Once Hikari rushed into the street to her right, she realized that no one else was here with her. Except for a large 3-pointer dead ahead of her.

Nice! Immediately her wrists glowed alive, two shields forming. She launched them at the robot and it neatly sliced it to pieces.

'Yes, three points for me! Gotta go find more!' She ran back onto the main street to find more robots. As she tied her jacket around her waist, she scanned the area. The debris of the robots littered the fake urban city. Examinees were destroying them left and right. Finding nothing, she took a left and found herself face-to-face with more robots.

Three 2-pointers! One 1-pointer! Four 3-pointers! 'And they're all mine!'

A single shield went through the 1-pointer robot and two 2-pointers. Hikari was about to go for another one when a shadow obscured the light above her. As she looked up to meet a chunk of a robot arm, something wrapped around her waist and yanked her out of the way.

The arm crashed into the ground somewhere near Hikari, but she was busy recovering from the near whiplash her body went through. When her vision cleared, her eyes met a piercing red stare and… a shadowy bird? With glowing eyes?

"Hey, hey! You okay, miss?" the bird squawked. Hikari nodded mutely, still in shock. The boy next to the bird exhaled a small sigh of relief.

"Good, I'm glad," the boy muttered gratefully. He gently lifted Hikari off of the ground and asked quietly, "Can you walk?" It was then Hikari realized that they were inside what looked like a fake parking garage. It was dark, too.

"Yeah, I think I can, thank you," she quietly answered. Hikari cleared her throat and asked the boy, "Is that your quirk? The bird, I mean." 'No duh it's the bird, Hikari! Why are you even asking that question?!'

"Yep, I am! I'm Dark Shadow!" the bird, Dark Shadow, boasted loudly. Its chest, if it had one, puffed up in pride.

"Ah, well, thank you again, Dark Shadow," Hikari awkwardly thanked again. Before the boy could say anything, though, Present Mic's shrill voice boomed across the faux-city. "Eight minutes and ten seconds, listeners! Keep it up!"

The boy stepped into the light, and it took Hikari by shock when his figure revealed to have a bird head. It was black and presumably fluffy with feathers and even a beak.

"May we meet again, I suppose," the boy mumbled quietly. Dark Shadow comically saluted Hikari and lifted the boy up and away.

"Huh. Well, that's something that you don't see everyday," mumbled Hikari after watching him almost fly away. The noise of destruction and voices from the examinees finally brought her out of her shock. "Well, let's get back to it!"

/

Only three minutes were left, and in that time Hikari brought her robot body count to 34. Not bad, but with the three minutes left, there were more robots to be destroyed.

As she ran through the streets to find more targets, something ahead of the street caught her eye: an examinee was busy destroying a robot, but she appeared to be oblivious to the trajectory path of a sheet of metal... and it was coming straight for her.

"Hey…! Watch out!" Hikari suddenly found herself running forward and putting herself between the examinee and the flying debris. In a flash, a bubble encased Hikari and the examinee, just in time for the debris to ricochet off of the bubble and land next to them.

"I've… I've never been able to do that before," she whispered softly to herself. "W-what the…"

"Oh my gosh, thank you! I didn't even see that coming! Who knows what would've happened to me!" the girl rambled as she hugged Hikari. The tealette returned the hug, but she was still reeling in shock from the last few seconds.

Hikari looked down at the girl. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?" she asked, pulling away from the hug. As she looked closer, she realized that the girl was smaller than her and had black hair with white streaks styled in twin buns and matching black eyes. Her eyes were narrow and as black as a pair of onyx gemstones.

"Yep, thanks to you!"

"AND THAT'S IT, FOLKS! TIIIIIME'S UP!" A siren blared across the city, signaling the end of the exam.

Shocked by the sudden announcement, Hikari found herself releasing them both from the bubble. 'So that means… only 34 points.'

