//Would yall check out my original novel if I wrote one?
—Lunch Room—
"Man, Lunch Rush's food is the best." Kaminari cried, his cheeks stuffed with rice as sparks flickered lazily from his hair.
"You say that every time." Jiro muttered, stirring her miso soup while flicking him an unimpressed glance.
Kirishima thumped his tray down next to Renji with a grin. "Can you blame him though? This is, like, gourmet-level grub!" He dug in with gusto.
Kaminari swallowed, then leaned over with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "So, Renji. What's it like ditching the Class Rep gig after five minutes? World record, man."
Renji didn't look up from his tray. "It's very peaceful. Exactly how I like it."
Kaminari chuckled, sparks flicking in his hair. "C'mon, you could've had some clout! Being rep is basically free popularity points."
"I don't need popularity," Renji muttered, taking another bite.
Iida, sitting nearby with his usual upright posture, adjusted his glasses. "You should not dismiss leadership so easily, Renji. Responsibility is the foundation of growth!"
"Haha," Renji chuckled flatly, "Then you can keep it."
Yaoyorozu, ever composed, set her chopsticks down delicately. "It is a shame, though. You would have made a competent leader. But I understand that some of us prefer to focus on our own paths."
Renji gave a small nod. "Exactly. I didn't come here to babysit."
Kaminari leaned back with a groan. "Man, imagine if All Might walked in here right now. He'd probably give a booming speech about the 'importance of leadership' or something."
Jiro smirked into her soup. "And Renji would walk out before he finished the first sentence."
Renji's lips twitched into a small smirk. "…You're not wrong."
The table broke into laughter, the tension from earlier melting into the easy chaos of lunch.
"Oh, come on…" Renji whispered under his breath as he braced for the chaos to come.
Before anyone could toss another jab at Renji, a shrill alarm blared through the cafeteria. The sudden noise made trays rattle and chopsticks clatter against bowls.
Students jerked in their seats, eyes darting toward the flashing red lights overhead.
"The alarm…?" Yaoyorozu muttered, already standing.
A third-year by the door called out, understanding what the alarm meant. "Someone's breached the barrier! The school's defenses were bypassed!"
Renji didn't move from his seat. While the rest of the cafeteria surged to their feet in a frenzy, he calmly speared another bite of rice, chewing as though nothing was wrong.
The table around him rattled, trays tipped over, and the hall clogged with shouting voices, but his expression barely shifted.
Kirishima's chopsticks shook in his hand. "Dude, someone actually broke in?!"
Even Jiro looked rattled, her earbuds twitching as the storm of noise overwhelmed the room.
"…Renji?" Hagakure asked, noticing that he had yet to move.
Only Renji stayed rooted, taking another slow sip of miso soup.
"Relax." His voice cut evenly through their panic. He set the bowl down, finally glancing toward the chaos with narrowed eyes. "It's not villains. It's just the press."
Kaminari blinked. "The—what?"
Renji brushed stray rice from his uniform. "Reporters. Who else would be desperate enough to force their way in right after All Might joins the staff?" He shot a look toward Iida, who was busy looking through the windows to confirm Renji's words.
"You're loud enough to get their attention. Use it," Renji said, pointing toward the panicking mob with his chopsticks. "Tell them the truth before they trample each other."
Iida's eyes widened behind his glasses. "Me?"
Renji smirked faintly. "You're the one who likes responsibility, right? Time to act the part."
For a beat, Iida hesitated, then his jaw set with determination. He pushed forward, cutting through the tide and directing Uraraka to float him up to the exit signboard. From there, his voice carried over the panic.
"Everyone, calm yourselves! This is not a villain attack, it is only members of the press who have managed to break through!"
At first, no one listened, but after repeating his words, Iida was able to calm down the students. Step by step, the panic eased into nervous chatter.
Renji resumed his meal as though nothing had happened. "Finally," he muttered. "Can't even finish lunch in peace…"
—
—U.A. Meeting Room—
The room was tense, every staff member present still as the low hum of the screens filled the silence.
Nezu sat at the head of the table, paws folded neatly over his tablet, his usual cheery expression replaced by a serious gravity.
Aizawa sat quietly, arms crossed and a tired gaze flicking between the readings on the holograms. "So. We're just supposed to believe a mob of reporters bypassed out security system?"
Snipe adjusted his hat, shaking his head. "No way a pack of journalists forced their way through this tech. Most of 'em couldn't hack a coffee machine, let alone a multi-layered defense grid."
"Then who the hell did it?" Present Mic slapped a hand on the table, his voice low instead of booming for once. "If someone can bust through the barrier just like that—they're more than just a small threat."
Cementoss' stone-like features were set in a frown as he nodded in agreement. "That means we have a lot more to worry about than just a few reporters."
Everyone looked toward the principal. Nezu's small frame shifted as he adjusted his bowtie.
"You are correct," he said calmly. "Reporters cannot disintegrate sections of U.A.'s barrier. This was no accident, nor was it mere desperation for the headlines."
He tapped the glowing red sectors with his pointer, ears twitching. "Someone is testing us."
The room went quiet, the weight of his words sinking in.
All Might, seated in his thinner, gaunt form, clenched a fist tightly on the table. "You're saying this wasn't just about me?"
Nezu's smile returned, though it didn't reach his eyes. "Precisely, All Might. If anything, your presence here was simply the excuse. In truth…"
He looked around at the staff with a gaze sharp enough to cut glass. "This may well be a declaration of war."
The words lingered in the air, heavy as the reinforced steel surrounding them. Every teacher in that room knew the truth. U.A. had been breached, and whoever was behind it was a powerful force.
Aizawa's scarf rustled faintly as he finally spoke. "Then we'd better prepare. If war's coming to U.A., the students can't afford to be caught off guard again."
