….
"I am here, and Aizawa's too." Dabi cut in, his tone flat. "Open your hands and let it go."
Midoriya's eyes were blown wide, darting from Dabi's calm posture to Aizawa behind him, ready to use his Quirk.
Still–
"I can't!" Midoriya sobbed, his knuckles white as he tried to ball his fists against the pressure. "If I let go... I don't know what happens to everyone else! I will hurt you!"
"You think I am that easy to kill?" Dabi countered, taking a step into the fray. "Stop being a martyr for five seconds and just let go."
Midoriya let out a ragged, broken sound; half-scream, half-sob, and his fingers finally unfurled.
Immediately, what the terrain of the training was before a second ago was gone.
Dozens of thick, pitch-black tendrils laced with green static erupted from his palms, a violent, organic web that claimed every inch of the surroundings.
Midoriya was hoisted into the air, his body jerked taut as the power used him as a literal anchor.
Dabi didn't stop, as he moved through the thrashing chaos with a loose-limbed grace, slipping past lashes that could have decapitated him. He swiped a stray cord away with the back of his hand, ignoring the way the energy scorched his skin.
"Sensei, get back!" Midoriya yelled, his voice cracking. "It's…. it's pulling me!"
"Then pull back!" Dabi snapped, ducking a snap aimed at his throat. "Stop treating it like an invader. It's your power, isn't it? It's coming out of your skin, fueled by your heart. Tell it where to go or it's going to decide for you."
Dabi winced as a tendril caught his shoulder, tearing the fabric and drawing blood, but he didn't even break his stride.
Behind him, Bakugo stood where he had been dropped, completely still; with no grin, or scowl, just focused attention as he absorbed every detail.
Midoriya was evolving again, pulling out another power at the last second, and the familiar frustration stirred; that old burn of being outpaced. Yet beneath it was something newer, sharper, an urge to face this version of him head-on once he could control it.
"It... it's too much–
"Everything's going dark."
The tendrils began to slow as Midoriya's reserves burned out, the sustained output draining what little he had left.
"Stay with me." Dabi's voice lowered, suddenly right beneath him. He was standing in the eye of the storm, looking up at the. "Don't you dare pass out now, feel the weight of it and remember this feeling so the next time it knocks, you're the one who opens the door."
As if responding to Dabi's command, the storm began to break. Each strand grew shorter, appearing less frequently; the web of green energy that had claimed the training ground started dissolving from the edges, retracting toward the boy at the center.
Midoriya's arms dropped as the last tendrils slipped back into his palms, the energy retreating beneath his skin to whatever place it had emerged from.
His fingers twitched, curled, and stilled while his body swayed, vision unfocused, knees giving out beneath him.
Dabi was there before he could crumple, catching him; one arm steadied the boy's shoulders while the other supported his head.
Midoriya felt weightless, his uniform drenched in sweat and his frame shivering with a post-adrenal collapse.
His heartbeat was frantic and irregular while his hands were still radiating a fierce, unnatural heat.
"Good job, kid." Dabi said, lowering him carefully. "Take a rest."
Midoriya's lips moved faintly, his fingers twitching as the echo of that power lingering in his nerves; whatever he tried to say never formed, exhaustion overtaking him before a word could surface.
Dabi watched him for a moment, then looked at his own palm; even though, nothing serious, he actually sustained some damage.
He glanced up at All Might, who was sprinting down.
"He is out, but he should be fine given a few minutes." Dabi said, standing up as the former Symbol of Peace skidded to a halt. "Toshinori. You might want to figure out what else is inside it before he drowns."
All Might flinched at the use of his name, but his focus was already on the boy.
Dabi stepped over a jagged fissure in the concrete, his boots crunching on the dust of what used to be a floor as he approached Aizawa.
"Sorry about the damage." Dabi moved to Aizawa.
"We expected the outcome." Aizawa replied, though he didn't look away from Midoriya. "But make sure to write the incident report."
Dabi offered a noncommittal grunt and turned toward the exit.
