The Hero's Blueprint

The scent of hot metal and burnt flux hung in the air of the cluttered garage, a familiar perfume that Ren Ito found more comforting than fresh air. This was their sanctuary, their laboratory, and the only place in the world where the silence wasn't filled with judgment. Every surface was a chaotic landscape of creation: spools of high-tensile wire sat next to soldering irons, circuit boards were piled like ceramic plates, and half-finished gadgets lay with their inner workings exposed. Blueprints, covered in Ren’s sharp, precise handwriting, were pinned to every available inch of wall space.

Ren’s fingers, stained with grease and marked with small burns, moved with an unwavering certainty that belied their age. With a final, delicate twist of a precision screwdriver, they secured the housing on the sleek, black device in their hands. It was a handheld launcher, compact and dense, loaded with a reel of braided carbon-nanofiber filament. A capture weapon. Lighter and stronger than the one used by the pro hero Eraser Head, with a deployment speed that was, according to Ren’s calculations, 12% faster. They had spent three months perfecting the silent magnetic winding motor and another two developing the alloy for the weighted projectile tip.

A soft, satisfying click echoed in the quiet garage as the final piece settled into place. Ren held it up, admiring the way the matte finish seemed to drink the light from the single bare bulb hanging overhead. It felt solid, real. An extension of their will. It was perfect.

Their satisfaction was cut short as their gaze drifted to the corner of the workbench. There, a stark white rectangle lay on the scarred wood, an unwelcome intrusion in their space. The letter had arrived two days ago. The envelope, bearing the prestigious crest of Shiketsu High School, was torn open. Ren didn't need to read the polite, formulaic words again; they were seared into their memory. Their eyes, however, were drawn to the phrase that mattered, the two words that invalidated everything else.

“…due to your quirkless status, we are unable to offer you a position in the Hero Course.”

A familiar, bitter heat flared deep in Ren's chest. Their knuckles turned white as their grip tightened on the capture weapon. Quirkless status. It wasn't a medical diagnosis; it was a verdict. A disqualification branded onto their very being from the moment they were born. For a second, the comforting clutter of the workshop felt suffocating, the metallic scent thick and cloying in their throat. All of it—the sleepless nights spent studying engineering textbooks, the hours of physical conditioning to push their body to its absolute peak, the meticulous creation of the device in their hand—all of it was erased by that one simple fact. They lacked the one thing that mattered.

But the anger was a flash fire, burning hot and fast before collapsing into something colder, harder. It cooled into the solid-state certainty of resolve. Ren’s breathing evened out, and the crushing pressure in their chest subsided. Their grip on the capture weapon softened from a fist of rage into a creator’s hold. They looked from the dismissive words on the paper to the tangible proof of their ability resting in their palm. They had built this. Their mind was their power. Their hands were their instruments. Shiketsu was just one school, one that couldn't see past a checkbox on a form. Their loss.

With deliberate care, Ren set the capture weapon down on its charging cradle. They turned to their computer, its screen glowing with complex schematics and stress-test simulations. A few clicks cleared the screen. They opened a new browser tab, the cursor blinking expectantly. They typed the three letters they had been simultaneously dreading and aspiring to their entire life: U.A.

The home page for U.A. High School loaded, its bold, golden logo a symbol of hope and impossible standards. Applying to their Hero Course was a long shot for students with spectacular quirks. For someone without one, it was considered an act of delusion.

A small, cold smile touched Ren’s lips. Let them think it was delusional. If the world insisted on defining them by what they lacked, then Ren would force it to acknowledge what they had. They would not ask for a chance; they would build a case for it, piece by piece, with logic and evidence so overwhelming that not even the legendary U.A. could deny it. Their fingers moved across the keyboard, downloading the application packet for the Hero Course. The rejection letter from Shiketsu was no longer a source of shame. It was simply Exhibit A.

The distant, percussive boom rattled the windowpane of the garage, a sound that had become an unfortunate part of the city’s ambient noise. It was followed by a siren’s wail, sharp and urgent. Another villain attack. Ren’s head snapped up from the U.A. application form. The sounds were close. Too close.

Without a second thought, Ren pushed back from the desk, grabbing a worn, gray messenger bag from a hook by the door. It was their field kit, always packed, always ready. Inside wasn't a hero costume, but a carefully organized collection of their own creations: compact multi-tools, a first-aid kit, several small, non-lethal devices of varying functions, and a pair of high-powered binoculars. They slipped out of the garage, the cool afternoon air a stark contrast to the workshop’s heat.

