Chapter II: City Nights
It was a nice night in Musutafu.
The streets were quiet, and the evening breeze was chilly, but it was comfortable.
The neon signs of the city were proudly showing off their vibrant colors, illuminating the streets with their artificial glows.
On top of one dark building sat Eraserhead, waiting for his usual partner-in-crime to arrive.
After he was nearly finished with the ramen he'd bought earlier, he heard the familiar sound of Izuku's motorcycle. Parking the vehicle near the building he saw the underground hero on, the teenager then ran up the stairs of the abandoned apartment complex.
"Aizawa-sensei," greeted Midoriya.
"Midoriya. Are you ready for tonight?" replied Eraserhead, taking a swig of water from a water bottle.
"As ready as I'll ever be. Do we have any information on the gang?" he asked, sitting down on the same ledge Aizawa was on.
"Most of them are small-fry, apart from one guy with a kind of strong telekinesis quirk who's been in and out of jail for a while, and another guy with this strength enhancement quirk that makes him stupid after using it for too long," informed Aizawa, reading the profiles Tsukauchi had sent them.
"Oh, alright, should be simple enough. I remember one guy in my battle zone during the entrance exam who had the same type of quirk as the latter," said Izuku, looking up in thought.
"Oh, that's Rikido Sato. He passed, and he's in my class."
"Cool. Hey, did I pass?" asked Izuku casually, not really expecting an answer from Aizawa.
"Yep. Won't tell you where you placed though," replied Eraser just as casually, lying down on the cold roof of the building for a few moments.
"That's alright. I'm just glad to know I passed," said Izuku with a smile.
"Good job kid. I'm proud of you."
"Thank you, Aizawa-sensei. I couldn't have done it without you," replied Izuku, to which Aizawa scoffed at.
"That's bullshit, and you know that."
The underground hero put a hand on his head and ruffled his hair.
"That was all you, kid. There was nothing I did to affect the exam. Everything was done through your efforts. All I did was push you to your limits," reassured Eraser, giving the kid a small smile.
"Thank you, Sensei. How did you guys count the scores so fast though? The exam literally ended a few hours ago," pondered Izuku, the small smile he gave Eraser being replaced with an expression of confusion.
"Well, the others are still counting. Since you were in Battle Zone B, it wasn't too long before I got to count your scores. I wanted to know your score earlier than everyone else, anyway," answered Eraser.
"Figures," said Izuku, satisfied with the answer.
"Let's get going."
Izuku nodded and stood up.
The two of them dropped down from the building, and proceeded to prepare themselves for their current operation.
Sneaking their way to the basement of the abandoned apartment complex where the smuggling would apparently happen, counting seven guards stationed by a room's door in the basement. Since they were all pretty much standing in the same hallway, it wasn't hard for the two of them to come up with a plan.
Throwing a canister to Aizawa carefully, Izuku gestured with his fingers that they'd throw both of these at the count of three. Aizawa nodded, agreeing to what he wanted to do.
A few seconds later, the guards outside of a room were bombarded with two flashbangs and sleeping gas, knocking all of them out quickly. Apparently, none of them were the two high-profile criminals that were mentioned by Tsukauchi, so they had deduced that the two of them would be behind the door they were next to.
Fully aware that the villains could already be prepared of their presence, Izuku formed a pair of brass knuckles in his hand, giving a nod to his mentor. Aizawa nodded back, and he put his capture weapon at the ready.
"Ready when you are, Sensei," whispered Izuku.
Kicking the door in, Eraserhead opened his eyes, pupils blaring red as he erased the enemy's quirks. Tossing his capture tape around the bulkiest man in the room, who he assumed was the guy with the strength enhancer, he brought him close while he was still in shock from losing his quirk. Aizawa sent a swift knee to his head, knocking him out.
On the other side of the fight, Izuku leapt at the criminal with the telekinesis quirk, catching him off-guard while he was trying to get Aizawa off his buddy with his disabled quirk. Pinning him down, Izuku put him to sleep with a fast right hook across the face.
Sighing in relief and fatigue, Aizawa and Izuku sat down on the chairs of the room. After a few minutes of rest and looking around, Aizawa pulled out his phone from his pocket.
"Tsukauchi. Job's taken care of. Send a team to bring these guys in. We count nine of them," said Eraser through the phone.
"Understood, sending one in right now. Good job to the two of you. Did Midoriya pass the U.A. Entrance Exam?" asked Tsukauchi.
Aizawa looked at his student for a moment, who was already preoccupied with playing with his butterfly knife.
"He did," Aizawa replied.
"Of course he would. Alright, I'll meet the two of you there in a bit. Find anything in there?" he asked once more.
"Unfortunately, we didn't, so you might have to interrogate these guys for it. All that was here was a room and two people talking, so I assume they were still negotiating," replied Aizawa, looking around the room once more.
