The clock in the staff briefing room struck five in the morning, a rhythmic, mechanical sound that felt like the chopping of a guillotine. Outside, the pre-dawn sky of Musutafu was a bruised, sickly violet, reflecting off the reinforced glass of the academy.
Masanori Kuroda stood at the head of the long mahogany table, his charcoal suit as sharp as the crease in his trousers. He looked as though he had slept for ten hours, though every teacher in the room knew he had been coordinating the Kamino extraction since the previous evening. He wore his trademark artificial smile, a thin curve of the lips that signalled order, regardless of the chaos brewing beneath.
"A remarkable night," Kuroda said, his baritone voice smooth and untroubled. "A clean extraction. Two of our students have made their return, the League's temporary headquarters identified, and a Tartarus escapee, the villain Meteor, has surrendered himself to our custody without a struggle. It is a win for the side of good. A long step forward."
Recovery Girl sat at the far end of the table, her hands trembling as she adjusted her visor. She looked older than she had a week ago, the weight of the night's medical trauma etched into the lines around her mouth.
"Success is a strange word to use, Principal," she said, her voice a fragile rasp. "Katsuki Bakugo is in the ICU. He is physically stable, but his mind… he's entered a near-catatonic state. He doesn't speak. He doesn't eat. He stares at the wall as if he's waiting for the air to stop moving. The abuse he suffered at the hands of those monsters, especially the girl, Toga, left scars on his mind."
And body, the wicked little girl had done a lot and left marks in her name all over his body. They'll fade with time, but it will stick with the teenager for life.
Kuroda waved a hand dismissively, his smile never wavering. "A temporary psychological setback, Chiyo-san. The human mind is resilient, especially one as… robust as his. We have the best therapists on the payroll. He will be processed and returned to Class 1-A by the start of the week., or at least whenever he can."
Aizawa, leaning against the far wall in the shadows, let out a sharp, jagged bark of a laugh. He stepped into the light, his eyes bloodshot, his capture scarf hanging like a dead weight around his neck.
"Absolutely not," Aizawa said.
Kuroda tilted his head, the light glinting off his rectangular glasses. "Pardon, Aizawa-kun?"
"You heard me. Ignoring the fact that we still haven't fully assessed Midoriya's condition, Bakugo is finished here. I expelled him. He attempted to seriously injure, if not end the life of, a fellow student during the exams. He has no business being in a hero course. He has no business being a hero. He's a liability."
"I am the one who makes those rules now," Kuroda said, his voice dropping into a register of cold, polite certainty. "And as it happens, your 'expulsion' was never finalized. Neither Nezu nor you ever filed the paperwork for his removal from the registry. You two only filed the emergency paperwork to designate him a 'Villain Status' for the duration of his kidnapping. A legal fiction that is easily redacted."
Aizawa's jaw tightened, his voice rising. "His attitude has been a cancer in that class all year! His prior misconduct at Aldera, the systematic bullying and more, it's documented now! You want to put a ticking bomb back in a room full of traumatized kids that won't work well with him?"
"And we will correct it," Kuroda said. "We are an educational facility, aren't we?"
"As if," Aizawa spat.
Kuroda's smile didn't move, but the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. "Consider the variables, Aizawa. The League has kidnapped him once. He is a primary target. To expel him now would be to throw a high-yield asset back into the wild without protection. The Commission will not waste tax-payer money providing a twenty-four-hour security detail for an ex-student who offers no return on investment. If he stays here, he is protected. If he leaves, he is a corpse or a recruit for Shigaraki. Is that the morality you're championing?"
"Then lock him in the bunkers," Aizawa countered. "Keep him as a witness. But he is not my student."
"He will be," Kuroda said. He walked around the table, stopping inches from Aizawa. The robotic elegance of his movement made the other teachers, Vlad King, Midnight, Snipe, hold their breath. "Because you are no longer the one in charge of Class 1-A's roster. In fact, you are no longer in a position to negotiate your tenure here at all."
The room went deathly silent.
