Bakugou didn't get nervous. That fact he wanted made abundantly clear. His mother may have cooed at him that morning as he was getting ready to leave, may have teased him about how he couldn't let his nerves get the better of him during the test, but it had been a waste of her time. As if something as useless as nerves would ever affect his performance. What a joke.
Anticipation. That had been the feeling that settled in his chest as he left the house. Not nerves. Yuuei's entrance exams would determine the entire trajectory of his future, but there was no doubt in his mind that he would pass. Bakugou had refused his father's suggestion to apply to other hero courses for exactly that reason. He wanted to be the best, and that meant training with the best. Yuuei would have to take him, because Bakugou refused to accept any other outcome.
He might not have been able to get Eraserhead to budge on his refusal, but Bakugou had had plenty of time to reconcile that fact. One failure, he decided eventually, had been necessary. It hadn't even been a failure. Not in the ways that counted, at least. Eraserhead's refusal hadn't been a set back. It hadn't negatively affected his chance at becoming a pro hero, and therefore it didn't matter in the long run. Eraserhead's style would never have worked with Bakugou's quirk anyway. If a pro was going to work one on one with him it would be better to choose one who fought the same way Bakugou would.
Yuuei though. They would have to see Bakugou's potential. They saw future heroes every day, saw who knows how many different quirks at every year's entrance exam. Yuuei would be in the perfect position to see how perfect Bakugou was for their program. In a sea of subpar quirks and people who didn't know how to take advantage of what they were given, Bakugou would stand out above everyone. He would be the obvious choice, the one to leave no doubt in their minds that he belonged in their school. The details of the test itself were consequential. He would blow through any challenge they set in front of him. Literally if he had to.
Thinking about Eraserhead reminded him that somewhere in the school, Midoriya Izuku would also be taking the academic exam. Bakugou had expected to see him when he took his seat in the crowded auditorium-not that he had been looking for him, of course-but his classmate was nowhere to be seen. They must have taken the recommendation students to another room. Start the special treatment early. That was fine with Bakugou. Once he finished his exam they would both be Yuuei students. He would beat Izuku with or without the extra attention.
They hadn't spoken much in the last year. Bakugou had grown so used to the two of them being in the same class that he had been sure something bad had happened when he showed up to his homeroom for his last year of middle school and Midoriya Izuku hadn't been on his class roster. He had confronted him after school that afternoon, and all Izuku had said was something about not allowing himself to stand in Bakugou's shadow anymore, wanting to have a year to focus on getting ready for Yuuei, and other nonsense like that. But when had Izuku ever been in Bakugou's shadow? As if his presence in the same classroom would stop Izuku from going to Yuuei. It was fucking stupid, but if that was how Izuku wanted to handle his last year of middle school there wasn't anything Bakugou could do to stop him.
If he had wanted to. Which he didn't.
The academic portion of the entrance exam flew by. Bakugou was one of the top students in his school, no matter how often people seemed to forget that fact, and he had made sure he was prepared for the test. He finished in half an hour, sitting back as he waited for the proctor to call time. Would he and Izuku be in the same class? Izuku had requested being in separate classes, and his argument had apparently been good enough for the school to agree. Maybe Inko or Eraserhead had been the ones to push for it. Given what they had said to him, Bakugou wouldn't put it passed them.
He had thought a lot about what they had said over the last year. It seemed like every spare moment, every time he found his mind wandering, he would go back over what Inko and Eraserhead had said. Their words played on an almost endless loop in the back of his mind, and even after all that time he still didn't know exactly what he was supposed to do with what they had said.
Bakugou had made mistakes, he was sure. In his limited experience all kids were idiots. He couldn't make the assumption that he was exempt from that just because he didn't find fault in his own actions at the time. The whole reason he had gone to Inko after talking to Eraserhead had been because he need an objective opinion. He refused to stifle his own progress because he was too scared or too proud to admit that he still had a lot to learn. Promising heroes had ruined their careers that way, and Bakugou refused to be counted among those imbeciles. He needed to be smarter than that, even if it meant admitting that he had screwed up.
But what exactly had he done wrong? Inko had talked about the way he treated others. Eraserhead had spoken about his relationship with Izuku. Those were pretty broad subjects. None of his teachers had ever found a problem with his behavior before. Now that he was more aware of the situation than he was before he could acknowledge that had probably been the result of his quirk. He had been the only one among his classmates with true potential to become a pro hero, and his teachers hadn't wanted to do anything to interfere with that, to mess with their chance at being associated with a future pro. They were almost bigger idiots than the heroes who sabotaged their own chances, but it didn't help Bakugou to realize that after the fact. Didn't help him pick out what he should have done differently, what they would have called him out on if he had been anyone else.