The chaos was only three blocks away, centered in a small shopping plaza. A hulking villain with a craggy, slate-gray hide was swinging a lamppost like a baseball bat, his roars echoing off the storefronts. His quirk seemed to be a simple but effective gigantification and rock-like skin reinforcement. He was a creature of brute force, not intellect. On the scene was the pro hero Backlash, whose quirk manifested as crackling whips of kinetic energy. The whips, however, were proving ineffective, snapping against the villain’s stone body with little more than a shower of sparks.

Ren stayed back, melting into the crowd of onlookers that the police were trying to push to a safe distance. They lifted the binoculars to their eyes, ignoring the spectacle of the fight itself and focusing instead on the details. Backlash’s movements were inefficient. He was wasting stamina on wide, flashy attacks that had no chance of penetrating the villain’s hide. His support gear was standard-issue: a simple earpiece for comms that was likely being drowned out by the villain’s noise, and no visible equipment to counter a physical-type opponent. Ineffective, Ren cataloged mentally. A hero with an energy-based quirk should be equipped with complementary tech. A sonic cannon for disorientation. A high-tensile net for containment. His agency is failing him.

As the villain swung the lamppost again, smashing the front of a cafe, Ren’s gaze swept the impact zone. Their blood ran cold. Partially hidden behind a shattered concrete planter, a woman was pinned to the ground, her leg trapped beneath a massive slab of the building's facade. Dust and blood matted her hair, and her face was a mask of silent terror. Backlash was too engaged, too focused on the direct threat, to have seen her. The police were too far back. She was going to be crushed.

The world seemed to slow down. The shouting of the crowd, the hero’s grunts of effort, the villain’s bellows—it all faded into a low hum. There was no time to get the hero’s attention. No way to shout over the din. There was only the problem, and the tools Ren had to solve it.

Their hand dove into the messenger bag, fingers closing around a small, metallic disk, no larger than a hockey puck. An acoustic lure. Simple, but effective. Ren’s eyes darted around, calculating. The villain was driven by stimulus and response. He was like a bull, drawn to noise and motion. The trapped woman was in his blind spot, but the hero was directly in front of him. Ren needed to create a new stimulus, one the villain couldn’t ignore, away from both of them.

They spotted their target: a metal-paneled delivery truck parked down a narrow side street, about fifty yards to the villain’s left. Ren’s arm moved in a smooth, practiced arc. They weren’t throwing a baseball; they were launching a projectile with a specific trajectory and purpose. The disk sailed through the air, a dark speck against the sky, and landed with a loud, metallic CLANG on the roof of the truck.

A second later, the lure activated. It didn't explode. It emitted a piercing, high-frequency shriek that scraped at the inside of the skull. It was a sound engineered to be intensely agitating, mimicking the distress call of a territorial animal.

The effect on the villain was instantaneous. His head whipped toward the sound, his brutish face contorting in mindless rage. He let out a guttural roar, dropping the mangled lamppost with a ground-shaking crash. The new noise was more interesting, more irritating than the hero in front of him. He turned his massive body and began to lumber heavily toward the truck, his attention completely diverted.

It was the opening Backlash needed. For a split second, the hero looked confused by the villain's sudden change in direction, but then his eyes caught the movement behind the planter. He saw the woman. His priority shifted instantly. While the villain was busy trying to smash the source of the noise, Backlash darted in, his energy whips forming a makeshift lever to help shift the heavy debris. He pulled the injured woman free, lifting her into his arms and carrying her back toward the police line in a blur of motion.

Ren lowered their binoculars, their heart pounding a steady, heavy rhythm in their chest. They watched as paramedics rushed to the woman, as Backlash gave a quick report to an officer before turning his attention back to the now-confused villain. No one had seen Ren. No one knew the hero had been given an assist. They were just another face in the crowd, a ghost in the machine. As the police began to push the perimeter back even further, Ren turned and slipped away, melting back into the side streets. The quiet validation they felt was more potent than any public praise. It wasn't a quirk that saved her. It was a plan.

The smell of soy sauce and ginger greeted Ren as they stepped through the front door, a comforting, familiar scent that felt a world away from the acrid dust and metallic tang of the villain attack. They slipped off their shoes in the genkan, the quiet click of the door shutting behind them sealing off the chaos of the city. Their mother, a kind woman with smile lines etched around her eyes, looked up from the kitchen stove.

