Hope y'all are ready for the plot chapter, 'cuz it's entrance exam time. It's a long chapter, so I hope you enjoy (^^).
The day had finally come. Midoriya stood before the number one hero, a clean beach behind him, prepared to receive a quirk. His quirk. He took a deep breath to try and calm himself.
Asui was with him, of course. Midoriya invited her to the beach to watch him get his quirk, and to walk over to UA for the entrance exam, since the school wasn't too far away from the beach. She was also excited to see him get his quirk.
It had been an interesting few months since the first time Midoriya visited Asui at her house. He visited pretty often since then, eventually having the chance to meet her parents. She liked having him over, despite finding it increasingly difficult to contain her feelings for him.
Then her birthday came. She expected Midoriya to pull something big after what she did for him, but it was on another level altogether.
She woke up that morning to see a note on her door. It explained that there were notes left all over town left for her to find and follow to get to her end destination. Each note had a vague clue to lead her to the next note, and they were all signed by Midoriya.
After she had gotten ready to go, she left for what she suspected was the first location based on her note, a breakfast cafe. And she knew she was right when she saw Midoriya loitering outside the building.
"Hey, Izuku, what are you doing?" she called to him. She didn't expect to see him this early in her adventure.
"Ah, happy birthday! I'm here to eat. I assume you didn't eat before you left, huh?" he responded. And he was right. Asui left the house in such a hurry that she didn't bother with breakfast. She was too excited to see what Midoriya had in store for her.
"Uhh…" she blushed a bit. She was always able to maintain her composure in almost every circumstance, but whenever it came to Midoriya, she lost it.
"C'mon, I'll buy you something," he opened the door and gestured for her to enter. They ordered and chatted with each other as they ate. Once they both finished, Midoriya handed her a note.
"Well now today's just getting started, so I've gotta give you this. It's your next clue. You're free to go whenever, but I've got a couple of things to take care of," he stood up and began walking out. "Good luck, Tsu, and have fun!" he smiled brightly as he waved goodbye.
Asui ended up going all around town that morning. She was absolutely exhausted by the time she reached her final stop, another cafe. This one she recognized though, as her favorite cafe with her favorite food, jelly. When she walked in, she was greeted by her family and Midoriya wishing her a happy birthday. Since the cafe itself was pretty small, and Asui and her family were regulars, they managed to rent it out for her birthday. They had a table with her favorite gelatin on it, ready to be eaten.
They did all the classic birthday festivities, they ate, played some games, and opened gifts. At the end…
"And here's my gift!" Midoriya handed her a small wrapped box. She tore off the paper to find a small plastic frog inside. She smiled at it, thinking that it was very cute.
After the party, they packed up and they went home, Midoriya returning to his home to study for the UA entrance exam. Asui immediately went to her room to put her gifts away. She placed the frog that Midoriya had gotten on her desk when suddenly, it's head came off. She almost began panicking, worried that she had broken it, but she noticed a note sticking out of the frog's body. She pulled it out and read it:
"Hey Tsu!
Sorry to scare you with the frog's head! This is actually a little frog container, I think it's for like, small jewelry or something. Anyway, I left a screw and a tiny screwdriver in the frog so you can put the head back on.
Anyways, onto the point! I figured that you might be a bit underwhelmed by this gift, especially after what you gave me. So I want you to check under your bed! (^^)
-Izuku"
"Ribbit?" Asui turned to her bed and checked underneath. Much to her surprise, there was a pretty large wrapped gift underneath. There was another note attached, explaining that Midoriya had planned this for a while, so he hid the note from that morning and the gift with her brother to hide in her room after she went to sleep. She opened the gift to find two things: a bracelet and a framed picture.
She picked up the bracelet and examined it. It was woven from several green and black threads very tightly. It, like the necklaces she had gotten, had a medallion, this one engraved with "TSUYU" on it. She smiled as she slipped it on.
She flipped over the picture frame and almost dropped it when she saw what it was: a hand-drawn picture of her in a hero costume. She had off-handedly explained to Midoriya what she wanted her costume to look like, and he wrote down everything. He then translated those notes to the picture she saw before her. It was fully colored, inked, and even had notes regarding the finer details of her costume. It was better than everything she had envisioned of her costume.