His teachers really had done him a disservice, as Eraserhead had said, but Bakugou wouldn't let that hold him back. He wasn't in the habit of letting other people's mistakes affect him. This would be no different, even if he had no idea what to do next.
The nickname had been the obvious place to start given both Eraserhead's and Inko's reaction to hearing it. Bakugou might have been the one to come up with it, but he certainly hadn't been the only one to use it. There had been no chance of their teachers not hearing it. He had never thought that it might be more than a joke to Izuku. He hadn't cared enough to consider it then, and he couldn't claim that he particularly cared about Izuku now. They weren't friends anymore, and Bakugou had no desire to pick up that friendship where they left off. That didn't mean that he had to continue to use a nickname that he now knew Izuku hated. He didn't like the nerd, and he wanted to crush every last spark of belief that Izuku held that he would ever be able to beat him, but that didn't mean that Bakugou had to be outright malicious when it wasn't warranted.
Bakugou wasn't calling him Midoriya. Full stop. They weren't friends anymore, but that hadn't stopped Izuku from calling him 'Kacchan.' Bakugou wasn't inclined to stop him, even if it suggested a closeness that they no longer shared. Which left just one option for what to call him if 'Deku' was off the table. Maybe Izuku would get the message and drop his childish nickname for Bakugou on his own.
As for everything else… Bakugou didn't have to figure that out immediately. His first concern was the entrance exam. Once he had officially been admitted to Yuuei he could decide what he wanted to do about their advice. He had spent a year thinking about it. He could let it sit for a little longer. It wasn't as though there was anything he could do with what they had told him now anyway. The exam first. Then everything else.
After the academic portion of the exam they were all ushered into a different auditorium with the rest of the potential students. Bakugou wanted them to get it all over with. They had been sitting for the last hour and a half, and now they were expected to sit again for who knows how long before jumping straight into whatever 'challenge' the staff had lined up for them. It wouldn't make a difference to Bakugou, but how many of these other potentials would be negatively affected by this setup? In the end, it wouldn't matter. Bakugou would still be the most memorable. What the other students did wouldn't make a difference.
He listened, bored, as a one of Yuuei's teachers described the event. Were they even trying to make this challenging? Smash a bunch of mindless robots. Maybe it would have been difficult for someone with a less physical quirk than his, but that was exactly why Bakugou was perfectly suited to become a pro. He wondered how Izuku would have done against them if he hadn't already gotten through on recommendations. Surely Eraserhead would have given him the specifics of the test, but how would he have decided to tackle giant robots without a quirk?
Bakugou forced himself to tune back into the nonsense of the auditorium. Wondering what Izuku would have done wasn't important because Izuku wasn't there, and while he didn't believe that anything said here would be worth knowing now that they had already gone over the points distribution it was a better use of his time than thinking about what ifs that would never come to pass.
Once the instructions had been given and all of the extras' pointless questions had been answered they were divided into groups again and lead out into different arenas on the far ends of campus. That was one of the reasons Yuuei had become the powerhouse school that it was. They had the land and the money necessary to put together their elaborate exercises. Other schools couldn't keep up. How many other schools had the extra money laying around to build an army of robots for the sole purpose of letting potential students destroy them?
As they stood clustered in front of the arena doors, Bakugou took the chance to look at the rest of the students gathered around him. He couldn't imagine there being any real competition, but he couldn't be the only one there with a quirk worthy of being in the hero program.
Only a few people stood out at a glance. There was a boy with flat dark hair who must have had some kind of quirk that affected his skin by the way it seemed to shift the longer they stood there. Either he had incredible control considering he seemed to be on the edge of panicking or he was manipulating his skin without realizing it. Both were interesting options.
Then there was the guy who had spoken out in the auditorium. He didn't seem like much himself, but Bakugou would have to be an idiot not to recognize him. His resemblance to his brother was incredible. Bakugou couldn't count out someone who came from a family of pro heroes.
Finally there was a girl who stood near the front of the crowd, just in front of the arena entrance. From where Bakugou stood he could see that she had her eyes closed, her hands templed in front of her. Nothing about her appearance hinted at what her quirk could be, but she seemed oblivious to the nervous energy around them. She was already leagues ahead of the rest of the prospects who seemed to be bogged down with their own anxieties, at the very least.
