….
"Stop it, Deku."
Uraraka interrupted him firmly, stepping forward.
Her usual bright, bubbly demeanor was entirely absent, replaced by a sad, exhausted exhaustion.
"It's not just you." she said softly, looking around at the battered, bruised faces of her classmates. "Believe me, none of us feels any differently. We were there, we fought, and in the end, we all came up short."
The hallway fell into a heavy, suffocating silence.
Then Kirishima finally spoke. "I have a plan to get them back."
Every head in the hallway snapped to look at him.
Iida straightened immediately, his brow furrowing with absolute alarm. "Kirishima-kun, we must wait for the professionals. The police and the Pro Heroes are already mobilizing."
"Or we help them." Kirishima countered, his jaw set.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. "With the transmitter Yaoyorozu planted…."
Kirishima looked around the group, his eyes burning with desperate determination. "Couldn't we just ask her to make another receiver and–"
"We could get ourselves killed!" Iida's voice echoed sharply down the hall, his calf engines flaring with an involuntary hiss of stress. "We are just first-year students who just survived a coordinated villain attack that put half our class in the hospital! We cannot simply march into an enemy stronghold!"
"They took Bakugo and Todoroki!" Kirishima argued back, stepping into Iida's space. "Do you honestly expect me to just sit in a hospital room and wait while my friends are in the hands of murderers?!"
The argument escalated instantly.
"Kirishima, I understand how you feel, but Iida is right." Asui said, stepping between them, her voice calm but clearly strained. "If we act without authorization, we're breaking the law. Ribbit."
Kaminari rubbed the back of his neck, looking torn. "Man, I want to save them too, but... did you see the guys who attacked us?? If we run into the pros' line of fire, we're just going to become hostages ourselves."
"Please." Midoriya said quietly.
His voice wasn't loud, but the sheer, agonizing weight of it cut through the argument instantly.
Everyone stopped talking and turned to him.
"We can't just sit here." Midoriya continued, his green eyes lifting to meet Iida's. "I am not saying we fight. I know we aren't licensed Pros and fight League head-to-head. I am just... we can't do absolutely nothing. I can't just leave them in the dark."
Iida looked at Midoriya for a long, heavy moment.
In the original timeline, the Hosu incident would have defined this exact moment for Tenya Iida.
He would have vividly remembered the paralyzing terror of the Hero Killer's blade, the scent of blood in the alleyway, and the agonizing realization that acting on personal vengeance and vigilantism only led to destruction.
That trauma would have anchored him.
It would have made him an immovable wall, absolutely refusing to let his classmates make the same suicidal mistake he had made.
But here, in this timeline, Dabi had intercepted that fate.
Dabi had found Chizome Akaguro before the madness fully consumed him.
Stain had been reformed, folded into an underground agency, and Tensei Iida had never been paralyzed.
Because of Dabi's intervention, the bloody, visceral lesson of Hosu never came.
The experience that would have made Iida absolutely, rigidly refuse this rescue plan simply didn't exist.
He possessed the logic to know it was dangerous, but he lacked the trauma required to forbid it.
Iida looked at Midoriya's desperate expression, then at Kirishima's clenched fists. He let out a long, defeated exhale, his rigid posture finally slumping.
"No combat." Iida said finally, his voice tight with strict conditions. "We observe only, and the absolute second it becomes dangerous, or the moment we confirm their location for the authorities, we retreat. Are we clear?"
Kirishima's face lit up with fierce relief.
"Agreed." he said immediately.
Midoriya nodded, his fists clenching at his sides.
"Then we need to speak with Yaoyorozu." Iida adjusted his glasses, resigning himself to the reckless path they had just chosen. "We need that receiver."
….
Miles away, hidden deep within Kamino Ward, Katsuki Bakugo and Shoto Todoroki sat heavily restrained to wooden chairs in the center of a dingy, dimly lit bar.
Their hands were bound securely, surrounded by the very villains who had forcefully extracted them from the training camp via the black sludge portals.
