Takeshi Amaya walked along the sidewalk, the sunrise beginning to illuminate the city around him. The smell of morning dew was fresh in the cool air, energizing the teenager as he headed to his destination. Today was the day he would take the entrance exam to U.A. High, the most prestigious high school for hero's in the entire country. Famous worldwide for producing some of the best hero's, U.A. was also infamous for its strict entrance requirements.
Having recently taken the written portion of the entrance exam, Takeshi was now headed to the U.A. campus for the practical test. 'This is the moment I've been waiting for. The last three years have been leading up to this point in my life, this is the moment where I either make it, or break it.' He had barely been able to get any sleep last night, worrying about his written test scores, as well as the upcoming practical test.
'What do I do if I don't get in?' Ever since he was a kid, Takeshi had wanted to be a hero, there had been no other possible option for him. There was never any thought as to a future in which he didn't attend U.A. Yet, he couldn't help but doubt himself now, at this crucial moment. He mused silently, not paying any attention to the still sleeping city surrounding him. 'I suppose I could always join uncle Hayate in running the family business, but that doesn't seem all too exciting.' He shuddered at the thought. The few times he had seen his uncle while working, he had looked drained of energy and entirely exhausted.
A loud crash jolted him from his thoughts. He looked around trying to pinpoint the source of the disturbance. A heartbeat passed before he once again heard an indescribable noise coming from an alley a few meters away. He paused for a moment, unsure what to do. Strange, muffled noises were coming from the alley, barely audible from where he was standing on the empty sidewalk. He took a few steps toward the alley, the dim light seeming to get darker with each passing step. "Hello?" He called, nervous about what was in store for him in that alley.
A shadow moved in his peripherals, and Takeshi turned to face the movement. His breathing sped up, and he realized that he was farther in the alley than he had originally realized. The previously welcoming morning dew seemed to be misting slightly, creating a thick, ominous atmosphere around him. He no longer felt nearly as confident in his choice to pursue the disturbance down the alley.
After what seemed like a lifetime, but was in actuality only a few seconds, Takeshi heard something approaching from behind him. He wheeled around to face the noise, only to come face to face with a... stray dog? He breathed a sigh of relief, surprised to find his hands clenched tightly into fists, his entire body tense. Slowly relaxing, he nervously chuckled a little.
The dog continued on its way, seemingly oblivious to the fear that gripped the human in front of it only moments ago. Takeshi smiled weakly, "Jeez, just a stray dog. How am I supposed to pass the exam if I'm jumping at every little noise?"
'I guess I needed that though. Everything will be alright,' He thought to himself. 'I could do with lightening up right now.' His smile seemed a little brighter as he left the alley, pausing briefly to pet the dog and scratch it behind the ears.
Takeshi continued his trek, checking the time as he went. Only half an hour had passed since he left his house, to his surprise. Well, he might as well pick up the pace, he thought with a grin.
Takeshi arrived around twenty minutes later, having managed to catch an earlier train to a stop near the school. Along the way, he spotted a handful of other teenagers that looked as though they were headed in the same direction. That made him nervous, thinking about the fierce competition he would have to face in order to gain entry to the school. But that didn't matter to Takeshi, he knew that no matter what his feelings or nerves were on the matter, he would succeed. Nobody would stand in his way.
Finally reaching the main gate of the school, Takeshi took a moment to take in the moment and gaze at the building that lay before him. Almost entirely glass, the two main towers that made up most of the school were a sight to behold indeed. Tall and proud, they were a testament to the hero's that had come from these very halls.
Now, at this very moment, his dream of becoming a famous hero had never felt so real, or so fragile. No longer was it something to fantasize about, or chat about with his friends. No, now the reality of the situation came crashing down onto him. This was the beginning of the rest of his life. The place he wanted to build his future was right in front of him yet miles away all at once.
Well, there was no point in standing around, he reasoned. Taking his first few tentative steps onto the campus, he was met with a couple applicants here and there, but for the most part the courtyard was pretty sparse. Seeing as the doors to the orientation area were still closed off, Takeshi chose to sit down for a while and wait. He was still early, and the doors should open any minute now.
As he had that thought, a loud argument could be heard in the distance, slowly getting louder and louder. He rolled his eyes, school hadn't even started, hell they hadn't even been enrolled yet and already arguments on campus.
"-and it's probably not even open yet!" A blond-haired boy exclaimed, being reluctantly dragged along by a girl with completely pink skin. Not the weirdest quirk Takeshi has seen, but still a little shocking nonetheless.
