They called it a coordination drill, but everyone knew it was rehearsal for panic.
The notice went out at dawn:
U.A. Joint Exercise / Commission Oversight / Scenario: City-Wide Cascade Failure.Duration: Indefinite.Objective: Restore order without losing humanity.
By eight, the sky itself seemed unsure of its schedule. Clouds hung in scattered committees; light kept changing its mind.
Renya arrived with the rest of Class 1-A at the transport yard behind the gym.Aizawa stood beside a table stacked with earpieces, maps, and one enormous thermos of black coffee that probably counted as emergency equipment.
"Today," he said, "you're not saving anyone. You're coordinating. You'll make decisions you can't confirm. You'll receive reports that contradict each other. You'll fail at least once. Try to make the failure educational."
Bakugo grunted. "Sounds like every day."
Aizawa didn't blink. "Good. Then you'll be comfortable."
Beside him, a group from the Hero Commission waited—Kurobane, Imai, two analysts with tablets, and a dozen observers who looked like they wanted clipboards to hide behind.
Renya caught Kurobane's eye. The older man gave a small nod. You asked for realism. Here it comes.
At nine-oh-two, the first cue arrived: sirens on every frequency, prerecorded but convincing. A synthetic voice spoke through loudspeakers:
"City grid compromised. Transport suspended. Communications unstable.Civil response units unavailable. Proceed with neighbor protocol."
In the simulation, half the infrastructure was "down." Drones monitored movement, feeding errors into the exercise like mischief.
The class split into triads: communication, logistics, on-site aid.Renya joined Uraraka and Kirishima. They were assigned District 3—a mock downtown made of empty buildings, loudspeakers, and a few Commission actors playing citizens who refused to cooperate.
Aizawa's voice crackled through the comms. "Remember the point. Control isn't the goal. Connection is."
"Copy," Uraraka said.
"Got it," Kirishima added.
Renya's reply was quieter: "Let's see what connection costs."
The first hour went too well.
They rerouted pedestrians, redirected nonexistent traffic, stabilized a simulated transformer with the help of Yaoyorozu's improvised toolkit. Everyone looked heroic, which worried Renya.
Disaster that behaves is rehearsal, not truth.
Then the system injected randomness.Half their comms dropped to static. One actor began shouting about a missing child who didn't exist. Another pretended to faint in the middle of the street.
Uraraka knelt immediately, checking for pulse, grounding her Quirk just in case. "We need medics—"
"No channel," Kirishima reminded. "We're cut off."
Renya crouched beside the man, eyes tracing details. Perfect simulation: cold skin, shallow breath, eyes flicking beneath lids. Training at its cruelest.
"Okay," Uraraka said, forcing calm. "Stabilize and move him."
Renya shook his head. "He's not the problem."
"What?"
He pointed—three meters away, a generator blinked warning red."Power fault. That's the real test. If we move him now, we lose half the district."
Kirishima frowned. "So we leave him?"
"We delegate," Renya said, voice steady. "We trust the world for five minutes."
Uraraka hesitated, then nodded. "Fine. You get the power. I'll keep him breathing."
She pressed her hands together, floating small debris aside as Renya sprinted to the generator. He bypassed two safety panels, ignoring the simulation prompts that warned unauthorized access. When the red light turned amber, the loudspeakers blared: Sector stabilized. Casualty count: minimal.
Kirishima laughed in relief. "You guessed right."
Renya wiped sweat from his temple. "No. I chose wrong slower."
Elsewhere, the other teams weren't as lucky.
Bakugo's squad handled evacuation from a collapsing mock-bridge. He exploded concrete strategically, carving safe channels—but one of the drones misread the shockwave as aggression and marked a bystander "injured." Their score dropped. Bakugo swore loud enough for the sensors to note distress escalation.
In a different district, Tokoyami's team was trapped by conflicting orders: one feed demanded they protect a supply depot; another insisted they abandon it for civilian safety. They argued for six minutes before realizing the contradiction was the point.
By noon, the entire map looked like an argument drawn in red lines.
Imai watched from the control booth. "They're adapting," she said.
Kurobane sipped coffee gone cold. "They're improvising," he corrected. "Adaptation comes after regret."
The director, invited out of courtesy, frowned. "They're supposed to follow command structure."
Kurobane gestured at the screens. "Command structures collapse first. What survives is judgment."
In District 3, the heat climbed. The simulation turned off shade—literal sun-amplifiers hidden in the fixtures, teaching fatigue. Uraraka's shoulders trembled as she carried a crate marked unstable fuel.
"Set it down!" Kirishima said.
"I can handle—"
Renya cut in. "You don't have to." He took half the weight, grounding it gently. "Heroism isn't solo sport."
