The Path of Grace
Summary: A Young Izumi's heart is broken when she finds out she's quirkless. But after stumbling on a TV interview of a quirkless but successful actress, she thinks she found her path to greatness. Fem!Deku
Warning: Fem!Izuku
Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia
Author's Note: I am so irresponsible. Honestly. I have other fanfictions I have not updated for years! And yet, here is another one! I hope I can actually update this more regularly than all my other would-be stories.
U.A. High School's Hero Course
A training school for those whose goal is to acquire the necessary qualifications needed for pro heroes. Among similar courses across the country, theirs is the most popular and most competitive, and their acceptance rate is less than one in three hundred every year. The hero who refused a National Honour Award – The number one hero, All Might.
The hero who resolved the most incidents in history – The Fiery Hero, Endeavor.
The Winner of the Best Jeanist award eight years in a row – Best Jeanist.
Graduating from U.A. is a requirement for becoming a great hero. And so, I tackled the U.A. entrance exam.
I will take…
… my first steps towards my dream of becoming a hero.
As the buses arrived in the different battle centres allocated to different groups of student hopefuls, Izumi could hear the different sounds of awe that came from her fellow applicants. Previously, they've all already changed into their preferred gear for the exams. They were informed to wear something they would be comfortable to do combat in. In most cases, the students chose to wear different sports wear or casual wear. Izumi thought to wear otherwise.
She wore her shortest black kimono; it only came up to her upper thighs. But like most of the kimono and dresses she owns, there were splashes of colour, in this case, her kimono had bright butterflies embroidered into the cloth making it look like they were fluttering about as she moves. The kimono was so short that if Izumi wasn't wearing her leggings she would have been indecently exposed to her fellow teens; but even then she could feel their wandering and leering eyes. A confident smirk lay permanently on her beautiful face as she observed the other applicants assigned to the same site as her.
Just looking at her fellow applicants, she could not discern any significant standouts except for a few who wore rather peculiar outfits. A few wore karate gi, or some ruffled shirts; but the people themselves acted like they are at any random school sporting event. Of course, there was that brat of a boy who was sent to the same battle centre as her and that girl who saved her from an embarrassing face-plant before the exam orientation earlier.
In her head she recapped Present Mic's orientation about their urban battle simulation examination.
"As it says on the application requirements, you listeners will be conducting a ten-minute mock urban battle after this! The three different types of faux villains are stationed in each battle centre. You earn points for each of them based on the level of their difficulty. Your goals, dear listeners, are to use whatever way you can to earn points by immobilizing the faux villains." Izumi hummed as she remembered the most important details of the pre-exam orientation.
She watched the other applicants stretch and hype themselves up for the upcoming battle. "Omoshire…." Izumi muttered to herself, scouting out today's opponents. They were all competing for the top spots of the exam to get into the only two classes offered for the hero course. Noticeably there were others that had brought their own equipment to help or enhance their quirks. Izumi herself, brought two of her sharpest tessen, one hallow tessen and three sleeping gas cartridges with a fourth already loaded. She also brought one of her stronger tessen which had retractable hook blade and hidden chain which she primarily uses like a climber's axe and grapple hook.
After securing the straps that held her weapons on her thighs, still ignoring the distracted teenage boys gawking at her, she started walking towards the brunette that saved her earlier to wish her luck. Izumi could clearly see that despite the other girl's cheery attitude earlier she was still nervous. Izumi wanted to cheer her up a bit instead of being over-hyped and nervous. Unfortunately, fate had it out for her that day and the idiotic presumptuous boy from earlier tried to stop her.
Upon feeling that wide almost stocky hand on her shoulder she had a glare ready for the idiot once more. Her icy stare usually made people back down or cower in fear, for most there was something unnerving in the cold glare of hers. She's been told that as if a cosmic joke was being played on them and that people seem to always think she was supposed to be a push-over and not the strong-willed woman she was.
"That girl seems to be trying to focus. What are you doing here? Are you taking the entrance exam to interfere with everyone else?" The boy was serious in his accusations and Izumi could feel her blood boil again.
