What if Deku had d Cole MacGrath's lighting and ice powers from Infamous

Electricity, by its very nature, seeks the path of least resistance. It is a lazy force, yet entirely uncompromising, rushing blindly toward the earth in a desperate bid to ground itself. It does not care what it travels through—copper wire, conductive water, or human flesh.

 

Izuku Midoriya learned this fundamental law of physics when he was four years old. He learned it not from a textbook, nor from a teacher, but from the sudden, terrifying realization that he was the path of least resistance.

 

It happened on a rainy Tuesday evening. The sky above Musutafu was a bruised, weeping purple, and a distant thunderstorm was rolling in over the horizon. Inside the Midoriya apartment, four-year-old Izuku was glued to his computer screen, watching the iconic debut video of the Number One Hero, All Might, for what must have been the ten-thousandth time.

 

"Fear not, citizens! Hope has arrived!" The pixelated hero roared through the small speakers, carrying a dozen people on his back. "Because I am here!"

 

Izuku giggled, clutching an All Might action figure in his small hands. He leaned closer to the monitor, entranced by the sheer radiant power of the hero. Outside, a crack of thunder split the sky. A rogue bolt of lightning struck a nearby transformer.

 

The lights in the apartment flickered. The computer monitor buzzed, a harsh, localized sound of static, and the screen warped with horizontal lines.

 

Izuku, curious and entirely lacking a sense of self-preservation, reached out his small hand to touch the side of the monitor.

 

The moment his fingertips brushed the warm plastic casing, the world changed.

 

It didn't hurt. That was the strangest part. When a normal person touches a live wire, their muscles seize, their skin burns, and their heart stutters. But when Izuku touched the monitor, he felt a sudden, violently euphoric rush. The blue, crackling energy from the computer didn’t just shock him; it flowed into him.

 

He gasped as a deep, resonant hum vibrated through his bones. The computer screen instantly went black, entirely drained of its power. But it didn't stop there. The power cord connecting the PC to the wall outlet began to glow with a brilliant, neon-blue light.

 

"I-Izuku?" Inko Midoriya called from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. "Did the power just go out in there?"

 

Izuku couldn't answer. His eyes were wide, glowing with an unnatural, blinding sapphire light. He could feel the electricity. It felt like liquid adrenaline pumping through his veins. He could feel the current flowing through the walls of the apartment, a vast, pulsing network of copper veins hidden behind the drywall. He could feel the refrigerator humming in the kitchen, the television on standby in the living room, the digital clock on the microwave.

 

And his body was violently pulling it all in.

 

With a sound like a rushing waterfall, the electricity in the Midoriya apartment was ripped from its circuits. Bulbs shattered in their sockets. The refrigerator shuddered and died. Sparks flew from the wall outlets as the current bypassed the grounding wires and arced straight through the air, sinking into Izuku’s small, trembling body.

 

"Izuku!" Inko screamed, dropping her towel and rushing into the room. She froze in the doorway.

 

Her four-year-old son was suspended an inch off the ground, lifted by pure electromagnetic force. Arcs of wild, blue lightning danced across his skin, jumping from his shoulders to his knees. He looked like a miniature star, overloading with raw voltage.

 

"Mom!" Izuku cried out, his voice echoing with a strange, metallic dual-tone. "It tickles! It's too much!"

 

He was a cup overflowing. The human body, even a mutated one, can only store so much energy before it has to vent.

 

Izuku threw his arms out.

 

A localized electromagnetic shockwave erupted from his core. It wasn't an explosion of fire, but a concussive blast of pure kinetic and electrical energy. It blew the bedroom window entirely out of its frame, sending shattered glass raining down onto the street below. It knocked Inko off her feet, sliding her back into the hallway.

 

Then, total silence.

 

The apartment was pitch black. The glow faded from Izuku’s eyes, and he dropped to the carpeted floor, panting heavily, entirely unharmed but utterly exhausted.

 

Outside, a chorus of angry shouts began to rise from the street. Inko scrambled to her feet and rushed to the broken window, looking out into the night.

 

It wasn't just their apartment. The entire city block—five high-rise apartment buildings, three city streets, and dozens of storefronts—had gone completely dark. The streetlamps were dead. The neon signs were extinguished. Izuku had drained the grid, and then blown out the local breaker in a four-block radius.

 

In the dark of his bedroom, Izuku looked at his hands. A tiny, residual spark of blue electricity arched between his index finger and his thumb, accompanied by the faint smell of ozone.

 

His Quirk had manifested. And it was terrifying.

 

 

 

"A Bio-Electric Conduit."

 

Dr. Tsubasa sat back in his leather chair, tapping a pen against a glowing X-ray of Izuku’s nervous system. The clinic was quiet, the only sound being the hum of the overhead fluorescent lights—lights that Izuku was currently staring at with intense, uncomfortable hunger.

 

"That is the best terminology I can use to describe it, Mrs. Midoriya," the doctor continued, adjusting his round glasses. "Izuku is not an emitter in the traditional sense. A child with a fire quirk generates fire using their own lipids or sweat. A child with an electric quirk, like the Kaminari family, acts as a biological dynamo, generating voltage through specialized organs."

 

Dr. Tsubasa pointed his pen at the X-ray. The image showed Izuku’s skeletal structure, but his nervous system was highlighted in a brilliant, dense white.

 

"Izuku does not generate electricity," the doctor explained, his tone grave. "His body possesses zero capacity to create a charge on its own. Instead, his cellular structure has mutated into thousands of microscopic, highly advanced organic capacitors. He is, for all intents and purposes, a living, breathing, high-yield battery."

 

Inko wrung her hands together, looking down at her son. Izuku, now a few weeks older and wearing a pair of thick, yellow rubber dishwashing gloves his mother had bought him, sat quietly in the examination chair.

 

"So... he absorbs it?" Inko asked nervously.

 

"Precisely," Dr. Tsubasa nodded. "He absorbs raw electrical current from his environment, stores it within his cells, and can then manipulate, shape, and discharge it at will. The sheer volume of energy he can store is... frankly, staggering. The blackout last month? He absorbed nearly four hundred megajoules of energy before his body forced an automatic expulsion to prevent cellular degradation."

 

Dr. Tsubasa leaned forward, looking Izuku in the eyes. "But here is the catch, young man. Because you cannot generate your own power, you are entirely reliant on your environment. If you discharge all the electricity in your body, and you are in a place with no power sources... you will be, effectively, Quirkless. Empty. Powerless."

 

Izuku blinked. "Like... an empty flashlight?"

 

"Exactly like an empty flashlight," the doctor smiled grimly. "Furthermore, you must be incredibly careful. If your internal charge drops to absolute zero, you will experience severe lethargy, muscle weakness, and potentially cardiac arrest. Your nervous system is now reliant on a base level of external charge to function optimally. On the flip side, if you absorb too much at once, you risk a catastrophic overload."

 

The doctor reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a pair of heavy, insulated lineman’s gloves—the kind electricians used when working on live high-voltage power lines. He handed them to Inko.

 

"He needs to wear insulated clothing, particularly on his hands and feet, to prevent accidental draining," Dr. Tsubasa advised. "If he touches a television, a cell phone, or a pacemaker with bare skin, his body will instinctively drain the battery dead in a fraction of a second. He must learn absolute control over his absorption reflex."

 

Inko took the heavy black gloves, her eyes welling with tears. "My poor baby... having to wear these all the time. It’s like a curse."

 

"No, Mom," Izuku said, his voice surprisingly firm for a four-year-old. He reached out with his yellow-dish-gloved hands and took the heavy lineman gloves. "It's not a curse. It's a hero's Quirk. I just have to learn how to use it right."

 

 

 

Ten years later.

 

Aldera Junior High was a breeding ground for adolescent cruelty. In a world where eighty percent of the population possessed a superpower, the social hierarchy was entirely dictated by the flashiness, utility, and destructive capability of one's Quirk.

 

At the top of the food chain was Katsuki Bakugo. His Quirk, Explosion, was the gold standard of heroism. It was powerful, self-sustaining, and undeniably brilliant.

 

Somewhere near the bottom, suspended in a strange, controversial limbo, was Izuku Midoriya.

 

"Hey, Leech! Get out of the way!"

 

Izuku barely had time to turn around before a heavy hand shoved him into a row of lockers. He stumbled, his heavy boots squeaking against the linoleum floor. He caught his balance, adjusting the straps of his bright yellow backpack and brushing a hand through his unruly, dark green hair.

 

Katsuki Bakugo stood there, a sneer plastered across his face, sparks of nitroglycerin popping in the palms of his hands. Flanking him were his two usual cronies, snickering like hyenas.

 

"Sorry, Kacchan," Izuku muttered, keeping his eyes downcast.

 

Izuku’s appearance was, to put it mildly, unorthodox for a middle schooler. While the other students wore the standard black uniform, Izuku had made several necessary modifications. He wore thick, insulated rubber-soled boots. Around his waist was a custom-made utility belt holding three large, high-capacity lithium-ion drone batteries. And, most notably, he wore a pair of sleek, black, heavily insulated tactical gloves that covered his hands up to his forearms.

 

"What's the matter, Parasite?" Bakugo mocked, leaning in close. "Running low on juice today? Did you drain your mommy’s microwave this morning just to get out of bed?"

 

The cronies laughed. Izuku just gripped the straps of his backpack tighter.

 

Bakugo’s hatred for Izuku’s Quirk had started early. Bakugo was a natural generator; he made his own power. Izuku was an absorber. To Bakugo’s twisted, prideful mind, a power that required taking from others—taking from the city, taking from machines—was the ultimate sign of weakness. It was parasitic. It was the Quirk of a villain, or worse, a scavenger.

 

"I'm fine, Kacchan," Izuku said quietly. "My base charge is at seventy percent."

 

"Seventy percent of useless is still useless," Bakugo spat. He reached out and slammed his hand against the locker right next to Izuku’s head. A small explosion rattled the metal, leaving a scorch mark. "You think you can get into U.A. High School? The premier academy for heroes? With a Quirk that requires you to destroy public property just to throw a spark?"

 

"I don't destroy property!" Izuku protested, looking up, his green eyes flashing with a brief hint of blue static. "I just drain the ambient charge! The city grid can handle it!"

 

"Oh, yeah? Tell that to the power bills!" Bakugo laughed cruelly. "You’re a liability, Deku. If you’re ever in a fight in the woods, or a blackout, you’re just a Quirkless loser in heavy gloves. You're no hero. You’re a glorified wall outlet."

 

Bakugo shoved past him, his cronies following close behind. "Keep your hands to yourself, Leech. Don't go draining my phone again."

 

Izuku watched them go, a familiar knot of frustration tightening in his chest. Bakugo was cruel, but the worst part was that Bakugo wasn't entirely wrong.

 

Izuku’s Quirk was a logistical nightmare for modern heroics. The laws regarding Quirk usage were strict. Property damage was heavily fined. If Izuku was fighting a villain in the middle of a street and ran out of stored energy, his only recourse would be to drain a streetlamp, a parked car battery, or a local transformer. He would essentially be committing vandalism just to reload his weapons.

 

Because of this, society deemed his Quirk "problematic."

 

But Izuku refused to give up. If his weakness was relying on his environment, then he would master his environment.

 

School ended a few hours later. Instead of taking the normal sidewalk route home, Izuku took a detour. He walked toward an abandoned industrial sector near the edge of the city, a place filled with old warehouses, chain-link fences, and a maze of overhead power lines.

 

He stopped at the base of a three-story brick building. He looked left, then right, ensuring no one was watching.

 

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his notebook. It wasn't his standard Hero Analysis for the Future. This one had a black cover with a blue lightning bolt drawn on it, titled: Conduit Traversal & Urban Topography - Vol. 4.

 

He flipped to a page filled with sketches of parkour maneuvers, velocity calculations, and electrical conductivity charts. He nodded to himself, putting the notebook away.

 

Izuku gripped the right glove on his hand and pulled it off, stuffing it into his back pocket. He did the same with his left.

 

As soon as his bare skin was exposed to the open air, he felt it. The Sixth Sense. The Conduit instinct.

 

He closed his eyes and pressed his bare fingertips against the cold brick of the building. He sent out a microscopic pulse of bio-electricity—a technique he had spent years developing, which he called Radar Pulse.

 

A ring of invisible, electromagnetic energy rippled outward from his hands, scanning his surroundings. In his mind's eye, the world turned into a blueprint of grey and neon blue. He could "see" the electrical currents around him. He saw the live power cables running up the inside of the brick wall. He saw a humming transformer box on the roof. He saw the faint, residual static on a nearby chain-link fence.

 

He opened his eyes. They were glowing with a steady, brilliant sapphire light.

 

"Alright," Izuku muttered to himself. "Let's run."

 

He sprinted toward the wall. At the last second, he leaped, placing his foot flat against the vertical brick. Instead of falling, a surge of blue static electricity erupted from the soles of his boots. The electromagnetism clamped onto the faint traces of metal within the building's reinforced concrete.

 

Using the magnetic grip, Izuku ran three steps straight up the vertical wall. When his momentum slowed, he reached up, his bare hands catching the edge of a rusted fire escape. He didn't pull himself up normally. Instead, he released a tiny burst of electricity from his palms, propelling his body upward with a kinetic jolt. He vaulted over the railing in a fluid, gravity-defying flip.

