Grey stood bathed in the cold blue glow of monitors, eyes darting over the chaos blooming at U.A. sirens, flashing alerts, and the grim headline pulsing like a wound:
"Aoyama Confirmed Dead, U.A. on Lockdown."
Rain battered the window, muting the world outside. The hum of machines was the only heartbeat in the room.
The door slammed open. Hana stormed in, eyes blazing, fists trembling.
"You said no blood. You promised!"
Grey barely looked at her. His voice was ice.
"I promised survival. Promises change."
Hana's fists shook harder. "This wasn't survival. This was slaughter."
Grey turned slowly, his gaze locking on hers. His tone was calm, almost surgical.
"Survival isn't clean, Hana. It never was. You think heroes keep their hands pure? They drown in compromise every day."
Her breath hitched, fury and disbelief colliding.
"You're not a hero. You're not even close."
Grey's lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"I never claimed to be. Heroes play defense. I play offense."
Hana stepped closer, voice trembling with rage.
"You're controlling him. Stain. You turned a man into a weapon. That's not offense—that's tyranny."
Grey's fingers danced across the console, pulling up a feed: Stain sprinting through rain-slick alleys, hunted and relentless. His hand hovered over the neural override.
"Heroes don't kill," Grey murmured, almost to himself. "Even when it costs them everything. I learned that the hard way."
He pressed the command.
Miles away, Stain staggered. Pain split his mind, a white-hot pressure, suffocating and inescapable.
No… not like this… I am no one's weapon…
But his body betrayed him, each step dragging him toward the safe house, toward Grey.
Hana's voice cracked.
"What are you doing?"
Grey didn't answer. His eyes flicked to another monitor—a decrypted log pulsing in red. Coordinates. A name.
Eri.
Hana saw it too. Her breath caught.
"What is that?"
Grey's tone softened, almost reverent.
"The anomaly they fear most. A child who can rewind existence. She's not just a target—she's the key."
Hana's stomach twisted.
"You're planning to use her, she's just a little girl?"
Grey turned, his expression unreadable.
"I'm planning to survive. And if this world is a script, Eri is the eraser."
The mirror above the monitors spiderwebbed with a hairline crack. The lights flickered violently, shadows convulsing across the walls like broken limbs.
The whisper still lingered like smoke in Hana's mind: Erase the anomalies. She pressed a trembling hand to her temple, trying to steady herself, but the words wouldn't leave. The cracked mirror above the monitors reflected her pale face, fractured into shards.
Hana's voice broke the silence, sharp and raw.
"You're losing yourself, Grey. First Stain, now this child, what's next? How far will you go?"
Grey didn't flinch. His gaze stayed locked on the pulsing name on the screen: Eri.
"Far enough to survive."
Hana stepped closer, fists clenched.
"Survive what? You keep talking like the world is ending, but all I see is you turning into the thing you claim to fight."
Grey turned slowly, his eyes cold and steady.
"You think this is about villains? About Shigaraki and his League? They're pawns. The real threat is bigger—older. It's rewriting reality while we argue."
Hana froze, her breath catching.
"What are you talking about?"
Grey's voice dropped, calm and merciless.
"Look outside. U.A. is burning. Heroes are bleeding. And that's just the surface. We're facing three storms at once:
— Shigaraki's League, growing stronger every hour.
— The Commission, desperate to control what they can't understand.
— And something else… something that doesn't belong in this world."
He gestured toward the cracked mirror, where shadows writhed like broken limbs.
"You felt it. The whisper. The glitch. That's not a villain's quirk, it's this designated author of this story, and it wants us erased."
Hana's stomach twisted. Her voice trembled.
"You sound insane."
Grey stepped closer, his tone softening but his words cutting like glass.
"Insane? Maybe. But tell me, Hana, why do you remember a life that isn't yours? Why do I? Why does this world bend every time we push against it?"
Her breath hitched. She had no answer.
Grey turned back to the console, his fingers brushing the glowing name.
"Eri is the only variable they can't lost control. She can rewind existence itself. If we can find her first, we'll may be able to break their script before they erase us."
Hana's voice cracked, fury and fear colliding.
"She's just a child, Grey. Not your weapon."
Grey's lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"She's hope. And in a world this rotten, hope is the sharpest blade."
The lights flickered violently. The whisper returned, louder, crawling through the circuits like a living thing:
"Erase the anomalies."
Hana staggered back, her pulse pounding. For the first time, she wondered if Grey was right—and if that terrified her more than anything else.
