"There it is, U.A. High." Izuku muttered to herself with a smile, looking up to the giant building before her as she stood tall, excitement coursing through her. "Time to test the training."
She snickered to herself over the alliteration as she began making her way towards the school. It was insane to think she was finally going to be here, attending the school of her dreams with a quirk she'd never known she had.
Hell, the whole last ten months had been like something out of her old self's best dreams. She was left alone by her former bullies, her school was forced to actually treat her like a normal kid, she was training under All Might of all people and even Bakugou had been nicer, if just by a little bit.
Nothing could bring her down right! Except that rock she just tripped on. "Aw, crap."
She waited, resigning herself to her fate as she plummeted towards the ground but surprisingly the impact never came.
"Hey, are you ok?" a cute, feminine voice asked as Izuku realized she was hovering in the air. She turned and found a brunette smiling brightly at her, hands pressed together. "I stopped you with my quirk, but I figured you wouldn't mind me catching you."
"T-thanks." Izuku got out with a light blush as the girl set he back down and gravity returned to the regeneration teen. 'Where did all my confidence go?! Also dang, she is like perfectly my self's type- Wait…' "Just w-wasn't paying attention, ehehe."
"I get it! I mean the nerves must be super distracting, I know I'm all over the place right now. Like, it's actually U.A! Ochaco Uraraka, by the way."
"I-Izuku Midoriya."
"Huh? Wait isn't Izuku a boy's name?" Uraraka asked, tilting her head confused and the suddenly nervous blonde nodded her own head.
"It's a l-long story. Maybe I can tell you after the exams." She said, with a somewhat nervous laugh which Uraraka returned with a much cuter and more elegant one. 'Dammit, why now of all times did my old nervousness have to come back- I never talked to a girl I didn't know yet. FUCK IS THIS GOING TO BE A PATTERN?! DAMN YOU SOCIAL ANXIETY, DON'T YOU DARE TRANSCEND MY QUIRK.'
"Uh, sure! That sounds fun if we do see each other but are you ok? You look… stunned." The brunette before Izuku asked and the blonde waved it away with a sigh.
"Yeah sorry, just distracted by your good looks." 'NOW BRAIN?! YOU BRING BACK THE CONFIDENCE NOW?! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!'
Uraraka's face lit up red at the compliment, and doing her best to save the situation Izuku decided to just go with the flow, flashing her a bright smile.
"Like, I know I look good as well so it's great to see someone who matches up." She said with a wink, before gesturing to the school. "So we should get inside now. Who knows, maybe we can stun them all into letting us pass with our good looks."
"I- uh, thank you!" Uraraka squeaked out, before hurrying off and making Izuku hit herself as she watched the brunette run off.
'Idiot! You scared her away!' She hissed internally, letting out a suffering sigh as her pace towards the school became much slower. 'She actually seemed nice as well. Though… she's not my type? That's weird though because I'm fairly certain the old me would of found her really attractive. Well she is really attractive but like old me would of probably started crushing without realizing but I-"
"Fucking hell Deku. I knew you were bad with girls but I don't remember them ever running away from you before." Bakugou's sudden voice caught her attention and she just fixed him with an unamused glare, losing her train of thought.
"Yeah, cause normally they were running from your ugliness."
"FUCK YOU!"
The theory portion of the test had gone by pretty easily in Izuku's opinion. It may have been expressed in different ways now, but the blonde was just as smart as she had ever been and in her humble opinion, she was pretty damn smart.
Once they had finished that up, the pro hero and teacher Present Mic had shown up, explaining to them all how they would be conducting the practical exam.
It was simplicity itself really. A select number of people would be at a battle arena each (Izuku was at their secondary training city, battle arena B) and they would all enter at the same time in a free for all to destroy as many faux villain robots as possible using their quirks.
There were four kinds of robots, but apparently only three of them mattered. The one-pointer, the two-pointer and the three-pointer. It had taken a lot of the blonde's willpower not to make any comments over the naming convention of the robots.
They apparently grew in size as well as difficulty as the numbers raised, meaning most would have to be strategic in what fights they picked to gain the most points possible and pass the exam.
