AN: Not entirely happy with this chapter, but I think this is the best it's gonna get for now. Minimal fluff and more action for obvious reasons :s
Chapter 7
The Beginning of the Rest of Our Lives
oooOo Izuku oOooo
Izuku carved down the gentle slope leading away from the entrance to Central Musutafu train station, looking for once unconcerned with the various worries of the world outside his personal bubble. The brisk winter wind lashed at his hair, whipping the few strands that escaped his tie at his forehead.
He heaved out a sigh, a hand resting on his quicksteel in its default form to guide his movement through the thickening crowds of locals and tourists alike.
He was dressed as casually as the people surrounding him, and in some cases more so. A pair of black joggers and a forest green hoodie were his only attire. The pair of stylish red nikes covering his feet were perhaps the most extravagant part of his dress, but he'd never be caught dead without them.
They were a rare gift from Kacchan for his previous birthday after all.
The young man's manner of dress didn't reflect his destination in the slightest. Quite the opposite, actually. Izuku had just recently graduated from Aldera Highschool and was minutes away from taking the UA entrance exam.
The scratching of his longboard's wheels soothed his frayed nerves as he dodged around the various pedestrians crowding the street. The district where UA was located had grown into a sort of pop-culture mecca as a result of the many influential heroes that proudly called the school their alma mater.
Everything from hero memorials to curio shops littered the plaza preceding UA's gates, where young hero enthusiasts gathered to trade, discuss the latest news or whatever else caught their fancy.
Spying a familiar head of ash-blonde hair, Izuku made his way through the crowd eager to see a friendly face.
"Kacchan!" he called out over the crowd.
Her eyes snapped to the sound of his voice "Hah? Finally showing your face after making me wait, eh, Deku?"
He was still coming to terms with how much she'd changed in the last ten months.
Her face had grown more angular as she lost the last of the fat around her cheeks, and while her spiky blonde hair was still worn in the same disarray as usual, her bangs were slightly longer, shadowing crimson eyes and giving her a particularly exotic look. Even with the typical hoodie she wore, it was evident that Katsumi's athletic figure had grown both curvier with age and notably more powerful along with the increased intensity of her training.
And… Izuku would never say it out loud, but she made those yoga pants look positively villainous.
Katsumi fell into step beside him as he rolled by, both entering the gates of UA. They were filtered through a screening process, where it was confirmed that they were actually UA applicants, and that they had indeed already taken the written portion of the exam the previous weekend.
When Izuku had confirmed that, yes, he had taken the written portion, he was given a guest pass card that allowed him past UA's state-of-the-art security system without issue.
He couldn't help but gaze around in awe at the grand architecture of this legendary school. Mementos from UA alumni, prestigious awards, and other such decorations seemed to be plastered to every surface
"Quit gaping, Deku, we've got a practical to crush!" Katsumi said, shoving him lightly.
Izuku playfully fell over entirely, fully intending to catch himself with his quirk as he had done so many times before. But curiously, as his quicksteel moved to snatch him out of the air, a peculiar sensation overcame his body.
It was as if all the weight left his form… as if he would drift away from the earth with even the slightest application of force. It was wholly disorienting considering everything around him remained determinedly stationary.
"I'm sorry for using my quirk on you without asking! I know it can be a bit unsettling the first time 'round, but it would be bad luck to fall on such an important day right?" Izuku stared into the wide brown eyes and frowning face of the girl he assumed had helped him.
Only… she wasn't frowning, Izuku was still floating upside down
He grinned, "Gravity manipulation, huh?" Izuku peered curiously at his arms as he floated weightlessly through the air. "Kacchan, look! The blood's not even going to my head! Its like I'm really in space!"
"I don't even fucking know you right now," Katsumi said, a dusting of red on her face as she glared at some of the other applicants starting to stare.
"Aw, don't be like that, Kacchan, since when have you cared what other people think?"
She scoffed irritably but ultimately let the matter rest as the brown-eyed girl from before patted his chest returning him to earth's grasp once more. sending him plummeting to the ground. She really should have thought that one through a bit better, Izuku caught himself in a one-armed handstand and flipped over onto his feet, earning a surprised gasp and soft clap from the girl and rolled eyes from Katsumi.
"Thanks for the help…" Izuku trailed off, looking curiously at the girl.
"Oh! Im Uraraka Ochaco, it's a pleasure to meet you, and it was no trouble at all, um… Deku-kun?"
Izuku frowned slightly. Where did this girl get that name from? He'd been looking forward to no longer hearing it as an insult. He moved to correct her, but before he could get word out, Katsumi had stalked over to the peppy girl and fixed her with a scowl full of a malice that Izuku had rarely seen from his friend.
"Where did you hear that name, round face!?" she snarled, brandishing a crackling palm towards the girl's shocked face, "You know someone from our shitty middle school, huh?"
Woah... what was with that reaction? Izuku knew she'd always felt bad about the way her blunder had resulted in the insulting nickname. Had he underestimated the girls guilt? But pondering that had to come later, first he had to calm a temperamental blonde.
"Kacchan, relax! Does she really look like she's even capable of bullying someone?"
They both turned to look at the girl, taking in the wide, innocent, chocolate-brown eyes, the youthful bob haircut and near permanent blush marks. They turned back to each other and Izuku could practically see the gears turning behind his best friend's eyes.
