AN: ok so...now that they are 15 and not 6, both Bakugo and Akami (and whoever else I feel like) will be swearing a lot more. The fuck word is going to be dropped a lot. That's what happens when you give me an anger boy to work with...

The day had finally come.

Nine years of training had led to this moment; nine years of planning, hoping, learning, all led to this moment as she stepped through the familiar gates of UA.

Akami was ready...she hoped.

She looked and felt out of place amongst the uniformed teens in varying shades of gray and color; they all came dressed as if they came straight from their middle schools...she llooked as if she was going to the gym; not having a uniform was very freeing growing up but it set her apart from her peers rather visibly. She could see some students pointing her out to their friends.

Most of them were chatting with each other, excited for the day to come. But some were nervous and she suddenly felt very rrelieved that it wasn't just her; though they had different reasons for being nervous, knowing that she wasn't the only one freaking out helped calm her a bit. Especially when she saw a poor kid trip; a girl caught him with some kind of anti gravity quirk but at least it wasn't her…

Funneling into the auditorium was nerve wracking. Was school always this crowded?

Akami hated crowds; hated how loud they were, how stifling, how they pushed on her...hated how many people surrounded her, blocking her from any exit. She most hated how you had to follow them and go where they were going to get anywhere. She eventually broke free and settled in a middle row next to a tall boy in glasses.

For a second, Akami debated trying to talk to the boy, but when she shot a glance at him, he seemed so intense she chickened out–why is talking to people so hard?–and he, in turn, paid her no mind, entirely focused on the stage. The two of them just sat in silence as the large room filled to the brim with 15 year olds.

Shota's best friend, Yamada Hizashi walked on strange and all the chatter fell silent. The man looked how he always did: black leather jacket, sunglasses, hair defying gravity with the help of copious amounts of gel; Akami had seen his supply closet at his house, he must have gone through at least a bottle every 2-3 days… His normal wide grin was present on his face as he yelled out into the crowd.

"For all you examinee listeners tuning in, welcome to my show today! Everybody say "hey"!"

Silence was his answer. Akami couldn't blame anyone for not calling back, not really; this exam could dictate the rest of their life...stress is a mood killer.

"What a refined response." Hizashi continued, "Then I'll quickly present to you the rundown on the practical exam! Are you ready? Yeah!"

Hizashi always was spirited…

She always admired how he soldiered on despite the fact that almost no on could match him for enthusiasm. Especially with Shota as a best friend, he had to fill the silence himself and did so loudly and with no shame. Like right now; no one was meeting him halfway and yet he continued to explain the exam, it's point system, and the separate arenas–she was in arena A–as if he was in front of an adoring crowd, without missing a beat.

Akami sighed; she could never be like that.

"excuse me sir, but i have a question!"

A loud voice to her left startled her as she focused on her examinee card, trying to think of a strategy; it was the boy with the glasses. He was taller than she expected and and, with a spotlight from the ceiling on him, she could see his intense eyebrows and stern expression.

"Hit me!"

"On the print out," the boy pointed to the papers all the students were given, "you've listed four types of villains, not three. With all due respect, if this is an error on official UA materials, it is shameful!"

Anything starting with "with all due respect" rarely is…

He was getting upset and interrupting the explanation to maybe the most important test of their collective lives–interrupting a pro hero, the very thing they are all here to become–over a typo?!

"we are exemplary students," he said, "we expect the best from Japan's most notable school. A mistake such as this won't do!"

He was so arrogant. As the boy continued to talk, Akami felt her anger rising. She couldn't happen, not here, of all places; she had to calm down or her dreams would be over before they started.

"and moreover," he pivoted around to point behind them, "what's with you! Yeah you, curly haired kid!"

So loud...

Okay...not a great way to start the day...calm down.

She didn't look where the boy was pointing, lecturing some poor soul about being distracting–as if he wasn't the most distracting thing here–focusing instead on her breathing. Hizashi–or maybe I should call him Present Mic now...–was talking again before she felt calm enough to pay attention.

Taking the bus to the "city" she was assigned to was a quiet affair; even the most exuberant student kept to themselves, mentally preparing for the task ahead. By design, no one knew each other and no one seemed to want to talk above a mumble. Akami herself took the time to watch the familiar grounds of UA pass by–not even looking at the other examinees–trying to not think of everything that could go wrong.

It wasn't working.

Finally they arrived; filing out of the bus, everyone took a moment to take in the size of the testing area. Honestly, Akami was always a little surprised whenever she would hear about them. She had never been inside one–something about an unfair advantage–but they were hardly a secret.

"AAAAND START!"

Hizashi's voice cut across the tense air from a intercom.

"What's the matter?! There's no such thing as a countdown in a real battle! Run! Ruuun!"

Figures he would do something like that...

She was already running before the rest of the UA hopefuls got the message. They all joined her after Present Mic's next shout, a step behind her.

"Consider the baton tossed!"

