The morning air in U.A. High felt different, charged with tension and questions no one knew how to answer.
Class 1-A's lecture hall was unusually quiet, but not with silence. Instead, it was full of a strange energy. An anticipation. A heaviness in conversation that kept pausing just when it began. News alerts and feeds pulsed silently across screens, like storm clouds waiting to break.
Everyone in the room felt it.
Something wasn't right.
Bakugo sat at the back, legs kicked out, arms folded, jaw tight. He kept tapping the desk with his finger but said nothing. His eyes flicked up every few seconds toward the glaring light from the tall windows, as if searching their reflections for movement.
Midoriya was writing in his notebook, but not really. His hands trembled slightly, doodling sketches of silhouettes, energy trails, altitude predictions, hero response logs. His green eyes darted around, brain in overdrive.
Kirishima was scrolling on his phone, face serious for once, eyes almost unblinking. "Yo," he suddenly said to no one in particular, "another article just dropped. They're saying the thing, whatever it is, is still hovering over Musutafu. Hours later. No movement."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sero said, spinning halfway in his chair. "Like it's on a stakeout? For what?"
Kirishima frowned. "Dude, I don't know. It's just, everything about this feels unmanly scary."
Jiro stood nearby, earbuds unplugged, her sharp eyes scanning the feed. "Worst part?" she muttered, crossing her arms. "They're not calling it a villain. Not a hero either. Just... 'entity.' Heroes didn't even try code-naming it."
"Yeah," Kaminari nodded, slumping into his seat. "Usually they'd have something cool by now. Like Sky Phantom, or Silent Bolt, or," he paused, "or something that wasn't gonna make me lose sleep."
A few laughed softly, but it didn't stick. The tension didn't let anything feel light.
"Please," Yaoyorozu said, hovering over the projector terminal, "we need to focus. We can't just speculate based on fragments."
"We kind of HAVE to," Ashido said, leaning back in her chair, head bobbing rhythmically. "Because that's all anyone's gotten. Fragments. Blurry videos. Broken feeds. Rumors."
She tapped her chin. "Feels like those old sci-fi horror movies where the military keeps everything classified until the last possible minute. I hate it."
Iida stood beside her, posture perfect, but his tone only told half the story. He was rattled too.
"There is a protocol in place," he said. "We should remain calm. Heroes are already mobilizing. Captain Endeavor is leading it himself. That means something."
Kaminari raised a brow. "Bro. If Endeavor's taking it seriously, we should be worried."
"Actually…" Sato began, looking up from his seat, "I heard they grounded heroes from trying to make contact with it directly."
"Seriously?" Hagakure said. "Why?"
"Because it wasn't responding to anything. Hero Drone, Rail Surveillance, Heat Tracking. Nothing. No quirk readings. No verbal output. Nothing."
A cold quiet fell.
Like the room itself was listening.
Midoriya's voice finally cut through. "It doesn't act like a villain."
Everyone turned. Even Bakugo looked at him.
"It doesn't even react like one," he continued, eyes distant. "Most villains want attention. They cause chaos. They want to be seen."
He paused and looked at the sky beyond the classroom's tall windows.
"But this thing's just watching."
An uneasy breath passed through the class.
Tokoyami tilted his head slightly, his dark eyes contemplative. "Even the shadows tremble before a silent watcher," he murmured.
Mineta jumped. "Dude, do NOT do that right now!"
Tsuyu broke his panic gently. "Tokoyami's not wrong. Ribbit. Whatever this is, it's not just a strong quirk user. The pros wouldn't be this cautious otherwise."
Yaoyorozu shifted gears, pulling up the feed on the class projector. A blurry zoomed-in image showed the glowing figure, not quite human, not quite something else.
"There's no cape. No gear. No armor. No visible equipment. No propulsion tech," she said, zooming in. "The shape is there, but it doesn't explain anything."
Uraraka leaned closer, her face framed with worry. "Could it be someone like All For One? Someone with multiple quirks that allow total flight and energy control?"
"No," Midoriya said softly.
He reached into his notes and flipped the page around. The other side had a crude drawing, a humanoid silhouette descending from the sky. "Whatever power it's using, I don't think it's a quirk."
Everybody froze.
"...what?" Kaminari managed.