 

He didn't stop. He sprinted across the fire escape, leaped over a gap, and landed on the edge of the roof.

 

This was Izuku’s answer to Bakugo’s taunts. If he was dependent on power sources, he needed to be able to reach any power source in the city within seconds. He had spent the last five years obsessively studying freerunning, parkour, and urban gymnastics. Combined with the passive physical enhancements of his Conduit biology—which made his bones denser and his muscles more resilient to handle high-voltage shocks—he was faster and more agile than almost anyone his age.

 

He ran across the rooftop, the wind whipping through his green hair. He approached the edge of the building. The next rooftop was fifty feet away, a gap impossible for a normal human to jump.

 

Izuku didn't slow down. He sprinted to the ledge and threw himself into the abyss.

 

As he began to fall, he channeled the electricity stored in his cells down into his hands and feet. He activated his signature traversal technique.

 

Static Thrusters.

 

Brilliant jets of blue, crackling electricity erupted from his palms and the soles of his boots. The electromagnetic force pushed against the earth's magnetic field, arresting his fall. Izuku was gliding. He soared across the fifty-foot gap, suspended on a cushion of raw lightning, leaving a faint trail of blue ozone in his wake.

 

He hit the adjacent roof with a heavy thud, rolling to absorb the impact, and popped back up onto his feet, grinning wildly.

 

The thrill of it was intoxicating. For these brief moments, high above the city, he wasn't "Deku the Parasite." He was a conduit of energy. He was the storm.

 

He checked his mental battery gauge. That glide had cost him about five percent of his reserves. He walked over to a heavy industrial AC unit humming on the roof. He placed his bare hands on the metal casing.

 

He didn't drain it completely—he wasn't a vandal. He just siphoned off the excess static and a small trickle of the live current. The AC unit flickered, the fan slowing down slightly, as blue tendrils of electricity snaked out of the metal and absorbed into Izuku’s skin. The familiar, euphoric rush filled his chest. His battery ticked back up to seventy-five percent.

 

He pulled his heavy rubber gloves back on, cutting off his connection to the grid, and sighed. The glow faded from his eyes. He walked to the fire escape and began the long climb down to the street level.

 

It was time to go home.

 

 

 

The underpass was dark, damp, and smelled heavily of stagnant water and mildew. Izuku walked through the concrete tunnel, his mind wandering back to the hero notebooks in his backpack. He was analyzing the debut of a new hero, Mt. Lady. Her gigantification quirk was incredible, but the collateral damage to the roadways was severe. If society accepts her destroying a street to stop a purse snatcher, Izuku thought bitterly, why is it a crime for me to drain a car battery to stop a bank robber?

 

He kicked a pebble across the concrete. The sound echoed hollowly.

 

Then, a different sound echoed. A wet, sloshing, bubbling sound, coming from the manhole cover directly behind him.

 

Izuku stopped, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. His Conduit instincts screamed at him. He spun around.

 

A massive, undulating wave of dark green sludge was erupting from the sewers. It smelled like raw sewage and rotting flesh. Two massive, bulbous eyes formed in the center of the muck, followed by a jagged maw of liquid teeth.

 

"A medium-sized invisibility cloak..." the Sludge Villain gurgled, its voice wet and guttural. "Perfect... you'll make a fine meat-suit, kid!"

 

Izuku stepped back, his heart hammering against his ribs. He immediately reached for his gloves, grabbing the wrist of his right glove with his left hand, ready to rip it off.

 

Before he could pull it, the villain lunged.

 

A tentacle of thick, heavy sludge slammed into Izuku’s chest, knocking the wind out of him and sending him crashing onto his back. His heavy backpack pinned him to the ground. Before he could scramble away, the sludge was upon him, pouring over his face, forcing itself into his mouth and nose.

 

"Don't struggle..." the villain hissed, wrapping around Izuku's limbs. "It'll only hurt for about forty-five seconds. Then, it'll all be over..."

 

Panic seized Izuku’s mind. He couldn't breathe. The sludge was suffocating him, thick and vile. He thrashed violently, but the villain’s grip was like a vise.

 

Fight back! Izuku’s mind screamed. Use your Quirk!

 

He managed to rip his right hand free from the sludge for a fraction of a second. He didn't have time to take off his glove. He channeled whatever ambient energy he had stored in his core straight to his palm, forcing the electricity to burn straight through the heavy rubber insulation of his glove.

 

Kinetic Pulse!

 

A burst of blue electricity exploded from his right hand, striking the sludge villain point-blank.

 

The villain shrieked as the voltage arced through its liquid body. Because the sludge was essentially a highly conductive fluid, the electricity amplified, shocking the villain to its core. The grip on Izuku loosened significantly.

 

Izuku gasped, taking in a desperate lungful of air. He tried to follow up with a stronger blast, a Lightning Bolt, but as he raised his hand, only a pathetic, fizzling spark of blue light emerged.

 

His eyes widened in horror.

 

The blast he just used, combined with the heavy resistance of forcing it through his insulated glove, had completely drained his internal reserves. His battery was empty. He was at zero percent.

 

The severe lethargy Dr. Tsubasa had warned him about instantly set in. Izuku’s muscles turned to lead. His vision blurred. He couldn't even lift his arm.

 

The Sludge Villain recovered, its eyes narrowing in fury. "You little brat! That actually stung! Now I'm going to tear you apart from the inside!"

 

The sludge surged forward, wrapping around Izuku’s throat, cutting off his air supply once again. Izuku’s vision began to tunnel. Darkness crept into the edges of his sight. He was empty. He was powerless. Bakugo was right. He was nothing without a wall outlet.

 

Is this it? Izuku thought, his consciousness fading. I'm sorry, Mom...

 

Suddenly, the manhole cover behind the villain was blasted into the air. A massive, towering silhouette filled the tunnel entrance, blocking out the light of the street.

 

"FEAR NOT, YOUNG MAN!" a voice boomed, echoing off the concrete walls with earth-shattering authority.

 

The Sludge Villain froze, its bulbous eyes widening in absolute terror.

 

"FOR I AM HERE!"

 

All Might.

 

The Number One Hero lunged forward with impossible speed. He pulled his right arm back, the muscles bulging with unimaginable power.

 

"TEXAS... SMASH!"

 

All Might threw a punch at the empty air. The sheer kinetic force of the blow created a localized tornado. A massive wall of wind pressure slammed into the Sludge Villain, tearing its liquid body apart on a molecular level. The sludge was violently ripped away from Izuku, splattering against the walls and ceiling of the tunnel in a thousand harmless droplets.

 

Izuku gasped for air, his vision swimming. The last thing he saw before he passed out from the combined effects of asphyxiation and total electrical drain was the towering, smiling figure of his idol standing over him.

 

 

 

When Izuku awoke, it was to the gentle, albeit massive, hand of All Might tapping his cheek.

 

"Hey! Hey! Wake up, young man!"

 

Izuku’s eyes snapped open. He shot up, scrambling back, his mind still clouded with panic. But as his vision cleared, he realized where he was. He was safe. And standing in front of him, entirely larger than life, was the Symbol of Peace.

 

"Excellent! Looks like you're alright!" All Might laughed heartily, adjusting the collar of his white t-shirt. "Sorry about getting you caught up in my villain hunting! I usually don't make mistakes like this, but I'm in a new city and the sewer system here is quite complex! HA HA HA!"

 

Izuku’s jaw hit the floor. He was looking at All Might. In the flesh.

 

"A-All Might! I-I have to get an autograph! Where is my notebook?!" Izuku scrambled wildly, grabbing his yellow backpack and pulling out Hero Analysis for the Future - Vol. 13. He flipped it open, only to find a massive, sprawling signature taking up a two-page spread.

 

"He already signed it!" Izuku shrieked, bowing furiously. "Thank you! Thank you! It will be a family heirloom!"

 

"Well, I must be off!" All Might said, turning toward the tunnel exit. He patted a large, plastic soda bottle hanging from his cargo pants. Inside, the Sludge Villain was safely contained. "Take care, young man! Stay out of trouble!"

 

"Wait!" Izuku called out, his lethargy momentarily forgotten in the face of desperation. "I... I have a question!"

 

All Might crouched, preparing to jump. "Sorry, no time for questions! A pro hero fights not only villains, but time itself!"

 

With a massive flex of his legs, All Might launched himself into the air, soaring toward the city skyline.

 

Izuku didn't think. Driven by a decade of repressed anxiety and the desperate need for validation, his Conduit instincts took over. He channeled the tiny, residual fraction of a percent of static electricity lingering in the air around him, channeling it into his legs. It wasn't enough for Static Thrusters, but it was enough for an Electromagnetic Leap.

 

He jumped. He soared twenty feet into the air, catching All Might’s leg just as the hero cleared the city buildings.

 

"WHOA!" All Might shouted, looking down in shock as the wind whipped violently around them. "Young man! What are you doing?! Release me immediately!"

 

"If I let go now, I'll die!" Izuku screamed over the roar of the wind, his heavy boots dangling over a thousand-foot drop.

 

"Ah. Good point." All Might grabbed the collar of Izuku’s shirt and adjusted his trajectory, aiming for the roof of a nearby commercial building.

 

They landed with a heavy thud, sliding across the gravel roof. Izuku collapsed, his empty battery screaming in protest, his muscles aching violently.

 

"That was incredibly reckless!" All Might scolded, though his voice sounded strange. Strained. "You have a powerful Quirk, kid, leaping that high! But you can't just go grabbing onto pros!"

 

"I'm sorry!" Izuku panted, struggling to his knees. "But I had to ask you! I have to know!"

 

He looked up at the towering hero. "My Quirk... it's a Bio-Electric Conduit mutation. I don't generate power. I have to absorb it from my environment. From the city grid. From cars, from streetlamps."

 

Izuku clenched his fists, staring at his insulated gloves. "People tell me my Quirk is a liability. They tell me I'm a parasite, that I rely on destroying property to fight. And it's true... if I don't have a battery, I'm completely powerless. Just like I was in that tunnel."

 

Izuku raised his head, tears brimming in his eyes. "Can someone like me... someone whose power relies on taking from the environment... someone who is powerless on his own... can I still be a hero like you?!"

 

Silence fell over the rooftop. The wind howled mournfully.

 

All Might stood perfectly still. Then, a thick plume of white steam erupted from his body.

 

Izuku coughed, waving the steam away. When the air cleared, the towering, muscular symbol of peace was gone. In his place stood a skeletal, emaciated man with sunken eyes and clothes that hung off him like a scarecrow.

 

Izuku shrieked, backing up against a ventilation shaft. "W-Where did All Might go?! Who are you?!"

 

"I am All Might," the skeletal man sighed, blood dribbling down his chin. He wiped it away with a bony hand and sat down against the railing. "This... is my true form."

 

Over the next few minutes, Toshinori Yagi explained the harsh reality of his situation. The horrific injury inflicted by a toxic villain five years ago. The missing stomach. The destroyed respiratory system. The fact that he could only do hero work for three hours a day.

 

"Pro heroes are always risking their lives," Toshinori said, his voice quiet, devoid of its usual booming bravado. "Some villains simply can't be beaten without incredible power."

 

He looked at Izuku, his sunken blue eyes piercing right through the boy.

 

"You asked if you can be a hero," Toshinori said slowly. "You have a powerful Quirk, kid. I felt that jump. But you also stated a harsh truth. You rely on the environment. Heroism is about minimizing collateral damage. If a villain attacks a hospital, and the only way you can fight is by draining the hospital's backup generators... you might save the day, but you'd kill everyone on life support."

 

Izuku flinched as if he had been struck physically.

 

"A hero must be self-reliant," Toshinori continued gently, but firmly. "If you are powerless without an external battery, then what happens when a villain destroys your batteries? What happens during a city-wide blackout? Villains don't fight fair. They will exploit that weakness."

 

Toshinori stood up, walking toward the roof access door. "I'm not saying your Quirk is villainous. But it is a logistical danger. You must be realistic about your limitations. Perhaps look into becoming a police officer. They get a lot of grief, but it's a fine profession. It's not wrong to dream, young man. But make sure your dreams are attainable."

 

The heavy metal door clanged shut, leaving Izuku alone on the roof.

 

The words echoed in his mind, heavier than the physical lethargy weighing down his limbs. Realistic. Limitations. Danger.

 

Even All Might, the greatest hero in the world, thought his Quirk was a liability.

 

Izuku slowly pushed himself off the ground. He didn't bother using his Quirk to climb down the building. He didn't have the energy anyway. He took the stairs, his footsteps echoing hollowly in the stairwell. He felt entirely empty, inside and out.

 

 

 

Izuku walked through the shopping district, his mind entirely blank. He didn't know where he was going. He was just putting one foot in front of the other.

 

Suddenly, a massive explosion shook the ground, rattling the windows of the nearby storefronts. A plume of black smoke rose into the afternoon sky just a few blocks away.

 

Crowds of people began running past him, screaming. Sirens wailed in the distance.

 

Normally, Izuku would have run toward the danger, notebook in hand, eager to analyze the heroes at work. But today, he just stood there. What's the point? he thought. I'm just a liability.

 

But his feet moved on their own. Almost against his will, he found himself drifting toward the source of the smoke.