Making her way into the fake city at the front of the pack, Akami took an immediate right; her goal was to put some distance between her and the other participants. She didn't want any lack of control on her part to become dangerous to them; she may have come far in her control of her quirk but she still slipped from time to time. This test was stressful as is, no need to add possible collateral injury to bystanders to the list of things to worry about just yet.

Several explosions a few streets over spurred her faster; this plan wouldn't do her any good if she didn't get any points.

Before too long, the robot "villains" came into view.

"And not another student in sight, perfect."

Akami paused briefly, letting the last few moments of calm wash over her, before she let her anger go. Opening red eyes–a side effect of her power–she spotted her prey as it spotted her. Just like all the times before, her rage bolstered her strength, increased her speed, and heightened her senses.

It burned through her veins, egging her on.

She had the entire road to herself and me the most of it. Metal tore and ripped and rent beneath her hands. She tried not to think of how, someday, these would be real villains, with real flesh and bone; her quirk could cause untold pain and death if not reined in, but today that didn't matter. She racked up point after point: 1, 2, 5, 13...25...on and on until, by her count, she had reached 51.

A good number. She thought, feeling her strength bleed away; she maybe had a few more points in her but that was it. She felt a sense of accomplishment: this had been the longest she had used her quirk since she was a kid, now with the added benefit of being in control.

"What the fuck?!"

"Wha-"

So focused on her fight, she hadn't realised someone had snuck up on her. Spinning so fast she nearly fell, Akami saw him; Her fist balled subconsciously, apparently she hadn't put enough distance between herself and the other students.

She hadn't seen him since that encounter that changed her life but she knew that face anywhere.

Her rival.

Her goal.

Her fist shook...That asshole.

Bakugo looked the same. Blond hair uncontrollably spiked, angry red eyes, angry...everything. The few things that seemed to have changed were his height–he now stood a full foot taller than her–and his muscle mass; like her, he seemed to have been working out in the nine years since they were face to face. It made him an intimidating presence.

Too bad it didn't work on her.

Of course he would be here. He had said his goal was to be the #1 hero, of course he would want to go to the best hero school around. Why oh why did they have to be in the same arena? It was like fate was testing her.

Akami sighed.

Maybe he had changed. It had been almost a decade since they met–heaven knows she had changed in that time–and it was a very brief meeting. Nine years was a lot of time to grow up in. She should give him the benefit of a doubt.

"You fucking stole my points!"

So much for that.

She felt her anger rise again and, with it, the power. Breathing slowly, eyes closed, Akami worked to control herself; no matter how much she wanted to beat this boy at being a hero, she didn't want to hurt him...couldn't, if she wanted to pass.

Calm. Breathe. Don't let it out.

When she opened her eyes again, they were a steady blue and Bakugo was in front of her, fuming.

"You fucking kill steal, that was a 3 pointer!"

And that brings my total to 54, thanks for letting me know.

It must have been a lucky shot...or unlucky as she saw it; It meant she didn't have as much control over her fight as she thought, she needed to work on that. But the idea that she had taken a little glory from him almost made her laugh. A small smile found its way onto her face, the only small part of what she was feeling that she let through her guards.

"I'm sorry if I did. But I was under the impression that this was a competition."

Her fist remained balled at her side, fighting back the urge to deck him, as he got into her face...he had to bend over slightly to do it effectively; Akami took it as a victory.

"What's that shitty expression you have on?"

"It's called a smile," Akami cocked a brow at the boy, "have you never heard of it?"

"Fuck you!"

"No, thank you."

She allowed her smile to remain, watching Bakugo grit his teeth in anger. Her quirk was near exhausted; whatever points she may have gotten were now out of reach and she was in no danger of losing control...what strength was there to lose control of anyway?

A shadow loomed; in their anger, neither teen had realised that the 0 pointer had been let loose. It was huge. Standing several stories tall, Akami could see why they were advised to run from it; if it wasn't worth anything, then trying to take it down would take all their time for nothing.

They should run.

"I'm fucking talking to you!"

Bakugo hadn't noticed yet; he was still angry at her… she wanted to rage, to yell that they didn't have time for whatever they were arguing about, that they had bigger issues to run from, but her mouth and her mind did not cooperate; one wanted to scream, the other enforced calm, leaving her at a stalemate when the behemoth of a machine swung at the two of them.

NO!

Where Akami's mind failed, her body reacted; her hands shot out, shoving Bakugo out of the path of the robot's fist, while her foot slid back, turning her body to face it, her arms swinging up into a defensive position in front of her face. No time to run herself. Her strength filled her body before flickering, not having enough time to recover.

"Ah shit…"

Time felt slow as she saw metal death barrel towards her. Hopefully Recovery Girl could pick up the pieces after this was over, cause this was going to hurt. Hopefully they didn't dock her points for this…

She closed her eyes for the impact.

"TIIIIIIMES UUUUUP!"

The robot's fist stopped mere feet from her body, wind from its momentum nearly pushing her weary body over.

