Gohan felt like he was cheating, despite knowing that besides Vegeta, he was by far the strongest person on the planet, potentially in the known universe, if some of Vegeta's rants about the reach of the Frieza Force held up. Yet it didn't feel right that in the back of his head, he knew the principal of U.A. had already signed the acceptance for him and the exam wasn't even for a few more weeks, yet here he was in the Mount Paozu region, training regardless.
"Come on big brother, you said you'd teach me how to fly since you can train now," Goten whined as he watched his older brother punch and kick the air.
"I don't know," Gohan huffed as the sweat on his body shot off when he stopped his rapidly moving body suddenly. "It took me years and intense training to learn that."
"But, but, but," Goten stammered as he looked around. "I can do other things you can, watch," he said quickly as he slammed his wrists together. "Kame Kame ha," he shouted as a blue beam of light exploded out of his hands and put a hole in a tree in front of the child. "See and I can do the golden hair thing to watch," Goten said before shouting and turning into a super Saiyan.
"What the fu-," Gohan gasped as he saw his almost five-year old younger brother do what took his father fulfilling an ancient alien prophecy, Vegeta doing something and himself nearly dying in training to do. He stammered and gaped waving his arms around in frustration. "We're going to Bulma's," he quickly concluded as he grabbed his younger brother and rocketed off into the sky. Completely ignoring the drone that had been watching him.
"Did the little kid just do that Super Saiyan thing that we saw Gohan do?" Hound Dog asked Nezu who was trembling in his chair.
"This is," he paused as he took a big sip of his tea. "Just peachy, a five-year-old is now on the same level as All Might," he grinned nervously as he reached into his coat pocket to pull out his cell phone to send another message for a staff meeting.
"I hate these meetings," Hound Dog grumbled as they had been nearly weekly as Nezu continued to gather more and more information about Gohan and the incidents that had been ignored or covered up.
Landing on the green lawn of Capsule Corp a security guard came rushing over but stopped when he saw the unruly black and spiky gold hair, he had special instructions that if other people seemingly appeared out of nowhere on Capsule Corp property but fit a few specific descriptions, that he was to leave them be as they had full and complete access to anywhere in the building at any time.
The two demi-saiyans went into the attached housing building for Bulma and her family. "Oh Gohan and Goten," Mrs. Briefs called out to the two boys. "It's so good to see you, how are you feeling? Would you like some snacks?" she asked raising a tray of delicious cookies and lemonade.
Despite his normal Saiyan appetite, Gohan politely declined. "I'm actually here to see Vegeta, have you seen him?"
"Oh my son-in-law is in the heavy room," Mrs. Briefs answered. "He's always in there, and never has time to spend with us," she pouted.
"Well, I'll try to get him out every once in a while," Gohan promised as he dragged Goten behind him, while the smaller boy had taken the entire tray from Mrs. Briefs and was devouring all that was on it. Slamming his fist onto the extra reinforced door, Gohan shouted loudly. "Hey, Vegeta, get out here."
A moment later he felt Vegeta walking over to the door and stepped back so as not to get hit by it. "What do you want brat," Vegeta shouted.
"Take a look at Goten and tell me what you see," He pointed to his brother sitting on the floor with a mouthful of cookies, golden hair and cyan eyes. Vegeta froze for a second before shoving Gohan to the side and pulling at Goten's hair. "This is clearly your fault."
"What," Vegeta exclaimed. "How is this my fault."
"Oh please, Goten always comes over here to play, can you really believe he would be able to get away with something like this, in our tiny apartment, let alone with my mother there," Gohan waved his hands in the air in exasperation. "So clearly he learned it by watching you."
Vegeta stood up proudly to defend himself. "Hardly, the woman never lets me take Trunks into the gravity room even if I promise not to take it over one hundred times, so no this is all because of you," he jabbed his finger into Gohan's chest. "Don't think I don't know what you're doing, teaching Goten to surpass my own son because you are jealous."
"Jealous," Gohan scoffed. "Of what, that despite my dad being dead, you somehow are still doing less of a job raising your own child than he is?"