 

He pushed his way through the gathering crowd, stepping up to the police barricade. What he saw made the blood freeze in his veins.

 

Tatooin Shopping District was in ruins. Fires raged across the storefronts. And in the center of the intersection, thrashing wildly, was the Sludge Villain.

 

It got free? Izuku realized with horror. Did he drop the bottle when I grabbed his leg? This... this is my fault!

 

The heroes on the scene were useless. Death Arms was trying to punch the sludge, but his fists just sank in. Kamui Woods couldn't use his wood manipulation because of the raging fires. Mt. Lady was stuck in the narrow street, unable to grow without crushing the surrounding buildings.

 

"We just have to wait for someone with a suitable Quirk!" Death Arms yelled, backing away from a massive explosion.

 

Izuku looked closer. Why was the Sludge Villain causing explosions?

 

Then, he saw it. Trapped within the suffocating mass of green sludge was a face. Ashen blonde hair. Furious, terrified red eyes.

 

Katsuki Bakugo.

 

The villain had possessed Bakugo and was using his Explosion quirk against the heroes, creating a fiery barricade that kept them at bay. Bakugo was suffocating. He was dying.

 

Izuku looked at the heroes. They were standing still, waiting for backup. He looked at Bakugo's eyes. They were screaming for help.

 

"You're nothing without a wall outlet, Leech." Bakugo's cruel words echoed in his mind.

 

Izuku was empty. He had zero charge. He was exhausted, depressed, and had just been told by his idol to give up.

 

But as he watched the life fading from his childhood bully's eyes, Izuku’s body moved before his brain could process it.

 

He burst through the police barricade.

 

"Hey! Kid! Get back here!" Death Arms roared.

 

Izuku sprinted into the inferno. The heat was unbearable. The smell of burning asphalt and sulfur choked his lungs. The Sludge Villain saw him coming and laughed, a sickening, bubbling sound.

 

"You again! Perfect! Once I'm done with this one, I'll finish you off!" The villain swung a massive tentacle of sludge directly at Izuku.

 

Izuku’s analytical mind, honed by years of studying environments, snapped into overdrive. He was empty. He needed a charge. He couldn't just throw a punch.

 

He looked to his right. Ten feet away, completely ignored by the heroes and the villain, was a heavy, industrial streetlamp. The thick power cables connecting it to the city grid hummed faintly beneath the asphalt.

 

Izuku didn't dodge the villain's attack. Instead, he dove to the side, sliding across the rough asphalt directly toward the base of the streetlamp.

 

As he slid, he reached back with his left hand, grabbing the cuff of his right tactical glove. With a fierce yank, he tore the heavy insulated rubber off his hand, exposing his bare skin to the blistering heat of the fire.

 

The sludge tentacle slammed into the ground right where Izuku had been a second before, shattering the pavement.

 

Izuku slammed his bare, sweat-slicked right hand onto the thick, riveted iron base of the streetlamp.

 

He didn't politely siphon. He didn't carefully manage his intake. He opened the floodgates of his Conduit biology and pulled with everything he had.

 

THE DRAIN.

 

It happened in a fraction of a second, but to Izuku, it felt like an eternity. A deafening, bass-heavy thrum shook the intersection, drowning out the sound of Bakugo's explosions.

 

Every lightbulb in a three-block radius flickered wildly. The neon signs on the storefronts sputtered and died. The hum of the city’s underground power grid was forcefully rerouted, drawn upward like water into a syringe.

 

A violent torrent of brilliant, neon-blue electricity erupted from the iron streetlamp, coiling down the pole like a serpent of pure light. It hit Izuku’s bare hand, rushing into his veins.

 

The sheer volume of raw, unrefined voltage hitting his empty system was agonizing, but it was accompanied by a godlike rush of adrenaline. His nervous system ignited. The capacitor nodes in his cells flooded with power, going from zero to one hundred percent capacity in less than two seconds.

 

The glass bulb at the top of the streetlamp shattered in a shower of sparks, entirely depleted.

 

Izuku stood up.

 

He was no longer a frail, Quirkless kid in a heavy coat. He was practically vibrating with power. Arcs of thick, jagged blue lightning danced across his shoulders, jumping to the metal buckles of his backpack. His eyes were entirely eclipsed by a blinding, sapphire glow. The air around him smelled sharply of ozone, and a visible aura of static displacement warped the air, pushing the flames away from him.

 

The heroes stared in absolute shock. The crowd went dead silent. Even the Sludge Villain hesitated, sensing the massive spike in energy.

 

Izuku didn't waste a millisecond. He engaged his Quirk at maximum output.

 

Static Thrusters!

 

He leaped. But it wasn't a normal jump. Twin jets of condensed electromagnetic force blasted from the soles of his boots, launching him twenty feet into the air with the speed of a fired missile. He soared over the sea of flames, over the villain's grasping tentacles, hanging suspended in the smoke-filled air directly above the monster.

 

"Die, you little brat!" The villain roared, thrusting three spikes of hardened sludge up toward Izuku.

 

Mid-air, Izuku twisted his body with the grace of a seasoned freerunner. He fired a quick burst of static from his left hand, violently shifting his aerial trajectory to the right, narrowly dodging the lethal spikes.

 

He brought his right hand back. He didn't just want to shock the villain—that would fry Bakugo inside. He needed blunt force combined with paralysis. He drew seventy percent of his total stored energy into his right palm. The electricity condensed, compacting into a dense, volatile sphere of crackling blue energy.

 

Shock Grenade!

 

Izuku hurled the sphere of lightning downward with all his might.

 

It struck the Sludge Villain directly in its massive left eye. For a split second, nothing happened. The sphere sank into the liquid muck.

 

Then, it detonated.

 

It wasn't a fiery explosion. It was a concussive shockwave of pure electromagnetic force. A web of blinding blue lightning blasted outward, violently electrifying the highly conductive sludge. The villain let out an agonizing, dual-toned shriek as millions of volts of electricity seized its liquid form, forcefully stiffening the muck.

 

The kinetic force of the blast blew the villain backward, tearing its grip away from Bakugo. Bakugo fell forward onto the asphalt, coughing violently, gasping for air.

 

Izuku landed gracefully next to him, his boots skidding on the pavement. He was panting, his charge dropping back down to twenty percent, the glow fading slightly from his eyes.

 

The villain, though heavily paralyzed and smoking from the electrical burns, was not completely down. It began to thrash, trying to reform its massive body. "I'll kill you! I'll kill both of you!"

 

Izuku stepped in front of Bakugo, raising his bare hand, ready to drain the burning cars if he had to. He wasn't going to let him die.

 

But he didn't have to.

 

A massive figure appeared in front of them, moving so fast it displaced the smoke.

 

"I really am pathetic."

 

Izuku looked up. It was All Might. But not the skeletal man. He had forced himself back into his muscle form, his massive body steaming with the effort, blood leaking from his mouth.

 

"I told you the traits to make a great champion..." All Might roared, grabbing the villain by its remaining sludge mass. "But I didn't live up to my own ideals! PROS ARE ALWAYS RISKING THEIR LIVES!"

 

He pulled his arm back.

 

"DETROIT... SMASH!"

 

The punch altered the weather. A massive updraft of wind tore through the street, instantly extinguishing the fires and ripping the Sludge Villain into microscopic droplets. The wind pressure spiraled into the sky, tearing a hole in the storm clouds overhead, allowing a single ray of afternoon sunlight to pierce through.

 

A few seconds later, it began to rain.

 

Izuku stood there, the rain washing the soot from his face. He felt his residual charge grounding out into the wet asphalt, leaving him exhausted, but stable. He bent down, picked up his heavy insulated glove from the puddle, and slid it back onto his right hand.

 

He looked at Bakugo, who was staring at him with a mixture of absolute fury and sheer disbelief. Then he looked at All Might, who was standing tall, flashing his signature smile at the cheering crowd.

 

 

 

The aftermath was a blur. The pro heroes had a lot to say to Izuku.

 

Kamui Woods and Death Arms berated him for nearly ten minutes, lecturing him on the dangers of vigilantism, the recklessness of running into a fire, and the sheer illegality of aggressively draining a city power line without a hero license.

 

But Mt. Lady leaned in, whispering, "Though, honestly kid... that was an incredible display of raw power and aerial control. You've got guts."

 

Bakugo, on the other hand, was praised for his powerful Quirk and his endurance. When it was all over, Bakugo found Izuku packing his singed backpack.

 

"Deku!" Bakugo yelled, marching up to him. His clothes were burnt, his face bruised. "Listen here, you parasite! I didn't ask for your help! You didn't save me! I was doing just fine on my own! Don't think for a second that your little light show changes anything! You're still a glorified battery!"

 

Bakugo turned and stormed off before Izuku could even respond.

 

Izuku just sighed. Some things never changed.

 

He began the long walk home, the sun setting behind the city skyline, casting long, dark shadows across the streets. He felt a strange mixture of emotions. He had disobeyed the law. He had destroyed public property (one streetlamp, technically). But he had saved a life. He had used his environment not to destroy, but to protect.

 

"I am... a Conduit," Izuku whispered to himself, flexing his gloved hands. "I am a hero."

 

"I AM HERE!"

 

Izuku jumped nearly out of his skin as All Might suddenly burst from a side alley, landing directly in front of him.

 

"All Might?!" Izuku yelled. "What are you doing here? How did you get away from the reporters?!"

 

All Might stood tall, laughing heartily. "Hahaha! Shaking off reporters is child's play for the Symbol of Peace! I came here because I—!"

 

Suddenly, the hero coughed violently, a massive cloud of steam erupting from his body. He deflated back into his skeletal form, wiping blood from his chin.

 

"—because I had to talk to you, young Midoriya," Toshinori finished, his voice returning to its quiet, grave tone.

 

Izuku bowed his head. "I'm sorry. I know I acted recklessly. I know I drained a power source without permission. I know I'm a liability..."

 

"Stop," Toshinori commanded gently. He walked forward and placed a heavy, bony hand on Izuku’s shoulder.

 

"I came here to thank you, young man. And to apologize."

 

Izuku looked up, stunned. "Apologize?"

 

"Earlier today, I told you that your power was a danger to the environment. I told you to be realistic," Toshinori said, his blue eyes soft. "But I was wrong. I watched you fight today. You didn't blindly drain the city and cause a blackout. You calculated the exact amount of power you needed, isolated a single, non-critical power source, and used it with terrifying precision to save a life."

 

Toshinori stood up straight. "When all the pros—myself included—were standing around making excuses, you, a young man who was completely out of power, ran into the fire. You showed me the true essence of heroism."

 

Tears began to well in Izuku’s eyes. The words he had waited his entire life to hear.

 

"You do not generate your own power, Izuku Midoriya. You pull it from the world around you," Toshinori said, his voice ringing with absolute conviction. "But the courage to act? The will to sacrifice? That generated from within you."

 

Toshinori smiled. "You can become a hero."

 

Izuku fell to his knees on the sidewalk, the heavy insulated gloves pressing against his face as he broke down into violent, ugly sobs. The years of bullying, the fear of his own power, the crushing weight of his limitations—it all washed away in the torrent of his tears.

 

Toshinori let him cry for a few moments before speaking again.

 

"However, young Midoriya, we must address the reality of your Quirk," Toshinori said, his tone shifting back to business.

 

Izuku wiped his eyes, looking up. "My Quirk?"

 

"Yes. It is immensely powerful, but incredibly taxing," Toshinori explained, crossing his thin arms. "I saw the recoil of that blast you used. It nearly tore the muscles in your arm. Your Conduit biology allows you to store massive amounts of energy, but your physical vessel—your body—is far too frail to wield it safely. If you try to absorb a larger power source, like a city transformer or a lightning strike, in your current state, your cells will rupture, and you will explode."

 

Izuku paled. "Explode? Like... actually explode?"

 

"Like a firecracker in a microwave," Toshinori nodded grimly. "Furthermore, your stamina is a glaring weakness. Being reduced to a state of near-paralysis when empty is unacceptable for a pro."

 

Toshinori reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, crumpled notebook. It wasn't one of Izuku’s. It was a rigorous, ten-month physical training schedule.

 

"I cannot give you a Quirk, young Midoriya. You already possess one that rivals the strongest I have ever seen," Toshinori said, his eyes burning with intensity. "But I can give you the vessel to hold it. I can teach you how to fight. How to endure the lethargy. How to push your capacitor cells past their absolute limits without breaking your body."

 

Toshinori pointed at Izuku. "U.A. High School's entrance exam is in ten months. Will you accept my tutelage? Will you let me train you to be a vessel worthy of that lightning?"

 

Izuku looked at his heavily gloved hands. He thought of the terrifying, euphoric rush of the drain. He thought of the wind rushing past his face as he glided over the city. He thought of Bakugo's life, saved by a single, perfectly placed shock grenade.

 

He didn't need to be a generator. He was a Conduit. And he was going to light up the world.

 

Izuku looked up at All Might, his green eyes flashing with a faint, unmistakable spark of neon blue.

 

"Yes, All Might," Izuku said, his voice steady and resolute. "I will."

 

 

 

The early morning air of Musutafu was usually crisp and clean, smelling of ocean salt and cherry blossoms. But at Dagobah Municipal Beach Park, the air tasted of iron oxide, rotting kelp, and the sharp, metallic tang of ozone.