"Care to repeat that; you impetuous, presumptuous, socially inept boy? It seems you're under the impression that what you have been doing is socially acceptable, never mind utterly disrespectful? Earlier, you dare expose me as if I were in the wrong and trying to discuss the exams with a friend? Are you so socially jealous that you cannot accept that I, a complete stranger, am confident enough in these exams that I'm relaxed enough to strategize with a fellow applicant? Maybe it's you whom has come here to interfere with everyone? All I wanted to do was say good luck to a girl who I count as an everyday hero for saving me from face planting earlier." Izumi pointed to the brunette who was looking a bit pink in the cheeks because she knew she was being talked about.
"Yet you come here, once more and try to throw me under the bus for no reason? Are you trying to sabotage me? If I was a nervous wreck and bullied teen who dreamt to be a hero for all their life and you did this to me? I would have rather died than even enter the battle centre or even entirely failed the whole exam because of your callous, careless actions!" Grabbing the hand that hadn't left her shoulder, she gave it a firm squeeze enough for the boy to wince in pain and let go. "Learn to respect people, you're supposed to be a future pro-hero yet your attitude is as redolent as a common thug bordering on villainy."
After that she didn't feel like exposing the other girl and causing more of a commotion. She could feel and hear the attention that was gathered to her and the boy's confrontation. Izumi knew that if she really was the nervous wreck she hypothetically stated, these people would think it was their advantage that someone got called out like this. In a world of heroes and villains, even hero-wannabes forget that villains are the epitome of bullies. She did some quick stretches to remove some tension that had been gathering when suddenly…
"Okay, start!" Did Present Mic's voice cut through the crowd.
One of the first things Izumi learned in the School was to always be vigilant and that the real world won't ever give you a countdown to action. So she sprang forward, leaving everyone behind and staring at her dumbly. They didn't understand that the exam already started. Vaguely, she could hear Present Mic explain about countdowns and real fights.
If there is anything that Izumi knew is that this simulated battle centre would have accurately placed their faux-villains in the areas real villains would usually be at. Sure, she could see many faux-villains milling about but a quick count per area she knew that there were not enough for even half the group she was in to score enough points. This was an urban battle and most urban battles happen indoors. Since this simulated the city, she first went to what looked like a mall.
"Ping pong! I just hit the jack pot." Milling around inside the mall were clusters of different faux-villains. There were more 1 and 2 pointers and a smattering of 3 pointers. With a bloodthirsty grin, she felt her training kick in as she took out two of her tessen. One had the razor sharp edge and the other had the hook blade.
Spotting her first victim, she immediately jumped on a 3 pointer, hooking into a crevice on its neck and using her other fan and sliced the robot's head clean off. This deactivated it immediately but the other robots in its immediate vicinity started attacking her. Using the falling momentum of the robot she was on she quickly jumped and climbed a 1pointer arm where another 1p tried to hit her. This ended with the robots hitting each other strong enough that the robot she was scaling earlier went down as well. Izumi immediately used her hook fan and hoisted herself up to the head of the 2nd 1pointer and just stabbed her other tessen into the robot head. "5 points. I still have a long way to go."
Flinging her hook fan, she engaged the chain on it and tugged herself over tow a set of two 2pointers. Passing behind their backs she had her blade fan open and slashing the cables across the back of the robots, effectively slicing them in two. Once more this disabled the faux villains. Izumi knew that the "kill points" of humans were simulated into these robots. Her actions alerted the other faux-villains; the basic AI of the faux-villains had set protocols not to outright kill the students, serious injuries were still allowed. So, the faux-villains converged on the smirking girl. "Bring it on!"
It took quite a bit of time but as she finished, she noticed she still had 4 minutes to spare. They were clustered so close to each other and no one else came in with her; she racked up points easily and didn't have to run around looking for opponents. She'd cleared out the mall and with a quick recount she had 65 points already. There were five 3pointers in the mall; each had three 2pointers and four 1pointer faux villains. Whoever did the programming on their simple AI took account normal defence formations. So it would mean that outside majority of the bots were 1pointers and 2pointers with 3pointers hiding inside a building and waiting to surprise the applicants.
