"The method's explained right here!" Bakugou yelled at Kirishima and bonked the sharp-toothed boy with a workbook. The boys were sat at a small table Hanami had probably set out on the tatami of the open room. The shutters had been removed earlier that morning, so the entire house was filled with light and a warm breeze flowed through the open space.
Niwa sat to their side and dumped her study material on the tatami beside her. With a quick glance over to the textbook Bakugou was so furiously pointing out, Niwa grabbed her English workbook and flipped to the page they were currently working on.
"Which problem are you guys on?" She asked, leaning over to catch a glimpse at Kirishima's workbook.
"Number Eight…" Kirishima groaned.
Question Eight was one of those annoying, time-consuming questions with several lines of dialogue where you needed to read through to find the answer to the question.
"What day will Emily and Takahashi go shopping?" Niwa read the question out loud then scanned through the dialogue.
"It's Saturday, right?" Kirishima beamed.
Twack!
"Ow! Jeeze man…"
"Read the damn thing properly!" Bakugou yelled.
Niwa could hear Fukushia chuckling from his spot, still lounging in the sun on the engawa.
The situation these dialogue questions created added a lot of unnecessary details. The key to these questions was basically just understanding the situation without getting caught up in the little details.
"Kirishima, read out the dialogue," Niwa demanded.
The boy groaned but gripped his book with determination. "Takashi: I-am-going-to-buy-a-present-for-my-sister.-Emily,-can-you help me?" Niwa almost cringed at the horrible pronunciation of the English.
"Alright, so what did you get from that?" Niwa asked as Bakugou sat back with a huff.
"Uhh…" Kirishima stared at his book like the thing was trying to cast some magic spell.
"So you can read it good enough…" Niwa deadpanned.
"Shitty-hair doesn't understand shit."
"How did you even make it through the entrance exam?" Niwa sighed.
"My Japanese literature is pretty good, average in the others but English and science are my worst." Despite his admission, the sharp-toothed boy sounded proud of himself.
"Right…" They would need to break it down in a different way for Kirishima to understand since the examples in the textbook Bakugou had been beating him with weren't helping. "It won't work with every question, but if you look for keywords, you might be able to figure out the question and find the answer."
"He needs to learn to read it all." Bakugou huffed in annoyance.
"You wanna teach him all this in a week? Plus, other subjects?" Niwa asked in challenge.
"Tch. You do it then." The blonde scoffed.
Niwa pointed to the dialogue's first line, "First, we try and understand the situation. After that, we look for the answer."
Kirishima nodded diligently, gaze almost cross-eyed on the workbook in focus.
Niwa singled out the first line, "English is annoying cause the words are all flipped around. Single out the keywords and piece them back together. This word here?"
"I?"
"Right, meaning?"
"Now we're back in elementary," Bakugou commented sarcastically.
"Shut it, you. Kirishima?"
"I."
"This one?"
"Birthday-present. I know those ones."
"Of course, you do. Next, this one."
"Buy."
"Yup, and this?"
"Going-to?"
"Going to implies that…?"
"Uh…"
Niwa groaned, "Going to the beach." She spoke slowly in English, using the same example Present Mic had used last Tuesday.
"Oh, you're gonna go!"
"Yeah, or you intend to. Put the keywords together and see what you come up with. Then do the same with the rest. This line has a Question mark, as well." Niwa left Kirishima with his little task and glanced over to Bakugou, "What are you working on?"
The blonde glanced up from his textbook. "This stupid ass science problem."
Niwa glanced over to look at the problem and immediately gave up, "Yeah, I don't have any clue. Could you go through it with me if you figure it out? I'm crap at science."
"Sure. You figure out that piece of shit English problem." The boy grumbled.
"Which one?"
"Question Nineteen."
Niwa flipped the pages in her English textbook and stared at the monstrous paragraph.
Among all English questions, the ones that came with a damn short story were the most annoying. There were six questions for this section, a separate part where you had to fill in the missing words and it had a bunch of annoying words. Bakugou was right, these ones were annoying as fuck.