 

"AGH!"

 

Izuku Midoriya strained, the muscles in his back pulling taut beneath his sweat-soaked t-shirt. His heavy, rubber-insulated boots dug deeply into the wet sand, seeking purchase as he leaned backward with all his weight. His bare, scarred hands were locked in a vice grip around the rusted bumper of an abandoned, half-sunken pickup truck.

 

"Keep your center of gravity low, young Midoriya!" All Might’s voice boomed from the top of a towering pile of discarded refrigerators and tires. The skeletal form of Toshinori Yagi was currently hiding within his towering muscle form, wearing a loose white t-shirt and track pants. "Do not rely solely on your electromagnetic enhancements! Your physical muscles must do the work, or your body will never grow strong enough to house your maximum voltage!"

 

"I'm... trying!" Izuku grunted, his teeth gritted in sheer agony.

 

It was month three of the "Aim to Pass: American Dream Plan." And it was, unequivocally, hell.

 

When Toshinori had first presented the plan to clear the illegal dumping ground, Izuku had assumed he would be allowed to use his Quirk to blast the trash into manageable pieces. Toshinori had immediately shut that down. Izuku’s Quirk, the Pro Hero explained, was a multiplier. If his base physical body was weak, multiplying it with electricity would simply result in torn ligaments and shattered bones.

 

Furthermore, holding a massive electrical charge was physically heavy. Dr. Tsubasa had explained it years ago, but Izuku was only now feeling the truth of it. When Izuku’s internal battery was at ninety percent or higher, his cellular structure became denser, vibrating with volatile energy. It felt like walking around with a lead vest on his internal organs.

 

"I can't... move it..." Izuku gasped, his boots sliding in the sand. The truck was buried too deep.

 

"You have a ninety percent charge right now, do you not?" All Might called down.

 

"Yes!"

 

"Then you are fighting two battles! One against the truck, and one against your own internal resistance! Push through it! Condense the energy!"

 

Izuku squeezed his eyes shut. He didn't vent the power. Instead, he forced his body to compress it. He imagined the sprawling, chaotic web of blue lightning inside his veins tightening, pulling closer to his bones, fortifying his skeletal structure rather than trying to escape through his skin.

 

A faint, blue aura of static displacement shimmered around his forearms. His muscles bulged, the fibers temporarily reinforced by electromagnetism.

 

With a feral yell, Izuku pulled.

 

The rusted metal groaned. The sand shifted. And with a horrific suction sound, the truck’s chassis tore free from the wet earth. Izuku dragged the two-ton vehicle backward for three feet before his grip slipped, and he collapsed onto his back in the sand, gasping for air.

 

Steam immediately began rolling off his shoulders as his body vented the excess heat generated by the physical and electrical exertion.

 

All Might dropped down from the trash mountain, landing lightly on the sand despite his massive size. He offered a massive hand to the boy.

 

"Excellent work, my boy," All Might praised, pulling Izuku to his feet. "Your physical density is increasing. Three months ago, holding a ninety percent charge for more than ten minutes gave you severe migraines and nosebleeds. Now, you are doing heavy lifting with it."

 

Izuku nodded, panting, and quickly reached for his heavy lineman gloves hooked to his belt, sliding them onto his hands to prevent any accidental discharges. "I can feel the difference, All Might. It's like... my blood vessels are widening. The energy doesn't fight me as much anymore."

 

"That is because you are finally becoming a proper vessel," Toshinori said, shrinking down into his skeletal form in a puff of steam, wiping a speck of blood from his mouth. He sat on the hood of the newly freed truck. "But raw power is only half the battle, Midoriya. Your Quirk is heavily dependent on environment and mobility. Tell me, how are your traversal techniques coming along?"

 

Izuku’s eyes lit up. He reached into his backpack, pulling out his black Conduit Traversal notebook. "Actually, I've been experimenting. Since you won't let me use my explosive attacks on the trash, I've been using my Quirk for utility."

 

Izuku walked over to a massive pile of scrap metal—mostly twisted iron girders and steel pipes. He took off his right glove.

 

"I realized that if I can manipulate raw current, I can control its heat output," Izuku explained. He picked up two heavy, broken steel pipes and pressed their fractured ends together. He channeled a very specific, high-frequency electrical current into his right index finger.

 

Instead of a wild burst of blue lightning, a blindingly bright, white-hot pinpoint of electrical plasma ignited at the tip of his finger. He dragged his finger slowly across the seam of the two pipes. The steel instantly liquefied and fused together under the intense heat of the electrical arc.

 

Toshinori’s eyes widened. "Arc welding. With your bare hands."

 

"Exactly," Izuku smiled, wiping sweat from his brow. "I've been welding the loose girders and cables together at night when you aren't here. I’ve built a sort of... obstacle course."

 

Izuku pointed toward the northern end of the beach. Toshinori looked over and realized that the trash wasn't just piled randomly anymore. Izuku had intentionally welded together a massive, interconnected network of steel cables, iron pipes, and guardrails, stretching across the tops of the trash heaps like a sprawling, metallic spiderweb.

 

"I call it Induction Grinding," Izuku said, a hint of pride in his voice.

 

He jogged over to the start of the makeshift rail system—a thick, braided steel cable anchored to a rusted shipping container, sloping downward into the maze of trash.

 

"Normal parkour takes a lot of physical stamina," Izuku explained, looking back at his mentor. "And Static Thrusters—my gliding technique—drains my battery too fast for sustained travel. I needed a way to move at high speeds without draining my reserves."

 

Izuku hopped onto the rusted shipping container. He took a deep breath and stepped onto the braided steel cable.

 

Normally, a person would immediately lose their balance and fall. But the moment the rubber soles of Izuku’s boots touched the metal, he released a constant, low-level electromagnetic pulse.

 

A brilliant spark of neon-blue electricity flared between his boots and the steel cable.

 

"Electromagnetic levitation combined with magnetic attraction," Izuku yelled over his shoulder. "I polarize the metal in the cable to repel my boots, creating a frictionless cushion of air about a millimeter thick. But at the same time, I use my kinetic energy to pull myself forward along the magnetic field line!"

 

Izuku leaned forward.

 

With a sound like a high-speed bullet train—a sharp, electrifying ZIIIP—Izuku rocketed down the cable. He was surfing on the metal wire. Sparks of blue lightning trailed behind his heels like a comet's tail.

 

He hit a speed of nearly forty miles per hour in three seconds. As the cable abruptly ended, seamlessly welded to a curved iron pipe, Izuku simply shifted his weight. The electromagnetic lock held him perfectly to the curve of the pipe as he ground around the side of a massive trash heap, entirely defying gravity.

 

Toshinori watched in absolute awe. The boy wasn't running; he was flowing. He was using the environment in a way no other hero ever could. He bounded from a pipe to a rusted guardrail, sparks flying beneath his feet, grinding upward on an incline using pure kinetic momentum, before launching himself off the end of the rail with a backflip, landing perfectly in the sand next to Toshinori.

 

Izuku’s eyes were glowing a brilliant sapphire, and he was grinning from ear to ear. "The best part? It doesn't drain my internal battery at all. Because I'm interacting with the ambient static in the metal, the kinetic friction actually recharges me slightly. It’s a closed-loop energy system!"

 

Toshinori burst into laughter, coughing slightly at the end. "Incredible! Absolutely incredible, young Midoriya! Your tactical mind is just as terrifying as your Quirk! With mobility like that, you won't need to destroy the environment to get around it!"

 

"Right!" Izuku nodded, slipping his gloves back on. But then, his smile faded slightly. He looked down at his heavy utility belt. "But... mobility doesn't solve my main problem for the Entrance Exam."

 

Toshinori sobered up. "The battery issue."

 

Izuku nodded grimly. "U.A. hosts its practical exams in fake cityscapes. Dr. Tsubasa said I'm legally classified as a Conduit, which gives me some leeway with support gear, but I can't exactly ask the examiners to pause the test so I can rip a streetlamp out of the ground to recharge. If I run out of juice mid-fight, I'll become dead weight. The lethargy will instantly cripple me."

 

"So, what is your solution?" Toshinori asked, leaning forward. "You cannot bring a portable generator. It would be too heavy and hinder the incredible mobility you just demonstrated."

 

Izuku pulled out his notebook and flipped to a blueprint page. "I can't bring a generator. But I can bring a magazine."

 

Izuku pointed to a heavily detailed schematic. "High-capacity lithium-ion drone batteries. The kind they use for heavy-lift commercial drones. They are relatively compact but hold a massive amount of dense electrical charge. If I wire them in parallel on a tactical belt, I can create portable 'health packs'."

 

Toshinori stroked his chin. "Will they hold enough power to make a difference?"

 

"Individually? No," Izuku admitted. "But if I wear a belt of six of them, and completely drain one into my body when my internal reserves hit critical, it should bump my base charge back up by about fifteen percent per battery. It's essentially a quick-reload system. The only problem is..."

 

"Is what?"

 

"I need special permission from U.A. to wear them during the exam," Izuku sighed. "And they have to be wired directly to conductive nodes on my skin so I can drain them without taking my gloves off in the middle of a fight. It’s going to take some serious engineering."

 

Toshinori stood up and placed a hand on Izuku’s shoulder. "Focus on clearing this beach, young Midoriya. Leave the U.A. bureaucracy to me. Build your belt. If anyone deserves to wield their full power in that exam, it is you."

 

 

 

Months four through nine passed in a grueling, exhausting blur of sweat, sand, and sparks.

 

Izuku’s body underwent a radical transformation. The frail, sunken-chested boy who had nearly suffocated in the sludge villain’s grasp was gone. In his place stood a young man forged by the harsh reality of his Quirk. His shoulders were broad, his arms corded with dense, tight muscle designed specifically to withstand the violent internal pressures of gigawatt-level electrical storage. His hands, when bare, were permanently calloused, spiderwebbed with faint, pale scars from minor plasma burns and electrical arcs.

 

And true to his word, Izuku had engineered his lifeline.

 

It sat on his desk in his bedroom, lit by the glow of his soldering iron. The "Conduit Belt."

 

It looked like something a SWAT team member would wear, constructed of heavy black nylon and reinforced polymer. Spaced evenly around the waist were six rectangular, high-grade lithium-ion drone batteries. Izuku had gutted the batteries, rewiring their discharge ports into a centralized, insulated copper cable that ran through the belt itself.

 

The ingenious part was the delivery system. Izuku couldn't afford to fumble with wires in a fight. So, he had designed two heavily insulated, conductive patches that adhered directly to his lower back, just above his kidneys. The belt’s internal wiring locked into these patches.

 

On the silver buckle of the belt was a small, reinforced dial. If Izuku was in a fight and felt his internal charge dropping dangerously low, he simply slapped the dial on his buckle. The belt would forcefully vent the entire payload of one lithium battery directly into his nervous system through the conductive patches on his back, giving him an instant jolt of power.

 

"Izuku? Honey, are you still awake?" Inko Midoriya called softly, knocking on his bedroom door.

 

"Just finishing up, Mom!" Izuku called back, soldering the final connection on the buckle.

 

Inko opened the door, holding a steaming mug of tea. She looked at her son, her eyes softening. She had watched him push himself to the absolute brink over the last ten months. She still worried about his dangerous Quirk, but she couldn't deny the fierce, undeniable light of a hero that now burned in his eyes.

 

"Tomorrow is the big day," Inko smiled, setting the tea on his desk. "I... I bought you a new pair of gloves for the exam. The tactical ones you like, with the carbon-fiber knuckle guards."

 

Izuku looked up, genuinely touched. He reached out with his bare hands—carefully suppressing his passive absorption reflex—and took the heavy black gloves. "Thanks, Mom. These are perfect."

 

"I know it hasn't been easy for you, Izuku," Inko said quietly, brushing a hand through his unruly green hair. "But I have never been more proud of you."

 

Izuku looked at the Conduit Belt on his desk, the blue LED indicator lights blinking green, signifying a full charge. "I'm ready, Mom. I'm going to show them that I'm not a liability."

 

 

 

The morning of the U.A. Entrance Exam was crisp and clear.

 

Izuku stood before the towering, H-shaped gates of U.A. High School, taking a deep breath. He was wearing his standard middle school uniform, but heavily modified. His heavy, rubber-soled combat boots were laced tight. His new carbon-fiber tactical gloves covered his hands and wrists. And strapped securely around his waist, hidden beneath his uniform jacket, was the bulky Conduit Belt. Six full batteries. Six extra lives.

 

He checked his internal charge. Ninety-five percent. He was practically humming with energy. His vision was slightly tinted with the blue, electromagnetic overlay of his Radar Pulse, allowing him to passively sense the vast, sprawling power grid of the U.A. campus beneath his feet. The sheer amount of electricity flowing through the school was intoxicating.

 

"Stupid Deku."

 

Izuku blinked, pulling himself out of his sensory analysis. Katsuki Bakugo strode past him, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his face locked in a permanent scowl.

 

"Get out of my way before I set you on fire," Bakugo growled, not even looking back.

 

Izuku didn't flinch. Ten months ago, he would have stammered and hidden his face. But the boy who had moved two-ton trucks and surfed on lightning didn't cower so easily. "Good morning, Kacchan. Good luck today."