Izuku glanced around, hesitant but too curious not to speak. "It doesn't match anything we've classified under quirk theory. Energy manipulation, levitation, flight, organic shielding, all require outputs. Strain limits. Neural engagement. The sensors should pick SOMETHING up. But…"
He held his breath before finishing.
"…but even the quirk detection system classified it as 'Unknown. Not Organic. Not Mechanical.'"
Sero stared. "That's… not even possible, man! Everything's either tech, or life, or quirk…"
Bakugo leaned forward, unable to stay quiet any longer. "So the nerd finally figured it out."
Midoriya blinked.
Bakugo shot him a glare. "It's not from here."
A long silence.
And for once, no one told him to shut up.
Jiro quietly slid her headphones back down. "You're saying,"
"I'm saying," Bakugo interrupted, eyes hard as they met Midoriya's, "what if that thing's not part of our world at all?"
A chair squeaked.
Kirishima exhaled through his teeth. "An alien? Seriously? Like something outside the whole quirk evolution thing?"
Iida didn't scoff. He didn't chastise. He simply adjusted his glasses again, because he couldn't rule it out.
"The absence of quirk data is alarming," he admitted. "Every hero and villain in this society registers within quirk parameters. Even animals with mutations. But that thing, that being,"
"Doesn't," Yaoyorozu finished.
"And that's why we're scared," Ashido whispered. "Because we don't even know how to fight something like that."
Tokoyami looked up, the shadow beneath his desk rising as Dark Shadow spoke quietly. "There are some battles not meant to be won. Only survived."
Kaminari swallowed hard. "Is it weird that I kinda miss supervillains now?"
"No," Jiro replied bluntly. "It's very normal."
Uraraka hugged her arms close. "What if it's not here to fight?" she wondered aloud. "What if it's here because of something else, something bigger than us?"
That idea hovered, fragile and hopeful, for a moment.
But Midoriya's voice was different when he replied. Somber. Low.
"Or maybe," he said, "we're the thing it's studying."
Before anyone could reply, the classroom door slid open.
Aizawa walked in, scarf trailing behind him like a silent shadow.
The room went dead-still.
Phones clicked black. Postures straightened.
Only the sky outside moved.
Aizawa looked exhausted. More than tired, he looked wired. As though he hadn't slept a full hour since yesterday. His eyes told a story nobody could see yet, lined in threat and concern.
"Phones down," he said curtly. "Eyes up here."
His voice made even Bakugo stop tapping.
"I know you're all aware of the anomaly in Musutafu," Aizawa said. "Don't pretend otherwise. The Hero Public Safety Commission and the top-ranked heroes are actively containing the situation."
He paused. His jaw flexed slightly.
"Students are not authorized to engage."
The words hit like stone.
"No investigations. No reconnaissance. No 'I just wanted to see for myself' excuses."
Everyone felt like he was staring directly at Midoriya, but he wasn't.
He was staring at the whole room.
"Your job is to stay alert, and stay out of the way unless instructed otherwise," Aizawa continued. "Is that understood?"
"Yes, sensei," the class replied, nearly in unison.
But something was strange in his voice.
He hesitated, just a breath, before saying the next part.
"And for the time being, training schedules are temporarily suspended. Until further notice."
That shocked them even more.
Training never stopped. Not after Shigaraki. Not after the League of Villains. Not even after the USJ.
But now, that unknown thing in the sky had shaken something deeper than any villain before.
Like they weren't preparing for a battle. They were bracing for something none of them understood.
Aizawa finally looked away, eyes drifting toward the tall window at the end of the room.
His voice dropped just a little.
"You're all heroes in training. But even heroes need to know when the world is shifting."
Nobody spoke.
Nobody had words.
The silence carried into the next moments as Aizawa walked out, leaving a quiet that didn't feel like relief. Only like space before impact.
As the students packed up, Sato switched the projector feed to a different channel, hoping maybe, just maybe, things had calmed down.
Instead, a headline glared across the screen:
BREAKING: System Failure. The Object Has Vanished From Sensors. Last Seen Entering Earth's Atmosphere Near Coastal Region.
"That's… too fast," Jirou murmured, her fingers frozen over her earphone jack.
No one breathed.
That kind of silence, the thick kind that sinks into the walls, only shows up when something bigger than fear walks in.
Midoriya's notebook slipped slightly from his hand. He didn't try to catch it.