The training camp had settled into a rhythm of exhaustion and laughter: grueling morning drills, afternoon quirk relays, evenings around the fire with burnt marshmallows and Bakugou's snarling ghost stories.
Izuku had almost started to believe the peace would hold.
He was wrong.
It began with the quest window.
He was on the lodge roof at 2:11 a.m., legs dangling over the edge, tracing constellations with a fingertip while Ocean mapped the slow heartbeats of sleeping classmates.
The sky above was cloudless, the moon a silver coin. Then the air tore open like wet fabric.
The window materialized in blinding emerald, letters burning themselves into existence with a violence that made his retinas ache.
EMERGENCY QUEST ACTIVATION
HEART OF THE MOUNTAIN – FORCED CATALYST
THREAT SUMMONED: MUSCULAR (GOTO IMASUJI)
LOCATION: CLIFF ABOVE THE LODGE – 400 METERS NORTH
OBJECTIVE:
Prevent Kota's death.
Defeat/capture Muscular.
Allow Kota to witness heroism at its rawest.
REWARD (UPON COMPLETION):
Kota's hatred → unconditional belief in heroes.
Kota's Quirk (Water Gun) boosted +80 %.
Bonus: Muscular permanently added to Master Ball collection.
FAILURE:
Kota dies.
Hatred festers forever.
TIME LIMIT: 7 MINUTES
Izuku was moving before the window finished fading.
He vaulted off the roof, landing in a crouch that jarred his very human knees. No Saiyan strength to cushion the fall anymore. Just muscle memory and desperation.
The velvet pouch was already in his hand, twenty-one Master Balls clinking softly as he sprinted barefoot across the gravel path.
Ocean screamed one heartbeat, tiny, frantic, 400 meters north and climbing, Kota's.
And beneath it, a second heartbeat. Massive. Wrong. A pressure like standing inside a drum while someone beat it with sledgehammers.
Muscular.
The quest system had reached into whatever hell dimension held that monster and dragged him here.
Izuku's lungs burned as he tore up the mountain trail. Branches whipped his face, drawing thin lines of blood. Seven minutes. He had seven minutes to reach the cliff where Kota liked to hide, where the boy went when the noise of heroes became too much.
He arrived in four minutes and thirty-seven seconds.
The scene froze him for half a heartbeat.
Kota stood on the exact same outcrop where Izuku had fought him two days ago, red cap askew, small fists clenched.
Twenty meters away loomed Muscular, eight feet of grotesque muscle wrapped in a straitjacket of his own augmented fibers, metal eye glinting in the moonlight. The villain's grin was a shark's promise.
"Found the brat," Muscular rumbled, voice like grinding stone. "Heard his parents squeal the same way before I popped 'em. Let's see if the kid's got the same lungs."
Kota's knees shook, but he didn't run. Water jets sputtered weakly from his palms, barely enough to wet the dirt.
Muscular took one step.
Izuku moved.
He crossed the distance in a blur of human speed and pure rage, shoulder-checking Muscular with every ounce of momentum. The impact rattled his skeleton, but the villain staggered, surprise flashing across his face.
"The fuck—?"
Izuku didn't let him finish.
He pivoted, driving his knee into Muscular's solar plexus, then spun into an elbow that cracked against the metal eye. Sparks flew. The villain roared, muscle fibers lashing out like steel cables.
Izuku ducked under the first, sidestepped the second, and slammed an Explosion-enhanced palm (thank you, Bakugou's old quirk gift) into Muscular's chest.
The blast wasn't Saiyan-level, but it was enough. Muscular flew backward, carving a trench through the cliffside dirt.
Kota's eyes were saucers. "M-Midoriya…?"
"Stay back!" Izuku shouted, voice raw. "Close your eyes if you have to, but don't run!"
He didn't have time to be gentle.
Muscular rose laughing, blood trickling from a split lip. "Little hero thinks he's tough without his power. I'll use your spine as a jump rope."
He charged.
What followed was not elegant.
Izuku fought like a cornered animal with every trick he'd hoarded.
He opened with a point-blank Explosion that shredded the straitjacket fibers and peeled skin from Muscular's ribs.
When the villain swung a fist the size of a wrecking ball, Izuku ducked inside the arc and drove his fingers into the exposed muscle, Ocean guiding him to nerve clusters. The scream that tore from Muscular's throat was inhuman.
Izuku didn't stop.