 

Bakugo stopped. He turned his head slightly, his red eyes narrowing in suspicion at the steady, confident tone in Izuku’s voice. He scoffed. "Don't act tough, Parasite. When your little batteries run out, you'll be crying on the pavement just like always."

 

Bakugo marched inside. Izuku just shook his head and took a step forward.

 

Trip.

 

His heavy rubber boot caught the edge of a raised paving stone. Izuku pitched forward, his arms flailing. He instinctively went to use a Kinetic Pulse to push himself off the ground, but before he could channel the energy, he stopped mid-air.

 

He was floating.

 

"Are you okay?" a bright, cheerful voice asked.

 

Izuku looked over his shoulder. A girl with a brown bob cut and permanent blush on her cheeks was standing there, holding her fingers together. She had touched his backpack, negating his gravity.

 

"It’s my Quirk. Sorry for using it without asking, but it would be bad luck if you fell right before the exam, right?" she smiled, pressing her fingers together. "Release!"

 

Izuku dropped the remaining two inches to the ground, landing perfectly on his feet. "Oh! Thank you! I was just about to use my own Quirk to catch myself, but yours is way more efficient for gravity negation!" Izuku stammered, his old nervousness flaring up around a pretty girl.

 

"I'm Ochaco Uraraka!" she beamed. "You're taking the hero course exam too, right? Good luck!"

 

She waved and jogged toward the auditorium. Izuku watched her go, a small smile on his face.

 

Okay, he thought, slapping his cheeks with his heavy gloves. Focus, Midoriya. Time to work.

 

The written exam was a breeze. Izuku’s analytical mind tore through the physics and mathematics sections. Then came the orientation in the massive auditorium.

 

The Voice Hero, Present Mic, stood on stage, explaining the rules of the practical exam with overwhelming enthusiasm. He detailed the fake cityscape, the point system, and the three types of villain robots.

 

"Can I ask a question?!"

 

A tall, broad-shouldered boy with glasses and severe posture stood up abruptly in the middle of the auditorium, pointing rigidly at the stage. "On the printout, there are four types of villains, not three! If this is a misprint, then U.A., the most prominent academy in Japan, should be ashamed!"

 

The boy then turned, pointing a stiff, accusatory finger directly at Izuku.

 

"And you! With the unruly hair!"

 

Izuku blinked, pointing at himself. "Me?"

 

"Yes, you! You have been muttering this entire time, which is highly distracting!" The boy pushed his glasses up his nose. "Furthermore, what is that contraption around your waist? U.A. explicitly forbids non-essential support items that provide an unfair advantage in the entrance exam! If that is a weapon, you should be disqualified immediately!"

 

A murmur ran through the crowd. Bakugo, sitting a few seats away, snickered loudly.

 

Izuku felt the eyes of hundreds of students on him. His heart rate spiked. But then, he felt the heavy, comforting weight of the lithium batteries on his hips. He wasn't doing anything wrong. He was approved.

 

Izuku stood up. He didn't stammer.

 

"This is not a weapon," Izuku stated loudly, his voice echoing slightly in the silent auditorium. He unbuttoned the bottom of his jacket, revealing the tactical battery belt. "My Quirk is a Bio-Electric Conduit mutation. I cannot generate my own power; I must absorb it from my environment. U.A. administration, via Section 4 of the Support Gear Mandate, has legally classified this belt as essential medical equipment, as a complete depletion of my internal charge results in severe physical lethargy and potential cardiac arrest."

 

Izuku looked the tall boy dead in the eye. "It doesn't give me an unfair advantage. It just ensures I don't die of a heart attack if I run out of juice. As for the muttering... I apologize for distracting you."

 

Izuku sat down.

 

The tall boy looked slightly taken aback. He bowed stiffly. "I... I apologize! I made an incorrect assumption regarding your medical needs! Please forgive my outburst!"

 

Present Mic cleared his throat over the microphone. "ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT! Settle down, examinees! Examinee 7111 is correct, his support gear is cleared by the board! And Examinee 7112, thanks for the segue! The fourth villain is the Zero Pointer! It's an obstacle! A massive hurdle that will rampage through the tight spaces! My advice? RUN AWAY FROM IT!"

 

 

 

Test Center B was a sprawling, hyper-realistic replica of a dense urban metropolis. Towering concrete skyscrapers, winding asphalt streets, and hundreds of metal streetlamps and power lines crisscrossed the arena.

 

For the other students, it was a battleground. For Izuku Midoriya, it was an all-you-can-eat buffet.

 

Izuku stood near the front of the massive crowd of examinees at the starting gate. He was doing stretches, his internal battery at maximum capacity. He felt lighter than air.

 

"Right, let's start!" Present Mic’s voice boomed from the loudspeakers.

 

The massive iron gates slowly began to swing open.

 

The other students paused, waiting for a countdown. Izuku didn't.

 

Before the gates were even halfway open, Izuku sprinted forward. He leaped toward the towering concrete wall flanking the gate.

 

"Hey! What are you doing?!" someone yelled from behind him.

 

Izuku ignored them. He engaged his Quirk. A violent surge of blue static erupted from his boots as they slammed into the vertical concrete. He didn't just run up the wall; he used Static Thrusters from his palms to blast himself upward, scaling the fifty-foot wall in three seconds flat.

 

He vaulted over the top of the wall, bypassing the gates entirely.

 

"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!" Present Mic screamed at the confused crowd. "THERE ARE NO COUNTDOWNS IN REAL BATTLES! RUN, RUN, RUN!"

 

Izuku hit the ground on the other side of the wall in a dead sprint. His Radar Pulse was constantly pinging, mapping out the electrical currents of the fake city. He could 'see' the robots moving blocks away by the massive power signatures of their internal batteries.

 

He turned a corner and came face-to-face with a 1-Pointer. The robotic villain rolled forward on tank treads, raising a heavy machine gun arm. "TARGET ACQUIRED."

 

Izuku didn't break stride. He raised his right hand, pointing his index and middle fingers like a gun. He channeled a highly concentrated, rapid-fire stream of electricity down his arm.

 

Lightning Bolt.

 

Pew! Pew! Pew!

 

Three blindingly fast bolts of neon-blue plasma shot from Izuku’s fingertips, completely ignoring the air resistance. They struck the 1-Pointer square in its optical sensor. The intense voltage fried the robot’s motherboards instantly, causing the machine to violently spark and collapse into a heap of smoking metal.

 

"One point," Izuku muttered.

 

He heard the mechanical whirring of two more robots—a 2-Pointer and a 1-Pointer—closing in from a side alley.

 

Izuku leaped toward a nearby rusted guardrail. His boots sparked, magnetically locking onto the metal. Induction Grind!

 

He surfed along the rail at forty miles per hour, closing the distance to the robots in a fraction of a second. As he passed the 2-Pointer, he didn't even use a projectile. He leaped off the rail, spinning mid-air, and channeled a massive surge of electricity into his right boot.

 

He delivered a devastating, electrically charged roundhouse kick directly to the 2-Pointer's head. The force of his reinforced muscles, combined with the explosive kinetic release of the electricity, tore the robot’s head clean off its shoulders.

 

He landed gracefully, immediately turning his attention to the remaining 1-Pointer. The robot raised its arm to fire.

 

Izuku threw his hands out. Kinetic Pulse!

 

An invisible shockwave of electromagnetic force slammed into the 1-Pointer, lifting the heavy machine off the ground and throwing it backward into a brick wall, shattering its chassis upon impact.

 

"Four points."

 

High above the arena, in a darkened observation room, the U.A. faculty watched the monitors in silence.

 

"Incredible mobility," Midnight mused, tracing a finger along the edge of her desk. "He's not just using his Quirk for destructive power. He's using it for absolute environmental dominance. Look at how he moves."

 

On the screen, Izuku was rapidly chaining his attacks. He would grind on a power line, drop down to deliver a devastating shockwave, and then use Static Thrusters to launch himself onto a rooftop to avoid retaliation.

 

"His Quirk is fascinating," Snipe added, adjusting his mask. "He’s registered as an Emitter, but his physiology acts like a mutant. He’s essentially a living capacitor. But notice his output."

 

"He's being efficient," Aizawa Shota observed dryly from the corner, wrapped in his sleeping bag. "He knows he has a finite limit. He's relying heavily on his physical martial arts and parkour to mitigate energy waste, only using high-drain electrical attacks when necessary. He's smart."

 

Down in the arena, Izuku was feeling the burn.

 

He had destroyed twelve robots. Thirty-six points. But his internal battery was dropping. He was down to thirty percent. The lethargy was beginning to creep into his joints, making his heavy boots feel like they were made of lead.

 

He ducked behind a rusted car as a massive 3-Pointer rounded the corner. The robot was heavily armored, built like a massive scorpion, and armed with twin missile launchers.

 

"I don't have the physical strength to dent that armor without draining the rest of my charge," Izuku panted, wiping sweat from his forehead.

 

He looked down at his belt. It was time.

 

He reached down and slapped the dial on his silver buckle.

 

HISS.

 

The belt vented the first lithium-ion battery. A concentrated, raw surge of electricity shot through the conductive patches on Izuku’s lower back and directly into his nervous system.

 

Izuku gasped, throwing his head back as the euphoric rush of power flooded his cells. His eyes flared with a blinding sapphire light. The lethargy vanished instantly, replaced by a jittery, explosive adrenaline. The first battery on his belt went dead, its LED indicator turning red. His internal charge spiked back to forty-five percent.

 

"Alright," Izuku grinned, stepping out from behind the car. "Let's bring out the heavy artillery."

 

The 3-Pointer locked onto him. "TARGET ACQUIRED. ELIMINATE."

 

Izuku planted his feet wide. He drew both his hands back to his right hip. He channeled twenty percent of his total charge into his palms, compressing the volatile electricity until it formed a massive, crackling sphere of hyper-dense plasma. It was so bright it cast sharp shadows across the entire street.

 

Megawatt Hammer!

 

Izuku thrust his hands forward. The sphere of electricity launched like a rocket, leaving a trail of blue ozone in its wake. It moved slower than his Lightning Bolts, but the payload was devastating.

 

The Megawatt Hammer struck the 3-Pointer squarely in the chest armor.

 

The resulting explosion was deafening. It wasn't a fiery blast, but a concussive shockwave of pure electromagnetic force that blew out the windows of the adjacent buildings. The 3-Pointer was violently ripped in half, its armor melting under the localized heat of the plasma strike.

 

Izuku stumbled backward from the recoil, his arms smoking. "Thirty-nine points."

 

He spent the next five minutes aggressively hunting. He drained two more batteries from his belt to sustain his high-speed Induction Grinds across the rooftops. He was a blue blur, raining lightning bolts from above and crushing robots beneath his electrically enhanced boots.

 

By the time the two-minute warning sounded, Izuku had sixty-five points.

 

He was exhausted. His belt was entirely empty. All six batteries were dead, their red lights blinking uselessly. His internal charge was sitting at a precarious ten percent. His muscles ached, and his vision was beginning to blur around the edges.

 

"I've got enough," Izuku panted, leaning heavily against a brick wall. "Sixty-five points should be enough to pass. I just need to survive for two more minutes without hitting absolute zero."

 

Suddenly, the ground beneath his feet shuddered violently.

 

A massive shadow fell over the street, blocking out the sun.

 

Izuku looked up. His breath caught in his throat.

 

It was the Zero Pointer. But it wasn't just a robot. It was a localized natural disaster. A colossal, towering behemoth of green metal that stood taller than the ten-story buildings surrounding it. Its massive treads crushed the concrete streets to powder, and its single, glowing red eye swept over the fleeing students.

 

Run away, Present Mic had said.

 

Every instinct in Izuku’s exhausted body screamed at him to run. He had no batteries left. He had ten percent charge. If he tried to fight that thing, he would die.

 

He turned to run, taking two steps before he heard it.

 

"Ow... help!"

 

Izuku froze. He looked back over his shoulder.

 

A few dozen yards away, amidst the rubble created by the Zero Pointer's entrance, was the girl from the gate. Uraraka. A massive slab of concrete had pinned her right leg to the ground. She was struggling to push it off, but she was exhausted.

 

The Zero Pointer’s massive tread was slowly rolling directly toward her.

 

The other students were sprinting past her in a blind panic. Iida, the tall boy with glasses, looked back, his face torn with indecision, but he ultimately kept running, assuming the teachers would step in.

 

But Izuku knew the truth about hero work. Sometimes, the teachers don't make it in time.

 

Izuku didn't think. The Conduit instincts, the same heroic drive that had sent him rushing into the sludge villain's fire, took complete control.

 

He sprinted toward Uraraka.

 

"Hey! What are you doing?!" a student screamed at him as they ran past. "You're gonna get crushed!"

 

Izuku ignored them. He reached Uraraka, sliding to his knees beside the concrete slab.

 

"Are you okay?!" Izuku yelled over the deafening roar of the massive robot.

 

"My leg... I can't get it out! My Quirk is overused, I'll throw up!" Uraraka cried, tears streaming down her face as she looked up at the towering treads of death approaching them.

 

Izuku grabbed the concrete slab. He tried to pull it, channeling his remaining ten percent into his muscles.

