The moon hung low over U.A. High, casting pale light over the quiet dormitories. It should have been peaceful, yet Sabo stood on the rooftop of his dorm, the cool breeze ruffling his coat. His eyes scanned the horizon—beyond the gates, beyond the lights of Musutafu—searching.
He could feel it. A shift in the air. A tension he couldn't shake.
Flames curled absentmindedly around his fingers. Not from danger, but instinct. Back in his world, a quiet night like this usually meant one thing: something was coming.
"You can't sleep either?" a voice asked from behind him.
Sabo didn't need to turn to recognize it. Aizawa.
"No," Sabo replied. "It's too quiet."
Aizawa stepped up beside him, arms folded inside his capture weapon, his eyes scanning the skyline like a hawk.
"You feel it too," Sabo continued. "There's something… watching."
"You're not wrong," Aizawa muttered. "We've been monitoring abnormal villain communications. There's talk of someone new—someone smart."
Sabo's eyes narrowed. "And you think it's connected to me."
"I don't know what to think. Your appearance was sudden, and not exactly subtle. That villain you helped us fight—it wasn't acting alone. We intercepted an encrypted signal shortly after it retreated. Someone was watching through it."
Sabo's jaw clenched. "I've dealt with people like that before. Always hiding, always manipulating."
He turned to Aizawa, a flicker of fire dancing in his palm. "Let me help."
"You're not a student. Technically, you're not even a citizen here. But... you've got the instincts of a hero," Aizawa said. "We might need you sooner than I thought."
At that moment, something moved—quick, barely a shimmer in the shadows near the tree line outside the school walls.
Sabo and Aizawa both locked eyes on it.
A flicker, then gone.
Aizawa's hair began to float, Erasure Quirk activating, but there was nothing there anymore.
"Could be surveillance," he muttered. "Or a test. Either way, we increase patrols starting now."
Sabo nodded, his pipe slung over his shoulder.
If something was watching, it had better be ready.
Because he was watching back.
—
The next morning, Class 1-A bustled with the usual chaos—Ashido trying to convince Kaminari to prank Mineta, Iida lecturing about hallway speed limits, and Bakugo yelling at anyone within ten feet. But Sabo noticed something else: Midoriya was staring at him. A lot.
"Hey," Sabo called out during a break. "Got something on your mind, green hair?"
Midoriya jumped, blushing furiously. "Sorry! I—I just had some questions. About how you fight. And where you're from. And your flames, and—uh—if you don't mind!"
Sabo laughed. "Sure, why not. I'm not great with notebooks, though."
Midoriya lit up. "That's okay! I do the writing. You just talk."
They sat under the tree in the training yard. Midoriya flipped open his notebook while Sabo leaned back against the bark.
"So, your flames," Midoriya began. "They don't seem like a Quirk. They're too... responsive."
"That's because they're not a Quirk," Sabo said. "They come from something called the Mera Mera no Mi. A Devil Fruit."
Midoriya's pencil froze mid-word. "Devil... Fruit?"
"Yeah. In my world, we have them. Eating one grants you abilities—at a price."
Midoriya blinked. "What price?"
Sabo looked up at the sky. "The sea. I can never swim again."
"Oh," Midoriya said quietly. "That's... kind of ironic, considering your name means 'mackerel'."
Sabo chuckled. "Never thought of that."
They talked for nearly an hour, Midoriya scribbling furiously. As the bell rang, he looked up, eyes shining. "Thank you. You didn't have to tell me all that."
"You remind me of someone," Sabo said, standing up. "He used to chase dreams like you."
"Was he a hero too?"
Sabo smiled. "He would've made a great one."
—
That night, Sabo returned to the rooftop. Something still felt off. The wind carried a strange smell—burnt metal, ozone, smoke.
He narrowed his eyes and summoned a small flame, letting it hover above his palm.
"Come out," he said softly.
A shimmer appeared across the rooftop, like a ripple in the air. Then a figure stepped into view—cloaked, masked, and carrying a strange device on their wrist.
"You're better than I thought," the figure said in a distorted voice. "But not enough."
Sabo's eyes burned. "Who are you?"
The figure raised their arm. "A shadow. And I'm here to test the fire."
With a flick of his wrist, a small black portal opened beside him. From it stepped a creature—mechanical, humanoid, with glowing red eyes and a body reinforced with armor and synthetic muscle.
"Modified Nomu," the figure said. "Courtesy of our benefactor."
Sabo didn't wait.
He charged.
Flames exploded from his feet as he crossed the rooftop in a blink, swinging his pipe with a roar. The Nomu raised its arms, blocking the blow—but Sabo's fire ignited its armor instantly, warping the metal.
The two clashed in a flurry of blows—fire meeting brute force. The Nomu lashed out with spiked arms, but Sabo ducked under, spinning and landing a fire-imbued kick to its knee, shattering the joint.
The masked figure watched silently, data recording from the device on his wrist.
Sabo roared, "Flame Dragon!"
He unleashed a twisting cyclone of fire that engulfed the Nomu, incinerating its outer shell. It let out a metallic screech before exploding into pieces.
When the flames cleared, the rooftop was scorched, smoke rising from the tiles. The masked figure was gone.
But something remained—a scorched card, fluttering in the wind.
Sabo picked it up.
On it, a symbol: a broken crown wreathed in fire.
And beneath it, a message:
"Burn long enough… and even kings will fall."