But Izumi wasn't satisfied with just 65 points; she decided to take down more of the villains and ran out to the next building. Near to the simulated mall was a hospital; she noticed that only one or two others were going inside buildings instead of fighting in the streets. The stocky social inept from earlier she could spy was running around in the streets as well. A flamboyant boy with the ruffled shirt was shooting lasers from his belt but she'd noticed that he seemed to be stealing kills. While some tried to take down their opponent the faux-villains are distracted and the blonde with ruffled clothing boy took it without remorse but with a thank you.
Izumi could see the frustrated actions of many of the applicants they didn't have a lot of time left. Most of them were shouting out the points they've gathered, Izumi understood that there has to be a cut-off so when she heard that some of them hadn't even reached 30 points she felt frustration creep up on her. "Ugh, why am I such a Good Samaritan?" Izumi grumbled to herself as she shouted towards some of the stragglers. "Inside the buildings! There are more villains inside the buildings than outside! Hurry!" Izumi shouted as she ran past other applicants.
Most of them hesitated and decided not to listen to her and just continued to run around trying and, most of the time, failing to find more faux-villains. Some did listen to her and ran into the bigger buildings and she can hear the battles and hear them shouting in victory in getting more points. Instead of her original plan on going to another simulated public building, she ran around looking for other applicants if they needed help. "Damn me and my conscience."
Izumi didn't regret it though, as she saw quite a few struggling against their opponents. She didn't intervene with most of them. Some she pushed out of the way when they were blindsided and about to be hit by a robot. Other times she had to pull out some kids from under a collapsed robot that they defeated. When she saw a purple haired boy with eye bags the size of China's population about to pass out from getting pinned down by a 2pointer, she had to act. Izumi once more threw her hook-blade fan and snagged a coil of wiring on the robot's arm and pulled. The hook-blade was extended and cut the wires immediately disabling the robot's arm and letting go of the other teen. The boy slid down the wall he was pinned to and slumped over in a dead faint. She'd planned to orchestrate it so the boy could get the point but it was too late.
Without hesitation she downed the 2pointer robot and fireman carried the unconscious boy towards the entrance. But as she approached an intersection, she spotted many of the combatants that had battled in open space of the simulated city. She also saw the kind girl that helped her earlier in the day amongst the crowd. "She looks like she's about to throw up." Izumi muttered. She's glad that the other girl got 28 points; Izumi hoped that would be enough for the girl to get in.
Suddenly a loud crash could be heard throughout the city, a large cloud dust rose over the buildings, and the ground shook as if there was an earthquake. From where Izumi stood among the rubble of destroyed robots, holding up an unconscious boy, she spied the giant robot that peeked around the building. A shot of terror ran down her spine but at the same time adrenaline spiked in her as she felt her blood sing. She knows that no matter how hard she trains, she could never defeat a monster that big and it just gave her a thrill.
She should stay away from Kacchan. Kacchan is not a good role model.
Suddenly the overly large robot hit the ground with a fist, sending a gust of dust towards them, almost unbalancing Izumi. She held firm and made sure to keep the boy she was holding upright. The boy stirred and woke up a bit, Izumi smiled at him after noticing, "Don't worry, I'll make sure you'll get to safety." She noticed that everyone was running her way and was about to run with them; she noticed the annoying boy look at her with disbelief before running away with the rest.
Izumi girded herself and resolutely started to drag the boy she was carrying faster. She could never face her mentor if she left this boy alone while he's so disoriented. But a sound of pain drew her attention. Looking back, she saw the girl who saved her earlier trapped under the rubble that the robot kicked up. Immediately Izumi knew that the girl won't be able to run away and will be crushed by the robot. But she had her cargo to take care of. In a split second she made her decision.
She always trusted her instincts.
Rushing towards the crowd that gathered in front of the gate, it was pure luck that they were all near the entrance already, she handed the boy she was carrying to the first person there. Fate would have it that it was the blue haired annoyance from orientation. Izumi didn't care and ran back towards the trapped girl. "Take care of him! He passed out earlier!"
Izumi knew, she had absolutely no hope to take down the behemoth of a robot so she did the next best thing she needed to pull the girl out. Izumi once more pulled out her hooked blade fan, engaging the whole blade and anchoring it deep into the pavement, she also engaged the chain extension. Wrapping the chain around her forearm, she extended the chain to its maximum and reached the trapped girl. She grabbed the other girl's arm and shouted, "Hold on tight!"