 

It didn't budge. The slab was easily three tons.

 

"It's too heavy!" Izuku panicked. His charge dropped to eight percent. The lethargy was hitting him hard. His hands were shaking violently.

 

He looked up at the Zero Pointer. It was twenty seconds away from crushing them both.

 

Izuku closed his eyes. He pressed his bare hands against the trembling asphalt of the street.

 

Radar Pulse.

 

The grey and blue blueprint of the world flooded his mind. He scanned frantically. Power... I need power... where is it?!

 

There were no streetlamps left standing. The buildings were destroyed.

 

But then, deep beneath the street, he saw it.

 

The main subterranean power line. The massive, heavily insulated high-voltage trunk cable that supplied the entire artificial city block. It was buried six feet under the asphalt, pumping millions of volts of raw, unrefined electricity.

 

Izuku opened his eyes. They glowed with a desperate, frantic light.

 

"Uraraka. Cover your eyes and ears," Izuku commanded, his voice suddenly echoing with a strange, metallic dual-tone.

 

Uraraka, terrified by the sudden shift in his demeanor, did as she was told.

 

Izuku stood up, facing the approaching Zero Pointer. He looked down at the asphalt. He only had five percent charge left. If this failed, he would be completely paralyzed.

 

He channeled every last drop of electricity he had in his body into his right fist.

 

"GET OUT OF MY WAY!"

 

Izuku slammed his fist into the asphalt with the force of a bomb.

 

Kinetic Pulse - Overload!

 

The street detonated. A massive crater was blown into the concrete, sending chunks of debris flying in every direction.

 

Izuku fell into the crater, landing in the damp earth. His internal battery hit zero.

 

Absolute, paralyzing lethargy struck him like a physical blow. His muscles completely gave out. He collapsed into the dirt, entirely unable to move a single finger. The darkness crept into his vision. He could hear the deafening crunch of the Zero Pointer’s treads just feet away.

 

But right in front of his face, exposed by the blast, was a thick, black rubber casing. The main power line.

 

Using only the momentum of his falling body, Izuku let his bare cheek fall against the thick rubber of the cable.

 

He weakly opened his mouth and bit down on the rubber insulation. With a violent, desperate jerk of his neck, he tore the heavy insulation away, exposing the thick, braided copper wire underneath.

 

The live wire.

 

He pressed his bare, calloused hand directly onto the copper.

 

THE DRAIN.

 

What happened next was not an absorption. It was a cataclysm.

 

The fake city didn't just flicker. It went entirely black. Every robot in a one-mile radius powered down instantly as the grid was violently sucked dry.

 

The sheer volume of electricity that slammed into Izuku’s empty body was incomprehensible. It wasn't megajoules. It was gigawatts.

 

A pillar of blinding, neon-blue light erupted from the crater, piercing the sky.

 

Izuku didn't stand up. He levitated out of the crater, suspended by a localized storm of electromagnetic force.

 

He was screaming, his voice entirely drowned out by the roar of thunder. His heavy rubber boots melted away from the intense heat of his body. The sleeves of his uniform jacket disintegrated into ash. The air pressure around him dropped so rapidly that the clouds overhead began to aggressively swirl, turning black and bruising purple, answering the call of the Conduit below.

 

Uraraka uncovered her eyes, gasping in horror and awe as she looked at the boy floating above her.

 

Izuku’s eyes were no longer just glowing. They were projecting beams of solid sapphire light. Thick, jagged arcs of lightning, thicker than his arms, violently lashed out from his body, striking the ground and shattering the asphalt. He had taken in far too much. His cells were literally tearing themselves apart under the pressure.

 

He had to vent it all. Now.

 

The Zero Pointer loomed over him, its massive fist raising to crush the glowing gnat in its path.

 

Izuku raised his arms toward the sky, the lightning violently arcing between his hands. The clouds above roared, a massive, swirling vortex of electromagnetic energy mirroring his stance.

 

He locked his glowing eyes onto the head of the colossal machine.

 

With a roar that shook the very foundations of U.A. High School, Izuku threw his hands down, pointing directly at the Zero Pointer.

 

"IONIC STORM!"

 

The sky tore open.

 

It wasn't a normal lightning bolt. It was a continuous, deafening, blinding pillar of pure, unadulterated plasma. It struck from the black clouds above, a concentrated column of electrical fury fifty feet wide.

 

The bolt slammed into the top of the Zero Pointer.

 

The robot didn't even have time to explode. The intense, sun-like heat of the continuous lightning strike instantly liquefied the heavy armor plating. The massive machine glowed cherry-red, then white-hot, before entirely collapsing in on itself under the devastating pressure of the strike.

 

The lightning raged for three agonizing seconds before Izuku violently cut the connection, his arms dropping to his sides.

 

The pillar of light vanished. The thunderclap that followed shattered the remaining windows in a three-block radius.

 

The Zero Pointer was gone. In its place was a massive, molten slag heap of glowing metal, completely obliterated.

 

Silence descended over the ruined street.

 

The dark clouds overhead instantly dissipated, returning to a clear blue sky.

 

Izuku hung in the air for a second longer, the blue glow rapidly fading from his eyes. His body was entirely smoking, severe electrical burns tracing up his forearms where his gloves had been.

 

The Conduit biology had saved him from exploding, but the sensory overload was total.

 

His eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he dropped out of the sky like a stone.

 

"Wait!" Uraraka screamed, watching him fall. She pushed against the concrete slab, realizing with a start that the shockwave of the lightning had shattered the rock pinning her leg.

 

She scrambled forward, diving across the rubble.

 

She slapped her hands against Izuku’s chest right before he hit the ground.

 

Release!

 

Izuku floated gently onto his back on the cracked asphalt. He was completely unconscious, his breath ragged, his skin dangerously hot to the touch. The silver buckle of his Conduit Belt was melted, the empty batteries cracked and smoking.

 

High above, in the observation room, there was absolute, stunned silence.

 

Aizawa Shota slowly unzipped his sleeping bag and stood up, his eyes locked on the monitor showing the molten ruins of the Zero Pointer.

 

"A localized, controllable lightning strike of that magnitude..." Snipe whispered, his voice trembling slightly. "He didn't just break the robot. He vaporized it."

 

"He drained the entire sector's subterranean grid to do it," Principal Nezu said, his paw resting on the control console. The entire Sector B grid monitor was flashing a critical red OFFLINE warning. "His capacity for energy absorption is... virtually limitless. But the physical toll is massive."

 

Toshinori Yagi stood in the back of the room, his fists clenched tightly at his sides. He wasn't looking at the destroyed robot. He was looking at the monitor showing Uraraka hovering over Izuku's unconscious, burned body.

 

You didn't run, Toshinori thought, a fierce, overwhelming surge of pride swelling in his chest. You burned yourself alive to save her. You are a true hero, Midoriya.

 

"TIME'S UP!" Present Mic’s voice echoed across the ruined testing grounds.

 

In the center of the destruction, Uraraka gently held the smoking boy's head in her lap.

 

"Medic!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, tears streaming down her soot-stained face. "We need a medic!"

 

Izuku Midoriya didn't hear her. He was deeply asleep, his internal battery sitting at a stable, quiet five percent. He had given everything he had.

 

He had ground the rails, he had ridden the lightning, and he had secured his place at U.A. High School.

 

 

 

To hold lightning is to hold a living, breathing entity that desperately wants to escape. Izuku Midoriya knew this better than anyone. But after the U.A. Entrance Exam, he also learned that when the lightning finally escapes, it leaves behind a scorched, hollowed-out vessel.

 

Izuku spent three days in the hospital after unleashing the Ionic Storm. His arms were wrapped in heavy, cooling bandages treated with burn-salve, masking the severe, branching electrical burns—Lichtenberg figures—that now scarred his forearms. Recovery Girl had done what she could, but as she bluntly explained, his injuries weren't just physical tissue damage; they were cellular ruptures caused by catastrophic over-voltage.

 

"Your body is a remarkable battery, young man," the diminutive heroine had scolded, hitting his shin lightly with her cane. "But even the strongest battery will explode if you pump the entire city grid into it at once! You are lucky your Conduit mutation forced a vent, or you would be nothing but a pair of smoking boots!"

 

But it was worth it. Uraraka was safe. The Zero Pointer was vaporized. And a week later, a holographic projector hidden inside a small metal disc delivered the news that changed his life.

 

Welcome, Izuku. This is your hero academia.

 

Now, standing outside the towering doors of Class 1-A, Izuku took a deep breath. He adjusted the straps of his heavy yellow backpack and checked the brand-new, heavily insulated tactical gloves covering his scarred hands. Hidden beneath his school uniform, a newly redesigned, sleeker Conduit Belt rested against his lower back. It only held four high-capacity batteries instead of six, a compromise he had to make for better mobility, but it was enough to keep the paralyzing lethargy at bay.

 

He pushed the massive door open.

 

The first thing he saw was the tall, rigid boy with glasses from the auditorium—Tenya Iida—chopping his hand through the air as he reprimanded Katsuki Bakugo for putting his feet on the desk.

 

"Don't put your feet on the desk! It's disrespectful to your classmates and the alumni!" Iida barked.

 

"Huh? What middle school did you go to, you extra?" Bakugo sneered, sparks popping harmlessly around his knuckles.

 

Izuku froze in the doorway. Bakugo’s eyes snapped toward him, narrowing into crimson slits. The memory of the sludge villain incident and the entrance exam hung between them like a live wire. Bakugo hadn't spoken to Izuku since the exam results were posted. Bakugo had scored first in villain points. Izuku had scored first overall, entirely due to a staggering sixty rescue points for saving Uraraka. It was a slight Bakugo’s fragile ego could barely tolerate.

 

"Oh! It's you! The floating boy!"

 

Izuku turned to see Ochaco Uraraka beaming at him, her round face flushed with excitement. "I knew you'd pass! That lightning attack was amazing! It was like BOOSH and then the whole robot just melted!"

 

"A-Ah, thanks, Uraraka-san," Izuku stammered, rubbing the back of his neck, his cheeks burning red. "I'm just glad you weren't hurt..."

 

"If you're just here to make friends, you can pack up your stuff and leave."

 

The voice was tired, flat, and came from the floor.

 

Izuku looked down. A man looking remarkably like a giant yellow caterpillar was wriggling on the floor tiles. The caterpillar unzipped, and a disheveled man with dark, sunken eyes and a ratty gray scarf stepped out. He pulled a juice pouch from his pocket and took a long sip.

 

"It took you eight seconds to quiet down," the man drawled. "Time is a limited resource. You kids aren't rational enough. I'm your homeroom teacher, Shota Aizawa. Now put these on and head out to the P.E. grounds."

 

He pulled a blue and white gym uniform out of his sleeping bag.

 

 

 

The P.E. grounds were vast and perfectly manicured. The morning sun was bright, casting long shadows across the chalk lines of the athletic field.

 

Izuku stood in his gym uniform, feeling incredibly exposed. He had managed to convince Aizawa to let him wear his insulated boots and his Conduit Belt over the uniform, citing his medical exemption forms, but his arms were bare. The jagged, pale scars of his Lichtenberg figures were visible for the whole class to see, drawing curious stares.

 

"A Quirk Apprehension Test?!" the class shouted in unison.

 

"What about the entrance ceremony? Or guidance sessions?" Uraraka asked, looking concerned.

 

"No time for pointless traditions," Aizawa said, turning his back to them. "U.A. is known for its freestyle educational system. That applies to the teachers as well. You've been doing these fitness tests since junior high, but without using your Quirks. It's irrational. The Ministry of Education is dragging its feet."

 

Aizawa tossed a baseball to Bakugo. "Bakugo, you finished first in the practical exam, barring rescue points. What was your farthest softball throw in middle school?"

 

"Sixty-seven meters," Bakugo grunted.

 

"Try it with your Quirk. Do whatever you want, just don't leave the circle."

 

Bakugo stepped into the chalk circle. He stretched his arms, a feral grin spreading across his face. He wound up, his muscles bunching, and threw the ball with all his might. At the exact moment the ball left his fingertips, he unleashed a massive explosion.

 

"DIE!" Bakugo roared.

 

The ball rocketed into the sky, leaving a trail of black smoke. Aizawa held up a digital device. It beeped.

 

"Seven hundred and five point two meters," Aizawa read aloud, showing the screen to the class.

 

The students gasped. "Seven hundred meters?! That's awesome!" a boy with pink skin and black horns cheered.

 

"This looks like fun!" a girl with pink skin added.

 

Aizawa’s eyes darkened. "Fun? You have three years to become heroes. Are you going to have 'fun' the whole time? Alright. Whoever comes in last place in all eight tests will be judged to have no potential and will be expelled."

 

The air in the field instantly grew heavy. Izuku swallowed hard. He checked his internal charge. He was sitting at a comfortable eighty percent. He could do this. He just had to be smart.

 

The tests began.

 

Test 1: 50-Meter Dash.

Izuku lined up against Iida. As the starting gun fired, Iida’s engine calves roared to life, propelling him forward in 3.04 seconds. Izuku didn't run. He engaged Induction Grind on the faint metallic traces within the underground sprinkler pipes beneath the turf. Sparks flew from his boots as he glided across the grass, crossing the finish line in 3.12 seconds. It wasn't faster than Iida, but it consumed virtually zero energy.

