to disaster under slightly different circumstances."

Aizawa turned the tablet so Izuku could see it, and immediately the boy's analytical mind started churning. The after-action report was comprehensive: timeline, hero deployment, civilian evacuation routes, quirk applications, outcome assessment, and many other details he hadn't expected to be there.

"Walk me through what you see," Aizawa said. "But before you start, I want you to identify which of your hypothesis factors you're actually examining. Are you looking at the cognitive load? Training? Institutional patterns? Something else? Pick only one."

Izuku stared at the report, his mind automatically trying to connect everything at once before he forced himself to slow down. Pick one. Be specific. Test one thing.

"Cognitive load," he decided. "I want to see if the errors here could correlate with moments of high stress that could impair Endeavor's decision-making."

"Good. Now analyze the case through that specific lens. Ignore institutional factors, ignore training issues. Focus only on whether the errors you identify could be explained by stress-induced limitations."

It was much harder than Izuku expected to narrow his focus. His mind kept wanting to branch out, to connect patterns, to apply the comprehensive web he'd spent weeks developing. But Aizawa's sharp attention kept him disciplined, forcing him to stay within the boundaries he'd set.

"The initial response was fast," Izuku began, pointing to the timeline. "Endeavor arrived within ninety seconds of the distress call. But his first action was a direct confrontation with the villain instead of establishing a perimeter or assessing civilian locations."

"Is that an error?" Tsukauchi asked.

"I... maybe? The report says there were civilians in the immediate area, but Endeavor's opening attack was a large-scale fire blast that could have caused collateral damage. Under high stress, he defaulted to his most powerful offensive option instead of considering less damaging but effective alternatives."

"Or," Aizawa countered, "he made a split-second judgment that immediate overwhelming force would prevent the villain from taking hostages or causing greater harm. Can you prove it was a cognitive limitation rather than a calculated risk?"

Izuku hesitated, scanning the report for more context. "The after-action notes mention that Endeavor's communication with on-site police was minimal during the first three minutes of engagement. He didn't coordinate with other responders until after the initial confrontation."

"That's better." Aizawa acknowledged. "That's evidence of tunnel vision, which is consistent with your theory. What else?"

They worked through the case file for the next hour, with Aizawa and Tsukauchi challenging every single conclusion Izuku drew. Each time he tried to expand beyond cognitive factors, they pulled him back. Each time he made an assumption about motivation or decision-making, they demanded evidence to support it.

It was exhausting. It was frustrating. It was also the most intellectually engaged Izuku had felt in years.

"Okay," Aizawa said finally, leaning back in his chair. "You've identified three potential moments where Endeavor's decision-making showed signs of stress-induced limitations. Now tell me: what would you need to prove your hypothesis?"

"More data," Izuku said immediately. "I'd need to examine multiple operations by the same hero and see if the pattern holds. Or compare operations under different stress levels to see if this same pattern repeats. I might even have to account for his personality and see if that also affects his reasoning."

"Correct. But here's your real problem." Aizawa's expression shifted into something that might have been sympathy if it weren't so clinical. "You're working from after-action reports. These are sanitized documents written after the fact by people who know what the outcome was. They're not real-time data."

The implication hit Izuku like a bucket of ice water. Every case file he'd ever analyzed, every pattern he'd identified was based on documents written by people interpreting events through their own biases and assumptions. Somehow, he had never realized that.

"...How do I account for that?" he asked, and his voice came out smaller than he'd intended.

"You acknowledge it as a limitation," Tsukauchi said. "And you seek primary sources whenever possible. Body camera footage, communications logs, witness statements taken immediately after events. But even those have biases. The camera only shows what it's pointed at. Communications logs don't capture nonverbal cues that happen more often than not. Witnesses are notoriously unreliable under stress. You'd have to build your own documentation."

"But how does anyone prove anything?" The question burst out before Izuku could stop it, frustration bleeding into his voice. "If all the data is compromised, if every source has limitations, how do you build conclusions that actually mean something?"

"I think I already mentioned this before, but as an analyst, your job isn't to build certainties," Aizawa replied. "You build probabilities. You gather multiple imperfect data sources, cross-reference them, identify where they corroborate or contradict each other, and construct the most likely explanation based on available evidence. Then you test that explanation against new data and revise when it doesn't hold up."

"It's messy," Tsukauchi added. "Research always is. The scientific method isn't a recipe that guarantees correct answers, it's a framework that helps reduce uncertainty while acknowledging that some uncertainty always remains."

Izuku absorbed that, feeling something shift in his understanding. He'd been approaching his analysis like a puzzle with a solution, something he could solve if he was just smart enough and thorough enough. But that wasn't how this worked. This was more about building models that were useful even if they weren't perfect.

"Let me give you an assignment," Aizawa said, pulling out a USB drive. "These are three completed operations, full case files including communications logs and video footage. I want you to analyze them through ONLY your cognitive load hypothesis. Identify patterns, note contradictory evidence, and most importantly, revise your hypothesis based on what the data actually shows rather than what you expect it to show. Understood?"

He slid the drive across the table. "You have one week for each. Document everything: your initial predictions, the evidence you find, how it changes your thinking, and what questions it raises that you can't answer. Treat this like actual research, not hero fanboying. We'll discuss the one you chose next time we meet. Deal?"

"I will," Izuku promised, accepting the drive with reverent care. "When should I..."

"Next Saturday, same time. We'll review your analysis and discuss your methodology. If your work shows you're taking this seriously, we'll continue. If you're just going through the motions or trying to confirm what you already believe, we're done."

The threat was delivered in Aizawa's characteristic flat tone, but Izuku heard the underlying message: this is your test. Prove you're worth the investment.

He tried not to show any visible distress, though he could feel his throat tighten from the hero's wording. His head turned to the usual criticism he received in class, at school, and the usual humiliation he experienced. Would this turn out to be the same? Would he...

A cough interrupted the boy's thoughts as he straightened up in his chair.

"There's one more thing," Tsukauchi said, his expression shifting into something more serious. "The Smokescreen case. I've been reviewing your analysis from the notebook Nezu showed me."

Izuku's heart rate spiked. He'd almost forgotten about the Smokescreen documentation in the stress of preparing his formal hypothesis.

"Your pattern recognition is sound," the detective continued. "The geographic distribution you identified, the timing correlations, the hypothesis about systematic intelligence gathering, those are all consistent with our own investigation, which is incredibly intelligent on your part."

"However," Tsukauchi continued, "you've also made some significant logical leaps that our evidence doesn't support. You've assumed Smokescreen's ultimate goal based on his methodology, but correlation doesn't equal causation. Just because he's gathering data doesn't mean we know what he plans to do with it."

"I..." Izuku started, then stopped. Of course I don't know. I've been pattern-matching without actually having enough information to predict outcomes. "You're right."

"But here's what interests me." Tsukauchi pulled out his own tablet, calling up what looked like a crime scene analysis. "Your prediction about the next likely target. You identified the industrial district as a probable location based on the patterns and timing intervals Smokescreen shows. We've increased patrol presence in that area based on similar reasoning."

Izuku blinked. "You... you're actually using my analysis?"

"We're using similar analysis," Tsukauchi corrected. "Which happened to overlap with yours. Don't get your hopes up, but this does suggest your pattern recognition is solid, even if your conclusions need work."

"If Smokescreen does hit the industrial district," Aizawa interjected, "it won't validate your hypothesis about his ultimate goals. It will only confirm he's following a geographic pattern. Those are different things."

"I understand," Izuku said, though his mind was already churning with the implications. They're taking the threat seriously. Real professionals with real resources think the pattern is worth investigating. That means...

"Don't," Aizawa said sharply, and Izuku's train of thought derailed. "I can see you spinning out. You're thinking about how your analysis might contribute to catching him, how you might help solve an active case, how this could be your chance to prove you're valuable."

The accuracy of the observation was almost offensive. "I..."

"Stop. Your job right now isn't to solve cases. It's to learn methodology. The assignment I gave you is your priority, not Smokescreen. If you get distracted by the exciting active investigation and ignore the basic training work, this arrangement ends. I can't let you prejudice yourself over things that aren't in your current control. Are we clear?"

The threat wasn't empty, Izuku could see it in Aizawa's expression. He was reminded that they weren't investing time in him to gain an amateur assistant for active cases. They were teaching him the fundamentals, and fundamentals required focus and discipline.

"Crystal clear, sir," Izuku said, forcing his nervousness back under control. "I'll focus on the assignment."

"Good." Aizawa stood, the meeting apparently concluded in his mind. "One last thing. You mentioned you're still in school?"

"Yes, sir. Musutafu Middle School."

"How's that going? I worry you might put too much attention on these cases and forget about your own school requirements."

The question seemed casual, but something in Aizawa's tone suggested it wasn't. Izuku felt his shoulders tense automatically, defensive mechanisms activating before he could stop them.

"It's... fine," he said, which was a lie by omission at best. "I'm doing my usual work. I promise this isn't affecting my school work."

Aizawa's eyes narrowed fractionally. "Try again."

The command was quiet but absolute. Izuku found himself responding before he'd consciously decided to be honest.

"It's not great," he admitted, his voice dropping. "My classmates don't take my analytical interests seriously. The teachers think I should focus on more 'realistic' career paths. But it's manageable. As I said, that isn't affecting my school work. It's fine. I can handle it."

"Can you?" Tsukauchi asked, and his expression had shifted into something that looked like concern. "Because managing ongoing social issues and academic dismissal while trying to conduct analytical work is a significant stressor. It will affect your ability to think clearly."

They're worried about my stress load, Izuku realized with a mixture of embarrassment and sadness. They're applying their own frameworks to me.

"I'm okay," he said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. "Really. I've dealt with this for years. It's not going to interfere with my work. It hasn't in years. I've learned to manage it."

Aizawa studied him for a long moment, and Izuku had the uncomfortable sensation of being analyzed with the same thoroughness he applied to his own work.

"If that changes, you tell us," the hero said finally. "Not only because we're concerned about your feelings, though we are, but because stress impairs your work. If your school situation deteriorates to the point where it's affecting your ability to think clearly, it becomes relevant to this training. Okay?"

"Understood," Izuku said, though the idea of admitting that kind of weakness to these professionals made his stomach twist. He tried to force down his unreasonable anger at them suddenly being more interested in his school life.

"Alright. Get out of here." Aizawa made a shooing gesture that would have been funny if it weren't so clearly dismissive. He grabbed a styrofoam box from inside the paper bag he had carelessly thrown across the table hours before and tossed it into Izuku's hands. "You have work to do. Only look at what I've just given you after you get home. Skidaddle."

Izuku gathered his materials with hands that shook slightly from the adrenaline of the past two hours. But as he headed for the door, Tsukauchi called out: "Midoriya-kun? One more thing."

Izuku turned back.

"The scientific method isn't just about testing hypotheses," the detective said, his expression serious. "It's also about learning when to admit you don't have enough information to reach conclusions. Some of the most important words in research are 'I don't know.'"

The advice settled into Izuku's mind alongside everything else he'd learned today. Permission to not have all the answers. Recognition that uncertainty was part of the process, not a failure of capability.

"Thank you," he said, meaning it more deeply than the simple words could convey. "For all of this. I won't waste your time."

"See that you don't," Aizawa replied, but something in his tone suggested he didn't think his time would be wasted.

When Izuku finally made it home, he dropped his bag by his door and carefully set the styrofoam box on his desk. His fingers trembled slightly as he lifted the lid, curiosity warring with exhaustion.

Inside, nestled in tissue paper, was a donut. But not just any donut. It was dark green, shaped like a cat with pointed ears and whiskers piped in darker frosting. The resemblance was... uncanny. The green matched his hair almost perfectly, and someone had even added little freckles with chocolate chips across the cat's face. Two white icing dots served as eyes, giving it an expression that somehow managed to be both derpy and endearing.

Izuku stared at it for a long moment, then let out a surprised laugh that was half-exhausted, half-delighted. Someone, he assumed Aizawa-sensei, had made a donut that looked like him. As a cat. It was absurd and thoughtful and completely unexpected.

A small paper note was tucked inside the box, folded in half. Izuku picked it up carefully and opened it. The handwriting was enthusiastic and somewhat chaotic, with little doodles in the margins and occasional words underlined multiple times for emphasis:

Hey little analyst!

So Sho told me you're coming in tomorrow for your first real training session with the pros. That's AWESOME! But he also mentioned you have a 'serious case of bad self-esteem and anxiety' (his words, not mine!), so I decided to make you a little something :D

Here's the thing though: being nervous means you CARE, and caring is what makes someone great at what they do. You're walking into a room with professionals tomorrow, and yeah, that's intimidating!! But you know what? They wouldn't have invited you if they didn't see something worth investing in. :))

Remember, asking questions is WISDOM! Admitting when you don't know something is STRENGTH! The best analysts aren't the ones who pretend to have all the answers, they're the ones brave enough to say "I don't know, but I want to find out."

I don't know if that's what you struggle with, but it's still sound advice! You've got this! And even if tomorrow is hard (which it might be, because learning always is, and with Sho it's even harsher), that just means you're growing. Keep being awesome!!!

P.S. - Sho's terrible at expressing feelings, but he really does believe in your potential. He wouldn't put in this much effort otherwise. Don't tell him I told you that though, he'll give me a LOOK and then I'll have to sleep on the couch :(

P.P.S. - The donut is supposed to be you. As a cat. Because Sho showed me a picture he took of you and said you remind him of a stray kitten he found once.

Good luck tomorrow! Rock on!!!

- Yamada

Izuku read the note three times, each time feeling something warm and tight unfold in his chest. Yamada. He didn't know anyone named Yamada. The only person he knew that reminded him of the name was that author of the article he'd read at the library weeks before, when he met Tsukauchi-sensei. But Sho had to be Aizawa-sensei, since he gave him the donut. Which meant Yamada was someone close enough to Aizawa to know about today's meeting, someone who cared enough to send an encouraging message to a kid he'd never met.

The green cat-donut stared back at him, and despite everything (the weight of expectations, the fear of disappointing the professionals who were giving him this chance) Izuku found himself smiling.

Someone had taken the time to make this. To write an encouraging note full of cute symbols and enthusiastic underlining. To remind him that the professionals working with him actually believed in his potential.

He carefully set the note on his desk where he could see it, a tangible reminder for when his anxiety would inevitably spike again.

"Thank you, Yamada-san," Izuku said quietly to his empty apartment. "Whoever you are."

Then, because he was fifteen and stressed and running on nervous energy, he took a picture of the donut with his phone before finally taking a bite. It was matcha-flavored. Of course it was. And surprisingly delicious.

The rest of his Saturday vanished into analysis-driven focus. Izuku sat at his desk surrounded by papers, his laptop screen showing frame-by-frame video footage from one of the drives Aizawa-sensei had given him, trying to apply everything he'd learned that morning to actual data.

The case files Aizawa had provided were far more comprehensive than anything he'd accessed before. Not just after-action reports, but communications logs showing real-time decision-making, body camera footage from multiple heroes, civilian witness statements taken within hours of the incident, and even quirk analysis reports documenting the physical capabilities of everyone involved.

It was overwhelming. It was glorious. It was also revealing just how much his previous analysis had been based on incomplete information.

He chose an operation that involved a hostage situation in a bank. Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods had responded to a villain who'd taken six people hostage with what appeared to be a size-manipulation quirk. The operation had concluded successfully (all hostages rescued, villain captured), but the after-action report noted several tactical decisions that had increased risk unnecessarily.

Izuku started with his hypothesis: Stress-induced cognitive limitations impair complex decision-making during field operations, leading to tactical errors that could be prevented with external analytical support.

Then he began documenting evidence systematically, forcing himself to note not just confirming data but contradictory information as well.

Observation 1: Mt. Lady's initial size transformation blocked three exit routes, potentially trapping civilians inside the bank. This appeared to be an error in spatial assessment: she didn't account for how her quirk would affect building access.

Evidence supporting cognitive load hypothesis: The body camera footage shows Mt. Lady made the transformation decision within three seconds of arriving on scene. Communications logs indicate she received multiple urgent updates about hostage location during this window. High information density + time pressure + immediate threat = conditions known to impair spatial reasoning.

Contradictory evidence: Witness statements indicate Mt. Lady regularly uses this transformation strategy. This might not be a stress-induced error but rather a habitual tactical approach that hasn't been corrected through training. Could be institutional/training issue rather than cognitive limitation.

Revision needed: Can't determine if this is cognitive load without comparing her decision-making in low-stress vs. high-stress scenarios. Need more data on Mt. Lady's typical tactical patterns.

By midnight, Izuku had filled fifteen pages of notes on just the first operation, and he was only halfway through the incident timeline. His eyes burned from staring at screens, his hand cramped from writing, and his mind felt simultaneously exhausted and electrically alive.

This is what real analytical work looks like, he realized. Not the exciting flash of pattern recognition, but the grinding discipline of systematic documentation and evidence evaluation.