The grating sound of metal on metal had most of the group wincing as the doors to the arena slid open. Bakugou pushed his way through to the front of the crowd, his attention fully focused on the widening view of the field. As soon as the buildings came into view Bakugou grinned. He had this. Just a few minutes and his future would be locked.
Slowly they filed into the open space just inside the gates, the intercom system crackling to life around them as the doors slid closed again behind them.
"In just a few seconds a buzzer will sound and the final portion of your entrance exam will begin. The rules of this event have already been explained, but I would like to remind everyone to pay attention to their surroundings. Staff will be monitoring the exam, but we will not interfere unless absolutely necessary. The point of this exam is to see what level of control you have over your quirk and how adapt you are at applying it to unexpected circumstances. Do your best, but be aware that the danger here can be very real if you aren't careful. Good luck."
A heavy silence followed Nedzu's announcement, the sound of their breathing seeming to echo through the empty city built around them, but Bakugou didn't spare the tension any thought. The moment the buzzer sounded he was off leaving the wannabe heroes in the dust. Robots would be released from other entrances around the arena, but there was still only a limited number of them. The more he could claim for himself before the rest got their nerves under control the better.
Bakugou could feel his heart pounding as he ran, putting more and more distance between himself and the entrance with every second. This is what he had been waiting for. A chance to use his quirk to the fullest, to show what he was truly capable of outside the strict restrictions of his middle school classes. People with subtle quirks could never understand what it was like having a quirk like his. They got to use their quirks without any real consequences, without having to worry about ruining their future simply by using a gift they had been born with.
He had spent so much time wishing for the chance to be able to use his quirk, to really put it to the test. Now he had it, and he had never felt so alive. His grin only grew when his first target turned around a corner ahead of him. The temptation to blast it from that distance was almost overwhelming, but Bakugou shoved the feeling down. He needed to last until the end of the event. A large showy explosion would have felt good, but was probably the worst way the prove to the staff that he was the best choice there.
The robot lumbered towards him, green metal stark against the pale concrete. It thundered as it moved, red lights flashing bright in the afternoon sun. Bakugou didn't slow his approach. An arm swung in his direction, but the operating system wasn't sophisticated enough for any real accuracy. The staff wasn't trying to hurt them. Like Nedzu had announced they wanted to see how potential students could adapt.
Sliding smoothly beside the clunky giant, Bakugou slapped a hand against the robot's hard shell. Yuuei had made his job even easier by putting their test outside in the sun. He could already feel sweat running down the back of his neck. It didn't take much to blast the robot into bits. Heat filled the air as he moved away, ducking to avoid a piece of debris. The robot collapsed in a useless hunk of blackened metal and melted wires behind him. A message to any of the other students that came the same way. This test had almost been made with him in mind, and Bakugou couldn't stop the laughter that bubbled up as he ran.
After that everything became a blur of fire, explosions, and wasted resources. Bakugou hadn't bothered to keep track of his points, but he knew that he had to be in the lead. The exam would have to be ending soon. Even if he didn't destroy all of the robots himself, the other students had started appearing, taking out whatever robots Bakugou didn't. He almost wished that they would just keep sending them out, despite the fatigue he could slowly feel creeping in on him. He couldn't remember the last time he had used his quirk this much, and he never wanted it to end. Was this what it would be like once he was at Yuuei? Would he always have this freedom? He hoped the answer was yes.
Bakugou had just taken out the last robot on his street when another buzzer rang through the arena. For a second he thought it was the signal for the end of the exam, but before he could even feel the disappointment of that the ground started to shake beneath his feet. Another metal on metal shriek sounded from across the arena, and Bakugou turned to see a cloud of dust rise as a robot several times larger than any of the ones before rose out of the ground.
So this was the real danger that Nedzu had been referring to.
Displaced concrete slammed into the street, shattering as it hit the ground. The robot moved much faster than the others, and glass rained down onto the street as it's giant fist slammed into the ground sending a shockwave of air and dust flying towards them. It wouldn't take long for it to be on top of them, knocking down the carefully constructed buildings as it forced its way through the street.
But what was the goal here? Bakugou stood still watching as the sounds of shouting filled the arena around him. Students ran, bypassing both him and the debris of robots that surrounded him, but Bakugou felt rooted in place as he stared up at the giant monstrosity that moved closer and closer. Zero points. That was what the instructor had said. Why have a robot like this in the test and make it worth zero points?