"I am not Nezu," Kuroda whispered, his voice a razor-thin blade. "I am Masanori Kuroda. I am your superior, and in this system, things go as I say. You will take Bakugo back into your class. You will manage him. Unless, of course, you can provide a reason more valid than 'I don't like his attitude' for why a target of national importance should be denied the sanctuary of this institution."
Kuroda could be a cruel man. Ignoring the years of bullying, ignoring the hatred of a classroom the assailant may be going back to. It was an odd choice. A hill not many more would be willing to die on.
Aizawa stood frozen. For the first time in his career, he found himself staring at a wall he couldn't break through with logic or force. He was a gear in a machine that had just been overhauled. He slowly, bitterly, took his seat.
"Good," Kuroda said, straightening his cuffs. "Now, Chiyo-san, you asked about the conditions."
Kuroda looked almost giddy now, a dark spark of intellectual satisfaction in his eyes. "We are introducing a new sanction to the national hero curriculum. A disciplinary leash for those who lack the… moral refinement necessary for the era. We are calling it the Black Tag."
He tapped a file on the table. "If a student is Black Tagged, they are under permanent judicial surveillance. A single breach of conduct, any sign of the old patterns, will result in immediate removal and criminal prosecution. No appeals. No second chances."
He began to list the rules he had drafted for Bakugo. "One: He is prohibited from using his grenade bracers or any quirk-enhancing support gear during training or outside of it, unless explicitly authorized by his homeroom teacher. Two: Mandated therapy sessions every third day. Three: An intensive anger management course. Four: He must maintain an academic average of eighty percent. We need his mind occupied by something other than his own ego for now."
Aizawa looked at the list, his eyes burning with a cold, hollow spite. "Add one more," he said, his voice flat. "He calls his classmates by their names. No more 'extras.' No more 'nerds.' If he's going to be a hero, he starts by acknowledging the humanity of the people he stands next to."
Kuroda nodded, jotting the note down with a silver pen. "A reasonable request. Humanization is an excellent psychological deterrent."
He finished the list and handed it across the table to Aizawa. "Read the last line, Shota-kun. I think you'll find it… interesting."
Aizawa took the paper. His eyes scanned down to the bottom, past the sanctions and the academic requirements. He stopped. His pupils dilated.
"What is this?" Aizawa whispered.
"Read it aloud," Kuroda commanded.
Aizawa looked at the other teachers, his voice sounding like it was being pulled through gravel.
"Final Condition: Acceptance back into Class 1-A is contingent upon a formal, documented grant of permission from student Izuku Midoriya."
Aizawa dropped the paper. The room was plunged into a suffocating, tense silence.
Kuroda's smile was wider now, more radiant and more terrifying than ever. He wasn't just bringing Bakugo back, he was forcing Midoriya to choose between his own trauma and the survival of the boy who had broken him.
"We are in a new era, gentlemen," Kuroda said, turning toward the door as the first light of the sun touched the windows. "And in this era, forgiveness is just another part of the process."
___
The dormitories of U.A. did not feel like a home anymore, they felt like a holding pen. The walls, reinforced with lead-lined plating, hummed with a low-frequency vibration that seemed to settle in the marrow of Ochaco Uraraka's bones.
She stood in the common area, her eyes fixed on her phone. The notification had come through a restricted channel, Recovery of Midoriya Izuku and Bakugo Katsuki confirmed. Transfer to Secure Medical Wing Delta complete.
Izuku was back.
The name felt heavy in her mind, a jagged stone she didn't know how to carry. Without a word to the others Ochaco turned and ran. She didn't use her quirk, she wanted to feel the slap of her soles against the cold linoleum, the burn in her lungs, the reality of the distance.
She reached the threshold of Wing Delta, but the sliding glass doors didn't part for her. Instead, she was met by the silent, matte-black visors of two SWAT officers. Their rifles were held in a low-ready position, their armored forms blocking the path to the sterile white light of the infirmary.
"Access restricted, student," the lead officer's voice was a mechanical rasp through a vocoder. "Delta Wing is under total lockdown for biological and psychological processing. Return to your quarters."
