Chapter 1: The Perfect Plan to Sleep
Close Cover
Everyone has their own struggles.
This was especially true for Tori Marumine.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEP—!!!
With a piercing buzzer that shredded the silence, the heavy steel gates began to rumble as they slid upward. Artificial sunlight poured through the widening gap, revealing an endless, miniature city beyond.
"START!!!"
The booming voice of Pro Hero Present Mic reverberated throughout the area.
He had just signaled the start of the U.A. Hero Entrance Exam.
That was the problem. The mere fact that Tori Marumine was present, listening to that roar, was the source of his inner turmoil.
The loud, boisterous man continued his rallying cry.
"In a real battle, there’s no countdown! Run! Run! R-R-R-RUUUUNNN!!!"
Before his cry had even faded, several students were already charging forward.
A bespectacled boy who spouted blue engine flames from his calves.
A fierce-looking blond boy who soared into the air as explosions erupted from his palms.
Leading the charge, dozens of shadows were swept into the testing grounds in the blink of an eye.
Watching them, Tori mused to himself:
Go for it, kids. Give it everything you’ve got.
Let’s be frank.
A Hero?
How could any sane person willingly pursue such a perilous line of work?
Tori Marumine had absolutely no intention of passing this exam.
Sure, he could have flunked the personality assessment or the written exam, but…
My allowance, you know...
If his written score fell, his hero-obsessed parents would waste no time confiscating his allowance.
The personality test was no different; he had to at least feign sincerity to keep the cash coming.
Yet, he couldn’t afford to succeed.
A passing score on the U.A. exam would seal his fate—three years minimum of societal exploitation, or even over a decade if he made it as a pro.
That equated to a lifetime utterly divorced from the comforts of laziness.
As he silently cheered on his more determined peers, Tori glanced at those still hesitating at the threshold.
"Aren't you guys going?"
"N-none of your business! Mind your own!"
Stung by his words, a few frightened students nearby mustered up the courage to launch themselves into battle.
Soon, Tori was the only one left by the entrance. He let out a languid, drawn-out yawn, then ambled away from the melee toward a quiet alleyway in the city.
Written exam. Personality test.
He had already cleared those hurdles, whether he liked it or not.
And that was perfectly fine.
All he needed to do now was botch the final practical exam.
Tori Marumine had a plan.
***
In U.A.’s dimly lit control room, dozens of monitors lined every wall, each streaming live footage from a different testing ground.
At the center, Principal Nezu sat in the largest chair, sipping tea, while Present Mic and a visibly fatigued Shota Aizawa stood nearby, eyes glued to the screens.
"Oh ho! Look at all these energetic kids this year! Especially that little firecracker in Ground B—already at 28 points in just three minutes! Insane, isn’t it?!"
Present Mic shouted excitedly. Aizawa, scratching his bandaged neck, replied coolly,
"Both you and that kid are way overexcited. Hero work isn’t a sprint."
"Oh, come on, don’t be so stiff, Eraser! It’s the spirit of youth!"
"Passion without reason is nothing but a nuisance."
Amid their banter, Nezu deftly manipulated the control panel with small, sure movements, analyzing data from every testing ground.
His dark eyes flitted across countless pieces of information as he processed them with ease.
"Hmm..."
At his low murmur, both men turned their gaze toward him.
"What is it, Principal?" Aizawa inquired.
"It’s odd. Take a look at Ground B, will you?"
With a slight gesture from Nezu, the central screen switched to a bird’s-eye view of Ground B. There, students continued to obliterate villain-drones and rack up points—a scene indistinguishable from any other testing ground.
"What’s so strange about that? They’re all giving it their all, aren’t they?"
"No, not exactly," Nezu replied, eyes narrowing. "Watch the rescue targets."
Other staff in the control room began to murmur as they focused on the screen. In the U.A. practical exam, a hidden scoring category—'Rescue Points'—allocated extra credit for saving dummy civilians placed in peril throughout the grounds.
Yet, something was amiss in Ground B.
"Huh...?" one operator murmured. "Civilian casualties... zero...?"
Aizawa’s brow furrowed. "Zero? In this chaotic environment? You’re saying not a single dummy has been damaged?"
"That’s not all." Nezu zoomed in on a specific area. A dummy of a crying child near a collapsed building and another, representing an elderly person with a twisted ankle, were both visible. Their movements, however, were peculiar.
As if guided by an unseen hand, they moved in flawless unison.
There was no sign of panic or indecision. They were following the safest, most direct route to the shelters without a moment’s hesitation.
Even the dummies programmed with limited mobility were striding briskly—as if, against all odds, they were moving faster than usual.