 

Test 2: Grip Strength.

Izuku held the digital dynamometer. He couldn't just squeeze it; normal physical strength would only get him so far. He channeled a low-level, high-frequency current into the muscles of his forearm. The electromagnetic stimulation forced his muscle fibers to violently contract beyond human limits. The machine beeped frantically, reading 450 kg before short-circuiting slightly from the static.

 

Test 3: Standing Long Jump.

Izuku engaged Static Thrusters, blasting twin jets of blue electricity from his boots to soar gracefully over the sandbox, landing perfectly on the other side.

 

As the tests progressed, Izuku could feel Aizawa’s heavy gaze on him. The teacher wasn't looking at Izuku’s impressive scores; he was staring directly at the bulky battery belt strapped to Izuku’s waist.

 

Finally, it was time for the softball throw.

 

Izuku stepped into the circle. He held the baseball in his bare right hand. He was down to sixty percent charge. He needed a good score here to ensure he wasn't at the bottom of the rankings.

 

I can't just throw it, Izuku thought, analyzing the ball. If I use a Lightning Bolt behind it, the intense heat will incinerate the leather and the rubber core. It'll just vaporize in mid-air. I need pure kinetic force without the thermal byproduct.

 

Izuku closed his eyes. He widened his stance, feeling the familiar, buzzing warmth of the electricity pooling in his core. He drew the energy up into his right arm, bypassing his skin and funneling it entirely into a localized, invisible magnetic field around his hand.

 

Kinetic Pulse.

 

He pulled his arm back. He didn't just throw the ball; he violently repelled it.

 

A loud, concussive THOOM echoed across the field as a massive wave of invisible electromagnetic force erupted from his palm. The baseball was launched forward at supersonic speeds, creating a visible ring of compressed air as it broke the sound barrier.

 

Izuku stumbled back from the recoil, his arm vibrating fiercely.

 

He looked at Aizawa, expecting a good score.

 

Aizawa held up the device. It read: 46 meters.

 

Izuku blinked. "W-What? But I felt the kinetic release! It should have gone for miles!"

 

"I erased your Quirk."

 

Aizawa’s capture scarf suddenly whipped out, wrapping tightly around Izuku’s torso and yanking him forward. Aizawa’s eyes were glowing a fierce, menacing red, and his messy hair was floating above his head.

 

"I watched your performance in the entrance exam," Aizawa said coldly, pulling Izuku face-to-face. "You have immense destructive power. But you are inherently flawed."

 

Aizawa’s eyes darted down to the Conduit Belt.

 

"You rely on a crutch. Dr. Tsubasa’s medical exemption classified that belt as a necessity to prevent cardiac arrest. But I see exactly how you use it. You use it to rapidly reload your stamina. You are entirely dependent on external hardware and your environment to maintain your combat viability."

 

Aizawa leaned in closer, his voice low and dangerous. "What happens when a villain shatters those batteries? What happens when you are fighting in a forest, away from the city grid? Your power is conditional. And in the field, conditional power gets people killed. You cannot become a pro hero if you are effectively Quirkless the moment your toys are taken away."

 

Aizawa blinked. His hair fell, and his eyes returned to normal. The capture scarf released Izuku.

 

"I've returned your Quirk. You have two tries remaining for the throw. Do it again. And this time, prove to me that you aren't just a battery waiting to be drained."

 

Izuku stood in the circle, rubbing his chest. Aizawa’s words stung because they were the exact fears that had plagued Izuku his entire life. The exact fears All Might had initially voiced.

 

Izuku looked down at his right hand. The blue static danced across his calloused knuckles.

 

He's right. If I just rely on draining the batteries or the city, I'm vulnerable. I need to use the power I have more efficiently. I can't just expel it all at once.

 

Izuku picked up another baseball. He stepped up to the line.

 

Instead of drawing the power into his hand to blast the ball away, Izuku drew the energy entirely inward. He localized the electrical current directly into the muscle fibers and bone density of his right arm, right shoulder, and torso. He essentially turned his arm into a biologically enhanced coil-gun, using the electricity to forcefully hyper-extend and snap his physical muscles, rather than creating an external shockwave.

 

His arm turned violently purple, the veins bulging against his skin. It hurt. It felt like his muscles were tearing themselves apart.

 

With a roar of pain, Izuku threw the ball using pure, biologically amplified physical strength.

 

The ball rocketed into the sky, disappearing into the clouds.

 

Izuku gasped, clutching his right arm. It was broken. The sheer physical torque of the throw, aided by the internal electricity, had snapped the humerus bone. He fell to his knees, gritting his teeth against the searing pain.

 

Aizawa looked at the digital device. It beeped.

 

705.3 meters.

 

Izuku looked up at Aizawa, sweating profusely, holding his broken arm. "I... I didn't rely on my environment, sensei. I used my own vessel."

 

Aizawa stared at the boy. A slow, terrifying grin crept across the teacher's face.

 

"This kid..." Aizawa muttered.

 

"DEKU!"

 

A roar of absolute fury shattered the moment. Bakugo was lunging across the field, his palms crackling with explosive force. "What the hell was that?! You didn't use a battery! You didn't drain anything! Explain yourself, you parasitic bastard!"

 

Before Bakugo could reach him, Aizawa’s capture scarf shot out, binding Bakugo tightly.

 

"Stand down," Aizawa commanded, his eyes glowing red again. "You're giving me dry eye."

 

The rest of the tests went by in a blur of pain for Izuku. He had placed solidly in the middle of the pack, saving himself from the (admittedly fake) expulsion. Recovery Girl healed his arm with a tired sigh and a handful of gummy bears, warning him that using internal electrical amplification to break his own bones was a terrible habit to form.

 

But Izuku didn't care. He had proved to Aizawa, and to himself, that he was more than just his environment.

 

 

 

The next afternoon, the true test of U.A. began. Hero Basic Training.

 

"I AM HERE!" All Might boomed, bursting through the classroom door in his Silver Age costume. "COMING THROUGH THE DOOR LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!"

 

The class erupted into cheers.

 

"Today, we will be conducting Combat Training!" All Might announced, striking a dramatic pose. "And to go with it... your Hero Costumes!"

 

The wall of the classroom opened, revealing numbered briefcases.

 

Twenty minutes later, Class 1-A stepped out into Ground Beta.

 

Izuku walked out of the tunnel, feeling a profound sense of pride. His costume was heavily inspired by the practical needs of his Quirk, mixed with his own fanboy aesthetic.

 

It was a sleek, dark green tactical suit made of fire-retardant, heavily insulated polymer. It had black, heavy-duty combat boots with exposed metallic treads for Induction Grinding. His gloves were massive, extending halfway up his forearms, made of a specialized carbon-weave that could withstand the heat of his plasma attacks. Woven into the suit were several conductive nodes—silver discs on his chest, back, and palms—that allowed him to absorb ambient static from the air more efficiently.

 

But the centerpiece was the new Conduit Belt. It held four dark green lithium-ion battery packs, wired seamlessly into the suit's inner lining, connecting directly to his lower back.

 

He pulled up his metal half-mask, designed to act as a rebreather in smoke-filled environments, leaving his green hair free to stand on end from the static charge.

 

"Wow, Deku! You look so cool!" Uraraka jogged over. She was wearing a form-fitting pink and black space suit. "It looks super practical!"

 

"T-Thanks!" Izuku stammered, pulling his mask down slightly to speak. "Yours looks great too, Uraraka-san! Very streamlined for zero gravity!"

 

"Now then! Time for the Battle Trial!" All Might called out. "You will be split into teams of two! Heroes versus Villains! The Villains are hiding a nuclear weapon inside a multi-story building. The Heroes must either capture the Villains with capture tape, or touch the weapon before the time limit expires!"

 

Lots were drawn.

 

Izuku stared down at his lot. Team A.

 

He looked over at Uraraka. She held up an 'A' as well.

 

"Awesome! We're a team!" she cheered.

 

"Team A will be the Heroes!" All Might announced, drawing the Villain team. "And the Villains will be... Team D!"

 

Izuku’s blood ran cold.

 

Across the crowd, Katsuki Bakugo turned around. He was wearing his hero costume—a black, sleeveless tank top with massive, grenade-shaped gauntlets on his forearms. Next to him stood Iida, fully clad in bulky, knight-like armor.

 

Bakugo stared directly at Izuku. A vicious, predatory smile stretched across his face.

 

He's been waiting for this, Izuku thought, his heart hammering in his chest. He wants to prove I'm nothing without my crutches.

 

 

 

The fake building was dark, composed of concrete corridors and industrial lighting.

 

Izuku and Uraraka stood outside a side window, waiting for the buzzer.

 

"Deku... Bakugo seems really mad at you," Uraraka said nervously, adjusting her helmet.

 

Izuku checked the charge on his belt. Four green lights. His internal battery was at ninety percent.

 

"Kacchan is amazing," Izuku said quietly. "His combat instincts are flawless, and his Quirk is incredibly versatile. But he knows my weakness. He knows exactly how my Quirk works."

 

Izuku turned to Uraraka, his green eyes serious. "He's going to come straight for me. He won't care about the objective. He'll want to crush me to prove a point. Uraraka, when he attacks, you have to find the weapon. Leave Kacchan to me."

 

"But—"

 

The buzzer sounded.

 

BZZZZT! "THE BATTLE TRIAL BEGINS!" All Might's voice echoed from the PA system.

 

Izuku and Uraraka slipped through the open window, stepping into the dim, concrete hallway of the first floor.

 

Izuku immediately stripped off his right glove. He pressed his bare fingertips against the concrete wall.

 

Radar Pulse.

 

The invisible ring of electromagnetism pulsed outward, sweeping up through the ceilings and walls. The world faded into a blueprint of blue and grey. He saw the vast network of power lines running through the building. He saw a cluster of static electricity on the fifth floor—that had to be the weapon.

 

And then, he saw a massive, violently shifting heat signature dropping down from the ceiling directly above them.

 

Izuku opened his eyes, whipping his head up. "URARAKA, MOVE!"

 

He lunged forward, tackling Uraraka down the hallway just as a massive explosion obliterated the wall they had been standing next to.

 

Smoke and debris filled the corridor. Coughing, Izuku pushed himself up.

 

Katsuki Bakugo stepped through the smoke. The red trim on his mask made his eyes look demonic.

 

"What's the matter, Deku?" Bakugo sneered, raising his right gauntlet. "Radar picked me up? Good. I want you to see this coming."

 

"Uraraka, go!" Izuku yelled, pulling his right glove back on.

 

Uraraka hesitated, but seeing the murderous look in Bakugo's eyes, she nodded and sprinted down the opposite corridor.

 

Bakugo didn't even look at her. His eyes were entirely locked on Izuku.

 

"Just you and me, Parasite," Bakugo said, cracking his neck.

 

Izuku raised his hands, dropping into a defensive stance. His eyes flared with a steady sapphire light. Blue electricity crackled over the carbon weave of his gloves. "I'm not a parasite, Kacchan. And I'm not going to lose."

 

Bakugo laughed. It wasn't a hero's laugh. It was a cold, calculated sound.

 

"You think you're so smart, Deku. You think you've figured everything out with those little batteries on your waist," Bakugo said, raising both hands to the ceiling.

 

Izuku’s eyes widened.

 

Bakugo didn't aim at Izuku. He aimed at the massive electrical fuse box mounted on the concrete wall above them, and the fluorescent light fixtures lining the ceiling.

 

"DIE!"

 

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

 

A series of rapid, precision explosions tore through the hallway. Bakugo systematically obliterated the fuse box and every single light fixture in a thirty-foot radius.

 

The resulting shower of sparks was blinding. The heavy cables in the ceiling were severed, the live wires sparking wildly before grounding out and dying completely.

 

The hallway was plunged into absolute, pitch-black darkness.

 

Izuku staggered back, coughing through the thick smoke. The only light in the corridor was the faint, blue glow of his own eyes and the red LED indicators on Bakugo’s gauntlets.

 

"You're an absorber, Deku," Bakugo’s voice echoed from the darkness, cold and mocking. "You need a source to pull from. But what happens when there's nothing left to take?"

 

He destroyed the local grid, Izuku realized with a jolt of panic. He purposefully cut off the power in this sector of the building. He's trying to starve me.

 

Bakugo lunged from the shadows.

 

Izuku barely had time to react. He sidestepped, throwing a Kinetic Pulse from his right hand to push Bakugo away. But Bakugo used a small explosion from his left hand to arrest his momentum mid-air, spinning around the invisible shockwave and delivering a devastating right hook.

 

An explosion detonated point-blank against Izuku’s ribs.

 

Izuku was thrown violently into the concrete wall, the breath knocked from his lungs. The heavy insulation of his suit took the brunt of the heat, but the kinetic force was staggering.

 

"Is that it?!" Bakugo roared, rushing forward again. "Use your lightning! Come on! Burn up your little reserves!"

 

Izuku scrambled to his feet. He couldn't see in the dark. He fired three rapid Lightning Bolts into the darkness, illuminating the hallway in flashes of neon blue. Bakugo effortlessly dodged them, using his explosions to ricochet off the walls like a pinball.