“There you are, Ren. Dinner’s almost ready. I was starting to worry.” Her gaze was soft, but it held the familiar weight of concern that had been her default expression ever since Ren first declared their intentions.

“Just clearing my head,” Ren replied, the half-truth sitting easily on their tongue. They placed the messenger bag by the stairs, the weight of it a secret between them and the city.

Dinner was a quiet affair until Ren’s father cleared his throat, setting his chopsticks down with a gentle precision that mirrored Ren’s own careful movements. He was a tall, slender man, an architect whose love for structure and planning Ren had clearly inherited.

“We saw your U.A. application on the computer, Ren,” he began, his voice calm and measured. He wasn’t angry, just deeply serious. “The Hero Course.”

Ren met his gaze, their own expression unreadable. “Yes.”

“Honey,” their mother said, her voice gentle, pleading. “We know how brilliant you are. We see what you create in that workshop. It’s incredible. But… the Hero Course… it’s for people who can take a punch from a villain like the one on the news today and get back up. It’s dangerous.”

“The Support Course would welcome you with open arms,” their father added, leaning forward slightly. “You could revolutionize the industry from behind the scenes. Or even General Studies. Your mind could take you anywhere. It doesn’t have to be the front lines.”

This was the conversation Ren had been anticipating, the one they had been preparing for since the day they received their quirkless diagnosis. They had run simulations of this talk in their head a hundred times, charting out every potential argument and emotional appeal. They knew their parents’ fear came from love. And they knew the only way to counter that fear was not with emotion, but with overwhelming logic.

Ren took a slow sip of water, then carefully placed the glass down. “I understand your concerns. They’re valid.” They stood from the table. “Please, wait here for a moment.”

They returned from their room holding a thick, black three-ring binder. It was heavy, meticulously organized, with labeled tabs sticking out from the side. They placed it on the dining table between their parents with a soft, definitive thud. The front cover bore a single, cleanly printed title: A Practical Thesis on Quirkless Heroism: Strategy and Technology as a Force Multiplier.

Their parents stared at it, then back at Ren, confused.

“This isn’t a whim,” Ren stated, their voice devoid of teenage defiance, replaced instead with the cool confidence of an expert presenting their findings. “It’s a life plan. Open it.”

Hesitantly, Ren’s father opened the binder. The first section was titled “Statistical Analysis of Hero Engagements.” It was filled with charts and graphs, data culled from public hero databases and news reports. It cross-referenced hero injuries and fatalities against villain quirk types. A subsection highlighted a key finding: 34% of career-ending injuries to pro heroes occurred during engagements where their quirk was a poor matchup for the villain’s, and they lacked adequate compensatory support gear.

“The current model of heroism is inefficient,” Ren explained, their finger tapping a graph showing the declining success rate of heroes in multi-villain encounters. “It relies too heavily on individual power levels. It’s reactive, not proactive.”

Their mother flipped to the next section: “Equipment Designs.” The pages were filled with professional-grade schematics, 3D models, and material specifications for dozens of devices. There was the high-tensile capture weapon from the workshop, but also designs for sonic disruptors, EMP grenades calibrated for specific technologies, kinetic foam launchers for barricades and restraints, and advanced sensor suites. Each design was accompanied by a detailed analysis of its intended use and the specific hero types it would augment.

The final section was a series of case studies. Ren had analyzed heroes like Backlash, breaking down his powers and fighting style, then created a theoretical loadout and strategic plan that would, according to their calculations, increase his effectiveness by over 60%.

“I don’t intend to fight villains head-on. That would be illogical,” Ren said, their voice steady and sure. “My role is different. I would be on the field, providing real-time tactical analysis, deploying equipment to control the environment, and creating openings for my teammates. I wouldn’t be the sword; I’d be the hand that guides it. A hero whose primary function is to make every other hero more effective and, more importantly, safer.”

Ren’s parents were silent, slowly turning the pages. They weren’t looking at a teenager’s scrapbook of dreams. They were looking at a meticulously researched, professional proposal. It was a blueprint. The fear in their eyes hadn’t vanished, but it was now joined by something else: a profound, staggering sense of awe at the mind of the child they had raised. They looked from the binder to Ren, and for the first time, they truly saw the hero their child intended to be.