Asui peered into the box once more and saw yet another note at the bottom, with a photo. It read:
"Hey sorry about all the notes today! Anyways, I learned how to weave bracelets from my mom! That's how I made that bracelet for you. I have one too with my name on it, if you look at the picture!"
She glanced at the photo to see a green and white bracelet with a similar emblem garnishing it.
"And I'm sure you've seen the framed picture. I hope you like it! I made some copies for you to submit to UA when they ask for costume references!
Happy birthday!
-Izuku"
She was bursting with happiness reading his note. The bracelet, the picture… they were delightful. She felt warm inside as she hugged the framed photo. She placed that on her desk, fixed the frog she had received earlier, and smiled the whole way through.
Now she was standing on the beach with her best friend and the number one hero, ready to watch Midoriya get his quirk.
"Eat this!"
"Huh?" Midoriya looked dumbfounded, "You want me… to eat your hair?"
"You must ingest my DNA to get my quirk, and this is the easiest way!" All Might reasoned.
"Uh, o-ok," Midoriya was a bit shaken by the events unfolding before him. He imagined the transfer process to be a bit more… heroic. He eventually managed to gag down the hair.
"There!" All Might's voice boomed throughout the beach, "You should be ready to go in a few hours! Plenty of time before you'll need it!" Midoriya and Asui smiled at him.
"Thank you, All Might!" Midoriya started tearing up, "thank you for everything!"
"No problem, my boy! Now you both oughta get going if you wanna make it to the exam on time!" he replied.
And so the two were off to UA for the exam. They chattered about various topics until they had begun walking up to the campus when Asui changed subjects.
"So Izuku, do you think you're ready?" she asked him, concern present in her otherwise expressionless eyes.
"Huh? I-I don't really know…" he replied. "I don't even know how to use this quirk, so… we'll find out I guess, right?" he chuckled. "I don't know how this will go, but I'm gonna give it my all!"
Asui smiled at him, "That's just what I wanted to hear from you. You're gonna do great! I'm gonna give it my all too!"
They continued walking and Midoriya couldn't help but remember that dream he had at Asui's house, where she kissed him. They were in the same place, just not holding hands. He was struck with the urge to hold her hand when he was evaluating his surroundings, but shrugged it off as him being weird. Lost in his thoughts, he tripped and began hurtling towards the ground.
Asui grabbed him with her tongue right before he face-planted. Another girl had run up behind him, but hesitated when she saw that he didn't break his face on the pavement.
"Oh my gosh are you ok?!" she blurted out.
"Huh?" Midoriya, still falling in his mind, took a moment to regain his composure. "Y-yeah, I'm ok."
"Ah, thank goodness," the girl sighed. "So you two are applying to UA, right?" Both Midoriya and Asui nodded. "Oh cool! Well good luck on the exam!" she smiled and waved as she hurried ahead.
"Thanks, you too!" Asui called back to her.
"That was nice of her," Midoriya turned to Asui, who nodded in response. They continued towards the school.
… … …
"Huh?" Bakugou saw Midoriya almost fall flat on his face. He laughed inwardly. "Shitty nerd can't even walk right! That extra had enough pity to help him up. Oh, and another one talking to him? I'm surprised he hasn't shit himself and run away like the coward he is." He waited for the girl walking with him to leave, as most people did when they interacted with Midoriya, but they kept walking together.
"What the fuck?" Bakugou said under his breath, "When the fuck did Deku make a friend?" Bakugou was almost seething. He began approaching him to harass Midoriya, but then saw the time and realized that he would be late if he did that. He ended up mumbling about Midoriya all the way up to the campus gates.
… … …
They both walked out of the testing room for the written portion, mentally exhausted.
"Wow, that was brutal," Midoriya chuckled dryly. "I think I passed though, at the very least."
"Yeah, me too, ribbit," Asui nodded. "Now for the important part…"
They were both assigned different sectors for the practical exam, much to their dissatisfaction.
Midoriya was left all alone. He showed up to his sector to see Bakugou at the front. He kept looking around and saw that nice girl he met in the front of the school, stretching and getting ready. He began walking towards her when…
"Hey!" someone shouted at him. Midoriya immediately helped and jumped back. "Were you planning on talking to this girl, distracting her from her preparations for this exam?!"
