By the time spring settled over Musutafu, everyone was quoting him.
Not directly. Never with credit. But his words—watered down, misremembered, repackaged—had leaked from U.A. into the public air like pollen.
"Pause saves lives.""Question before rescue.""The patient hero."
They sounded noble, rehearsed, hollow. The kind of phrases that sell workshops.
Renya read the headlines at breakfast and felt the kind of fatigue that only comes from being turned into a slogan.
Airi glanced over the newspaper. "They're using your lessons."
"They're selling them," he said.
She shrugged. "At least it's not a scandal."
"Not yet," he said, folding the paper. "But give them a week."
It didn't take that long.
Two days later, a private academy announced its new "Empathy Curriculum," complete with glossy posters of smiling students sitting cross-legged while simulated emergencies played on holograms behind them.The press loved it.The Commission, secretly funding it, called it "a leap forward in moral training."
Aizawa called it "performance art for sponsors."
Renya called it "inevitable."
He watched the promo reel in the teachers' lounge, the smell of instant coffee too strong for comfort. The actors looked sincere. The world liked sincerity when it came with subtitles.
Nezu muted the screen. "Well," he said, "imitation is the sincerest form of bureaucracy."
Renya sighed. "If they're copying the form, it means they missed the function."
"They'll learn," Aizawa said. "Or they'll fail publicly enough to be useful."
"Should I intervene?" Renya asked.
Nezu poured himself another cup of coffee. "You've already intervened. By existing."
The backlash arrived next.
A small-time villain calling himself Overturn uploaded a video to the net—a monologue in front of a cracked mirror and a single bare bulb.
"Heroes are preaching hesitation now," he said, voice hoarse but calm. "They want us to pause before we act. Guess what happens when we don't?"
He smiled, slow and wide.The camera panned to show a line of disabled surveillance drones, their cores burnt out like hollow eyes.
"The world hesitates," he said. "I don't."
The clip ended.It went viral before anyone could finish their tea.
The Commission condemned it publicly and studied it privately.U.A. didn't comment.
Renya watched the video once, no reaction on his face."He understands me better than the schools do," he murmured.
Aizawa frowned. "You're not flattered, I hope."
"No," Renya said. "I'm worried. Because he's right about one thing—ideas don't stay moral once they start recruiting."
That afternoon, during Elective 4B, he changed the lesson plan.
"Today," he said, "we learn about misuse."
The class looked confused.
Mina raised a hand. "Like, Quirk misuse?"
"No," he said. "Philosophy misuse. When someone takes a truth and sells it as permission."
He loaded the Overturn clip onto the projector. The room went still.
After it played, Renya turned it off and asked, "What's wrong with his logic?"
Kirishima scowled. "Everything?"
"Be specific."
"He's twisting your words," Uraraka said. "He's acting without thinking and calling it freedom."
"And why does that work on people?" Renya asked.
Silence. Then Tokoyami spoke, voice low. "Because some people would rather break things quickly than understand them slowly."
Renya smiled faintly. "Exactly. Impatience sells better than empathy."
He pointed to the black screen behind him. "Remember this: if someone can weaponize your idea, it wasn't finished yet."
Bakugo muttered, "Guess no idea ever is."
Renya looked at him. "Good. You're learning to live without full stops."
Later that week, the Commission invited Renya to an emergency panel—public, televised, and as rehearsed as a symphony.He didn't want to go. Nezu made him.
The hall was glass and marble, lit too perfectly.He sat beside Imai and Kurobane at the center table while three journalists read scripted questions off tablets.Half the audience were heroes. The other half, critics.
The first question hit immediately:"Mr. Kurotsuki, how do you respond to claims that your teaching encourages hesitation, leading to delayed rescues and—some argue—avoidable losses?"
He could feel the trap—the demand for an apology or an argument.
He chose neither."I teach attention," he said. "If someone uses that as an excuse to freeze, they misunderstood the lesson. But the opposite mistake—rushing blind—kills more quietly."
The journalist pressed. "Are you saying inaction can be moral?"
