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A/N: Hello, fellow readers! I'm happy to see my fic getting so much attention over these past couple of days, I'm here to address a couple of questions and also some advice that you guys have sent me:
Question 1: Why does Shoda use a bow instead of a gun?
I addressed it briefly in the first chapter, but I'll go into more detail. When Shoda uses a bow, he has to grab an arrow; thus, when the arrow is in the air, he can activate his quirk, making it much much more destructive than a "gun." This fanfic was created on my belief that archers are very underrated in this platform.
I know this might be a concern for you all since you guys like hand-to-hand combat; however, do not fret since he will also be very strong hands-on, the bow is just his main weapon. Remember that in this world, there are people who can turn an entire city into ice. Shoda definitely cannot handle that with just martial arts.
Question 2: Why give him a 3-section staff instead of just being another version of Juji Itadori? (I'm left, I'm left,t I'm right, I'm right)
The reason is quite simple: I, for some reason, didn't take into account that his quirk can be used like 'black flash'. For some reason, that never clicked in my brain, so thank you, guys, for this. I will definitely incorporate this into the story to further progress Shoda's character.
But I am keeping the 3-section staff since Sakamoto days has influenced me too much.
Anyway, thank you guys for everything, and I hope you enjoy!
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I was afraid.
Just months ago, I was in junior high, worrying about quizzes and training drills—not whether I'd have to fight villains on a school field trip.
But none of that mattered now at all, at least not to them.
The villains didn't care how young we were. Their twisted faces showed no regret, no mercy. Only bloodlust. Only evil.And all of it—all of it—was aimed straight at us.
My hands trembled in fear. My breath came in shallow bursts as I tried to control it. I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. I wanted to hide.
Then suddenly, I felt it—a hand grabbing mine.
I turned, startled. And saw him.
Shoda's black eyes stared into mine—calm, unreadable, like staring into the deepest part of the ocean. He wore that stupid side-smirk of his. Cocky. Relaxed. Like this was just another drill.
But somehow…it worked on me.
His confidence didn't feel arrogant.
It felt safe.
"Together."
His voice was low, rough but grounded. It was almost as if he was reading my mind.
I squeezed his hand.
It was warm. Solid. Strong. Making my heart slow down just enough to think straight again.
He nodded once—just once—before letting go.
And then, with no hesitation, he moved.
Down the stairs.
Alone.
I watched as Shoda reached for the edge of his mask. In a breath, it began to shift—smooth metal sliding, clicking, locking into place like clockwork gears finding their rhythm. A low mechanical hum filled the air as the transformation completed, engulfing his face and neck in a sleek armored shell.
A deep, midnight-black helmet now cloaked him—angular, sharp, futuristic. It gave him a silhouette that didn't look entirely human. It looked more like a robotic superhero.
But the eyes…Glowing a fierce, electric purple, the lenses pulsed like twin embers in the dark. Watching. Calculating. Alive. They bathed the air around him in that eerie glow, turning him into something else—something impossible to look away from.
We didn't speak.
Then Monoma moved. No smirk. No sarcasm. Just raw determination burning behind his eyes.
Tetsutetsu followed next—fists clenched, jaw locked. One by one, the rest of them began to follow. Not because they weren't afraid. But because they refused to let fear get the better of them. Like Shoda said during the emergency evacuation, they were U.A. students, so they better act like it.
I closed my eyes.
Took one breath.
And let it all go—the panic, the dread.
Because I wasn't fighting this battle alone.
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An arrow sliced through the air—its speed unremarkable at first.
But in a blink, its velocity spiked. A sonic burst echoed as the arrow blurred, vanishing from sight until it slammed into its target with bone-crushing force.
The villain went flying, his body ricocheting off the ground before crashing into a tree. A crater formed where he landed. His body didn't move.
Silence.
Time stopped for a moment as all eyes turned to the source.
Shoda stood still, bow raised, the hum of his mask pulsing softly. Those glowing purple eyes struck fear into the villains.
That's when it hit them—if they didn't take him out first, he'd dismantle them all. one by one.
Suddenly, many of the villains abandoned the idea of taking on Eraserhead and Vlad King, charging straight toward Shoda with reckless determination.
But they didn't make it far.
Class 1-B had already moved. Spread across the battlefield like a net, they defended their sharpshooter without hesitation. Every time a villain got close, they were knocked back, countered, or dropped before they even had the chance to blink.