He danced, human reflexes honed by vampire fangs and earth titans, around every blow. A knee to the groin folded Muscular forward; Izuku's elbow met the back of his skull, driving him face-first into stone. Blood sprayed.
The villain's muscle fibers tried to knit, but Izuku was already moving, wrapping them in Sero's tape he'd palmed earlier, binding arms to torso in sticky coils.
Muscular roared, flexing. Tape snapped. Izuku met him head-on.
He took hits, brutal, bone-cracking impacts that would have killed a normal human.
A punch to the ribs lifted him off his feet and sent him skidding ten meters. Pain exploded white-hot. He spat blood, rolled to his feet, and charged again.
Because Kota was watching.
Every blow Izuku landed, every time he rose bleeding and laughing through broken teeth, was a message carved in violence:
Heroes don't leave kids behind.
He hammer-fisted Muscular's metal eye until it shattered, glass and fluid spraying.
He wrapped the villain's own muscle fibers around his throat and pulled, choking him with his own power.
He needed him alive.
Izuku stepped back, chest heaving, blood dripping from his nose, and raised one trembling hand.
Muscular lunged one final time, blind with rage.
Izuku met him with a Master Ball.
He didn't throw it. He slammed it into the center of Muscular's forehead like a branding iron.
The sphere flared crimson, expanding into a sphere of absolute containment. Muscular's roar cut off mid-note as his massive body dissolved into energy, sucked into the ball with a sound like a dying star.
The Master Ball fell into Izuku's palm, warm and pulsing. Sealed.
Silence crashed down.
Izuku turned.
Kota stood exactly where he'd been, cap fallen to the dirt, golden eyes wide and wet. The boy's hands were clenched so tight his knuckles were white. Water dripped from his palms, not from his quirk, but tears.
Izuku limped forward, every step agony. Bruised ribs, split lip, one eye swelling shut. He dropped to one knee in front of Kota, the same way he had two days ago, but this time covered in someone else's blood.
"Hey," he rasped, voice gentle despite the ruin of his body. "You okay?"
Kota stared at him, then at the empty space where a monster had been seconds ago. His voice cracked. "You… you fought him. For me. Even though I… I said I hated—"
"I know what you said." Izuku smiled, soft and tired and real. "But hate doesn't get to win tonight."
Kota's face crumpled. The dam broke. He launched himself forward, small arms wrapping around Izuku's neck, sobbing into his shoulder like the child he was.
Izuku held him, one hand cradling the back of Kota's head, the other clutching the Master Ball that now contained the monster who'd murdered Water Hose.
The quest window flared one final time, emerald light washing over them both.
QUEST: HEART OF THE MOUNTAIN – COMPLETE
Kota's perspective rewritten.
Hatred → absolute faith in heroes.
Water Gun → +80 % power (now capable of cutting steel).
Bonus: Muscular captured.
The light faded. Somewhere inside Kota, something shifted, a click like a lock turning. The boy pulled back, eyes red but clear.
"You're… you're bleeding everywhere," he whispered.
Izuku chuckled, wincing. "Yeah. Heroes do that sometimes."
Kota looked at the Master Ball in Izuku's hand, then back at his face. "You… caught him? Like a Pokémon?"
"Something like that," Izuku said, pocketing the ball. "He's not going to hurt anyone ever again."
Kota wiped his nose on his sleeve. "My mom and dad… they fought someone like him. They didn't come back."
"I know." Izuku's voice cracked. "But tonight, we did. And that's enough."
Kota stared at him for a long moment. Then, quietly: "You're the best hero I've ever seen."
Izuku's eyes burned. He ruffled Kota's hair, careful of the horns. "Go back to the lodge. I'll be there soon."
Kota hesitated, then nodded. He picked up his cap, dusted it off, and walked away, small shoulders squared like a soldier's.
Izuku waited until the boy was out of sight.
Then he collapsed.
He lay on his back in the dirt, staring at the stars, blood trickling from his mouth. Every breath was fire. Human bones didn't forgive like Saiyan ones did. But the quest was complete. Kota's heart had turned. The mountain was safe.
He laughed, wet and ragged, into the night.
Somewhere in dimensional storage, Muscular knelt in perfect silence, waiting for a command that would never come.
Izuku closed his eyes.
Tomorrow, the camp would wake up and find their green-haired classmate covered in bruises and smiling like he'd won the war.
Because tonight, he had.