The UA medical office smelled like antiseptic and someone's green tea, both competing.
Recovery Girl ran him through a full physical in forty minutes with the efficiency of a woman who had been performing physical assessments on superpowered teenagers for longer than most of those teenagers' parents had been alive, and who treated the impossibility of his results with clinical precision rather than reaction. Blood pressure: normal. Reflexes: normal. Bone density consistent with a fifteen-year-old male in good physical condition. No bruising, no contusions, no evidence of the six hours of combat preceding his death or the total body crush that had ended it.
"Your body repairs completely," she said, writing something that took up three lines.
"Yes."
"Including healing pre-existing injuries? The finger fracture you entered with—"
"Healed." He'd noticed that on the walk from the cart. The right index finger, which had been carrying two minor fracture points since the first OFA calibration session, was completely normal. Every death rebuilt from the base specification. Clean slate, every time.
She looked at the X-ray she'd taken — his right hand, entirely intact — and added something to the note. "Does the power activate on confirmed death only, or on significant injury?"
"Confirmed death," he said. "It's taken the whole way before, every time."
"Every time." She underlined something. "How many times?"
"Twice. Yesterday was the second."
She set the pen down and looked at him directly for the first time in the session rather than through the lens of the examination. "The first time — when was that?"
"Mid-December." He held her gaze. "Sludge Villain incident. I ran in without thinking clearly. The villain got me before anyone could help."
The silence in the medical office was the kind that had mass. She knew about that incident — UA medical staff would have access to the hero incident reports from that area, and All Might's involvement would have flagged it in the system. He watched her cross-reference the timeline internally, watched the conclusion form.
"You weren't reported as a casualty," she said finally.
"I was gone before anyone knew to report me." True enough. "And back before anyone came looking."
She held his gaze for a moment longer, then picked up the pen. The professional decision to continue the examination rather than pursue the line of questioning was visible in the transition — a small deliberate boundary between what I find medically relevant and what belongs to the administrators' conversation that is also scheduled for today. He respected the precision of it.
"I'll want to monitor you through the year," she said. "Weekly check-ins through April, then monthly after that. If this ability has any physiological limits or adverse effects, I want documented baseline data before something unexpected happens."
"Reasonable," he said.
"Good." She added the note. "I've also placed a hospital gown on an empty bed in recovery, in case your admission comes before the next scheduled check-in and I need to confirm the process firsthand." She said this flatly, without any particular emphasis, and it took him a moment to understand what it meant.
She was planning for his next death. She'd set up for it before it happened, because she already believed he'd be back, and that belief had made her prepare.
He thought about that for the walk to the administrator's office.
The administrator was a man in his forties whose name badge said Tanaka, Academic Affairs and whose expression said he'd been briefed on this situation and was handling it professionally despite its complete absence from any prior experience framework. He sat across a desk from Yami with a folder that was thicker than an entrance exam result folder had any business being and asked four questions in total, each one giving Yami space to answer without interruption before proceeding to the next.
The cover story held. Enhanced recovery. Secondary mutation class. Not resurrection — abnormal regeneration that required confirmed death to trigger. He'd always been different. First confirmed death was the Sludge Villain incident. He'd been meaning to look into it properly before the exam but hadn't had the resources for private medical testing.
Tanaka wrote things down. Confirmed that the arena cameras had recorded both the death and the resurrection. Noted that this would need to be disclosed to Yami's future homeroom teacher and the school medical staff, which Recovery Girl had already handled. Said that the exam score had been calculated including the full context of the practical examination performance.
"Your rescue point score was weighted to account for the circumstances of your death," he said. He didn't elaborate on the methodology. "The panel reviewed the footage."
"I understand," Yami said, because he didn't need the methodology explained.
"Results will be sent to your registered address within one week." Tanaka closed the folder. "Is there a guardian we should contact?"
"I'm an independent minor with orphan status on file." He'd confirmed this during the application process. "The file should be current."
"I see." Another note. "One of our support staff will drive you to the station. We'll provide a transit pass." He slid the pass across the desk. "The uniform you're currently wearing — keep it. Return it at enrollment if you're admitted."
If.
Yami took the transit pass and stood and thanked the administrator with the specific brevity of someone who was conserving energy for the week ahead, and walked to the car with the security escort, and got into the back seat, and watched UA's campus move past the window as the car headed toward the station.
[SYSTEM LEVEL 2 — SKILL TREE ACCESS CONFIRMED. CHEAPEST NODE: QUICK RECOVERY Lv.1 — COST: 3 SP. CURRENT SP: 2.]
He read the skill tree properly on the train ride home, scrolling through the layout with the unhurried attention of someone with forty minutes and no other immediate task. The tree branched in four directions from the system level two unlock point. Combat Enhancement — movement-adjacent skills, mostly speed and impact modifiers. Threat Intelligence — perception and combat analysis. Recovery Branch — the Quick Recovery node was here, along with longer-term options for injury resistance. Utility — miscellaneous, early nodes largely passive.
Quick Recovery at Level 1 reduced the post-resurrection vulnerability window from five minutes to three. Cost: three Skill Points. He had two. One more death from a unique killer and he'd have three.
He thought about the timeline between now and April — between the exam and the first day of UA — and about what unique killers were available in Musutafu in early spring to a fifteen-year-old with baseline stats plus 3% OFA who wasn't actively trying to get murdered.
The answer was: not many that were accessible without engineering a dangerous situation, and the risk-reward calculation on engineering a dangerous situation before school started was poor. He could afford to wait.
He got off at Musutafu station, bought two onigiri from the convenience store at the corner — salmon and tuna, the twenty-year-old office worker habit of buying in pairs for meals that got skipped returning in a different body — and ate them standing outside because the apartment was ten minutes away and he was hungry now.
The first one tasted like salmon and cold rice and February. The second one tasted like the same.
He finished both and walked home in the UA gym uniform that was slightly too large in the shoulders, carrying the transit pass in his pocket next to the All Might sticker note that had been there since January, and ran the Skill Point math one more time with the part of his brain that needed things calculated before it could let them rest.
Two points. Need three for the cheapest node. One more unique kill to close the gap.
One week until results.
He unlocked the apartment door and went inside and looked at the wall above the table. The newspaper from his first morning was still there with the circled date. Below it, on the table, the pile of UA enrollment documentation he'd received two months ago. Between them, the empty space where the result letter would go when it arrived.
He put the kettle on and waited.
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