ShuraZero
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Chapter 36: Melissa Shield
🕑 Added 2025-10-08 17:40:57 +0000 UTC"I can't watch! Nezu, for God's sake, tell him to stop! He's going to die! They're going to pulverize him!"
Yu's voice was a sharp shriek, loaded with a panic that bounced off the thick armored glass of the observation room. Her palms were pressed against the window, her face contorted in terror as she stared at the lone figure in the center of Campo Gamma.
"Calm yourself, Mt. Lady," Nezu said with a composure that Yu found infuriating. He didn't look up from his teacup, its steam swirling slowly in the room's air conditioning. "Mr. Midoriya is fully aware of the risks he has undertaken."
"Of course he isn't! He's a suicidal maniac with a data collection fetish!" she retorted, turning to face him with wide eyes. "Have you seen the protocol on those drones? They aren't programmed to stop! Their objective is to incapacitate!"
Sitting in a chair with her hero boots propped casually on a powered-down console, Mirko let out a loud, hoarse laugh. "Shut up for a second and watch the show, Takeyama! This is about to get good!" She leaned forward, a wild grin spreading across her lips. "I bet a thousand yen the pipsqueak doesn't have to move a single inch. Not even a dodge."
"I'll take that bet, Rumi," Nemuri chimed in, leaning back in her seat with a smile of pure amusement. She crossed her legs and looked at the rabbit hero. "The faith Izuku-kun has in his student is absolute. It would be rude of us to doubt the outcome of his training."
"Faith? Nemuri, this isn't a matter of faith!" Yu insisted, her voice rising an octave. "It's physics! Velocity, mass, trajectory! There are twenty of those things in there!"
"And there is a garden," Nezu said, finally looking up from his tea, his black eyes shining with an unfathomable intelligence. "And sometimes, precise control over something organic surpasses the brute force of a machine."
Down below, in the center of the simulated industrial zone, Izuku stood completely still. His posture was relaxed, his hands in the pockets of his training suit. Around him, Ibara Shiozaki's "Garden of Divine Fury" was a silent, expectant web of vines tipped with thorns the size of combat knives. The air hummed with electric anticipation.
Izuku spoke, his voice calm and clear in Ibara's earpiece. "Ready, Shiozaki?"
"Yes, Midoriya-sensei," she answered from the elevated control platform, her hands hovering just above the panel.
"Remember what we practiced. Don't think about me. I'm not there. I'm a rock, a lamppost, part of the scenery. I don't exist," he said. "Only the targets exist. You are the garden, and they are the weeds. Your only job is to pull the weeds out by the roots."
Ibara took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment. He doesn't exist, sensei. Only the weeds. Understood.
"Begin the drone attack simulation," Nezu ordered over the intercom.
With a pneumatic hiss, twenty gates opened in the field's walls and twenty training drones shot out. They were fast, agile, and moved in erratic patterns, converging directly on the motionless figure in the center of the garden.
*****
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, on a secluded beach on I-Island, the morning sun shone on the white sand. The only sound was the gentle murmur of the waves and the powerful voice of a man.
"More power!"
All Might's shout seemed to shake the very island. He was in his muscle form, a mountain of optimism and power standing next to a determined and nervous Melissa Shield. It was her first day of training.
"One For All isn't used like a whisper, my girl!" he exclaimed, flexing a bicep nearly the size of Melissa's head. His smile was as bright as the sun. "It's a roar you unleash from the depths of your soul! You have to feel it in every fiber!"
"I'm sorry, Uncle Might," Melissa said, panting. Sweat beaded on her forehead. "It's just... it's too much. I try to control it and it just overflows."
"Hahaha! You'll soon learn to tame that pressure!" he boomed. "Now, focus! Remember the trick I taught you! Imagine an egg in the microwave! You don't want it to explode and make a mess, you just want it to heat up evenly. Let the power flow through your whole body, not just your arm!"