"Kaito it'll be open any soon, stop being such a grump and hurry up." The boy in question simply rolled his eyes and allowed himself to be dragged along by the energetic girl. He met Takeshi's eyes and simply shrugged in exasperation, before finally being pulled out of sight by the girl.
A voice sounded from behind him, "Some strange people here today." Takeshi turned around to see a red-haired boy around his age behind him. He had red eyes, spiked hair, and jagged teeth. All told, he would be somewhat intimidating if it weren't for the friendly smile on his face, and his outstretched hand. "Eijirou, nice to meet you." Takeshi grinned and firmly shook his hand.
"Likewise, I'm Takeshi. Yeah, strange people tend to flock together. I'm not sure why, they just seem to... click when they meet." They shared a smile before Takeshi motioned for him to sit. "So, you're here for the entrance exam? Which one are you taking, if you don't mind me asking?"
Eijirou nodded in response, and cleared his throat before answering, "I'm going to get into the department of heroics." Takeshi took special note of his choice of wording and the confidence behind his voice.
"Hey I'm going for heroics too! That's awesome, maybe we'll be in the same-" He was interrupted by a loudspeaker blaring to life beside him, making him jump from the sudden noise.
"Attention prospective students, the doors to the orientation area will be opening in a few moments. Please make your way inside in an orderly fashion and find a seat. Thank you." With that, the speaker turned off. Takeshi sent a questioning glance to Eijirou, who nodded in affirmation.
The duo got up and joined the throng of students heading inside, heads swiveling every which way, trying to take everything in all at once. 'This place is huge!' Takeshi thought, gaping at the immense interior they were directed towards. The room was designed specifically for orientations, made to hold thousands of people at a time.
Takeshi followed Eijirou to a pair of chairs and took a seat. The room was rapidly starting to fill up with potential students, and there was a fair bit of jostling and bumping in the excitement.
Eijirou pointed out someone in the crowd, "See that pink girl over there? Her name is Mina, I went to middle school with her. She has a pretty good quirk, it lets her secrete acid from her skin. She's also a great person, so I highly recommend her if you're looking for any other friends. I have no doubt she'll make it into U.A." He scanned the crowd for anyone else he knew.
"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. I still haven't seen anyone I know, but If I do I'll tell you." Takeshi liked Eijirou, he seemed like a stand-up guy. He had been worried he wouldn't find anyone he got along with and would spend the first few days awkwardly trying to get to know people.
"Speaking of quirks, I've been wondering what yours is. All I can tell is that your eyes glow orange, and unless you're planning on staring people into submission I don't think that'll go too well for you." He held up an arm, which quickly turned into a stone-like substance, becoming rigid and sharp. "This is all I can do, I can just harden my body. I don't really know if it's a quirk a hero would have, but I guess it's manly!" He beamed and flexed his arms.
"that's... kind of ironic." Takeshi began, seeing the bemused look on his new friends face he quickly continued, "I can turn my body into smoke, the total opposite." He lifted his hand and turned it into thick black smoke, wisps of orange embers floating in the midst emitting a slight glow.
Eijirou looked somewhat stunned. "That's so cool, can you control fire too? What else can you do with it?" Takeshi chuckled nervously, a little overwhelmed by his enthusiasm. After all, it seemed like a perfectly normal quirk to him.
"Well I can't control fire, per se, but I can make my embers hot enough to start a fire. My biggest limitation is the fact that I actually need to absorb smoke to emit it. I can turn my body to smoke as much as I want, but if I want to shoot fiery smoke balls or anything I need reserves of smoke. If I don't have any smoke reserves, it just puffs out an inch from my palm then fizzles out and dies." Eijirou was nodding along with his explanation, and by the end he looked as though he understood.
"So, you're made of smoke, but you can't actually shoot smoke unless you have extra?" There was more to it than that, but Takeshi didn't really want to go through the entire explanation of the intricacies and limitations, so he just nodded. "So, are you like immortal or something?" He laughed but shook his head.
"Nothing quite that overpowered, but I think your quirk is awesome. You're practically invincible if you use your quirk!" He may have been laying it on a bit thick, but by the look on Eijirou's face he either didn't notice or didn't care. He suspected the latter. Besides, he did genuinely think he had an awesome quirk. "I can turn into smoke, but not for long and I have to really concentrate. I mostly use it to close a gap between me and an enemy, or for evasion. It just seems to come to me easier when I'm in the middle of a fight."
