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No matter how good Konata's "strategies" sounded on paper, Todoroki knew that if they actually followed her plans, the two of them would be eliminated without a shred of doubt.
Still, after their week-long work study together, Todoroki had gotten used to her occasional brain glitches. The trick was simple—ignore her. She'd eventually reset on her own.
The sharp ringing of the starting bell echoed through the testing grounds, signaling the official start of the match.
"Konata," Todoroki said, sprinting forward while keeping his eyes ahead. "To prepare for Aizawa-sensei showing up, I need you to—"
"Huh? What are you talking about?"
Her voice came from right beside him. When he turned his head, he nearly tripped—there she was, the blue-haired gremlin, running vertically along the wall like gravity had decided to take the day off, easily matching his speed.
"...Can you run like a normal person?" he muttered flatly.
Konata ignored him, vaulting forward and landing right in his path. She brushed a few stray strands of hair from her face, her eyes shining with excitement.
"Todoroki! I just thought of a foolproof plan that'll let us pass this test. Wanna try it?"
"...Foolproof?" Todoroki slowed to a stop, exhaling sharply as his gaze swept over her. Sparks of electricity danced around her body, arcing across her arms and shoulders.
This form… he'd heard her talk about it before. She called it Misaka Mikoto—the Railgun, one of the seven strongest espers in something she called "Academy City." Rank Three, if he remembered right.
He'd scoured the internet for information about this "Academy City," but found nothing. Which only confirmed what he'd suspected from the start: this was just another of her fabricated "fantasies," brought into reality by her quirk.
In a way, he thought, her ability wasn't all that different from Yaoyorozu's Creation—except instead of making real-world items, she could manifest things that only existed in her imagination. Reality and fantasy blurred.
Todoroki doubted whatever "plan" she was about to suggest would actually work. The odds of another brain-cell-obliterating idea were… high.
But given the nearly limitless potential of her quirk, it was worth at least hearing her out.
The two ducked into a narrow alley, briefly hidden from sight, and Konata raised a finger with a confident grin.
"I've got a super move."
"…And?"
"It's full-map AOE," she declared proudly. "If I launch it off here, I can take out Aizawa-sensei from across the field. As long as he doesn't see me first, we win."
Her face was practically glowing with confidence.
"With this form, I've pretty much mastered controlling lightning. I won't accidentally fry myself this time!"
Todoroki blinked slowly.
"So you have electrocuted yourself before."
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Meanwhile, on a rooftop near the designated escape point, Aizawa had already slipped his goggles into place.
Technically, the smarter move would've been to actively track them down. But with a student like Izumi—a student who never played by the rules—Aizawa decided it was safer to wait and let them come to him.
After all, his Erasure quirk completely countered her fantasies in theory.
But experience told him never to underestimate her.
And so, standing guard at the exit, he held the high ground—a position that, logically speaking, made him untouchable.
"Planning to stall until the last few minutes and make a desperate rush?" he muttered to himself.
Seven or eight minutes passed. Still, not a single sign of movement.
The entire testing ground was unnervingly quiet, as though the two students had vanished from existence.
Even so, Aizawa remained patient, crouched along the roof's edge, unshaken.
Testing patience with a pro hero, huh.
He shook his head slightly, amused—until something strange caught his attention.
At some point, the sky had darkened.
Slowly, Aizawa's eyes narrowed. He tilted his head upward.
At first, the sky had been perfectly clear. But now? Ominous, pitch-black storm clouds had gathered, swirling violently above the entire test zone. Blue-white lightning coiled and cracked across the clouds, illuminating the field with a harsh, electric glow.
"…Manipulating the weather?"
His reflexes were razor sharp. The instant the realization clicked, Aizawa leapt from the rooftop. Staying high during a lightning storm was suicidal, and he wasn't about to hand them an easy victory.
Hitting the ground in a crouch, he darted toward the nearest building for cover—just as the storm broke.
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In the monitoring room, stunned silence reigned.