"I'm saying morality doesn't have a stopwatch," he replied.
A few people clapped. Others frowned. The broadcast anchor smiled the way anchors do when they've found a quote that will trend out of context.
Kurobane leaned over and whispered, "You just wrote next week's headlines."
"I know," Renya said. "At least they'll spell it wrong."
Back at U.A., the students had watched the live stream.When Renya returned, they applauded sarcastically, like a family that teases before hugging.
Kaminari said, "You looked so serious, man. Like, philosopher mode."
"I was surrounded by politicians," Renya said. "I adjusted."
Mina waved her phone. "They already made memes. One says 'Morality has no stopwatch.' That's actually fire."
"Maybe I should trademark it," he said.
"Too late," Yaoyorozu said. "Someone already made a merch line."
He groaned. "Of course they did."
Aizawa entered mid-laughter. "Good," he said. "If your words are on T-shirts, they're at least being argued with."
He handed Renya a folder. "You've got visitors tomorrow. Exchange students from Shiketsu High. Their principal wants to see how you teach hesitation."
"Do I get hazard pay?"
Aizawa smirked. "You get an audience."
The next day, the Shiketsu group arrived—ten students, two teachers, and an air of polite skepticism.
Renya started with the bench exercise again, though this time he didn't explain the point.
"Ten minutes," he said. "Do nothing."
Predictably, the Shiketsu students looked offended.One whispered, "Is this punishment?"Another said, "We trained for rescue, not meditation."
He said nothing.
By minute four, one boy was shaking his leg violently.By minute six, another started muttering equations.By minute nine, one girl started to cry quietly without knowing why.
When it ended, he said, "Now tell me what you fought."
They hesitated—irony noted.
One said, "The need to move."Another said, "Guilt for not moving."The crying girl said, "Memories I didn't know were loud."
He nodded. "Good. That's what heroes face before the danger even arrives."
When they left, one of the Shiketsu teachers approached him privately. "You're teaching them emotion."
"I'm teaching them humanity," he said. "If they don't learn it here, they'll learn it during funerals."
The teacher didn't argue. He bowed, deeper than expected.
Weeks passed.Overturn's videos continued—louder, flashier, more followers each time.He started quoting Renya's lines word-for-word, cutting them mid-sentence, remixing them into propaganda.
"He says morality doesn't have a stopwatch—good! Because I'm done waiting!"
It spread. Every ideology finds its heretic.
Imai called one night. "We can trace him," she said. "He's not careful."
Renya answered, "Then don't. Let him talk. The louder he gets, the faster people realize he's just noise."
She hesitated. "That's risky."
"So is silence," he said. "We'll balance it."
On campus, the elective grew.Students from other classes attended unofficially, sitting along the walls, taking notes that weren't for grades.They started calling it The Listening Room.
Renya didn't correct them.He liked the sound of it.
One afternoon, as they closed a discussion about Overturn's latest stunt, Kai raised his hand."If people are twisting your words," he said, "doesn't that mean they've become bigger than you?"
Renya thought about that."Maybe that's the point," he said. "Ideas that can't survive misunderstanding aren't worth teaching."
Aizawa, sitting in the corner, added quietly, "Just make sure they can survive you too."
Renya smirked. "Working on it."
That night, Aki met him at the riverside.They walked without words for a while, the city glittering like it had learned humility.
Finally, she said, "You know you've become a philosophy brand, right?"
"Tragic," he said.
"Or inevitable," she replied. "Every age commercializes its conscience."
He threw a pebble into the river. "Then I'll keep giving them more conscience than they can sell."
She smiled. "Careful. That sounds like hope."
He looked out at the rippling water, where reflections bent and straightened with the current.
"Not hope," he said. "Maintenance."
The next morning, Nezu sent him a single message:
"Your elective will now be required for all hero courses."
Renya sighed. "Congratulations," he told Aizawa. "We've been institutionalized."
Aizawa replied, "Then our next lesson should be how to survive being copied."
Renya grinned. "I already wrote it."