His phone buzzed with a text from his mother: It's very late, sweetheart. Please get some sleep. I'm not home, still on a shift, but I know you're awake!

Izuku glanced at the clock (12:47 AM) and winced. But the work was calling to him with the same compulsive pull that had driven years of hero notebook documentation.

Just one more observation, he promised himself. Just document this next decision point, then I'll stop for the night.

Four hours later, he finally collapsed into bed with his laptop still open, video footage paused on a frame showing Kamui Woods mid-swing through a broken window. He'd documented forty-three distinct decision points, identified sixteen potential errors, and found solid evidence for cognitive load effects in exactly three of them.

Three out of sixteen. His hypothesis was holding up far worse than he'd hoped.

But that's okay, he reminded himself as sleep pulled him under. That's what testing does. It shows you where your ideas don't match reality. Tomorrow I'll figure out why the other thirteen don't fit the pattern.

Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest, but Izuku's mind wouldn't shut off. He had barely slept. The case files haunted him through breakfast, through his attempt to help his mother with household chores, through his half-hearted effort to work on actual school assignments.

Later that afternoon, his phone buzzed with an email notification. Aizawa's name appeared on the screen, and Izuku's heart rate spiked as he opened it.

Subject: Additional Reading

Midoriya,

You're probably discovering your hypothesis doesn't fit the data as cleanly as you expected. This is normal. Don't try to force the evidence to match your predictions.

Attached are three papers on coordination failures in emergency response. Read them before our next meeting. Pay attention to the distinction between individual cognitive limitations and systemic coordination problems.

Also attached: preliminary report on tonight's incident. Smokescreen hit a warehouse in the industrial district, exactly as predicted. Before you get excited, understand that correct predictions don't validate incorrect reasoning. We'll discuss why at our next session.

- Aizawa

Izuku's hands shook as he downloaded the attachments. Smokescreen had struck again, in the location both he and official investigators had identified as probable. His pattern recognition had been accurate.

But Aizawa's warning echoed in his mind: Correct predictions don't validate incorrect reasoning.

The preliminary report was sparse, just basic facts about the incident with no analysis yet. But even those facts revealed complexity Izuku hadn't anticipated. Smokescreen had targeted a warehouse storing hero support equipment, but he hadn't stolen anything. He'd disabled security systems, triggered alarms, and vanished before heroes arrived.

It looked like another test. Another data point in whatever research the villain was conducting.

Izuku wanted desperately to dive into analyzing the new incident, to add it to his growing understanding of Smokescreen's methodology. But Aizawa's words from yesterday morning were clear: his job right now isn't to solve cases. It's to learn methodology.

The assigned operations came first. The exciting active case had to wait.

It was one of the hardest acts of discipline Izuku had ever attempted.

Monday morning brought reality crashing back in the form of school, which felt increasingly surreal after the weekend's intensive analytical work. Sitting in a classroom learning simplified versions of concepts he'd been applying to real cases felt like being forced to play with toys after handling professional tools.

"Midoriya." His mathematics teacher called on him (which was rare) during a discussion of statistics. "Can you explain the difference between correlation and causation?"

"Correlation is when two variables change together," Izuku responded automatically, his mind still partially occupied with the case files. "Causation is when one variable directly causes changes in another. Correlation doesn't imply causation because both variables might be influenced by a third factor, or the correlation might be coincidental."

The teacher nodded in surprised approval, but Izuku barely noticed. He was thinking about the Smokescreen case, about how the villain's attacks correlated with increased hero deployment in certain districts, but that didn't necessarily mean the hero deployment caused the attacks.

"Very thorough, Midoriya-kun," the teacher said. "You seem particularly engaged with this topic today."

From the back of the classroom, Izuku heard Bakugou's derisive snort. "Probably thinks he's gonna use statistics to play detective or some shit."

A few classmates laughed, the sound sharp and familiar. Izuku forced himself not to react, to keep his expression neutral even as his face flushed. Don't engage. Don't give them ammunition. Just get through the day.

But lunch period was worse. Word had apparently spread about something (Izuku wasn't sure what, maybe just the fact that he'd attended a lecture at UA, but HOW did they know that?), and his classmates' mockery had gained a new edge.

"I heard Deku actually had the nerve to ask a question at UA," someone announced loudly enough for the whole cafeteria to hear. "Can you imagine? Like anyone there gave a shit what a quirkless middle schooler thinks about hero work!"

"What did he even say?" another classmate laughed, not even looking at him. "Let me guess, 'Please notice me, I'm really smart even though I'm quirkless'?"

Izuku focused on his lunch with intense concentration, as if his rice and vegetables were the most fascinating thing in the world. Just ignore them. You know your work has value. Aizawa and Tsukauchi took you seriously. That's what matters.

But the words still stung, drilling into the familiar wound of being fundamentally unwanted in any space related to heroes.

"Leave him alone." The unexpected defense came from a new kid, one of the quieter students who usually stayed out of social conflicts. Izuku didn't know his name yet. "What's it matter to you what he does on weekends?"

Bakugou's attention shifted like a predator finding new prey. "Oh? You defending Deku now? What, you think his little notebook hobby is gonna amount to something?"

"I think it's none of our business," the boy said, his voice not wavering under Bakugou's glare.

The confrontation defused when a teacher walked past, but Izuku caught the boy's eye across the cafeteria and mouthed "thank you." The other boy just shrugged, as if defending someone from mockery was no big deal.

It was a small thing. One person out of thirty who maybe didn't think his analytical interests were delusional. But it made the rest of the day slightly more bearable.

That evening, Izuku threw himself back into the case files with renewed determination. The coordination failures paper Aizawa had sent was dense with terminology and case studies, but it was also revelatory.

The paper documented dozens of incidents where tactical errors emerged not from individual cognitive limitations but from systemic coordination breakdowns. Different agencies using incompatible communication equipment. Heroes trained in different strategic frameworks trying to improvise unified responses. Command structures that assumed single-agency response failing when multiple organizations had to work together.

The patterns were clear: as incidents increased in complexity, requiring coordination across multiple heroes and agencies, the likelihood of coordination failures increased exponentially. Not because individuals made poor decisions, but because the system lacked effective mechanisms for rapid collaborative decision-making.

Key insight from reading: Individual hero capability is only one variable in operational success. System-level coordination capabilities can override individual competence: even highly skilled heroes will struggle in scenarios where institutional structures don't support effective collaboration.

Application to my hypothesis: My original focus on cognitive limitations missed this entirely. I was analyzing individual decision-making without accounting for the systemic context those decisions occurred within.

New question: Can external analytical support address coordination failures, or does that require systemic institutional changes that are beyond what individual analysts can influence?

The question bothered him as he worked through the third case file. If the problems were truly systemic, embedded in institutional structures and inter-agency politics, then what role could someone like him play? Analysis could identify problems, sure, but it couldn't force organizations to change their fundamental operational structures.

But it could inform change, he argued with himself. If someone could demonstrate that coordination failures caused X% of errors, that would create pressure for systemic reforms, right?

Maybe. Or maybe institutions were too resistant to change, too invested in existing structures, too unwilling to acknowledge that their methods needed fundamental revision.

The thought was discouraging, but he pushed through it. Focus on what you can control. Document the evidence rigorously. Build analysis that's compelling enough that people can't ignore it.

By Tuesday evening, he'd completed the first case analysis and compiled a comprehensive document that was simultaneously more rigorous and less confident than anything he'd written before.

Revised Analysis Summary of Operation 1:

Original hypothesis: Heroes consistently make repeated tactical errors due to stress-induced cognitive limitations that impair complex decision-making during field operations.

Findings: Evidence supports cognitive load as a contributing factor in approximately 18% of identified tactical errors (3 out of 16 analyzed decision points in Operation 1).

However, majority of errors appear linked to other factors:

• Coordination failures between multiple agencies (32% of errors)
• Training gaps in specific tactical scenarios (23% of errors)
• Equipment/technology limitations (14% of errors)
• Individual hero psychology/habits unrelated to stress response (13% of errors)

Conclusion: Cognitive load is a factor in hero tactical errors, but not the primary factor initially hypothesized. Original hypothesis was too narrow and failed to account for systemic and institutional variables that significantly impact operational outcomes.

Limitations of this analysis:

• Small sample size (only 1 operation analyzed)
• Limited to completed operations with comprehensive documentation
• No access to heroes' subjective experience during decision-making
• Cannot control for confounding variables in real-world scenarios
• Possible confirmation bias in identifying which decisions constitute "errors"

Revised hypothesis for future testing: Multi-agency hero operations experience higher rates of tactical errors due to coordination failures that emerge from incompatible communication systems, divergent training frameworks, and absence of unified command structures during spontaneous crisis response.

Reading over his work, Izuku felt a strange mixture of pride and disappointment. Pride because this was far more rigorous than anything he'd produced before. Disappointment because his original brilliant insight had been reduced to "cognitive load matters, but less than I thought, and there are lots of other important factors."

It felt like a retreat from certainty into ambiguity. But it was honest ambiguity, based on actual evidence rather than assumptions.

This is what the scientific method looks like, he reminded himself. Not confirming your genius, but discovering your ignorance and trying to reduce it incrementally.

Wednesday afternoon brought an unexpected development. Izuku was home, working on homework, when his phone buzzed with a call from an unknown number. He almost ignored it (spam calls were common), but something made him answer.

"Midoriya-kun?" Tsukauchi's voice came through clearly. "Do you have a moment to talk?"

Izuku's heart rate spiked. Had he forgotten to save the detective's number? "Yes! Yes, of course, Tsukauchi-sensei. Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine. I just wanted to follow up on something. You predicted Smokescreen would target the industrial district, and he did. I'm curious about your reasoning rather than my team's."

The question felt like another test.

"Uh, I identified a geographic pattern in his previous attacks. They formed a rough circle around the central hero dispatch center, each one testing response capabilities from different districts. The industrial district was one of the few areas within that pattern he hadn't targeted yet. Combined with the timing intervals between attacks, it seemed like the most probable next location."

"Good spatial analysis," Tsukauchi acknowledged. "But tell me this: does the fact that your prediction was correct mean your understanding of Smokescreen's ultimate goals is also correct?"

The question was a trap, and Izuku recognized it immediately. "No, sir. Correct predictions about behavior patterns don't validate assumptions about underlying motivation. I predicted where he might strike based on geographic distribution, but I don't actually know why he's conducting this research or what he plans to do with the data he's gathering."

"Excellent." Tsukauchi sounded genuinely pleased. "You're learning to separate different levels of analysis. Pattern recognition is really valuable, but it's distinct from motivational understanding. Too many analysts conflate the two."

"Has the investigation revealed anything about his actual goals?"

"I can't discuss active case details," Tsukauchi replied, and Izuku could hear the smile in his voice. "But I can tell you that your geographic analysis has been useful in directing patrol resources. The hit rate on your pattern predictions is higher than some of our more experienced analysts initially achieved. Congrats!"

The praise made Izuku's chest warm, but he forced himself to stay grounded. "I had the advantage of starting from scratch without institutional biases."

"True. Fresh perspectives have value. But so does knowing when your perspective is incomplete." Tsukauchi paused. "How's the case file analysis Aizawa gave you during our last encounter going?"

"It's... humbling," Izuku admitted. "My original hypothesis doesn't fit the data as well as I thought it would. I'm finding that I conflated multiple different problems into one explanation."

"That's a natural part of the research process. Your first hypothesis is rarely your final one. The key is being willing to revise based on evidence rather than clinging to your initial assumptions."

They talked for another ten minutes, with Tsukauchi asking pointed questions about Izuku's methodology and offering suggestions for how to distinguish between different categories of tactical errors. The detective's guidance was more subtle than Aizawa's blunt criticism, but equally valuable.

Thursday brought another Smokescreen incident, this time hitting a telecommunications hub on the city's east side. The attack followed the same pattern: infiltration, data gathering, escape before heroes arrived. The news coverage was becoming almost routine, with reporters now treating it as an ongoing story rather than isolated incidents.

Izuku watched the coverage with analytical detachment, noting details but not allowing himself to dive into comprehensive analysis. Assignment first. Active case second. Discipline.

But Friday afternoon, everything changed.

Izuku was walking home from school when his phone buzzed with an urgent alert. Not news. An official emergency broadcast.

VILLAIN ALERT: Multiple coordinated attacks in progress across Musutafu commercial district. Villains include Caravan, Smokescreen, BubblePop and others. Civilians advised to shelter in place. Heroes responding.

His first instinct was to pull up news feeds, to start tracking the response patterns, to analyze what was happening in real-time. But he was standing on a public street, with the sounds of emergency sirens already cutting through the afternoon air. He was probably in active danger.

Then his phone rang. Aizawa.

"Where are you?" the hero demanded without preamble.

"Walking home from school. About six blocks from the commercial district."

"Get somewhere safe and stay there. This is NOT observation material. You are in an actively dangerous area."

The call disconnected, leaving Izuku standing on the sidewalk with his heart pounding. Multiple coordinated attacks. That wasn't Smokescreen's pattern. He always worked alone, always kept operations isolated.

Unless this was what all his research had been building toward.

Izuku's mind churned even as he started walking quickly toward his apartment. Smokescreen had spent months mapping hero response patterns, testing coordination between agencies, identifying weaknesses in communication systems. If he'd been gathering data for a coordinated strike designed to exploit those weaknesses...

Stop, he commanded himself. You don't know that. You're pattern-matching based on incomplete information. Get home. Stay safe. Let the professionals handle it.

But his feet carried him up to his apartment, where he immediately turned on the news and opened his laptop. Not to conduct active analysis (he'd promised he wouldn't), but he couldn't just sit here ignorant while something massive was happening.

The news coverage was chaotic. Five different locations under simultaneous attack. Multiple villains working in coordination. Heroes scrambling to respond across a geographically dispersed crisis. Exactly the kind of multi-agency coordination nightmare his analysis had identified as a systemic weakness.

His phone buzzed with a text from his mother: At work but monitoring news. Are you safe at home?

Yes, I'm home. Doors locked. I'm fine.

Another text, this time from Aizawa: Do NOT go anywhere near the commercial district. Do NOT attempt any kind of independent analysis while this is active. I mean it.

Izuku sent back an affirmative response, then forced himself to close the tactical analysis software he'd unconsciously opened. You're not helping. You're a student watching professionals work. Stay out of the way.

But he couldn't stop his mind from seeing the patterns. The attack locations formed a geometric distribution that would split hero response capacity. The timing ensured maximum civilian presence in target zones. The coordination suggested months of planning and intelligence gathering.

This was Smokescreen's endgame. It had to be.

The news showed heroes arriving at different attack sites: Mt. Lady engaging one villain while Endeavor tackled another three blocks away. Backdraft coordinating civilian evacuations while Death Arms held a perimeter elsewhere. Each hero making individually sound tactical decisions, but without unified coordination turning it into strategic chaos.

There was no coordination visible in the coverage. Each hero team was responding to their local crisis, creating five separate operations instead of one unified response.

His laptop screen showed police scanner feeds, news helicopter footage, social media posts from civilians in the affected areas. The data was overwhelming, contradictory, filled with errors. But patterns were there for anyone trained to see them.

One villain was controlling terrain with an earth-manipulation quirk. Another was creating barriers with what looked like crystal formations. A third was using some kind of sonic attack. The fourth and fifth were harder to identify from available footage.

But none of them were using smoke.

Where's Smokescreen? Izuku wondered. If this is his operation, where is he? He was mentioned on the alert, wasn't he?

The question nagged at him as he watched heroes gradually gain control of the situation. The coordinated attack was causing chaos, but it wasn't actually succeeding at any clear objective. Civilians were being evacuated successfully. Property damage was significant but manageable. No one had been seriously injured yet.

It looked like a spectacle designed to tie up hero resources without achieving concrete goals.

This could be another test, Izuku realized with growing certainty. Not the final plan. Another data-gathering exercise. He's watching how heroes respond to coordinated multi-point attacks, seeing how they allocate resources.

The realization was thrilling and terrifying. If this wasn't the endgame, what was? How much more research did Smokescreen need before he made his actual move?

His phone rang again. Tsukauchi this time.

"Midoriya-kun, are you somewhere safe?"

"Yes, sir. I'm at home."

"Good. I need you to stay there and not attempt any analysis of this situation. Are we clear?"

"Crystal clear, sir. Aizawa already called me."

"Good. I'm serious, Midoriya. I know your instincts are probably screaming at you to start analyzing, but this is an active tactical situation. We can discuss more of it if Aizawa permits at our next session."

"I understand," Izuku said, and he meant it. "I'm just watching the news like everyone else."

"Good. Stay safe."

The call ended, leaving Izuku with the peculiar sensation of being simultaneously constrained and validated. They knew his instincts would push him toward analysis. They knew he'd be seeing patterns. And they were taking him seriously enough to explicitly tell him to stay out of it rather than assuming he wasn't relevant.