"Shit… I overreacted huh?" she bit out.
"Yuh."
She sighed, before turning resignedly to Uraraka, who to her credit, looked only politely curious despite practically being assaulted moments earlier. "My bad, Round face."
"Round face…?" she breathed curiously.
Poor girl, but she was handling some of Kacchan's more eccentric traits like a champ. It was impressive, really.
"Please don't take it personally," Izuku pleaded, clapping his hands together and smiling good-naturedly. "She just takes a while to learn new names."
That was a lie, Kacchan's memory was fantastic. He'd just neglected to mention that she had to be seriously impressed before she'd ever consider addressing anyone by anything but a nickname.
"Oh, I totally get it, lots of new faces on a day like today, right? I hope you all do your best!"
Izuku was floored, the girl seemed to radiate a sense of energy and goodness like no one he'd ever met before. No one should be that happy! It was almost overwhelming, but certainly something he could eventually get used to. He nodded in agreement earning another beaming smile from the girl.
"Wow I was way off the mark wasn't I?" Katsumi muttered from his shoulder as she peered suspiciously at the new girl, who perked up at her voice.
"Oh right! Can… can I ask what that was all about back then? I didn't mean to offend anybody!" Uraraka's brows were furrowed adorably as she stared them down resolutely.
Ah, so she may have a fluffy exterior, but he guessed she was there for a reason as well. Izuku inwardly grinned, getting a bit of a better understanding of his new friend. "Don't worry about it, Uraraka-san, just a bit of a mix-up." Izuku tilted his head towards Katsumi scowling at his side. "This is Bakugo Katsumi and I'm Midoriya Izuku," he said, giving her a wave.
A look of realization came over her features, "Oh, I'm so sorry I just heard Bakugo-chan call you Deku and… I just thought it had a kind of 'you can do it!' vibe? Was I wrong?"
A beat of silence.
"Too fuckin pure," Katsumi scoffed irritably, and Izuku hid a smile. He couldn't help but agree with the assessment. That was definitely one of the more complementary interpretations he'd heard of his nickname, but still…
"I'm flattered, Uraraka-san, and you're welcome to call me Izuku, or Midoriya, whichever's easier for you. But if you don't mind, Kacchan and I have known each other our whole lives and she really the only one who calls me Deku anymore." He hesitated for a moment, glancing to Katsumi. "I'd like to keep it that way if you don't mind."
Izuku grinned as Ochako practically had stars appear in her eyes, her face audibly swishing through the air she was nodding so rapidly in agreement.
What was that all about?
Ochako left Izuku and Katsumi to find her assigned seat as they all filtered into one of UA's many massive gymnasiums. To Izuku it looked more like a futuristic rock stadium than any gym he'd ever seen. But it was an observation that made much more sense when moments later, Pro-hero: Present Mic (gasp!) took to the stage.
What followed was a general explanation of the practical exam delivered in the voice hero's typical fashion: loud and as flashy as possible.
Other than a particularly rule-abiding student chiding He and Katsumi for trading comments during the explanation, the rules were straightforward to an almost insulting degree.
This was all it took to gain entry to the most prestigious school for hero work in the nation? Smashing robots? Sure, the theoretical exam weeded out the poor academic students, but there had to be something more to this practical, there had to be.
"Looks like they're separating applicants from the same regions," Katsumi said, peering over at his exam location.
"That's good, wouldn't want you to help me cheat, now would they?" Izuku said, almost managing to keep a straight face but failing in the end. Even Katsumi had to crack a grin at the absurdity of her helping the competition score more points.
"Go out and kill it, nerd," she said, holding out a fist. Izuku went to tap his own to hers but she pulled away at the last second. Her crimson eyes stared up at his own. Since when had he been so much taller? "Seriously Izuku, no more hiding, you're out of excuses now." Her grin turned feral, "Even you can't complain about me killing robots, right? Think you can keep up when I don't have to account for fragile human bodies?"
Izuku had never been more terrified and aroused at the same time.
He shivered, hoping for his own sake that Katsumi never figured out the ironclad hold she had over him.
He managed to break out of his stupor enough to pound his fist into hers, being sure to coat his knuckles in quicksteel to protect them from the explosion he knew would occur.
"Let's go make our mark."
oooOo Katsumi oOooo
She fucking knew this would happen.
Ten steps into UA and Deku'd already run into another girl that'd shown interest in him. Katsumi knew it had only been a matter of time, but she'd thought she had more of it dammit! And even worse, even she was having trouble hating round face. The girl was disturbingly cheerful.
A perfect match for Izuku.
Katsumi scowled and started limbering up, having been led to site D with a large group of fodder moments earlier. They certainly didn't look like much, and some puny weirdo with purple hair had been staring at her earlier. Blasting people before the exam even started probably wasn't the best decision though, so she shot him a glare instead, inwardly laughing at the violent flinch he gave. Izuku would have been proud of her restraint.
Katsumi pulled her ankle to her hips to stretch her hamstring while deliberating on how she'd tackle the exam.