Then she activated a secondary feature of the hook blade fan; the hook dug into the ground as a retracting system of the blade was engaged. Izumi felt her arm stretch and twinge in pain at the sudden pull but she held fast and both her and the trapped girl were pulled away from the rubble. They both skidded across the pavement towards her hooked fan but years of practice had Izumi hauling the other girl and standing before they got to her anchored fan. She quickly disengaged the bladed hook, leaving it embedded on the ground but pulling free her fan, she dragged herself and the other girl towards safety.
As soon as they both reached the other applicants, she heard Present Mic's voice announce, "Time's Up!" All over she could see applicants winding down from the battle and the giant robot shutting down. She sent a relieved smile towards the girl she was still holding up. "I'm glad that I was able to reach you. Are you ok? I'm sorry that you got dragged down the dirt with me. It was the only way for me to get us away from that robot."
"Y-you… You saved me. Thank you." The other girl was a bit too speechless and couldn't say another word before she let go of Izumi, faced to the side and vomited. Izumi could only stare before she could feel her body reacting to seeing someone vomit and almost vomited as well. Looking away, she surveyed her fellow applicants and saw that many had scrapes and bruises all over.
Seeing the other applicant she helped, the purple haired boy she dragged along the battle centre, was already awake but somewhat dazed; Izumi decided to see if she can help out. Crouching next to the purple haired boy, the annoying eye-glasses boy standing uselessly beside them, Izumi sent a smile to the purple haired boy. "Hey, you ok?"
It took a while but the boy's eyes showed recognition. "I… You're the one that helped me." The boy's voice was weak and small, like he couldn't believe what happened.
"I just did what was right. You needed help and everyone was too busy trying to get their points, I was passing by and saw you got trapped and I wanted to help. By the way, I'm Izumi. What's your name?" Izumi felt her filter slip a bit and almost went into mumbling mode again. The boy took a few seconds before hesitatingly answered, "Shinsou Hitoshi."
Izumi nodded, happy. "Hajimemashite. And may I now know how you feel?" The boy didn't answer her question earlier; probably because Hitoshi was too dazed.
"I'm kinda sore and dizzy… Why… Why did you help me? You could've just… continued getting more points if you could down the robots so easily." Hitoshi's answer started out with a dead tone but his bitterness seeped into his demeanour as he questioned Izumi's motives.
Izumi could practically taste Hitoshi's emotions and felt that this boy needs more saving.
She just knew it.
"It's simple, you needed help and I gave it. Truth is, I think it's unheroic to not help people clearly in need. Everyone here is so focused on getting their own points that it's almost like tunnel vision for everyone. We're all here, trying for the exams to be hero students, and yet we focused more on ourselves rather than others. While I ran through the streets I've seen a lot of the others kill steal as if we're in a multiplayer RPG, and the other players who desperately need those kills are just NPC's that don't matter." Her voice carried to the other student-applicants and she can see their guilty faces.
The boy with glasses she'd reprimanded spoke up then, "Of course, we would have helped! If this wasn't an exam then…!" But the boy suddenly cut himself off, as if suddenly realizing something.
Izumi could feel her anger boiling again and suddenly stood up. "Fool! Exam or not, we are all here to become heroes. If you're so focused on your own success and not the safety of others, maybe you're in the wrong place. A hero's duty is to the people, not to be the flashiest badass in fights. If you want to be that flashy join the media, if you want to be a hero stop thinking of only yourself and start thinking about helping others."
Izumi walked away before she bursts out in full on rant mode again; she went to the other girl she saved, still leaning over her own vomit. "Hey, let's get you away from this mess and somewhere you won't be reminded of that." Izumi held the brunette's arm as she gently led her away and towards the other students gathering around, waiting for instructions.
With her trained hearing Izumi could hear the soft patter of someone's feet in time with a cane. Looking around she saw an old lady in a hero costume saying, "Okay, good work. Good work, good work. Here you go. Here are some gummies. Eat some gummies." The elderly hero passed around gummy candies to those who were clearly tired but not injured much more than a few scratches here or there. More than a few were confused by the appearance of the geriatric heroine. Thankfully, Izumi didn't need to clarify as the boy with the white ruffled shirt spoke up.
