The golden afternoon light reflected off the colossal structure of I-TowerI, a two-hundred-story building rising from the heart of the island. Built to a sturdiness surpassing that of a bomb shelter, the tower had each floor sealed by reinforced retractable doors and special hatches in the ceiling, ready for any emergency.
It was there that the I-Expo would take place.
The lower floors buzzed with activity: from the second to the sixth floor. The second functioned as the grand Entrance Hall, while the fourth to the sixth extended the main exhibition area.
On the fifth floor, people were finishing setting up their exhibits, but in one corner, the atmosphere was… explosive.
"Disgusting!" snarled a short, elderly woman, arms crossed and gaze sharp. "This looks like a funeral suit exhibition, not a fashion show! No soul, no life, no impact!"
Four assistants practically shrank under the weight of her words.
"W-we're so sorry, Miss Mode…" one of them murmured.
"Stop apologizing!" she snapped, stomping her foot. "And redo it. All of it! Again!"
The helpers immediately scrambled, bowing and rushing to rearrange mannequins, lights, and fabrics, while Edna "E" Mode was left behind, rubbing her temple in irritation.
"Fifth time…" she grumbled. "When are these idiots going to learn to do something properly?"
"Mode-sama!"
The male voice came from behind her, soft, polite, and laden with clear, audible excitement. Edna froze for half a second… and let out a deep sigh even before turning around.
"Not… you again…" she said, clearly annoyed.
Before her stood a tall, elegant man with impeccable posture. His long, meticulously cared-for pink hair contrasted with his attentive golden eyes. He was dressed in an elegant and sophisticated formal suit he had designed and made himself, the pink-gold hue impossible to ignore.
"It's been so long since we last saw each other!" he said, opening into a warm smile. "I was delighted to hear you would be here, Mode-sama."
"Enough with that saccharine talk, we are not friends," she cut him off. "We were colleagues. Former ones. Now we are strangers... And stop calling me *sama*. We're not in Japan anymore."
He placed a hand on his chest, theatrically.
"That changes nothing! You shall always remain my Mode-sama! To me, you will always deserve my respect and admiration."
The man then shifted his gaze to the exhibition behind her, arching his eyebrows with genuine interest.
"I see you haven't come to play… These pieces… they are true works of art. There's something different about them. An air that's more… exotic. I see you've positioned them with great care. I think I should take more notes…"
Edna furrowed her brow.
"That bastard… He was always like this. Kind words, elegant tone… judging, analyzing, inwardly smiling at the chaos. A rival since art school days in Japan. Always too elegant, too calm, too insufferable."
"Are you making fun of me, Lucien Aoyama-Moreau?" she fired off, finally addressing the man by his full name.
Lucien Aoyama-Moreau, or simply Lucien Aoyama—son of a Japanese mother and a French father, a renowned haute couture designer in Europe.
He looked at Edna and simply smiled even wider.
Before he could say anything, Edna took a step forward, furious.
"Alright then!" she yelled, marching over to her exhibition. "You lot! Move those lazy behinds! I already explained how this should look! I want presence, I want impact, I want living art!"
The assistants nearly jumped out of their skins and went back to work at double speed.
From a distance, Lucien watched the scene in silence, the gentle smile never leaving his face.
"She hasn't changed a bit…" he thought. "Still the same Edna I admire… and draw inspiration from."
Meanwhile, on the sixth floor of I-Tower, the atmosphere was quite different from the elegant chaos of the floor below.
"A-ah… if you could move that… a little more to the left… n-no, the other left…" murmured Mira Caldwell, almost disappearing inside the enormous white lab coat.
She pointed timidly, the long sleeves covering almost her entire hands, as she held a tablet.
"Like this, Caldwell-sama?" asked one of the assistants, a tall man bending slightly to hear her better.
"Y-yes… that's it… thank you…" replied Mira, adjusting her glasses as they slid down her nose.
"The boss is so cute…" he thought, smiling without realizing.
