Midday at U.A. usually carried an easy rhythm.Students spilled across the courtyard like scattered ink, drifting toward lunch, clubs, or naps in strategically chosen shadows.The atmosphere today, however, felt taut — stretched thin across a surface no one else could see.
Renya felt it immediately.
A pressure, faint but undeniable, threaded through the campus like a pulse under the floorboards.Not danger.Not instability.But attention.
The Abyss was not just listening.
It was watching.
Hoshi walked beside him, arms folded, eyes narrowed."You sense it again," she said.
"Yes."
"How strong?"
"Stronger than this morning."
"Centered where?"
Renya slowed his pace.
That was the problem.
It wasn't centered anywhere.
It was drifting.
Following.
Like a tide drawn to the gravitational pull of human intent.
He tilted his head slightly, letting the sensory thread unwind inside his mind.He expected noise — overlapping impressions of panic, excitement, curiosity.Instead, he heard… structure.
A pattern.
Almost like a heartbeat, but stretched across hundreds of people.
Hoshi watched his expression shift."What is it?" she asked.
"Someone is resonating again," Renya murmured. "But differently from Haruto."
"Another student?"
"No," Renya said. "Multiple."
Hoshi blinked. "Multiple people resonating with you at once? How?"
He didn't answer immediately.
The truth was uncomfortable.
People were watching him.People were thinking about him.People were emulating him without understanding the weight of his methods.
Yesterday had changed the city.
Today, it was changing him.
He exhaled. "It's not individual resonance. It's collective. A group."
Hoshi's brows knit. "A class?"
"No."
"Club?"
"No."
Then her eyes widened. "The Quiet Rooms?"
Renya paused.
The Quiet Rooms — the Chairline cafés, the public spaces turned into community hubs after his interventions — had grown rapidly.Airi and Aki had mentioned increased foot traffic.People sitting longer.More notes left on the walls.More attempts to imitate the verbs.
That would explain the pattern.
But this was stronger.
"Not the Quiet Rooms," Renya said. "The direction is wrong."
"Then who?"
Renya closed his eyes.
The resonance gathered around the gym wing.
Slow.Focused.Determined.
Training Field Gamma.
He opened his eyes. "Follow me."
They reached Gamma to find something he did not expect.
Class 1-A and 1-B were gathered together.Not fighting.Not arguing.Training.
But not in the usual format of paired sparring or quirk drills.
They were doing something else.
Something dangerously close to what Renya had been teaching without ever meaning to:
Mineta was guiding someone through breathing exercises.
Tokoyami was helping a nervous student recalibrate their stance.
Iida was leading a timed rotation of conflict-mitigation drills.
Momo was organizing reflection sheets.
Even Bakugo was barking corrections at a group practicing concise communication under pressure.
Hoshi blinked. "They're… self-organizing?"
Renya felt the resonance deepen, twist, tighten around itself.
No.
They weren't self-organizing.
They were using his verbs.
Ask.Look.Act.Check.Own.Repair.
Not perfectly — but intentionally.
Someone had aggregated them.
Someone had structured them.
Someone had turned his methods into a curriculum.
A student stepped forward, clipboard in hand.
Shoto Todoroki.
He didn't notice Renya at first.He was too focused.
"Group C," Todoroki said calmly, "you're misaligning your Check step. You're analyzing the outcome too early. Remember: Check is about context, not conclusion."
Another student raised a hand."What's the difference?"
"Context is the environment," Todoroki replied. "Conclusion is the story you attach to it. You can't get to Act if you're still arguing with the story."
Renya stopped walking.
Hoshi whispered, "Did you teach him that?"
"No."
"Then who—"
A voice came from the left.
"It was him."
Izuku Midoriya approached, breathless, holding three notebooks filled to bursting.He looked as if he hadn't slept in days.
"Sir!" Midoriya said, bowing so deeply he almost headbutted the floor. "Good afternoon, Mr. Kurotsuki! I— I— I can explain!"
"Explain," Renya said.
Midoriya opened the notebook to a page filled with diagrams.
"I recorded everything you did during the tribunal!" he blurted. "Not the political parts — the structural parts! The verbs, the sequences, the conversational flow, the stance adjustments!"
Renya stared at him.
Midoriya continued in a nervous rush.
"I broke down the core principles into training modules! I categorized them! We tried them this morning during a misunderstanding in class and it— it actually worked! So we asked Aizawa-sensei if we could test the system and he said yes as long as you didn't mind and—"
Hoshi slapped her palm over Midoriya's mouth.
"Breathe," she said.
He inhaled through his nose like a panicked baby seal.
Renya took the notebook from Midoriya's hands.
He flipped through it.
And froze.
The diagrams were precise.The arrows aligned.The sentences made sense.The concepts were intact.Midoriya hadn't misunderstood.
If anything, he had understood too well.
This wasn't imitation.
This was translation.
A structured, systematized version of Renya's methods.
Midoriya removed Hoshi's hand and whispered, "Is it wrong?"
Renya closed the notebook.
And felt the Abyss resonate.
Not with danger.
With recognition.
Something about this moment clicked into place inside his spine — as if the world itself had marked the act.
Not the training.
Not the imitation.
The transmission.
In his old world, cultivation techniques evolved as they were passed down.Here, the same was happening — just differently.
He handed the notebook back.
"It's not wrong," Renya said quietly. "It's dangerous."
Midoriya paled. "I'm so—"
"Not because of mistakes," Renya said. "There are none."
Midoriya blinked.
"The danger is in the scale," Renya continued. "This method was meant for individuals. You're teaching it to groups."
Iida stepped forward. "Sir, with respect, the structure has improved the class's stability drastically. Today alone we've resolved six conflicts in under—"
Renya raised a hand.
Everyone fell silent.
Hoshi watched him carefully.She could feel the shift too.
Renya didn't scold them.Didn't approve.Didn't correct.
He simply said:
"Show me."
The classes froze.
Then Todoroki nodded to Midoriya.
Midoriya nodded to Yaoyorozu.
Yaoyorozu nodded to Iida.
And the entire group moved.
Not in unison.
Not like soldiers.
But like people following the same grammar.
A training exercise unfolded before him — a simulated conflict, de-escalated with surgical precision.
Each student played a role.Each responded with context awareness.Each followed the verbs.
Ask.Look.Act.Check.Own.Repair.
Flawed.Slow.Unrefined.
But real.
Resonance pooled around them like a quiet tide.
Renya felt a weight in his chest.
Not fear.
Not pride.
A realization.
The Abyss was no longer listening to him.
It was listening to everyone trying to follow him.
Hoshi whispered, "This… is bigger than you thought."
"Yes," Renya said.
Todoroki approached.
"Sir," he said, meeting Renya's gaze without flinching. "We want to learn. Not to imitate you. To understand what you understand."
Renya studied him.
Then Midoriya.
Then the surrounding classes.
Two dozen students.Two dozen shadows.Two dozen resonances.
All orbiting him.
All expecting something.
All shaping the Abyss further with each attempt to understand his methods.
His voice came out low:
"You don't know what you're asking."
Todoroki didn't blink. "Then teach us."
Renya closed his eyes.
The shadows tightened.
The Abyss inhaled.
And for the first time since awakening, it answered back.
A soft pulse.Not visible.Not audible.But unmistakable.
Hoshi felt it.Midoriya felt it.Todoroki felt it.Every student in the field felt it.
A single ripple across the ground.
As if the world itself had bowed.
Renya opened his eyes.
"Very well," he said quietly. "I'll show you what the first step actually means."
And somewhere deep below the surface of this world — in a place without form or name — something smiled.