The two had their conversation interrupted when the lights dimmed and the giant tv screen turned on, and a blond man in a leather jacket stepped on stage. "Welcome to today's live performance! Everybody say 'HEY'!" This was Present Mic. His quirk allowed him to change the volume of his voice by several magnitudes, yet it could do nothing in the face of the absolute deadpan silence of the audience.
The deafening quiet in the room was broken only by a few rustles of paper and someone in the back of the room muttering incoherently. "Well, that's cool, my examinee listeners! I'm here to present the guidelines of your practical! Are you ready?! YEAH!" Once again, Present Mic's voice was the only audible noise in the room. Takeshi did slightly admire Mic's ability to keep an absolutely unfazed appearance throughout the cringeworthy silences though.
He continued, "This is how the test will go, my listeners! You'll be experiencing ten-minute long mock cityscape maneuvers! Bring along whatever you want!" Takeshi perked up when he heard that. It meant he could bring a few smoke bombs with him to refill his smoke capacity when he got low. As it stood, Takeshi could only hold a little smoke at once, though he had been working on improving the amount. Going full blast in combat, firing simple smoke shots would leave him combat able for about 2 minutes before he ran dry. He always had a few smoke bombs with him. He would manually ignite them with his quirk when he needed a refill. "After this presentation, you'll each head to your assigned testing location! OK?!" Mic continued, a few people muttering to neighboring students at this.
The tension in the air was palpable. Takeshi checked his testing location, he was at site B. He quickly glanced over at Eijirou's card and saw a bolded E on the front. He didn't know if he should be disappointed or relieved. Disappointed because he couldn't fight in the same test as his friend, or relieved that he wouldn't have to compete against him. He ultimately settled on relieved, as he would get to fight alongside him later if- no, not if, when- they both managed to pass.
"Each site is filled with three kinds of faux villains," Three? But the information sheet said four... "Points are awarded for defeating each according to their respective difficulty levels! Use your quirks to disable these faux villains and earn points! That's your goal, listeners! Of course, playing the antihero and attacking other examinees is prohibited!" At this point a young man in the front rows stood up, ramrod straight.
"May I ask a question?" If he had been in Takeshi's middle school, the teachers would have pointed out that he already had. "There appear to be no fewer than four varieties of faux villain in this handout. Such a blatant error, if it is one, is highly unbecoming for U.A., Japan's top academy! We're all in here today in the hopes of being molded into model heroes." Well, he wasn't wrong, but Takeshi thought he was making mountains out of molehills. After all, what if he wasn't done talking? Of if there were last minute changes due to maintenance problems. This guy should relax a little. "And you, with the curly hair! You've been muttering this whole time...it's distracting! If this is some sort of game to you, then please leave immediately!"
'Jeez, I wonder how this guy will manage to sit back down with a stick that far up his ass.' Takeshi wasn't a fan of this guy's behavior, and judging by the foul look on Eijirou's face, neither was he.
"It's not very manly to insult some poor kid who's probably terrified out of his wits." He said. By now, Takeshi had pieced together that Eijirou had some odd fixation with 'manliness'. He refrained from commenting though, it was none of his business. Simply a facet of his personality.
The two tuned back in just in time to hear Present Mic explain what the final robot type was. "The fourth villain type gets you zero points. He's more of an obstacle. There's only one at each site, and it will rampage around in close quarters. I'd advise my listeners to just avoid it altogether and focus only on getting points, not an enemy that doesn't reward you for defeating it." Now THAT was strange.
Takeshi sincerely doubted that the school would put such a dangerous enemy in the exam and not make it worth any points. He tuned out Present Mic, thinking hard. Only three possibilities came to mind. The first possibility, and possibly one of the more believable ones, was that the points didn't matter at all. They may be judged individually based on performance rather than an arbitrary point system. The only major flaw Takeshi could see was that someone would have to be reviewing every single examinee, and also rate them impartially. That would take a good long while, as well as not being as reliable because personal opinion would come into play when there are different opinions on how good someone's quirk is.
The second possibility was that they had lied about how much the 'arena trap' robot was actually worth. However, it would cause problems with people like that stuck up kid from a few minutes ago who wouldn't stand for such a breach of sacred protocol. Takeshi rolled his eyes. No, it was much more likely that while beating the robot didn't give you any points, it did something else, such as guarantee you a spot in U.A. regardless of current points. The only problem with this approach is that it is blatantly weighted against quirks that couldn't do a ton of damage yet could still have been useful to any decent hero. Although, this whole test was also like that...