The regeneration teen doubted it would be as big of an issue for her, as long as she stuck to relying on medium powered energy balls. She'd yet to find her limit with creating them, she knew there had to be one but she hadn't come across it yet so she was confident she could go all out for the whole exam without much consequence considering she was fully rested and raring to go.
A part of her wondered if it wasn't her years of no quirk use giving her such a massive well of energy to draw from now. Something to ponder for later.
Other than that there was only the zero pointer but Present Mic had claimed it was nothing more than an obstacle to avoid. She hadn't failed to note he had referred to it as if there was only one which left her wondering why one wouldn't bother to destroy it and just get it out of the way. She had a feeling there was something to it that wasn't being conveyed to them but she had no idea what.
Shaking her head, she looked around at the examinee's she was participating with and her eyes widened slightly when she spotted Uraraka standing near the front of the group psyching herself up. 'Oh… I should probably apologize for our first meeting while I have the chance.'
Before she could take more than a step towards her 'saviour' however, a hand clamped down on her shoulder and she turned to see a tall blue haired teen with a square jawline and harsh eyes glaring through spectacles right at her. He spared a glance toward Uraraka before his features somehow hardened further.
She wasn't sure she liked him. During the explanation of the robots, he had interrupted to bring up an issue he had with a discrepancy between the pamphlets and the pro's presentation. What didn't sit quite right with the blonde was his attitude during it.
"She appears to be trying to prepare herself for the trials ahead. Are you really going to distract one of your fellow examinee's during such an important moment?" he asked harshly, and after just a moment of catching herself from the sudden confrontation she glared right back.
"No, I was going to apologize for something then let her get on with her day, you presumptuous asshole." She bit out, making the blue haired teens eyes go wide.
"What did you just-"
"BEGIN!"
All eyes except Izuku's shifted to Present Mic up above as the gates shot open, while the purple eyed girl realized she had a chance to escape this confrontation and get a head start so she bolted ahead of the others, taking to the air as soon as she passed the gate.
"WHAT ARE YOU ALL WAITING FOR? THERE ARE NO COUNTDOWNS IN REAL VILLAIN FIGHTS!"
'Got to be careful about this, still haven't been able to master a form of flying that doesn't present a risk of destruction due to how it works.' She thought as she began to drop towards a nearby building. 'if I keep up with consistent beams I'll run a risk of tearing down the buildings eventually. Got to adapt.'
As she thought that, she landed against the wall, instantly creating a tiny energy ball and blasting it against the building, launching her away in a manner similar to how she'd seen Bakugou take flight many times but with much less risk of destruction.
She kept this up for a couple of moments, until she managed to scale one of the buildings, landing on the roof and running to edge, looking around for any villains.
Fortunately for her, she found a cluster of two and three pointers rather early causing her to smirk as two massive energy balls appeared in her hands.
"DOUBLE OR NOTHING!"
With that cry she launched them, both of them colliding with the middle of the cluster and blasting every last one apart. 'ha! Nineteen points already.'
She smirked as she continued to use her balls and beams to turn the entire city into her own personal parkour grounds, as she hunted down villains, recalling a conversation she'd had with All Might over that attack.
"How do they even begin homing in on things anyways? I wouldn't of thought that would be part of your power."
"It isn't."
"huh?"
"I kinda realized, the energy I'm making to use them is unique to me and me alone. Nothing else seems to be like it so what could I do to utilize that? It took me hours to get it right with little tiny energy balls but I realized I could magnetize them to me and one another so I can manipulate their course once their out and flying about."
Izuku was suddenly thrown from her memories as she landed on the ground and turned a corner, only for a flurry of missiles to be launched at her. Wasting no time, she threw out her two front hands and shot of one giant beam of energy that disintegrated every last missile and tore apart the robots ahead of her in the process.
Once that was done, she wasn't sure her exact score but she knew she definitely saw a three pointer before they all blew up. She smiled that cocky smile she had gotten used to wearing on her face, bolting forward once more and using small blasts similar to how Bakugou would to speed herself up.
Really, it was a blessing she could use her powers in an incredibly similar manner. The fact that it got on the angry blonde boy's nerves was just a bonus.
