Rain pelted the glass like needles.
Cold. Sharp. Endless.
Outside the dorm window, the world blurred. Inside, silence.
Eri sat curled on the couch, blanket around her knees. Her horn glowed faintly—barely visible in the dim room.
She hadn't eaten all day.
Didn't speak when Deku knocked earlier. Didn't flinch when Uraraka left her food on the table. She just... stared.
The photograph in her hand trembled.
A girl, eyes half-open. Smiling. Bleeding.
Eri's other hand clutched the scarf Aizawa gave her, crumpled like it couldn't hold her weight anymore.
Two hours earlier
Midoriya's voice cracked.
"You're lying."
The nurse shook her head. "We tried. Recovery Girl did all she could."
Rain beat louder now. Like the sky mourned with them.
Midoriya collapsed to the ground.
"Tell me... she's okay... please tell me Eri's fine."
"She's alive. But she saw everything."
The footage played back in Nezu's office.
Slow motion. Pixelated. Real.
A League scout, disguised as a civilian, crept toward UA's southern fence.
He never reached it.
Shinzo got to him first. But not fast enough.
There was a flash. Purple gas.
Then Eri ran into the clearing.
Screamed.
And someone else—some girl none of them knew—stepped in front of her.
Took the shot.
Vanished in the mist.
Gone before her body hit the ground.
"She rewound."
Aizawa's voice broke the silence in the room.
Midnight leaned forward. "What?"
"I saw it on the camera. Eri rewound her. The girl. Just for a second."
"She failed," Present Mic said, barely a whisper.
Aizawa clenched his jaw.
"No... She hesitated."
Now.
Back in the dorms.
Eri stood up.
Her legs shook.
She dropped the photo. Her scarf fell with it.
The hallway felt like a tunnel, pulling her forward.
Footsteps. Soft. Bare.
She stopped at Room 1-A's common area. The lights were dim. A single lamp flickered by the couch.
Midoriya sat there. Hair soaked. He hadn't left since the rain started.
He turned.
Saw her.
She spoke for the first time in ten hours.
"I killed her."
He shot up.
"No—Eri, no, it wasn't your—"
"I rewound her," she whispered. "But I stopped. I was... scared."
Her fingers dug into her own arms.
Midoriya stepped forward. Slowly. Like approaching a wounded animal.
"You didn't kill her."
"She smiled at me. Like Mama did before she—" her voice cracked.
"I tried. I tried. But my power—my curse—"
He wrapped his arms around her before she could finish.
"No more," he said. "You're not a curse."
She didn't hug back. Not right away.
But her body shook.
Her face buried against his shirt.
The rain outside softened.
Meanwhile, behind UA's secured medical wing…
Gran Torino examined the girl's body again.
"She's... regenerating."
Doctor Shield narrowed his eyes. "No. She's looping."
"What?"
"She's caught in a rewind echo. Like Eri triggered something, then stopped. A half-complete cycle."
The girl twitched.
Alive.
But her pulse was fractured. Faint.
"Eri left her mark," the doctor said.
A symbol.
A scar of time.
Midnight's report came through on Aizawa's phone.
::Subject Status: Stable. Name: Unknown. Condition: Chrono-Static.::
Aizawa read it once. Then again.
He turned off the phone.
Walked to his window.
Watched the rain.
And whispered to himself, "Eri... what did you awaken?"
Back at the dorms, Eri sat with Midoriya.
Still trembling. Still afraid.
But alive.
And for the first time since the attack—
She reached for her horn.
Touched it.
And didn't flinch.
To be continued.