I had been young, when we moved. Mom had made sure I had been aware of the possibility beforehand, and though I think she was worried I would think it was "my fault" I was never really concerned about that. The reason for the move was that teaching blind children requires a completely separate set of skills and qualifications from teaching other kids. I assume it's the same for deaf kids, now I think about it. In any case the teachers at Aldera didn't qualify, so the government was willing to subsidise us moving to somewhere that did. In my case, that meant Chiba.

I'm glad we moved, overall. That school was where I met two of my best friends. Mina found out some of the other kids were playing tricks on me, and after giving them a good chewing-out she more or less adopted me as her new friend. Eijirou...you know, I'm not entirely sure when we became friends. We worked together on a couple of projects for class, and he's such a nice guy I think we just ended up as buddies by accident more than anything.

As for what we left behind, I don't really remember anything. It later came out that Bakugo, one of my classmates at UA, had been my neighbour when we were kids. The thing is, we were both so young and we spent so long apart, that by the time we met again we were total strangers. His voice was different enough that I didn't remember it at all, and if he recognised me he's never mentioned it. Mind you I guess we're not the closest two people in the world anyway. I don't know, maybe it just never came up.

We were fortunate to be within commuting distance of UA; we were all able to take the train on the day of the entry exam. We were all given a brief explanation of what was what, and then we were sent on our separate ways.

The written test was a tale of two halves. There was a lengthy multi-choice section, which could of course be administered in Tenji. The latter half was the written questions, or at least what would normally be the written questions. In my case, that meant I was to recite my answers into a recorder. For obvious reasons, my test was conducted in its own little room, away from the other students. It's a shame, really. If it hadn't been for the verbal component, I would have liked to have done it with the others. What was I going to do, read their answers?

Still, I think I did well enough. Given how much faster it is to talk than to write, even when you're choosing your words carefully, I was done before a lot of the other test-takers. I was directed to a lecture hall and settled down to wait for everyone else to come in.

Mina sat down next to me. I could tell it was her before she even opened her mouth – nobody else I know flings themselves into a chair quite like she does. By way of a greeting, she made some kind of inarticulate wailing noise.

"What's up with you?" asked Eijirou from a few spaces away.

"Exam melted her brain, I think", I supplied.

She made a vague noise of agreement. Fortunately, she recovered in time for Present Mic's explanation of the next stage of the exam. I tried not to freak out about that, by the way. He gave an outline of the urban environment, the robot villains and the scoring system. Unfortunately, this all seemed to be accompanied by a display on a big screen. A student with a loud, clear voice asked about a fourth kind of robot.

As Present Mic went into an explanation about stage hazards, Mina took the chance to describe the robots to me. "OK", she said, "So the one-point robots are on a big wheel, like a unicycle. They've got shields on their arms and their head's on a long neck. The two-point robots are sorta like a big scorpion with four legs. I bet there's a laser in their tails or something. The three-point robots look like tanks, I guess they're real tough. The zero-point robot looks more like a big truck with a robot on top."

"Thank you", I whispered back.

I tuned back in just in time to hear the other examinee accost Mina publicly. "And secondly - you up there! The pink girl! Stop your whispering, it's very distracting!"

I felt Mina stand up quickly and thump the back of the chairs in front of us. "I am describing them to my friend because he's blind you BIG DUMB JERK!" She yelled, before sitting back down in a huff. "Sorry, Izuku"

"That's alright", I replied as the jackass spluttered an apology. I did feel a little bad for him being put on the spot like that, but then he'd done the same to me and Mina so screw him I guess.

She informed me I was due in training ground E. I was able to latch on to a group headed that direction, and before I knew it I was waiting for the exam to start. Everyone else was milling about in a mix of excitement and nervousness, and I meandered my way to the front of the group. I didn't recognise any of the voices, and I hoped Mina and Eijirou would do well in their own exams.

The test began, and I bolted forwards. Ordinarily that would be risky, but I knew that my best hope was in getting away from the pack. Besides, I was going to be throwing some heavy leather, and the last thing I wanted was for someone to end up with any broken bones. With a little quirk-assisted sprinting, I was able to put some distance between myself and the bulk of the other hopefuls. The noise of the crowd faded behind me, and I started to go robot-hunting.

Fortunately for me, the robots UA was using for villains made a lot of noise. Even apart from their clanking and grinding, they also beeped and booped seemingly at random. Maybe that was related to some vital function of their internal machinery, or maybe whoever built them just figured robots should make robot noises, but I wasn't complaining in any case. It was easy enough for me to hear them coming, and even though I couldn't often pick out their heads, I was able to aim for their centre and hit their torsos. Or, torso-equivalents, I guess.

Sometimes I could tell the points value of the robots I was beating, but quite often I really couldn't be certain. I probably could have made sure by checking the bodies, but I was very conscious of the time limit. I knew I was going in at a disadvantage, and I wanted to spend every possible second scoring points.

The good news was that I was in a target-rich environment. Either the robots were mobbing me because I was on my own, or there were just hundreds of the things throughout the training ground, because once I'd found a good spot at a crossroads, I hardly had to move. They came at me from all angles, though curiously enough none of them used that laser Mina had been talking about. Maybe she'd just guessed wrong, I didn't know how good the picture had been.

What I would later find out is that, as part of the exam, anyone going out solo and just wailing on robots gets swarmed. It's an endurance test, to see if you can keep it up when the pressure's on. A lot of people flag when they're under attack for long enough, but thanks to All Might's training I rose to the occasion and kept it up throughout. Eventually the zero-point stage hazard put in an appearance, but I don't think it came particularly near me, so I just kept doing what I was doing. You had to be something pretty special to even take part in the entrance exam, so I figured the rest of the examinees would know what they were doing.

I got hit plenty, and probably more often than I know. It didn't particularly hurt; it all felt like shoves. Once the adrenaline started pumping I stopped feeling it, or at least stopped feeling it the way I normally might. I was in the zone, and it would have taken more force than these robots could muster to break me out of it.

At last the end of the exam sounded, and I was able to relax. I was more tired than I would have thought, and I could tell I would be sore the next day; but I was still beaming as I made my way towards the sounds of the exit. I stumbled over something and belatedly realised that a practical exam like this would be sure to leave a lot of rubble and wreckage. I sighed and pulled out a folding cane I had taken to keeping in my costume.

Thinking back, I must have made a strange sight as I left the exam area and headed to the locker rooms to get changed. At the time, though, I was really just too worn out to pay much attention to anything around me. I had just about enough wherewithal not to trip over my own shoes, but anything else was quite beyond me. Eventually, I made it home and began the long, torturous wait for my results.

I had thought that Eijirou would be able to keep up his confidence during the wait, but he seemed sure he had failed. I had no idea why. He had enough brains to be able to handle the written portion of the exam, and to hear him tell it he'd really done quite well in the practical. I told him as much, and Mina told him the same things but more forcefully, but of course the thing with doubt is it's not always rational. During that wait, he reminded me of a horror story I'd listened to once. It was translated from English, and it was about a man trapped in a dungeon, forced to wait as a swinging blade comes lower and lower towards him.

I had the tact not to mention that to Eijirou himself, of course.

Finally, after an agony of waiting, a letter arrived. Well, I say letter. All Might informed be via voice recording that I had aced the written exam and achieved the third-highest score in the practical. I'm not ashamed to admit that I stumbled out of my bedroom, tears of joy streaming down my face, and hugged my mom until she had to remind me to let her breathe.

I had made it.