"MONDAY!" Kirishima yelled so suddenly, Niwa jolted and smacked her knee against the table causing Bakugou to screw up whatever he was writing.
"Fuck!" Bakugou glared at her.
"It's not my fault!"
"You kids are working hard." Fukushia slumped across from Niwa at the other side of the short table.
"Piss off unless you want to help," Niwa said flatly while reading over the question.
"No can do, sorry." Fukushia shrugged, "Didn't go to school." The man picked innocently at his short nails.
"Then go away, we're trying to focus."
"It's too hot to move." Fukushia sighed dramatically.
A trey was suddenly set on the table, filled with glasses of juice and some sandwiches. "Why don't you go get the vegetables from the river then?" Hanami said, standing just behind Niwa.
The two adults leveled each other with a firm stare before Fukushia gave up and plodded out the house. "Just marry him already! Then you both can boss me around some more!"
Niwa chuckled at her brother's little tantrum, "Thanks." She said and took a sandwich before going back to her work.
Hanami pointed to something in Bakugou's book, "Try multiplying this by the diameter first." The lady offered before taking her leave and joining Masuru in the garden with another glass of juice and a sweet smile. Niwa ignored everything else and took out a dictionary to figure out what the hell brass club was.
That entire week was just strange.
School would continue as normal but every day, after all the lessons, was cram study at her place since neither of her friends wanted to use their own house. The three spent hours at a time mulling over worksheets they had collected over the semester and creating problems of their own to quiz each other. Though, it was mostly just Bakugou and Niwa annoying the hell out of each other with ridiculous problems that probably wouldn't even show up in the test.
Niwa was still trying to work out if it was a good thing or a bad thing that the pair of them were too stubborn, spending almost half an hour on some of the problems they gave to each other.
But, after all that, Niwa had never gone into a written test – or come out of one – feeling so damn confident.
She seriously believed she could sit a University entrance test with the stupid amount of information crammed into her brain over the last week.
Or, at least, that's how she felt.
After three whole days of sitting written tests for each subject, Niwa was glad to be done with it. One less thing to worry about. And on the fourth day of exam week, it was finally time for the practical exams.
"Of course, it's possible to fail this exam," Aizawa-Sensei said to the class who all stood gathered around in their Hero costumes. "If you want to go to the training camp, then don't make any stupid mistakes."
"There are… a lot of teachers," Kyoka said from beside Momo on Niwa's left. The earphone jack girl was right. There were more teachers hanging around than Niwa was comfortable with.
"I expect you all have gathered information ahead of time and have some idea what you will be doing." Their homeroom teacher leveled the class with a firm gaze, one that Niwa completely avoided. Niwa hadn't gathered any info at all. There was that day where everyone was talking about robots, but Niwa had her suspicions. She should have looked into it some more.
Too late now.
"We're fighting robot warriors like the entrance exam, right!?" Kaminari yelled in pure excitement. Mina was already celebrating beside him.
Their homeroom teachers capture weapon/scarf shuffled around a bit before the mouse creature popped out. Principle Nezu himself was here. Why the hell was their principal here?
"Too bad!" Their mousey principal declared with a smile, "For various reasons, the exam will be different this time!"
"Different?" Momo asked with worry.
"From now on, we want to focus on person-to-person combat and hero work, and stress teachings that are closer to actual combat." Principal Nezu looked very cute in his suit as he repelled down Aizawa-Sensei's side with the cloth.
"So… We'll have you form teams of two and fight against one teacher!"
All the guys in charge were sadists. Niwa was officially convinced this was a fact.
"Against… The teachers?" Uraraka asked in shock.
"In addition, the pairs and who each pair will be up against have already been decided." Aizawa-Sensei stated, "These were determined at my discretion based on various factors, including fighting style, grades, and interpersonal relationships."
If her class wasn't already panicking before, they were now.
"So here they are: First Yaoyorozu and Todoroki are one team, and they'll be fighting me."
Niwa winced in sympathy for her friend(s?) as their teacher grinned like a cat.
"Midoriya and bakugou, you're a team."
Oh shit, Niwa thought.