"That mademoiselle is the backbone of U.A." The heroine came up to their little group, "Are you alright, dearies?" Izumi smiled kindly and nodded to the two she helped. "Hitoshi-kun here almost got crushed by a robot earlier. He passed out from being pinned for so long. And she was trapped under the rubble earlier when the zero-pointer went berserk. I'm sorry, what's your name?
The brunette girl smiled a bit, "Uraraka Ochako desu. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu."
Izumi smiled widely, "Midoriya Izumi desu, Kochira koso yoroshiku onegai shimasu." The elderly heroine smiled and puckered up to kiss both Shinsou and Uraraka. As her lips extended in what looks like an application of her quirk Izumi felt her heartbeat quickening. She was witnessing one of the rarest forms of healing quirks in the world! Unlike her though, everyone else around her were surprised and were asking out loud on what was happening. The boy with the ruffled shirt continued his explanation then, "U.A. High's licensed school nurse… the Youthful Heroine, Recovery Girl!"
A noticeably green glow covered both Shinsou and Uraraka in the area they were most affected. Shinsou's glow focused on his throat and torso, it probably meant that Shinsou was suffering from the side effects of choking. While Uraraka's were concentrated on her head, though her throat and abdominal area also glowed; she was being healed from her nausea.
"Her quirk is the super-activation of healing ability. U.A. can only go through with such a reckless entrance exam because of her." Succinct with perfect timing of his explanation, Izumi felt that the boy with ruffles likes to the type of hero who shows off a lot, an entertainer to be sure.
Recovery Girl didn't wait for her patients to get up and called out if there were others who were injured. Izumi was happy that things went well for everyone. As she stood up she felt the stare of the eyeglasses boy and can see his eyes gaining a calculating glint. Izumi just raised an eyebrow and left, she didn't want to interact with the boy more than she'd already had.
As she left the battle grounds she found herself being driven back to the front gates along with the other buses from the other battle centres. After getting changed out her kimono battle gear she looked around the entrance to look for her best friend.. Waving Kacchan over, she grinned at her friend who looked especially smug. "Points?" Izumi asked.
"77 points. You?" Of course Katsuki would also ask her.
"65 points. You win this round." Izumi smiled as she popped open one of her ordinary fans. Hiding her grin behind the fan, she knew that Kacchan was frustrated that she has a chance of getting into heroics. But more importantly, "Hey, wanna go to The Den this weekend? I've done some serious training recently and I hadn't the chance to test myself out." Izumi wanted Kacchan with her when she goes to the underground fighting rings the coming weekend. Mostly it was to show off and make him understand that she deserves his acknowledgement that she can be a hero. And, she really wanted to see how much she'd changed since her training with All Might started. It's hard to gauge her strength against robots.
"Feh, sure." Kacchan scoffed as they continued their way towards the train station so that they can get home already.
That weekend, she and Kacchan got to the entrance of The Den where a bouncer with a warping quirk awaited. They presented their ID cards showing they were members of this particular fighting club before they were transported to a club with three fighting rings in the centre. There were no scheduled matches, so there weren't as many patrons tonight. Even so, there were fighters milling about, waiting for a challenge.
The guests who were milling around were a mix of heroes, civilians and villains. Though The Den is quite exclusive compared to the other fighting clubs, there were still a lot of the unsavoury sorts around. Izumi could pick out recruiters from some of the villain groups around, constantly looking for new talent. The pro-heroes that were present were kicking back and chose to ignore the villains who were blatantly walking around and talking about their crimes. Unfortunately, they were talking about previous crimes they had already done and not any planned ones.
The heroes, even if they've heard a confession out of the villains in this place, could not hunt the villain down. What happens in the fight club stays in the fight club. After all, Rule 1. You don't talk about the fight club.
Anyways…
Izumi and Kacchan were regulars in the junior division; they were both also part of the top 5 best in their division too. Out of the hundred or so underage fighters registered with The Den, Izumi and Katsuki usually came out as winners. Of course, that is not to say that they haven't encountered some worthy rivals.