"Excuse me," Vegeta roared. "You come into my house and say those words to me." His tall black hair flashing gold in an instant. "I love my family," Vegeta yelled his voice raising higher and higher.
"Shocking, since you never seem to even say your own wife's name," Gohan yelled back. "Despite you contributing almost nothing to anyone, you act like the world owes you for that."
Vegeta shouted and punched Gohan in the face. "Get out of my house."
"Fine, Goten we're leaving," Gohan said as he pushed past Vegeta. "We're leaving Bulma's house."
Vegeta tackled Gohan in a rage at the disrespect being sent his way. "You ungrateful brat."
Gohan turned Super Saiyan and began punching, kicking and biting Vegeta in return. "All you do is train and train and train," he grunted as he slammed his fist into Vegeta's stomach. "All to get stronger than my dad. Well too fucking bad," Gohan spat. "He's dead and not coming back, so why do you care anymore."
"I have to be the strongest," Vegeta pounded his knee into Gohan's ribs. "It's my pride."
"Yeah congrats, you're stronger than me," Gohan replied managing to get Vegeta into a chokehold. "Now stop it and be a father," he demanded.
"I am," Vegeta smashed his head backwards, breaking Gohan's nose, when Gohan's head impacted the wall it left a spiderweb of cracks all the way from floor to ceiling.
"Oh yeah, which model of parenting is that," Gohan smirked as he threw Vegeta into the ground, leaving a decent sized hole as the other Saiyan wrenched his head out of the floor. "The ignore them until they do something worthy of your attention, huh."
"I am raising him the Saiyan way," Vegeta growled as he pushed off and shoved the teenager into the wall, pinning him with his elbow on his throat.
"Good fucking job, A-plus effort," Gohan wheezed as he formed a ball of ki in his palm and blasted Vegeta down the hall. "I wonder if he'll become half the man he was when he had to come back in time after you all botched it with the Androids."
"He was strong then," Vegeta yelled as small blasts of ki rocketed down the hallway and impacting Gohan's guard.
"He was a god damn mess, Vegeta," Gohan sprinted down the length and slammed into his opponent. "He had no social skills, he was constantly worried and he had to watch every person besides his mother die either before he got to know them or worse, after."
"Which is why I'm staying away, he turned out better than I did, and my father played a big role in my development," Vegeta lifted up Gohan by the waist and slammed him into the floor. "So if I don't get involved until he's older, the woman can have a better influence on him then."
"That's what you're doing," Gohan exclaimed. "Holy shit, are you dumb or something." He powered down from his Super Saiyan form showing he was done fighting. "You honestly think he's going to turn out better with you here, but never there for him?"
"Yes," Vegeta admitted.
Gohan sat up scratching his head. "He needs you, shit, I needed and still need my dad, I never had that chance because he spent half his life training and the other half dead, sometime both." Gohan scooted on the floor of the ruined room until his back was resting against the wall. Looking down the hall as some people had come over to see what was causing the ruckus Gohan could easily pinpoint Bulma's furious face in the crowd of onlookers, Gohan waved her off.
"But my father," Vegeta confessed as he took a seat next to the teen. "What if I just make him worse."
"Then be better, I don't know how your father treated you, but I know that if you want to, you can do better," Gohan told him. "It's going to be weird and confusing, but I know you can do it."
"Really," the Prince of All Saiyans turned his head to look at Gohan.
"Yeah, anyone willing to throw themselves at Cell like that because a son he never knew died, I think if he wanted to could be a decent father, it's just going to take time." Gohan slowly pushed up off the wall and groaned. "Now I need to go and apologize to Bulma for wrecking her house."
"No, I will, you take Goten and get out of here, I started the fight," Vegeta stopped Gohan and walked past him. "Bulma, I, can we talk, please," Vegeta asked.
The fact that he had used her name so calmly was soon overshadowed by him politely asking to talk to her, that Bulma just shooed away all the employees and took Vegeta to one of the side rooms, so Gohan and Goten could quietly leave the complex.
"Big Brother," Goten asked quietly bundled in Gohan's arms. "Did I do something wrong?"
