Zero Gravity Plan

Training log updated.

Take a breath. The next test is already starting.

✦

The worst part of winning was the replay.

Pain stayed quiet while things kept moving. In the observation room, with the match frozen on a wall-sized screen and everyone close enough to hear me breathe wrong, pain remembered it had opinions.

My shoulder pulsed under the brace. My calf twitched beneath the desk. My ribs objected every time Kaminari whispered as if volume had personal grudges.

All Might ran the last thirty seconds again.

There I was, pinned near Bakugo with one hand open against his gauntlet latch instead of closed around a punch. There was Uraraka above the weapon room, using broken floor, loose panels, and one very angry villain roleplayer to make gravity do paperwork. There was Iida by the mock bomb, posture perfect, glasses crooked, committed enough to make villainy look like student council service.

The footage froze as Uraraka touched the weapon.

"The deciding action," All Might said, "was not brute force."

Bakugo's jaw flexed.

Uraraka sat a little straighter beside me.

"Nor was it speed alone," All Might continued. His stage voice was still there, bright and huge, but the edges kept catching on worry. "It was objective awareness under pressure."

He turned toward her.

"Young Uraraka, walk us through your choice."

Her hand tightened on the edge of the desk. For a second, nerves tried to steal the room from her.

Then she took it back.

"The door was where Iida expected us."

Iida nodded like the statement deserved a stamp.

"Correct. I had prepared my defense around the visible entrances."

"And Bakugo was going to break the building anyway," she said. Her cheeks colored, but she did not look down. "So I figured we could use the damage instead of pretending it wasn't happening."

Kirishima leaned forward. "That is seriously cool."

Mina bumped his shoulder. "Just seriously?"

"Very seriously cool."

Uraraka gave a small, startled smile. She had earned that reaction. I kept my mouth shut before I could make the win smaller by explaining it near her.

All Might beamed at her.

"An admirable use of the environment."

Then Aizawa spoke from the back wall.

"She also fixed Midoriya's first assumption."

The room shifted again.

Of course it did.

Uraraka looked from him to me. "Fixed?"

"His opening structure depended on Bakugo staying angry at him," Aizawa said. "It worked for about twelve seconds. Then it became damage management."

"I was keeping the main threat busy," I said.

"You were making yourself the place where the damage went."

Not the same sentence.

It landed worse.

Uraraka heard it too. Her eyes narrowed, not at Aizawa. At me.

All Might's smile held for one heroic second too long before it stiffened.

Aizawa stepped closer to the screen. "Uraraka chose an objective route, then adjusted when the fight changed the terrain. Without that, your distraction collapses into you getting hit until someone stops the exercise."

Silence sat down hard.

Tsuyu broke it, calm as rain. "That sounds right, ribbit."

I liked her less for three seconds. Then more.

Jiro tapped one earphone jack against her wrist. "If the whole thing needs one person to absorb hits, it is not much of a team."

Kaminari raised a hand halfway. "What if the person is Kirishima?"

Kirishima brightened.

Then paused.

"Wait."

Momo rescued the room before Kirishima could volunteer for structural testing.

"Durability can be an asset," she said, "but assuming injury is different from assigning a role."

All Might nodded too quickly.

"Precisely!"

Too quickly. Too relieved. He wanted the lesson to stay heroic. Aizawa wanted it to stay true. The gap between those two things felt wide enough to fall through.

Bakugo kicked one boot against the floor.

"He wasn't protecting her."

Everyone looked at him.

His eyes stayed on the frozen screen.

"He knew she could get there."

Uraraka stiffened.

So did I.

Bakugo's mouth twisted. "Don't look at me like that. I'm not giving Round Face a medal. I'm saying he wasn't surprised."

The correction made it worse.

Because part of it was true.

He had tried to turn the room against me and somehow put her competence in the center of it. Pride made him mean. Pride also made him furious when anyone ignored evidence right in front of him.

Uraraka leaned forward.

"I chose the timing."

Bakugo's glare snapped to her.

"I saw."

"Then say that."

The room went quiet in a new way.

Bakugo looked away first.

Nobody commented. Several people noticed.

All Might cleared his throat with the desperation of a man rescuing his own lesson.

"Young Bakugo, your adaptation to the weightless field was exceptional. You recognized a changed movement rule and used recoil immediately."

Bakugo did not soften.

"However," All Might said, and the public smile faltered around the word, "you narrowed the battle to Midoriya. A hero who sees only the opponent he wants to beat may miss the person he is responsible for saving."

Bakugo's face closed.

For one second, I remembered sludge over his mouth, his hand clawing through muck, rage and terror fighting for the same space.

He could save people.

He could also destroy the nearest person while trying to prove he did not need saving himself.

All Might knew both pieces. He did not know how to say either without making it sound like a banner.

Aizawa did not help him. "You left Iida alone with the objective."

Iida took that like a strike.

"As villain partners, we shared responsibility."

"Then share it next time," Aizawa said.

Iida opened his notebook with the expression of a man accepting a sentence.

The review moved through his part of the exercise: speed indoors, role commitment, overcommitment to visible routes, his choice to catch falling debris instead of gambling with civilian damage. All Might praised the instincts. Aizawa called them predictable. Both were right, which seemed unfair.

Then the footage turned to Bakugo's first ambush.

From the camera angle, the opening blast looked even worse. Heat swallowed the hall. My dodge was late by a hair. His second angle cut off the safer route before I saw it.