"Wh-what? N-n-no, I-I…" he took a deep breath and grabbed onto his necklace, calming down a bit. "I was just going to thank her for something and wish her luck." The guy that jumped him seemed reluctant to back down, but simply returned to his stretching. Midoriya advanced, celebrating his little victory of not crumbling when someone talked to him.
"H-hey," he awkwardly greeted the girl, "I hope I'm not bothering you, but I wanted to thank you for your concern this morning, a-and… and good luck!" he mustered a smile through his social ineptitude. She smiled back.
"Aw, thanks! Good luck to you too!" she replied. Then Present Mic came on over the loudspeaker and announced that the exam had begun.
Midoriya dashed into the complex, looking for robots to attack. Once he found one, he went in to punch it, attempting to call upon One for All to help him destroy it. Instead, his knuckles smashed into the metal, leaving a dent and a world of pain for Midoriya. He buckled in pain and ran behind a building.
"Why didn't it work? Why didn't One for All activate? I didn't feel anything when I punched it. In fact, I still don't feel anything! What if the quirk hasn't set it yet? What if I'm running into this quirkless? Everyone else I see is destroying robots left and right! There aren't gonna be any left when I figure this out! I'm not gonna get any points!" Midoriya was panicking in his head. He bolted out from behind the building and back into the action, but every street he saw was covered in scrap heaps, no robots in sight.
"Dammit dammit dammit!" he shouted as he turned the block to find another road with nothing but junk. That was, until the zero point robot showed up.
"Oh fuck," Midoriya was paralyzed in an absolutely raw fear. His whole body froze as the behemoth began attacking the buildings around it. Then he saw her.
The nice girl who had shown so much care for him that morning, struggling under a rock to get away. He felt the same feeling as when he saw Bakugou trapped in the slime villain. He went pale, a breathless "No," escaped his lips.
He steeled himself, running in without a second thought. He felt a warm glow in his core, a new feeling unlike anything he had ever experienced. He glanced at the girl again and felt the warmth spread to his legs as he launched himself off the ground.
The adrenaline was rushing through his veins and he rocketed upwards. He felt his right arm burn intensely with the power of One for All, a power so strong that his tracksuit sleeve was seared off. He held onto that feeling in his arm, clinging to it as he tried to contain it. He took a wide swing at the robot's face, crumpling it inwards. The robot's neck nearly snapped and sent the head flying, but it barely held on. As the robot began to collapse, Midoriya lost that warmth inside of him as he began plummeting.
He was immediately struck with the pain of three broken limbs as his adrenaline rush wore off, and all that could be heard throughout the whole sector was the fall of a massive automaton, and a prolonged, blood-curdling scream of pain. He attempted to make any sort of plan to save himself, but his mind was overwhelmed by the sensory overload.
A gentle slap was the only thing between him and death. His descent was paused by the girl's quirk, and Midoriya's broken body was deposited to the pavement from a couple feet off the ground. He scraped himself forward towards a barely functioning robot in hopes of getting any points. Everyone watched in awe at the guy who had single-handedly taken down the 50 story tall robot drag himself across the street, yelling at himself to at least get one point. But the timer stopped him. He rested his head at the foot of the robot, next to where the girl who had saved him was standing up, and began crying into the ground.
… … …
He left the sector, healed by Recovery Girl, to find Asui. He spotted her at the UA front gate, where they agreed to meet.
Asui saw his expression as he approached her. His face wore a defeated expression, his eyes looking dead, not too unlike the expression he wore when she first saw him. Worried for him, she got up and embraced him, standing on her toes so she could hold his head into the crook of her neck. He began bawling. They stayed like that for a while until Midoriya began coherently speaking.
"I… f-failed…!" he whimpered. Asui patted his back gently.
"You don't know that, ribbit," she remarked, "You won't know until they send out the acceptance letters. I think they're coming tonight."
"No… I…" he choked on his words, "…I didn't get any points…"
Asui pulled away and grabbed his shoulders, "That doesn't mean you won't get in," she murmured. "It would be stupid to only judge the applicants on just one field, right? A hero's job isn't just to destroy things, ribbit."