"No kiddo," Gohan shook his head. "I think that was bound to happen one day, with someone. But you didn't do anything wrong, let's get some food and hope mom doesn't ask where we've been all day." Which didn't happen, Bulma had given a call later in the day thanking Gohan and Goten for helping her at Capsule Corp, and Chi-Chi had gotten the truth out of the pair of them.
Which is why Gohan was almost late to the entrance exam, as his mother had stacked chore after chore onto him, he had practically rebuilt the entire apartment complex by cleaning and fixing it up as his punishment for destroying a not insignificant portion of Bulma's home. Since their family friend was loaded, Bulma didn't bother with having Gohan help repair it and just hired a few contractors to do the work and refused to let Chi-Chi try to pay her back for it.
But he still managed to make it into the exam room and gave a small smile to Present Mic who gave him a slight nod just before the doors shut. Quietly sitting in one of the few open chairs left, Gohan sunk into his seat as he halfheartedly listened to Present Mic's instructions, smash some robots. "Been there, done that," he thought to himself as he tried his best to contain a yawn.
"I'm sorry little listener am I boring you," Present Mic teased.
Quickly shaking himself awake Gohan sat up firmly, "No, no I uh, long night," he deflected.
"Aww that's okay, I don't think you were the only one too nervous to get a good night's sleep," Present Mic chuckled as he pointed around the room to a few other people with obvious bags under their eyes. A few other contestants sheepishly covered their faces as they realized they weren't the only ones who felt tired. "Well, let's not keep you all too long, and we'll all head out to take the tests," Present Mic wrapped up his presentation quickly for the hopefuls' benefit.
Izuku began to do his normal routine as he hadn't had a chance to do any warm ups before coming in, quickly firing off a burst of punches and kicks to loosen his muscles he failed to notice that most of the other people were gaping about the arrival of another contestant.
She stood off to the side with long black pigtails and was trying her best to ignore the fans. Her name was Videl Satan, daughter of the number one hero in the world, Mr. Satan. And on the outside she looked calm and collected, on the inside she was absolutely terrified.
Videl had grown up in a lavish household that her father had bought with the winnings he earned from the World Martial Arts Tournament, and even more so after he defeated that monster all those years ago, he became the number one overnight. Not everyone had a quirk strong enough to defeat Cell, but he did and she, didn't. Videl didn't understand it, usually a parent's quirk became even stronger in their child. She could see it in the number three hero, Endeavor's son, Todoroki, having a fire and ice quirk that she presumed was devastating the way Endeavor ranted and raved about it.
But for Videl, she tried to use her quirk and got nothing out of it that could seem to reach the same level as her dad. All her quirk did was allow her to shift her organs around, the only benefit has been in martial arts tournaments because it allowed her to avoid hits to pressure points and her internals that would have been far more painful while giving her the added benefit of enhanced flexibility.
So instead she had just trained and trained, sure she could now hold her own against her father, but it was obvious he wasn't using his quirk when he fought her, as Videl knew she wouldn't last a second against him if he really tried, but it was a bit of a confidence booster to know she could likely beat up other professional heroes if she tried.
And now here she was at U.A., getting to take the entrance exam. Her dad had tried to push the principal to give her a recommendation slot, but she felt it might be better this way, so that she wouldn't embarrass him with her weak quirk and also to avoid anyone saying she got in because of her father's reputation.
Present Mic looked over the crowd of applicants and keep a watch out for Gohan, the last meeting had some critical information for the staff to go over.
"So what you mean to tell us is that, this child, Goten," Snipe pointed to the projected image. "Is capable of potentially matching All Might for power?"
"And likely him as well, I am not ruling out the possibility," Nezu said clicking through to a picture of Bulma and Vegeta's, seven-year-old son Trunks.
"But when you gave us a lot of this history, Gohan couldn't do this stuff that young, could he?" Midnight raised her hand.
"No, I do not believe so, which is alarming. It would seem that these hybrid saiyans have a much easier time attaining high power levels, as they say, than either parent species," Nezu sighed.
