Soren sat without fanfare, tucking his hands into his pockets as the classroom slowly filled with the rustle of uniforms and murmured conversations.
Aizawa’s gaze lingered on him for half a second longer than necessary—not suspicion, not curiosity, just the barest acknowledgment that Soren had done something worth noting, if only to him.
The report would vanish into the academy’s bureaucratic veins, processed by faceless facilities staff who saw such things as routine.
By lunch, someone would have already marked the railing with caution tape.
By evening, a work order would be logged under both Commission and Council codes, because redundancy was the academy’s silent religion.
Facilities would have the railing repaired by week’s end.
He sat through the morning’s theory class with steady attention.
The lecture covered material characterization—thermal conductivity coefficients, tensile strength differentials—and Soren recorded each data point in tight, efficient script.
The iron in the room registered as a low hum: chair legs, door hinges, the instructor’s wedding band.
Ambient.
Unremarkable.
The instructor paused mid-explanation.
“Name one alloy where chromium content exceeds eighteen percent but doesn’t form a passive oxide layer.”
Silence pooled.
Soren didn’t raise his hand.
He spoke to the desk in front of him.
“Martensitic stainless.
Four-ten grade.”
A beat.
The instructor nodded.
Across the aisle, Momo’s glance flicked to him—acknowledgment without warmth, the barest tilt of her chin—before returning to her notes.
The bell rang.
He gathered his materials at the bell and headed for the corridor.
The corridor between the MHA-side classrooms and the core wing was moderately busy.
Students flowed in both directions—some in uniforms, some in casual wear, a few in gear that marked them as FT-side combat track—but the space never felt crowded.
Soren walked at his usual unhurried pace, hands in his pockets, registering the iron signatures around him: the door handles (galvanized steel, thin oxidation layer), the radiator on the left wall (cast iron, older than the building itself), the small plaque commemorating the corridor’s renovation forty years ago (bronze alloy, 88% copper, 12% tin).
Then he felt it—a sharp, dense presence moving toward him.
Heart Kreuz armor, composition identical to the set he’d registered at a distance three times before.
The red-haired senior from the lecture hall, the commissary, the courtyard.
She walked with the easy precision of someone who wore armor like a second skin, taller than him by several centimeters, posture straight without rigidity.
Soren didn’t look up, but his Quirk mapped the iron in her armor automatically—the pauldrons (high-carbon steel, quenched), the greaves (tempered alloy, trace manganese), the gauntlets (forged, layered).
His mouth moved before he could stop it.
“Twenty-three kilograms, four hundred grams,” he murmured, almost to himself.
The senior stopped.
Turned.
Looked down at him.
“Repeat that,” she said.
Soren met her gaze.
“Your armor.
Twenty-three point four kilograms of iron.”
She didn’t blink.
Didn’t smile.
Just held his stare for three seconds—long enough for the students around them to notice, to slow, to glance back—before turning and continuing down the corridor without another word.
Soren exhaled.
Kept walking.
An FT-side senior was walking the other way in full armor.
Her breastplate gleamed under the corridor lights—not polished to a mirror shine, but meticulously maintained, the steel forged in a single batch with the gauntlets.
Soren registered the minute variations: the left pauldron had been repaired once, the weld line barely visible beneath the surface; the buckle’s nickel content was precisely eleven percent, an intentional choice for corrosion resistance rather than decorative flair.
“Sixteen grams of trace manganese in the greaves,” he murmured, more to himself than anyone else, because the alloy was unusual—not flawed, just specific.
The kind of detail that would only matter to a metallurgist or someone who tasted iron in their sleep.
The armored senior didn’t stop this time.
She walked past him with the same measured stride, but her head tilted slightly, as if filing the numbers away for later.
Soren turned the corner toward the commissary, hands still in his pockets, the weight of her armor lingering in his senses like the afterimage of a bright light.
He named each piece evenly as he passed her by.
“Twenty-three kilos four hundred grams,” he said again, quieter now, as if measuring the air itself.
The corridor hummed around them—footsteps, murmured conversations, the distant echo of a locker door slamming shut—but for those three seconds, it was just her armor and his voice naming it.
She turned fully this time, not just her head.
The Heart Kreuz plates shifted with a precision that spoke of perfect maintenance.
No warping.
Just steel that knew its purpose.
“Break it down,” she said.
Soren didn’t hesitate.
“Pauldrons, two-point-seven kilos each, quenched at eight hundred degrees Celsius.
Gauntlets, one-point-eight combined, layered forge.
Breastplate, six-point-five, same batch as the left vambrace—”
“Trace elements.”
“Eleven percent nickel in the buckle.
Sixteen grams manganese in the greaves.
Residual sulfur from the coal forge, point-oh-three percent.”
She held his gaze for exactly two seconds.
The kind of pause that wasn’t hesitation but calculation.
Then she nodded once, sharp, like a blade being sheathed, and walked off in the direction she’d been going.
He kept his pace and made it to the next class on time.
At lunch, he found Momo in the commissary, sitting alone with a tray of neatly arranged food.
She glanced up when he slid into the seat across from her, her expression neutral but attentive.
“A senior in Heart Kreuz armor stopped me in the corridor,” he said.
“She asked me to inventory her armor’s iron content.
Walked away after.” Three sentences, clipped, leaving out the exact numbers because Momo wouldn’t care about the grams.
Momo’s chopsticks paused mid-air.
“Red hair?
Knight requip?”
Soren nodded.
“That’s Erza Scarlet,” she said, lowering her voice slightly, though no one was close enough to overhear.
“Top of the senior magic-combat track.
She doesn’t acknowledge first-years.” A beat.
“Ever.”
Her name stayed with him for the rest of the day.