On the other side of the exhibition, two female assistants were carrying a set of gleaming prototypes.
"Caldwell-sama, do these support modules go here or closer to the core?" asked one of them, her tone almost too affectionate.
"Cl-close to the core… but with a space of… um… about two and a half paces…" replied Mira, making a small gesture with her fingers.
"Two and a half paces! Understood!" said the other assistant, excitedly. "You heard her? Two and a half paces, exactly as Caldwell-sama requested!"
The two exchanged bright looks, clearly enchanted.
"The boss is so tiny…"
"And so kind…"
"I want to protect her…"
Mira, completely unaware of the collective thoughts, paced back and forth, murmuring instructions while nearly tripping over her own lab coat, being discreetly steadied by one of the assistants just before falling.
"C-careful, Caldwell-sama!"
"A-ah! Th-thank you…!"
After long minutes of adjustments, relocations, and questions that were too gentle for the timid woman to handle, everything was finally in place.
She took two small steps back, analyzed the entire exhibition… and let out a long sigh of relief.
"Phew… done… social interaction is… really draining…" she murmured to herself.
The assistants exchanged glances and smiled.
Before she could hide behind a workbench, a female voice sounded from behind her:
"Mira!"
"Eeek!" she gave a little jump, looking like a startled mouse.
Turning around, she saw her lab partner and colleague, Helena Ward—a woman with brown hair tied in a practical ponytail and attentive green eyes.
"W-what is it…?" asked Mira, still catching her breath.
"The SR-12s. Are they prepped for the presentation?" Helena asked, consulting the checklist on her tablet.
Mira brought the long sleeve up to her chin, thoughtful.
"The Paladins…? Ah! A-almost ready…" she replied, pointing to a circular black curtain in one corner of the SiderTech exhibition. "I was just about to prepare them…"
"Great!" Helena smiled, relieved. "That's the last thing on my list."
She looked around, observing the exhibition with satisfaction… when suddenly, she clutched her stomach.
"Ugh…" she groaned.
"H-Helena? A-are you okay?!" Mira asked, completely distressed.
"I-I don't think so…" she grimaced. "It must have been those macarons… I knew I shouldn't have eaten so many…"
"D-Do you need me to… get someone?" Mira asked, worried and unsure of what to do.
"N-No… I'm… I'm going to the restroom!" Helena said hurriedly, already turning away. "Sorry, Mira!"
And she practically ran off.
"B-be careful! A-and… come back soon…!" said Mira weakly, left alone in the middle of the exhibition.
She looked around, then at her prototypes.
"Looks like it's just us now…" she murmured, smiling slightly.
"Mira."
"Eeek!" She almost dropped the tablet.
Turning again, she saw Helena standing behind her.
"Y-you didn't go to the restroom…?" she asked, confused.
"Ah… the pain passed on the way," Helena replied, scratching the back of her neck awkwardly.
"O-okay… That's good…" said Mira, visibly relieved.
She then turned around, animated.
"Then… I'll go finish the adjustments on the Paladins!" she said, walking with quick little steps toward the black curtain.
"Don't overdo it," Helena commented from behind her, with a… strange smile.
"I-I won't!" Mira replied confidently.
And as soon as Mira disappeared behind the curtain, the woman stood still, watching her from behind… the smile remaining fixed for a moment too long.
----------------------------------------
I-Island Academy stretched out like a small city dedicated to science. A vast campus, modern without being cold, composed of several tall buildings connected by elevated walkways and glass corridors. The main building, imposing with its ten stories, dominated the center of the complex, while other smaller buildings housed specific sectors: engineering, biochemistry, robotics, hero support, and applied research.
"This is the Academy," Melissa said, walking beside Ryo with light steps. "Where we train to become scientists… or at least survive exam weeks."
She smiled, trying to lighten the tone.
They were walking through one of the three buildings dedicated exclusively to individual laboratories, each assigned to outstanding students. The corridor was long, too white, too bright.