The third and final theory that came to his mind was that there was some kind of secondary objective, and the arena trap robot stood directly in opposition to you. So yes, defeating the rampaging zero pointer wouldn't get you any points, but it may help in accomplishing the secondary objective. Another possibility was that the objective didn't hinge on defeating the bot at all, simply doing something else with the robot as a distractor. These seemed to Takeshi to be the most likely. Maybe you had to minimize the damage the robot did to the surroundings? Or it could be a test of teamwork despite examinees being pitted against each other.
So many possibilities, so much mystery. "PLUS ULTRA." And apparently no time. All the examinees were getting to their feet, and moving towards the ext.
"You want to get moving?" Eijirou asked him, looking uncertainly at the crowd of students trying to jam their way through the doors.
"Yeah, I suppose we'll have to make it through there eventually. I'm in test site B, so I guess we won't be seeing each other until the first day of class, hey?" Takeshi said. "Actually, let's exchange numbers, we can get in touch over the week and maybe hang out a bit." Pulling their phones out, they quickly put their numbers in the others phone.
"Well, good luck Eijirou. I have a feeling you're going to do great." Takeshi said, holding his fist out.
"I'm counting on seeing you here on the first day, don't disappoint." He said with a smirk, bumping fists before walking away to his test site. After having been in the presence of someone for the past hour, Takeshi's surroundings felt a little quieter with the departure of the constant presence beside him. He liked the silence but was definitely looking forward to seeing Eijirou again. Maybe he could convince him to spar sometime, he thought. It'd be nice to test himself against someone else his age.
Takeshi arrived at the test site and immediately felt the nervous anticipation in the air. It was like an electrical presence running along his skin, raising the hairs on his neck and arms. He glanced around, sizing up the competition. A few mutant types, but apart form that the majority of quirks were unknown. A tiny, childlike examinee with purple globes for hair. A big examinee, a few centimeters taller than Takeshi, stood with a facemask and eight webbed arms. Now that was one of the stranger quirks he's seen in a while. A guy with a big tail, a girl with vines for hair, some silver haired guy with big yellow eyelashes, the list went on and on. Out of the corner of his eye, a flash of colour caught his eye. He turned and found the girl Eijirou was talking about, Mina.
'Hmmm, he did say she'd be good to get to know... oh what's the harm?' He made up his mind to approach her when out of the blue-
"And BEGIN!" The voice echoed. Takeshi confusedly glanced around before realization dawned on the face of a girl with orange hair as she sprinted into the city sized test site. As soon as he realized what was going on, he ran after her and a few of the other quicker ones, hot on their tails. Takeshi's quirk made it so that his body was essentially smoke given form. This meant that his body was a little more... 'improved' than your average human.
That's not to say he can control the shape, he can't. And he's definitely tried, many, many times to change his shape. But, alas, he can either be normal Takeshi or shapeless smoke. That's not such a bad thing in his mind though, as his body was superhuman. He was super-strong, super-fast, and super-tough. Not exceedingly so, but he was strong enough to bend metal, fast enough to outrun most humans, but where he truly shined was his durability. He could walk off hits that threw him through walls and cratered cars, and he healed ridiculously fast. All it took was about a minute where he wasn't taking damage and he'd be good as new. It was a product of having a smoke body. All he had to was 'reform' the excess smoke that escaped his body when he was being damaged.
If he wanted to, Takeshi could turn into smoke just before someone attacked him, and completely avoid all damage. However, his smoke form had a limited amount of time before it lost cohesion, so he could only stay in his smoke form for a few seconds before having to turn back. This meant he had to time his dodges carefully, or someone could catch him when he rematerialized. Also, unless he physically concentrated on turning to smoke to avoid a hit, it would still hurt him. Sneak attacks worked just as well on him as anyone else.
Takeshi wasn't the fastest in the group, he wasn't the strongest, he probably wasn't the toughest, but he was still above the level of most examinees. He dashed into the fray immediately, seeing a bot to his left he stuck out his palm and fired off a few smoke shots. The small fireball-like projectiles made mini explosions on contact, scoring the chassis of the robot and staggering it. Takeshi jumped up as high as he could, around 2 meters, and slammed his ember and smoke wreathed fist into the robot's head, shattering it and finishing it off.
Takeshi stood there, surprised at how easy the bot was. 'It was a three-pointer I think, so the others shouldn't be as difficult.' His logic proved sound as he leapt out of the way of a one-pointer's lunge. A few smoke shots to the head and it was down.