Shoda didn't flinch. Behind his mask, a smirk curled his lips.
'This helmet… Mei Hatsume, I fucking love you.'
His vision lit up with real-time data—trajectory paths, wind resistance, movement prediction. Arrows practically guided themselves. It was surgical.
–Flashback–
"I found this, by the way." Mei's voice echoed in the empty U.A. workshop, her hands stained with oil. "Tweaked it a little. It should help with all your gear. It's got a battle-assist program now."
Shoda looked up from where he was cleaning his bow, eyes narrowing at the metal mask.
"Hm?"
He took it, inspecting it briefly before slipping it over his head. The moment it touched his skin, it began to shift—sliding, locking, adjusting. A perfect fit.
Looking at Mei, he didn't know what else to do until she pointed her jawline. Shoda touched the bottom of the mask as it transformed into a helmet.
The world changed.
His vision sharpened, expanded—numbers, angles, motion paths dancing across his display like a strategist's dream. It was overwhelming for a moment... but he could handle it.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a coin from his wallet, and tossed it across the workshop. No weight. Just a flick of the wrist.
The mask reacted instantly—highlighting the coin, projecting a glowing line of trajectory.
He nocked an arrow.
Fired.
The arrow pierced straight through the coin's center, embedding itself in the far wall with a solid thunk.
There was a moment of Silence between them as they both processed what just happened.
"If your eyes are fixed onto something for more than a second, it catches whatever it is and well, it does that." Mei states nonchalantly with a smile.
Shoda turned slowly toward Mei, his voice deadly serious.
"You're gonna live in a hospital with the amount of babies me and you finna make in the future."
She didn't even blink. Just grinned like she'd expected nothing less. Not even weirded out by what Shoda said.
–Flashback end–
Shoda's eyes tracked Honenuki as he dropped low, slamming his palm into the ground. The terrain beneath the villains rippled and softened like mud, dragging them down and locking their movements. Kendo followed up, her fists a blur as she struck villains with incredible force, dropping enemy after enemy like dominoes.
Shoda didn't waste a second.
He drew three arrows in one smooth motion, nocking them in rapid succession. Sending the arrows flying with an already unimaginable amount of speed, he exhaled, and his quirk surged to life—energy humming through the arrows.
Thwip.
Three glowing streaks of light flew overhead. Each one curved through the air, guided by data fed into his helmet, and struck precisely—knees, shoulders, joints. The immobilized villains crumpled before they could even scream.
The synergy between Honenuki and Shoda was coming alive. With every moment, fewer villains stood. A few began to hesitate. Some even backed away.
But Shoda's eyes weren't on them.
His eyes were on the Nomu.
It hadn't moved yet after all, it didn't need to. But it would. Soon enough.
Across the battlefield, Aizawa's binding cloth whipped around a villain's neck, yanking him off balance and slamming him into the ground with brutal efficiency. Using the momentum, Aizawa launched himself toward Shigaraki, Kurogiri, and that hulking shadow looming behind them.
At the same moment, Vlad King crushed another attacker with a powerful elbow and kicked off the ground, launching after his colleague.
Shigaraki tilted his head, voice casual but cold.
"Well, well, well… Getting bold, aren't we?"
His red eyes flicked between the two pro heroes as he scratched his neck.
If it had been just Aizawa, maybe Shigaraki would've entertained the fight—drawn it out. But now? He was bored already. Too annoying to deal with two pro-heroes at the same time.
"Nomu."
And the monster moved.
Faster than anything its size should. A blur of muscle and power. In an instant, it caught Aizawa mid-air like a doll, then spun and slammed him into Vlad King with crushing force.
The impact echoed like an explosion.
A crater exploded into the earth beneath them. The ground quaked, a shockwave rippling across the battlefield.
Everything stopped.
The fighting. The shouting. Even the wind.
Every eye turned.
Wide with disbelief.
Fear.
From the students and villains alike.
Shigaraki's boots crunched softly on the fractured ground as he walked casually toward the crater.
The Nomu loomed atop Aizawa and Vlad King, its massive bulk weighing them down like a living tombstone. Blood trickled from their mouths, their faces barely visible beneath bruises and dust. Their eyes fluttered, desperate not to close.
Shigaraki crouched beside them, tilting his head, curiosity flickering behind his scarred, decaying hand.
"Meet the anti-symbol of peace," he whispered, voice like razors through velvet. "A little something special we cooked up in the dark..."