The pale walls, the aligned metal doors, the light panels above the ceiling… for some reason, it gave him a strange sense of déjà vu. A subtle, almost imperceptible discomfort.
"It looks… like the N.C.R.C.D.Q."
It was similar.
Too similar.
"…Rito-kun?" Melissa's voice pulled him back.
"Hm?" he blinked, pushing the thought away. "Nothing… I just thought the hallway looked familiar."
"What a coincidence," she said, stopping in front of a door. "It's here."
Melissa made a proud gesture with her hand before turning to the side panel. Her fingers typed the code, and the sliding door opened with a soft sound.
Ryo was immediately greeted by a central table occupied by chaotically stacked books, scribbled papers, and a box to the side.
"O-oh… sorry for the mess…" Melissa laughed awkwardly, entering first. "I swear this place was organized… yesterday."
Ryo's gaze swept across the laboratory carefully.
To the left, a data bank blinked softly. Further ahead, a desk with a robotic arm attached, covered in delicate tools. In the opposite corner, a metal isolation chamber, vaguely resembling a freezer.
There was also a shelf filled with technical books, photographs, old notes. And on top, several trophies and recognition plaques.
"You won all these?" Ryo asked, stopping in front of them. "You're… really talented."
Melissa shook her head, laughing softly.
"Not that much…" she said. "Most of them came because I studied like crazy."
She pointed to the messy table.
"You can tell, right?"
Ryo averted his gaze to the table at the same moment Melissa entered a small room to the left.
"I wasn't getting good grades before…" her voice came from inside. "That's because I wanted to become a hero. At any cost."
Ryo picked up one of the books from the table: Advanced Linear Algebra. He flipped through a few pages as he listened.
"Maybe you already know the reason…" Melissa continued. "Especially since I've already told you I don't have a quirk."
He closed the book slowly, lowering his gaze.
"To be a hero… you need an quirk," she said, calmly. "I denied that for a long time. But the more I saw… the more I understood."
Melissa came out of the room carrying a transparent plastic box, large, with two side openings made of a flexible material that would mold to the arms of the person using it. She placed it carefully on the center table.
"Heroes with incredible quirks still struggle to survive against villains, some even end up dying…" she continued, smiling faintly. "That's when I saw the chasm I was pretending didn't exist."
She ran her hand over the box, almost affectionately.
"If even heroes with Quirks suffer so much… how would someone without a quirk fare?"
She shrugged, as if it were a simple conclusion.
"That's why I ended up giving up on that idea."
Melissa turned to Ryo, her smile gentle, without resentment.
"Maybe… I'll have better luck in another life."
Melissa noticed Ryo's lowered gaze and the tension in his shoulders almost immediately.
"Hey…" she called softly.
Ryo raised his head a little but still avoided meeting her eyes.
"Sorry…" he said. "You saying that… about giving up on being a hero, especially surrounded by people who are about to become heroes… it must have bothered you in some way."
Melissa blinked, surprised. For a moment, she seemed to process his words—and then she smiled, letting out a light chuckle.
"No, it didn't bother me at all," she replied naturally. "I mean… of course I felt envious at times. It would be a lie to say I didn't."
She shrugged.
"But that's something pretty superficial to me now."
Ryo finally looked up, confused.
"Superficial…?"
Melissa nodded slightly and turned, walking a few steps toward one of the shelves. Among the books and prototypes was a framed photo of her as a child, smiling, seated in her father's arms.
"Because I chose a different path," she said, looking at the picture.
"A different path…?"
"The same as my father's," she explained, a calm glow in her eyes. "He never had a quirk that could help him be a hero. But that never stopped him from fighting for peace."
She gently touched the frame.
"He supports uncle All Might… and so many other heroes… with science. It's indirect, I know. But he creates things that help save lives. That protect. That give people the hope of safety."
Ryo remained silent, absorbing every word.
"He doesn't fight villains," Melissa continued, "but he helps those who do."
