"Brother started it," Ayaka says. "Before we enrolled, he designed the entire training structure from scratch. Morning sessions before school, afternoon sessions after. Every class calibrated to what we actually need."
Tsuyu presses a finger to her lips. "Morning sessions before school as well? Ribbit."
"Four in the morning, usually."
Ayaka says it the way someone says a perfectly normal thing.
The table goes quiet.
"Four?" Ashido repeats.
"Four."
"That's not a real hour."
"It is where I live."
"That is the most rich-person answer you've given so far."
Ayaka blinks. "I don't think those things are related."
"They absolutely are."
Yaoyorozu hides a small smile using her hand.
"The facility at home has everything built in," Ayaka continues. "Brother's section has different specifications from mine because our quirks require different things, so they are built separately."
A brief silence settles over the table.
"You have a personal training facility," Ashido says.
"We have two," Ayaka says. "One each."
"Plural."
"Mhm."
The silence somehow becomes worse.
Ayaka notices none of it.
"Well, there are also strategy classes."
Ashido blinks.
"Of course there are."
"Management."
Ashido lowers her head onto the table.
"Please stop."
"Political studies."
"You're fifteen."
"I am."
"That somehow makes the answer worse."
Besides Ayaka, Momo, who has been listening with the composed expression of someone familiar with this territory, sets her chopsticks down briefly, finally deciding to help.
"The Adachi family oversees a large international corporation. Certain responsibilities come with that."
"Responsibilities," Ashido repeats weakly.
"Yes."
Ayaka nods.
"We're expected to understand how everything functions."
Ashido stares at her for another long moment.
"Meanwhile I spent yesterday trying to decide whether cereal counts as dinner."
"It does!" Uraraka calls from a nearby table without even looking up from her lunch.
"Thank you."
"It absolutely does not," Iida corrects immediately.
Nobody pays him any attention.
"What about the training?" Tsuyu asks, resting her chin on one hand. "Ribbit."
Ayaka brightens.
"Oh, that's fun."
Momo sets down her water cup.
"I join them occasionally," she says. "For the mock battles and some of the conditioning work. Their facilities are more comprehensive than what is currently available to me at home, and training with them is…"
She pauses, searching for the right word.
"…Instructive."
"Occasionally?" Ayaka repeats.
Momo's expression remains perfectly composed.
"A reasonable amount."
"You were there four times last week."
A faint flush appears across Momo's cheeks.
Ashido and Tsuyu immediately notice.
Ashido's eyes wide.
"Oh."
"No," Momo says immediately.
"That sounded like a no."
"It was a no."
"It sounded like a yes."
"It was not."
The conversation dissolves into laughter.
"Mock battles," Ashido questions once the laughter settles. "With who?"
"Our mother, mostly," Ayaka says. "She does not hold back."
"Your mother fights you."
"Trains us," Ayaka corrects. "There is a difference."
A brief pause.
"Mostly."
She smiles.
Tsuyu tilts her head. "What is her quirk? Ribbit."
"Spatial manipulation," Ayaka says. "Same as mine. Though she has had considerably more time to develop it."
The table absorbs this.
"So you have your mother's quirk," Ashido says slowly, "and she trains you with it."
"It is the most efficient way to understand its limits," Ayaka says. "If you want to know what a quirk can do, find someone who already knows."
Ashido looks at Tsuyu.
Tsuyu presses her finger to her lips and says nothing, but her expression suggesting she finds the logic perfectly sound while also being slightly overwhelmed by it.
Besides Ayaka, Izumi eats while the conversation moves around him.
He is listening. Not just to the cafeteria. To everything else.
His electromagnetic field extends outward the way it always did when he lets it, an invisible dome moving through walls and floors and finding signatures the way water finds gaps.
Every person carries one. Every nervous system generates its own current, its own pattern shaped by biology, habit and the unique electrical rhythm of who that person is. He has spent years learning to read them the way other people read expressions.
He sweeps the campus first.
The familiar signatures of the class around him. Teachers in offices further in the building. Students from other years distributed throughout the cafeteria and the corridors. A constantly shifting map, hundreds of electrical signatures moving through the grounds, each one distinct.
He extends toward the main gate.
The reporters are still there, packed tightly together, their signatures restless with impatience after spending hours waiting outside the barrier. He moves through them methodically, searching for something specific.
'Difficult', he thinks without frustration.
'I've never encountered him directly. No reference point.'
He keeps the gate covered in the back of his mind and turns his attention inward.
He sweeps the building corridor by corridor, checking the registers he has built over the last three days. Most signatures are where they should be. Teachers in their rooms. Students here in the cafeteria and the common areas.
He reaches the faculty wing.
And finds a signature that had no reason to be there.
He recognises it immediately. Over the last three days he has mapped every member of Class 1-A individually, without any of them knowing he is doing it.
The signature moving through the faculty wing belongs to one of his classmates.
It is moving toward the staff room.
Toward Aizawa.
'So, this is how they get it', he thinks quietly.
He keeps part of his attention on the moving signature while maintaining a steady watch over the main gate, waiting.
Shigaraki will have to touch the barrier at some point to create the distraction. When he does, the disintegration will produce a signature unlike anything else in that cluster, something violent, destructive and unmistakably distinct.
And Izumi will finally have the reference point he needs.
He takes another bite of his lunch.
***
The faculty wing is quiet during lunch.
Aoyama moves through the corridors at an unhurried pace, one hand resting lightly against the stack of papers tucked under his arm. Students and teachers pass occasionally. Some offer polite brief greetings. Others are too occupied with their own business to pay him much attention.