He grinned, already at 4 points. Cutting off any celebration was a new wave of bots. A few one-pointers, a two-pointer and a-three pointer. Takeshi aimed his palm at the one-pointers, taking one out before it got within 10 meters of him. He quickly switched targets and charged up a smoke shot in his hand overpowering it into a 'cinder blast' for more damage over a wider area, at the cost of more of his smoke reserves. Essentially a shotgun version of his normal smoke shot. The shot managed to destroy the two remaining one-pointers, leaving him to deal with the remainders up close. The two-pointer had been staggered by his cinder blast, so he maneuvered himself so that it was between him and the three-pointer. Another cinder blast to keep it off balance, and Takeshi rushed in to engage in melee combat.
Ducking under a wild sting near his head with its stinger looking appendage, he swung his empowered fist into the front left leg of the bot, sending pieces of it flying. A strong powered up backhand to the head finished it off, but Takeshi was already diving out of the way of the three-pointer's missile barrage. He barely made it and was sent flying into a nearby wall. 'Gah! How do they expect some of the examinees to beat these things?!' He pulled himself out of the crumbling wreckage of the wall and concentrated for a moment.
His form changed to that of smoke and embers, speeding towards the three-pointer that shot at him. Barely a meter before the black and orange cloud made contact with the robot, it reformed into Takeshi, smoking fist already reared back in anticipation of his next strike. However, the robot wasn't deemed the hardest for no reason, and it quickly backed out of his reach.
Takeshi cursed, and started firing smoke shots at it. He knew he was dangerously close to having no more smoke left, so he had to make these next few shots count. He determined that the best way to beat the robots in this exam was to catch them off balance, allowing for a relatively easy finisher. With that in mind Takeshi charged once again. His feet gained rhythm as he ran, and he smoke dashed across the last few meters to catch the bot by surprise.
His tactic worked and the three-pointer seemed to have trouble changing target locations fast enough. Takeshi charged a cinder blast in his hand and shot it forwards. The robot was protecting its 'head' with one of its legs, so it wasn't a kill shot, but it did make it teeter dangerously on edge, before Takeshi brought his second cinder blast to its now unprotected face, blowing it to bits.
The three-pointer slumped down to the ground, deactivated. 'That's what, 12 points? Not bad Takeshi... I think.' He didn't really know how well the other examinees were doing, so he had nothing to compare that to.
However, he was pretty much out of smoke to use his attacks with, so he popped a smoke bomb off of his belt and flared his hand as hot as he could next to the homemade fuse. It caught fire and rapidly made its way up to the main cylinder containing all of the chemicals. He dropped it on the ground in front of him, feeling the smoke begin to pour out and wash over his form. He held his arm out, and the smoke converged on his outstretched limb, assimilating into his body and becoming black, with wisps of orange light running through it. After around six seconds, he had drained the smoke bomb of all its contents and picked up the empty cylinder.
Placing the cylinder back on his belt Takeshi started towards a slightly less populated portion of the exam, hoping to find a higher concentration of robots there. It was definitely a riskier move, but he felt it may be necessary given the stiff competition.
Alright, first chapter finished!
I'm a new writer, this is in fact my very first story. I took inspiration for Takeshi's quirk from... actually, let's see if anybody recognizes his smoke powers. If you do, just leave a review! I'll give you a shout-out in the next chapter :).
Anyways, as I was saying, this is my very first time writing anything other than school papers and essay etc. so I'd very much appreciate any feedback and comments people would be willing to give. Constructive criticism is always a good thing.
I should be able to pump out another chapter of this in a few more days, depending on school and work, and other stuff at home.
I'm super excited about the future of my stories on this site. Will I end up writing more and more? Or will I find that I dislike it and stop after a few.
Also, seeing as My Hero Academia is an ongoing series, there will definitely be breaks in the chapters I write when there are breaks in content made. And if I'm being honest, there will be times where I just get tired of writing for a while and need a break before jumping in again. Just thought I'd give you guys a heads up if anyone ends up actually liking this.
I'm still very undecided on the pairing. I want to hear your opinions on the matter, but so far the two characters in the lead are Itsuka Kendou, and Kyouka Jirou.
Well, I'll leave it at that. Like I said, comments on my writing are welcome, and if anybody spots and errors I may have missed when looking over the story just message me or leave a review letting me know.
Seeya in a few :).