Ryo brought a hand to his chin.
"Someone who helps heroes… also saves people," he murmured thoughtfully.
Melissa turned to him, smiling more openly now.
"Exactly!" she said, animated. "That's how I plan to be a hero now."
The lab seemed quieter for a moment, as if those words had found a deep place within Ryo.
Ryo let out a slight smile.
"I understand," he said. "I think… we're kind of similar in that way. Always moving forward, even without knowing exactly where. The difference is that you've already found a goal."
Melissa chuckled softly, agreeing.
"Maybe we are."
She stepped away and walked over to the isolation chamber.
"Alright, enough talking for now," she declared, opening the metal door. "We have a test to run with your quirk while we have time."
From inside, she took out two apples, red and shiny.
"Let's use these as test dummies," she said, animated as she approached Ryo.
She brought the other apple to her mouth and took a generous bite, making a satisfied sound.
"Hm~! So sweet!" she commented, bringing a hand to her cheek.
Ryo slightly furrowed his brow, watching the scene in silence. Only then did Melissa notice his look, turning red to the tips of her ears.
"A-Ah! Sorry! Force of habit…" she laughed awkwardly.
She cleared her throat, trying to regain her composure, and opened the large transparent plastic box, placing the bitten apple right in the center before carefully closing it.
"So… as I explained before," she began in a more focused tone, "for you to heal someone, you need to work on two fronts."
She made a gesture in the air, as if holding something invisible between her fingers.
"First, the strong nuclear force. It's what keeps nuclei stable. In the body, that would be like restoring and reassembling damaged atoms… putting the pieces back in the right place."
Then, she made another gesture, more delicate.
"And then comes the weak force. It adjusts the internal processes, regulates reactions, ensures the cells function without collapsing. It's the fine-tuning."
Melissa looked at him over her glasses.
"Have you messed with any of these things before?"
Ryo nodded slowly.
"I have… used something similar to prevent the ionization of my blasts. Especially when dealing with my gamma... explosions."
Melissa's eyes sparkled.
"So you already have a solid foundation. That's a lot, Rito-kun!"
He approached the table and the box, taking a deep breath. He slipped his hands into the side openings, the flexible material molding to the sides of his arms. His eyes focused completely on the bitten apple.
"If I do this right…" he murmured.
"It should return to its original state," Melissa finished. "Think of it like a broken structure. First you reassemble the framework. Then, you adjust the function."
Ryo closed his eyes.
A greenish aura began to envelop his hands, soft at first, almost shimmering. The apple began to react… the bitten part slowly regenerated, the flesh closing up, the skin reforming.
"W-Wow…" Melissa whispered, surprised. "You're really doing it…"
But then the glow intensified too quickly.
The apple shone intensely for a second and then simply disintegrated, turning into fine particles that vanished inside the box.
Ryo's eyes widened slowly, and he turned his head to Melissa, clearly tense.
"…was that supposed to happen?"
Melissa brought a hand to her chin, thoughtful, her glasses sliding down a bit.
"Hm… looks like you energized it too much," she said, a bit awkwardly. "Localized biological combustion."
He swallowed dryly.
"Can that… happen to people?"
She made a guilty face.
"It can…"
The atmosphere got weird for a moment, then Melissa smiled, confident.
"But wait. This wasn't a total failure. It was an extremely promising result, even. You got much further than I imagined on the first try."
She looked at him, her eyes sparkling with scientific excitement.
"Now it's just a matter of adjustment. And this time... with much less energy."
With that, the test continued.
The second apple reformed almost entirely... only to catch fire from the inside, flames consuming the flesh in seconds.
The third one didn't burn — it aged. The skin wrinkled, darkened, the inside dried up as if decades had passed in the blink of an eye.
The fourth one... changed. Irregular growths appeared under the skin, the shape becoming a mutant apple.
Ryo pulled his hands back after each failure, his heart tightening with every attempt.
It was only then, after error after error... that he started to have successes.