On the farther side of The Den were a group of teenagers who were chatting in the corner. They were collectively known as Class 3-E. The whole group was trained by the world's most powerful assassin codenamed as Shinigami. While not all of them were fighters, they were all considered as part of the underbelly of society as they were trained hitmen. Izumi had encountered some of their girls like Kanzaki, Kayano, Nakamura and Nagisa from the Performing Arts school.
Jelavic-sensei or as they called her Bitch-sensei had been doing guest seminars every month or so in the Performing Arts School on seduction. The Serbian would have her female students tag along with her whenever she did her seminars. Of course, Nagisa was treated as a trap for such girlish looks. It's the only reason why Bitch-sensei brought him along. That, and Nagisa had a powerful mind and great critical analysis; Izumi loved talking with the blue-haired boy given the chance.
And it just so happens one of their fellow Top 5 rankers were part of Class 3-E, Akabane Karma was a monster in the best sense of the word. Akabane's quirk also fit his personality well, Imp allowed Akabane the capabilities of an imp. Akabane had devil wings behind his back and two small horns protruding atop his head. He was able to do short teleportation and has a pocket space to keep his toys.
Previously, Akabane was her perfect sparring partner. They both relied on their weapons and superior fighting techniques to overpower their opponents but this time, she needed someone clearly stronger than her but not someone overwhelmingly stronger. She found her opponent in Kongou Agon, another junior division top ranker. Other than Katsuki whom he's won and lost an equal amount of times, the brute only ever lost twice in his whole stay in The Den, once to her because she used her superior speed and some trickery; the other time to diminutive Nagisa for his flawless assassination technique. Since his only loss to her, Izumi never won again.
Now, she just wanted to challenge the brute because while Agon was a brute, he was also a genius. She wanted to test out her strength and for him to criticize her. With a nudge towards Kacchan she winked at her best friend before sauntering over to Agon. The brute of a teenager already had a scowl on his face as he saw one of the two women he respected. The other was the new captain of Deimon's American Football team.
"Whaddya want, princess?" Agon sat in his usual slump his legs wide open and two girls hanging on him. Izumi let a playful and teasing smile dance across her lips. Sitting on Agon's right leg she cozied up to him, resting her head on his shoulder.
"Well, I was wondering if you'd indulge me in a fight tonight? You know that Katsuki and I are gunning to become pro-heroes, right? Well, I've been training and I need to pick your brains to see if I've improved." Izumi traced her fingers across Agon's chest coyly. The girls who were previously hanging off him looked annoyed that The Den's best girl was taking Agon's attention away from them. Both of the girls were also fighters but they barely scratched the Top 20 of the girls.
Agon's had a neutral face on and was considering the challenge, and then with a leer he looked down at the petite greenette. "And what is in it for me? Well, aside from feeling you up and putting you into your place, trash?" Agon growled lowly.
Hook. Line. And now the sinker.
Izumi let out a feral smile as she leaned up and whispered unto Agon's ear with her best bedroom voice. "I've heard about that other woman. She's completely out of our world right? I've seen her pictures. She has legs that go on for days with those oh so perfect muscles you like so much. I can give her my recommendation into the Okiya. We're looking for fresh talents, just think of her out of that awkward highschool girl phase into a real woman. Like me." With that she knew that she has Agon's attention, his bright red flush that travelled from his ears to his neck; she walked away and towards one of the free rings in the centre of the club.
From the corner of her sight, she could see Kacchan seething in anger. Kacchan never liked it when Izumi interacted with Agon the way she always did; a bit of seduction and a whole lot of innuendo. Kacchan sat with Class 3-E and she could see that Isogai-san and Rio-chan holding Katsuki back from starting a fight with Agon. She could feel Class 3-E's Chiba, one of their best snipers, using his quirk of telepathy trying to get ask about her actions. 'I just want to test myself against him. I don't want Kacchan to interfere.' Izumi replied and with that, she shut off all distractions.
She was already wearing her battle kimono, this time it was cloth dyed blood red with splashes of black butterflies. She had her tessen tucked in securely on her legs. She had some of her best tessen with her; her hook blade fan that had a blunted blade, and her obsidian metal fan, her strongest and most durable fan. She avoided taking her sharper blade fans as she could potentially kill someone in this no-holds-barred fight club. There were many healing quirked individuals employed by The Den just for healing all and any injured fighters.
