CHAPTER 29: Planning and the Quiet Calm
The afternoon sun of mid-July bled through the blinds of Sherlock's room, casting long, barred shadows across the floor. He sat cross-legged on a traditional tatami mat, his desk cluttered with various grades of paper—parchment, vellum, cardstock—all organized with obsessive precision.
Despite the successful verdict of the final exams, a cold knot of calculation sat in Sherlock's gut. He closed his eyes, and the imagery of the Hosu incident replayed behind his eyelids in a high-definition loop.
His right arm, now fully healed from the Hosu incident, flexed instinctively. He closed his eyes, and in the darkness of his mind, he replayed the final seconds of his fight with Stain. he thought, his fingers curling into a fist. At the end of the fight with Stain, after the Thousand Sheets of Blast, I was a zero. My pouch was empty. My external resources were depleted. I stood before the Hero Killer with nothing but my skin and my bones .He saw the empty pouches of his tactical belt. He felt the hollow, terrifying realization of reaching for a card and finding only air.
I was a Magician without a deck, he thought, his jaw tightening. If a second villain had emerged from that shadow, I would have been a variable easily erased.
The interaction at the mall with Shigaraki had only intensified this dread. The villain's hand on Midoriya's throat was a reminder that combat wasn't just about winning; it was about the resources required to stay alive.
The limitation was glaring. His Quirk allowed him to manipulate paper with god-like precision, but he was tethered to his inventory. He was a master of a medium he didn't naturally produce in high volumes.
A knock at the door broke his concentration. "Sherlock? Your uncle is here."
I. THE TRIAD OF SHEETS
Sherlock stood, sliding into a charcoal-grey silk robe, and opened the door. His uncle stood there, looking as rugged as ever, leaning against the doorframe next to Sherlock's father, Arthur Sheets. Arthur looked impeccable in a tailored navy suit, though the slight dark circles under his eyes betrayed the stress of the current political climate.
"Uncle. ," Sherlock nodded, stepping aside. "You're early."
"Early is on time in this house, you know that," Thomas grinned, clapping Sherlock on the shoulder. "Come on. Breakfast is served. We've got a lot to discuss before you head out to that secret camp of yours."
Sherlock descended the grand staircase to find his father, Arthur Sheets, and his uncle, Thomas Itadori, standing in the foyer. The contrast between the two was striking: Arthur, the refined businessman in a tailored suit, and Thomas, the rugged combat specialist with scarred knuckles and a relaxed posture.
Breakfast at the Sheets manor was a quiet affair, characterized by the clinking of silver against porcelain. Arthur and Thomas discussed the rising stock of Sheets Industries following the Hosu incident, but Sherlock remained silent, his gaze fixed on a piece of toast he hadn't touched. His mind was elsewhere, rearranging data points.
"You look like you're trying to solve a problem that doesn't want to be solved, kid," Thomas said, offering a grin.
Arthur set down his coffee cup, his expression softening into one of paternal concern. "He's thinking about his limitations. I saw the post-action report from the final exams. You and Yaoyorozu-san performed admirably, but you were cautious with your output."
"In Hosu, I reached my zero-point," Sherlock said, looking at his father. " My quirk is paper manipulation If I run out of paper, my Quirk is a non-factor. I've trained my sweat pores to produce cellulose fibers, but the output is too low for a sustained high-intensity conflict. I'm a hero with an expiration date."
Arthur's expression was somber. "A hero who relies on external tools always faces the risk of being disarmed, Sherlock. That has been the flaw of our lineage for generations."
Arthur sighed, leaning back. "It's the inherent flaw of the Sheets lineage. We are controllers, not creators. Our power is a bridge, but it requires a foundation of physical material."
"Not necessarily," Thomas interrupted, his voice turning serious. "Kid, we talked about this during your internship. Your body is already producing the medium. Your sweat pores are capable of secreting a high-cellulose saline solution that flash-dries into paper."
"I can only produce thirty sheets before the dehydration becomes a factor," Sherlock countered. "Thirty sheets is a skirmish. I need a war's worth."
"Then we train the pores," Thomas said firmly. "You need to increase the density of the secretion. But there's the other path. The one we touched upon in the lab."
The room went silent. They all knew what he was talking about. The Blood Cellulose.
"The blood," Sherlock whispered.
"We know your blood is unique, Sherlock," Arthur said, his voice dropping an octave. "It carries the same fibrous properties as the paper you control. Technically, you could convert your own life force into the highest-density paper in existence. But the risk..."
"It's too high," Thomas finished. "Converting blood to paper means instant blood loss. You risk hypovolemic shock, unconsciousness, or worse—permanent organ damage. At your current level, trying to manifest 'BloodPaper' is a suicidal gambit."
Sherlock looked at his father. "If I am dying in a battle, and I have no cards left, the risk of blood loss is secondary to the certainty of death. I need a way to make it easier. A plan to stabilize the conversion."
Arthur shook his head. "No. Not now. I won't have my son bleeding himself out in a training exercise. We find other ways you at your current level will not be able to handle the pressure."
II. THE GLOVES OF THE ARCHITECT
After breakfast, Arthur led them into his private study—a room filled with blueprints and advanced prototypes. On the central desk sat a sleek, metallic case.
"If the issue is inventory," Arthur said, opening the case, "then we solve it with engineering."
Arthur opened a sleek, silver briefcase on the desk. Inside lay a pair of fingerless gloves made of a shimmering, matte-black material. They looked tactical, reinforced with carbon-fiber plating at the knuckles.
