Harry had learned one thing since arriving in this world: U.A. had space everywhere. Training fields, mock cities, obstacle courses—it was like the school had entire neighborhoods locked up just to practice hero work. When classes ended and most students filtered back toward the train station, Harry drifted the opposite way. Past the chatter of the main street, past the tidy rows of shops outside campus, until he reached the edge of an abandoned construction lot.
The place was half-finished foundations and broken walls, good for one thing: privacy. He pulled his satchel off his shoulder, crouched behind a cracked slab of concrete, and spread out his materials. Cards, ink, pen, notebook, and a little cloth he'd stolen from the orphanage to wipe his messes.
The problem was simple. Scrolls had worked. Cards were an improvement. But if he still had to touch them, he wasn't really moving forward.
He pressed his palms together, stared at the neat, blank face of a card, and muttered: "Alright. Let's see if you'll listen."
The first attempt fizzled so fast he barely saw the glow before the ink burned away. The second detonated in his hand—weak, just a puff of smoke, but enough to make him cough and wave frantically at the haze. The third time, three cards went off at once. A burst of light, a rope half-materialized and collapsed, a gust of wind that toppled him backward into the gravel.
Harry sat up, covered in dust, coughing. His heart hammered, but a grin tugged at his mouth. "Well… at least they're listening. Just not to the right bloody thing."
Night after night, he sat in that lot, etching symbols into cards, testing different compression shapes. Most failed. Some burst too soon. One just dissolved into ash when it hit the ground.
Then—on the fourth night—the pattern clicked. He'd been treating the card like a container, but what he needed was an ear. Not just a model waiting for input, but something that recognized his magic.
He drew the lines again, slower this time, embedding a second lattice behind the main spell: a listening layer.
He tossed the card—a Flashbang—across the lot.
"Go," he whispered, pushing magic outward.
The card glowed. Mid-air, it burst in a crack of white light that left him blinking spots.
Harry doubled over laughing, hand shielding his eyes. "It worked… it bloody worked!"
It wasn't perfect. The next two tests misfired—one too early, one not at all. When he tried three cards at once, they all went off in a messy chain reaction. The rubble around him looked like someone had set off party fireworks inside a cave.
Harry frowned, brushing dirt off his sleeve. If he wanted this to work in real fights, he needed more precision.
That thought brought him to the Support Department the next day. Their labs smelled of machine oil and solder. A row of half-finished gadgets lay on a bench when a student with wild, frizzled hair nearly bumped into him.
"You're that magic guy, right?" she asked, peering at his satchel. "Looking for gear?"
"Something simple," Harry said. "I need a focus. A ring. Doesn't have to be fancy, just durable."
She raised an eyebrow but shrugged, vanishing into the back. A few minutes later she returned with a plain steel band. "Test model. Don't say I never did you a favor."
Harry thanked her, pocketed the ring, and spent the night carving stabilizer runes into its inner surface. Small, precise strokes—nothing too fancy, just enough to keep his magic from scattering.
The first time he tried, the ring overheated, burning his finger. The second, two cards went off together. But the third—
He tossed a Gale card, snapped his wrist, and pushed magic through the ring.
The card burst mid-flight in a clean gust, scattering dust across the lot.
Harry stared at the ring, panting. "You're mine now."
The Ring of Control was real.
Harry's excitement lasted exactly one test before reality hit him: he threw like a child tossing paper planes. His cards veered, fell short, or spun out of control.
After the third facepalm, he bit back a curse and decided he needed help.
That afternoon, he caught Aizawa on his way out of the classroom. "Sensei, can I ask something?"
Aizawa raised a brow. "Make it quick."
"I'm… working on something. Support item deployment. But I throw like rubbish. Could you—" Harry hesitated, scratching the back of his neck. "Could you teach me?"
For a moment, he thought Aizawa would brush him off. But then the man sighed. "Meet me on the training field after class tomorrow. Don't waste my time."
The next day, Harry stood in the field, satchel at his side, cards ready. Aizawa handed him a worn baseball.
"Throw it."
Harry did. It wobbled pitifully, bouncing a few meters away.
Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're hopeless." Then he stepped forward, correcting Harry's grip. "Not your wrist. Arm. Body behind it. Straighten your release."
Hour after hour, Harry practiced. His throws curved, bounced, dropped short. Aizawa's only encouragement was the occasional grunt. But slowly, the cards started flying straighter. Mid-air detonations landed closer to where he aimed.
By the end of the week, Harry's arm ached, but his throws no longer embarrassed him.
"Better," Aizawa muttered, gathering his scarf. "Still not good enough. Keep practicing."
Harry smiled faintly. For Aizawa, that was practically a compliment.
With his throwing improving and the ring stable, Harry turned back to research. He split his nights between the lot and the training field, grinding through ideas.
Illusion Model: Inspired by Veil, he wanted something more deceptive. Early illusions flickered like ghosts, or showed him distorted. But after layering refraction models, he produced a crude but usable duplicate—enough to make an enemy chase the wrong target.
Rope Model: His first conjure attempt. At first, ropes snapped like threads. One wrapped around his own leg, dropping him face-first into dirt. But eventually, he conjured a rope sturdy enough to bind a training dummy for several seconds. Harry whooped so loud it echoed through the lot.
Speed Burst Model: The idea seemed brilliant—combine Gale and Lightweight. The first attempt sent him sprawling into a wall. The second threw him flat on his back. By the fifth, he managed a clean dash across ten meters. It was reckless, barely controlled, but fast.
Tickle Model: This one started as a joke. After one particularly rough practice, he muttered, "I need something that just… makes people laugh." The model backfired spectacularly; he collapsed in the gravel, giggling uncontrollably until his ribs hurt. But after adjustments, the final version worked: a card that forced targets into helpless laughter, breaking their rhythm.
By the end of the two weeks, Harry stood in the training field under fading sunlight, his satchel snug at his hip. He flexed his hand, the steel ring warm against his skin, and flicked a card across the dirt.
The arc was clean. His magic surged through the ring. The card exploded in a burst of light exactly where he wanted.
Harry exhaled slowly, a smile creeping across his face.
Not perfect. Not enough to outshine Bakugo's blasts or Todoroki's ice. But enough to fight, enough to stand on his own.
And for now, that was enough.