"I just need to see him," Ochaco said, her voice trembling with a simmering, cold anger. "He's my friend. He's been through… we don't even know what he's been through. Let me in."
"Return to your quarters," the officer repeated, the red laser sight of his weapon momentarily ghosting across her shoes. "Final warning."
Ochaco stepped back, her breath coming in shallow, jagged gasps. The school had become a machine, and she was just a variable being pushed back into its designated slot. She looked at the reinforced doors, imagining Izuku on the other side.
She turned away, walking slowly back toward the dorms, the sterile blue lights of the hallway blurring in her vision.
Midoriya, she thought. Izuku.
The name felt foreign, yet it was the only one that mattered now. For months, she had called him "Deku." She had taken a word that Bakugo had used to strip him of his humanity, a word that meant "useless," a word that was a rhythmic lash against a boy's soul, and she had tried to "reclaim" it. She had told him it sounded like "you can do it."
She felt a wave of visceral, nauseating shame.
How could I have been so blind? she wondered. I took his trauma and I put a bow on it. I told him his chains were jewellery.
Ever since the leaked texts had surfaced, ever since she had learned the true depth of Bakugo's cruelty, the "swan dive" comment, the years of systematic breaking, the name "Deku" tasted like ash in her mouth. It wasn't a nickname, it was a scar. Every time she had said it, she had unwittingly validated Bakugo's narrative. She had been an accomplice to the erasure of Izuku Midoriya.
She thought of Kuroda's speech in the assembly hall. He had called her sentimentality a "sin." Maybe he was right. Her "kindness" had been a hollow thing because it refused to look at the blood on the floor. She had wanted to believe in the "Golden Era" so badly that she had ignored the boy standing in the shadows, drowning in his own skin.
"I'm sorry," she whispered to the empty, echoing hallway. "I'm so sorry, Izuku."
She wanted to stand in front of him, not as a fan or a teammate or a hero-in-training, but as someone who finally saw him. She wanted to tell him that he didn't have to be "Deku" anymore.
She reached the door to the dorms and stopped, looking at her reflection in the glass. Her face was pale, her eyes hard. She wasn't the girl who wanted to make people smile anymore. She was a girl who wanted to tear down the walls of the machine that was currently "processing" the boy she had failed.
"I'll wait," she promised the silence. "I'll wait until they let you out. And when I see you... I'll use your real name. I'll give you back the pieces they tried to take."
___
The morning sun didn't shine in Medical Wing Delta, it filtered through reinforced, lead-lined glass in cold, horizontal bars of gray.
Izuku sat upright in the hospital bed, his tattered hero suit replaced by a thin white gown. He looked smaller here, surrounded by monitors that tracked his heart rate,.
The door hissed open. Shota Aizawa stepped in, his face a map of exhaustion. He looked like he hadn't slept. He stood at the foot of the bed, staring at Izuku with a look that was hard to read, part relief, part profound irritation.
"You're a reckless moron, Midoriya," Aizawa said, his voice a low, tired gravel. "Jumping into a warp gate without a plan, without backup, and without a license. If you weren't currently a 'national asset,' I'd have you in cuffs for the next decade."
Izuku bowed his head, his fingers tracing the hem of the sterile sheets. "I'm sorry, Sensei. I just... I had to be there. I couldn't "lose" again."
Aizawa let out a long, ragged sigh. He pulled a chair over, sitting down with a heavy thud. "I had a long talk with Detective Tsukauchi last night. We went over the Gifu reports. We went over your medical scans." He leaned forward, his eyes locking onto Izuku's. "I know about Yoshi Abara. I know about his possession. I know exactly what's been sharing your skin."
Izuku's heart skipped a beat. He felt a sudden, cold surge of vertigo. "You... you know?"
"We know," Aizawa confirmed. "And we're dealing with the fallout of that. But that's not why I'm here."
Aizawa reached into his pocket and pulled out a tablet, flicking through a series of documents. His expression darkened. "I also spent the morning reading through your history. Not just the U.A. files. The Aldera files. After some concerns... we learnt of how Katsuki Bakugo treated you over the years. I know what he did, Midoriya. I know what he has said and done to you."