Shoes, or no shoes? She was confident she had the firepower to top the charts with just her hands, but…
She shucked her shoes off and tossed them to the side of the starting line. How could she even think of holding back after giving the nerd shit for it not ten minutes ago. Besides, this was practically her debut.
It was time to make a splash.
Katsumi hopped from foot to foot, throwing a few experimental jabs. The small puffs of smoke released from her hands and feet went mostly unnoticed by those around her. Some were yapping with other contestants, while others gaped around at the barren city in awe.
Had then never seen fucking buildingsbefore?
Idiots, all of them. How they even made it to the practical was a mystery to her. A select few like herself ran through simple warmups to prepare themselves for the challenge ahead. She committed those students to memory, they could easily be her future classmates.
Katsumi strolled casually to the front of the starting line, exhaling slowly through her nose and rolling her head languidly. They'd been sitting there for nearly five minutes, she'd be surprised if they didn't start sometime soo—"
"BEGIN!" Present Mic's vocal enhancement quirk boomed over multiple test sites, its power and range absolutely staggering to the contestants below.
Well, there we go. A grin split Katsumi's lips as she took two bounding steps to clear the first line of contestants.
It was then she really on the afterburners. Dual explosions from the bottoms of her feet sent her rocketing ahead, while the other contenders, or stepping stones as she liked to think of them, were left reeling.
It was as the first applicant took a step forward that Katsumi's first offensive explosion rocked the city.
Not only had she gotten a head start on the other potential students, but she'd also rushed to an isolated spot with very little risk of collateral damage. Somewhere she could really go fucking wild.
"Bring it on you fucking tin cans!" her palms ignited, flames reflecting in crimson irises, "Don't disappoint me!"
oooOo Izuku oOooo
"Why are you even here!? Hoping to interfere?!"
Izuku was beginning to think that he was cursed... This was the second time this particularly… studious applicant had given him shit today for no reason. Was it too much to ask to just stay out of the spotlight for two seconds?
And now people were starting to take notice.
"He was talking during the briefing too!"
"Yeah, I guess some people just don't take this seriously."
"Hey, it's one less person to compete against, right?" another laughed.
"True, true."
The conversations around him only grew in volume as more attention was brought to the pair.
The student that had scolded him was tall. At least ten centimeters taller than Izuku himself and had bluish-tinted ebony hair. He was heavily muscled and wore a royal blue compression suit that left his legs from the knee down bare.
And for good reason huh? Izuku peered at what seemed to be engines seamlessly merging with the boy's calves.
Where had he seen a quirk like that before? Izuku definitely recalled recording a similar mutation in his hero studies. It was just on the tip of his tongue, but the taller boy interrupted once more before he could figure it out.
The boy slashed a stiff hand through the air as if he was trying to chop something, repeating the motion several times. "There are students here that have worked their whole lives for this opportunity! It is indeed disrespectful for you to be here just goof—"
"I know." Izuku's words cut through the scholar's rant, silencing the taller boy with their intensity. "I'm one of them."
The boy gaped at the audacity of someone cutting him off. Had no one ever done that before? Izuku wasn't one to purposefully interrupt people, but this guy seemed like he had a rambling problem to rival the one Izuku'd had as a child. It was just delivered by lecture instead of mutters.
"One of what!? You are making no sense!"
There went that chopping again… what was up with that? But Izuku wouldn't judge, he'd met plenty of people with worse eccentricities. Hell, two of them were some of his closest companions.
"The students that have worked their whole lives for this opportunity? Yeah, I'm one of them."
Izuku fixed the boy with a piercing expression, eyeing the stiff posture and stern scowl fixed on his face. Izuku faltered slightly when he met the boy's indigo eyes, which remained kind and earnest despite the stern set of his brow.
Maybe the guy just combated stress with forced order? Either way…
"Look," Izuku sighed. He nodded towards the person who'd started the whole disagreement in the first place. "That girl, her name is Uraraka Ochaco—"
The boy flinched, eyes widening slightly.
"—and as you're starting to realize, I do indeed know her, I wasn't trying to sabotage anyone, and yes, I am taking this seriously."
Izuku strolled away with a huff, not paying attention to the boy's reaction to his words. Either he'd understand or not, but any further energy spent convincing him would only be wasted. Hearing the same fucking taunts from all those ignorant people of his youth had left him heated in that moment. This was supposed to be the day he left all that behind him, but once again he was reminded of the fickle nature of crowd mentality.
But that was easily remedied.
Izuku shucked off his shoes, reaching to the sky to stretch the muscles that had stiffened slightly while he had been idle.
All he'd have to do was prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he belonged here. That all the people that said he wasn't good enough were dead wrong. Quicksteel shimmered fluidly by his side, flexing every which way in a simplified imitation of its master's movements, before he reasserted control, meticulously molding his skyboard.
Izuku ignored the hushed whispers of those closest to him. They were sheep that had written him off just moments earlier, but he'd save them all the same. He'd show them that he deserved to be here. That he was meant to be a hero.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt.
"BEGIN!"
Izuku took a running leap, his skyboard snatching him out of the air before he sped off, leaving the still-stunned participants gaping.
"What are you waiting for listeners!? There are no countdowns in real life! Go! GOOOOO! The die has been cast! Your destiny is in your own hands!"