He paused, watching their faces twitch in pain. He smiled—not wide, but deep. Enjoying it.
"...Nomu."
The name was unknown, causing even more fear to the people around. A few students from Class 1-A who were hiding around the battlefield overheard the name. They wanted to do something, but in the face of a monster. They were hopeless.
Shoda, lower on the field, felt his fingers twitch around the grip of his bow.
They were shaking.
He was shaking.
Could he even kill something like that? Could arrows pierce whatever that monster was?
Could he actually do anything that mattered?
Todoroki's hands burned and froze at once, indecision paralyzing him. If he used ice now, he'd trap the Nomu… but maybe the teachers too. One wrong move, and he could bury them in frost. The risk burned hotter than his fire.
Down in the crater, Shigaraki turned back toward Aizawa.
"Canceling quirks… that's cute," he said, voice a twisted mockery of sympathy. "But that's nothing in the face of absolute strength." He paused, staring down at Vlad King. "Blood control... Now that's fun. I wonder... how much can you bleed before you die?"
Then came the snap.
Aizawa's arm.
Cracked like dry wood.
A moment later—CRACK—Vlad's leg was folded the wrong way, bone piercing skin.
"GAAAAAAHHHHHH!!" Both heroes screamed in unison, the sound ripping through the battlefield like a siren.
For a heartbeat, the world stopped breathing.
And then—something snapped in return.
Shoda moved. His anger taking control.
Nobody even saw it.
Nobody except Izuku, who was hiding in the lake behind the main villains and the Nomu—both sharp enough to register; however, one of them was too slow to react.
In exactly 0.5 seconds, Shoda had already drawn two oversized, reinforced arrows—each as long as his forearm, thick and heavy, meant for breaking through armor and bone.
He nocked them.
Fired.
The arrows tore through the air, but when he activated his quirk, the arrows detonated mini shockwaves through their path. The very ground was leaving a mark of its path. His helmet instantly calculated wind, trajectory, and enemy position. Every variable locked into place like the inside of a war machine.
Whistles turned to thunder.
The Nomu turned—inhumanly fast.
It sensed danger, so it moved.
The beast threw out both its arms. The arrows punched clean through its palms—flesh exploded—but it was just enough. The angle shifted, barely.
Schrriiick!
One of the arrows missed Shigaraki's skull by a hair, slicing a thin, angry line across his cheek.
Blood dripped down.
Everything went still.
A silence so total, it felt like gravity had dropped.
Shigaraki slowly turned his head toward where the arrows had come from—toward Shoda, standing still, bow still raised.
"…Fuck," Shoda whispered inside the helmet. "I missed."
All eyes snapped to him.
Students. Villains. Nomu.
Even Shigaraki.
His bloodied face split into something... unfamiliar.
Not rage.
Not amusement.
Interest.
"Well now…" he said slowly. "Who the hell are you?"
"Hey," Shoda said, voice filtered through the helmet's modulator—cold, metallic, steady. It disguised the tremor in his gut. "Why don't you just call it quits, huh? All Might and the rest of the staff are already on their way. They'll be here any second."
There was a pause.
Even the wind seemed to freeze.
Shigaraki didn't move.
Until.
"He's correct, Tomura Shigaraki," Kurogiri spoke, his voice calm and clinical, like a butler. "It is highly probable the students who evacuated have already reached U.A. The heroes will arrive shortly."
The silence cracked.
"Tch!"
Shigaraki began to violently claw at his neck, deep red gashes forming beneath his fingertips. His breaths came fast, ragged, and panicked.
"Dammit, Kurogiri! You let these brats run wild, and now look at us! You know what happens when dozens of heroes show up! It's game over man, game over!"
His voice broke halfway through—cracking under the weight of what was coming. His plans were much too important to end today.
The students held their breath. Even the villains took a half step back.
And then.
Shigaraki froze.
The scratching stopped.
His arms fell limped at his sides, shoulders slouched.
"...We're leaving."
The words fell like lead.
Relief began to ripple through the field, finally, they could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
But it shattered with his next breath.
"But…"
Shigaraki slowly tilted his head. A twisted grin pulled at his lips, hidden by the hand covering his face. His eyes locked on Shoda with a venomous glint.
"...before we go, I think I'll leave a few corpses behind. Or rather… just one."
His hand raised.
Pointed.
Directly at Shoda.
"Nomu."