"I expected this much, so don't worry. We'll get that information out of them one way or another," said Tsukauchi.
"I'll leave it to you the-"
"Sensei, can you tell someone to grab my bag from the building rooftop? I'm kinda too spent today to bother and go get it," cut off Izuku, tapping Aizawa on the shoulder.
"Ah, yeah, tell someone to go get Midoriya's bag on the rooftop of the building we're on right now," added Aizawa.
He then heard a small laugh from Tsukauchi on the other end of the line.
"The kid's quite spent today, eh? The two of you did a bust earlier this morning, then he had to study last minute for the exam and take the practical, and then he has to deal with this," commented Tsukauchi.
"At this point, he probably gets less hours of sleep than I have been getting these past few weeks. He should be fine soon, though, he'll be taking a break while waiting for the exam results," said Eraser, looking over to his trainee who was probably already half-asleep staring at the table.
"He deserves to take a break. We'll see you there, yeah? We're on our way," said Tsukauchi.
Aizawa then hung up the phone, waking up his student in the process.
"Midoriya. Wake up. You can go rest at home," said Aizawa, shaking the boy awake.
"Cool. No paperwork?" asked Izuku.
"I'll tell Tsukauchi to get someone to handle it. I'm too tired for that too," replied Aizawa.
"That's nice to hear. I might just pass out soon," said Izuku, the two of them walking out of the basement of the apartment complex.
"Same."
"Midoriya-kun. Aizawa-san. Good evening," greeted Tsukauchi, meeting the two of them just outside the building.
"Good evening, Tsukauchi-san," replied Izuku, bowing halfway.
"You did good out there today, Midoriya-kun. Congratulations on passing the U.A. Exam," said Tsukauchi, patting the boy on the back as he gave him his bag.
"Thank you for my bag and for your kind words, Detective. I'll be on my way, please do take care. You too, Aizawa-sensei," replied Izuku, walking back to his motorcycle.
"Was the smuggling bust too easy for the two of you? I somewhat expected him to be look more tired than that," asked Tsukauchi, looking down the path to the building's basement.
"Well, the people guarding the room weren't exactly prepared for us breaking in. Midoriya's quirk made it easier, too," answered Aizawa, thinking back on how efficiently they disposed of the cannon fodder villains.
"I can imagine that. The kid has an entire S.W.A.T. team's utilities in his hands," said Tsukauchi with a chuckle.
"He probably has the brains of an entire S.W.A.T. team in his head too," said Eraser, which elicited another laugh from Tsukauchi.
"You know he's probably worth more than that. Anyway, I think you should go home as well. I'll get someone to do the paperwork for the two of you, since I know both of you are dead tired," replied the detective.
"You read my mind. Thank the heavens," said Aizawa, walking away from the scene.
"No problem, Eraser. It's the least we could do after all the two of you have done."
The detective then waved off the tired underground hero, getting back in touch with his team.
He couldn't shake the feeling that this was probably the start of something big.
Meanwhile, on the other end of things, Midoriya Izuku finally got home. Too tired to care about his apartment's tidiness, he threw his helmet and jacket to the floor, stripping until all that was left were his shorts and his t-shirt. Looking at his phone, he was not that surprised to see that it was already half past five in the morning.
Hungry as hell and too lazy to go out, he decided to cash in Uraraka's favor early.
midoriya: uraraka-san
this is midoriya
r u awake
uraraka: yes i jwu
why r u up so early
midoriya: no i havent slept yet
but remember when i saved ur life
uraraka: holy shit get some rest what have u been doing
and yes i remember it was literally yesterday
midoriya: can u pay me back for that and order me breakfast from mcdonalds
uraraka: didnt expect that but sure
midoriya: ur practically saving my life dont worry
uraraka: whatever floats ur boat my guy
i ordered u some pancakes, two burgers and a coffee
ur eyebags made it seem like u would like that
midoriya: ur the best
ill text u again when ua results come
i have to pass out
uraraka: aight sure
take care of urself dumdum
Letting out a small chuckle to himself at the girl's very friendly behavior, Izuku thanked the heavens for Uraraka. It was handy having a friend his age in these trying times. Trying to not lose consciousness while waiting for the food to arrive, Izuku sat on his sofa and watched some dumb videos on his phone.
After a while, the food had arrived, and the driver told him that everything was already paid for. Thanking him, the driver left Izuku alone once more in his apartment. After eating in silence, Izuku threw himself on his bed, watching a few more dumb videos on his phone. He fell asleep quickly, rather satisfied with the productive day.
Uraraka Ochaco had a kind of weird start to her day.
She woke up kind of sore from the practical exam yesterday, but it was alright. She wasn't really planning on doing anything today, after all.
