ShuraZero
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Chapter 36: Room 302
🕑 Added 2025-09-28 18:21:52 +0000 UTCAt the nurses' station in the intensive care unit of Musutafu General Hospital, the previous night's silence was only broken by the soft hum of equipment and the rhythmic beeping of monitors watching over the fragile lives that hung by a thread. Dr. Kenji Ito, a middle-aged man with tired eyes and a patience forged in thirty-six-hour shifts, was making his rounds. His rubber shoes slid silently across the polished linoleum as his eyes scanned the screens, checking the data with routine efficiency.
He stopped.
His brow, usually a line of calm concentration, furrowed in an expression of pure disbelief. There was a monitor that made no sense. The one for Room 302. The patient, Izuku Midoriya. The system had him marked with a flashing red alert: "Palliative Care." A clinical euphemism for "beyond saving." The boy had arrived with multi-organ failure, fractures that looked like a shattered road map, and severe head trauma. They had done everything possible, but his vital signs had been plummeting for hours.
But now… now they were rising.
"What the hell…?" he muttered to himself, moving closer to the screen.
It wasn't an erratic spike. It was a slow, steady, almost defiant climb. His blood pressure, which had been dangerously low, was normalizing. His heart rate, which had been a faint whisper, gained strength with each beep. It was medically impossible. It was like watching a dead flower come back to life in real time.
Alarmed, his scientific curiosity piqued, Dr. Ito headed for Room 302. The protocol was clear: unrestricted access to critically ill patients. But when he tried to open the door, he found it was locked from the inside. A flagrant violation of hospital protocol. The alarm in his brain went from yellow to red.
He knocked gently, his voice professional but firm.
"Mrs. Midoriya? This is Dr. Ito. I need to come in and check on your son. It's standard procedure."
Silence. Not a murmur.
He knew who was inside: the boy's mother, Inko Midoriya, and two of his classmates. He had seen them enter hours ago, their faces pale and their eyes red-rimmed. The thought of calling security and causing a scene with U.A. students, especially after the media nightmare of the attack, made his stomach churn. He made a decision. He pulled out his personal phone and made a confidential call, one he had hoped he would never have to make.
Ten minutes later, the quiet hallway witnessed a surreal meeting. Principal Nezu, with his unsettling calm, and a haggard Toshinori Yagi in his skeletal form, appeared like ghosts. Their faces were two masks of grim concern.
"Dr. Ito, thank you for your discretion," Nezu said, his voice soft but carrying a weight that demanded attention.
"Principal, All Might," the doctor greeted them with a nod, showing them a tablet with Izuku's vitals. "Look at this. Three hours ago, his organs were in a cascading failure. We were preparing for the worst. And now… his vitals aren't just stabilizing. They're improving. It defies all medical logic. There is no machine connected to him that could do this. It's as if his body is rebooting from the inside."
The doctor lowered the tablet, his expression serious.
"The door is locked from the inside, and they're not responding. I know his mother and two girls from his class are in there."
Toshinori's eyes widened, a desperate gleam of hope within them.
"He's healing! It's a miracle!" he exclaimed, his voice a hoarse but emotional whisper. "We have to get in! Maybe Recovery Girl can boost the effect!"
He was about to take a step toward the door, his instincts screaming at him to act, when Nezu's hand landed on his arm, stopping him cold.
"Stop, Toshinori," Nezu said with glacial calm. "Think. An impossible recovery, three people very close to him, a locked door. Don't you see? Whatever is happening in there is not a miracle. It's a Quirk phenomenon. A very personal one. We are not going to barge in as if they were criminals in their most desperate moment."
Nezu turned to the doctor, his black eyes, normally kind, now as hard as steel.
"Dr. Ito, listen to me very carefully. This event, from this moment on, will be classified as an 'Unidentified Quirk Anomaly.' All records from tonight, all fluctuations on the monitors, will be sealed under my direct authority. Assign a new nurse to the morning shift, one who only knows that the patient is recovering from 'serious injuries.' No one is to know he was on the verge of death. No one."
The principal looked at the closed door, and for an instant, a look of deep empathy softened his features.
"Let's give these young people their privacy. Their sacrifice and desperation will not be turned into a laboratory spectacle. Whatever they are doing in there to save him, it is theirs. And we will protect it."
Dr. Ito, a man of science, was faced with an order that defied all of his protocols. But in the U.A. principal's eyes, he saw a deeper logic, one that protected not just bodies, but souls. He nodded slowly.
"Understood, Principal. The event never happened."
The secret of Room 302 was sealed in the silence of the night.
At the other end of the city, in a rundown bar that smelled of stale alcohol and broken dreams, the atmosphere was one of fury and frustration. Tomura Shigaraki scratched his neck with a childish savagery, leaving red furrows on his pale skin.
"We failed, Master! We failed spectacularly!" he shrieked, his voice as scratchy as sandpaper. He was addressing an old flat-screen TV hanging on the wall, showing only static.
Kurogiri, polishing a glass behind the bar with imperturbable calm, tried to reason.
"Tomura Shigaraki, the mission had setbacks, but we gathered valuable data—"
"Shut up, Kurogiri! You don't get it! Those brats…!" his voice jumped a couple of octaves, becoming a high-pitched wail. "Their Quirks were stronger than the reports said! Much stronger! The gravity girl… she became a killing machine! She ripped pillars out of the ground like they were daisies! And the one with the ponytail… she just kept creating complex weapons, shields, everything, like she had an infinite arsenal! They humiliated us! A bunch of kids made us look like fools!"
The static on the TV flickered, and a deep, calm, and terribly cold voice filled the room. It wasn't a voice coming from the speakers; it seemed to emanate from the air itself, a disembodied presence.
"Calm yourself, Tomura. Your anger is a luxury you cannot afford. The individual strength of a few children is irrelevant."
Shigaraki froze, his hand stopping at his neck. His Master's voice always had that effect. It was the only authority he recognized.
"But, Master… they…"
"Analyze the failure, Tomura, don't wallow in it," All For One's voice continued, analytical and devoid of emotion. "Two different Quirks, pushed beyond their known limits, in the same place at the same time… it's not a coincidence. It's a pattern. It's something… strange. Interesting."
There was a pause, as if the being on the other end was processing thousands of variables.
"Your mistake wasn't underestimating their power. Your mistake was underestimating their synergy. You've found something, Tomura. Something that could be a key piece on the game board. But your mob of thugs was useless against them. They broke at the first sign of real coordination. You need allies, not pawns."
"Allies?" Shigaraki asked, his interest piqued.
"Recruit," the voice commanded, with a finality that brooked no argument. "Look for those with conviction, not just strength. Those whom the world of heroes has scorned, has broken. Those whose hatred burns with a purpose. The Hero Killer, Stain… his ideology, though crude, connects with the popular discontent. He could be useful to us. His fame will attract others like him. Go. Speak with him."
Shigaraki's mission changed in that instant. It was no longer just about destruction. Now, it was about building.
"Understood, Master," he said, a twisted smile full of a new malice spreading across his face. "I'll go hunting. But not for heroes. For monsters."