The screens showed the testing grounds completely engulfed in a sea of crackling, blue-white lightning, arcs of electricity tearing through the arena with terrifying precision.
Gasps and murmurs rippled through the students crowded shoulder-to-shoulder in the already cramped room. After all, with only two matches left, everyone—pass or fail—had gathered to watch.
"Holy crap, that's insane…" Kaminari was the first to find his voice, though it cracked halfway through.
His own quirk was Electrification. Normally, he had at least some pride in that. But as he stared at the storm ripping through the field, that pride shriveled into nothing.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if being nicknamed "Pikachu" by that damn blue-haired gremlin had somehow cursed him.
Now, though, all he could do was watch the storm rage and start questioning his entire existence.
Unlike what the others were thinking, Midoriya Izuku's mind was occupied by something else entirely.
If someone as strong as Konata could be captured so easily by All For One, then… just how terrifyingly powerful that man, really?
Could he—with just his current strength—truly defeat someone like that?
As he stared at the screen, watching the girl's figure gradually come into focus through the camera feed, Midoriya clenched his fists tightly in silence.
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"Perfect! With this, our victory is one hundred percent guaranteed!"
Having reverted to her original form, Konata surveyed the field that had been thoroughly ravaged by the storm of lightning she unleashed. The once pristine terrain was now uneven, scorched, and riddled with craters. Smug and brimming with satisfaction, she clenched her tiny fist in triumph.
"This isn't going to work."
The voice came from behind her. As the thick ice he had used for cover gradually melted away, Todoroki stepped out into the open. His expression shifted slightly as he glanced around at the utter devastation, then quickly smoothed back to calm neutrality.
"In an area like this—a residential zone—there are far too many places to take cover. If I can think of multiple ways to avoid your lightning, then someone as experienced as Aizawa-sensei definitely can. That attack won't take him down."
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?!"
Konata froze for a moment, then turned to him with an indignant pout, she looked like a child who had been denied a treat.
"I was too busy throwing up a wall of ice to keep you from frying me," Todoroki replied matter-of-factly.
"…Fine. My bad then."
"No problem."
Just as Todoroki had predicted, while they were busy talking, Aizawa emerged from a sealed room nearby—completely unharmed.
He'd overestimated them, he realized. With that level of destructive output, they should have capitalized on the cover of the storm and made a break for the escape gate. Even if Konata couldn't risk moving due to the danger of exposing herself to his Erasure, Todoroki should have been able to act.
Instead, they had wasted their chance.
And from this point forward, Aizawa had no intention of giving them another one.
Besides, there was another reason to stop waiting passively. If he stayed put any longer, that unpredictable girl might very well conjure up something even more absurd—like that sky-shattering "Heaven Rends" stunt from before.
It didn't take long for him to locate the two. They were sprinting down the main road, making no effort whatsoever to hide their movements—almost as if they'd given up on being stealthy at all.
"Found you."
With a flick of his scarf, Aizawa leapt from above, his gaze sharp and locked on Todoroki, the greater threat between the two.
But in that exact moment, the blue-haired gremlin below tilted her head up with a sly, all-too-knowing grin. Slowly, deliberately, she pulled her hands out of her hoodie pocket.
Aizawa's instincts screamed at him. His eyes immediately glowed red as his Quirk activated, erasing both students' abilities in a blink.
But Konata's movements didn't stop.
In one swift motion, she hurled something toward him—a small object tightly wrapped in black plastic.
It exploded midair.
A blindingly pungent stench filled the air instantly. Caught completely off guard, Aizawa inhaled a sharp breath and immediately regretted it, coughing violently as his eyes watered.
Meanwhile, Todoroki didn't pause for even a second. Covering his nose and mouth with one hand, he bolted toward the exit gate at full speed.
Behind him, Konata jogged casually, grinning as she followed along, perfectly pleased with herself.
"Are you sure… a little trick like that will work on Aizawa-sensei?" Todoroki asked through gritted teeth, still running.