Obviously he wasn't supposed to fight it, but that meant that Bakugou had no idea what it was that they wanted from this. Adaptability. Creativity. Control. How did those traits line up with this challenge?
He probably would have stayed there, still trying to figure out what he needed to do to pass this test, frustration mounting with every second, if he hadn't heard the scream. Bakugou hadn't paid attention to the other students running passed him, but he felt sure that no one besides him had stayed in the middle of the street as the zero point robot forced its way through. Someone had screamed though. Someone else had stayed.
Something in him wanted to ignore the sound. This was a test, not a group bonding activity or some garbage like that. They were all competing for a set number of places, and while Bakugou felt sure that he had anihilated the competition that didn't mean that he had to help those competitors do better. His only concern was his score when the final buzzer sounded. None of the other competitors were his responsibility. Then the scream rang out again, the sound breaking as the person's voice cut off suddenly.
Inko's words, always circling in the back of his mind, pushed their way to the front of his thoughts.
Bakugou still didn't have an answer for the questions she had posed in their short conversation. He still didn't know what she wanted from him, what she expected, what mistakes he had made in his past that he needed to address, what this all meant for him going forward. He didn't need to know the answers. Not yet.
Inko's words played through one more time. Bakugou moved without thinking.
Each second that passed the robot moved closer, each hit to the ground causing more debris crashing around Bakugou as he ran, but it didn't take him long to find the source of the scream. A mountain of rubble had landed in the next street over, pinning one of the students to the concrete. Bakugou recognized her immediately as the girl that he had seen outside the arena. She didn't appear to be seriously injured despite the ground piled on top of her. Round face struggled to pull herself out, but Bakugou knew it was useless. There was too much for her to move by herself in that position, and the closer the robot got the more the ground shook threatening it send it all crashing down again.
Two problems, both with easy solutions.
The robot was almost completely on top of them by the time he reached her.
"I can't get out!" The girl said, her face red."I can't use my quirk anymore, or else I would have been able to move this. Can you pull me out? We have to hurry, I don't think they're going to call it off." She looked on the edge of passing out, but whether that was from the situation or overusing her quirk Bakugou wasn't sure. Despite what she had said, she still pushed at the rock holding her in place, her face screwed up in concentration as she placed her hands against it. The hunk of concrete wavered for a second, but didn't move from the pile. For her to even try to use her quirk in that condition proved that his original assessment had been right, but he didn't have time to think about that.
Reaching out, Bakugou grabbed the girl's hands. Another fist slammed into concrete on the street in front of them. They didn't have much time. Even if the teachers called the test now, the robot was too close. If they didn't get out of the way fast it would be more than just the girl's legs pinned under the rubble.
"Push with your legs when I pull," Bakugou growled, tightening his grip on her wrists. She would probably have bruises when this was all over with, but there was no other option, not with the robot this close to them. Using his quirk on the rubble ran the risk of catching her in the blast too. Bruises were better than being dead, at least in his book. Bakugou stepped back, pulling as the pushed at the gravel with her feet.
The robot moved closer, it's shadow spreading across their faces and blocking out the afternoon sun. Giving one last pull, the rock pile tipped, gravel slipping as the girl finally worked her way free just as the robot pulled it's arm back ready to deliver another punch to the ground right where they were standing.
Bakugou shoved her behind him, raising both hands in the direction of the robot. It would have been easier at the beginning of the exam, if he had those modifications he had been playing around with adding to his suit when he finally got to start at Yuuei, but the sun and exertion would have to be enough. The fist fell towards them, and Bakugou watched as it grew closer and closer. He wouldn't be able to do this twice. It would take all the energy he had left and then some, but the moment the fist was in striking distance Bakugou set off the largest explosion he had left.
Fire rocketed out between them, a wave of heat washing over them as the blast knocked the fist off target and into the neighboring building. Glass shattered as the hit connected, the sound drowning out everything but the pounding of his heartbeat in his chest.
"Look out!" The girl yelled, slamming into him. They fell hard, a slab of concrete and window crashing into the ground where Bakugou had been standing. His head cracked against the ground and then everything went black.
AN: Sorry this chapter is so late. I started grad school this month and my schedule has been a little more hectic than I anticipated. That being said, updates are going to continue to be sporadic.
Thanks to everyone who commented on the last chapter! It really means a lot!