The fifth apple reformed.
The sixth one too.
The seventh, the eighth... the ninth.
By the time they got to the final half-dozen, all of them were perfect.
Melissa didn't celebrate immediately. Her face grew serious, analytical. She opened the box, carefully picked up the apple and spun it between her fingers, observing every detail.
Then, she took it to the scanner, her fingers flying over the panel as she ran a complete scan.
The screen blinked.
NO ANOMALIES.
Melissa took a deep breath... and then smiled, giving a thumbs-up.
"Another success!"
Ryo felt the air return to his lungs. He looked at his own hands as if seeing them for the first time.
"So... I can heal..." he murmured, clenching his fists, a genuine light appearing in his eyes.
"Not yet," Melissa said calmly.
He turned to her.
"What do you mean...?"
Before he could react, Melissa picked up a thin blade from the workbench.
"Melissa—?!"
She cut her own finger.
Blood welled up bright red, trickling slowly.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Ryo took a step forward, panic piercing his voice.
Melissa held up the cut finger, steady despite the pain.
"Proving a point."
"Using yourself as a guinea pig?!" he shot back, almost desperate.
She took a deep breath, her gaze serious but fearless.
"Many scientists have risked their own lives so that humanity could take a step forward," she said with conviction. "I'm just doing the same... so you can take yours."
Ryo fell silent, his chest tightening.
"It's still risky..." he murmured. "What if it goes wrong?"
Melissa smiled slightly, confident.
"It won't go wrong if you don't let your mind go to that place... I trust you, Rito-kun."
Trust.
The word that hits him harder than any punch, the same one Anan used.
"I... I'll try," he said finally. "But if I feel something is wrong, I'll stop. Okay?"
"That's fine," she replied, smiling. "But be quick... it hurts a bit."
She extended her finger towards him.
Ryo approached, his hands enveloping hers with extreme care. The greenish aura appeared again, wrapping around her hand. The glow reflected on the floor... and on the small drops of blood that had fallen there.
His gaze fell upon them.
"I'm pathetic... Letting her bleed like this..."
The thought came like a blade.
"How many times has it been like this? People get hurt around you... people trusted me... and in the end, I only bring destruction and failure."
The energy within him wavered.
"What if this goes wrong?"
"What if you fail again?"
"What if, in the end, all you know how to do is break... never fix?"
His hands trembled slightly.
"Rito." Melissa's voice called him, soft.
He looked up.
She was smiling at him. A small, sincere smile... full of faith.
"You can do it, Rito-kun."
Ryo looked at her for a few seconds before taking a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment when Melissa's voice reached him again.
"Focus only on me," she said with a calm smile, despite the slight pain in her finger. "Don't think about what could go wrong. Think only about what you want to happen."
Ryo swallowed hard. Her words cut through that tangle of guilt and fear like an anchor. He opened his eyes and, this time, didn't look at the blood on the floor, nor at the shadows of the past that insisted on pulling him back.
He looked at her hand. Just at that.
"Just... fix it."
The energy responded.
This time, the aura became more contained, less aggressive. It didn't radiate outward—it closed in, organized itself, as if obeying an invisible limit he had finally learned to impose.
At the deepest level, Ryo assembled the pieces of the puzzle that was once unknown to him, feeling the strong nuclear force act like delicate fingers connecting two yellow pieces around the white one, repositioning nuclei and realigning atomic structures disrupted by the blade's passage.
Right after, he aligned and slotted a blue piece into a specific slot in the formula, the weak force kicking in, adjusting reactions, slowing down incorrect processes, guiding not just the wound, but Melissa's body back to its prime.
She felt the warmth first. Then... nothing.
"...Rito," she murmured.
The blood stopped.
The skin began to close slowly, without exaggerated brightness, without sparks, without combustion. It simply regenerated, as if the injury had never existed.
In moments, the cut had completely disappeared, leaving only the memory that it had once been there.
