Drift Report

Training log updated.

Take a breath. The next test is already starting.

✦

The official report called it an incident.

That was how schools and police made terror fit inside folders. U.S.J. Incident. Villain intrusion. Faculty injuries. No student fatalities.

The words sat cleanly on the hospital tablet Nezu had brought to Recovery Girl's office the next afternoon. Clean words. Calm words. Words that did not show Aizawa's blood on broken concrete or All Might's hand trembling after the last student transport left.

My body kept its own report.

Calf: hot.

Ribs: angry.

Shoulder: numb in a way that made Recovery Girl's mouth go flat every time I tried to move it.

Fear: still present, not yet useful.

"Stop reading like the paper is going to confess," Recovery Girl said.

I lowered the tablet a little. "It keeps using passive voice."

"So do boys who want to pretend they are not in pain."

Fair.

U.A. had suspended practical training for the day. That should have felt like a break. Instead, the whole building hummed with adults speaking behind closed doors. Security badges changed color. Hallway patrols doubled. Every announcement used calm words in the exact tone people used when they did not want anyone asking why calm had become necessary.

Even from the infirmary bed, I could feel the school tightening around us.

The attack had failed.

The school had still been entered.

Those were different facts, and U.A. was smart enough to hate both.

Recovery Girl sat on the stool beside the bed and looked over my chart with the kind of expression that made medical paper seem personally disappointing.

"Muscle strain in the calf. Deep bruising along the ribs and shoulder. No major fractures, which is luck dressed as poor decision-making. Your Quirk output was cleaner than your behavior."

"That is a low bar."

"It is currently underground."

She wrote three lines on the top sheet in blocky handwriting.

No practical training for seventy-two hours.

Mobility work only with supervision.

No unsupervised Quirk output until I clear the calf, ribs, and shoulder together.

The rules looked small. They landed like locks.

"Seventy-two hours?" I asked.

"You may negotiate when you stop treating surviving as permission to repeat the method."

"I was not going to argue."

"You were composing the argument in your eyebrows."

My phone buzzed for the eighth time in ten minutes. Mom again.

Recovery Girl looked at the screen, then at me.

"Answer before she storms the gates. Mothers do that."

I tapped accept.

"Hi, Mom."

The first sound out of her was not a word. It nearly broke me.

"Izuku."

Just my name.

Original Izuku's heart answered before mine could decide what to do. Guilt rose fast and hot, carrying memories of hospital rooms, burnt notebooks, years of a woman apologizing for a world that had been cruel to her child.

"I'm okay," I said.

"The school called it a villain incident."

"I'm okay."

"That is not the same sentence."

I stared at the ceiling.

Smart woman.

"I'm hurt, but I'm safe. Recovery Girl checked me. Nothing broken."

"Nothing broken," she repeated, and the relief in her voice sounded too thin to stand on. "They said your teacher was in critical condition."

"Aizawa-sensei is alive."

"Izuku."

There was the soft warning. Do not hand me crumbs and call it dinner.

I closed my eyes.

"It was bad."

She inhaled, shaky and quiet.

"Were you scared?"

The answer should have been easy.

The adult in me wanted to say yes in a way that sounded controlled. Izuku's body remembered being smaller, remembered crying into this woman's sweater, remembered every time fear had been treated as something he needed to apologize for.

"I was terrified," I said.

The line went silent. Then Mom cried.

Not loudly. That might have been easier. She cried like she was trying not to make it my job to comfort her, and that made me want to tear the hospital room apart.

"Can I come there?"

"They might not let visitors in yet."

"That is not what I asked."

"I'll ask."

"And Izuku?"

"Yeah?"

"Do not let them turn you into paperwork before I see you."

The tablet felt suddenly heavier in my lap.

"I won't."

When the call ended, Recovery Girl pretended to be very interested in my chart. I appreciated the lie.

"No additional interviews until you eat, sleep, and speak to your mother in person," she said.

"Can you do that?"