The attack wrapped up within two hours. All five villains escaped, with no civilian casualties and minimal property damage beyond broken windows and damaged infrastructure. The news declared it a mixed success: heroes had protected people effectively, but failed to capture any perpetrators.

But Izuku saw something else: a perfectly executed research operation disguised as a villain attack. Smokescreen had gathered comprehensive data on multi-point crisis response without revealing his own position or capabilities. He now knew exactly how Musutafu's hero system responded to coordinated attacks, which would make planning an actual operation exponentially easier.

They need to know this, Izuku thought, then immediately reconsidered. They probably already know. Tsukauchi isn't stupid. He's seen the same patterns I have.

Still, the urge to document his observations was overwhelming. Izuku compromised by opening a fresh notebook page and writing a single sentence:

Hypothesis: Today's coordinated attack was systematic data collection rather than actual criminal operation, designed to map multi-agency response to simultaneous crises.

Then he closed the notebook and forced himself to work on school homework instead. If his hypothesis was right, they'd discuss it tomorrow. If it was wrong, he'd learn why his pattern recognition had led him astray.

Either way, the answer would come through proper process rather than impulsive analysis.

Chapter Text

The thing about exhaustion was that it crept up slowly. It was like water rising an inch at a time, until suddenly you were drowning.

Izuku had been so focused on proving himself worthy of Aizawa and Tsukauchi's time that he hadn't noticed when "working hard" crossed the line into "working destructively." It had been gradual. An hour less of sleep here, a skipped meal there, 'just one more page of writing before bed' that turned into twenty.

Weeks into his mentorship, he was running on fumes, not even realizing he'd burned through them.

Saturday morning arrived too quickly, sunlight stabbing through his curtains. Izuku's phone alarm had been screaming for five minutes before his brain registered the sound. He fumbled for it with hands that trembled slightly, a detail he told himself was just morning grogginess and definitely not a warning sign.

6:47 AM. The training session was at 9:00. Plenty of time.

Except his body disagreed with that assessment. Standing up required more effort than it should have, his legs protesting as if he'd run a marathon instead of just spending another night hunched over his desk. The face that greeted him in the bathroom mirror looked wrong. Dark circles under his eyes that concealer couldn't quite hide, a grayish tint to his skin that spoke of too many nights with too little rest.

When was the last time I slept for more than five hours? The thought drifted through his mind without really landing. Tuesday? Monday? It didn't matter. The work mattered.

His current projects spread across his desk were a masterpiece of organized chaos. The three case files from Aizawa (he knew it was only one per week, but he got excited, okay??), his ongoing Smokescreen analysis (because he couldn't quite let it go even though he knew he should), and his revised hypothesis documentation. All color-coded, cross-referenced, and annotated until the original text was barely visible beneath his additions.

The work was good. He knew it was good. Every conclusion supported by evidence, every assumption explicitly noted, every limitation acknowledged. But somehow "good" never felt like "good enough."

What if Tsukauchi finds a flaw I missed? What if Aizawa thinks I'm not taking this seriously? What if they decide I'm not worth the investment after all?

The thoughts circled endlessly, picking at his confidence until all that remained was the gnawing certainty that he needed to work harder, be better, prove himself worthy of the opportunity he'd been given.

Breakfast was a protein bar eaten standing up while reviewing his notes. His mother had left for her early shift already, which meant no gentle reminders to eat properly or concerned looks when she caught him working past eleven at night.

The train ride to the police headquarters passed in a blur. Izuku's mind kept running through his work, finding new connections, identifying gaps in his reasoning, constructing arguments for why his conclusions were sound even as doubt gnawed at their foundations. His leg bounced continuously, the nervous energy that had nowhere else to go manifesting in constant motion.

A woman sitting across from him was staring. He should probably stop. But stopping meant sitting still with his thoughts, and his thoughts were dangerous territory waiting to detonate.

So his leg kept bouncing.

The police headquarters building seemed more imposing than usual, or maybe that was just his exhaustion talking. The security checkpoint felt like it took forever, the guard's casual questions about his visit requiring more thinking than should have been necessary.

"Conference Room C, right?"

Izuku blinked. Had he already told them where he was going? "Yes. Sorry. Thank you."

The corridors stretched longer than he remembered. His backpack felt heavier. By the time he reached the conference room, his hands were shaking enough that opening the door required conscious effort.

Tsukauchi looked up from his usual spot at the table, and something in his expression shifted immediately. Not alarm exactly, but a sharpening of attention that suggested he'd noticed something Izuku had been trying to hide.

"Midoriya-kun! You're early. That's... good."

The pause before "good" felt deliberate. Izuku tried to smile, to project the confidence and competence he'd been cultivating and showing in the last meetings, but his face felt stiff and uncooperative.

"I wanted to make sure I had everything organized before we started." He sat down carefully, arranging his materials on the table with hands that trembled just slightly. Not obviously. Probably not obviously. "I've completed the analysis of all three case files, plus I've been tracking the coordination patterns across multiple operations to test my revised hypothesis."

"All three?" Tsukauchi's eyebrows rose fractionally. "Aizawa-san assigned one per week. We weren't expecting more than one today."

Oh.

That was. That was a good point.

"I just... I wanted to be thorough. Show that I'm taking this seriously, you know?" he frantically explained.

"I don't think anyone here doubts your commitment." The detective's tone was careful, the kind of careful that adults used when they were trying not to alarm you. "But let's wait for Aizawa before we begin. He should be here soon."

The minutes stretched. Izuku found himself organizing and reorganizing his notebooks, his papers, his color-coded tabs. His vision swam ever so slightly. He blinked hard, forcing his eyes to focus. Probably just the harsh overhead lighting. Or maybe he needed to drink more water. When had he last had water?

The protein bar from this morning sat like lead in his stomach, a reminder that he couldn't actually remember the last time he'd eaten a full meal. Lunch at school had become a nightmare these past weeks. It had started just with the mean comments, which he could handle. But now, between Bakugou and his friends' increasingly aggressive 'accidents' that destroyed his food and the teachers who never quite managed to intervene, it was easier to just skip eating until dinner.

And dinner... well. His mother always looked so happy when he told her about his progress, about the people who were taking him seriously. She finally stopped blaming herself for his quirklessness. He couldn't make her worry again.

Not eating lunch made him so nauseous he couldn't even bear to look at the food.

So he told her he ate at school. And she believed him, because why wouldn't she? He'd been managing this for years. This was just a temporary situation. Once he proved himself, once he had a secure position, once he didn't have to worry about losing this opportunity, then he could worry about things like sleep schedules and meal planning.

The door opened, and Aizawa walked in, and Izuku's entire world narrowed to the need to appear capable and definitely not like someone who was barely holding themselves together.

"Midoriya." The hero's dark eyes swept over him, cataloging details in that unsettling way he had. "You look terrible."

So much for hiding it.

He sighed. "I'm fine." The words came out automatically, a reflex honed by years of deflecting concern. "Just stayed up a bit late finishing the analysis. I wanted to make sure it was thorough, and I was a bit too anxious to sleep."

Aizawa's expression didn't change, but something about his posture suggested skepticism. He set a paper bag on the table (another offering from the mysterious Yamada-san, probably) and settled into his chair with the kind of deliberate slowness that suggested he was buying time to assess the situation.

"Show us what you've prepared, then."

Right. The analysis. He could do this. This was what mattered.

Izuku pulled out his documentation, and his hands were definitely shaking now. Not a lot. Just enough to make the papers rattle slightly as he spread them across the table. Just enough to be noticeable.

He pretended not to notice Aizawa staring.

"I've completed analyses of all three case files you assigned." His voice sounded strange in his own ears, slightly hoarse. When had that happened? "I focused on the cognitive load hypothesis as instructed, but I also tracked patterns across operations to identify whether the errors were systematic or situational."

"All three," Aizawa repeated, echoing Tsukauchi's earlier surprise. "In one week."

"I got too excited." Not a lie, technically. "I wanted to make sure I was doing all I could."

"Walk us through the first one."

It was the operation led by Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods. A hostage situation, six civilians, one villain with a size-manipulation quirk. He'd spent so much time on this analysis alone, reviewing footage frame by frame, cross-referencing logs, building timelines that accounted for every decision point.

The analysis was solid. He knew it was solid. He'd checked and double-checked every conclusion, traced every piece of evidence back to its source, and documented every assumption and limitation.

So why did explaining it feel like swimming through mud?

"The initial response showed clear signs of stress-induced limitations." His words felt too fast, tumbling over each other in his rush to get them out before his exhausted brain lost track of the thread. "Mt. Lady's transformation blocked three exit routes, which suggests a spatial assessment failure under stress. The body camera footage shows she received multiple urgent updates in a three-second window, which exceeds what someone can usually process under these immediate threat conditions."

He was rambling. He could hear himself rambling, words spilling out in that rapid-fire way that happened when his anxiety overrode his ability to communicate clearly. But he couldn't seem to stop, couldn't seem to slow down, because if he stopped, he might not be able to start again.

"However." He pulled up another document, his hands fumbling slightly with the pages. "The witness statements indicate this is her standard transformation strategy, which suggests a training issue rather than a cognitive limitation. I cross-referenced six previous operations and found she uses this approach in eighty-three percent of cases, regardless of stress level."

"Which means?" Aizawa's voice cut through his spiraling explanation with surgical precision.

"Which means I was wrong." The admission should have hurt, but mostly he just felt tired. "My original hypothesis didn't account for habitual patterns that persist independently. The error isn't caused by stress. It's caused by training that reinforces flawed approaches."

"That's good analysis." Tsukauchi's tone carried genuine approval. "You're learning to distinguish between different types of limitations. Good job."

The praise warmed something in Izuku's chest, but it was a distant warmth, muted by the exhaustion that had seeped into his bones. He should feel proud. He should feel validated. Instead, he just felt like he needed to keep going, to prove the analysis wasn't a fluke, to demonstrate that he could maintain this level of work consistently. Still, he smiled at the man and continued.

"The second case file shows a different pattern." He pulled out more documentation, his vision swimming slightly as he tried to focus on the text. "Endeavor's response to the downtown incident. Here, the cognitive load correlation is stronger because..."

The words were right there in his notes. He'd written them himself. But retrieving them felt impossible.

"Because the communication breakdown occurred specifically during high-stress intervals." The sentence came out stilted, mechanical, as if he were reading from a script he'd memorized but didn't quite understand. Which was a shame, really, because he did understand. "The gaps in coordination align with periods of maximum threat intensity, which suggests genuine stress-induced limitations rather than training issues."

"Midoriya." Aizawa's voice seemed to come from very far away. "When did you last sleep?"

The question derailed his explanation completely. He'd been about to discuss the third analysis. He had charts. He had data. He had everything organized and ready to demonstrate his thoroughness.

But his brain had apparently decided that Aizawa's question was more important than the presentation he'd spent days preparing.

"I slept." The answer came automatically, defensive. "I sleep."

"How many hours?"

Numbers. Numbers should be easy. Except when he tried to count back the hours, tried to remember the last time he'd actually gotten a full night's rest, the timeline blurred into an indistinct smear of late nights and early mornings.

"Enough." Not an answer. They both knew it wasn't an answer. "I'm managing fine."

"That's not what I asked."

Tsukauchi was watching him with an expression that looked too much like concern, and concern was dangerous because concern led to questions and questions led to admissions that would make them think he couldn't handle this.

"Five hours. Maybe six." Izuku forced the words out, trying to make them sound reasonable. "Last night. But I've been sleeping fine otherwise."

It was a lie. They all knew it was a lie. But maybe if he just pushed through this session, proved the work was good despite the exhaustion, they'd see he could manage.

"Show me the third analysis." Aizawa's tone was flat, unreadable. Not quite approval, not quite criticism.

Right. Third analysis. Multi-agency coordination failure, five heroes responding to a coordinated villain attack. He'd spent six hours on this one alone last night, analyzing how the stress grew exponentially when heroes had to coordinate without a unified command structure.

His hands pulled out the relevant documentation on autopilot, muscle memory doing the work his exhausted brain couldn't quite manage. The papers spread across the table in what should have been an organized array but probably looked more like chaos.

"The key finding is that the effects of stress amplify in proportion to the number of independent actors requiring coordination." The words came from somewhere, his preparation maybe, the part of his brain that had memorized the important points. "Individual heroes might manage stress effectively, but the system lacks mechanisms for distributed loads across multiple simultaneous operations."

It was a good insight. He knew it was a good insight. He'd worked hard to develop it, to support it with evidence, to document how it played out across multiple scenarios.

So why did Aizawa's expression look like that?

"Tsukauchi." The hero's voice was very quiet, very controlled. "Can you verify something for me?"

The detective leaned forward slightly, his attention sharpening in a way that made Izuku's stomach clench with undefined dread.

"Midoriya-kun." Tsukauchi's tone had shifted into something more formal, more professional. The way he probably sounded during actual interrogations. "I'm going to ask you some questions, and I need you to answer honestly. A reminder that my quirk will tell me if you're lying."

Oh no.

Oh no no no no. Uh oh.

This was bad. This was very bad. Because if Tsukauchi asked the right questions, if he pushed past Izuku's careful deflections, then everything would unravel. They'd see how much he was struggling, how much he'd been hiding, how completely he'd been failing at the basic task of taking care of himself.

They'd see he wasn't worth the investment.

"When did you last eat a full meal?"

Izuku's mind scrambled for an answer that was technically true but not damning.

"I ate breakfast this morning." True, right? A protein bar was technically breakfast.

"A full meal," Tsukauchi repeated, emphasis making it clear he knew exactly what Izuku was doing. "Not a snack. Not something grabbed between tasks. When did you last sit down and eat an actual meal?"

Dinner. It had to have been dinner. Except when he tried to remember his last dinner with his mother, the memory felt frustratingly distant. Yesterday? The day before? She'd been working late shifts all week, and he'd told her not to worry about him, that he'd eat leftovers or make something simple.

Had he actually eaten those leftovers? Or had he told himself he would and then gotten distracted by analysis work?

"I... Tuesday? I think Tuesday?"

It was now Saturday. Tsukauchi's expression did something complicated that suggested the detective was doing math that didn't add up to acceptable answers.

"When did you last sleep more than five hours?"

That one was easier to dodge. "Last night."

"That's not what I asked."

Why did professionals have to be so precise with their language? It made deflection so much harder!!!

"I don't... I'm not sure. A week? Maybe?"

The admission came out smaller than he intended, and he hated how it made him sound. Irresponsible. Reckless. Like someone who couldn't be trusted with basic self-care, let alone important analytical work.

"Have you been injured recently?"

The question seemed to come from nowhere, derailing Izuku's spiraling anxiety into confusion. "What?"

"Injured. Hurt. Have you sustained any kind of physical harm in the past few weeks?"

An image flashed through his mind, unbidden. Bakugou slamming him into the wall between classes, the dull ache that had lingered in his shoulder for three days. Someone's foot "accidentally" kicking his leg hard enough to make him stumble, the bruise on his shin that still hurt when he pressed it. The shove down the stairs that he'd caught himself from but twisted his wrist in the process.

Small things. Manageable things. Nothing worth mentioning to adults who had real problems to deal with.

"I'm fine."

Tsukauchi's eyes narrowed fractionally. "That's not an answer to my question."

Damn it. Damn it! Why did the detective have to be so good at this? But then again, the man was a detective. That fact didn't make this less frustrating.

"Nothing serious." Also technically true. None of it had been serious enough to require medical attention. Just bruises and minor strains that would heal on their own. "Just school stuff. It's fine."

"School stuff," Aizawa repeated, his voice taking on a tone that Izuku had learned to associate with barely contained anger. Not at him, hopefully. Probably. "Explain school stuff."

"It's just... people don't like that I'm, uh, that I'm interested in analytical work." The explanation felt inadequate even as he said it. "Some students think it's... they think it's stupid. For someone quirkless to try."

"And they express that opinion how?"

By destroying his notebooks. By knocking his lunch on the floor. By shoving him into walls when teachers aren't looking and "accidentally" tripping him in the hallways. By making sure everyone knows he's delusional for thinking he could ever contribute to hero work.

"Verbally, mostly. Sometimes there's shoving. Or they mess with my food. But it's not, uh, I've dealt with this for years. I know how to manage it."

Managing it meant skipping lunch to avoid having his food destroyed. Managing it meant taking longer routes between classes to minimize the chances of running into Bakugou and his troupe. Managing it meant keeping his head down and his mouth shut and pretending he didn't hear the constant mockery.

"You're being bullied." Aizawa's statement of fact, not a question. "And you've been skipping meals because they're targeting your food."

When he put it like that, it sounded so much worse. Made it seem like a bigger deal than it was.

"It's safer than dealing with them. I eat dinner with my mom. That's enough, r-right?"