"Relax," Konata replied, raising a smug victory sign. "Everything is going exactly as planned. Sure, Aizawa-sensei wears goggles to protect his eyes, but even heroes close their eyes when they sneeze. Science always wins, my friend."
With the few seconds of distraction gained, Todoroki quickly erected a towering wall of ice, solid and unyielding, like the one he'd conjured during the sports festival.
Feeling the air temperature plummet, Konata slowed her pace and strolled toward the exit gate, completely unhurried.
And just like that, the two of them cleared the exam—earning their tickets to the summer training camp in the forest.
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Later, when Todoroki asked why she hadn't simply done that in the first place, Konata only shrugged, palms up, her face the perfect picture of innocent nonchalance.
As honest as his earlier excuse had been, her reply was just as blunt.
Following their victory, the very last—and most difficult—match began: Midoriya Izuku and Bakugo Katsuki versus All Might.
Konata didn't know the details of what transpired during that fight, but one thing was clear—something had changed between the two boys. Their relationship, once sharp and hostile, had softened slightly.
At the very least, they could talk now without it turning into an immediate shouting match.
Of course, "talking" was one thing. "Teamwork" was another.
Midoriya's strategy was to retreat and secure victory through escape, while Bakugo—as stubborn as ever—insisted on a head-on clash with All Might. Their conflicting approaches meant their teamwork was practically nonexistent.
Even so, with All Might clearly holding back just enough to avoid serious injury, the two boys somehow managed to scrape by, though both ended up battered and bruised, spending the night in Recovery Girl's office.
And after that… there were things Konata knew she needed to take care of.
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With the final practical exam over, the end-of-term tests were finally done. Aside from a handful of individuals, nearly everyone had passed the minimum benchmark. Then, Aizawa-sensei announced that everyone would still be allowed to attend the training camp—though those who hadn't passed would have to endure remedial lessons during the trip.
Todoroki Shoto declined the invitation, saying he had to visit his mother that weekend. Konata Izumi had originally planned to decline as well, but in the end, she stayed silent and didn't object.
She didn't belong in this world. She'd known that from the start. And somewhere deep in her heart, she'd always understood that one day she would have to leave. She just didn't expect that day to come so soon.
In fact, after the workplace training, Midoriya Izuku's affection toward her had already maxed out at a hundred points. The main quest completion displayed on the system interface had passed ninety percent. By her own estimates, even if she wanted to resist, she had maybe a month left before she'd vanish from this world.
And there were countless ways to disappear. The ever-monotone system had provided her with a long list of options: being beaten to death, stabbed to death, poisoned, falling to her death—basically, every method of dying imaginable.
As the system had coldly explained, she was never meant to exist in this world. The only reason she hadn't been ejected immediately was due to the system's intervention. But that time limit would eventually run out. To erase her existence completely, death was the simplest and fastest method—whether she wanted it or not.
Only now did she truly understand what the "main quest completion" really meant. The so-called heroine was someone who experienced every major event alongside the protagonist. Like in that certain magical index—no one would seriously think that the pure white gluttonous nun was the real heroine, right? What was her name again? Anyway, from the entrance exam to now, right up to the forest training camp, her role would definitely qualify her as a main heroine in any anime.
Whether or not she'd ever get the chance to return to this world, she didn't know. But she didn't want to leave behind any regrets here.
Then her gaze drifted toward Midoriya, who was chatting animatedly with Iida, and silence enveloped her.
From one perspective, she really was the worst kind of person—someone who played with another's feelings. But honestly, from the start to now, she'd only ever treated him as a close friend. Nothing more than the bond between brothers. She'd forced herself to forget that dream—the one that still lingered like a cruel cosmic joke.
Humans are forgetful creatures. Even the deepest wounds eventually scar over. Time never stops for anyone, always moving forward without hesitation.
She would leave. That was inevitable. But she didn't want the people who cared about her to be sad. People like Midnight, who teased her constantly but was kind at heart. Or her dependable best friend, Tsuyu Asui. Or even Aizawa-sensei, with his sharp tongue but fiercely protective nature.