Sero whistled under his breath. "Nasty."

"Smart," Jiro said.

"Can be both."

Bakugo's shoulders eased a fraction at smart.

All Might noticed. Aizawa noticed that he noticed.

I noticed both of them noticing, which was how I knew my life had become ridiculous.

Then the screen showed my restraint.

The open hand. The gauntlet latch. The misfire. The wall.

My shoulder remembered the wall with enthusiasm.

All Might looked at me.

"Young Midoriya, your tactical awareness is strong."

I braced.

"Your output control has improved."

Braced harder.

"And you chose restraint when anger would have been understandable."

The sentence was kind. Too kind for the room. Too close to the secret under my skin.

Bakugo's head turned.

Aizawa cut in before the silence could grow teeth.

"He also exceeded his authorized output range."

Uraraka turned toward me very slowly.

"You told me the limit was below one percent."

"I did."

"You went past it."

I looked down at my brace.

"Twice," I said.

She crossed her arms. "I planned around the limit you gave me. I could not plan around the moment you broke it."

Iida made a distressed sound. "Midoriya, you entered close combat with a medical output restriction?"

"In my defense, the combat entered me first."

"That is not a defense."

Mina pointed between us. "I love this table."

"We are not a table," I said.

"Emotionally, you are."

The class laughed. Not long. Long enough.

The pressure cracked, and air came back into the room.

Aizawa did not laugh.

"Incident output report before you leave."

"Yes, sir."

"And an apology to your teammate for exceeding the limit you gave her without warning."

Paperwork would have hurt less.

I turned to Uraraka. Her expression was not exactly angry. It was worse because it was practical.

"I should have warned you when I chose to go past it."

"Yes."

"I told myself there was no time to change the route."

"That is still deciding for me."

Now it sat in the open, ugly and accurate.

I swallowed.

"I know."

"Do you?"

The observation room developed a sudden interest in pretending not to listen.

I wanted to dodge. I had already done enough of that on camera.

"I am learning that telling my partner the rule does not let me break it without giving her a chance to respond."

Uraraka studied me.

Aizawa looked as if he disliked the sentence but approved the direction of travel.

"Better," she said.

One word. No comfort added for free.

It helped anyway.

The rest of class continued with new matches. Todoroki made a hallway look like winter had filed a complaint. Momo's prep work was tidy enough to be frightening. Tsuyu moved through indoor terrain like the building had agreed to keep secrets with her. Jiro's sound tracking found motion the cameras missed. Mina laughed before her match and then moved like laughter was a feint.

Future names became present people by inches.

Not destiny. Habits. Mistakes. Preferences. Tiny choices made under pressure.

Canon knowledge could poison that if I let it.

Treat them like pieces, and I would miss who they were.

Treat them only like people, and I might fail to stop what was coming.

There was no clean answer. Just work, and the people doing it with me whether I deserved that or not.

By the time class ended, my incident report had become three pages.

Aizawa took it, read the first paragraph, and looked tired in a way that felt personal.

"You write like you are building evidence against yourself."

"Is that bad?"

"It is admissible."

"That sounded like not good."

"Now you are learning."

He folded the report under one arm.

"Faculty Room B tomorrow morning."

"Yes, sir."

"Bring your recovery folder."

"That makes it sound medical."

"It is."

"And disciplinary?"

"Also yes."

Of course.

Uraraka waited by the door after the others started out.

"You did well," she said.

I looked at her.

"You won the match."

"We won."

"You touched the bomb."

"Because you and Bakugo broke half a hallway over my head."

"Strategic property damage."

"U.A. probably has insurance."

Her smile faded into something smaller.

"I mean it. You did well. But next time, tell me when the rules you gave me stop holding."

"I will."

"Real answer?"

"Real answer."

She held out her pinky.

I stared.

"Seriously?"

"You prefer a signed form?"

"No."

I hooked my pinky with hers. Her hand was warm. The gesture was silly. It still mattered.

"No silent changes to the injury rules," she said.

"No silent changes."

For once, the interface stayed quiet.

I appreciated its restraint.

Across the hall, Bakugo watched from near the stairwell. He did not shout. He did not explode. He looked at our linked fingers, then at my shoulder brace, then at me.

The expression was harder than anger.

Then he turned and walked away.

Uraraka let go.

"He really hates you."

"Yes."

"But not only."

That found the bruise under the bruise.

"No," I said. "Not only."

Her eyes stayed on the empty stairwell.

"That might be worse."

"Usually is."

My phone buzzed.

All Might.

Young Midoriya, Aizawa has requested that I attend after your morning report.

A second message arrived while I was still staring.

Please do not panic.

A third followed.

Again.

I looked at the screen, then at Uraraka.

"Everything okay?"

"Morning meeting with Aizawa and All Might."

Her eyebrows lifted.

"Already?"

"My student experience may not be statistically average."

"No kidding."

The Ledger finally woke, one cold line across my vision.

[Institutional Attention: escalating]

No advice. No route.

Just a label for the file forming somewhere above my head.

Uraraka did not wait for me to turn it into a strategy. She asked what Aizawa had actually said, corrected one assumption before I finished making it, and looked pleased when I had to admit she was right.

That helped more than comfort would have.

A strategy that only worked if everyone obeyed me was just another way to fail.

Somewhere inside U.A., a folder with my name on it had probably gained another page.

Worse, Aizawa was no longer watching alone.

He was comparing notes.

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