The monster stirred like a war engine awakening. His hands had already healed.
"Kill him."
BOOM.
The earth cracked beneath the Nomu's feet as it launched forward, leaving a smoking crater where it once stood.
The monster ignored Aizawa and Vlad King entirely, eyes locked on its target with primal, unrelenting hunger.
It was coming for Shoda.
A blink—and it was already halfway there.
To everyone else, it moved with such speed that it looked like it distorted reality itself.
However, to Shoda, Everything slowed down.
The air grew heavy. His heartbeat rang in his ears like drums. Time fractured. He could see the Nomu's muscles contorting with every stride. Could feel the pressure ripple toward him.
And he knew.
He wasn't going to dodge in time.
Not with those speeds.
Not with that power.
He was going to die.
'Brace for impact?'
No. He wouldn't survive. One hit would shatter his body.
'I can't outrun it. I can't tank it. It's over.'
But in that collapsing second—Under the pressure, under the fear, something sparked.
A last-ditch gamble.
'What if I counter? If I punch at the same time, at the exact moment of contact, and activate my quirk with perfect timing… I can redirect the damage. All of it. Into just my arm.'
His breath caught.
'It'll break every bone in that arm… maybe worse. But this is all I got...'
'This is it!'
"NOW!"
He threw his bow.
It clattered somewhere in the distance.
Shoda planted his feet, digging his heels into the ground, every muscle in his body coiling like a wire pulled too tight. He twisted at the waist, his entire frame winding up as the air around him seemed to vibrate with pressure.
The Nomu's fist was massive—twice the size of his head—blurring through the air like a missile. Its knuckles gleamed in the light, wet with blood from Aizawa and Vlad. It was too fast for anyone else to see clearly, but to Shoda—his helmet's internal systems tracking its speed and trajectory—time moved like honey.
A desperate yet calculated attempt to live.
The shock absorption braces on his forearm flared to life with a high-pitched mechanical whine, glowing faintly under the fabric.
And for the first time in his life, Shoda's quirk activated at 100% power on contact.
0.00001 seconds after impact.
The moment their fists met, everything became a blur for him.
A shockwave ripped outward like a nuclear blast, sending dirt, debris, and even a few villains flying. The ground beneath the entire battlefield cracked and buckled, collapsing like a sinkhole under the sheer force of redirected power.
Shoda's body was launched backward like a ball.
He bounced multiple times, skidding and crashing through shattered pavement and trees, smashing through them like nothing.
When he finally came to a stop, he wasn't moving.
His left arm was mangled beyond recognition. Bones pierced through skin, blood soaking through what remained of his tattered sleeve. The braces on his wrist had melted, and his shoulder was twisted in a way that made several students gasp in horror.
But he was alive.
Barely.
Smoke hissed off the impact crater where the Nomu had been. The monster, now kneeling, looked stunned. Its forearm trembled, slightly cracked—as if it hadn't expected damage at all.
Everyone stood frozen. Even Shigaraki.
And somewhere amid the settling dust, a sound cut through the silence. A door slammed open.
From the entrance of the USJ, a gust of wind tore through the battlefield as a towering figure appeared, instantly beside Shoda's broken body.
The Symbol of Peace.
He who was always smiling was now fully serious.
All Might knelt beside Shoda, eyes scanning his ruined arm, the shredded suit, the bruises, the blood. There was no time for panic—only precision. He pressed two fingers to Shoda's neck.
A pulse.
His face softened—just for a moment—and he gave the faintest nod. "He's going to live," he whispered to himself.
Then he stood.
And in the next breath, the air shifted.
The ground seemed to tremble beneath the sheer force of his presence.
Eyes shadowed, jaw clenched, he finally spoke:
"I… am here."
And with those words, the battle ended.
"SHODA!!!"
A voice broke through the moment.
Kendo.
She sprinted across the fractured battlefield, dodging rubble and chaos, falling to her knees beside him. Her hands hovered over his shattered arm, trembling.
Shoda's eyes fluttered—just once.
That voice. He recognized it.
It was Kendo's.
Somewhere between the pain and agony, her voice reached him—soft, desperate, real. It pulled at him, anchored him for a heartbeat longer. His vision swam, blurred by blood and dust, but through it all, he caught a glimpse of her face.
Eyes wide with panic. Hands reaching for him.
He wanted to say something.
But the strength left him.
His eyes rolled back, and just like that—
Everything went black.