The call came from a school that wasn't U.A.
Shiketsu High requested a joint field day—no competitions, no press—observation exchange. Renya, Aizawa, and a subset of 1-A went. Nezu waved them off with a lunchbox and a warning: "Learn, don't convert."
They arrived to a campus built for precision. Lines painted on the ground looked like they obeyed rules at night. Students bowed, instructors bowed deeper, and a bell rang exactly when it was supposed to.
Renya wanted to like it. He almost did.
The first exercise paired students from both schools for a rescue simulation on a mock street. The prompt: Child under car, gasoline leak, panic crowd.
A Shiketsu pair moved like choreography—cones out, perimeter established, announcements clear, tools deployed. Efficient. Beautiful. Cold.
U.A.'s pair hesitated—not in fear, but in awareness. Uraraka crouched to the "child" and said, "Can you hear me?" Kaminari anchored a cable and scanned the "crowd" for real fear. They moved slower and finished with one less scratch on the dummy.
The debrief was polite. Shiketsu praised efficiency. Aizawa praised attention. The instructors exchanged compliments that smelled like defense.
During lunch, Renya wandered to the track. A Shiketsu instructor—Saito, older, crisp—joined him.
"You're making manners mandatory," Saito said.
"I'm trying to make them normal," Renya said.
Saito looked toward his students. "If I loosen the screws, everything falls apart."
"And if you tighten them?" Renya asked.
"Everything sings," Saito said.
"Until something breaks and no one knows how to improvise," Renya said.
They stood with the honesty only professionals permit each other when no one is grading.
"What do you teach first?" Saito asked finally.
"Distance," Renya said.
"Between what?"
"Hands," he said. "The space in which consent lives. The distance you cross only when you should."
Saito nodded once, conceding a point he'd never score. "We go in on five," he said. "Maybe next term we'll go in on six."
"Start with five-and-a-half," Renya said, and Saito laughed despite himself.
In the afternoon, an unscripted test arrived like an unpaid bill. A real tremor rolled under the gym floor—brief, nothing cracks, just enough to remind everyone that the planet doesn't care about rubrics.
Panic stuttered the air. A first-year stumbled, hit a knee. A teacher snapped a command. Two students reached for the injured at once. Their hands met above the knee, collided, froze. The student hissed in pain.
Renya crossed the floor in three steps, not fast, not slow. He tapped one hand, then the other, moved them apart by an inch, and said, "You first. You second. Count together."
They did. The injured breathed. The gym remembered it was a room.
Later, the first-year found him. "How did you know to do that?" she asked.
"I've been the pain under two hands that didn't coordinate," he said.
She winced. "Sorry."
"Don't be," he said. "Learn."
On the train back, 1-A slumped in a heap of good fatigue. Aizawa stared out the window like the landscape was a misgraded test.
"Did we help?" he asked.
"We didn't hurt," Renya said. "That's a start."
"Do you ever miss the days when saving things was just punching villains?" Kaminari asked.
"No," Renya said. "I missed these days before they existed."
The car hummed. Conversations thinned. The city approached in fragments—bridges, river, rooftops trying to remember which slant made them look wise.
Airi texted a photo of a chair circle in the park. Quiet Rooms live meet full tonight. Want me to save you a seat?He wrote back: Save two. Someone from Shiketsu may come.
He meant it. Distance can be carried between schools.