Melissa squeezed her eyes shut, her face tight with concentration. She could feel it. A crackling energy, a pure power waiting to be released, buzzing just beneath her skin. It was overwhelming.
"That's it! Feel it settle!" All Might encouraged her. "Now, to unleash it, the method that never fails! The secret of heroes for generations!" He took a powerful stance, knees bent and back straight. "Clench your buttcheeks and yell from the bottom of your heart!"
Melissa opened one eye, confusion breaking her concentration. "Clench... my buttcheeks?"
"Of course!" he declared with a seriousness so absolute it was almost comical. "It's the center of your power! The fulcrum for your strength! All great power needs a solid foundation! Now, try it! I don't want one hundred percent! Not even twenty! Just five percent! Give me a SMASH!"
*****
Back in Musutafu, the Garden was a whirlwind of calculated, green violence. A drone dove at Izuku from his right flank, its thrusters whining aggressively.
"Here it comes!" Yu yelled, flinching as if the drone would burst through the glass.
But before it could get within three meters, a thick vine shot out from the ground. It wasn't a wild movement, but a precise one. It wrapped around the drone with lightning speed and crushed it with a metallic crunch that echoed across the field. The scrap metal fell to the ground. The vine moved with fluid precision, passing inches from Izuku's shoulder without even touching his clothes.
"That's it!" Mirko exclaimed, slamming a fist on her knee. "One down! See, Takeyama? Pure control."
"Impressive," Nemuri murmured, her analytical eyes fixed on the scene. "The vine didn't even consider Izuku-kun an obstacle."
Two more drones attacked from the front in a pincer movement. Ibara didn't even blink. Two thinner, faster vine whips shot from the ground and sliced the drones in half in midair with a dry snap. The pieces fell harmlessly to the ground, a safe distance from Izuku.
"Well done, Shiozaki," Izuku's voice said in her ear. There was no emotion, just a quiet affirmation. "Keep breathing. Control the pace. Don't let their speed dictate yours. This is your domain."
"Yes, sensei," she whispered, her knuckles white from how tightly she gripped the console.
In the observation room, Yu had forgotten to scream. Now she just stared, her eyes wide with astonishment. "I don't get it," she muttered. "Her reaction time is... impossible."
"She isn't waiting for them to attack before she moves," Nezu corrected, taking a sip of tea. "She is anticipating their trajectories. Midoriya didn't just teach her how to control her vines; he taught her how to feel through them. She feels the entire garden as if it were an extension of her own body."
*****
On I-Island, Melissa took a deep breath. She clenched her fists. And then, with fierce determination, she clenched her buttcheeks with all her might.
An egg in the microwave!
She channeled the power, feeling it crackle under her skin, rising up her legs, through her torso, and concentrating in her right arm. It was too much. Far more than she had imagined. She tried to contain it, struggling to distribute it through her body, but the energy was overwhelming her.
"Now, my girl! Release it!" All Might yelled, his voice a burst of encouragement.
Melissa raised her fist and, with all the strength in her lungs, screamed from the bottom of her heart.
"SMAAASH!"
For a split second, it was glorious. A blast of pure power erupted from her fist. A visible shockwave swept across the beach, kicking up a cloud of sand and seawater.
And then, the power she couldn't contain shattered her.
CRACK!
The sound was horrific, a wet, unnatural snap that was heard even over the echo of the SMASH. The recoil threw her backward, sending her flying several meters through the air before she landed with a dull thud on the soft sand. A sharp, gut-wrenching scream of pain replaced her battle cry.
"Melissa!" The panic in All Might's voice was instant and absolute. His muscle form vanished in a cloud of steam as he ran to her, reverting to the frail, emaciated Toshinori Yagi. "Melissa, answer me!"
She was on the ground, cradling her right arm against her chest, her face pale and twisted in unbearable pain. Tears streamed down her cheeks. The arm was bent at an angle no arm should ever be.
The first day of training had been a painful, brutal failure.