Izuku bent low over his board to counterbalance the rapid acceleration as he cut lose with his quirk for the first time in ages. He skimmed mere meters away from the street surface, dodging abandoned vehicles and trees with an exhilarated shout.
This was the best! An arena where he could show what he was really made of after holding back for so long.
Biting wind cut harshly into his face but Izuku cut through the abandoned streets without giving it any thought. He surfed through the air with a wild abandonment, imagining a course to traverse before his eyes, weaving through stone pillars and utter losing himself to the sport of it all.
So much so that he'd almost forgotten about the exam itself when an amoured, vaguely crab-like robot crashed into his path.
Almost.
Without losing any momentum from his audacious trek through the city, Izuku tilted the nose of his skyboard up slightly as the mechanical villain unloaded a round of rubber bullets. While the ammunition obviously wouldn't inflict that same amount of damage as a typical bullet, taking a shot to the neck or face could possibly put some of the more fragile contestants out of commission.
They rattled harmlessly off the solid surface of his board of course, letting Izuku race towards the robot without fear.
The robot took a powerful swing with its clawed, mechanical arm, but Izuku had already leapt off his board straight into the air. He gave a satisfied smile as the machine's glowing reticle tracked his path through the air, only to get impaled a moment later on the pike that he'd molded from his board.
The quicksteel thinned out a moment later, catching its rider even as the once-threatening robot crumpled into a sparking, pitiful pile of scrap.
Two.
Izuku sped off to a cluster of one-pointers that had gathered around what looked like an abandoned shopping mall just as the other applicants had started moving. The guns of the one-pointers had incredibly slow projectile speeds despite being able to inflict reasonable damage. Taking advantage of this fact, Izuku deftly weaved around them in the air, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
The faux villains apparently had a reloading system as well, perhaps to simulate a real-life situation? He grinned. Maybe it was just to give them a fighting chance?
He dropped to the ground, quicksteel elongating into familiar-looking katana. Izuku was no master with the blade, but what a waste it would have been to not pick up any technique in his time with Chi-sensei. Besides, these buckets of bolts were hardly expert martial artists, he was more than capable of taking them on.
Izuku dove into he fray, ducking a wild swing and bisecting the mechanical offender with a swift slash of his blade. He spun around to dispose of another, his quicksteel weapon carving into their brittle outer plating like a hot knife through butter.
Three, four.
Another one-pointer tried to pin him down with gunfire, but Izuku was too quick, having sprung backwards out of the way, sliding into a low crouch. He straightened up after a moment, slowly strafing to the right of his target like a predator stalking its prey.
For a moment, lively jade eyes met the artificial lens of the robot and both were still. Until Izuku's arm darted out with a light swish, a short knife that he'd split from the main mass of quicksteel imbedding itself in the glowing reticle. The faux villain collapsed, disabled completely by the precision of his throw, even as a glob of his metal slithered out of the smoking remains of the villain. He could only keep it hardened for so long after it had left his hand, but it was effective enough as a throwing knife. He'd been nicked by the things enough times in his spars that he'd eventually asked for some tips from the man. Looking back, perhaps he should have phrased his request better…
Five.
Izuku flung several more knives at the various bots that had approached, ramping up their velocity with his telekinesis. They each sunk into their target with a satisfying crunch, but Izuku had already taken to the sky once more, the smaller globs of quicksteel trailing after the main mass that he stood perched on.
Eight. Twelve.
Nineteen.
Thirty-six.
A duo of three pointers met their demise at the end of a lance of quicksteel, and Izuku turned to a street that was already littered with debris.
He wiped the sweat from his brow with a satisfied grin. Peering further down the road, Izuku saw that there were still some applicants taking advantage of the low-density area to take on the robots one on one. He let out a laugh at the sight of Uraraka flinging weightless mecha-villains into the sky only to drop them to their grizzly demise a moment later.
It went to show how versatile some quirks could really be.
Izuku ducked suddenly as a beam of white light sparkling with all the colors of the rainbow cut through the space where his head had just been. He turned with a cocked eyebrow to the source of the blast only too see another applicant looking way too unconcerned for someone who'd nearly taken his head off.
"Excusez Moi!" The flamboyant boy called. Was that French? "It seems my aim could do with a little buffing up! Au revoir!" He skipped away with a wink, and Izuku could have sworn a twinkle had appeared next to his eye. Was that really a part of his quirk?
Strange
oooOo Katsumi oOooo
A cybernetic graveyard lay before her.
The pungent smell of gunpowder and smoking engines seemed to permeate the air, one of the many traces of Katsumi's path of carnage.
She'd carved through the mock city like a one-woman army, taking on every pitiful machine that crossed her path and leaving only destruction in her wake.
Flickering orange reflected off glassy crimson irises as Katsumi let out a calm, cathartic breath of smoggy air.
Was this all UA really had to offer? She could probably tear through these flimsy toys with her eyes closed! And they thought beating out the rest of these extras would be enough to pose a challenge? For her?
Yeah fucking right.
The one-pointers were speedy but caved under her blows like wet cardboard, and the two pointers weren't much better. The lower point robots were both at least equipped with guns that shot rubber bullets, but they had a fairly predictable firing pattern. Easy enough to avoid, and even easier to destroy.