He sniffled, "I… I guess… but they didn't say anything about other scores…"
"I'm just saying, reasonably, it just doesn't sound right that there's only one focus of the test, y'know? I have faith in you," she grinned. She then noticed how close their faces were and she backed up.
They walked to the nearest train station and said their goodbyes, parting ways on different trains. Before they left, Asui gave Midoriya one last hug before reassuring him.
… … …
Izuku: Did you get your letter yet?
Tsuyu: Yeah and you?
Izuku: Yep
Tsuyu: What's the verdict?
Izuku: You go first
Tsuyu: No I wanna hear about your letter first
Izuku: And I wanna hear about yours
Tsuyu: One of us has to go first
Izuku: Just tell me that you got in already
Tsuyu: Fine way to ruin the fun
Tsuyu: I got in
Tsuyu: Now you go
Izuku: I got in too (^^)! You were right! They were monitoring all the students and gave rescue points to those who saved others! I got 60 points and ended up in the top 10 leaderboard!
Tsuyu: Really? That's great!
Tsuyu: I told ya so
Izuku: Huh?
Tsuyu: I told you that you would get in
Izuku: Yeah you did
Izuku: Well, now we're just one step closer to our goal
Tsuyu: Yeah
Tsuyu: Wanna celebrate this weekend?
Izuku: Sure (^^)!
Izuku: Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Tsuyu: If you're thinking hero cafe then yes
Izuku: Ah you know me so well
… … …
They met at the cafe and smiled at each other before sitting down.
"Can you believe it?" Midoriya cried out.
"Ribbit! We got in!" Asui cheered.
"It's… unreal," he mused.
"Oh, how'd you get 60 rescue points anyway?" Asui was wondering how he racked up that many points for saving people if he didn't get any points otherwise. She was going to ask over text, but decided against it. She'd rather hear it in person.
"Ah, that's…" he trailed off. "Well, it happened when they released the zero pointer. You see, that nice girl that we met before the exam was there, stuck under some rubble, and the robot was gonna crush her. So I ran in and my quirk activated!"
"Wow, so your quirk does work! That's so cool!" Asui then remembered why he had been training for those 10 months prior. "Oh, is your body strong enough for it, ribbit?"
"Oh absolutely not," he smirked dryly, "it hurt so badly. I jumped up to attack the robot, so both my legs broke, and when I used my quirk to punch the robot, my arm broke too. I almost died… if it wasn't for the girl. She has some gravity quirk and stopped me before I hit the ground."
Asui immediately flashed back to when Midoriya jumped off the building and went pale. She took a deep breath for a moment, "Well… it's a good thing she was there then. I'm glad your ok." She smiled brightly. Midoriya was blinded by how pretty she was when she smiled like that.
He shook the blush off his face and continued, "Thanks. I'm glad my quirk works, but… I need some way to control it if it's gonna be any help. Otherwise, I'm just gonna break myself in combat and be useless."
"Ribbit, well you've got about a month and a half to practice before we start at UA."
"I would practice before we start, but if I break my arms and legs again, that's one long hospital trip right before starting class."
"Oh, that's right…" Asui conceded. "Then how'd you get fixed up in the first place?"
"They had Recovery Girl use her quirk to heal my body."
"That's right," Asui remembered Recovery Girl going around in her sector, healing anyone with injuries.
They continued chattering about the acceptance into UA for a while until their orders came. Midoriya grabbed them and came back.
"Did you hear about the dorms?" he gave her the coffee she ordered.
"Huh? Dorms?" she asked.
"Yeah, they're making all the students live in dorms on campus for our safety. Apparently there's been some shady stuff happening with villains recently and they thought that it would be better if everyone was within the safety of UA's security system."
"I guess that makes sense," Asui mumbled. "I better tell my parents so we can arrange something, because I can't watch my siblings from the dorms."
"Yeah, I figured it might be important for you to know that," Midoriya said.
"Thanks, ribbit!" Asui croaked as they continued going on about their plans at UA.
They spend the rest of that day together celebrating their success. With no other friends to share it with, they both reveled in each other's presence, knowing that neither one was left behind in their journey.
