He hadn’t been searching for trouble, but trouble, it seemed, had a way of finding him.

The night stretched wide above him, dark and endless, its stars drowned in the glow of UA's security lights. Behind him, the dorms were silent, class 1-a asleep. Yet sleep had refused to find him. He would have passed by the pool without a second glance if not for the ripple that broke the water’s surface.

His gaze snapped towards the source.

There, beneath the glow of the underwater lights someone moved. But not in the clumsy, splashing way of a human. No, the figure glided through the water moving with grace that no human limb ever could.

He stepped closer, silent, predatory. And then he saw you.

A tail, long and iridescent, trailing behind you like something out of a storybook. It shimmered beneath the shifting light, each movement effortless, wrong in the way it made too much sense. He had suspected there was more to you. That your quirk was too seamless, too precise. But this? This was something else entirely.

The realization struck him like a fuse meeting fire. The way you always avoided water, your refusal to stand in the rain, the way it bent just a little too easily to your will - it was never just a quirk.

Your eyes met his, and everything stilled. A heartbeat of silence. Then panic slammed into you.

You surged toward the pool’s edge, fingers slipping against the wet tiles as you hauled yourself out. As the night air hit your skin, scales faded, flesh returning and your legs folding beneath you as you collapsed onto the tiles, breathless and shaking.

The weight of his stare pinned you in place, the silence between you thick, stretching, waiting for you to speak. When you didn’t, he tilted his head, crimson eyes sharp, unreadable.

“So.” His voice was low, steady. “You gonna explain, or should I start guessing?”

He wouldn’t tell. Not because he owed you anything, but because this, wasn’t something he was willing to let slip through his fingers without understanding it first.

He wasn’t letting this go.