The silence in the dining room stretched, thick and heavy. Ren’s father closed the binder with a soft finality, his hands resting on the cover. He looked at Ren’s mother, a silent conversation passing between them. The fear was still there, a deep-seated parental instinct that couldn't be erased by data and schematics. But mixed with it now was a grudging, undeniable respect. They were looking at their child, but also at an engineer, a strategist, and a mind that had prepared for every contingency except their own doubt.

“Alright, Ren,” their father finally said, his voice low. “We… see. We see your plan. We don't like it. But we see it.”

It wasn't the enthusiastic approval Ren might have dreamed of, but it was enough. It was permission. It was an acknowledgment that this was not a childish fantasy. With a quiet nod, Ren collected the binder and retreated to the sanctuary of their room, leaving their parents to their uneasy peace. There was no time to dwell on their reluctant acceptance. There was work to do.

The night swallowed the world outside Ren’s window, but inside, their desk lamp cast a pool of focused light on their computer monitor. The binder was their grand thesis, but this was the immediate, practical application. The screen was split into four quadrants, each playing grainy, shaky footage from past U.A. Entrance Exams. These weren't official broadcasts; they were a collection of helmet-cam clips, news snippets, and bystander videos Ren had scraped from obscure online forums over the course of a year.

Their fingers flew across the keyboard, pausing, rewinding, and tagging footage. They weren't watching the flashy explosions or the impressive displays of power from the applicants. They were ignoring the combat. Instead, their eyes tracked the robots.

The one-pointers were fast but flimsy, moving in predictable swarms. The two-pointers were sturdier, with better armor, but their targeting systems were slow to adapt to vertical threats. It was the three-pointers that held Ren’s attention. They were the tanks, the gatekeepers. Taking one down required immense power, the kind Ren simply did not possess. To a normal observer, they were just obstacles to be smashed. To Ren, they were a system to be decoded.

They pulled up two separate clips, syncing them by the official start-time announcements audible in the background. One was from Sector B, the other from Sector D. At exactly 3 minutes and 14 seconds into the exam, a three-pointer in Sector B was destroyed by an applicant with an explosion quirk. Ren watched the screen on the right. At precisely the same moment, a cluster of one-pointers in Sector D, miles away, suddenly changed their patrol route, converging on a new area. There was no local stimulus to trigger the change. It was too coordinated, too instantaneous.

A spark of excitement, cold and sharp, went through Ren’s chest. Central command. They weren't individual units. They were a network, receiving real-time instructions from a central server that adjusted threat distribution based on examinee performance. If you could disrupt a robot’s connection to that network, even for a moment…

Ren switched their focus, now hunting for a physical vulnerability. They scrubbed through hours of footage, watching the three-pointers get torn apart, blasted, and melted. In a blurry frame from a news helicopter, they saw it. As a three-pointer was knocked onto its side by a strength-enhancing quirk, a small, rectangular panel on the underside of its chassis, right where the torso met the hip joint, was visible for less than a second. In another clip, an acid-quirk user melted through the leg of a bot, and Ren saw sparks erupt from that same area before the entire machine seized up.

It was an access panel. A maintenance port. It was less reinforced than the rest of the chassis, an engineering oversight born from the assumption that no one would be trying to perform delicate sabotage in the middle of a frantic battle. It was a keyhole.

Ren pushed back from the computer, grabbing a datapad and a stylus. The idea was already fully formed in their mind, a blueprint materializing from the data points. It wouldn't be a bomb. It would be a key. They sketched with quick, precise lines: a disk, roughly the size of a hockey puck. Low-profile, with a magnetized surface on one side and a spring-loaded, hardened steel needle in the center.

The plan was simple, elegant, and incredibly risky. Throw the device. The magnets would make it cling to the robot's metal body. On impact, the needle would fire, just a single centimeter, with enough force to puncture the thin plating of the access panel. It wouldn’t do any real damage. But the needle was also the conductor. The moment it made contact with the internal wiring beneath the panel, the capacitor in the disk would discharge a single, focused electromagnetic pulse.

It wouldn't be enough to fry the robot’s entire system. It wouldn't even destroy the limb. But it would overload the delicate communications receiver housed right behind that panel. It would sever the robot's connection to the central command signal. For three, maybe four critical seconds, the robot would be cut off, its programming forcing it into a diagnostic reboot. It would freeze solid. A helpless, stationary target worth three points.

