Midnight.
U.A. lights dimmed.
Silence blanketed the dorms.
But in the garden below—something walked that didn't know how to breathe.
Mineta's body moved like a puppet in silk.
Jerky. Wrong. Limbs swaying a beat off rhythm.
His eyes?
Black for a moment too long.
Then gold.
Then empty again.
He reached the koi pond.
Sat down.
Stared at the water.
Reflections shimmered.
Didn't match.
A thousand Minetas blinked back at him—
Some laughing.
Some weeping.
Some with horns growing from their temples.
He smiled.
And whispered:
"Run protocol: identity suppression."
Inside his mind…
He stood in a white room.
No exits.
A floating mirror showed the original him—short, panicked, stupid.
"Let me go!" the real Mineta screamed.
The intruder stepped forward.
Touched the glass.
"Your file's too small to keep," it said. "But your shell is… adaptable."
U.A. Staff Room, 3:02 a.m.
Aizawa couldn't sleep.
He stared at a blinking red alert.
Another micro-distortion.
Same place.Same pattern.Same kid.
Midoriya had left a note earlier:
"Check Mineta. Something's… off."
Aizawa stood.
Grabbed his scarf.
Woke Present Mic.
"Call a code grey," he said.
"Level two?"
"No," Aizawa said.
"Level Eri."
Meanwhile… in the girls' dorms.
Eri woke up gasping.
Hands trembling.
The dream was back.
But it wasn't a dream.
She saw through his eyes now.
Through the rewrite.
The code lines forming in Mineta's blood.
She whispered a word.
And time slowed around her.
Just a bit.
Enough to slip through her wall.
Enough to walk through the stillness.
Toward him.
Courtyard.
Mineta turned before she arrived.
His eyes flashed again.
Not fear. Not confusion.
Recognition.
"Did you think you were the only Echo who survived?" he asked softly.
Eri's horn sparked.
"I didn't survive. I endured."
His smile widened.
"You don't even remember the full Spiral. Only your piece."
She stepped closer.
"Let him go."
Mineta—no, the thing inside him—tilted its head.
"Why should I?"
"You rewrote a universe."
"I'm only rewriting one boy."
Crunch.
A vine shot from the shadow.
Eri dodged.
Another twisted toward her ankle.
But the moment they touched her—
Time snapped backward.
The vines aged in reverse, curling, shriveling, vanishing.
Eri stood her ground.
"I don't need full power."
She clenched her fists.
"I just need you to remember what fear feels like."
The Echo blinked.
And for the first time—
Flinched.
Aizawa landed behind them.
Scarf already in motion.
"I'm suppressing his quirk," he barked.
"It's not his quirk," Eri snapped. "It's his soul."
Too late.
The Echo inside Mineta opened his mouth—
And laughed like six people layered over each other.
Then—
His body collapsed.
Just dropped.
Empty.
Motionless.
Breathing, but only barely.
Eri knelt beside him.
Put two fingers to his temple.
Closed her eyes.
Tried to see inside.
For a split second—
She caught the signal.
A flicker of code. A memory not his own.
A phrase.
Written in blood:
"She rewound the world."
"Now it's the world's turn to rewind her."
Back inside U.A.
In the underground server chamber no one talked about—
A machine sparked.
Words printed onto the internal screen:
[HOST FAILED.]
[RETRYING...]
[NEXT SEED CANDIDATE: SELECTED.]
And this time—
The name wasn't Mineta.
It was:
Todoroki Shoto.
To be continued.