Dozens of rescue dummies were evacuating the disaster zone without ever coming into contact with a single hero candidate.
"What... is this...?" Present Mic’s jaw dropped. "Is it some sort of area-wide Quirk? Is someone secretly directing them?"
"Find out," Aizawa ordered quietly. "Scrub the Quirk usage records for every student in Ground B. There must be someone with a large-scale manipulation or command-type Quirk at work."
The operators’ fingers flew across the keyboards, and dozens of small windows popped up, each playing individual videos of the students. But the search yielded nothing.
"Nothing, sir! Most are physical enhancement or material transformation types—there isn’t a single record of a manipulation-type Quirk!"
"It could be a system error—or perhaps an unregistered ability!"
"We’ve analyzed every feed, but no student has shown even a hint of behavior that could explain this phenomenon...!"
A heavy silence descended over the control room. In a testing ground designed to be a paragon of controlled order, something utterly inexplicable was unfolding—a phenomenon that epitomized the very essence of heroic work.
"Just one student," Nezu said softly, his gaze locked on one particular feed. "There is one student who has done absolutely nothing."
The screen zoomed in on the central monitor, revealing Tori Marumine.
He lay on the roof of a five-story building, far removed from the heat of battle, nestled in the shadow of a water tank.
His loosely tied tie fluttered in the breeze as he looked as if he’d come for a leisurely picnic, completely at ease in his sleep.
"Name… Tori Marumine. Quirk: 'Stage Magic'?" Aizawa confirmed while reviewing his records.
In these days, stage tricks were strictly differentiated from bona fide magic and were officially dubbed 'Stage Magic.'
Yet, few could fathom what might occur if 'Stage Magic' manifested as an actual Quirk.
Present Mic erupted in disbelief as he reviewed a time-lapse from the security cameras. "Stage Magic? Like pulling pigeons out of a hat? This kid hasn’t lifted a finger since the start—he simply took a stroll and fell asleep! Zero Villain Points, zero rescue activity. What on earth is he doing?!"
If Tori had heard that, he probably would have grinned.
After all, that was exactly what he intended.
But fate, it seemed, was not on his side.
"I wonder about that," Nezu mused, a peculiar smile tugging at his lips—a smile that, had Tori heard it, might have elicited the sneer of a third-rate villain. His sharp fangs peeked out ever so slightly.
"Zero Villain Points. That’s an objective fact, as shown on his personal feed. There's no denying it."
"But are you suggesting that his rescue points might tell a different story, Principal?"
"Exactly!" Nezu exclaimed, spinning his chair around. "Every civilian in Ground B has been rescued perfectly, without a single casualty. What if this miraculous outcome is thanks to this student's 'Stage Magic' Quirk?"
"Principal!" Present Mic bellowed. "That’s absurd! There’s no evidence—merely a system error at best—to justify awarding high rescue points under such circumstances!"
"Perhaps," Nezu allowed, his tone far from conciliatory as he maintained his unwavering gaze on the sleeping boy. "But let’s think about it logically. What are the odds of such a flawless result happening purely by chance? If it were a system error, why hasn’t it occurred at the other grounds? We have a student who did absolutely nothing, yet a miracle unfolded only here. Can we truly claim these two facts are unrelated?"
"...That’s..." Aizawa faltered, struggling for a response.
In quieter moments, Aizawa often confessed that he was fundamentally opposed to this exam’s format. After all, a hero’s duty wasn’t merely to engage in combat—it was to save lives and bring comfort to people.
Yet the exam’s design emphasized combat above all else—especially the annihilation of villain-drones. Rescue points were hardly advertised, and they rarely carried significant weight.
While reviewing Tori Marumine’s personality assessment, Aizawa mused to himself:
Tori Marumine. Personality assessment—ordinary, though his self-rating was somewhat low.
But could someone really sleep so soundly in the midst of chaos? Was it possible that sleep served as a trigger for unlocking his Quirk’s full power? Why would a boy who had diligently aced both the written and personality tests—tests that would have made anyone take notice—deliberately sabotage his practical exam?
Indeed, the entire situation defied logic. And Nezu’s hypothesis, bordering on the fantastical—unprovable power, unseen intervention—was even more so.
However...
The essence of heroism is, above all, about saving lives.
"How interesting. Very, very interesting," Nezu laughed, his delight unmistakable. "Without revealing any flashy power and even exuding an air of nonchalance, he has achieved the exam’s hidden objective of 'Saving Lives' more perfectly than anyone else... If this is indeed the case, then we are witnessing an unprecedented talent."
thanks for the chapter