The handbook leaked on a Tuesday.
It came from a mid-tier insurer that had decided to be avant-garde: Ethical Compliance Playbook for Heroic Incidents. Inside, everything the verbs weren't: point values, fines, escalation ladders. Example: Failure to file a repair within two hours: 10 points. Points over 30: premium increase. The cover had a watercolor of two hands almost touching and the nauseating caption Trust, Quantified.
U.A. didn't comment. The Commission did: "We do not endorse." The insurer replied with the adult version of a shrug. Lawmakers started salivating.
A precinct captain sent the PDF to Renya with two words: Please help. He printed a copy on cheap paper and took a pen to it like a surgeon to a tumor. He wrote in the margins: Who does this protect?Where does this shame?Who profits when this is followed badly?
He brought the bleeding document to class.
"Today," he said, "we turn paper into doorstops."
The students paired off and performed the clauses out loud—not to obey them, but to hear them. An absurd exercise: brilliant kids reading bad policy to each other until it broke.
Hoshi read: "Clause 2.4—heroes must 'own' with visible signage." She stopped and glared at the ceiling. "Signage?"
Kai read: "Clause 3.1—acceptable forms of 'repair' include gift cards." He put the paper down. "We're bribing feelings now?"
Uraraka raised a hand. "Can we write an alternative?"
"Yes," Renya said. "Rules that survive your handwriting deserve to live."
They drafted a counter-sheet in marker:
Own quietly. Not a performance.
Repair by request. Ask the harmed what "fixed" looks like.
Time windows are guidance, not guilt. If a day will make it better, take the day—tell them.
No fines. Money belongs to harms, not to systems that farm harm.
Yaoyorozu formatted it like a grownup document, then refused to put a logo on it. "Logos turn culture into trademark," she said, and half the room cheered.
They published it under Field Dialogue—Notes for Insurers & Neighbors. No signatures. The internet tried to find an author. It failed and remained useful.
The first misuse case arrived by noon: a patrol hero docked pay for failing to upload a repair within the prescribed window. His "harm": shouting at a cyclist and later apologizing in person instead of through the app. The app had wanted proof; the person had accepted an apology in a language the app didn't speak.
Aki posted the story with permission. Quiet Rooms boiled and then cooled into action. A law clinic offered pro bono representation. A bike shop offered discount tune-ups to anyone who had been shouted at by authority this week. Someone made stickers: APP ≠ PEOPLE. Not clever, necessary.
The insurer tried to lock comments. Screenshots outran them.
By evening, the patrol hero's docked pay was reversed. The company issued a statement that smelled like smoke alarms and lawyers. The city learned another word: paper shield—a document held up as protection that mostly protects the hand that holds it.
Renya took a call from Imai. "We'll publish a guideline," she said. "Documents must not punish honesty."
"Add: 'and must not reward performance,'" he said.
She did.
That week, a vigilante surfaced, anonymous, masked by attitude instead of cloth. He called himself The Ledger and posted clips of himself "enforcing" repairs—cornering pros and demanding they "own" on video for incidents that didn't require owning, pushing shopkeepers to "check" with customers until both cried.
Renya watched one clip and turned it off halfway. "He's using the verbs like knives."
Aizawa stretched his neck, considering. "Then we blunt them. Publicly."
They held a forum on the quad. No cameras, many phones. Renya took the center and said, "If someone uses these words to trap you, leave. They're not prayers. They're tools. Tools belong to hands that mean well."
A student asked, "But what if a person refuses to own? Or refuses to repair?"
"Then you make them safe," Renya said. "Then you try again. Then you go around them. Nothing in these words absolves harm. But nothing in them deputizes you to humiliate someone until they confess on your schedule."
The Ledger posted a sneer the next day. He quoted Renya out of context and urged his followers to "finish what heroes won't." Two nights later he tried to "finish" a street argument and got punched by a baker who didn't want a stranger in his shop after closing. The city laughed, then worried, then settled into gratitude for people who close doors when they should.
A Notice of Misuse published: When "own" becomes "obey," leave. We do not privatize contrition.
Shiketsu requested a joint evening patrol. Saito met Renya at a station platform and nodded toward the city. "Your paper made our board meeting insufferable," he said without heat.
"You're welcome," Renya said.
They walked in parallel along a river path. Two kids argued over a scooter. An old man forgot where he had been going and found a bench like an old friend. A dog chose a different leash because dogs are philosophers.
"Do you ever think we're building a religion?" Saito asked.
"Constantly," Renya said. "Then I add a chair and a kettle. That usually cures it."
Saito grunted. "We're adding a kettle to our gym."
"Add chairs," Renya said. "Kettles are appointments. Chairs are invitations."
They stood at a pedestrian crossing and watched a woman decide not to run the light. Small victory, unbranded.
Saito said, "If you ever leave U.A., our door is open."
"Good door," Renya said. "Don't lock it."
At home, Airi taped the counter-sheet to the fridge. "Is it okay if I use this at school council?"
"Use it anywhere," Renya said. "If it survives teenagers, it's real."
She tapped the line that said No fines. "You know they'll try."
"I know," he said. "We'll be here when they do."
They ate noodles and didn't talk about doctrine. Instead they argued over music and whether rice should be washed three times or seven. Culture lives there, too—hands learning the difference between clean and obsessive.
When he washed the bowls, he caught his reflection in the window and almost didn't recognize himself. Not because he looked different. Because he looked local.
He dried his hands. Paper towels—paper shields—belong in kitchens, not in streets.
He slept without practicing his breath. When a city is practicing with you, you can sometimes let it carry the count.