The Hero Killer Stain made his move in Hosu.
Rei was there for the internship—Edgeshot had accepted her, impressed by her Sports Festival performance. She spent her days learning infiltration, precision strikes, the art of ending fights before they began.
Midoriya was with Gran Torino, learning to control One For All. They texted constantly, updates and encouragement and increasingly flirty messages that made Iida gag when he saw them.
Then Stain attacked.
Rei felt it first—a disturbance in the kinetic field of Hosu, violence and terror spreading like ripples. She was three blocks away when the Nomu appeared, smashing through a building, and she was running before she thought.
She found Midoriya in an alley, facing Stain, with Iida bleeding on the ground.
"Rei!" Midoriya's voice was desperate. "Get Iida out of here!"
"No." She assessed the scene—Stain's bloodlust, Iida's wounds, the Nomu approaching from the east. "We fight. Together."
"Hero Killer," Stain hissed, eyes locked on her. "Another fake. Another privileged child playing at justice."
"My Quirk is Zero Vector," Rei said, stepping forward. "I nullify motion. Including yours."
"Try it."
He moved—fast, faster than human, his Quirk-enhanced body a blur of blades and blood. Rei nullified his strike, felt the impact shudder through her, and realized her mistake.
Stain didn't rely on kinetic energy. He relied on skill . Precision. The economy of motion that made him efficient, deadly, and almost impossible to predict.
She couldn't nullify technique.
"Rei!" Midoriya attacked, One For All lighting his body, and Stain met him blade for fist, parrying, redirecting, using Midoriya's own force against him.
They were losing.
"Iida," Rei gasped, grabbing the fallen hero. "Get up. We need you."
"Brother," Iida mumbled, delirious. "He killed my brother..."
"I know. And you'll avenge him. But not by dying." She poured kinetic energy into him—not healing, but stimulation, forcing his body to move despite his wounds. "Run. Get help. We'll hold him."
Iida ran. Stain let him go, focused on the greater threats.
"Noble," Stain acknowledged. "Foolish. You sacrifice your escape for his?"
"We don't escape," Midoriya said, standing beside Rei. "We win."
They fought. Rei nullified Stain's movements when she could, redirected his blades when she couldn't, stored kinetic energy from his attacks until her Quirk screamed. Midoriya took the hits she missed, bones breaking, healing, breaking again.
Stain was impressed. "You fight as one. Rare. Beautiful."
"Then surrender," Rei panted.
"Never. The world needs purification. Heroes who act like heroes, not celebrities. Not..." He gestured at them. "Children in love."
"Love makes us stronger," Midoriya said, and attacked again.
The Nomu arrived.
It was a beast—multiple Quirks, no mind, pure destructive potential. Rei felt its kinetic signature as a roar, a storm of motion that dwarfed anything she'd faced.
"Rei," Midoriya said, understanding in his voice. "Discharge. Now."
"Into what?"
"Into me. Everything. I'll handle the Nomu. You handle Stain."
"Midoriya—"
"Trust me."
She did.
Rei released her overflow—weeks of stored energy, fear and love and desperate hope—directly into Midoriya's body. He screamed, green lightning going white, and launched himself at the Nomu with a force that shattered the street.
Rei faced Stain alone.
"Impressive," Stain admitted. "But you're empty now. Defenseless."
"Not defenseless," Rei said. "Just different."
She didn't need her Quirk to fight. She had training—Edgeshot's training, hours of hand-to-hand combat, pressure points, joint locks. She moved like water, like shadow, like the precision her father had taught her used for protection instead of perfection.
Stain was faster. Stronger. More experienced.
But Rei was fighting for someone she loved.
She held him for thirty seconds—long enough for Midoriya to defeat the Nomu, long enough for Todoroki to arrive with backup, long enough for the pros to finally respond.
When it was over, Stain was captured. Midoriya was unconscious, bones healing wrong, alive. Iida was in surgery, but would live.
Rei sat in the hospital hallway, empty in every way that mattered, until Recovery Girl found her.
"You did well," the old hero said.
"I wasn't enough," Rei whispered. "I couldn't stop him alone. I couldn't protect them alone."
"No one can." Recovery Girl sat beside her. "That's why we have partners. Teams. Communities." She patted Rei's hand. "You're learning, child. Slowly, but you're learning."
Midoriya woke twelve hours later. His first words: "Did we win?"
"Yeah," Rei said, holding his bandaged hand. "We won."
"Good." He smiled, eyes closing again. "Knew we would. Partners, right?"
"Partners," she agreed, and didn't let go until morning.