"These are the Sheets-Yaoyorozu Prototypes," Arthur explained. "Using my company's compression technology and the Yaoyorozu Group's material refinement
"These were a joint venture," Arthur explained. "With the help of Yaoyorozu family, we developed a high-compression storage system. These gloves are woven with micro-layers of reinforced paper. Each glove contains exactly one thousand sheets of ultra-thin, high-durability paper, compressed into a space no thicker than a millimeter."
Sherlock ran his fingers over the material. It felt light, almost weightless.
"Two thousand extra sheets at your fingertips," Thomas added. "Plus your standard holster, and your sweat-secretion capability. That's more than enough to handle any villain encounter."
"It's a significant upgrade," Sherlock admitted, sliding the gloves on. They fit perfectly. With a flick of his wrist, a card snapped into his hand from the glove's seam, faster than he could ever draw from a pouch. "But what if I face a group? What if the environment is hostile to standard paper?"
"Sherlock," Arthur said, placing a hand on his son's shoulder. "You are being prepared for a training camp, not a full-scale invasion. It isn't as if you're going to be attacked by a battalion of high-tier villains. This inventory is statistically sufficient for any projected threat."
"I'd rather be over-prepared and wrong than under-prepared and dead," Sherlock replied, his mind flashing to the red eyes of Shigaraki. "I'll focus on increasing my sweat-pore output during the camp. I'll leave the blood-paper for a later date... but I won't stop thinking about it."
Sherlock looked at the gear, then at the two men who had shaped him. For a moment, the heavy mantle of the 'Paper Magician' felt lighter. He thought of his mother—how she used to tell him that his mind was his greatest weapon, but his heart was the one that pulled the trigger. He felt a rare moment of pure, uncalculated warmth.
"Thank you," Sherlock said. "I won't waste this advantage."
As the morning sun climbed higher, casting the long shadows of the garden cedars across the office floor, the conversation turned away from biology and toward the geopolitical reality of the coming week. Arthur Sheets stood by the window, his eyes scanning the horizon as if he could see the invisible threads of the League of Villains' influence weaving through the city.
"There is something unsettling about this trip, Sherlock," Arthur said, his voice dropping into a low, somber tone. "UA has initiated a total blackout. Usually, for a school sanctioned event, the Board of Directors receives a logistical itinerary. This time? Nothing."
Thomas leaned forward, his massive arms resting on his knees. "I tried to dig, kid. You know your uncle has ears in every corner of the Hero Public Safety Commission. I used my highest-level clearance to try and ping the GPS coordinates for the training site. I wanted to ensure we had a rapid-response team on standby in the neighboring prefecture."
"And?" Sherlock asked, his analytical mind already predicting the answer.
"Dead air," Thomas grunted, his frustration evident in the tightening of his jaw. "The school isn't just hiding the location from the students; they're hiding it from the government and the parents. They're using shielded buses with scrambled signals. Whoever is in charge of this operation—likely Aizawa and Nezu—is treating this like a classified military extraction."
Sherlock adjusted his glasses. "It's a logical response to the mall incident. If Shigaraki can walk up to a student in a public space, then no official UA facility is safe. By creating a 'Null Zone'—a location that doesn't exist on any map—they eliminate the variable of a pre-planned ambush."
"In theory, yes," Arthur countered, turning back to face his son. "But a Null Zone is a double-edged sword. If the location is leaked, you are in a vacuum. No backup, no satellite tracking, and no easy way for us to reach you if the situation exceeds the teachers' capabilities. You will be entirely off the grid for seven days."
The weight of the statement hung in the air. For a boy who lived by data, the idea of being 'off the grid' was a fascinating, if dangerous, prospect.
"The public's view is another variable," Arthur continued. "The 'Stain' ideology is gaining traction. People are starting to question why the top school in the country can't keep its students safe. If this camp is compromised, it won't just be a tragedy—it will be the end of UA as we know it."
"I understand," Sherlock said. "I'll stay vigilant."
V. THE ARCHITECT'S SUMMONS
The somber mood was interrupted by the sharp, rhythmic vibration of Sherlock's phone against the mahogany desk. All three men looked at the device as it lit up, its screen displaying a notification icon.
Arthur caught the flicker of change in Sherlock's expression—a micro-adjustment of the eyes that signaled a shift from 'analytical' to 'personal.'
"If you have plans with your friends, Sherlock, you should go," Arthur said, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. "You've spent enough time in this office discussing the variables of war. You still have a few days of summer left before you disappear into that forest."
"Indeed," Thomas chuckled, standing up and stretching his massive frame. "Go on, kid. Use those new gloves to carry some shopping bags or whatever it is you kids do. Just remember: keep your eyes open. The world doesn't stop turning just because you're on a break."
Sherlock stood, sliding the metallic case containing the new tactical gloves under his arm. "Thank you, Father. Uncle Thomas. The data we discussed today... it will be the priority of my training."
He offered a respectful bow—a habit of discipline he never broke—and exited the office. As he walked down the long, silent hallway of the manor, he pulled his phone from his pocket.
He didn't open it immediately. He stood by the tall, arched window at the end of the hall, looking out over the sprawling Sheets estate. In one week . He would be pushing his body to secrete cellulose until he collapsed. He would be preparing for a war that felt more inevitable with every passing second.
But for Now , the math was simpler.
He tapped the screen, the blue light reflecting in his green eyes the notification was a message from Momo.
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My new Mha Fanfic
MHA:- The Grand Illusionist