The silence that followed was suffocating. Izuku felt a hot, prickling wave of shame wash over him. He stared at his hands, his knuckles turning white. To have his childhood trauma laid out on a clinical tablet by his teacher felt like being dissected while awake.
"Why didn't you say anything?" Aizawa asked, his voice devoid of judgment but heavy with a demand for truth. "Why did you let him stand next to you in this course for almost an entire school year after what he did? Were you scared?"
Izuku's head stayed down. "I... I didn't think I was scared. At least, not after I got a quirk. I thought... I thought we could just get past it. I thought if I worked hard enough, if I became a hero, we could just move on and the past wouldn't matter anymore."
He thought of the exams, the way Bakugo had struck him with enough force to break stone, the way he had snarled with a hatred that felt ancient.
"I was being naive, wasn't I?" Izuku whispered.
Aizawa snorted, a sharp, bitter sound. "Naive? That's a polite word for it. It wasn't your fault, Midoriya. The system failed you long before you got here. But when I found out the extent of it... I pushed for his immediate expulsion. I wanted him stripped of his record and thrown into a correctional facility. The Commission is currently pushing for judicial punishment. They want him in a cell for his 'villainous conduct' during the exams."
Izuku's head snapped up. "Prison? But... he was kidnapped! He was tortured! You can't just throw him away like that. It would ruin his future. He'd never be able to be a hero."
"His actions are what did that," Aizawa countered, his voice rising in irritation. "He chose to be the aggressor. He chose to act like a villain."
"He's not a villain!" Izuku cried out, his voice cracking. He gripped the hospital sheets until they groaned. "I know we don't get along... I know he hates me. But becoming a villain? That would be the last thing on his list. He wants to win. He wants to be the best. He's... he's just lost."
Aizawa stood up, his posture stiff with a rare, visible anger. "Even if it's the last thing on his list, it's still on the list, Midoriya. You're being too 'nice.' You're looking at a predator and trying to find the boy inside, but the predator is the one that's going to eat you. You need to be more selfish at times. People with bad intentions will happily walk over you and use your 'mercy' to their advantage. You're easy to manipulate because you refuse to be the one to swing the hammer."
"I know that!" Izuku shouted back, tears of frustration stinging his eyes. "I know everyone is using me! But I won't be the reason someone else's life is destroyed just to make mine easier!"
Aizawa stared at him for a long minute. The anger in his eyes faded, replaced by a profound, weary sadness. He looked at the boy who had carried a ghost, a bully, and a legacy on his back, and realized that Izuku's "kindness" was both his greatest strength and his most terminal flaw.
"That's why it's hard for me to tell you this," Aizawa said, his voice dropping into a somber tone. He explained the Black Tag. He explained Kuroda's conditions for Bakugo, the anger management, the academic requirements, the ban on his support gear. "Kuroda has finalized the sanctions. He's allowing Bakugo back into the Hero Course under these strict rules. But there's a final condition."
Aizawa leaned in, his gaze piercing. "Bakugo's return to Class 1-A... the decision isn't mine. It isn't the Commission's. It isn't even Kuroda's. It's yours. He is only accepted back if you, Midoriya Izuku, provide a formal, documented grant of permission."
Izuku froze. The air in the room felt like it had turned to lead. Izuku hadn't even met this new principal yet. He hadn't even fully the processed the idea of principal Nezu not being the principal of UA, and now he was being asked to be the judge of the person who had spent almost a decade trying to erase him.
He looked at the sheets, his heart thundering. He thought of his mother's coma. He thought of the look on Bakugo's broken, bloody face in the Kamino cell.
"I'm not making that choice," Izuku said, his voice quiet but shaking with an absolute, unyielding resolve.
Aizawa frowned. "Midoriya, you have to. The paperwork..."
"I'm not making a decision based on a file or a list of rules," Izuku interrupted, his eyes flashing with a sudden intensity. He looked Aizawa dead in the eye, his grip on the sheets tightening one last time.
"I will only make that decision," Izuku said, "after I get to speak with him. Face to face."