U.A. went through the motions of daylight, but for Uraraka, morning meant pretending. Pretending to laugh at breakfast, pretending she wasn't trembling from something that never touched her skin. The night in the gym had climbed into her bones.
Midoriya watched her during class. Not the way he used to—shy, adoring—but with measured possession. The new glove he wore flickered faintly when their eyes met. Bakugo, from across the room, noticed both of them and broke his pencil in half.
Aizawa's voice droned about strategy evolution, power control, risk analysis—words that meant nothing now. Uraraka could feel two orbits colliding around her. The air seemed to bend in response to her own pulse. She wondered if anyone else could sense it.
After class, a message appeared on her desk. No name. Only coordinates.
> *Training Hall C — after curfew.*
She didn't need to guess.
That evening, the corridors hummed with the quiet of conspiracies. She moved like a thief through the halls, heart syncing with the rhythm of security lights again. When she reached the hall, the door slid open before she touched it.
Midoriya was there, using the new glove with calm patience. Holographic equations twitched in the dark like floating ghosts—gravimetric vectors, black‑hole simulations, formulas that should have belonged to scientists, not fifteen‑year‑olds shaped by violence.
"You came," he said. It wasn't a question.
Uraraka folded her arms, more to protect herself from the tremor in her stomach than out of defiance. "You said you could teach me."
"I can show you what power feels like when you stop lying to yourself about it," he replied.
"The others—they're still fighting for good."
He half‑smiled, detached. "Good doesn't win wars. Gravity does." He extended a hand.
She hesitated. The last time she'd taken someone's hand, it was to float them away from danger. This time, it might pull her under.
When her palm touched his glove, sensation erupted—not heat or electric shock, but density. Every molecule of the room acknowledged their connection, registering a single axis. The world tilted. Midoriya looked utterly still; it was she who seemed to move, toward something immensely dark and stable.
"This is the truth under your quirk," he murmured. "Gravity doesn't lift things—it claims them. It owns them."
She tried to pull away. Her body obeyed, but her mind didn't. "You sound like a villain," she whispered.
He leaned closer. "Maybe I stopped pretending to be anything else."
For a heartbeat, she thought of Bakugo—the raw, brutal honesty of him. Violent yes, but alive. Midoriya's control scared her more because it was quiet. Dangerous things often were.
Then the door slammed open behind them. Bakugo.
His eyes went straight to their joined hands. No shouting at first. Just that look—betrayal wrapped in confusion, and maybe something else he'd never name.
"What the hell is this, Round Face?"
Uraraka stepped back, guilty though she'd done nothing yet. "He's showing me something. It's training."
Bakugo's laugh was hollow. "Training, huh? Didn't know 'training' made you look like you're gonna faint."
Midoriya didn't move. "She wants control."
"She's got it!" Bakugo's quirk flared, the hall lighting with orange glare. "You just want to see what happens when she breaks."
Uraraka whispered, "Stop—"
But neither did.
In half a second, explosions met compression waves. Bakugo's burst struck the pocket of warped gravity around Midoriya's glove. Space distorted—the floor cracked, air imploded, lights shattered in silence. Uraraka tried to counterbalance, but their energies spiraled into her own. The walls bent. The ceiling dipped.
For a second, she glimpsed her reflection in shattered glass: eyes black with starlight, hair floating, clothing fluttering in air that had forgotten how to breathe.
"Enough!" she cried.
The distortion collapsed. Bakugo slammed backward into the wall, left smoking, chest rising slowly. Midoriya fell to one knee, glove sparking, a smile cut across his face. Uraraka stayed in the center, arms trembling, realizing how the pull now obeyed her alone.
Midoriya looked up. "See? Control."
Bakugo coughed, laughter bleeding into growl. "You're both insane."
Uraraka's voice shook. "Maybe. But it feels… honest."
She turned away before she could read the expression on either of their faces. The hallway smoldered, alarms starting somewhere distant. When she looked down, her hands glimmered faint pink; the gravity field hadn't entirely faded.
She walked out into the night air, the campus silent except for sirens beginning far away. Her mind, though, still echoed with what Midoriya had said.
*Gravity doesn't lift things. It claims them.*
For the first time, she didn't know whether she wanted to resist or surrender.