****
"Six at once! A coordinated attack from the perimeter!" Mirko exclaimed, almost as if she were commentating a sporting event. She had jumped to her feet, unable to sit still.
In Campo Gamma, a squad of six drones swarmed Izuku from all directions.
"Don't get overwhelmed, Shiozaki. Don't focus on each one," Izuku's calm voice said. "You are the center. The garden is you. Feel where they are. You don't need to see them."
Ibara raised her hands. The ground at Izuku's feet seemed to boil. In a fraction of a second, a dozen pillars of thorny vines erupted from the concrete, forming a protective and deadly cage around him. It wasn't a solid wall, but an intricate, lethal network. The drones, unable to alter their course in time, smashed into the living cage. They were instantly impaled and torn apart with silent violence.
"YES!" Mirko shouted, slamming her fist on the console. "Simultaneous defense and offense! That's what I wanted to see! You owe me a thousand yen, Midnight!"
Nemuri simply smiled, took a bill from her purse, and handed it to her. "Best money I've ever spent, Rumi. Seeing a student blossom like this... is worth every yen."
The test continued for five more minutes. It was a methodical slaughter. Not a single drone managed to get within the three-meter perimeter around Izuku. Ibara's vines moved with predatory intelligence, intercepting and annihilating every threat with terrifying efficiency.
When the last drone was smashed against a wall by a vine as thick as a tree trunk, a dead silence fell over the training field.
Ibara stood on her platform, panting slightly. Slowly, with a wave of her hand, the vines retreated back underground, leaving Izuku alone amid a graveyard of shattered metal.
He walked toward her, climbing the stairs to the control platform. He had a smile of immense pride on his face. He simply raised a hand and gently ruffled her hair, which was actually her own vines, a surprisingly paternal gesture.
"You did it," he said, his voice soft.
Ibara looked up, a tired but radiant smile lighting up her face. "We did it," she replied.
"How did you feel?" he asked.
"At first... terrified," she admitted. "I felt like everything was moving too fast. But then I focused on your voice, sensei. And I stopped thinking. I just... felt. It was as if I could feel the vibrations of their engines through the roots. I knew where they would be before they moved."
"Exactly," Izuku nodded. "That's the point. Your Quirk isn't just a weapon, it's a sense. Today, you learned to listen with it."
******
In the pristine I-Island infirmary, the atmosphere was grim. David Shield finished adjusting the cast on Melissa's arm. The x-ray on the high-definition screen showed multiple spiral fractures along her radius and ulna with brutal clarity.
"The recoil was too much for the bone structure," David said, his voice clinical to hide his anguish. "The torsion of the power generated a force your bones couldn't withstand. You're lucky it didn't shatter completely."
Toshinori, sitting in a chair by the bed, looked as if he had aged ten years. He held his head in his hands. "It was my fault. I pushed her too hard. I was a fool. The egg in the microwave, clenching your buttcheeks... what was I thinking? I'm a terrible teacher."
"No, Uncle Might," Melissa said, her voice weak but firm. She was fighting through the pain, but there was no defeat in her eyes. "It wasn't your fault. I did exactly what you told me. The problem is me. It's my body. It's just... not ready."
They were facing the harsh reality. Her body, without a pre-existing Quirk to have passively strengthened it, was not ready to contain even a fraction of One For All's power.
"We'll find a way," David said, though it sounded more like a desperate prayer. He moved to the screen. "I can design a support. A full-body exoskeleton that can help you distribute the strain..."
But everyone knew that was just a patch, not a real solution.
Melissa looked at her casted arm, a silent frustration burning inside her. Then, she looked up at Toshinori, whose face was filled with guilt. Her gaze was one of fierce challenge.
"This isn't over," she said, her voice regaining its strength. "As soon as this arm heals, we're trying again."
"Melissa, we can't..." Toshinori began.
"Yes, we can," she interrupted. "And we will. And if it breaks again, we'll heal it and try again. As many times as it takes. I won't give up, Uncle Might. Not after you've put your trust in me."