"One meal a day is not enough." Tsukauchi's voice had taken on an edge that suggested his professional detachment was being severely tested. "Especially not for a growing teenager who's trying to work at this intensity."

The concern was there again, that dangerous type that led to interventions and questions and complications that would make everything harder. He needed to deflect, needed to redirect their attention back to the work, back to the analysis that proved he was worth keeping around despite the complications of his personal life.

"The analysis is good though, right?" His voice came out more desperate than he'd intended. "The work is thorough. I documented everything properly. That's what matters."

"No," Aizawa said flatly. "What matters is that you're fifteen years old and you're destroying yourself."

"I can handle it." The protest sounded weak even to his own ears. "I just need to work harder..."

"Stop." The command in Aizawa's voice cut through Izuku's spiraling justification. "You're not listening. The work is excellent. Your analysis is professional-quality. You've already proven yourself."

The words should have been a relief. They should have been a validation. Instead, they just made the exhaustion hit harder, made it clear how much effort he'd been expending for something he'd apparently already achieved.

"But you're running yourself into the ground trying to prove something you've already demonstrated." Aizawa's expression hadn't softened exactly, but something in his voice suggested this wasn't just criticism. It was more like concern. "And that would make you useless as an analyst."

The statement landed like a bucket of ice water, shocking in its bluntness.

"I damaged my eyes permanently because I pushed myself too hard at your age." Aizawa's hand moved to his face. "Chronic dry eye. I have to use eye drops every day. Sometimes I can't use my quirk at all. I did that to myself because I thought I had something to prove."

Oh.

"You're making the same mistake." The hero's voice was flat. "You've confused self-destruction with professionalism. They're not the same thing."

Izuku's throat felt tight, his vision blurring in ways that had nothing to do with exhaustion. Because he'd spent weeks convinced he needed to work himself to the bone to be worthy of this opportunity, and apparently all he'd been doing was demonstrating that he didn't understand the most basic principle of sustainable work.

"I'm sorry." The words felt inadequate. "I didn't mean to. I just wanted to show that I could. That I was worth the time you're investing."

"By destroying your ability to actually do the work?" Tsukauchi's voice was gentler than Aizawa's but no less serious. "That's not how this works."

Something hot and uncomfortable was building behind Izuku's eyes, the kind of pressure that preceded tears he absolutely could not afford to shed right now. Not in front of people who were already questioning his judgment. Not when he needed to prove he could handle this.

But his body, apparently tired of taking orders from his brain, decided to betray him anyway.

His vision blurred. The room tilted sideways in a way that had nothing to do with perspective and everything to do with his body finally giving up on the unsustainable schedule he'd been forcing on it. An adrenaline crash.

"Midoriya?" Tsukauchi's voice seemed to come from very far away.

He tried to answer. Tried to say he was fine, tried to hold it together just a little longer, tried to prove he could manage despite the evidence to the contrary.

Instead, his legs simply stopped supporting him.

The world went sideways. There was a confused moment of weightlessness, his hand reaching out for the table edge but missing. Then strong hands caught him before he could hit the floor, lowering him.

"I've got him." Aizawa's voice, closer than it should be. "Tsukauchi, grab an emergency kit. Do you have a blood pressure cuff somewhere around here?"

Izuku tried to process what was happening, but his brain felt like it was moving through molasses. Hands were checking his pulse, his breathing, tilting his head to the side.

"Pulse is elevated but steady. Breathing is shallow. No sign of head trauma." Aizawa's voice was clinical, detached in a way that suggested he'd shifted into hero mode. "Likely syncope from exhaustion or malnutrition."

"His blood pressure is very low." Tsukauchi's voice joined from somewhere nearby.

They were assessing him. Running through emergency protocols because he'd been stupid enough to push his body past its limits and collapse like some fragile civilian who couldn't handle stress.

"Tsukauchi, get him some juice. Or anything sweet, really. Midoriya. Can you hear me?" Aizawa's voice cut through the fog. "If you can hear me, squeeze my hand."

His hand was being held by Aizawa's. When did that happen? He tried to squeeze but managed something probably more of a twitch than anything substantial.

"Good. Open your eyes. You're safe. Your body just gave out on you."

Safe. The word echoed strangely in his mind. He wasn't safe. He was proving he couldn't handle this, proving he was too weak, too fragile, too fundamentally inadequate for the work they'd been trusting him with.

"Let's get him to the rest area." Tsukauchi's voice was steady, calm.

Being lifted with the kind of care that suggested Aizawa was stronger than his frame implied. The world swam in nauseating circles as he was carried somewhere, laid down on something soft.

A couch. He was on a couch. When had the conference room gotten a couch?

"We're in the station's restroom," Tsukauchi explained, apparently reading his confused expression. Or maybe he spoke out loud. "It's quieter here. More private."

Privacy for his humiliation. How thoughtful.

"I'm going to elevate your legs." Aizawa's hands were efficient, professional, lifting Izuku's legs and propping them on what felt like a cushion. "Increase blood flow to your brain. Just breathe slowly."

Breathing. Right. He could do that.

The world gradually stopped spinning quite so violently. His vision cleared enough to see Aizawa crouched beside the couch, his expression carefully neutral in a way that suggested he was very deliberately not showing whatever he was actually feeling.

Tsukauchi appeared with something that looked like an electrolyte drink. "Small sips. Your stomach probably isn't going to be happy with you, but you need it."

The bottle was pressed into his hand. Izuku managed to lift it to his lips, take a sip. The liquid felt foreign in his mouth, like his throat had forgotten how to swallow. But he managed it. Then another sip. Then another.

"Good." Tsukauchi's approval was quiet. "Keep going. Slowly."

They watched him drink like he was a child who needed supervision for basic tasks. Which, given that he'd just collapsed from self-inflicted malnutrition and exhaustion, was probably fair.

"Midoriya." Aizawa waited until Izuku met his eyes before continuing. "I'm going to be very clear about something. Though I'm not happy right now, you didn't fail today."

The distinction felt meaningless when he was lying on a couch in a police station's rest room because he'd worked himself into the ground.

"The work you presented was excellent," Tsukauchi added. "Your analysis was thorough, your conclusions sound. None of that has changed."

"But I collapsed." The words came out hoarse, embarrassing in their weakness.

"Because you've been running yourself into the ground for weeks." Aizawa's voice was flat, matter-of-fact. "That's a sustainability problem, not a capability problem. Do you understand the difference?"

Izuku wasn't sure he did. But he nodded anyway because arguing seemed like it would require more energy than he had available.

"Here's what happens next." Aizawa sat back on his heels, his expression serious. "We're establishing structure. Non-negotiable structure. Because you've proven you can't be trusted to maintain basic self-care while pursuing this work. At least not for now."

The words stung, even though they were probably true.

"Rule one: you document your sleep and meal schedule daily and then share them with us weekly. If we see you slipping, we will intervene immediately."

"Okay." His voice came out small.

"Rule two: maximum of two active projects at any time. You choose which two, but only two. No exceptions."

That made sense. That was reasonable.

"Rule three: no all-nighters without coordination with us first. We're creating a group chat specifically for this."

A group chat to monitor his sleep schedule, like he was a toddler who couldn't be trusted. Humiliating. Necessary, but humiliating.

"Rule four: If you're not maintaining basic health standards, training pauses until you are. Not as punishment. As protection."

"I understand."

"Rule five: The school situation gets addressed. We're documenting everything for potential action, and we're intervening with your school administration."

The spike of panic at that must have shown on his face because Aizawa's expression hardened slightly.

"I know you think intervention will make things worse. It might, in the short term. But the current situation is dangerous and unsustainable. We're not leaving you in an environment where you're being systematically harmed."

"They'll know I told." The protest came weakly. "They'll escalate."

"They'll know that adults are finally paying attention." Tsukauchi corrected. "That's different. And sometimes situations get worse before they get better. But staying silent isn't working. Also, know that we'll probably have to talk more about this, though. We need more details."

Izuku didn't have the energy to argue. Didn't have the resources to explain that sometimes the devil you knew was better than the chaos of intervention.

"Your mother needs to know what's been happening." Aizawa pulled out his phone. "All of it. We're calling her now."

"No!" The word burst out before Izuku could stop it. "Please. She's been so happy. I can't ruin that."

"You're not ruining anything. You're letting her help you." Tsukauchi's voice was gentle but inflexible. "That's what parents do."

"She'll blame herself." The admission felt like betrayal. "When I was diagnosed quirkless, she blamed herself. She's only recently stopped. If she finds out how bad things are, she'll just start again."

"Maybe." Aizawa's expression didn't soften. "But that's her burden to carry, not yours. You're fifteen. You shouldn't be protecting your parent from reality. I'm calling her, and you can tell her yourself, or we can explain. But she needs to know."

What choice did he have? They'd already decided. "I'll tell her." His voice came out defeated. "Can I at least do it myself?"

Aizawa studied him for a long moment before nodding slowly. "We'll call her. You explain. But if you minimize anything, I'm stepping in."

"Okay."

Tsukauchi handed him a phone, Inko's contact information already pulled up. Izuku's hands shook as he pressed the dial, part exhaustion, part dread for the conversation he was about to have.

The phone rang twice before his mother's voice came through, warm and familiar and completely unaware of what was coming.

"Hello?"

"Mom." His voice cracked on the single syllable, betraying more than he wanted to reveal. "It's me. I'm at the police headquarters. I'm okay, but something happened."

The pause that followed felt eternal, heavy with the weight of a mother's sudden fear.

"What happened? Are you hurt? Should I come there?" The questions came rapid-fire, each one stabbing through Izuku's chest with fresh guilt.

"I'm not hurt. Not badly. I just fainted during training, and they checked me over, and uh, Mom, I need to tell you some things. Things I should have told you before."

"I'm listening, baby." Her voice had shifted into that particular tone of forced calm that she used when she was terrified but trying not to show it.

Where did he even start? How did he explain weeks of self-destructive behavior, months of harassment, years of normalizing abuse because that was just easier?

"I've been working too hard." The admission felt inadequate. "Like, way too hard. Not sleeping enough. Not eating properly. I just wanted to prove I was worth Aizawa-sensei's and Tsukauchi-sensei's time, that I deserved this opportunity, and I got so focused on that I forgot to take care of myself."

"Izuku..." Her voice carried a mixture of concern and confusion. "Why didn't you tell me? I thought you were doing well. You said everything was fine."

"I know. I'm sorry. I just..." He forced himself to continue, even though every word felt like pulling teeth. "You've been so happy lately. Seeing me work with professionals, seeing me pursue this path. I didn't want to ruin that by admitting I was struggling."

"Baby, you could never ruin anything by being honest with me." The gentle rebuke in her tone made his eyes sting. "What else? There's more, isn't there?"

Of course she knew. She always knew.

"School has been worse lately." The words came haltingly, each one requiring effort to force out. "Since people found out about my analytical work. They think it's stupid. Delusional. They've been destroying my lunch a lot, o-or spilling things on it. And, uh, just general harassment, really. So I've just been skipping lunch rather than dealing with it."

The silence on the other end was deafening.

"How long?"

"How long what?"

"How long has this been happening? The food situation."

Izuku swallowed hard. "A few weeks? Maybe a month? I eat dinner with you, so I thought it would be enough, but apparently..."

"Apparently you've been starving yourself." His mother's voice had gone very quiet, very controlled in a way that suggested she was barely containing something intense. "What else? Is it just the food?"

No. It wasn't just the food. And lying now would just make everything worse when the truth inevitably came out.

"Sometimes there's pushing. Shoving between classes. Someone tripped me down the stairs last week, but I caught myself, just twisted my wrist a little. My notebooks keep disappearing, so I have to rewrite things from memory..."

Each admission felt like a failure, like proof he couldn't handle basic school attendance without becoming a victim worth pitying.

"And you didn't tell me any of this." It wasn't a question. Fact stated that carried a weight of hurt beneath the surface. "Why, Izuku? Why would you hide this from me?"

"Because you finally stopped blaming yourself!" The words burst out, three weeks of suppressed anxiety finding voice. "You finally stopped feeling guilty about my quirklessness. You've been so happy seeing me succeed. I couldn't ruin that. I couldn't make you worry again. I thought I could handle it myself. I've been handling it for years, I just..."

"Just what?"

"I just pushed too hard trying to prove I deserved this opportunity." His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "And now I've made everything worse by collapsing in front of the professionals who are supposed to be training me. I've made a fool of myself."

"Izuku Midoriya." His mother's voice had taken on a tone he rarely heard, steel wrapped in love. "Listen to me very carefully. You are never, NEVER a burden to me. Do you understand? Never."

"But..."

"No buts. I'm your mother. Worrying about you isn't something you need to protect me from. It's my job. It's my privilege. And I failed you by not noticing how bad things had gotten."

"You didn't fail me." The protest came automatically. "You've been working so hard, and I was hiding it on purpose, you couldn't have known..."

"I should have known." Her voice cracked slightly. "I should have seen the signs. I should have pushed when you said everything was fine. That's on me, not on you."

"It's not your fault." Tears were burning behind Izuku's eyes now, threatening to spill over despite his best efforts to contain them. "None of this is your fault."

"And it's not yours either." The firmness in her voice cut through his spiraling guilt. "The bullying isn't your fault. Your body breaking down isn't your fault. You're fifteen years old and you're trying to navigate situations that adults struggle with. You needed help, and instead of asking for it, you tried to carry everything alone."

The accuracy of that observation made something crack in Izuku's chest, the careful walls he'd built around his vulnerabilities crumbling under the weight of his mother's gentle but inexorable understanding.

"I'm sorry." His voice broke on the apology, and he couldn't stop the tears anymore. They spilled over, hot and shameful, proof that he was exactly as weak and incompetent as his classmates always said. "I'm so sorry. I just wanted to make you proud. I wanted to show that I could do this, that being quirkless didn't mean I couldn't contribute. I didn't want to be a burden."

"Oh, baby." His mother's voice was thick with emotion. "You've never been a burden. Not once. Not ever. And I've always been proud of you. Not because of what you can do, but simply because of who you are."

The words should have been comforting. They were supposed to be comforting. But all they did was make Izuku cry harder, great gasping sobs that shook his entire frame and made it impossible to speak.

He was vaguely aware of Aizawa taking the phone, having a quiet conversation with his mother that Izuku couldn't focus on through his breakdown. Tsukauchi appeared beside him with tissues and a water bottle, his expression carefully neutral in a way that suggested he was giving Izuku space to fall apart without judgment.

"Your mother is coming to pick you up." Aizawa's voice cut through the fog eventually, once Izuku had cried himself into exhausted hiccups. "She's leaving work now. She'll be here in about twenty minutes."

Izuku nodded mutely, unable to trust his voice.

"Do you understand all of the rules I presented to you before the call?"

He nodded again.

"Do you agree to follow them?"

What choice did he have? It was follow the rules or lose the opportunity entirely. And despite everything, despite the exhaustion and the humiliation and the fear of what intervention would mean for his school life, he couldn't give this up.

"Yes, sir. I agree."

His mother arrived in seventeen minutes, which meant she'd definitely been speeding and probably crying while driving based on her red-rimmed eyes and slightly disheveled appearance. She swept into the rest room like a force of nature, all soft curves and fierce protectiveness, and immediately pulled Izuku into a hug tight enough to make breathing difficult.

He clung to her like he was five years old again and she was the only safe thing in a world that had gotten too big and too scary.

"My baby." She was definitely crying now, her voice muffled against his hair. "My sweet boy. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm sorry." It seemed to be the only thing he could say, the only response that made sense. "I'm so sorry, Mom."

"Shh. No more apologies. We're going to fix this. Together. Do you understand? Together."

She pulled back just enough to cup his face in her hands, her green eyes searching his expression with the kind of intensity only mothers possessed.

"Mrs. Midoriya." Tsukauchi stepped forward with the professional courtesy that seemed to be his default mode. "I'm Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa. I've been working with your son on analytical methodology."

Inko's expression brightened slightly with recognition. "Izuku talks so much about you. About how much he's learned from your guidance."

"He's an exceptional student. Which is why we're taking this situation seriously." The detective's tone was carefully neutral. "I'd like to document the evidence of harassment. The medical assessment of his condition, photos of visible injuries, and his own testimony. I'd like to build a case."

"A case?" Inko's voice sharpened. "Legal action?"

"If necessary. At a minimum, formal complaints with the school board and educational oversight organizations. Your son has been systematically denied access to food, physically harmed on school grounds, and subjected to ongoing harassment that teachers have witnessed without intervention. That's a failure of the school's duty of care."

Watching his mother's expression shift from concern to cold fury was somewhat terrifying. He'd seen her upset before, but this was different. This was controlled anger, focused and purposeful in a way that suggested someone was about to have a very bad day.

"They witnessed it." Not a question. A statement of fact that promised consequences.

"According to Midoriya-kun's testimony, yes. Teachers have seen the harassment and chosen not to intervene."