She continued on her way, eventually taking to the skies again when she struggled to find anymore remaining robots. She finally found one two-pointer and dropped down in front of it. It turned to her with a series of beeps and she waved at it.
"Hey Rusty, want to help me test a new idea for a move I haven't gotten to try yet?"
It just beeped at her.
"Great! Just hold still!" She said as hundreds of tiny energy balls began to shoot from her outstretched hands, all sticking onto the robot.
it beeped again confused.
"Damage: One thousand!" she announced, clapping her hands together and causing the little balls of energy to all push in and explode, destroying the robot in the process. She walked up to the scrap, the head falling to the floor beside her and addressing it. "Thanks, it's a work in progress. Based off of video games actually, the idea being they all would deal one point of damage but because there is one thousands of them it is mega painful. What do you think?"
Silence answered her.
"Thank you! You're far to kind, Rusty." She laughed… then her smile dropped into a scowl and she let out a sigh. "I really need to get some real friends."
Before she could continue down that more depressing line of thought however, the ground began to rumble as the sound of something approaching reached her ears.
Confused she ran to where she heard the noise, turning the corner and feeling her jaw drop as she saw a robot the size of a skyscraper peeking out from behind a building, while students ran past her for their lives.
"THAT'S THE ZERO POINTER?!" She asked stunned, beginning to turn as she was aware she still needed to get a few more points. Before she could begin to run though…
"HELP!"
As it turned out, one thing the original Izuku and IzuTwo shared and perhaps any regeneration would share… The word help flipped a switch in their brain. Her mind went blank as she looked to see the brunette from before struggling from under some rubble, head bleeding as though she'd been hit..
And Izuku ran to her, throwing out two of her most powerful beams to launch herself to the girl, throwing energy balls right onto the rubble and tearing it apart as her hands glowed helping Uraraka escape. "I got you!"
"H-huh? It's you?" She asked, and Izuku frowned as her voice came out somewhat drowsy. 'probably a concussion.'
"It's me! Come on, stay awake!" She said, pulling the girl away as fast as she could. Unfortunately she didn't have enough upper body strength to pull the girl away from the zero pointer fast enough.
"'M…sorry. I wa' rude…."
"Hey, don't worry about anything! Just stay awake, ok?" The regeneration teen commanded as she set the girl down and looked up to the giant robot towering above her with a glare. "HEY YOU! ONE MORE STEP AND I BLOW YOU TO KINGDOM COME!"
It kept moving, and The blonde sighed as she threw both her arms above her, one absolutely gargantuan energy ball formed above her, bigger than any of the one's she'd made so far, thought it was still dwarfed by the zero pointer.
"You know, this might be more than my body can handle right now, so just in case something happens I wanted to say sorry myself for making you uncomfortable." The blonde said with a small smile of her own, before preparing to launch her attack.
"Sorry for.. wha…?"
"RENEWAL BALL! ONE HUNDRED PERCENT POWER!" Izuku bellowed as she threw her hands down, the ball launching at speed right into the robots chest and actually managing to pick it up off the ground and disintegrate it's chest, leaving the remaining pieces to fall to the ground in a heap. "Process that, you robotic-"
She tripped as she stumbled backwards, falling onto the ground and letting out heavy breathes. She'd never put every last drop of her power into an attack after so much constant use in all of her training yet, mainly due to All Might not being the best opponent in that regard as she usually only had half an hour at best to spar with him meaning he would be at his weakest possible.
Her gaze turned to Uraraka who was very barely still conscious, but fortunately putting up a fight as they waited for help. As she took in the pretty, now frazzled brunette her last train of thought from that morning suddenly returned to her while black spots began to appear in her vision.
'Oh yeah… that was it… If I don't have the same type as before… would I not like the same type of p….people… but then…'
Thoughts flashed through her mind, of her dating someone like Uraraka, only for her to regenerate and the new regeneration to reject them. To lose the love they may have shared.
The thought was horrible, and made Izuku's throat go dry as she realized the solution. A solution that brought a solitary tear to her eye as her final conscious thought flashed through her.
'I can't ever be with anyone….'
She welcomed the darkness that took her away from the suddenly terrifying clutch of reality.