It was over.

She finally let her body relax. Unceremoniously falling on her ass, Akami spared a look for Bakugo. Breathing hard, he looked at her with a expression of rage and shock as he pushed himself to his feet.

He was safe and unhurt.

With a sigh, she collapsed on her back. She had no energy left to even keep herself up right; this was the first time in a long while she had exhausted her quirk so thoroughly. Every muscle hurt; bruises, scrapes, and gashes that her quirk had healed returned as aches and pains that made her wince and she struggled to move. As she lay there, vaguely helpless, she heard footsteps approach.

"I didn't need your help."

Opening her eyes, she saw the shadowed form of Bakugo standing over her, the sun just over his shoulder, blinding.

"I'm sorry." She struggled to say; breathing was painful, "You hadn't noticed. My body reacted before my mind could."

You're welcome, Asshole…

"Tch!"

A hand swung into view, the sudden movement making her flinch; her inability to move not allowing her to block whatever blow was coming, she reasoned, and not her old trauma playing up again.

But a blow never came.

"Are you going to fucking take my hand or not?"

Her eyes opened again–she hadn't realised she closed them–and Bakugo was holding his hand out to help her up. He wouldn't even look at her as she let him help her to her feet, a little wobbly; his eye glared at some poor random building as if he was attempting to set it on fire...who knows, maybe he was.

Pulling to her feet easily, Bakugo's glare finally found her; it was a rather impressive one...if she didn't already dislike this boy, she might have been afraid.

"Don't ever fucking help me again."

He turned to storm off before she could respond.

"I'll take that as a thank you…" she said as he stalked away, not hearing her, "you dick."

Making her way out of the "city" slowly, they are informed that the results of their exam would be collated and sent out to them within the week. Ready to get home, Akami changed gingerly; excitement can happen later, when the results came. Now was the time for rest and reflection…she was dead tired.

Thinking to the test, she knew she had done well. There was no doubt about it. 54 points was nothing to sneeze at. She knew she could have gotten more if that bastard hadn't distracted her. And that brought her thoughts to him.

Bakugo hadn't changed.

Akami may have only known him for a day but that boy was just as much an asshole, a bully, as he was as a kid.

He didn't seem to remember her...she didn't know how to feel about that. All these years of anger and he had forgotten. Akami couldn't blame him, not really; it was her that made the fuss, her that started this rivalry–if it could be called that–her that hit him and told him he wasn't a hero. All he did was save a quiet girl from being killed from her own lack of spatial awareness and kept her company til she decked him for being a bully.

He was a asshole...but she really wasn't much better.

She was glad he was alright, though. As much as she wanted to be better than him, she knew spite wasn't the best motivator for a hero. She wanted to help people for the sake of helping people, to undo the hurt her mother had put into the world; beating that arrogant boy was just a side benefit.

On the train home, Akami's mind was consumed with second guessing and over analyzing her fight, sure that the observers in charge of admissions would find some fault in her performance: maybe she misunderstood the instructions of the exam, or had accidentally hurt another student, or they would take her shoving of Bakugo as aggressive and bar her from UA on grounds of loss of control. There was a myriad of ways her dream could be taken from her.

When she got home, she fell into Shota's arms, exhausted mentally and physically, and rambled about her fears.

"You did good." was all he said after listening to her for a long time.

And she did.

The letter arrived a week later. A week of silence and dread; exacerbated by Shota's terse shrugs at her worrying and Hizashi's cheeky "you'll have to wait and see~"s at her questions about the selection process. A week of stress and working a hole in the floor with her pacing was ended by a simple envelope.

Opening it, she was surprised by a hologram of All Might announcing that she had made it into the hero program with 74 points, tied for 2nd place in the entire entrance exam! Apparently rescue points were a thing and pushing Bakugo out of the way at the risk to her own person had earned her 20.

Her scream of excitement could have woken the dead. Shota definitely looked like she had woken him from a nap, glaring while rubbing his ears when she came downstairs babbling.

"I told you you would do well, didn't I?" he mumbled as the excited girl hugged him tight, internally happy for his almost daughter; externally he had an air of 'and you didn't believe me?'

Akami was so happy she missed the small smile that work its way onto his tired face and his texting several of his friend's to come to a congratulations party later that day. Pro heros found their way home from their small apartment hours later and they all said the same thing to their families and to themselves:

Yukiko Akami was going to be a hero.

AN: I didn't mean to be so harsh on Iida, it just happened, I'm sorry!

Ding Ding Ding! Congratulations to Celestial Ink for being our first caller!

I'm glad you liked it! I have plans for plenty of fluff and angst, so buckle up! And yes you did read she is (was) 3' tall; she a smol girl (Aizawa was a full 3 ft taller than her!) I mean, she was 4 but I looked at charts and she's a very short 4 year old. She's taller at 15….4'8" but its still taller than 3'! At that age, she wasn't very muscular; her strength was purely her quirk, not her body. That does change, but she never really bulks up.