*****
Time stretched like wire after Grey hit the switch. The hum of monitors filled the silence, punctuated only by the rain clawing at the windows. Hana stood rigid near the doorway, her breath shallow, her fists trembling. Every second felt heavier than the last.
Finally, the door creaked open.
Rain pooled at Stain's feet as he stepped inside, drenched and shaking. His chest heaved like a beast dragged from battle, but his eyes burned with fury, a fire smothered under invisible chains. For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Grey didn't flinch. His voice was calm, almost welcoming.
"Welcome back, Stain."
Stain's lips curled into a snarl, but his words trembled under the weight of control.
"You think you own me? You think you can rewrite my creed?"
Grey's stare was absolute, cold as steel.
"I don't need to rewrite it. I just need to aim it."
Hana's breath hitched. She stepped forward, voice sharp with disbelief.
"Aim him? Grey, he's a person, not a weapon!"
Grey turned his gaze on her, unblinking.
"Weapons don't hesitate. People do. That's why they fail."
Stain spat blood onto the floor, his jaw clenched so tight it trembled.
"You're a coward hiding behind wires and whispers. You can't control conviction."
Grey's tone softened, almost amused.
"Conviction? You killed for an ideal. I'm asking you to kill an illusion."
Hana's voice cracked, fury and fear colliding.
"And what about her?" She jabbed a finger toward the glowing console, where a single name pulsed in red: Eri.
"You want to drag a child into this madness too?"
Grey's expression didn't change, but his voice dropped to a chilling calm.
"She's not madness. She's more like the reset button. If this world is a script, Eri is the eraser."
The words hung like smoke. Stain's eyes flicked to the screen, then back to Grey, confusion slicing through his rage.
"A child… You'd use her power to rewrite the world?"
Grey stepped closer, his shadow stretching across the cracked mirror above the monitors.
"Not rewrite. Correct."
Hana staggered back, pressing a hand to her temple, her voice breaking.
"Grey… what are you becoming?"
Grey didn't answer. His gaze stayed locked on Stain, voice calm and merciless.
"Your next mission: infiltrate U.A. again. Not to kill. To plant chaos. Break their trust. Show them their heroes can't protect anyone—not even themselves."
Stain's jaw clenched, hatred burning like acid. But his body obeyed. He nodded once, stiffly, and turned toward the storm.
Grey watched him go, then whispered to the glowing name on the screen:
"Soon."
The mirror spiderwebbed with a hairline crack. The lights died with a sound like breaking glass. For a breathless second, the world felt rewritten, and Grey smiled as if he'd read the next page before anyone else.
U.A. Command Center
Sirens were gone. The storm had passed, but its scars lingered. The campus was draped in black banners, rain-soaked earth swallowing the weight of grief. Students stood in silence beneath the gray sky, their faces pale and hollow.
Aoyama's funeral was quiet, too quiet for a world that had just shattered. The coffin rested beneath a canopy of white lilies, their purity mocking the blood spilled hours before.
Principal Nezu's voice broke the stillness, soft but edged with steel:
"We honor his light… and we vow this will never happen again."
No one spoke. Bakugo sat rigid in a wheelchair near the front, his arm bound in layers of bandages, explosions gone silent. Todoroki stood beside him, his left side swathed in frost-burn and bruises, eyes fixed on the coffin like it held every failure he couldn't erase.
Deku lingered at the edge of the crowd, fists clenched so tight his knuckles bled. Green sparks flickered faintly around his arms, a storm caged beneath his skin. He had chased Stain through the night, rage burning like wildfire, until the call came. Until he heard the words that froze his blood:
"Bakugo and Todoroki… critical."
Now, the sight gutted him. His voice was a whisper swallowed by rain:
"Kacchan…"
Recovery Girl's warning echoed in his mind:
"Another fight like that, and he won't wake up."
Deku's breath hitched. His obsession fractured into something heavier than fury—guilt. He had wanted vengeance. He had wanted to tear Stain apart for Aoyama. But now—
He looked at Bakugo's still face, Todoroki's trembling hands.
"I can't… I can't lose them too."
Above the funeral canopy, the sky cracked with distant thunder. And somewhere beyond the horizon, Stain moved like a phantom, his creed burning, his will shackled by Grey's command.
*****
Darkness hummed like a living thing. In a space without walls, without time, something watched.
The anomaly pulsed on its lattice, a fracture in the pattern, two names glowing like wounds: Grey. Hana.
A voice, layered and ancient, whispered across the void:
"They know."
Another answered, calm and merciless:
"So, it's time."
The mirror cracked wider. Reality bent like molten glass. And somewhere, in the rain-soaked city, Grey smiled.