"I see." Inko's voice had gone very quiet, very calm. "Then we'll be having conversations with the school administration. And the teachers. And possibly lawyers, depending on their response."

She turned to Aizawa, her expression shifting into something more deferential but no less determined. "You said on the call you'd be visiting the school as well?"

"I did. And I will." The hero's tone made it clear this wasn't up for debate. "Schools creating hostile environments that prevent quirkless individuals from pursuing hero-adjacent careers is something UA's legal department takes very seriously."

"Especially," he continued, "when those hostile environments directly interfere with a student's ability to learn."

"Thank you." Inko's voice was thick with emotion. "For taking this seriously. For not dismissing it as normal school dynamics."

"There's nothing normal about what your son has been enduring." Aizawa's expression was hard. "And there's nothing acceptable about adults enabling it through inaction."

Izuku watched this conversation happen around him, feeling strangely detached from it all. Like he was observing from a distance rather than being the subject of discussion. The exhaustion was catching up with him again, making everything feel fuzzy and distant.

"We should get him home." Tsukauchi's voice seemed to come from very far away. "He needs rest and proper food, and this conversation can continue once he's had both."

"Of course." Inko's hand found Izuku's, squeezing gently. "Come on, baby. Let's get you home."

Standing up required more effort than it should have. His legs felt like they belonged to someone else, unsteady and unreliable. His mother's arm around his waist was probably the only thing keeping him upright.

"Before you go." Aizawa held out the paper bag he'd brought earlier, the one that had been sitting forgotten during this entire ordeal. "My husband sent food. Actual food, not just sweets. Make sure he eats it."

Inko accepted the bag with a small nod of gratitude. Inside, Izuku could see containers of what looked like actual meals. Rice, protein, vegetables, and some sweets. The kind of food his body desperately needed and his exhausted brain couldn't quite process wanting.

"We'll see you next Saturday," Tsukauchi said. "Same time. Come prepared to show your logs and prove you've been following the rules. We're not resuming training until you do."

"Yes, sir." The response came automatically.

"And Midoriya?" Aizawa's voice stopped him at the door. "You did good today. The analysis, not the collapsing. Don't do that again."

It wasn't quite approval. But it wasn't disappointment either. It was acknowledgment that despite everything, despite the breakdown and the revelations and the new restrictions, his work had value.

That was something.

The car ride home was quiet, his mother's hand occasionally reaching over to pat his knee or squeeze his hand. She didn't push for conversation, didn't demand explanations beyond what had already been revealed. Just drove with that focused intensity that suggested she was processing, planning, preparing for battles to come.

Izuku stared out the window, watching the city slide past in a blur of familiar scenery that suddenly felt distant and strange. Everything had changed in the span of a few hours. The careful walls he'd built around his vulnerabilities had crumbled. The systems he'd developed for surviving had been deemed insufficient. The future he'd been working toward had been put on hold pending proof he could take care of himself.

It should have felt like failure. Instead, it mostly just felt like exhaustion.

"We're going to make some changes at home," Inko said eventually, her voice gentle but firm. "I've been working too many evening shifts. That's going to change. I need to be home for dinner. I need to see you eat. I need to know what's actually happening in your life instead of just accepting 'fine' as an answer."

"Mom, your work..."

"Is less important than your health." She cut him off with the kind of finality that meant arguing would be pointless. "I've been telling myself that working extra hours was helping you, giving you what you needed. But what you needed was me. I wasn't there when you needed me, and that stops now."

"You've always been there." The protest came weakly.

"I was physically present. But I wasn't paying attention. I let guilt over your quirklessness make me too passive, too willing to accept your reassurances that everything was fine." She glanced at him briefly before returning her attention to the road. "I'm done being passive. You're going to have structure and oversight and probably more parental presence than you want. That's not negotiable."

Part of Izuku wanted to argue, to insist he could manage with less supervision. But the larger part, the part that was so tired of carrying everything alone, just felt relieved.

"Okay." The acquiescence came easier than he'd expected. "Okay, Mom."

They pulled into their apartment complex, the familiar building suddenly feeling more like a sanctuary than it had in weeks. His mother helped him up the stairs, her arm steady around his waist, and unlocked their door.

The apartment smelled like home. His mother's cooking, old books, the faint scent of laundry detergent. Safe. Familiar. His.

"Go sit on the couch." Inko guided him gently in that direction. "I'm going to heat up what Yamada-san sent, and you're going to eat every bite." She disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Izuku to sink into the couch cushions that seemed to embrace him with the weight of exhaustion finally acknowledged.

His phone buzzed. He fumbled it out of his pocket, expecting another text from Aizawa with rules or restrictions or reminders.

Instead, it was from an unknown number, though the enthusiastic tone made the sender obvious:

Hey, little listener! Sho told me what happened. Just want you to know: you're gonna be okay!! Rest up, eat good food, and remember that the pros believe in you! That includes me, even though we haven't met yet! Take care! - Yamada

Despite everything, despite the exhaustion and the humiliation and the dread of what Monday would bring, Izuku found himself smiling slightly.

Someone he'd never met had taken the time to send encouragement. Had called him "little listener" like it was an endearment rather than a dismissal. Had reinforced that needing help was okay.

Maybe they were right. Maybe collapsing wasn't the end of his analytical career. Maybe it was just the wake-up call he'd needed to understand that sustainability mattered as much as capability.

His mother returned with a container of food, still steaming from the microwave. Rice, grilled chicken, vegetables in some kind of sauce that smelled amazing despite his lack of appetite.

"Eat." She settled beside him on the couch, her own exhaustion evident in the lines around her eyes. "Every bite. I'm watching."

It was simultaneously infantilizing and comforting. Being monitored like a child who couldn't be trusted. Being cared for like someone whose well-being mattered.

Izuku picked up his chopsticks and took a bite. Then another. Then another. His stomach, shocked by the arrival of actual food, protested briefly before accepting that yes, apparently they were doing this now.

His mother watched him eat with an intensity that suggested she was cataloguing every bite, memorizing what he needed so she could provide it consistently going forward.

"I'm sorry." She said it quietly, once he was halfway through the container. "For not seeing this sooner. For letting you carry so much alone. For being so focused on my own guilt that I missed yours."

"You don't have anything to apologize for." The response came automatically.

"Yes, I do." She reached over to brush his hair back, the gesture achingly familiar. "I'm your mother. It's my job to protect you, even when you're trying to protect me. I failed at that. But I'm going to do better. We're going to do better. Together."

Together. The word felt foreign and comfortable all at once. He'd been trying to do everything alone for so long that the concept of sharing the burden felt almost revolutionary.

"Together," he echoed quietly.

She smiled then, watery but genuine, and pulled him into a side hug that was careful of the food container but fierce in its protectiveness.

"We're going to figure this out, baby. The school situation, the work balance, all of it. You're not alone anymore."

Izuku leaned into her warmth and let himself believe it.

Chapter Text

The first week under The Rules™ was way harder than he'd expected.

Monday morning started with his phone alarm at 6:30 AM, followed immediately by a text from Aizawa. Izuku blinked at the screen through sleep-crusted eyes, his brain still foggy as he tried to make sense of the notification glowing in the dim light of his room.

Aizawa: Midoriya. Sleep log?

Right. The documentation. Izuku fumbled for his notebook, the one specifically designated for the so-called 'self-care documentation,' nearly knocking over the All Might figurine on his nightstand in the process. His fingers felt clumsy and thick as he typed out his response, hyper-aware that someone was actually waiting for it. Someone was checking on him.

Izuku: Morning! 8 hours (10:30 PM to 6:30 AM). Woke up twice but fell back asleep.

He took a deep breath, staring at the sent message like it might suddenly reveal some hidden meaning. This was really happening. Not only that, but the chat was named "Training Oversight" which felt... weird? The formal title sat uncomfortably in his message list between "Mom" and a nearly dead group chat from a failed study group attempt last year.

Tsukauchi's response came within a few minutes, and Izuku could almost hear the detective's measured tone through the text.

Tsukauchi: Good start, Midoriya-kun! Remember to log meals as well.

Aizawa's next response was characteristically blunt.

Aizawa: Better. Keep it consistent.

Izuku stared at his phone, something warm and deeply uncomfortable settling in his chest. They were actually checking. Actually paying attention. The little "read" indicators under his messages felt like tiny spotlights, illuminating him in a way that made his skin prickle with nervous energy.

Izuku: Okay! I'll send it all at the end of the day in one message.

Part of him wondered if they'd get bored of monitoring him. If this was temporary interest that would fade once he proved he wasn't worth the effort. He'd seen it before. Teachers who seemed invested at first, classmates who'd been friendly until they realized associating with the quirkless kid came with social costs. What if he was just a project they'd drop when it became inconvenient?

He shook his head hard enough to make his curls bounce, trying to physically dislodge the thoughts. They wouldn't have set this up if they didn't mean it. Probably. Maybe. The uncertainty sat in his stomach like a stone.

Breakfast was salmon onigiri with miso soup that his mom had prepared before she left for her morning shift. A bright yellow sticky note was attached to the container, her rounded handwriting declaring: Eat every last bite! I love you! ♡ The note was unnecessary since she'd already told him both things three times that morning, hovering by the door with that worried crease between her eyebrows. But it made him smile anyway, even as his throat got tight.

The food turned to ash in his mouth once he remembered that school was going to be a problem.

He knew it was going to be a problem the moment he walked through the gates and felt eyes tracking him. Not the usual dismissive glances or the careful way most students pretended he didn't exist. This was different. Sharper. More deliberate. Like being watched by predators deciding if you were worth the energy to hunt.

Word had spread somehow. Maybe someone had seen his mother's furious phone call to the principal a few days ago, her voice carrying through the administrative office windows. Maybe one of the teachers had let something slip in the faculty room. But the whispers started immediately, following him through the hallways like wasps circling something that had disturbed their nest.

"Did you hear Deku got his mommy involved?"

"Pathetic. Can't even handle school without running to adults."

"I heard he's trying to get people suspended over nothing."

Each comment landed like a small cut, the kind that didn't bleed much but stung anyway. Izuku kept his eyes forward, his backpack straps gripped tight enough that his knuckles went white. He catalogued each whisper automatically, his brain filing them away even as his chest grew tighter with each step.

Bakugou was waiting by Izuku's locker when he rounded the corner, arms crossed and expression dark in a way that promised nothing good. The explosive blonde wasn't alone. Two of his usual followers flanked him, forming a wall that Izuku would have to navigate through. The hallway seemed to empty around them, other students suddenly finding reasons to be elsewhere with the practiced ease of people who'd learned to detect incoming storms.

"So." The word came out sharp, dangerous, Bakugou's red eyes boring into him with an intensity that made Izuku want to take a step back. "You actually did it. You actually went crying to adults."

Izuku's hands tightened on his backpack straps until the fabric cut into his palms. Every instinct screamed at him to deflect, to minimize, to somehow make this not be happening. His throat felt tight, words tangling before they could form properly in his mouth. The familiar panic was rising, the kind that made his thoughts scatter like startled birds.

"I d-didn't go crying to anyone." His voice came out smaller than he wanted, the stutter emerging despite his desperate efforts to sound calm. Professional. Like someone who deserved to be taken seriously. "I collapsed because I'd been skipping meals. I told my mom the truth."

"The truth." Bakugou's laugh was bitter, sharp-edged enough to cut. "You mean you ratted out everyone who's been calling out your delusional bullshit."

"I mean I explained that my lunch keeps getting destroyed and t-teachers watch it happen without doing anything about it." Izuku forced himself to meet Bakugou's eyes even though everything in him wanted to look away, wanted to stare at the scuffed linoleum floor, wanted to be literally anywhere else. The other boy's gaze felt like standing too close to a fire. "That's not, that's not ratting anyone out. That's stating f-facts."

Why did his voice have to shake? Why couldn't he sound confident for once? Just once, he wanted to stand up to Kacchan without his words trembling, without his stutter betraying how scared he actually was. But his throat kept closing up, his tongue felt too thick, and he hated himself a little bit more with each wavering syllable.

"Facts." Bakugou stepped closer, close enough that Izuku could see the muscle jumping in his jaw, and Izuku fought the urge to step back. Fought the urge to make himself smaller. "Here's a fact for you then, since you like them so much: you're a nobody. Quirkless. Worthless. And no amount of running to adults is going to change that."

The words hit exactly where they were designed to hit, like Bakugou had a quirk for finding the softest, most vulnerable parts of someone and driving his fist straight through. Worthless. Nobody. The same words he'd heard for years, and they still hurt just as much as the first time Kacchan had snarled them at him in the park when they were four years old and the world had learned to divide itself into the worthy and the worthless.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, a physical reminder that cut through the spiral of his thoughts. Right. He wasn't completely alone anymore. Even if they'd eventually realize he wasn't worth the trouble, even if this was temporary, right now someone was checking on him. Someone cared enough to set up a group chat called "Training Oversight" and actually respond to his messages.

"I need to get to class." Izuku stepped around Kacchan carefully, not quite turning his back, hyper-aware of every inch of space between them. His hero analysis instincts kicked in automatically. Calculating angles, measuring distances, tracking the position of Bakugou's hands in case those palms started crackling with familiar orange sparks. "Excuse me."

He made it three steps before Bakugou's voice followed him, low and dangerous.

"This isn't over, Deku."

Izuku's hands shook as he pulled out his phone once he'd rounded the corner, out of sight. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, and doubt crashed over him in waves. What was he supposed to say? 'Help, Kacchan said mean things to me'? That sounded pathetic. They'd realize they were wasting their time on someone who couldn't even handle basic school interactions. On someone who got scared by words, for god's sake, not even actual violence.

But Aizawa had been explicit during their last session, his dark eyes serious in a way that suggested he meant every word: If the school situation escalates, you tell us immediately.

Maybe if he just documented it clinically, like data in one of his notebooks, it wouldn't sound so weak. Like he was reporting an observation rather than asking for help he didn't deserve.

Izuku: Bakugou confronted me at my locker. No physical contact but he made it clear he knows about the intervention. He said "this isn't over." I'm documenting it like you said.

The response came within a minute, and Izuku wondered distantly if Tsukauchi was already at his desk or if he was checking his phone during his commute.

Tsukauchi: Did he threaten you directly?

Izuku: Not explicitly. Just implied things would get worse.

Tsukauchi: That's still threatening. Are you safe right now?

The question made something in Izuku's chest feel tight, like someone had wrapped a hand around his lungs and squeezed. Safe. When had he last felt actually safe at school? Not just physically unharmed, but genuinely safe. The kind of safe where he could relax his shoulders, where he didn't have to track exits and calculate response times, where he could eat lunch without wondering if someone would knock his food to the floor.

Izuku: I'm heading to class. Teachers are around.

Tsukauchi: Good. Document everything he says or does today. Every interaction. We're building a file.

Not 'you did the right thing.' Not 'I'm sorry you're dealing with this.' Just instructions. Clinical. Professional. Which was fine. That's what this was, a professional arrangement. He was an analytical resource they were training, not... not someone they cared about personally. He shouldn't expect comfort from people who were just training him out of academic interest or whatever reason they actually had.

The tightness in his chest didn't ease, but Izuku shoved it down and headed to first period.

English class was normally something he enjoyed. The teacher made language learning feel engaging, and Izuku liked the puzzle-like quality of grammar rules and vocabulary patterns. But today, he could feel eyes on him constantly. Whispers that cut off when he turned his head. The teacher kept glancing at him with an expression that looked uncomfortable, like she'd rather be anywhere else.

Probably regretting that she had to deal with this situation now. Probably wishing Izuku had just kept his mouth shut like he was supposed to, like a good quirkless kid who understood his place in the world's hierarchy.

The lunch period was worse.

Izuku had packed his own lunch that morning, following his mother's detailed instructions about proper nutrition. She'd stood at the counter with him, walking him through each component like it was a critical mission briefing. Rice, chicken, vegetables, an apple. Simple but adequate, carefully portioned to meet the nutritional requirements in the documentation Tsukauchi had provided.

He sat at his usual table in the corner, as far from Bakugou's group as the cafeteria's geography would allow, and pulled out his lunch container. The blue plastic felt almost fragile in his hands, and he was hyperaware of the weight of it, the reality that this might be the only food he'd get today depending on what happened in the next few minutes.

The peace lasted exactly ninety seconds.

"Look, Deku brought lunch." One of Bakugou's friends announced loudly enough for half the cafeteria to hear, his voice carrying that particular tone of performative cruelty that demanded an audience. "Think he's gonna actually get to eat it this time?"

Izuku's hands tightened on his chopsticks hard enough that the wood bit into his fingers. Don't engage. Don't give them ammunition. Just eat your food and document what happens later. Be professional about this. Treat it like data collection.