It was the three pointers that really packed a punch. They looked like armored tanks with better mobility. Not to mention the aoe shock rounds that came loaded in their turrets. The shells would stun anyone within the vicinity of the detonation for a short duration.
But in an exam like this, a short time of inaction could be the difference between passing or not. The other applicants seemed to be avoiding them in favor of racking up points from the weaker of the three. It might have been a good strategy, and some might even say the test favored highly mobile quirks that could get to more robots in the short amount of time given.
The blood pumped in her veins and her palms crackled with anticipation. That was all well and good for quirks that were so limited in their use. She, however, was a cut above the rest.
Royalty among peasants.
Katsumi blast-jumped herself a good twenty meters above a cluster of six three-pointers that had cornered a group of students. They hadn't been paying enough attention and had trapped themselves down a dead end. She seemed to hang in mid-air, relishing the brief moment where she was free of gravity's hold.
"If you can't handle the damn heat then why are you even here!?" she growled with a grim smile.
It only widened as the cluster of robots stopped chasing the fleeing students, turning their optics up towards Katsumi. The momentum from her jump quickly waned and she let herself freefall in the same way Izuku had all those months ago. Katsumi used a burst of force from her palms to dodge the few shots that had been fired, before her right fist erupted in white-hot flame.
"What the hell is she doing?!" she heard someone call out.
"Someone, catch her! She's insane!"
Their comments only made her already manic grin widen. "Watch and learn, fodder! This is the difference." The white flame began to glow, and Katsumi reveled in the heat that bit at her skin. It was tangible even from across the street where the other applicants stood frozen in shock. "We're simply of a different class!" She swung her fist in a downward arc, releasing her ironclad control on the writhing force contained within. "Scorched Earth!"
A high-pitched whine briefly filled the air, before the brightest point of the flame expanded, a thunderous boom shaking the alley. The blast expanded, swallowing the cluster of three pointers, engulfing them in blazing white fire. Metal bodies glowed orange with the rapid heating and creaked ominously, before slowly melting into misshapen piles of slag.
Katsumi rode the force of her own shockwave, backflipping away from the splash zone with a feral grin. She'd gotten plenty of practice herself while she helped the nerd with his experiments. Regulating the type of explosion she caused with her quirk had become second nature by this point.
She'd never be able to break down the science behind what allowed her this freedom with her quirk, that simply wasn't Katsumi.
It wasn't how she worked. The specifications of what had wrought the destruction before her was a combination of a highly concentrated point of impact and extreme heat. Izuku could probably come up with a combination of whatever chemicals she secreted that resulted in this particular blast, but her strengths lied in other methods.
She'd just figured it out through trial and error.
Katsumi may have cackled a bit madly in that moment, but she fucking dared someone to say something about it. before kicking off with an explosive leap towards several of the cardboard-bots that a few applicants were somehow struggling with. There was a certain beauty in the potential destruction she could cause with her quirk. Constantly keeping a lid on her explosive ability was something Katsumi was particularly diligent about, but finally, finally she could just let it all go. Exploding whatever she wished with no repercussions.
She connected with the crowd like a bullet, using constant, small-scale blasts to aide her blows and mobility. Metal husks caved beneath her fists and in no time at all, the plaza had been cleared.
"Holy shit! This chick's been taking these things out like nothing!"
"I know! did you see that shit she pulled earlier?! She's gotta have over fifty points by now!"
"So manly!"
Wait, what was that last one!? She'd been content to ignore the comments of the extras, but did some prick just call her manly? The fuck was that supposed to mean?
"Oi, shitty hair! What the f—"
A low, rattling groan filled the arena. It was the kind of sound that could only be produced by something incredibly large and metal trying to shift its weight. Throttling the redhead could wait, it looked like the examiners were finally getting serious.
A massive mechanical arm smashed through one of the multi-story buildings a few blocks down the street, sending shattered glass, dust, and all kinds of debris raining down on the street below. Katsumi blasted through a particularly large chunk of concrete at it spun towards her with barely a twitch of her arm. Her eyes narrowed dangerously at the mechanical monstrosity that was now rampaging through the faux city.
She rolled her shoulders, gauging how much more stress her arms could handle before she'd really start feeling it.
Even she might have some trouble taking something like that down.
Its body was heavily armored for one. And some sort of plating covered its exterior, everywhere but at the joints at least. Like a suit of armor, those areas were clear to allow a certain level of mobility.
Katsumi eyed the other students fleeing in terror from the giant as well as the lower leveled robots that now stood idle, no targets close enough for them to engage in combat.
What to do… The fodder-bots were so grouped and prime for the taking, but…
Her crimson eyes settled once more on the zero-pointer
oooOo Izuku oOooo
Were the examiners out of their damn minds!? What were they thinking sending out something so… large? Dangerous? Well, there was a long list of things that were wrong with Izuku's current situation.
He'd just carried another applicant to safety after that god damn Zero-pointer started tearing the up the shopping district of his test site. The guy's quirk had reached its limit and left him vulnerable to the chaos caused by the massive robot's rampage.
Izuku left the applicant tucked away from the battle with a smile and some advice to stay out of sight until the end of the exam.
And wasn't that a kick in the ass, UA clearly wasn't above throwing their students into the deep end to get the best results possible.