And of course, there were her classmates in Class 1-A, Recovery Girl, All Might, and—fine, maybe not the café manager from her old part-time job.
And lastly, Midoriya Izuku.
She wanted to minimize the pain her departure would cause. But she had no idea how to do that—until that man appeared, offering her a deal.
If death was inevitable, then she might as well make the most of the time she had left. Maybe even take out the obvious final boss, All For One. It was unlikely she could actually do it, but it was worth a try. Who knows—maybe she'd succeed by some miracle.
All Might was already forcing himself to keep going. After passing One For All to Midoriya, he was relying on the last embers of power just to stand. And that was on top of the grievous injuries he'd sustained in his battle with All For One. Though he'd thought he'd killed the villain in that fight, the truth was that All For One had survived.
If All For One returns… could All Might really defeat him again?
All of this information had come from All For One himself. Why he'd told her, she couldn't even begin to guess.
So Konata set her goal: before she disappeared from this world, she would help All Might defeat All For One. Or at the very least, ensure the man was captured. And though One For All now belonged to Midoriya, she also wanted to help heal All Might's body. It was impossible to imagine how much pain that big, smiling man endured with half his respiratory system and his stomach removed.
If she was going to vanish, then she'd do everything she could before that day came.
That was the most she could do.
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"What do I want as a gift?" Midnight blinked, looking utterly baffled as she stared at the girl in front of her.
"Yeah," Konata said casually. "I'm heading to the mall with my classmates to buy stuff for the training camp, so I figured I'd ask what you want while I'm out."
Under Midnight's sharp gaze, Konata turned her eyes away nonchalantly.
"After all, Midnight-sensei, you've looked out for me a lot. Buying you something as thanks isn't that weird, right?"
Midnight crossed her arms and frowned. "Now that you mention it… I've always been curious about something."
She held up five fingers and said seriously:
"You're young, so maybe you don't know better, but listen—ten thousand yen is way too low. Your first time should at least be—"
"Midnight-sensei!" Konata cut her off, cheeks burning red.
"I told you already! That money literally fell from the sky and landed in front of me! It's a gift from the heavens, okay?"
"Sure, sure. But honestly, instead of wasting gifts on some poor girl about to go looking for a sugar daddy, why not spend it on your wise, caring teacher instead?"
"…What part of me looks like I'm about to look for a sugar daddy, huh?"
"Isn't it me who's basically your sugar mama here, huh?"
"Midnight-sensei, do you know what the essence of humanity is?"
"Konata-chan, enlighten me. What is it?"
"The essence of humanity is… repetition. We're all repeaters."
"Repeaters, huh?"
"Exactly. Which means you're clearly not human, sensei."
After that verbal sparring, Konata felt mentally drained.
Since she still had time before meeting her classmates, she asked what Midnight wanted, then trudged back to her room and flopped face-first onto her bed.
If she was going to disappear soon, there was no point hoarding the money she'd saved—or extorted—from that man. Better to spend it on something meaningful. Like buying gifts for everyone she knew.
"Hmm… Bakugo likes durian, right? Maybe I should just buy him an entire box and have it delivered to his house. Cheap, practical, and convenient. He'd love that, right?" she muttered, rolling idly across the bed.
"As for Yaoyorozu, her family's loaded, so she probably wouldn't care about anything I buy. Maybe I should just make her a handmade gift instead… And Tokoyami… maybe two swords? One called 'Darkbane,' the other 'Illuminator.' Yeah, he'd definitely like those names…"
Her thoughts wandered aimlessly, no logic or order to them.
Time slipped away quietly. The noon sunlight streamed through the window, casting the room in a delicate balance of light and shadow. Konata lay right on the border, half her face in warm sunlight, half hidden in darkness.
She lifted a hand to block the sunlight and stared at the soft rays filtering through the glass. A quiet sigh escaped her lips.
"Man… what am I even gonna do…?"
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Ugh, guys, don't blame me, okay? Blame the system. Really, BLAME. THE. SYSTEM. I swear it's the systems fault.
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