"Tell that to the headlines," she muttered, but smiled.
The speakers issued another curveball: Secondary crisis: bridge collapse north sector.
Kirishima blinked. "That's Bakugo's area."
"Then they don't need us," Renya said. "We need to trust their chaos."
He almost believed it.
Then the simulation twisted cruelty into genius. The system triggered conflicting rescue requests—one labeled Airi Kurotsuki — minor injured.
Uraraka looked at him, alarmed. "That's—"
"I know," he said. The words tasted metallic.
"It's fake," she said quickly. "They're testing you."
He closed his eyes. The Veil stirred behind his ribs, ancient instincts whispering find blood, trade for peace.
He opened them again. "Good test."
Kirishima's hand found his shoulder. "We can check—"
Renya shook his head. "No. We finish here first. Real or not, I don't abandon what's in front of me."
He redirected energy back into the console. The generator stabilized. The speakers spoke like gods satisfied for the moment. Emotional regulation: pass.
When they finished the sector, he finally radioed in. "Status: complete. If my sister's involved in your simulation, end it cleanly."
The control booth went silent for three beats before Imai's voice arrived, even. "Understood. And thank you."
Kurobane muttered, "Cruel test."
"She'll forgive me," Imai said. "He already did."
By late afternoon the cityscape looked like exhaustion arranged geometrically.
Teams converged on the central plaza—dusty, sweating, arguments unresolved but hearts intact. Aizawa called for debrief.
"Results?" someone asked.
"Everyone failed something," Aizawa said. "Which means we succeeded."
The Commission staff clapped out of habit. Kurobane didn't. "They're not finished," he said.
He was right. At that moment, a siren sounded that wasn't part of the simulation.Real infrastructure failure—power grid flicker. The sun dimmed as if the scenario wanted another act.
Renya looked upward. "That one's not us."
Aizawa checked his phone—no service. "All right," he said. "Let's see if training works when nobody's watching."
The students moved again, wordless, organized by trust rather than rank. Uraraka raised lights with small controlled floats. Kaminari regulated the power feed manually. Renya directed the flow of people until the grid stabilized on its own. No heroics, no commands, just practiced humanity.
Ten minutes later, everything hummed back to life. The Commission confirmed: a genuine short-circuit, unrelated to the exercise. But the coincidence felt deliberate, as if the world itself wanted to join the lesson.
After sunset, the city rested. The drills had ended. Reports were filed and mostly ignored. The heroes dispersed to showers, late dinners, conversations about heat exhaustion and pride.
Renya remained in the plaza, sitting on a crate that had forgotten it was imaginary. The air smelled of dust, iron, and quiet victory.
Airi appeared, holding two bottles of barley tea. "They made me part of your test," she said softly. "I'm sorry."
He accepted one bottle, twisted the cap. "You didn't choose it."
"I said yes," she admitted. "They told me it would help them measure reaction. I didn't know they'd use my name like that."
He smiled, small and honest. "You did help them. And me."
"Still," she said. "I hate seeing you scared."
He glanced toward the dark skyline. "Fear's proof I'm still here."
She leaned her head on his shoulder. "Promise me something."
"If I can."
"Don't let them make you their experiment."
"I already am," he said. "But I'm writing the notes."
That made her laugh—the sound that makes survival worth repeating.
Later, in the Commission office, Imai filed her summary:
Simulation successful. Coordination improved. Emotional thresholds exceeded expectations. Recommendation: future drills include unplanned ethical interference. Note: Subject Kurotsuki displays stable self-regulation. Continue observation with caution.
Kurobane read it over her shoulder. "You're turning him into data."
"I'm turning him into evidence," she said. "Of what works."
"And when it stops working?"
"Then we'll ask him again."
He closed the file. "Or we'll just listen."
Night washed the plaza until it shone. Aizawa joined Renya on the crate.
"You could've chased that false report," Aizawa said.
"I wanted to," Renya admitted.
"Why didn't you?"
"Because my sister deserves a brother who finishes what he starts."
Aizawa nodded. "Then you learned the right lesson."
"What's that?"
"Every plan fails. Character's what you do next."
They watched a maintenance drone glide overhead, dropping new bulbs into streetlamps one by one. The lights blinked on irregularly—some bright, some late, none perfect. The city didn't care; it glowed anyway.
Renya said, "We keep simulating disaster."
"Because peace is a simulation," Aizawa said. "The best kind. We keep practicing so we remember how fragile it is."
Renya considered that, then looked toward the horizon where the last trace of daylight refused to surrender.
"Then let's keep practicing," he said.
And for once, the night agreed.