It only reinforced the belief that this was where he needed to be, and nothing could take that away from him, not even some giant apocalypse-bot.
Izuku crouched low over his skyboard as he rocketed towards the source of the chaos, one hand resting on the surface to improve aerodynamics. He kept an eye out for the odd one, two, or three pointers that he could take out along the way, but by this point he was mostly looking for applicants that were being overwhelmed by the metal beast's destruction.
From his vantage point he could see several of the Zero-pointers lumbering in the distance, so far that he was unable to make out any specifics. In fact, if he didn't already have an example of its full size, he'd be curious as to what could appear so large on the horizon.
On another note, UA was huge. Even hundreds of meters into the air as he was, Izuku couldn't make out a definite end to the sprawling campus. It looked more like a small city than a school, the urban mock arenas and facilities only a small aspect of the grounds. He could make out rolling hills and fields as well, some containing growing crops and livestock. Was UA self-sustaining? He wouldn't put it past the prestigious academy but hearing about it and seeing such a sight with his own eyes were two entirely different experiences.
An echoing crack accompanied by a harsh flash of bright light in the corner of his eye brought Izuku out of his admiration for his potential school, only to ignite his admiration for something else. Or someone…
That had to be Kacchan's quirk, he'd recognize it anywhere. But seeing it from so far away? What had gotten her so riled up?
An irrepressible smile came to Izuku's lips a moment later, his eyes tracking the path of his own site's Zero-pointer. What an absurd question, of course she'd try to take it on.
Izuku swooped back down to street level as he approached the rampaging robot, dodging around fleeing applicants like some kind of oldschool arcade game. Seeing an armored three-pointer flanking the retreating group, he quickly drifted over and flicked his board up as a barrier, bare feet still planted firmly on the surface. Izuku felt the shot impact the bottom of his quicksteel in that brief moment he spent parallel to the ground.
A lance of pain suddenly arced up from the heels of his feet up through the rest of his body, his muscles seizing involuntarily. He'd succeeded in blocking the robot from taking out who knows how many unaware students, but in his rush to help he'd forgotten the logistics of trying to shield an electric shot with metal.
Despite quicksteel's relatively low conductivity, the jolt had been enough to break the fragile focus his quirk took to control. Izuku felt the exact moment his feet left the board, the material that molded seamlessly over his feet to keep him in place liquifying during his brief lapse in concentration. Izuku inwardly sighed, at least he had been skimming a mere foot off the ground, but there would definitely be bruises in the morning.
He was flung from the surface in that moment of vulnerability, and sent tumbling over the asphalt, hissing as the rough surface scraped at his exposed skin. He'd been able to twist enough in the air to avoid any serious injury. It wasn't quite catlike grace, but close enough for hero work.
Thank god he'd been wearing sleeves, but the palms of his hands and the bottoms of his feet were torn and bloody.
Izuku frowned as the warmth of the sun overhead disappeared. He blearily opened his eyes and peered into the looming form of the Zero Pointer, pendulous, mechanical limbs stretching from one side of the sky to the other.
Looking up at the cybernetic monstrosity sure was a different experience than looking down from above.
Izuku let out a groan as he rolled up to a sitting position, already remolding his skyboard for a quick getaway. Katsumi could have her glorious battles all she wanted, he'd stick to evacuation as long as there were people to be evacuated.
Izuku stepped back onto the cool surface, hissing at the sensation on his abused skin. It was time to get the hell out of there. His skyboard hummed as he willed it to ascend.
One quick glance around told Izuku that most of the applicants had made it to a relatively safe distance away from the rampaging robot. He could wait out the rest of the time limit in the sky, out of the Zero-pointer's reach. He'd lost his exact count in the frenzy of the exam, but Izuku was quite confident he had enough points to pass. He'd be surprised if more than one or two applicants from his own test site had topped his score. Hopefully someone would deactivate it by then, or the examiners would at least do something to stop it.
There couldn't be too much time left could there?
Just as his eyes passed the second story level of the surrounding buildings a frenzied cry caught his attention.
On the street below and out of his line of sight when he was at ground level, was a familiar energetic young girl, though her face lacked its normally sunny disposition and was now twisted into a grimace of pain. A thick block of concrete had fallen from the Zero-pointer's rampage and pinned the brunette in place. Her arms were twisted at an awkward angle leaving her unable to use her quirk to escape.
The ground shook as the Zero-pointer took a perilous step forward, pulverizing an abandoned vehicle into scrap metal and getting close, too close, to the helpless girl below.
Izuku moved without a thought, his skyboard screaming through the air which seemingly distorted, leaving a slipstream trailing his path.
A heavy, armored limb began its descent and Izuku's blood ran cold.
He wouldn't make it in time.
At least not to get her out of danger. What should he do?! He couldn't stop something that like this monstrosity! Was there any way out of this situation?!
'I want to be a hero,' that's what you said, right?
Despite the desperation of the situation, the beginnings of a smile tugged at the corners of his lips. He leaned further over his board, hoping for an edge in his race against the metal monstrosity.
Is your conviction really so weak?
No, it wasn't.
It isn't.
What kind of hero would he be if he failed to save the very first person that really needed his help?
Unacceptable.