"Nah, leave him alone." Another voice, surprisingly. Izuku looked up to see the same boy who'd defended him last week. Takahashi, though Izuku didn't know his first name yet. He had the kind of face that didn't stand out in a crowd, pleasant and unremarkable, but his expression was set in stubborn lines. "He's not bothering anyone."

"Oh, so you're defending the snitch now?" The sneer in the question was audible.

"I'm saying maybe we should focus on our own food." Takahashi's voice stayed level, reasonable, like he was discussing the weather rather than potentially putting a target on his own back.

The tension ratcheted up several notches. Izuku could feel it, the way conversations around them had stopped, everyone watching to see how this would play out. The cafeteria had gone quiet in that particular way that preceded either violence or humiliation, and his heart was beating too fast, his palms starting to sweat.

Then a teacher walked past the cafeteria entrance. Mr. Hayashi, one of the few who sometimes looked uncomfortable when things got bad. The moment broke like a soap bubble popping.

Bakugou's group returned to their own table with dark looks that promised future retribution. Takahashi caught Izuku's eye and nodded slightly. Izuku nodded back, his throat too tight to speak, gratitude warring with shame that someone else had to defend him. Again.

He ate his lunch quickly, forcing himself to finish every bite even though his stomach was churning with anxiety. The chicken tasted like cardboard, the rice felt too dry, and the apple was almost painfully sweet. But he documented each mouthful mentally, knowing he'd need to report this later.

The rest of the school day passed in a haze of whispered comments and pointed stares. Izuku documented it all with the careful attention he usually reserved for analyzing hero combat footage. Three more instances of verbal harassment. Two instances of teachers clearly hearing comments but not intervening, their gazes sliding away like oil on water. One instance of someone "accidentally" knocking his books off his desk, the textbooks hitting the floor with crashes that made everyone jump and then snicker.

By the time he got home, he was exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with physical exertion. It was the exhaustion of constantly being on guard, of monitoring every word and gesture, of trying to make himself smaller and less noticeable while simultaneously documenting everything for people who expected him to be observant and thorough. His head hurt, his shoulders ached from tension, and he wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep until the world forgot he existed.

His mother was already home when he opened the apartment door, which was new. She'd rearranged her schedule to have evening shifts instead of morning ones, which meant less money. Evening shifts paid slightly less. But she hadn't even hesitated when she'd told him about the change. "I want to be here when you get home," she'd said, like it was the most natural thing in the world to reorganize her entire life around him.

"How was school?" She asked carefully, her eyes searching his face in that way mothers had of reading entire novels in their children's expressions.

"It was school." Izuku set his backpack down with more force than necessary and showed her his mental documentation, running through the incidents while she listened with a growing frown. "No major incidents. Just everyone knows now that adults are paying attention."

Inko's hands tightened on the dish towel she'd been holding, her knuckles going white. "They're going to face consequences." Her voice was quiet but carried an edge that reminded Izuku that his soft-spoken mother had her own kind of strength. "The school. The teachers. All of them."

"Mom, what if that just makes everything worse?" The words tumbled out before he could stop them, before he could package them into something more rational and less desperate. "What if they decide I'm not worth the trouble and just, just stop? What if I'm making a bigger deal out of this than it actually is and everyone realizes I'm just being dramatic?"

The fears sounded even more pathetic spoken aloud, but he couldn't seem to stop. "What if Aizawa-sensei and Tsukauchi-sensei realize I can't even handle basic school without falling apart and decide I'm not worth training? What if..."

His mother's expression softened in a way that made his eyes burn. She crossed the small kitchen in two steps and pulled him into a hug that smelled like her floral shampoo and the faint scent of the restaurant where she worked.

"You're not being dramatic, sweetheart. What's been happening to you isn't normal or acceptable."

"But what if they think it is?" His voice cracked embarrassingly. "What if Aizawa-sensei and Tsukauchi-sensei realize I can't even handle basic school without falling apart and they decide I'm not worth training? What if I'm not actually as capable as they think and they figure that out?"

"Izuku." His mother pulled back to look at him, her hands gentle on his shoulders. "They wouldn't have set up all these structures if they didn't believe in you. People don't invest this much effort in someone they plan to give up on."

"But they might." The words came out muffled, and he hated how small he sounded. "Once they realize how much work I am. How many problems I have. How I can't even take care of myself properly without someone forcing me to document everything."

"That's the anxiety talking," she said firmly. "Not reality. Okay?"

Izuku nodded, not quite believing it but wanting to desperately enough that he could pretend.

Dinner was chicken stir-fry with rice and vegetables, the familiar comfort of his mother's cooking helping to settle his jangled nerves. She asked about his analytical work instead of dwelling on school, about the rules Aizawa had established, about his plans for the coming week. The normalcy of it felt like a lifeline.

"I need to pick two active projects," Izuku explained between bites, watching the way the sauce gleamed on the vegetables. "Maximum two at any time. I was thinking about the cognitive load hypothesis and maybe revisiting the Smokescreen analysis."

"Just two?" His mother's expression was careful, like she was trying not to judge but couldn't quite hide her concern. "You usually have several things going at once."

"That's the problem." Izuku pushed rice around his plate, creating small geometric patterns with the grains. "I was trying to do everything and doing none of it properly. Two projects means I can actually finish things instead of just starting them and then abandoning them when something more interesting comes up."

"That sounds wise." Inko reached over to squeeze his hand, her fingers warm and solid. "I'm proud of you for accepting help."

After dinner, Izuku settled at his desk with his notebooks spread out like a command center. But instead of diving into analysis immediately, he pulled out the documentation packet Tsukauchi had given him a few weeks ago. The packet was thick, professionally bound, and intimidating in its thoroughness.

Guidelines for Civilian Analytical Support: Ethical Considerations and Legal Constraints

The reading was dense, full of legal terminology and case studies that made his head hurt. But the core message was clear: analysis without proper authority was just speculation. Potentially dangerous speculation.

One case study made his stomach turn. A civilian analyst had correctly identified a villain's pattern and shared his analysis online, thinking he was helping. Instead, he'd tipped off the villain, who changed his methods. Three people died in the resulting chaos.

The analyst had meant well. Had been correct. But had caused harm through improper disclosure.

Analysis isn't just about being right. It's about understanding the impact of being right and having appropriate channels for acting on correct conclusions.

Izuku highlighted the passage with his yellow marker, the bright color stark against the serious black text. Being smart wasn't enough. Being right wasn't enough. He needed to understand the whole system, the way his analysis could ripple out and cause unintended consequences.

His phone buzzed against the desk, making him jump.

Tsukauchi: Can you call when you have a moment? Something I'd like to discuss.

Izuku's heart rate spiked immediately, his palms going clammy. Was this about school? Had he done something wrong already in his documentation? Were they already realizing he was too much trouble, too high-maintenance, not worth the effort they were putting in?

Still, he dialed with trembling fingers, because ignoring the message would be worse.

"Midoriya-kun, thank you for calling." Tsukauchi's voice was calm, professional, exactly the same as always. "I wanted to follow up on something from Saturday. Your analysis of the coordinated attack."

The attack. Right. The one he'd forced himself not to analyze in depth because he'd promised to focus on assigned work first, even though the patterns had been itching at his brain for days.

"I d-didn't do a full analysis," Izuku said quickly, the words rushing out. "I know I'm supposed to focus on the case files you assigned. I just made some basic observations because I couldn't help noticing the patterns, but I didn't write anything formal or..."

"I know. And that showed good discipline." Tsukauchi paused, and Izuku held his breath. "But I'm giving you explicit permission now to analyze that incident. We could use a fresh perspective."

Oh.

"R-really?" Izuku's voice came out higher than intended, embarrassingly squeaky. They actually wanted his input? On an active case? This wasn't them testing whether he could follow rules or just humoring him?

"Really. With parameters." The detective's tone shifted slightly, becoming more serious. "This is an active investigation, so there are constraints. You'll work under my direct supervision. Everything you find gets shared with me before anyone else. You don't discuss this analysis with anyone outside our group. And if I tell you to drop a line of inquiry, you drop it immediately. Understood?"

"Understood." Izuku's mind was already racing ahead to the patterns he'd noticed, the questions he'd been suppressing, the connections he'd wanted to explore. "When, when do we start?"

"Tomorrow after school. Come to the station at 4 PM. Bring your notebooks and realistic expectations." There was something almost amused in Tsukauchi's voice. "We're not looking for you to solve the case, Midoriya-kun. We're looking for you to identify patterns we might have missed."

"I'll be there. Thank you, Tsukauchi-sensei."

"Don't thank me yet. This is real work on a real case with real stakes. It's going to be harder than analyzing completed operations from case files."

The warning should have been daunting. Instead, Izuku felt something like hope stirring in his chest, fragile and tentative. Maybe they actually did think he could contribute something valuable. Maybe this wasn't just charity or pity. Maybe.

Tuesday arrived with rain that matched Izuku's mood as he headed to school, his umbrella doing little to keep the drizzle from soaking into his shoes. The documentation from Monday had been thorough and depressing to review in the morning light. Fifteen separate instances of harassment. Three teachers witnessing without intervening. One instance that might qualify as assault if he was willing to use that word, which he wasn't quite ready to do.

All of it catalogued in careful handwriting that Aizawa had called "thorough documentation" in his text response last night.

School was worse on Tuesday. If Monday had been bad, Tuesday was worse in the way that a paper cut was bad but a deeper wound was worse. More painful, more concerning, harder to ignore.

The principal had apparently spent Monday reviewing his mother's formal complaints. Tuesday morning, there was an announcement over the intercom that cut through homeroom like a knife.

"Students are reminded that harassment of any kind is against school policy. Any student found engaging in bullying behavior will face serious disciplinary action."

The announcement was so obviously about him that it might as well have included his name and a helpful arrow pointing to his desk. Izuku could feel every eye in the classroom turning toward him, some curious, some hostile, all uncomfortably focused.

Bakugou's expression when they made eye contact in the hallway between second and third period promised violence. Not immediate violence. They were surrounded by too many teachers for that. But the kind of delayed retribution that would come when the adult supervision inevitably lapsed.

During lunch period, Izuku didn't even make it to his table.

"Well, well." Bakugou materialized in front of him with two of his friends flanking him like aggressive bookends. "If it isn't the school's most special little snitch."

Izuku's hands tightened on his lunch bag until the paper crinkled loudly. Teachers were nearby. He could see Mr. Hayashi at the edge of the cafeteria, pretending to check something on his phone. He was technically safe. Technically.

"I n-need to get to my table."

"Oh, you need to get to your table." Bakugou's smile was all teeth, sharp and predatory. "Did you hear that? Deku needs something. Should we help him?"

Before Izuku could respond, his lunch bag was snatched from his hands with casual cruelty.

"G-give it back." He hated how his voice came out, small and stuttering and pathetic. Hated the way his hands reached for the bag automatically, like he was some kind of trained animal performing a trick.

"Give it back?" Bakugou opened the bag and peered inside with exaggerated interest, making a show of examining the contents. "But Deku, I'm just checking to make sure your food is safe. Wouldn't want anything bad to happen to it, right?"

He upended the bag.

Izuku's lunch spilled across the cafeteria floor in slow motion. Rice scattering like tiny white projectiles, his mother's carefully prepared chicken rolling under tables, his apple bouncing twice before coming to rest in a puddle of spilled juice that someone had left on the floor. The food his mother had woken up early to prepare, the meal she'd packed with such care, reduced to garbage in seconds.

The cafeteria went silent.

"Oops." Bakugou's voice was flat, deliberately emotionless. "Guess you're not eating today after all."

Izuku stared at his ruined lunch, something hot and angry and helpless building in his chest. This wasn't just about food anymore. This was about making sure he knew his place. About punishing him for daring to ask for help, for thinking he could be worth something, for having the audacity to believe that maybe he deserved basic human decency.

"Mr. Bakugou!" A teacher finally intervened, too late to matter. "Principal's office. Now."

Bakugou shrugged with elaborate unconcern. "Whatever."

As he walked past Izuku, he leaned in close enough that Izuku could smell the faint scent of caramel from his quirk, could see the dangerous glint in his red eyes.

"This is just the beginning," Bakugou whispered.

Izuku stood frozen, staring at his scattered lunch. He couldn't eat it. It was on the floor, contaminated, ruined beyond salvaging. He couldn't go without eating, that would violate The Rules and prove he couldn't handle this. He couldn't cry, that would just prove everyone right that he was weak.

He stood there, paralyzed by contradictory imperatives, until Takahashi appeared at his elbow with his own lunch bag.

"Here." He held it out, his expression matter-of-fact. "Take half of mine."

"I c-can't take your lunch." The protest was automatic, ingrained by years of trying not to be a burden.

"You're gonna pass out if you don't eat. Just take it." Takahashi pressed the bag into Izuku's hands with gentle insistence. "I'm Takahashi, by the way. Figured we should actually know each other's names if this is going to keep happening."

"M-Midoriya." The introduction felt absurd given the circumstances, like exchanging business cards at a funeral. "Thank you. I'll pay you back."

"Don't worry about it. Just eat."

Izuku ate half of Takahashi's lunch in the bathroom, sitting on the floor of a stall and trying not to think about how pathetic this was. How this proved he couldn't even handle basic school functions. How maybe everyone was right that he was too weak for this, too fragile, too fundamentally broken to deserve the opportunities he'd been given.

Then he pulled out his phone and documented everything, because that's what he was supposed to do. That's what would prove he was taking this seriously.

Izuku: My lunch was destroyed by Kacchan in front of witnesses and a teacher. Another student (Takahashi) shared his lunch. I ate half a sandwich, some crackers, and some orange slices. Teacher witnessed but only intervened after the food was already ruined. Kacchan was sent to principal's office. He threatened this was "just the beginning."

The response from Aizawa came quickly.

Aizawa: Good documentation. Forward this to your mother and ask her to include it in her formal complaint. Also, eat something substantial after school before coming to the station.

Not 'I'm sorry that happened.' Not 'are you okay?' Just clinical instructions. Which was fine. That's what this was. Professional training, not friendship. He shouldn't expect emotional support from people who were teaching him practical skills.

He tried not to notice how much the lack of comfort stung anyway.

Tsukauchi's response was similarly practical.

Tsukauchi: See you at 4 PM. We'll discuss the school situation then as well.

Izuku made it through the rest of the day on autopilot, his mind already shifting toward the analysis work waiting for him at the station. Real work. Important work. Work that might prove he was actually worth something beyond being a target.

At 3:30, he stopped at a convenience store near the station. The fluorescent lights were too bright, making his headache worse, but he forced himself to eat a rice ball and drink a protein shake while standing in the corner by the magazines. He documented both, taking a photo of the empty wrappers with timestamps before throwing them away.

By 3:55, he was walking into the police station with his backpack full of notebooks and his mind desperately trying to focus on patterns and analysis rather than the humiliation of eating lunch on a bathroom floor.

Tsukauchi was waiting in Conference Room C with case files spread across the table in organized chaos. The detective looked up when Izuku entered, his expression professionally neutral but his eyes sharp.

"Midoriya-kun. How was school?"

"It was school." Izuku set down his backpack and pulled out his incident documentation, his hands shaking slightly. "Kacchan destroyed my lunch. I ate anyway. I documented everything."

Tsukauchi reviewed the documentation with the careful attention of someone who knew how to read between the lines, his eyes tracking across Izuku's careful handwriting.

"This is escalating faster than I'd hoped." He set the papers aside with deliberate care. "We're going to need to consider additional interventions. But for now, let's focus on analysis."

The redirection was obvious but effective. Izuku felt his anxiety ease slightly as he shifted mental gears into analytical mode, his brain grateful for something concrete to focus on besides his own failures.

"The coordinated attack last Friday." Tsukauchi pulled up a map on his laptop, rotating it so Izuku could see clearly. Five locations were marked in red, scattered across the city like drops of blood. "Five simultaneous incidents across different districts. Multiple villains working in coordination. No clear objective beyond chaos and tying up hero resources."

"Which suggests the chaos was the objective." Izuku studied the map, his analytical mind automatically cataloguing patterns in the spatial distribution. "Or more precisely, chaos was the tool they used to test something else."

"That's our working theory. The question is what they were testing." Tsukauchi highlighted the locations one by one, each red dot expanding into detailed incident reports. "Each site had different heroes responding. Each had different civilian densities. Each had different terrain and infrastructure challenges."

"Different variables in the same experiment." Izuku pulled out his notebook, already sketching a framework with quick, precise lines. "They were testing how heroes respond across multiple crisis scenarios with different conditions. Like... like running the same experiment with different factors to see which ones actually matter."

"Exactly. Now here's where I need your perspective." The detective pulled up a timeline, color-coded and detailed. "The attacks were coordinated but not perfectly synchronized. Site A started at 3:47 PM. Site B at 3:51 PM. Site C at 3:53 PM. Sites D and E at 3:58 PM."

Izuku studied the staggered timing, his mind churning through possibilities. Four minutes between A and B. Two minutes between B and C. Five minutes before D and E. The pattern was too deliberate to be accidental.