—
—Renji's Home—
In a separate room across his bedroom, Renji had created a sort of office space. The walls were filled with monitors galore, surrounded in these monitors, Renji finally felt at peace.
Running along the walls was an enormous table that stretched from the entrance, circled the room, and looped back again. Beneath the vast desk lay an obscene ammount of wiring, connecting to multiple powerful computers.
Renji sat down in a comfortable chair located in the center of the room. With a press of a button, dozens of monitors lit up on the wall, all showing their own startup sequence.
He sighed, knowing how long this would take. There was a limit to how much he could take. Not because of some inherent threshold, but because eventually he would go insane from the isolation.
"Might as well get over it." Once everything booted up, he pulled up a file for each monitor. Each containing bountiful information on villains, heroes, their Quirks, their habits, and their aspirations. It had taken a lot of money to secure these files, but it's not like money was something Renji was missing.
"Information is very valuable after all…"
His finger tapped the armrest in rhythm. "If someone can breach U.A.'s barrier, then they already have their eyes on us… Which means my time is limited."
"Alright…" he whispered.
The air around him distorted faintly as the world shifted under his command. The entire room seemed to fall away, replaced by the endless time of his Quirk.
Renji rose slowly from his chair, footsteps echoing against the frozen stillness. The monitors no longer hummed, only sat there like paintings hung in an endless gallery. Dozens of windows, all open and waiting.
He drifted toward the first screen. A villain dossier, scattered with half-legible notes from other agencies. He scanned the words, taking in every line, every margin scribble. Nothing escaped him here. Not in his world.
Moving on to the next screen, he checked out another file detailing a hero this time. Ken Tagaki, also known as Rock Lock. The screen showed a picture of a man of average height with dark, tightly coiled hair worn in a short afro.
His Quirk allowed him to immobilize any nonliving thing he's touched, stopping it in fixed location in space.
Renji's eyes shared a sad look as he read the Quirk's description. Kind of like Mom's.
He exhaled slowly, shutting his eyes for a brief moment before forcing them back open. "Not the same… don't start thinking like that." His voice cracked in the empty silence of the frozen world.
Still, the ache in his chest lingered. He shook it off, moving toward the next screen. Another villain, this one with a history of prison breaks. His Quirk was messy and unpredictable.
Renji leaned closer to the monitor, eyes scanning every detail of another villain's rap sheet.
He traced the words with his finger, as though the act might burn the knowledge deeper into his mind. In this place, there was nothing to stop him. No ticking clock, no distractions, no noise. The only thing inhibiting his ability to learn was his own tenacity.
Sighing, Renji moved onto the next, and the next, and the next.
Hours—maybe days—passed in this dimension. Or at least, that's how it felt. Renji's fingers twitched as he pulled up another dossier, his face scrunched up at the repetitiveness, though his body remained untouched by fatigue.
He hated it. Hated the way this dimension stretched time into something unrecognizable, hated the itch in his chest that told him there's always more to learn. If he left now, what would he miss? What detail would slip through the cracks?
"Just one more file," he muttered, though he had already said it a hundred times. His voice echoed hollowly in the stillness.
He skimmed another villain profile, then forced himself to pause, dragging a hand down his face. "…How long has it been?"
Of course, he knew the answer. No time had passed. Not really. He could step out right now and the clock outside wouldn't even blink. But inside this world, his head was pounding, his thoughts running ragged.
A bitter laugh slipped out. "Peaceful, huh? What a joke."
Still, his eyes drifted back to the glowing monitors. He couldn't stop. Not yet.
Because not knowing? That was worse than any exhaustion, worse than the gnawing ache in his chest.
—
Renji stepped back into the physical world with a sigh, pulling up new files on each of the monitors. Having to manually set each screen to a new file was a little annoying, but it's not as if any significant time would have passed.
TZZHHHHHH!
Once again, his Quirk dragged him into the higher dimension. The hum of the machines died instantly, screens freezing in place like still paintings on a gallery wall.
Renji drifted toward the monitor that had just lit up. A new file had appeared, stamped across the top in bold lettering: CLASSIFIED FILE – LIMITED ACCESS.
His eyes narrowed. This particular file had been extremely expensive to buy, we're talking the kind of money that would save smaller nations. Too bad the guy he bought this from disappeared off the internet after the purchase.
He leaned closer, scanning the image that bled through the static. Blonde hair swept back, eyes like steel, with a posture that seemed unshakeable even in the photograph.
Star and Stripe.
The United States' Number One Hero.
"About time I learned a little more." Renji muttered under his breath. Of course, he had done a little research on her before—she was a very important figure—but digging into someone tied to a foreign government's top security forces wasn't easy..
Jagged scraps of intel were left between heavy blocks of REDACTED text. But the few details that survived were enough to make his pulse quicken.
Quirk: New Order. Ability to impose rules upon reality itself. Confirmed applications: binding the atmosphere, altering the force of impact, restraining villains in impossible constructs.
He traced the words with his fingertip, lips tightening. "Rules… on reality itself. And this is only the part they let slip."
His gaze dropped lower, noticing cautionary notes: Limitations unclear… High strain observed during prolonged enforcement.
"Scraps," Renji hissed, tearing his gaze from the monitor even as the words burned into his mind. "They're only giving me scraps…"
But even scraps were enough. Enough to confirm a question he had for a long, long, time.
His reflection jerked in the mirror nearby, taut and alive. Eyes sharp, scanning, and hungry. Every muscle coiled.
"…So there really is someone else…? Someone who can bend the world like I do…"
A laugh ripped out of him, ragged and raw. Fingers jittering, heart hammering, mind splitting into sparks. Every neuron fired with possibility. He could feel it, the pulse of power, someone out there like him.