Students meditating in the quad would have been harmless on any other day.
But the silence around them felt wrong.
Not wrong in the sense of danger.Wrong in the sense of too aligned.
Twenty students.Different classes.Different personalities.Different quirks.Sitting in the same posture, breathing at the same rhythm, eyes lowered the same way.
Renya approached them slowly.
Hoshi walked at his side, jaw tight.
"What… exactly are they doing?" she whispered.
"Following an idea," Renya said.
"But whose?"
He didn't answer.
One of the students — a girl from Class 1-C — opened her eyes as he approached.She startled slightly, then bowed her head.
"Mr. Kurotsuki," she whispered, "we weren't trying to be disrespectful."
Renya studied her.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
She hesitated. "We're practicing calm."
"Whose calm?"
The girl swallowed. "Yours, sir."
Renya inhaled slowly.
Behind him, Hoshi muttered, "Oh, no. No, no, no—"
He crouched in front of the girl.
"Why?"
She looked embarrassed. "Because… because when you speak, things make sense. When you breathe, rooms settle. When you move, chaos organizes itself. We wanted to understand how."
Renya stared at her.
Not with coldness.
With precision.
"And you decided that imitating my posture would give you that understanding?"
She hesitated. "…Yes?"
Before Renya could reply, another voice came from behind:
"It wasn't just them."
He turned.
Todoroki stood at the edge of the quad, arms crossed loosely at his sides.
He walked over, stopping a respectful distance away.
"I told them your methods require stability," Todoroki said. "Not strength, not bravado. They interpreted that the way they could."
Midoriya appeared next, panting as if he'd sprinted across campus.
"It's not just them!" he blurted. "Other students from General Studies have been doing the breathing exercises too — and some support course students have started journaling with your Check and Own steps — and—"
Hoshi pinched the bridge of her nose. "This is spreading."
Midoriya nodded too rapidly. "In a healthy way? I think? Maybe? Well— I hope—"
Renya raised a hand.
Midoriya shut up instantly.
The quad fell silent.
Renya looked at the twenty students.
"Did someone instruct you to gather? A teacher? A class rep? A senior?"
They shook their heads.
"Then who organized this?"
No one answered.
Until one boy — small, timid, hair half-covering his eyes — raised his hand halfway.
Renya fixed his gaze upon him.
"Speak."
The boy swallowed hard."I… started it."
Todoroki blinked. "You?"
"Why?" Renya asked.
The boy clenched his fists.
"Because everyone keeps talking about how you helped those districts. How you calmed crowds. How you said things that made people think clearly even when they were scared. I wanted to understand it."
He gestured weakly around the circle.
"And someone else wanted to understand too. Then someone else. And then…"
The boy lowered his head.
"It became this."
Renya didn't move.
Not even a blink.
Hoshi whispered, "It's collective resonance."
"No," Renya said quietly.
She frowned. "Then what?"
Renya stood slowly.
"This is structure."His voice was soft.Measured.Sharp.
"This is what happens when enough people pursue the same interpretation with no guidance."
The quad felt colder.
Midoriya stepped closer. "Is… is this bad?"
"Not inherently," Renya said."But it is uncontrolled."
Todoroki straightened. "We can stop it. Disband the groups. Discourage the imitation."
"No," Renya said.
Everyone froze.
Hoshi stared. "No? So we let this continue?"
Renya turned his head slightly.
"This isn't imitation anymore. This is emergence. It will not vanish if we tell them to stop. It will just go underground."
The boy who started the group whispered:
"So… what should we do?"
Renya closed his eyes for a moment.
He felt the Abyss respond — not loudly, not hungrily, but with interest.As if it were leaning closer to the surface, curious about the shape these students had made in his image.
He opened his eyes again.
"You will stop practicing unsupervised," Renya said calmly. "These exercises affect your emotional state. They can destabilize you if done incorrectly."
The group nodded rapidly.
"But," Renya continued, "I will not forbid you from learning."
The boy looked up, hopeful.
Renya's tone sharpened.
"You will learn correctly."
A quiet ripple went through the quad — not sound, not quirk, not fear.
Recognition.
Todoroki exhaled slowly.Midoriya nearly teared up from relief.Hoshi looked like she was witnessing a natural disaster in slow motion.
Renya addressed the entire group:
"If you wish to study stability, you will do so under structure. Not assumption."
"How?" a girl asked.
Renya paused.
The Abyss pulsed once beneath the soles of his feet.
Not guidance.Not command.
Permission.
He spoke.
"Tomorrow morning, before class. Field Gamma. Bring no expectations."
Hoshi whispered, "You're forming a class."
"No," Renya said. "I'm preventing a cult."
"That's— honestly? Fair," she muttered.
Todoroki stepped forward."Will Class 1-A be included?"
"Yes."
"And 1-B?"
"Yes."
Midoriya raised his hand timidly. "And General Studies—?"
"Yes."
The boy who started the group asked in a tiny voice:
"Why teach all of us?"
Renya looked at him with a calmness that felt like stone settling.
"Because if you try to understand my methods," he said, "then it is my responsibility to ensure you do not hurt yourselves."
The student's eyes widened in gratitude — the dangerous kind.
Renya immediately added:
"And understand this clearly."
The entire quad leaned forward without meaning to.
"I am not your guide.I am not your symbol.And I am not your ambition."
He let the words settle.
"I am simply the person who saw the shape forming and decided not to let it break you."
Silence.Stillness.Not fear, not awe.
Alignment.
Renya turned.
"Disperse."
The twenty students stood one by one and walked away — not in a perfect line, not as a unit, but with a new heaviness in their steps, as if something inside them was waiting for tomorrow.
Midoriya exhaled deeply. "This is… huge."
Todoroki nodded. "It's necessary."
Hoshi looked at Renya. "Do you realize what you just did?"
"Yes," he replied.
She stared at him for a moment.
Then she whispered:
"You didn't stop the doctrine.You formalized it."
Renya didn't respond.
But the Abyss did.
A subtle pulse behind his ribs.Approval, perhaps.Or amusement.
Or simple anticipation.
Tomorrow would be the first structured lesson.
And structure was the most dangerous power of all.