"That's not random." He tapped his pen against the timeline. "If they all started at the same time, heroes would respond to whichever was closest or highest priority based on standard dispatch. But staggered like this..."

"Heroes commit to the first incidents," Tsukauchi finished, "then get locked in while later attacks unfold. It forces resource allocation decisions in real-time."

"They're not just testing response capabilities." Izuku felt the analysis clicking into place, pieces connecting with satisfying precision. "They're testing decision-making under pressure. Testing the command structure when resources are limited and threats are multiplying faster than they can be addressed."

"Good. Now look at this." Tsukauchi pulled up hero response data, and Izuku leaned forward eagerly.

The data showed which heroes responded to which sites, their arrival times, their coordination patterns. Izuku scanned it with the intensity he usually reserved for new All Might footage, looking for the patterns underneath the surface chaos.

"No coordination between sites." He pointed to the timestamps with growing certainty. "Each hero team operated independently. There was no unified command coordinating across all five incidents."

"Correct. And the result?"

"Inefficiency." Izuku could see it now, clear as day, like suddenly being able to read a language that had been gibberish moments before. "Heroes at Site A could have finished faster and moved to support Site D, but they didn't know Site D needed help because there was no communication sharing real-time updates between locations."

"Exactly. We have heroes, we have communication equipment, we have protocols." Tsukauchi leaned back in his chair, and Izuku noticed the tired lines around his eyes. "But we don't have effective real-time coordination across multiple simultaneous crises. That's the vulnerability Smokescreen and his team were testing."

"So the next attack will exploit that vulnerability." Izuku's chest tightened, the analysis suddenly feeling less like an interesting puzzle and more like a countdown to something terrible. "They'll create even more simultaneous incidents, spread across a wider area, designed specifically to overwhelm our inability to coordinate effectively."

"That's the fear." Tsukauchi's expression was grim, and for a moment he looked less like a professional detective and more like someone carrying a heavy weight. "Which is why we need to identify exactly what they learned and how they'll likely use it."

For the next two hours, Izuku dove into the data with an intensity that felt different from his previous analytical work. This wasn't theoretical. This wasn't about proving himself or impressing his mentors. This was about identifying patterns that might prevent future harm. Real harm, to real people who would die if he got this wrong.

The analysis that emerged was thorough and deeply concerning.

"They learned three key things." Izuku pointed to his notes, organized in careful sections with color-coded highlights. His handwriting had gotten progressively messier as he worked, excitement overriding his usual precision. "First, how long it takes for heroes to commit to an incident. Average response time is four minutes from arrival to full engagement. That's the window where they're still available, still potentially able to move elsewhere."

He flipped to the next page, where he'd drawn a network diagram of hero communication patterns.

"Second, the communication gaps between different agencies and hero teams. There were seven instances where heroes asked for information that other teams already had but didn't share. Seven times where one group didn't know what another group was doing, and that created delays, redundant efforts, missed opportunities."

His finger traced the lines on his diagram, showing the broken connections, the information that should have flowed but didn't.

"Third, civilian evacuation bottlenecks." He pulled out the map he'd annotated, covered in his small, dense notes. "Each site had different evacuation challenges. Narrow streets, limited exits, crowds of confused people. And they tested all of them systematically. They were gathering data on what slows heroes down, what forces them to stay engaged longer."

"So if they wanted to maximize chaos?" Tsukauchi prompted, watching Izuku with an expression that was hard to read.

"They'd create at least seven simultaneous incidents. One more than our typical hero deployment can handle effectively without stretching resources dangerously thin." Izuku was speaking faster now, the pieces fitting together with terrible clarity. "They'd space them geographically so heroes would need at least fifteen minutes to move between locations, ensuring each team stays locked in place. And they'd target locations where civilian evacuation is complicated or time-consuming, forcing heroes to prioritize civilian safety over rapid response."

Izuku looked up from his notes, meeting Tsukauchi's eyes. "But that's not the worst part."

"What's the worst part?"

"None of the villains used their full capabilities." The realization had hit him about an hour into the analysis, and it had made his stomach drop. "Every quirk application was restrained, controlled. They caused damage, yes, but not maximum damage. Not even close. They were gathering data while revealing minimum information about their actual threat level."

The implications hung in the air between them, heavy and ominous.

"So we don't actually know what they're capable of." Tsukauchi said it like a conclusion he'd already reached but needed confirmation on, needed someone else to see it too so he'd know he wasn't being paranoid.

"No. We know what they want us to think they're capable of. But their actual capabilities could be significantly higher." Izuku felt something cold settling in his stomach, the kind of cold that came with understanding something terrible. "The next attack won't be a test. It'll be the real operation. And we won't know what we're actually facing until it's already happening."

Tsukauchi was quiet for a long moment, studying Izuku's analysis with an expression that suggested he was seeing something that worried him. Not the analysis itself. The person who'd produced it. Izuku shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny.

"This is excellent work," the detective said finally, and Izuku felt something unclench in his chest. "Professional quality analysis. You identified patterns my team missed because you weren't constrained by our usual assumptions about villain behavior."

The praise should have felt good. Instead, Izuku just felt tired. Wrung out. Like he'd spent the last two hours sprinting and had only just noticed how exhausted he was.

"But what do we do with it?" The question came out more frustrated than he'd intended, sharper. "I can identify the problem, map out the vulnerabilities, predict the next attack. But I can't fix the coordination failures. I can't change how hero agencies communicate. I can't redesign the entire emergency response system. So what's the point?"

The words hung in the air, more bitter than Izuku had meant them to be. But he was so tired of finding problems he couldn't solve, of seeing what was wrong without being able to fix it.

"No," Tsukauchi agreed quietly. "You can't. But your analysis can inform people who can."

"Will they listen?" Izuku heard the doubt in his own voice, the accumulated weight of years of being dismissed and ignored.

"I don't know." The honesty was almost worse than a lie would have been, but Izuku appreciated it in a distant way. "Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. Sometimes they listen but can't implement changes fast enough. Analysis doesn't come with guarantees, Midoriya-kun. It just increases the probability of better outcomes."

Izuku slumped in his chair, exhaustion that had nothing to do with physical tiredness washing over him like a wave. The fluorescent lights were too bright, making his headache pulse behind his eyes.

"I keep finding problems," he said quietly, staring at his hands rather than meeting Tsukauchi's gaze. "In the hero system, in villain behavior patterns, in coordination failures. I can see all these things that are wrong, all these vulnerabilities that need fixing. But seeing problems isn't the same as solving them."

"No," Tsukauchi agreed. "It's not. But it's the necessary first step. You can't solve a problem you haven't identified."

"But what if identifying isn't enough?" The frustration bubbled up again, hot and bitter. "What if I spend years cataloguing everything wrong with the hero system and nothing ever changes because the people with power to change things don't care about what some quirkless analyst thinks?"

The words came out sharper than he'd intended, carrying weeks of suppressed frustration and fear. Carrying the accumulated weight of every time someone had dismissed him, every time being quirkless had meant his observations didn't matter.

Tsukauchi was quiet for a moment, considering his response with the care of someone who understood that dismissive reassurance would be worse than honest uncertainty. The detective's fingers tapped against his coffee mug, a nervous gesture Izuku hadn't seen from him before.

"You're asking the wrong question," he said finally. "Or rather, you're asking a question that can't be answered until you've built enough credibility that people have to listen."

"How long does that take?" Izuku met his eyes, searching for false comfort he could dismiss.

"Years, usually. Maybe decades." Tsukauchi's bluntness was almost refreshing in its honesty. "Building professional credibility is slow. Building it as someone without a combat quirk in a field that overvalues combat quirks? Even slower. I won't lie to you about that."

"So I just analyze things and hope that someday, maybe, someone will care?" The bitterness was creeping back into his voice.

"No. You analyze things, you document them properly, you build a body of work that's undeniable, and you find allies who already have credibility who can amplify your voice." Tsukauchi gestured to the analysis spread across the table. "Like right now. Your analysis goes into my report. It gets attributed to you. It goes to people who make decisions. Some of them will dismiss it because of your age or lack of quirk. But some won't. And over time, the ones who don't dismiss it will start to see a pattern of you being right."

"That's the long game." Izuku said it like a realization, like something clicking into place. "Building credibility through consistent accuracy over time."

"Exactly. There's no shortcut. You can't force people to listen. You can only make ignoring you increasingly stupid." Tsukauchi's smile was wry. "And you do that by being right more often than you're wrong, by documenting everything properly, by building a reputation for reliability."

Izuku absorbed that, feeling something shift in his understanding. He'd been thinking about analysis like it was a sprint toward proving his worth, like there was some finish line where he'd finally be good enough. But it was actually a marathon toward building undeniable evidence of capability. A long, slow accumulation of credibility.

"The Smokescreen case," Tsukauchi continued, "is your first real chance to contribute to something active and immediate. If your analysis helps us prevent the next attack, or helps us respond to it more effectively, that's a data point in your favor. Not the only data point you'll need, but a start."

"No pressure, then." Izuku tried for levity and mostly failed, his voice coming out strained.

"Actually, no pressure." Tsukauchi's tone was serious enough that Izuku looked up in surprise. "Because if your analysis is wrong, that's also valuable. Wrong analysis helps us eliminate possibilities. The only useless analysis is the kind that's so vague it can't be tested or evaluated."

"So I need to make specific predictions." The concept clicked into place. Like the scientific method. Make a prediction, test it against reality, see if it holds up.

"Exactly. Give me something specific enough that we can check it against reality and determine if you were right or wrong." Tsukauchi pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and slid it across the table with a pen. "Based on your analysis, what specific predictions can you make about the next attack?"

Izuku thought carefully, fighting the urge to hedge his predictions with so many qualifiers they became meaningless. That was his usual instinct. Protect himself from being wrong by never being specific enough to be definitively incorrect. But that defeated the entire purpose.

His pen hovered over the paper for a moment before he started writing.

"Prediction one: the next attack will involve at least seven simultaneous incidents, spaced across the city in a pattern that maximizes hero travel time between locations."

His handwriting was careful and precise, each word deliberate.

"Prediction two: at least one incident will target communication infrastructure directly, attempting to disrupt coordination capabilities we're already weak at."

He paused, thinking through the implications, then continued.

"Prediction three: civilian evacuation will be complicated at each site by deliberate environmental manipulation. Not just circumstantial difficulties, but active sabotage designed to force heroes to remain engaged longer than typical response times."

One more. The scariest one.

"Prediction four: the villains will demonstrate capabilities beyond what they showed in the test attack, particularly in areas where heroes committed significant resources during the test. They'll exploit our false sense of understanding."

Tsukauchi reviewed the predictions with a critical eye, his expression thoughtful.

"These are good. Specific enough to be testable, justified by your analysis, not so certain that you're claiming to read minds." He added the paper to Izuku's growing file with careful precision. "Now here's the hard part. We wait."

"Wait?"

"Wait. We've increased patrols, improved some communication protocols, prepared for the scenario you've outlined. But we can't prevent an attack that hasn't happened yet based solely on pattern analysis." He tapped the file folder. "So we prepare and we wait."

The waiting felt impossible. Like trying to sit still while knowing a disaster was building somewhere out of sight, a countdown clock he couldn't see but could hear ticking.

"In the meantime," Tsukauchi continued, "you focus on your other work. The case file analyses Aizawa assigned. Your school situation. Taking care of yourself. This analysis is done. Dwelling on it won't improve it, it'll just make you anxious."

"How do you stop thinking about it?" Izuku asked, genuinely curious. The question felt important somehow. "When you know something bad is coming and you're just waiting for it to happen?"

"Discipline. Practice. Accepting that I can't control everything." Tsukauchi's smile was wry, and for a moment he looked older than Izuku had thought he was. "Also, focusing on what I can control. Like making sure a brilliant fifteen-year-old analyst doesn't burn himself out before he's even started his career."

Right. The Rules. The documentation. The sustainable practices that felt tedious and restrictive compared to the excitement of real analysis.

"I'm following the rules," Izuku said, a bit defensive. "I logged my sleep and meals. I'm only working on two projects. I didn't pull any all-nighters."

"Good. Keep it up." Tsukauchi glanced at his watch. "It's almost six. Time for you to head home for dinner. Tomorrow we'll discuss how school is going and whether we need additional interventions beyond what's already happening."

The dismissal was clear. Izuku gathered his materials, his mind already churning with everything they'd discussed, with predictions and patterns and possibilities.

At the door, he paused, his hand on the frame.

"Tsukauchi-sensei? Thank you. For taking this seriously. For treating my analysis like it matters even though I'm just a student."

"You're not just a student." The detective's expression was serious, his eyes meeting Izuku's directly. "You're an analyst in training who's already contributed insights my team missed. That matters. You matter. Don't forget that."

The words settled into Izuku's chest, warm and uncomfortable and desperately needed. He nodded, not trusting his voice, and left before the emotion could show on his face.

He made it home by 6:30, in time for dinner with his mother. She'd made curry. Rich and fragrant, with the perfect amount of spice, the kind of comfort food that made everything feel slightly more manageable. The apartment smelled like home, like safety, and Izuku felt some of the tension drain from his shoulders as he set down his bag.

Over dinner, he told her about the analysis work, carefully avoiding classified details but sharing enough that she could see he was being challenged and supported. Her eyes lit up with pride as he talked, and that made the tightness in his chest ease a little more.

"The detective said I matter," Izuku said quietly, pushing rice around his plate and watching the curry sauce make orange trails. "That my analysis matters even though I'm young and quirkless."

"Of course you matter." His mother reached across to squeeze his hand, her grip firm and warm. "You've always mattered, sweetheart. I'm just glad you're finally working with people who see it."

After dinner, Izuku logged his meal in his phone and sent his daily documentation to the group chat. Then he spread out his homework alongside his analytical work, trying to balance both worlds. The quadratic equations seemed absurdly simple compared to the pattern analysis he'd been doing hours before, but he forced himself to focus on them anyway. This was part of it too. The boring work, the foundation.

His phone buzzed with a text from Aizawa.

Aizawa: Progress check. How are you managing the two-project limit?

Izuku: It's hard. I keep wanting to start new things. But I'm sticking to the Smokescreen analysis and the cognitive load hypothesis refinement.

Aizawa: Good. Discipline is a skill. It gets easier with practice.

Izuku: When does it start feeling less like I'm forcing myself to not do things I want to do?

Aizawa: When you start seeing the benefits of finishing things instead of just starting them. Give it time.

Izuku set his phone aside and returned to his homework, trying to find the same focus he'd had during the analysis session. The transition was jarring. From predicting villain attacks to solving for x. But this was part of it, too. The boring work. The sustainable practices. The discipline of doing things properly instead of just doing them intensely.

Wednesday morning brought news that made Izuku's stomach unclench for the first time in days.

Bakugou had been suspended for three days for destroying Izuku's lunch in front of witnesses. The announcement came over the intercom during homeroom, carefully worded to avoid naming names but obvious to everyone who mattered.

"Following yesterday's incident in the cafeteria, disciplinary action has been taken in accordance with school policy. We remind all students that destruction of another student's property will not be tolerated."

The relief Izuku felt was immediate and overwhelming, like someone had lifted a concrete block off his chest. Three days without looking over his shoulder. Three days without verbal harassment or "accidental" shoves. Three days where he could maybe breathe normally and eat lunch without his stomach churning with anxiety.

But he could also feel the stares intensifying, like the pressure in the air before a thunderstorm. The whispers getting louder and less subtle. The implicit accusation in every glance: You got him suspended. You couldn't just handle it yourself like everyone else does.

Takahashi appeared at his desk during the break between classes, dropping into the seat next to him with casual confidence.

"Good," the other boy said simply, his tone matter-of-fact. "He had it coming. You okay?"

"I'm fine." Izuku managed a small smile, and was surprised to find it was almost genuine. "Thank you. For yesterday. And for, you know, not thinking I'm terrible for reporting it."

"Why would I think you're terrible?" Takahashi looked genuinely confused, his eyebrows drawing together. "He destroyed your food. That's not okay. The fact that teachers let it happen for weeks is even less okay."

The casual validation made something tight in Izuku's chest ease slightly. Like maybe he wasn't completely crazy for thinking this wasn't normal.

"Most people seem to think I should have just dealt with it myself."

"Most people are idiots who've never been in your position." Takahashi shrugged, pulling out his notebook for next period. "Ignore them. You did the right thing."

The rest of the day passed more peacefully than any had in weeks. Without Kacchan's presence looming like a thundercloud, the harassment dropped to occasional muttered comments and pointed stares. Uncomfortable but manageable. Izuku ate his lunch without incident, sitting at his usual corner table with Takahashi and actually tasting the food for once instead of just mechanically consuming it.

He documented it dutifully in his phone during the bathroom break after lunch.

Izuku: Full lunch today, no incidents. Bakugou's suspended for three days. Ate with Takahashi.