Quicksteel liquified before he'd touched down in front of a trembling and wide-eyed Uraraka. Writhing tendrils of the metal surged to wrap tightly around his arms, merging into a seamless, gleaming coating spanning from the tips of his fingers to just past his muscular shoulders. The material flexed and shimmered along with his subtle movements, the ironclad control Izuku held over its shape keeping it just malleable enough to pose no threat to his dexterity.
"Midoriya…kun?" Uraraka choked out in a small voice.
She'd tell him years later that he'd given her a particularly encouraging look in that moment. But all Izuku could remember was grinning steadfastly through his pounding heart, racing thoughts and of course, the gripping fear.
"Don't worry Uraraka-san!" A confident smile, "I'll get us out of this!"
He barely registered the stunned nod before turning to the approaching mountain of a fist. His world became restricted to the all-encompassing wall of metal. Izuku let out a long exhale, raising a glimmering arm with a casual air that belied the urgency of the situation.
A rattling boom shook the street.
oooOo Toshinori oOooo
"In this practical exam, the examinees have not been informed of the number of villains or their location…"
The diminutive principal of UA university happily lectured the observing teachers on the qualities they looked for in their applicants, though from the bored look on Aizawa's face the speech must have been for the new teachers' sake alone. From what Nezu had said so far, he needn't have listened.
Why?
Because the qualities UA looked for in its students were the same ones the world looked for in heroes!
Yagi Toshinori may have been new at the whole teaching thing, but if there was one thing he knew, it was heroing. That aside, he still paid rapt attention to his new boss, not quite having the temerity to slack off so brazenly as his colleague beside him.
"…Information gathering, the ability to understand the situation before anyone else. Mobility that can be used in many different circumstances, discernment to be able to stay calm in any situation. And, of course, pure combat ability."
The projected screens that displayed the various practical exam sites filled the room's walls, and Yagi wondered, not for the first time, if Nezu got off on acting the part of an evil super-genius sometimes.
He certainly had the lair down pat.
The images displayed cycled through the various applicants, settling on two faces that were familiar to him for some reason. Where had he seen those two before?
I look forward to seeing what becomes of you two!
Ah, so that's what it was! A jolt of excitement ran down Yagi's spine. How fortuitous that they would come seeking the guidance of UA the same year he'd begin teaching there.
He observed the ruthlessness shown by the fiery blonde, unsurprised but impressed nonetheless by her efficient dismantling of UA's vaunted technology. But the real shocker was the skill shown by the kind, green-haired young man he'd met the same day.
Yagi had written off his quirk as interesting enough, and useful for niche situations, but hadn't really taken the time to think about it any further. The boy, Midoriya, he remembered after a moment, may have had an impressive physique, but his soft-spoken and kind nature had stood out more to Yagi that day. Especially standing next to the brash and explosive girl by his side.
He realized now that he had been sorely mistaken about the boy's skill.
Midoriya tore through swaths of faux villains with a fluid grace that Yagi hadn't seen in many years. His abilities lacked the shock and awe factor of the girl's but had their own beauty to them. All Might was reminded slightly of the No. 3 three hero: Hawks, though there were glaring differences in their personalities. Even having met the younger boy for mere minutes, he knew Midoriya possessed a humility that was unfortunately absent in the popular pro.
"Doesn't this year's group look promising?" Nemuri drawled sultrily.
"Well, we can't know for sure yet," Powerloader snickered. He flicked open a glass case that had obscured a large red button. "Their true test is still to come." He pressed the button with a light beep, and the various teachers sat back to watch the show unfold.
And unfold it did.
Yagi sat with clenched fists as he was forced to watch as they subjected young hero hopefuls to what was most likely their first experience with despair. He knew it was necessary to weed out an applicant's true nature, but seeing people needing saving right before his eyes and being unable to interfere went against every instinct he had build up over his long career of hero work. But his attention was drawn once more by the mutters of the various staff as a familiar freckled face dove straight into the fray, grabbing various applicants that had been unable to get away from the rampaging Zero-pointer on their own.
Yagi's anxiety eased somewhat with every successful rescue, replaced by a sense of pride as he watched Midoriya zip around, through the sky no less! to take incapacitated students to safety.
How inspiring, Midoriya-shonen! Well done!
He felt the familiar surge of energy stir in his gut, and clamped down on it immediately. Buffing up at a time like this would only be wasting the precious time he had left.
A gasp ran around the room as something else was shown on the monitors, a young brunette girl trapped under fallen rubble directly in the path of the lumbering robot.
"Be ready to cut the power," Nezu's voice cut through the murmurs like a blade, the seriousness of the situation reflected in his beady eyes.
Yagi's hand hovered over the button he'd been entrusted, a minor stipulation he'd added before he'd agreed to be a part of the examination process.
But a moment later Midoriya had moved, and in some spur of the moment decision he'd have trouble explaining later, Yagi decided to entrust this one to the boy.
An overwhelming threat.
The green-haired boy landed heavily in front of the looming monstrosity, staring it down with a smile. Yagi leaned forward, ignoring the shouts of his fellow teachers and staff.
How people acted after they experienced that for the first time showed their true nature. There was absolutely no merit in taking on that faux villain.
"Yagi-sensei! Shut it down! It'll kill them!"