"And they'll be fighting…"
All Might landed in a flashy entrance, "I…will do it."
Oh… shit.
This exam… was not going to go well at all.
"Now then, the first match…" suspense lingered considering no student in her class wanted to be the first to fight. "Kirishima and Sato vs Cementoss"
"After that will be the following in order!"
2nd match: Asui and Todoroki vs Ectoplasm
3rd match: Ojiro and Iida vs Power Loader
4th match: Todoroki and Yaoyorozu vs Aizawa
5th match: Uraraka and Aoyama vs Thirteen
6th match: Kaminari and Ashido vs Principal Nezu
7th match: Jiro and Koda vs Present Mic
8th match: Shoji and Niwa vs Snipe. Fuck…
9th match: Mineta and Sero vs Midnight
10th match: Bakugou and Midoriya vs All Might.
"The time limit for the exam is thirty minutes! Your objective is to either put these handcuffs on the teacher," Nezu declared while showing off a bulky pair of cuffs, "Or to have one of you escape from the stage!"
"Is it really okay to run away?" Mina asked loudly.
"Of course!" Nezu confirmed.
"But it'll be different from the combat training!" Present Mic said, "You'll be up against someone waaaaaay stronger than you!"
"This time, your exam will be very similar to real combat." Thirteen-Sensei announced in his spacesuit muffled voice, "Please think of us as villains."
"Assuming you come across the enemy, if you think you can win a fight against them, then that's fine." Niwa couldn't see through her opponent's mask as he spoke, but it felt like the Pro Hero Snipe was talking directly to her and Shoji.
"However, in cases where there's too big a difference in your abilities, it would be better to run away and get help." Aizawa-Sensei stared at the class, "Todoroki, Iida, Midoriya. I'm sure you understand this well."
"Your decision-making skills will be tested as well! But with these rules, you're probably thinking your only chance is to escape, right?" All Might taunted, "That's why we had the support course make these for us!"
All Might pulled out a shiny silver cuff of some type.
"Ultra compressed weights!"
Niwa felt a chill slither down her spine. Just staring at something like that reminded her of that cursed fucking weight-suit.
"We'll put on about half of our body weight!" The cuffs were added to the teacher's wrists and ankles. All Might put on double weights, "It's a handicap. A bit old-fashioned but it makes it hard to move and eats up stamina."
Maybe all this sadistic teaching was getting to her, but wouldn't it be really fucken cool to have something like that to put a bit of extra force behind her punches and help her with strength training without an entire suit. Who cares if it's old-fashioned? It was freaken awesome.
They sure as hell looked better than a suit, anyway.
"By the way, there was a competition to decide on the design! We ended up using one created by Young Hatsune!"
Niwa remembered the pink-haired girl from the sports festival who had used Iida as her model during their entire match. Niwa made a mental note to visit the eccentric girl.
"To allow us to consider fighting you, right?" Bakugou asked, eyes focused on his opponent. "You're underestimating us."
All Might grinned darkly, "I wonder."
The teachers dismissed the class to either strategize or head into the monitor room while the other fights were carried out.
Niwa and Shoji didn't ever really have the chance to work together, nor did they talk very often despite having spent the last few months sitting beside each other in class. Despite this, Niwa didn't hesitate to cooperate with the multiple-armed boy.
After realizing that neither student really knew anything about their opponent, Niwa suggested that they just watch how the others went about their exam. That's how the team found themselves in the monitor room with Midoriya, Uraraka, and the old nurse Recovery Girl.
Kirishima and Sato's fight was entirely a race against time and stamina. Wall after wall of pure cement rose to block the two students' path, effectively draining their stamina and slowing the pair of full force fighters down. Meanwhile, Cementoss didn't have to move an inch, relying only on his Quirk to hinder the students.
"We're also an attack-heavy pair," Niwa considered.
"Meanwhile, our teacher is dominantly a long-ranged fighter," Shoji added.
"And his quirk makes his bullets chase us if he can see us…" How damn annoying.
The battle ended the moment Kirishima and Sato passed out from exhaustion and Cementoss's overwhelming attack.