 

He's too fast, Izuku panicked, his internal charge dropping to seventy percent. I can't hit him with projectiles. I need an area-of-effect.

 

Bakugo dropped down from the ceiling directly behind Izuku.

 

Izuku spun around, channeling a massive amount of voltage into both palms. He slammed his hands into the concrete floor.

 

Shockwave!

 

A dome of violently crackling blue electricity expanded outward. It caught Bakugo mid-lunge, shocking his nervous system and throwing him backward into the opposing wall.

 

Bakugo grunted, sliding to the floor, his muscles twitching from the voltage.

 

Izuku panted, checking his internal charge. Fifty percent. The Shockwave was incredibly energy-intensive.

 

"Hah... hah..." Bakugo chuckled weakly, forcing himself to his feet. He looked up, a feral grin on his face. "Good. Burn it all away."

 

Bakugo raised his right arm. He pulled the massive metal pin on the grenade-gauntlet.

 

Izuku recognized the stance. He remembered the sludge villain. Bakugo had been storing his nitroglycerin sweat inside the gauntlet.

 

"Young Bakugo, stop!" All Might’s voice blared over the hidden intercom. "Are you trying to kill him?!"

 

"If he doesn't dodge, he won't die!" Bakugo roared.

 

He pulled the pin.

 

The explosion was catastrophic. A massive, concentrated pillar of fire and concussive force erupted from the gauntlet, filling the entire hallway. It vaporized the concrete walls, tearing through the structure of the building.

 

Izuku had no time to dodge. He raised his arms in a desperate cross-guard, channeling every remaining drop of his internal electricity—the entire fifty percent—into an electromagnetic shield in front of him.

 

The fire hit the shield.

 

The heat was unimaginable. Izuku’s electrical shield held back the kinetic force of the blast, but it couldn't stop the thermal energy. The temperature in the hallway skyrocketed to over a thousand degrees. Izuku’s fire-retardant suit began to smoke. He could feel his skin blistering beneath the carbon weave.

 

The blast lasted for three agonizing seconds. When it finally ceased, the hallway was a glowing, molten ruin.

 

Izuku dropped to his knees, his electrical shield shattering.

 

His internal battery was at zero percent.

 

The lethargy hit him like a freight train. His vision swam, his muscles instantly turning to jelly. He slumped forward, barely able to keep his head up. His lungs burned with the superheated air.

 

He reached trembling fingers back to his Conduit Belt. He slapped the dial.

 

HISS.

 

The first battery vented into his spine. Fifteen percent charge. The lethargy receded slightly, but the intense, suffocating heat in the hallway was overwhelming his senses.

 

Through the smoke, Bakugo stalked forward. He looked demonic, bathed in the red glow of the molten concrete.

 

"You're out of juice, Deku," Bakugo growled. "I saw your shield shatter. You're empty."

 

Bakugo noticed Izuku’s hand on the belt. He scoffed.

 

"Still relying on your crutches?"

 

Bakugo lunged forward at blinding speed. Izuku tried to raise his arm to defend himself, but he was too slow, too drained.

 

Bakugo didn't aim for Izuku’s head. He aimed for the belt.

 

He grabbed the heavy nylon strap of the Conduit Belt and slammed his right palm against the remaining three lithium-ion batteries.

 

BOOM!

 

A point-blank explosion shattered the batteries. Lithium sparked and ignited, destroying the internal wiring of the belt. The conductive patches on Izuku’s back short-circuited violently, sending a painful, localized shock into his spine.

 

Izuku screamed in pain, falling backward onto the scorching floor.

 

His belt was gone. His external lifeline was destroyed.

 

"There," Bakugo panted, standing over him, his chest heaving. "Now you're nothing. Just a Quirkless, useless Deku in the dark."

 

Izuku lay on the floor, gasping for air. The intense heat of the hallway was baking him alive. His internal temperature was skyrocketing dangerously. Dr. Tsubasa’s warnings echoed in his mind: If your internal charge hits zero, and your body is subjected to extreme environmental stress, your Conduit cells will fail.

 

He had fifteen percent charge left from the first battery. But it wasn't enough to fight. It wasn't enough to run.

 

Bakugo raised his left hand, aiming at Izuku’s chest. Small explosions popped in his palm. "I win. Give up, Parasite."

 

Izuku stared up at the burning ceiling. The air was shimmering with intense heat.

 

I'm burning up, Izuku thought, his consciousness slipping. My core temperature is too high. I need to cool down. I need... cold.

 

Electricity is simply the transfer of energy. Heat is also the transfer of energy.

 

Izuku’s Conduit biology was not just a battery; it was a highly adaptable, mutative survival engine. When faced with the catastrophic heat of Bakugo's explosions and the absolute deprivation of electrical input, his cells underwent a violent, instantaneous paradigm shift.

 

To survive the heat, his body had to expel it. But because he was an absorber, his biology inverted the process. He didn't expel his own heat; he began violently absorbing the thermal energy from the air around him, forcibly dragging the ambient temperature into his own cellular capacitors to fuel himself, effectively stripping the heat from the environment.

 

Thermodynamics dictates that when heat is violently removed from an environment, only one thing remains.

 

Absolute, freezing cold.

 

"I said, give up!" Bakugo roared, swinging his arm down to deliver the final blow.

 

Izuku’s eyes snapped open.

 

They were no longer glowing sapphire blue. They were a piercing, crystalline, icy white.

 

Izuku didn't raise his hand to block. He thrust his bare right hand forward, his palm open.

 

He didn't fire lightning.

 

A massive, violently expanding wall of jagged, semi-translucent blue ice erupted from his palm.

 

The temperature in the hallway plummeted from a thousand degrees to below freezing in a microsecond. The sudden shift in pressure caused the remaining smoke to crystallize into a thick, swirling freezing mist.

 

Bakugo’s fist slammed into the ice wall. The explosion detonated, but the ice didn't shatter. The extreme, supernatural cold instantly sapped the thermal energy from Bakugo’s nitroglycerin sweat, rendering the explosion pathetic and weak.

 

Bakugo recoiled, his eyes widening in absolute shock as frost immediately began to form on his bare arms. "What the hell?!"

 

Izuku slowly stood up.

 

He was no longer sweating. The red, blistered skin on his face was pale, his breath visible as white plumes in the freezing air. The blue static that normally danced across his suit was gone. In its place, a thick, rolling white mist cascaded off his shoulders, pooling on the concrete floor. Ice crystals formed on his eyelashes.

 

In the observation room, the faculty and students were in uproar.

 

"Ice?!" Kirishima yelled, pressing his hands against the glass. "I thought his Quirk was electricity!"

 

"A secondary manifestation," Todoroki murmured, his mismatched eyes narrowing as he watched the screen. "A dual-type Quirk."

 

Aizawa leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. No. It's not a second Quirk. It's a bio-thermal adaptation. He's absorbing the heat of the explosions to fuel his cells, leaving only cold behind. His Quirk evolved under stress.

 

In the freezing hallway, Bakugo was shivering, staring at Izuku with a mixture of rage and terror.

 

"Ice? ICE?!" Bakugo screamed, his breath fogging in the air. "You hid another Quirk from me?! You really thought you were better than me this whole time?!"

 

Bakugo lunged, pulling the pin on his left gauntlet.

 

Izuku didn't panic. The frantic, jittery adrenaline of the electricity was gone. The cold brought absolute, chilling clarity.

 

He raised his hands. He felt the ambient heat of the burning hallway rushing into his cells, converting into raw power.

 

Ice Grenade.

 

Izuku flicked his wrist. A condensed sphere of super-chilled liquid nitrogen shot from his fingertips, striking the floor directly in front of Bakugo.

 

It exploded into a massive patch of slick, frictionless black ice.

 

Bakugo planted his foot to throw the explosion, but his boot hit the ice. He slipped violently, his legs flying out from under him. The massive explosion from his gauntlet fired wildly into the ceiling, throwing Bakugo off balance and sending him crashing hard onto his back.

 

Izuku didn't hesitate. He engaged a new traversal technique, fueled entirely by his new cryokinetic reserves.

 

Ice Launch.

 

He summoned a pillar of ice directly beneath his boots. The rapidly expanding crystalline structure acted like a hydraulic piston, launching Izuku twenty feet down the hallway, soaring over Bakugo's prone body.

 

Izuku landed perfectly behind Bakugo. He grabbed a spool of white capture tape from his belt.

 

Bakugo scrambled to get up, aiming his gauntlets backward. "I'll kill you!"

 

Izuku slammed both his hands onto the massive metal gauntlets on Bakugo's arms. He opened the thermal floodgates, rapidly absorbing every ounce of heat from the metal.

 

The gauntlets instantly flash-froze. A thick, impenetrable layer of jagged white ice encased the metal, jamming the firing pins and freezing the nitroglycerin sweat solid inside the chambers.

 

"No! NO!" Bakugo roared, trying desperately to spark his palms, but the extreme cold made his sweat glands contract. He couldn't sweat. He couldn't ignite.

 

Izuku swiftly wrapped the capture tape around Bakugo's frozen arms, binding him tight.

 

"Capture successful," Izuku said, his voice terrifyingly calm, a puff of white mist escaping his lips.

 

Over the intercom, All Might’s voice echoed, completely stunned. "Hero Team... WINS!"

 

Bakugo knelt on the freezing concrete floor, staring at his frozen gauntlets in utter disbelief. He looked up at Izuku, who was standing over him, bathed in the icy mist.

 

"You..." Bakugo whispered, his voice cracking.

 

Izuku didn't gloat. He didn't smile. He just felt incredibly cold.

 

The adrenaline faded. The sheer, traumatic shock of the biological mutation hit his nervous system.

 

Izuku’s icy white eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed face-first onto the frozen floor, completely unconscious.

 

 

 

"Hypothermia. Severe, acute hypothermia."

 

Recovery Girl sighed, pulling a thick, heated thermal blanket over Izuku’s shivering body in the U.A. infirmary.

 

Izuku’s teeth were chattering violently. He was awake, but barely. His lips were slightly blue, and despite the heated room, his breath was still visible.

 

All Might stood by the bed, his skeletal frame hunched in deep concern. Aizawa leaned against the wall near the door, his arms crossed.

 

"I don't understand," All Might said softly. "His Quirk is electrical absorption. How did he generate ice?"

 

"He didn't generate it. Not exactly," Recovery Girl explained, pulling up a thermal scan of Izuku’s body on a monitor. The scan showed his core temperature was dangerously low. "His Conduit mutation is a survival mechanism based on energy absorption. When young Bakugo destroyed his battery belt, and subjected him to the lethal heat of those explosions, Izuku’s body was starved of electrical energy but surrounded by thermal energy."

 

She tapped the screen. "His cells forcibly adapted to absorb heat instead of electricity to fuel his nervous system. But by absorbing the ambient heat from the air around him at such an extreme, rapid rate, he effectively created a localized zone of absolute zero. He froze the moisture in the air. He didn't shoot ice; he weaponized the absence of heat."

 

Izuku shivered, pulling the blanket tighter around his neck. "So... I have two powers now?"

 

"Yes and no," Aizawa spoke up from the corner. "You have one Quirk: Energy Absorption. But you can now switch the 'flavor' of the energy you manipulate. Electricity, and Heat."

 

"But it comes with a severe risk, young man," Recovery Girl warned sternly. "When you use electricity, you risk burning yourself out and suffering lethargy. When you use this new 'cryokinesis', you are absorbing heat to fuel your attacks. But if you overuse it, your body will begin absorbing its own internal body heat to maintain the power output. You will literally freeze yourself to death from the inside out."

 

Izuku stared at his bare hands. He focused on his right hand. A small, crackling spark of blue lightning danced across his thumb. He focused on his left hand. A faint wisp of freezing, white mist curled off his fingertips.

 

The Spark and the Frost.

 

He was no longer just a battery. He was a thermodynamic engine.

 

"The tactical applications are immense," Aizawa noted, walking toward the bed. "If your batteries are destroyed, you can use the ambient heat of a fire or a villain's thermal attack to sustain yourself. Furthermore, the ice provides you with defensive capabilities and crowd control that your electricity lacks."

 

Aizawa stopped at the foot of the bed. He looked down at the shivering boy.

 

"You proved me wrong today, Midoriya. You didn't rely on your crutches. When you were pushed to the absolute brink, in the dark, with nothing left... you adapted. You survived."

 

Aizawa turned and walked out of the infirmary, leaving the door open behind him.

 

All Might smiled proudly, though his eyes were still filled with worry. "You did excellently today, my boy. You captured young Bakugo without causing permanent harm, and you unlocked a new facet of your potential."

 

"Kacchan is going to hate me even more now," Izuku murmured, his teeth chattering.

 

"Perhaps," All Might sighed. "But you cannot dull your own light—or in this case, your frost—to make others comfortable. You are forging your own path to becoming a hero."

 

Izuku lay back against the pillows, the warmth of the thermal blanket slowly seeping into his frozen bones.

 

He closed his eyes. The terrifying image of the dark, burning hallway flashed in his mind, followed by the empowering, absolute calm of the ice.

 

He had lost his belt. He had nearly burned to death. But he had found a new strength within himself. A strength that didn't rely on streetlamps or power grids.

 

He was Izuku Midoriya. The Conduit Hero.

 

And he was just getting started.