But that created the opportunity for it to shine brightly and rise to the surface. Yagi's emaciated face stretched into a misshapen grin, seeing a slight movement that wasn't quite clear on the monitors.
"Let's see what you're made of, my boy…"
oooOo Izuku oOooo
Izuku had never in his life wondered what it might feel like to have a mountain dropped on his head. Had it been optimistic to think he could avoid the experience altogether?
Unfortunately, catching the fist of the Zero pointer was probably pretty close.
Izuku's limbs shook from the weight of the massive hunk of metal, his quicksteel-coated fingers biting into the many times larger fist. Dust and debris clogged his lungs and obscured his vision, but he and the girl behind him remained blessedly unharmed.
At least for the moment.
"Uraraka-san! are you okay!?" He shouted, not taking his focus off his quicksteel aided super strength.
"Y-yeah, I'm- alright." She coughed out.
"That's good," he smiled, "can you free yourself?"
He grunted as the pressure seemingly doubled, the ground underneath his bare and bleeding feet cracking with spidery fissures from the force.
He heard a cry of pain from behind him and chance a look over his shoulders, seeing Uraraka stretching painfully, trying to reach the chunk of concrete with all five fingers, but he knew just watching that she'd was only straining herself pointlessly.
"It's ok, Uraraka, don't hurt yourself!" she slumped to the ground with a pained wince.
He had to find a way to get her out of here. He looked around frantically, his quicksteel was already occupied with the Zero pointer, and Uraraka was suitably out of commission and the dust still hadn't cleared.
Just as he was about to do something drastic, well… more drastic, the indigo-haired boy from earlier came racing through the clouds of dust, engine-calves blazing. "Uraraka-kun! Surfer-kun! Are you alright!"
"You?" Izuku grunted but thought better of questioning such fortune. "Never mind, can you get her out of here!?"
The taller boy assessed the situation briefly before promptly giving a devastating kick to the block of concrete, angling it to avoid hurting the trapped girl. He scooped the smaller girl up in his arms, ignoring the quiet 'eep' she let out at the sudden movement. "What about you!?"
Izuku almost grinned despite the situation seeing how the guy's arms twitched even while holding Uraraka. He totally wanted to chop…
"I'll be fine," the quicksteel user grit out, finally turning back to the Zero pointer. "Just get clear, I'll take care of it."
It might have been the odd tone in his voice, but the taller student turned tail and obeyed immediately. Leaving a trail of dust behind.
Izuku smiled. He knew scholar-san was a good guy, and he showed it when it counted.
He flexed his metallic arms, rippling, reflective muscle writhed underneath as the Zero-Pointer's armored outer shell groaned from the stress. Izuku braced himself before pulling back his right arm, the quicksteel coating molded to a single, gleaming lance at the tips of his fingers. Engaging all the force he could generate with his quirk, as well as the natural strength of his body, Izuku jabbed the lance of quicksteel straight through the armoured fist with a wrenching crunch. For a moment the pressure persisted.
Then the robot shuddered.
Izuku had no illusions about the kind of things he could do with his quirk if he were so inclined. Evil, horrifying things were possible if he were the kind of individual that had a need to inflict pain on others.
He'd spent so long trying to learn to harden his quicksteel, but in its liquid state it was just as dangerous, and exponentially more insidious.
A liquid could slip in between the cracks, probing for the weakest point. And with the ability to manipulate that material freely?
He could tear someone apart from the inside out.
Needless to say, he never planned to explore that aspect of his quirk… But against mechanical villains?
Even you can't complain about me killing robots, right? Think you can keep up when I don't have to account for fragile human bodies?
Ah, so this is what you meant? Huh, Kacchan?
The bus-sized arms of the Zero-Pointer bulged, stuttering and sparking as his quicksteel tore apart its fragile inner mechanisms.
The catastrophic failure of the bot's inner workings spread to its chassis, liquid quicksteel wreaking havoc on its electrical systems. The malfunctioning Zero-Pointer swung its other massive arm haphazardly, demolishing a random building to its side.
"Shit," Izuku bit out. He hadn't expected that, he'd have to end this before it destroyed anything else.
He clenched his right fist, still connected to the main mass of what was spread throughout the zero-pointer. What would be considered excessively violent or cruel against another human was simply efficient in this situation. A confident gleam shone in his eye, before his eyelids closed, and he willed every bit of force he could manage into the network of quicksteel.
"Judgment."
The piercing, wrenching squeal of metal being torn asunder filled the air as his quirk tore through the weakest points in the thick armor plating. The sound was like nails on a chalkboard, but Izuku was unrelenting in his brutality, making certain that the Zero pointer was permanently disabled. The machine's frame twitched erratically, unable to move its limbs due to its joints being locked by systematic failure.
Izuku heaved deep breaths of air, the mental fortitude needed to use his quirk on such a scale was incredibly tiring, if not in the straightforward manner of when he has had to deal with heat.
"AAANND TIME!"
The familiar voice echoed over the grounds and the Zero-pointer powered itself down, finally ceasing its fruitless struggles. The city was eerily silent following the chaos of the exam.
Izuku collapsed right there in the middle of the street, unharmed, utterly exhausted, but with an entirely satisfied grin splitting his face.
That was good enough, right, Kacchan?"