"And our emergency plan," Vlad King asked.
"None, apparently their mothers are both capable enough of keeping the saiyans in line," Nezu sighed. "Even our drones can pick up images that Vegeta has spent more time in public with Mrs. Briefs after that day. So it would seem that this is pretty self-regulated."
"What about these other fighters," Ectoplasm commented as he flipped through his notes. "Tien Shinhan, Yamcha, Krillin, Master Roshi," he started listing names.
"Yamcha the Bandit has settled into a life of professional sports," Nezu answered. "Seemingly retired from this lifestyle, because all signs point to him having fallen behind the rest of them in power."
"Despite still being in the top five most powerful humans," Power Loader grumbled.
"Krillin and his wife," Nezu ignored the complaints, even if he agreed with the sentiment. "Android 18, who in fact is one of the twin terrors that attacked cities before Cell emerged, has taken a lifestyle of police officer and model, respectively."
"And the only reason we aren't trying to arrest her is…" Thirteen questioned.
"Despite potentially being near the same level as All Might, if the specs I managed to salvage from Dr. Gero's lab are correct, she is also closely integrated into their group," Nezu brought up a photo of a party with all the Z-Fighters and their friends and family. "An attack on one, is an attack on all of them."
"Tien Shinhan and Piccolo, however, have dropped off the map completely and are unable to be found, but I have been assured they pose no threat to the world," Nezu continued to explain.
"So our planet is likely defended at all times by multiple people with incredible powers, who are capable of responding to world ending crisis very quickly then?"
"Yes, aren't we just lucky," Nezu's eye twitched momentarily as he brought his stress levels down.
"One last question?" All Might asked.
"Go ahead, Toshi," Nezu nodded.
"What do we do about Gohan taking the exam?"
"Begin," Present Mic announced to the examiners as the door slammed open. The sudden declaration startling most of the test takers while others shot off into the cities, intent to not waste a second.
Gohan had already smashed a lot of the machines, for a moment he had expected them to at least be as strong as Nineteen, but no, these generic robots crumpled with a single strike. As he thought on it for a moment it would make sense, the Androids were a longtime project of Dr. Gero's, using the most advances and experimental materials one could get their hands on. It makes sense for cost that the U.A. machines would be much weaker.
Accepting the boredom that would come with this task, Gohan plowed his way through the cityscape, until after only what seemed like five minutes Present Mic's voice carried across the testing area. "Izuku Midoriya, please exit the testing area, you have passed, leave some for the rest of them."
Gohan slid to stop upon hearing this and just shrugged before he turned around and passed by stunned groups of participants who many had just managed to score a handful of points.
Deciding that he didn't need to head home and there wasn't anything against the rules, as soon as he had cleared the doors he flew off the ground and up to the high vantage point Present Mic was watching from. "Hey, so that was the plan," Gohan said, startling the pro as he landed on the edge of the building.
"Jeez, forget you can do that sometimes," Present Mic gasped as he resituated himself after jumping in fright.
"Ehh, to be fair the amount of times we've forgotten abilities we can do is, well, we aren't claiming to be the smartest," Gohan chuckled as he recalled all the times someone in their group could have prevented hardships with one of their techniques. "You don't mind if I wait here for a bit, wasn't expecting to be done so soon."
Present Mic smiled at the Half-Saiyan teen who sat on the ledge and stared out into the horizon. "No problem kid," the blonde said. "And yes that was the plan, have you smash some of the bots for points, at least so others can see you and then pull you out of the exam."
The two quietly watched the area for a few minutes, hearing the sounds of battle in the distance as other examinees fought below them. During a lull, Present Mic cleared his throat getting Gohan's attention. "So while I got you here," he said as he turned off his headset so the other proctors couldn't hear him. "Those things you do. The uh, lasers and flying around. Can just anyone do that?"
"Yeah, I guess if you train the right way," Gohan kicked his feet back and forth as he looked out over the field. "Why do you ask?"
"Well I," Present Mic rubbed the back of his head. "Flying seems really cool."
"It's pretty awesome yeah," Gohan sighed and stared up into the sky. "Sometimes I just fly up and get away from it all."