"Watch me."

She took Nezu's tablet off my blanket and placed it on the counter where I could still see it but not touch it.

Decision changed. Limit imposed. Mom had not stopped the report.

She had put a body in front of it.

The office door opened before either of us had to say anything.

Uraraka stepped in with a bandage around one wrist and a look on her face that made me wish Nomu had come back for round two.

"Can he talk?"

Recovery Girl looked at me.

"Can he? Yes. Should he make this conversation worse? No."

Uraraka nodded seriously.

"I'll keep that in mind."

Traitor.

Recovery Girl left us alone after one more warning glare and a reminder that listening counted as activity if I made it difficult.

Uraraka stood beside the bed for a few seconds, hands curled around the strap of her school bag.

"Iida is checking on everyone."

"That sounds like him."

"Tsu is fine. Mineta keeps telling people he saved a teacher."

"He kind of did."

"I know. That's the weird part."

A small smile touched her mouth and vanished. Then the room had nowhere else to hide.

"You knew," she said.

My chest tightened.

"I knew an attack was possible."

"Before the portal."

"After the press breach, yeah."

"That is not what I mean."

I looked at my hands. They looked too young again.

Bandaged knuckles. Hospital bracelet. Short nails with dust still caught near the cuticles no matter how much someone had cleaned them.

"You looked at the center before anything happened," Uraraka said. "On the bus, you were already somewhere else. When Thirteen talked, you looked like you were listening to a countdown."

She took one breath.

"And during the fight, you kept knowing which things mattered."

There were lies available. Stress. Analysis. Lucky guesses.

All of them partly true. All of them insults if I made her swallow them whole.

"I get patterns," I said.

Her eyes narrowed.

"Midoriya."

"I'm not trying to shut you out."

"Then do not make the door sound polite."

It was unfair.

It was also accurate.

"There are things I cannot explain cleanly," I said. "Some of it is analysis. Some of it is instinct. Some of it is me being scared earlier than everyone else and trying not to sound impossible."

"Instinct told you All Might needed a ring-out?"

I winced.

"That one was analysis."

"And Shigaraki being interested in you?"

"That part was my fault."

"I did not ask whose fault it was."

Her voice sharpened, then softened before it cut too deep.

"I just want to know whether I am fighting beside someone who trusts me."

That landed worse than any accusation.

"I do."

"Enough to let me make choices?"

My answer caught.

She saw it. Of course she did.

Uraraka Ochaco was not a side character in her own life. Canon had never meant she was simple. It had meant the story was usually too busy looking somewhere else.

"I'm trying," I said.

"Try where I can hear it."

I huffed a laugh despite myself. Her shoulders eased a fraction.

"I will not ask you for whatever secret you're protecting today," she said. "I do not think you would tell me, and I do not want a bad lie."

I deserved that.

"But next time," she continued, "if you know the floor is about to fall out, you warn us before we're already dropping."

"There might not be a next time like that."

She stared.

"Do you believe that?"

No.

"I hope that."

"Then hope and warn people."

She adjusted the strap on her bag.

"Also, I told Iida you were awake."

"That feels like a threat."

"He's bringing notes."

"That is a threat."

This time her smile stayed a little longer.

After she left, All Might arrived in a yellow suit that did not fit the haunted look behind his eyes. He closed the door carefully.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then steam curled off his shoulders, and the great shape of him collapsed into the thin man who had trained me on a beach.

He coughed blood into a cloth. I pushed myself halfway up.

"Don't."

He pointed one long finger at me.

"You are in less condition to scold anyone than I am."

"That's probably false."

"It is absolutely false, but allow an old man dignity."

"You're not old."

"I am occasionally ancient."

The joke thinned quickly.

All Might sat in the visitor chair, elbows on knees, cloth folded in one hand.

"They noticed you."

"Yes."

"They did not identify One For All."

"You do not know that."