He stopped, however, when his gaze hit the far wall.
….
.
Meanwhile, inside the consciousness of Midoriya.
The green mist was everywhere.
Midoriya was paralyzed. It was the same heavy, suffocating stillness he had experienced in the hospital.
A figure stepped out of the dark.
Huge;
It was the first thing he noticed.
He was built like a fortress: wide-shouldered, barrel-chested, with a square jaw, small blue eyes twinkled from a face with no eyebrows, topped by a bald head and a short, bristly beard.
He was wearing a leather jacket, open, no shirt underneath, showing a muscular torso crossed with old scars. Golden goggles sat on his forehead. A bandolier wrapped across his chest. Yellow shoulder pads.
He was grinning. Huge, wide, taking up most of his face.
"HA!" the man laughed the way he was built; big, loud, with zero interest in volume control. "So THIS is the ninth! Let me get a look at you, kid!"
He leaned in, his face inches from Midoriya's, squinting and inspecting. He pulled back, crossed his massive arms, and gave a single, sharp nod of approval.
"Good. GOOD. I like this one." He jabbed a thick finger toward Midoriya's chest "You feel that? That raw pull in your gut, that surge that came out of you back there? That's MINE, kid! That was my power coming through! And it's manifesting way earlier than any of us banked on!"
He threw his head back and laughed.
Then, his grin flickered, shifting into something more pointed. He glanced over his shoulder, peering into the deeper, suffocating shadows behind him.
Two figures stood there, separate from the shifting silhouettes of the others. Their outlines were sharp, crystalline, and hauntingly present; but they were turned away.
"OI! Kudo! Bruce!" the big man cupped his hands around his mouth, shouting as if trying to wake the dead. "You seeing this?! The kid just unleashed Blackwhip on his first real go! You two are still gonna stand over there acting like you're too elite for the guest of honor?!"
There was no response…
"Yeah, yeah, keep pouting. You're missing the show." He waved a dismissive, meat-hook of a hand at them before turning back to Midoriya. "Don't sweat those two. They will come around… eventually…. probably. They've got their reasons for being stubborn, but don't let it get to you."
Midoriya didn't know who Kudo and Bruce were. Couldn't ask, because his mouth was sealed. But he could see them; the two figures, standing in the dark with their backs half-turned, and everything about their posture said the same thing:
We're not ready to accept you.
The big man planted his massive fists on his hips, his grin shifting into something more serious.
"BUT." he thundered, his voice somehow finding a higher gear. "Don't think this means you get to the coast! You hear me?! What happened out there was a start. JUST a start! Something bigger is coming down the road, and you are NOWHERE near ready for it!"
He held up a finger.
"Two things. First… you train. Harder than you've ever imagined. I don't care if you've been through hell; go deeper. I don't care if your muscles are screaming; ignore 'em. Shape up, because 'good enough' is gonna get you killed."
A second finger joined the first. "And from here on out, you don't use this power casually. You don't pull on One For All every time you stub your toe. Every time you activate it, you're drawing on all of us. That's not something you do carelessly."
Midoriya's mind was racing. He couldn't speak, couldn't ask questions, but his brain was doing what it always did; cataloguing, analyzing, connecting.
This man was one of the previous users of One For All. He was inside the power itself. The vestiges weren't just echoes or memories; they were here. Living inside the quirk, watching, waiting.
The big man stopped mid-sentence. He leaned in again, his small blue eyes squinting at Midoriya's face with sudden, confused intensity.
"Hey, wait. Where the hell is your mouth?"
He stared at the thick, green mist masking Midoriya's lower face. He reached out as if to poke it, then pulled back, scratching the back of his bald head.
"Kid, I have been shouting at you for like two minutes and you can't even talk back? Seriously?" He let out a huff of realization, looking genuinely embarrassed. "Man, that's… okay, that's actually pretty rude of me. My bad, Ninth. Guess the connection's still a bit buggy."
.
….
[To be continued…]
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