3rd POV:

A silence fell in the control room, thick and buzzing with tension.

The alarms blared. The warning lights flashed. The screens flickered with more red than any sane person would tolerate. Todoroki was on a warpath, drones were malfunctioning in spectacularly murderous ways, and Izuku...

Izuku was smiling.

That smile was not innocent. It was not kind. It was the calm serenity of a man who'd just watched the world burn and said, "Huh. Neat."

Nezu was biting his paw. Power Loader was mid-sentence, halfway through a panicked rant about power reroutes and AI overrides when—

CLUNK.

SCRAAAAPE.

There was a soft click as Aizawa pulled the fire extinguisher off its wall mount.

"...Sensei?" Nezu blinked.

Then—

CRASH!

SMASH.

KZZZZZZZRTTTTT.

The emergency axe, red, dusty, and meant for actual fires, came down with terrifying calm on the primary override panel.

Sparks exploded out like fireworks. The sirens didn't just shut off—they choked mid-wail. The red lights flickered once. Twice.

And then—

Total silence.

All screens froze.

Nezu's mouth hung open. Power Loader stared.

Izuku... blinked. He blinked.

"...Huh," Izuku said. "That was a choice."

Aizawa dropped the axe like it weighed nothing and turned to the room, eyes hollow and voice flat as stone.
"That's how normal people stop death protocols."

Nezu coughed, adjusting his bowtie. "That's... certainly one way to go about it."

Power Loader slowly lowered the tool he'd been about to use. "...I've been trying to solve that for twenty minutes with code and stabilizers and—and you just—smashed it?!"

"Yes," Aizawa deadpanned.

Izuku opened his mouth.

Aizawa raised a hand. "Don't. Not one word. You are on thin ice. Molten ice."

Izuku closed his mouth.

Nezu looked between the three of them, paw still covering his muzzle. "...Well. The good news is, we didn't die. The bad news is..." He motioned vaguely toward the monitors, where the image of Todoroki standing in the middle of a melted road surrounded by frozen trees and flaming buildings remained frozen in place.

"...we may have to pay for some of that."

Izuku muttered under his breath, "Worth it."

Aizawa stared at him so hard the temperature dropped ten degrees.

"...I'll just go write my apology essay now," Izuku added quickly.

"Triple spaced," Aizawa said.

Nezu was still staring at the broken panel. "You know... that was a $3.6 million emergency console."

"I know," Aizawa said.

Power Loader was breathing into a wrench like it was a paper bag.

"...Why does no one listen to me," he whispered.

And then the monitor sparked one last time—and the camera feed returned with one final shot of Todoroki slowly turning his head... toward the nearest building.

Aizawa sighed. "I need coffee. And possibly a flamethrower."

Aizawa stood in front of the half-fried console, the emergency axe still glowing faintly from contact with overloaded circuitry. Smoke curled lazily from the wreckage. The monitor, as if summoned by some demon of timing, flashed once and glitched into another scene.

Todoroki, dead-eyed and frostbitten, dragging himself through the wreckage like a vengeful ghost. Buildings were half gone. Trees had been reduced to scorched popsicle sticks. A training drone lay twitching in the background, still trying to crawl away.

Nezu stared.

Power Loader whimpered.

Izuku snorted, poorly hiding a laugh behind his hand.

"...No more," Aizawa said flatly.

"Excuse me?" Nezu asked, blinking out of his shock.

"I said no more," Aizawa repeated, dragging a hand down his face. "No more war games. No more villain exercises. No more 'fun little scenarios.' I don't care if it's in the curriculum. I am done. This class is cursed."

Power Loader slammed both hands on the edge of the table, sparks flying out. "Agreed! I didn't build Ground Beta to be reverse-engineered into a villain's sandbox!"

Nezu opened his mouth.

"No," Aizawa snapped, stabbing a finger toward him. "I don't care what twisted life lesson you were hoping they'd discover. I don't care if you were using this as a morality test. We almost lasered a child. I saw the grid try to bisect Yaoyorozu. I watched Kaminari lick a live wire. Do you realize what this is doing to my blood pressure?!"

Nezu looked mildly guilty.

Izuku just leaned back in his chair like he was watching Saturday morning cartoons.

"...They learned a valuable lesson," Nezu tried.

Aizawa was done.

"Oh, they did alright," he muttered. "They learned how to weaponize your systems. They learned how to outmaneuver real villains. They learned how to traumatize their homeroom teacher into retirement."

Power Loader, rubbing his face with both hands, added, "And I learned that the lasers do not have a child-safety mode."

"Nezu," Aizawa said, voice low and lethal. "Say one more word about another exercise like this, and I will retire, change my name, and move to the mountains. I will teach goats how to read. Don't test me."

Nezu cleared his throat and adjusted his tie with a sheepish expression. "So, uh. We'll... call this a learning experience, and—"

"NEVER AGAIN," all three teachers said in perfect unison.

Izuku just smirked and kicked his feet up, already plotting how to hack Ground Gamma next.

Aizawa saw it and snapped, "And YOU are writing a fifty-page report about everything you did, why you did it, how you did it, and then an apology letter to every single student. Even Mineta."

Izuku's smirk faltered. "...Even Mineta?"

"Especially Mineta."

Nezu groaned, "Ugh, Mineta... now I need a coffee."

Power Loader collapsed onto a chair like a man returning from war. "Next time we want them to work on teamwork... just make them do trust falls."

"Trust falls don't end with someone getting stabbed by a flying icicle," Aizawa agreed.

"Exactly."

In the background, Todoroki punched a drone so hard it disintegrated into parts.

Izuku, sipping Power Loader's cold coffee:
"Next time, let me plan the trust falls."