"I know what evidence they had room to take. They saw a green-haired student move early, warn staff before proof, and draw my attention under pressure. That is dangerous."

"That is not proof."

"No," he said. "It is a question."

That scared me more than certainty.

"Questions can be followed."

"Yes."

"By Shigaraki?"

All Might's mouth tightened.

"By his teacher, if the League reports upward."

He did not say All For One. He did not have to. The name was too large for the small room.

"They do not have enough to know the secret," he said. "They have enough to look for the shape around it."

The distinction mattered.

It did not comfort me.

"Shigaraki said to bring me next time."

All Might's hand closed around the cloth.

"There will be additional security."

"Security did not stop this."

"Young Midoriya."

"Sir, I'm not trying to be dramatic."

"I know."

There was the problem.

All Might leaned back, gaze lifting to the ceiling.

"I pushed you into a world that was already hunting me."

"I chose this."

"You chose heroism. You did not choose my enemies knowing your face this early."

Early.

He did not know how heavy that word was. I did.

"Then we adapt," I said.

All Might looked at me.

"You say that like it is easy."

"I say it like the other option is worse."

For a second, something like pride crossed his face. Then worry swallowed it.

"Your safe output remains five percent, briefly, and only in logged practice. Eight percent is not training. It is emergency evacuation or someone dies. Sustained combat is not authorized."

"Recovery Girl already wrote rules."

"I'm glad."

"You sound happy about that."

"I am delighted when someone else says the sensible thing first."

He took the top sheet from the counter and added his signature under Recovery Girl's. The gesture made the rules heavier.

Medical limit.

Teacher limit.

Mother limit waiting at the gate tomorrow morning.

The road had not only moved. It had gained guardrails.

The door opened again before I could answer.

Iida stepped in with a notebook, three printed handouts, and the air of a man prepared to apologize professionally.

Uraraka stood behind him, clearly enjoying this more than she should.

"Midoriya," Iida said. "I have organized a class wellness summary, a timeline of evacuation failures, and preliminary improvements for future emergency communication."

All Might blinked. I looked at Uraraka.

She smiled.

Monster.

"Only the necessary parts," I said.

Iida drew himself up.

"All parts are intended to help."

"That is what scares me."

His ears went red, but he turned the first page around.

Buddy confirmation after separated-zone exercises.

One injured-student check-in before any debrief.

No public speculation about classmates without consent.

It should have been ridiculous.

It was not.

Each line had a face under it. Tsuyu in the water. Uraraka by my sleeve. Mineta staring at his hands. Aizawa breathing through blood. Iida running because he had been ordered to run and hating himself for obeying correctly.

"Also," Iida added, bowing so sharply I worried about his neck, "I failed to protect the class as representative."

"You got help," I said.

"After leaving everyone behind."

"After being ordered to run."

"The distinction is noted but not emotionally satisfying."

That sounded familiar. Too familiar.

"Then keep leading anyway," I said.

Iida looked up.

"That is what Aizawa-sensei would tell you if he were awake enough to be mean."

Uraraka nodded. "He would use fewer words."

"And somehow make it worse," I said.

Iida's face trembled between guilt and a laugh.

He chose the laugh.

Barely.

The hospital room did not become okay.

Aizawa was still in another wing with injuries that would take time. Thirteen's suit had almost failed with her inside it. All Might's secret had gained a shadow. The League had lost the Nomu but stolen questions.

Still, Iida laughed once. Uraraka stayed. All Might breathed a little easier.

And the original Izuku's heart, stubborn and reckless and impossibly hopeful, kept beating under my ribs.

Nezu's tablet remained on the counter, out of reach.

The report would be there tomorrow.

So would Mom.

So would the questions.

For tonight, Recovery Girl's rules won. I ate what she put in front of me. I let All Might confiscate the tablet. I let Uraraka leave angry enough to come back honest. I let Iida fold his handouts into something smaller than a trial.

Outside the infirmary window, U.A. kept standing.

For now, that had to count as a win.

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