Izumi stood facing Agon, who was removing his varsity jacket. Izumi started the footwork for Capoeira. After the first time she beat Agon, the brute had smartened up and had seemingly been able to predict her movements. She had been told by her instructors that her integrated martial arts were crazy enough to be hard enough not to be predictable for most fighters. Plus, she was told she never telegraphed her movements so it irritated her that Agon was fast enough to seem that he was predicting her movements.
Agon, being the impatient brute he was, started their bout by pouncing on her. Immediately, Izumi went on a half handstand and kicked at the right side of Agon, which he promptly blocked because damn his God Impulse quirk. But she could see the surprise on Agon's face as he felt more force than she had before. He stumbled from the surprise and the force of her kick. It was twice, thrice no, five times more powerful than before. Izumi didn't hesitate to follow up the first kick with an uppercut using her left back heel.
She could feel Agon's jaw crack a bit before the boy let the momentum carry him and lessen the force behind her kick. As Agon's body flew off the ground, Izumi completed her body's rotation in a no-hand backflip. Agon made to grab the back of Izumi's neck, she tried to dodge but Agon was faster and grabbed hold of her neck still.
The genius brute kneed Izumi's side multiple times, hard. She could feel her bones creak and crack, gritting her teeth in pain; Izumi pulled out her hook fan and engaged the blunted blade. She hooked it over Agon's neck and in a feat of flexibility only achieved by the type of training she had had, Izumi managed to get both her legs up and around Agon's neck. Izumi managed to get Agon into a triangle chokehold with her powerful thighs.
Of course Agon wasn't going to give up so easily. She was sitting on Agon's shoulder as she squeezed the Agon's neck to asphyxiate the boy enough to have him almost fainting. But she could feel Agon's powerful arms trying to pull her off him. It reminded her of the first time she'd beaten Agon, but the last time, she had pinned the bigger boy facing the ground with multiple of her fans. Plus she had one leg choking him, the other digging on his back while she held his leg with one hand and her foot that was choking her on the other. She won, of course. But that was 3 years ago and Agon had underestimated her back then.
Since then, she hadn't been able to put Agon in another successful choke hold, until now. Agon threw himself to the ground to try and wriggle off Izumi but she held fast, tightening her hold on his neck. Slowly, Agon's pulls and punches were losing steam but Izumi didn't relent until the boy either taps out or knocks out.
She saw Agon hit the mat three times and immediately Izumi let go. She could vaguely hear the roar of the watching crowd as she saw the pale Agon quickly gaining back more colour than he normally did.
She won.
There was only one other person that could beat Agon in their division and that was Kacchan and that was only because of how ruthless her bestfriend was in his quirk usage. But she'd beaten Kacchan as many times as he'd beaten her and now, she beat Agon too. Effectively, she was as strong as Kacchan now. She only needed a few more wins against both and she'd rank tied to the other two.
She felt her friends from Class 3-E hug her and throw her up in the air. Looking down at the grin-scowl of Agon, she felt like she was on top of the world. There was only one thing left…
She needed to be in the Heroics Department of U.A.
A week after the entrance exams…
They should be expecting U.A.'s letter whether or not they got in. The Bakugou's and Inko decided to have a party for their children, whether or not their kids got into U.A. or not. So that morning, while Inko went out for the Neighbourhood circular meeting, Izumi started baking and cooking. They usually did potluck when the Bakugous and her family ate together.
Izumi was usually in charge of desserts. She made some flavoured rain drop cakes, mocha ice cream and coffee jelly. But she also had one rice dish that Kacchan loves, because it was extremely spicy and both Kacchan an Mitsuki-obaa-san loves it. She made two versions of it, one that tolerable to even the most sensitive palates and another for Kacchan and his mother. The super spicy rice dish was almost glowing nuclear red from how spicy it was.
As she finished her preparations and setting the food to stay warm or chill in the freezer she could hear her mother's frantic shuffling across their home. "Izu-Izu-Izu!... Izu-Izu-Izu!... Izumi!" Izumi turned just in time to see her mother on the floor seemingly crawling without moving by the open doorway. And there in her mother's hand was a letter, which was quickly shown to her, "It's here! It came! It's here!"