Aizawa's response was characteristically brief.

Aizawa: Good. Use the time to stabilize. Document any retaliation from his friends.

After school, Izuku went straight home instead of to the police station. He had homework to finish and his second project to work on. The cognitive load hypothesis refinement. The analysis was coming together slowly but surely, each case file revealing new details, new factors he hadn't considered.

His revised hypothesis was taking shape across several pages of his best notebook:

Heroes experience stress-related thinking limitations during field operations, but the severity and type of limitation varies based on training quality, experience level, support systems, and individual stress tolerance. External analytical support can help compensate for these limitations only when integrated into operational planning rather than provided as after-action critique.

It was less elegant than his original hypothesis. More complicated. More hedged with qualifications and acknowledgments of variables he couldn't control. But it was also more accurate. More useful. More aligned with what the evidence actually showed rather than what he'd wanted it to show.

His phone buzzed with a message from Aizawa.

Aizawa: School called. You've been invited to a meeting Friday with administration, your mother, and me. They want to discuss the situation and next steps.

Oh no. A meeting. With school administration. That sounded like the kind of thing that would make everything worse, the kind of official intervention that would paint an even bigger target on his back.

Izuku: Do I have to go?

Aizawa: Yes. This is part of addressing the problem. You don't have to like it, but you do have to participate.

Izuku: Will it make things worse?

Aizawa: Possibly. Short term, almost certainly. Long term, it's necessary to establish that the current situation is unacceptable.

Izuku stared at his phone, anxiety churning in his stomach like a living thing. A meeting meant explaining things to people who'd spent months not caring. It meant facing teachers who'd watched him suffer without intervening. It meant making everything official and formal and impossible to ignore or minimize.

Izuku: Okay. I'll be there.

Aizawa: Good. Document everything between now and then. Every interaction, every comment, every instance of harassment or support. We're building a comprehensive record.

Thursday passed in a haze of careful documentation. Izuku logged every interaction that felt relevant, every time a teacher looked uncomfortable when he entered a room, every whispered comment from classmates. The documentation was tedious, exhausting, but also oddly empowering. Each entry was evidence. Each observation was data that couldn't be dismissed or minimized.

Incident Report, Day 4, 9:47 AM: Three students made comments about "snitches" within earshot during transition between second and third period. Teacher present (Mr. Sato) but didn't intervene. Duration approximately 30 seconds before they moved on.

Incident Report, Day 4, 12:15 PM: Takahashi sat with me at lunch. Two other students (names unknown) joined us. First time anyone besides Takahashi has voluntarily sat with me in weeks. Conversation was normal. They asked about homework.

Incident Report, Day 4, 2:30 PM: Mr. Hayashi pulled me aside after class to ask if I was "doing okay." First teacher to directly acknowledge anything is wrong. I said I was managing. He looked guilty but didn't say anything else. Made uncomfortable eye contact for approximately 5 seconds before nodding and leaving.

By Thursday evening, Izuku had pages of documentation. His mother reviewed it with an expression that cycled between anger, sadness, and determination, her jaw tightening with each incident he described.

"Tomorrow's meeting," she said quietly, her hands clenched around her teacup, "is going to be difficult. They're going to try to minimize this. Make it seem like normal school conflicts, like you're overreacting."

"I know." Izuku's voice was small.

"But we have evidence now. Real documentation. Timeline. Witnesses." Her expression hardened in a way that reminded Izuku that his soft-spoken mother could be fierce when protecting him. "They can't dismiss it as easily. And if they try, they'll discover exactly how determined I can be."

The protective fierceness in her voice made Izuku's throat tight with emotion he didn't quite know how to name.

Friday morning arrived with clouds that promised rain, heavy and gray and oppressive. Izuku dressed carefully in his school uniform, making sure everything was neat and proper, checking his reflection twice. If he was going to face school administration, he was going to look like someone who deserved to be taken seriously, not like the mess he felt like inside.

The meeting was scheduled for 2 PM, which meant he had to sit through morning classes knowing what was coming. Every minute felt stretched thin, time moving like honey, each clock tick taking an eternity. He couldn't focus on the lessons, his mind stuck in an anxious loop of predictions and worst-case scenarios.

At lunch, Takahashi noticed his distraction immediately.

"You okay? You look stressed." He set his tray down across from Izuku with a thunk. "More than usual, I mean."

"Meeting with administration this afternoon. About the harassment situation." Izuku pushed his food around without really eating it.

"Ah." Takahashi nodded understanding, his expression sympathetic. "That's rough. You want company? I could come testify or whatever."

The offer was so unexpected that Izuku almost didn't process it at first.

"You'd do that?"

"Sure. I witnessed some of it. Might help to have another student backing up your story." Takahashi shrugged like it was no big deal, like he wasn't potentially putting himself in the line of fire. "Unless you'd rather handle it with just adults."

"No, I... that would actually help a lot. If you're sure." Izuku felt something loosen in his chest, the knot of anxiety unwinding slightly. "Are you sure? People might give you trouble for it."

"Let them." Takahashi's expression was stubborn. "Text me when and where."

The meeting was held in the principal's office, a room Izuku had only been in once before, during career counseling where the counselor had gently suggested he consider "realistic career paths" for someone with his "limitations." It felt bigger and more intimidating now, with five adults arranged around a conference table that seemed designed to make students feel small.

Principal Kojima sat at the head, flanked by Mr. Hayashi and the school counselor, Ms. Tanaka. His mother sat on one side of the table, her posture rigid with controlled anger. Aizawa sat on the other, his expression unreadable but his presence somehow taking up more space than his actual body. Izuku took the empty chair between them, feeling like he was on trial for crimes he hadn't committed.

"Thank you all for coming." Principal Kojima's tone was carefully professional, rehearsed. "We're here to discuss the concerns that have been raised about Midoriya-kun's experience at our school."

"Concerns." His mother's voice was flat, cutting through the principal's diplomatic language like a knife. "That's an interesting way to describe months of systematic harassment and teachers failing to intervene."

"Mrs. Midoriya, I understand you're upset..."

"Upset doesn't begin to cover it." Inko pulled out her copy of Izuku's documentation, the pages neatly organized and tabbed with colored sticky notes. Her hands were steady, but Izuku could see the tension in her shoulders. "My son has been skipping meals because his food is regularly destroyed. He's been physically assaulted on school grounds. His belongings have been stolen or damaged. And teachers have witnessed these incidents without taking action."

Principal Kojima's expression tightened, his professional mask slipping slightly. "We take all allegations of bullying seriously..."

"Then why has nothing been done until now?" Aizawa's voice cut through the principal's response like a knife, cold and sharp. "I've reviewed the documentation. There are at least forty documented instances over the past three months alone. How many reports did you receive from your staff during that time?"

The principal glanced at his papers, clearly uncomfortable, his eyes darting around like he was looking for an escape route. "I'm not certain of the exact number..."

"Zero." Aizawa's tone was flat, factual, damning. "You received zero reports because your staff didn't file any. Despite witnessing numerous incidents."

Mr. Hayashi shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and Izuku noticed how the teacher couldn't quite meet anyone's eyes. "I... I did speak to some students about their behavior..."

"Speaking to them isn't the same as filing formal reports or taking disciplinary action." Aizawa's dark eyes fixed on the teacher with an intensity that made Izuku grateful he wasn't the target. It was the same look he'd seen the underground hero use on villains in the footage he'd analyzed. "You witnessed harassment and chose not to document it. That's a failure of your duty of care to your students."

"We try to handle things informally when possible," Ms. Tanaka interjected, her voice placating. "Official reports can escalate situations unnecessarily..."

"The situation is already escalated." Inko's voice shook slightly, emotion breaking through her controlled facade. "My son collapsed from exhaustion and malnutrition because he was so focused on proving himself to his mentors that he didn't take care of himself. Part of that was skipping meals because eating at school had become traumatic."

The word hung in the air. Traumatic. Making it clear this wasn't about hurt feelings or normal social conflicts. This was serious. This was damage.

Principal Kojima cleared his throat uncomfortably. "We've already taken action. The student responsible for Tuesday's incident has been suspended."

"One student. One suspension. For one incident out of dozens." Aizawa pulled out his own documentation, far more extensive than Izuku's, organized with professional precision. "What about the other fifteen students who've participated in harassment? What about the teachers who failed to intervene? What systemic changes are you implementing to prevent this from continuing?"

The question landed like a bomb, and Izuku watched the principal's face go carefully blank.

"We're... developing new protocols," Principal Kojima said carefully, each word measured. "Additional training for staff on recognizing and responding to bullying. Increased supervision in common areas."

"When?" Inko demanded, leaning forward. "When will these protocols be implemented? What's the timeline?"

"We're working on a timeline..."

"Not good enough." Aizawa leaned forward slightly, and despite his relaxed posture, there was something threatening in the movement. "Midoriya-kun is not your only quirkless student, though he may be your most visible one. This isn't just about him. It's about whether your school provides a safe environment for all students, regardless of their quirk status."

The implication was clear: this could become a much bigger problem if not handled properly. Publicity. Investigations. The kind of attention schools dreaded.

Principal Kojima seemed to realize this as well. His expression shifted from defensive to calculating, and Izuku could almost see him running cost-benefit analyses.

"What outcome are you looking for?" He directed the question at Inko, his tone more genuine now.

"I want assurance that my son can attend school safely." Inko's voice was steady now, determined, each word precisely articulated. "That means real consequences for harassment, not just informal conversations. It means teachers actually intervening when they witness problems, not just looking away because it's easier. It means my son can eat lunch without fear of having his food destroyed." She paused, her eyes hard. "And I want it documented. Official policies, not just verbal promises that disappear when this becomes inconvenient."

"That's reasonable." The principal made notes, his pen moving quickly across paper. "We can implement immediate supervision increases in the cafeteria. Teachers will be instructed to file formal reports for any witnessed harassment. Students found engaging in bullying behavior will face escalating consequences starting with suspension and potentially leading to expulsion for repeat offenses."

"Starting when?" Aizawa pressed, not letting him off the hook.

"Monday. We can have new protocols in place by Monday."

"And the teachers who failed to intervene previously?" Inko wasn't letting that go, her gaze sharp.

Principal Kojima glanced at Mr. Hayashi, who looked like he wanted to sink through the floor and disappear completely.

"Will receive additional training and formal counseling about their responsibilities. Any future failures to report will result in disciplinary action for the staff member."

It wasn't enough. Izuku could see that in his mother's expression, could feel it in Aizawa's controlled tension, the way his mentor's hands were flat on the table like he was physically restraining himself. But it was something. It was more than they'd had before. It was official, on the record, witnessed.

"I want weekly reports," Inko said, her tone brooking no argument. "About what's being done, what incidents occur, how they're being handled. If I don't see consistent follow-through, I'll be filing formal complaints with the educational oversight board and potentially contacting media outlets about systemic failures to protect quirkless students."

The threat was clear and effective. Principal Kojima's eyes widened slightly.

"That's acceptable. You'll receive weekly updates starting next Monday."

The meeting continued for another thirty minutes, hammering out details and documentation requirements. Izuku mostly stayed quiet, letting the adults fight for him in ways he'd never been able to fight for himself. He took notes though, documenting everything in his neat handwriting, building the record that might be needed later.

But near the end, Principal Kojima addressed him directly, his expression attempting sincerity.

"Midoriya-kun, I apologize that you've had to deal with this situation. It's our responsibility to provide a safe learning environment, and we've failed you in that regard."

The apology felt scripted, practiced in a mirror maybe, but it was also on the record, witnessed by multiple people, documented in official minutes. That mattered.

"Thank you," Izuku managed, his voice steadier than he felt. "I just want to be able to focus on my studies without... all of this."

"That's fair. We'll do better going forward."

As they left the principal's office, Izuku felt exhausted but also strangely lighter, like he'd been carrying a heavy weight and someone had finally acknowledged it existed. It wasn't fixed, not really. The problems hadn't disappeared. But they were acknowledged now. Official. Real in a way they hadn't been before.

"How do you feel?" His mother asked quietly as they walked to the parking lot, her arm around his shoulders.

"Tired. Nervous about what happens when Kacchan comes back." Izuku leaned into her slightly, letting himself be small for a moment. "But also... maybe a little hopeful?"

"Good." She squeezed his shoulder gently. "Hope is good. Even small hope. Especially small hope."

Aizawa walked them to the parking lot, his expression thoughtful as he observed them.

"You did well in there," he told Izuku, stopping by their car. "Stayed calm, didn't get defensive, let the evidence speak for itself."

"I barely said anything." Izuku frowned, uncertain if that was a compliment or criticism.

"Exactly. You didn't need to. The documentation did the talking." Aizawa paused, his dark eyes serious. "This is what good analysis looks like in practice. Not dramatic revelations or impassioned speeches. Just systematic evidence that can't be dismissed."

The lesson wasn't lost on Izuku. He nodded slowly, filing the observation away with all the other things he was learning about how the real world worked versus how he'd thought it worked.

That evening, he logged everything in his documentation with meticulous care.

Sleep Log, Week 2: 7hrs, 6.5hrs, 7hrs, 5hrs (nightmare about school, woke up at 3 AM and couldn't fall back asleep until 4), 8hrs, 7hrs, 6hrs

Meal Log: All meals eaten. Mom watching carefully. Lunch still difficult psychologically but managing to finish everything. No missed meals this week.

Projects: (1) Smokescreen geographic analysis, completed, submitted to Tsukauchi. (2) Cognitive load hypothesis refinement, 60% complete, on track for completion next week.

School Incidents This Week: 15 documented instances of verbal harassment. 3 teacher failures to intervene. 1 formal suspension issued. Meeting with administration completed, new protocols promised for Monday implementation.

He took a photo and sent it to the group chat, feeling oddly nervous about their response. Like he was submitting homework he wasn't sure was good enough.

Aizawa's response came first.

Aizawa: Good work this week. Keep it up. Sleep needs improvement, work on the nightmare issue. Next session tomorrow at 9 AM.

Tsukauchi: Excellent documentation. The school meeting results are better than expected. See you tomorrow to discuss next steps on the Smokescreen analysis.

Izuku set his phone aside and looked at his desk, covered in notebooks and analysis and homework. Two weeks ago, this exact scenario would have consumed his entire night. He would have worked until 2 AM, convinced that stopping meant failing, that sleep was time wasted when he could be proving his worth.

Now, he set a timer for one hour of work, then stopped when it buzzed. Put everything away with deliberate care. Got ready for bed at a reasonable time, brushing his teeth while reading over his cognitive load notes one last time.

It felt wrong. Like he was being lazy, not trying hard enough, wasting the opportunity he'd been given. Every instinct screamed at him to keep working, to push harder, to prove he deserved this chance.

But it also felt sustainable. Like something he could maintain for weeks or months or years without destroying himself in the process. Like he was building something that could last instead of burning bright and fast and then collapsing.

The scientific method wasn't just about testing theories about hero work, he realized as he climbed into bed. It was about testing theories about himself, about what actually worked versus what he thought should work.

Theory: Working harder always produces better results.

Evidence: Working excessively produced exhaustion, collapse, and nearly lost him his training opportunity. His most recent analysis, done under strict time and rest constraints, had been called "professional quality" by an actual professional.

Conclusion: Theory rejected. Working sustainably produces better long-term results than working destructively.

New theory: Consistent moderate effort over time is more effective than intense unsustainable bursts.

Test method: Keep following The Rules. Keep documenting. Keep showing up. Measure outcomes over the next month and compare to previous patterns.

He'd know in a few more weeks if he was right. For now, the data supported the new approach. And if there was one thing Izuku Midoriya believed in, it was following where the data led, even when it contradicted what he wanted to believe.

He closed his eyes, his last conscious thought a weird mix of anxiety about Monday and tentative hope about the future. Somewhere in his mind, analysis was already running. Pattern recognition that never quite shut off, even in sleep. But for once, he let it run in the background instead of forcing himself to stay awake and write it all down.

Outside his window, the city hummed with its usual energy. Heroes and villains playing their eternal game, each move building toward something larger. Somewhere out there, Smokescreen was probably planning his next operation, refining his understanding of the system he'd been studying for months. Other villains plotted, other heroes patrolled, and the great complicated machine of society kept grinding forward.

And in a small apartment in Musutafu, a quirkless teenager was learning that the most important battles weren't always fought with quirks or even with brilliant analysis.

Sometimes, they were fought with consistent documentation, sustainable practices, and the courage to ask for help when you needed it.

Tomorrow would bring new challenges. New data. New opportunities to test his theories about the world and himself. Kacchan would be back on Monday, and that would be its own test. The Smokescreen case was building toward something, and he'd be there to analyze it when it happened.

But tonight, he slept.

A researcher needs rest, after all. Even the data supported that conclusion now.

And Izuku Midoriya was nothing if not someone who followed the data, no matter where it led.