To the villains lingering in the shadows, the kidnapping seemed to be treated as an aggressive, twisted job offer.
Tomura Shigaraki lounged casually near the counter, leaning forward with an air of manic satisfaction.
His red eyes were glued to a flickering television screen mounted on the wall, watching the live broadcast of U.A.'s official apology press conference.
On the screen, Principal Nezu, Aizawa, and Vlad King sat behind a long table. Nezu's usual cheerful demeanor had been entirely replaced with grim, cold calculation.
In unison, the three faculty members bowed deeply to the flashing cameras.
"We take full responsibility for our failure to protect the students." Nezu's voice echoed through the bar's cheap speakers. "Our security measures proved insufficient, our oversight fell short, and for that we offer our deepest apologies to the students, their families, and society as a whole."
The reporters in the press room were vicious.
They circled the U.A. faculty like sharks in bloodied water, firing off questions like coordinated attacks.
But the atmosphere in the press room wasn't just volatile because of the kidnapping. It was chaotic because, in the early hours of the morning, a massive, tectonic secret had suddenly leaked to the public.
The real identity of U.A.'s enigmatic assistant teacher, the Underground Hero known as Blue Sun, had been exposed to the world: Toya Todoroki.
The son who had fought the Vanguard Action Squad to the brink of death to save his classmates was Endeavor's supposedly deceased child.
The Hero Public Safety Commission (HPSC) was trying their absolute best to cover up the incident.
They had known Dabi's true lineage for years and had deliberately restricted him to underground operations to keep Endeavor's reputation, and the foundation of hero society – pristine.
Because the leak didn't have perfect, undeniable proof yet, the HPSC's frantic censorship had worked to some extent.
But it wasn't enough.
The puzzle pieces matched too perfectly.
Endeavor's family history was unraveling before the public's eyes.
His wife had spent years confined to a psychiatric hospital, the son long believed to have died in a tragic fire had resurfaced wielding catastrophic blue flames, and the burn scar covering Shoto Todoroki's face suddenly took on a far more disturbing meaning.
The public wasn't blind and piece by piece, they were connecting the dots, and the reality of the Todoroki family's abuse was rapidly coming into the light.
Then, one reporter's voice cut sharply through the clamor of the press conference.
"Eraser Head!" the reporter shouted. "We've noticed the violently aggressive tendencies of the student Katsuki Bakugo during the Sports Festival! Combined with the breaking news regarding Shoto Todoroki's traumatic family history. And the credible evidence of severe abuse that has surfaced today, doesn't this suggest both of these kidnapped students have a high likelihood of turning to villainy?!"
In the dingy bar, Bakugo's eyes narrowed into lethal slits, a low growl rumbling in his throat despite his restraints. Shoto simply stared at the screen, his mismatched eyes unreadable.
On the broadcast, Aizawa, who had been maintaining perfect, exhausted composure, went absolutely still.
"I cannot speak to the Todoroki family situation, as it requires further, independent investigation." Aizawa said, his gravelly voice dropping into a carefully controlled, lethal register. "But I can assure you, by putting my entire Hero career on the line, that both of those students possess the hearts of true heroes. Without a single shred of doubt, I trust my students."
He paused, the flashing cameras reflecting in his dark eyes as a dangerous, unyielding promise entered his expression.
"Also, take this as a warning." Aizawa continued, his gaze piercing directly through the lenses. "Do not speak those words lightly about my students. If the person sitting here were my colleague, Blue Sun, who is currently resting in the hospital after pushing past his absolute limits to protect those children, do not expect him to respond as peacefully as I have. He cares for his students just as much as I do. But he can get a bit violent when people threaten them."
The threat landed in the press room like a physical hammer.
The suffocating authority radiating from Aizawa effectively silenced the vicious assault of questions.
The press conference ended shortly after.
Aizawa, Nezu, and Vlad King stood up and walked off the stage, their postures unbroken despite the few reporters who dared to continue shouting questions at their retreating backs.
.
….
[To be continued…]
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