Ryo's eyes snapped open, and he let go of her hand as if afraid he had done something wrong.
"I-I... did I stop in time?" he asked, his voice low, almost trembling.
Melissa blinked a few times, looking at her own finger. She turned her hand over, brought it close to her face, pressed the skin carefully... nothing.
No pain. No mark.
She slowly raised her gaze to him.
"...It worked!"
For a second, Ryo didn't react. Then it clicked.
"It worked..." he repeated, almost in disbelief.
Melissa smiled wide, a genuine, proud smile, the kind that doesn't fit on a face. She closed her healed hand and raised her arm in the air.
"It worked, yes!" she said, excited. "No mutations, no excess energy, no side effects—"
Melissa's sentence was cut off when Ryo pulled her into a strong, sudden hug.
"H-hey—! R-Rito-kun…?!"
She stiffened for a moment, completely caught off guard, her brain still trying to catch up with what was happening, but he was already speaking, his voice choked and rapid, as if afraid that if he stopped, it would all disappear.
"I can… I can heal…" he repeated, almost laughing and crying at the same time. "I can really save people…! I can do something good! Something truly GOOD!"
Before Melissa could react, he lifted her by the waist and began spinning her in the air.
The lab seemed to disappear for a few seconds. Her blonde hair fanned out with the motion, the bow at her neck swaying as she let out a small, surprised sound.
"R-Rito!" she called, her face on fire.
But, little by little, the shock gave way to something else. His joy was too contagious to resist. A laugh escaped her, first timid, then looser, as she let herself be swept up in the spin, feeling that raw, genuine happiness.
He set her down after a few seconds, still breathless, his eyes glistening. Without a word, he pulled her into another hug, tighter, almost desperate.
"T-thank you…" he said, his voice breaking. "Thank you, really."
Melissa returned the hug without thinking, wrapping her arms around him carefully, her hand resting on his back.
"Don't mention it…" she replied softly. "You're the one who did everything in the end."
She pulled back a little, but Ryo shook his head, a huge smile spreading across his face.
"No." He looked at her, serious and sincere. "You guided me here. You helped me take that step… the step I wanted to take for so long."
He brought a hand to his chest, as if he was still trying to understand what he felt.
"You said you helped heroes…" he continued. "And you did. You helped me prove that I can be more than I was before. That I can be the opposite of what I thought of myself!"
The smile on Ryo's face was different from anything Melissa had seen until then.
It wasn't the polite smile from before.
Nor the light smile from their outing.
It was a free smile.
A smile he didn't know he could give when he was called a threat.
When he was called a walking disaster.
When he was called a monster.
A smile he didn't know he could give when everyone around him seemed to be against him.
When his mother fell into a coma.
When he doubted, every day, if he would ever be able to change.
"Thank you…" he repeated. "Thank you for being my hero!"
Melissa's eyes sparkled, completely taken by surprise.
She stood there, gazing at that genuine smile, feeling something warm her chest in a strange, new, almost frightening way. Her cheeks flushed before she could stop it.
"So… is this it? Is this the feeling of saving someone…?"
Or… could it be something else?
Before she could organize her thoughts, the lab's retractable door slid open with a soft hiss.
"Melissa? I was calling to ask about the project and you weren't answer—"
The blue-haired girl froze in place upon seeing the scene: the two of them very close, the atmosphere clearly different from a simple conversation.
She blinked a few times.
"O-oh…! S-sorry!" she said quickly, already retreating. "I didn't mean to interrupt!"
The door shut in an instant, leaving a thick silence behind.
Melissa brought a hand to her face, completely red.
Ryo blinked, only then realizing how close they still were.
"…Ah." he uttered, removing his hands from Melissa and stepping back.
For a few seconds, neither said a word. The lab seemed too small for so much left unsaid, but too big for their hearts.
----------------------------------------
Stone Goals:
̶5̶0̶0̶ ̶P̶S̶ – Complete
1500 PS – Not Complete
3000 PS – Not Complete