Then after that, the very first thing she sees on her phone is a text from the guy who saved her life and brought her home yesterday, who was now asking her for a favor, which was to buy him fast food.
That's it.
Well, she couldn't complain much, since it wasn't really a hard thing to do on her part.
Texting him back and ordering him food wasn't really a pain in the ass to deal with.
He seemed like a pretty fun guy, too. He got her chuckling at 5 in the morning.
She knew for sure he'd pass the exam, since he probably got a boatload of points, judging from how easily he dealt with the 0-pointer. She wondered what his quirk was though, since he didn't really show any flashy power punch or whatever.
She was a bit worried for her own success, but she knows that she tried her best, and she would worry about it when the exam results show in her mailbox.
Getting up from her bed, she decided to finish her daily routine first before figuring out what she wanted to do for the day.
A few uneventful days went by.
Every future student of U.A. took their well-deserved rest, going through the next few days nice and easy.
Izuku spent the days just at home, doing whatever he could to entertain himself. He studied up on some things that could be useful to make in niche situations, like teleporters and tripwires. Apart from that, all he did was lie down on his bed, alternating watching things on his laptop or on his phone. He knew Aizawa couldn't bring him in for patrols anyway, since he had to get some things done before school would start.
Uraraka did pretty much the same, just lazing about. Although, she was a bit more anxious than Izuku, because unlike him, she wasn't really sure if she was in or not.
Even people like Examinee Number 7111 took the time to unwind gratefully.
But finally, the dull days had come to an end.
The exam results were here.
Izuku got the mail from U.A. a bit late, since he decided to go outside to walk around for some fresh air. Bringing the letter from his mailbox inside, he opened it, only for a small disk to plop out onto his desk.
After a few seconds, a hologram pops out from the disk, showing a recording of the No. 1 Hero, All Might, in the flesh.
While Izuku didn't exactly idolize this man, he was still an impressive sight, and he appreciates the fact that the hero's mere presence was able to reduce crime rate across Japan.
"Hello, young man! It is I, All Might, here to tell you about your performance during the U.A. Entrance Exam! Why am I here, you ask? Well that's because I will now be a teacher at U.A., to help form the next generation of heroes!" said the bulky man through the hologram, as animated and as muscular as ever.
A scoreboard of the top ten scorers in the practical exam then showed up on the hologram, showing him in the first place spot, with people he's never seen before under him, apart from Uraraka, who he was glad to see in 8th place.
"For the villain points, congratulations, Young Midoriya! You managed to score a whopping 71 points just from breaking those bots, which is second place overall! But that isn't your final score!" boomed All Might.
"I knew there was a catch in there somewhere," thought Izuku.
"Taking out villains isn't everything a Hero is about. First and foremost, it's about helping out the people in need. Young Midoriya, you did exactly that! From helping out your fellow examinees, to taking out that big faux villain to save a literal damsel in distress, you put the safety of others before your own! For that, the faculty has awarded you another 48 rescue points!" continued the large man, who then suddenly moved in closer to the screen.
"And uhhh, don't tell anyone that I told you this, but some technicians got mad that you screwed up the cameras in the Battle Zone, since they had to rewire some of them all over again, so they decided to take off like 10-ish points from your rescue score. Please do know that you did better than you think you did," he whispered, which got a chuckle out of Izuku.
"Didn't know some U.A. staff were petty. Oh well. Gotta thank All Might for snitching, I guess."
"BUT ANYWAY! You, Midoriya Izuku, are now part of U.A. as a freshmen starting next school year! You are assigned to Class 1-A, The Hero Course! We are waiting for you, and the next generation of heroes!" concluded the No. 1 Hero, which signified the end of the message.
Getting first place was something Izuku somewhat expected. He thought of this possibility that someone with an insane quirk would beat him out, but evidently, his versatility and experience ended up pulling ahead.
Satisfied with his performance, he decided to keep his promise to Uraraka.
midoriya: yo i got in
uraraka: same! IM SO HAPPY SJKDASKDKS I WAS SO NERVOUS
midoriya: nah u did a good job
u deserve the spot
uraraka: u do too! first place is insane! u were so much higher than 2nd place!
midoriya: just got lucky no big deal
uraraka: thats cap bro
anyway we should celebrate!
midoriya: cool im down tomorrow or something
uraraka: sounds cool to me! tomorrow lunch at the mall or something?
midoriya: aight bet
im sleepy so ill see u there?
uraraka: same
good night congrats! see u tomorrow!
midoriya: congrats too m8 rest easy
Izuku then put his phone down, staring at the ceiling.
He told himself he'd wake up early to work out again, since he was getting a bit lazy, and then he'd get ready to go and meet Uraraka.
Izuku wondered what his classmates would be like, and what their quirks would be. He was still a quirk nerd, after all.
Lost in his thoughts, he fell asleep, his body wanting to take him to the next day faster.