/

The rest of the day was a blurry haze for Hikari. She forgot to meet up with Ochako after the exam as they promised and instead slowly walked home. She didn't bother to check her phone for texts either.

Now she was holed up in her room, waiting for her results to be delivered by mail.

"Hikari, hon? It's been a while since you've been out of your room, do you want to talk about the exam?" It was her father, Mamoru Hinata.

He pushed the door open to find his daughter in the dark and wrapped up in a blanket. Plastic wrappings and bottles littered the bed and floor. The only source of light was the eerie glow from Hikari's laptop. He squeaked in surprise; his daughter looked like a ghost!

When Hikari shifted her glance from the laptop to her father in slow motion, it only terrified the man even more! Her eyes sunken in and her mouth drawn in a thin line! Was he imagining it, or did she already have wrinkles on her face?!

Steeling himself, Mamoru stormed in and drew back the dark curtains. Sunlight suddenly filled the room, and Hikari hissed like an irritated cat, failing to shield her eyes from the light in time.

"Hikari, you can't stay here forever! You need sunlight! Your quirk is dependent on it, otherwise you'll get sick!" scolded her father. Hikari, though, wrapped herself further into her blanket and rolled to her side, muttering something unintelligible.

"Don't you want to see your results?" Peeking through the folds of the blanket, it took Hikari a moment to realize that her father was holding an envelope with the red U.A seal. To Mamoru's surprise, she turned away.

"I'm… I'm scared."

Hikari shifted to a sitting position and squeezed her eyes shut. "I've always wanted to be a hero since I was a kid and I know that's what I told mom and I want to honor her, but what if I didn't make it? What if someone beat me and got a better score and I have to go to another school or—"

Instantly, she could feel the bed sink and warmth growing around her. "Sweetie, it's going to be alright. No matter what, if you don't make it, I will always be proud of you, and I know she is too."

There was silence as she mulled over his words. "Thanks, dad," Hikari finally sniffed, a tear escaping her eye. Carefully, she finally plucked the envelope from her father's hand and gently tore it open. A metallic disk fell onto the bed and immediately lit up, displaying a hologram into the air.

"Hey, hey, female listener! I'm here to tell you about your results, so listen up!" Present Mic loudly greeted with a giant grin. Hikari glanced at her dad, who was just as intently focused on the hologram. She quickly looked back at the screen, wide-eyed and attentive.

"The written portion! You passed with flying colors, in the top 20th percentile! Be proud, young listener, you're the best of the best! The cream of the crop! " Hikari could feel a grin growing on her face.

"For the physical exam, you earned 34 villain points! Not bad, but with that amazing rescue of a fellow examinee, you earned another 30 rescue points! You heard correctly, 30 rescue points! That's what a hero is all about, ya know!" As he spoke, a replay of Hikari creating the bubble shield in front of the girl played from various camera angles.

'Villain points…? Rescue points…? There was more to it than destroying robots?'

"That girl was incredibly lucky, she even came by our offices to show her thanks!" A still picture of the girl switched onto the screen, bowing fervently over and over again. "In other words, listener, congrats! With 64 points, you made it! Welcome to U.A's Hero Course!"

"I… made it." 'I made it!' Hikari rushed to find her phone. 'I gotta tell Ochako!' Once she spotted the black and gold casing, she pounced at it and dialed her friend's number.

"Ochako, I'm so sorry for ghosting you but I— Wha—? for real? No way, congrats me too!"

Hikari erupted in shrieks, scaring her father and attracting Maru to her room. The small apartment filled with loud shouts and shrieks throughout the night, celebrating her accomplishment.


A/N: Yo, Hikari is a whole mood she has such a flair for the dramatic lmao. I had fun writing the mopey part of this chapter, not gonna lie. Fun fact for this chapter: Hikari was originally going to be an orphan and raise her sister, Maru, by herself. As I was going along, though, it wasn't working, so I decided to add Mamoru. Anyways, thanks for reading!