Izumi quickly took the letter that had U.A. Highschool printed on the bottom with U.A.'s wax seal.
She smiled nervously at her mother and locked herself in her room. There was an 80% chance that she still didn't get into heroics no matter how high a score she had on the battle exam. Sure, she was certain that she passed with flying colours in the written portion and she got more than a decent number of points on the battle exam. But it was still nerve-wracking. Since quirks had become the dominant trait, there had been little to no quirkless hero students anymore. Decades ago, at the same time All Might should still be studying as a hero student, there was still a fair number of quirkless individuals who tried and succeeded in becoming pro-heroes.
But as the years passed by, the mortality rate of quirkless heroes was statistically higher than the quirked pro-heroes; so there had been less and less quirkless pro-heroes. Now, they were just echoes of the past. While it is not illegal for a quirkless individual to try to be a pro-hero, the anti-quirkless movement a decade ago had discouraged that notion. Ten years ago, everyone started believing that being quirkless can be caught like an illness and that they were less than worthless.
Anti-discrimination laws concerning quirked individuals in society were modified to protect quirkless individuals more. But it didn't matter as most people treated quirkless citizens much like the disabled. There was a chance that U.A. will not let her enter into the heroics program simply because she was quirkless. Yes, she will be recognized as an underground hero after a special set of license exams set for her profession but, to Izumi, that meant nothing I she couldn't be like her hero idol.
With much trepidation, she opened the envelope carefully and pulled out a disk, which she recognized as a holographic disk, unto her desk. Immediately, she heard her mentor's loud voice. "I am here as a projection!" This surprised her greatly. Looking up and down from the disk to the hologram she was muttering to herself again. Unfortunately, this time she could not be heard by the author.
"I had to do some paperwork that took some time, so I couldn't contact you. I'm sorry." All Might coughed in embarrassment and bowed lightly to apologize. "Actually I came to this town to work at U.A." All Might's words took her by surprise once more. Her mentor was to be a teacher at U.A.? What utter coincidence that she got him to teach her earlier than her future schoolmates.
Then she saw a hand directing All Might to hurry up. All Might continued to speak with someone off camera before addressing Izumi once more. "Young Midoriya, as you know you've passed your written exam with flying colours. There had been very few others whom received such high marks in the written exams and two of them are teachers in U.A. As the staff is aware, you are quirkless and this has caused some dissent with the teaching staff." This caused a frown to appear on All Might's face.
"But, it seems that you have more allies in U.A. other than myself. Two other U.A. teachers vouched for you, that despite your quirklessness, you are a force to be reckoned with. In addition to your astounding amount of points, even without the use of a quirk you've also accumulated another set of points! Look here! I'm also an entertainer!" All Might pointed towards a screen off to the side, there she could see the footage of herself helping Hitoshi and Uraraka. She could also see herself moving along the streets calling out to other examinees where to find faux-villains and so on.
"How can a hero course reject people who save others and do the right thing? Call that lip service? Bring it on! This is a job that requires risking one's life to put that lip service into practice! Rescue points!" Izumi could feel her inside freeze as she saw a tally of points in front of her this time. "And they're given by a panel of judges. It's the other basic ability we at U.A. look at!"
And there right in the holographic image was a shock. "No. 1 Midoriya Izumi Villain 65 Rescue 50; with a total of 115 points, you've achieved the highest battle exam points in history second to myself only!"
Somehow Izumi felt that she couldn't breathe. "You pass. You've earned the right to join the heroics department!"
Izumi could feel herself shaking and say, "This is too crazy."
All Might extended his hand to her, as if she could reach out and grab his hands through the hologram, "Come, Young Midoriya. This is your hero academia."
And Izumi couldn't stop herself from answering, "Yes, sir." Before she closed her hands over her mouth as she let out happy tears.
She ran out of her room and into her mother's arms as she waved around her official acceptance letter into the hero department of U.A. That night, Kacchan's temper ran hot but he accepted that his childhood bestfriend was going to the same school as him; and into the same department too. He swore that he would be better than Izumi in everything once they officially start their hero training.
After receiving a lot of help, my life changed and will continue to change. And now, my dream high school life is about to begin!