Ren looked at the design, a fierce, quiet satisfaction settling in their gut. They wouldn’t be destroying the robot themselves. They would be disabling it, leaving it vulnerable for any other examinee to finish off. It was a plan that generated zero combat points for them, but it was a plan that could work. It was their way in. They stood and moved to the workbench, the schematics for the EMP Disabler glowing on their datapad. The city was asleep, but Ren’s night was just beginning.

The next ten days were a blur of sleepless nights and frantic, focused work. The workshop became Ren’s entire world, a space that smelled of ozone and hot metal, littered with stripped wires and discarded prototypes. They fabricated four of the EMP Disablers, each one a small masterpiece of miniaturization and precise wiring. Their fingers, stained with grease and marked with small burns, moved with an economy born of endless repetition. Alongside the disablers, they calibrated the propulsion system in their boots, reinforced the grappling hook mechanism in their gauntlet, and packed small, high-intensity flashbangs and sonic emitters into the pouches of their utility belt. Every piece of equipment was tested, refined, and tested again until its function was as ingrained in Ren’s muscle memory as breathing.

On the morning of the exam, the house was unnaturally quiet. Ren sat at the dining room table, methodically eating a high-energy protein bar, their movements slow and deliberate. The case containing their gear sat on the chair beside them, a hard-shell black rectangle that seemed to absorb the light in the room. Their parents moved around the kitchen, their silence a heavy blanket of unspoken fear. As Ren stood to leave, their mother finally spoke, her voice tight. "Your phone is fully charged?"

"Yes," Ren said, clipping it to their belt.

"And you have the medical kit?" their father added, not looking at them.

"In the side pocket."

Their mother reached out, her hand hovering for a second before she placed it on Ren's shoulder. Her grip was firm. "Just… be careful, Ren."

Ren nodded, unable to meet her eyes. They picked up the gear case. The weight was familiar, comforting. "I will be."

The walk to the station and the train ride that followed was an exercise in sensory overload. The air itself seemed to vibrate with nervous energy, thick with the power of the other applicants. A boy standing near the door had hands that flickered between flesh and solid steel. A girl across the aisle absentmindedly levitated her bag an inch above her lap. They all carried a palpable aura of power, an untamed energy that leaked from their skin. They looked at Ren, at their plain clothes and their unassuming face, and then their eyes would slide away, dismissing them as a non-entity, someone who had wandered into the wrong place. Ren felt the glances like a physical touch, cold and sharp, but they forced their gaze forward, focusing on the rattling of the train car.

Stepping out onto the platform at the U.A. stop was like stepping into another world. The school was immense, a towering structure of gleaming glass and steel that seemed to pierce the sky. Its sheer scale was designed to intimidate, to impress upon all who approached that they were entering a legend. Hordes of teenagers swarmed towards the main gate, a river of ambition and power. The air crackled with their quirks, a low hum of energy that was both exhilarating and deeply alienating.

Ren walked among them, an island of quiet in a sea of noise. Whispers followed in their wake. "Is that person even trying out? They look so… normal." "Probably for General Studies." "No way someone like that gets into the hero course."

Each word was a tiny needle, a reminder of the world’s fundamental judgment. For a fleeting second, the crushing weight of their disbelief pressed down on Ren, a physical force that made their lungs feel tight. It would be so easy to turn around, to melt back into the anonymous crowd and go home.

But then their fingers tightened on the cool, textured handle of their gear case. Inside were the EMP Disablers, the grappling line, the boots. Inside was their answer. They had spent years preparing for this moment, not with physical training, but with thousands of hours of study, analysis, and engineering. Their power wasn't visible. It didn't crackle or glow. It was housed in the quiet, intricate pathways of their mind and manifested in the cold, hard logic of their equipment.

Ren stopped just before the massive gates, a threshold between their old life and the possibility of a new one. They lifted their head, ignoring the stares and the low murmur of the crowd. Their focus narrowed, blocking out everything but the path ahead. The faces of the other applicants blurred into an irrelevant background. The noise faded to a dull roar. They took one deep, slow breath, filling their lungs with the supercharged air. The monumental task ahead settled into place, not as an impassable mountain, but as a series of calculated steps. Analyze the system. Exploit the weakness. Prove the thesis. Their thesis. They took the first step forward, passing under the shadow of the U.A. archway. The whispers did not matter. The only thing that mattered now was the test.