'This is good,' he thinks.
'Unremarkable is good.'
After a few turns, he arrives outside the staff room, exactly where the student handbook said it would be.
He approaches the door.
It is larger than he expected, set into the wall with the specific solidity of something built to be authoritative.
For a moment he raises a hand to knock before noticing the small call button mounted beside the doorframe.
He presses it.
A soft electronic chime sounds.
Above the doorway, a security camera rotates almost lazily until its lens settles directly on him. A second later the magnetic lock disengages with a mechanical buzz and the door slides open.
Aoyama steps inside.
The faculty room is considerably larger than he imagined.
Rows of desks stretch across the space in neat lines. Many of them empty, most of the teachers at lunch. Several computer monitors display the gold U.A. crest over locked workstations. A handful of teachers remain at their desks, reviewing papers, writing reports, or quietly speaking with a few students who have come seeking advice for various school matters.
Nothing unusual.
Nothing that draws attention to his presence.
His gaze moves across the room, drifting casually over the ceiling and the walls as he walks.
No cameras inside. Only at the entrance.
The small knot in his chest loosens slightly.
Hi gaze settles on the person he is looking for.
Shota Aizawa sits at the far end of the room, positioned against the windows, the campus visible through the glass behind him, afternoon light falling across the floor in clean lines. His attention never leaves the computer monitor in front of him.
Aoyama crosses the room toward him.
When he reaches the desk, Aizawa glances up from his monitor.
"…Aoyama."
"Mr. Aizawa."
Aoyama offers a polite smile before presenting the stack of papers with both hands, a small respectable bow accompanying the gesture.
"I hope I'm not interrupting anything important."
"You are."
Aoyama's smile doesn't falter.
Aizawa sighs.
"What do you need?"
"I wished to make a few adjustments to my hero costume," Aoyama explains. "Unfortunately, I wasn't entirely certain of the proper procedure, so I thought it best to consult my homeroom teacher directly."
Aizawa accepts the paperwork.
His eyes move across the first page.
Then the second.
Then the third.
With every page his expression somehow becomes even flatter.
[Additional cape lining — triple-layered, with internal luminescent threading…]
Page.
[Custom reflective detailing along the collar, sleeves, and rear hem, with embossed starlight pattern…]
Page.
[Laser-resistant shoulder stitching, reinforced at the joint for high-rotation movement without compromising aesthetic…]
Page.
[Decorative belt redesign — current model lacks adequate visual balance at the mid-section…]
Aizawa stops turning pages.
He slowly lowers the stack and sets it on the desk.
"…A few adjustments?"
Aoyama nods with something bright and sincere sitting in his eyes. "I didn't want to be a burden, so I tried to limit it to only the most essential changes."
A long silence follows.
Aizawa looks at the stack.
Then at Aoyama.
Then back at the stack.
He points toward the door.
"Support department. Room 1-C in the support wing. Bring this to them." He holds the papers back out. "Check your student handbook for the school map. Find their consultation hours. Go during those hours."
He pauses.
"Not during class."
"Of course." Aoyama accepts the papers.
His phone vibrates inside his pocket.
He feels it against his leg and keeps his face perfectly composed.
"Thank you fo —"
Almost simultaneously —
The building erupts.
A deafening alarm cuts through the room cleanly and without warning, the kind of sound that doesn't leave space for anything else to exist alongside it.
Red emergency lights flash along the ceiling in steady pulses.
Several teachers shoot to their feet instantly. A second later the automated announcement echoes through the faculty wing.
[WARNING.]
[LEVEL THREE SECURITY BREACH.]
[ALL STUDENTS EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY VIA DESIGNATED EMERGENCY EXITS.]
The stack of papers slips from Aoyama's grasp.
Sheets scatter across the floor.
"Follow evacuation procedures. Move."
Aizawa's voice cuts through the noise.
Aoyama turns to find the teacher already halfway across the room.
His shadow passes through the door and disappears down the corridor. A moment later a second pair of footsteps joins from somewhere further along the hall.
"Yo! Eraser!"
Present Mic's voice echoes down the corridor as he joins Aizawa, and the two of them disappear together toward the front of the school.
Around the room phones are abandoned.
Reports left unfinished.
The few students present exchange uncertain looks before moving toward the door, filing out in the practised order of people who memorised the evacuation map at the start of term.
Within seconds the room is empty.
Aoyama crouches and gathers several of the fallen pages.
His eyes lift slowly.
Nobody remains.
His gaze drifts to Aizawa's workstation.
The monitor is still on.
Still unlocked.
The report Aizawa had been reading fills the window, dense columns of text and a table of figures.
Administration information. Nothing useful.
For a moment he remains perfectly still, staring at the screen. His heart hammers loudly enough that it almost drowns out the alarm.
Then he reaches for the mouse.
One click.
He minimises the report.
The desktop appears beneath it, clean and almost empty, the U.A. crest set against a simple blue background.
His eyes move across the taskbar.
They stop on the calendar icon.
He clicks it.
A small window opens.
April spreads across the grid in neat rows.
Most of the entries are administrative shorthand, the kind that compresses a working day into three-letter codes and time blocks.
He moves forward through the weeks, scanning each day without pausing.
Faculty meetings.
Assessment deadlines.
Equipment inspections.
He keeps going.
Next Wednesday.
Highlighted in yellow.
He clicks it.
A larger information popup expands below the date cell.
The title is brief.
[USJ — Rescue Training.]
Below it, the event details appear.
[Class 1-A.]
[Instructors: All Might. Thirteen. Eraser Head.]
[Departure: 08:30]
[Expected return: 15:45]