"Can you teach me," Present Mic asked. "I'd really like to do that."
Gohan turned his gaze to one of his soon to be teachers and nodded. "Sure, I can help you learn some of the techniques, I don't think it'd be too hard since most of the people here are already pretty well trained, you all just need to learn to manipulate ki."
"Thanks Gohan that really means, hang on," Present Mic said as he listened to the control room. "Oh no, something went wrong in Site B," he said as he put up his binoculars."
"What's wrong," Gohan asked as he jumped up so he was ready to move if needed.
"One of the students is pinned under some rubble and the Zero-Pointer isn't responding, we need to get them out of there, but we're too far… away," Present Mic said as he watched Gohan rocket off into the city at unbelievable speeds.
"There you are," Gohan said as he landed on the ground next to the trapped student. "Hey, I'm going to get you out of here," he calmly told the girl.
"Look out," Uraraka pointed behind the strange teen who fell out of the sky.
Gohan turned and saw that the Zero-Pointer was far closer than he had anticipated, likely due to it not being alive, he couldn't sense it as he approached. "Dang it," he grit his teeth.
"You have to go, I'll be fine," Uraraka shouted.
"No way," Gohan smirked as he clasped his two wrists together. "Kaaaaa," he began to chant as a blue-white sphere appeared in his hands.
"Meeee."
"What's going on," Nezu questioned as he switched monitors to get a better angle of the scene.
"I have the girl," All Might said as he pulled Uraraka from the rubble, having gotten into the city moments after Gohan.
"Haaameee."
Gohan pulled back his hands and looked up at the Zero-Pointer. "HAAAAAA!"
The entire zone was bathed in a bright light as everyone looked up to see a massive beam of energy erupt into the sky. Right at the blast zone, massive clouds of rubble and loose dirt were kicked up when the force of the Kameha Wave was unleased.
All Might waved his hand and coughed a bit as the dust began to settle in the area, he was left in shock at the state of the Zero-Pointer, like all the other test takers who could see the smoking and smoldering remaining lower half of the massive machine. "Sir," All Might pushed his headset. "The Zero-Pointer has been stopped."
Nezu slowly responded, "I can see that, well, at least we know where our machines stand up to him." He switched off the monitor and his headset so people didn't hear him swear up a storm.
"Whew," Gohan wiped his brow and smiled as he turned around. "Everyone alright," he called out to the group of people.
All Might sighed as he set down the stunned brunette. "God dammit Young Midoriya."
"So Gohan," Chi-chi said as she waited in the entrance way for her son to come home. "I just so happened to be looking up into the sky when I saw a beam of energy shoot up from the direction of U.A., care to explain before or after I punish you for lying to me?"
"I uh," Gohan took a step back before he steeled his nerves. "Applied for the hero course and U.A. accepted me." He quickly said and covered his head.
"Honey," Chi-chi said softly as she set down the frying pan. "Why would you lie to me about that."
"I just want to be a hero, I want to help people," Gohan firmly answered. "I have all of this power and then I get told I have to hide it all away, hide what I am, because people would be afraid and," his emotions rising to the surface. "I don't want to do that anymore. I want to come out into the public and be somebody, who I want to be, not what other people want me to be."
"I don't try to make you hide," Chi-Chi disagreed.
"But you do mom," Gohan shook his head. "You don't even let me fly, it's not even something that's too uncommon now. I don't have to do everything but, I need to do something. I feel like I'm wearing chains, you don't let me see my friends, at most I see Vegeta when we visit Bulma and I can't do this." A few tears rolled down his chin. "I don't care about the fame or the money mom, but I have to be able to be who I am and what dad thought I could be, a hero." Slowly walking forward Gohan embraced his mother. "Please, let me try, I'll make you proud."
"I have always been proud of you Gohan, never doubt that," Chi-Chi sniffled as she tightly hugged her eldest son. "I'm not going to stop you from being a hero, I don't want my babies to feel this way. Go, be the best hero in the world, show everyone what you can do."
"I will mom, I promise."
