Bakugou was still on the floor when Izuku stepped over him.
Not unconscious. Just grounded. Inner ear scrambled, capture tape handling the rest.
Behind him, Bakugou made a sound. Half rage, half something he'd deny until he died.
Izuku didn't look back.
He checked the gauntlet. 71%. Hairline fracture along the left housing panel from the wall discharge.
'Cosmetic. Still works. I really need to reinforce that panel though.'
He walked toward the stairwell.
***
The monitor room had gone quiet.
Fifteen students watching a screen and nobody saying a word. On the infrared feed, Izuku moved through the dark second floor. Steady pace. No hesitation. Thermal signature still running colder than the ambient air.
Kirishima was leaning forward, elbows on his knees.
"That was—"
He stopped. Couldn't find the end of the sentence. Sat back.
In the second row, Kaminari was looking at the screen with his mouth slightly open. The expression of a man who'd just realized the test he'd been studying for was in a completely different subject than he'd prepared for.
Todoroki sat straight in the back row.
He'd watched the hallway sequence four times on the replay feed while appearing to watch the main screen. The shoulder read. The duck. The step inside. The wall.
He'd grown up watching combat. Drilled into muscle memory from age five by a man who considered fatherhood and training to be the same word.
What he'd just watched didn't look like a student exercise. It looked rehearsed. And not in any gym he'd ever seen.
His left side was still running warm. He hadn't activated anything.
He said nothing.
All Might stood at the front with his arms crossed. Two years of running this exercise. Thousands of trials. He'd never seen a student go through another student like that. No excess. No hesitation. No looking back.
Like the other kid was a problem that had been solved on paper hours ago and the hallway was just the confirmation.
On the main feed, Izuku stopped at the top of the stairwell.
Stood still. Again.
"Why does he keep doing that," Kaminari muttered.
Nobody answered.
***
The earpiece crackled.
"Hero neutralized."
Iida heard it and felt the floor drop out from under his strategy.
He was on the third floor landing. One hand on the wall. Engines at half-idle. He'd been working through the approach the way the curriculum taught. Methodical. Careful.
That was over.
He ran.
The engines kicked to full rev. The mechanical whine filled the concrete stairwell shaft, bouncing off every surface, arriving everywhere at once.
Two strides per flight.
Izuku heard it from two floors up. The engine pitch. The cadence. The echo telling him exactly how fast, exactly which direction.
'Straight line. He's committed. All of it, one direction, no second option.'
He settled his weight back through his heels. Let the cold sit in the corridor.
The temperature dropped two degrees.
He waited.
The stairwell door didn't open.
It came off the hinge.
Iida came through at full speed. Visor down. Engines screaming. Leg already extending into a straight driving kick aimed at center mass.
Fast.
Genuinely fast.
'Okay. That's impressive.'
Izuku didn't move back.
He read the knee angle. The hip rotation. The weight distribution of someone who'd given everything to a single line and had nothing left to change direction with.
He stepped in.
Both hands caught the incoming leg. One at the shin, one above the knee. He sank his weight through his hips, drove his back foot into the concrete, and did not move.
The impact hit his whole body at once. His boots cracked the floor. Two lines radiating out from his heels.
'That hurt. That actually hurt. Respect.'
Iida's momentum died. All that velocity meeting something that had decided not to move and finding that decision was final.
The engines cut out.
For one second Iida was suspended. Leg captured. Weight forward. Nothing underneath him working in his favor.
Izuku twisted. Hip driving through the rotation, both hands pulling the captured leg across his centerline. Took Iida's base completely.
Iida hit the concrete flat. Dense. Ugly. The air leaving his lungs in a single compressed burst.
He lay there. Chest heaving. The ceiling suddenly where the floor used to be.
Izuku was already kneeling. The capture tape came out. Five seconds. Wrists behind the back. Two wraps. Secured.
He stood. Stepped back.
Checked the housing crack one more time.
'Definitely reinforcing that panel.'
The buzzer fired through the building's speaker system. One long, flat tone.
"Villain Team Wins."
TO BE CONTINUED