The room darkened and theater lights came on. A large screen with the UA logo lit up.
"What's up, UA candidates? Thanks for tuning into me, your school DJ!" Present Mic shouted, "Come on and lemme hear ya!"
The silence was almost deafening, making Kayda cringe.
"I'm getting second-hand embarrassment watching this." Kayda mumbled under her breath, as she watched her foster father's friend fail at getting the group of teenager's excited.
Shinsou, in the seat next to her, stifled a laugh by coughing. Which only made the silence ring harder when no one responded to Present Mic's call out.
Kayda and Hitoshi were seated almost in the exact middle of the auditorium. Students from other high schools sitting on either side of them. They had just finished the written exam and had been moved into the auditorium once the allotted time was up.
Every one paid attention as Mic continued on, starting to explain the next portion of the test. As he continued to explain, a screen with colorful squares listed A through G appeared.
"After I drop the mic here, you'll head to your specified battle center, sound good?"
Kayda and Shinsou picked up the cards that lay in front of them, and looked at the battle center listed.
"Where are you going?" Kayda leaned over to whisper to her friend.
Shinsou showed his card to her, "Battle Center E." He replied equally quiet.
Frowing, Kayda showed hers "Battle Center C for me, it looks like they are splitting us up."
"Good," Hitoshi sat up straighter, and a little less worried, "Even more chance for me to stand out."
Kayda kept her frown, but also heard the truth in his words. A lot of this was banking on him being put in a battle center with those whose physical quirks weren't crazy powerful. Not that she thought hers was, but she knew she could take down opponent's faster while burning less physical energy than her friend.
Present Mic had started talking about the foes they would be facing, and the point system in place. Going over each one of the robots and the points they were worth. When he started to talk about the other rules of this test, he was interrupted.
"Excuse me Sir!" The person next to Kayda stood up rigidly, waving his hand. "But I have a question."
"Hit me!" The teacher replied loudly as a spot light lit up the boy next to Kayda.
He was wearing a stiff tan coat with glasses his hair was nearly combed to perfection, and his posture was damn near perfect.
Shinsou leaned over to whisper to Kayda, "How far do you think he crammed that stick up his ass?"
Kayda elbowed her friend in the ribs hard as she clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. She turned to glare at Hitoshi who had a tired, shit eating grin on his face.
The boy was pointing at the list of robots, going off on why the fourth robot wasn't talked about by Present Mic. As the boy next to her continued talking, Kayda felt her self get more and more irritated.
"A mistake such as this won't do! Additionally, you with the unkempt hair!" The boy turned to point behind them.
Kayda turned around to see the unmistakable wavy, green hair of the boy she ran to face the sludge villain with. She immediately felt a kinship towards Midorya (she made sure she remembered his name after they had met) and felt her anger flare up as this uptight, ass started going off on him.
"-if you can't bother to take this seriously, leave. You're distracting the rest of us."
Kayda clenched her fists around her skirt. Waiting for the boy to say another word.
'He is more hero than you will ever be, four eyes.' Kayda thought to herself. She started to feel her mental wall crumble as her anger rose.
'Man, he is annoying' came an airy, yet masculine voice, through a crack in her wall.
'We should shut him up.' Came a strong, feminine voice next. The moment Kayda felt her speak, she felt a strong force push against the wall.
'While no one likes a bully, we have more important things to focus on. We can come back to him later when we have cooled down a little bit." The stern, motherly voice called out, immediately ending the pressure that Kayda had been fighting against.
She felt a rush of calm hit her and the voices quiet completely, as she felt a large hand on her shoulder. Kayda looked up to see concerned, Violet eyes staring at her.
"Ky, are you alright?" He asked. Kayda had told everything to Hitoshi her second year of knowing him. She had become so frustrated with her therapy sessions that she needed to vent to her friend. Hitoshi had accepted Kayda with open arms as she told him about the voices, and how they affected her day to day life. So seeing her face go blank, and posture rigid, he knew she was having an episode.
"Yeah." She let out a deep breath, and looked around. She noticed that the students were starting to stand up and walk out of the building. She looked back up to her friend, confusion evident on her face. He gave her a kind smile, reassuring her it was okay.
"We were dismissed to get changed and go to our training grounds. Do you need me to re-cap anything?"
Sheepishly, Kayda nodded rubbing the back of her head. "I don't remember what happened after the boy."
Shinsou nodded in understanding, standing up, he offered his hand and pulled her up with him. "I can tell you as we go to the locker rooms."
Kayda was standing outside of training center C, facing the large wall ahead of her. She was wearing army green joggers, and a black, thick strapped tank top. The joggers were loose and breathable, allowing for maximum range of motion, while her tank top was skin tight as to not get in the way. She was also going barefoot, as she had noticed during training, that she her quirk was more accurate and slightly more powerful when she wasn't wearing foot coverings.
Various students were all around her talking, stretching, or mentally preparing for the task ahead. Kayda took took this prep time to focus on her breathing, and making sure her mental wall was in place so she wouldn't lose control during the exam.
Shinsou had been kind enough to tell her everything she missed, and reminded her to clear her head before the start of the next exam.
"Right! Let's start!" Present Mic's voice shouted through speakers. "Get moving!"
With those words, Kayda rushed through the gates, feeling the beginning of the cold asphalt on her bare feet as she ran with a group towards the center of the mock city. She unfocused on the noise of the other students, and made a point to listen for her targets.
She could tell the first robots were already making their way towards them by the sound of loud metal grinding together. Kayda stopped running as she saw a robot round the corner, just a few feet in front of her. She slammed her the heel of her foot into the ground, causing a large boulder to rise up only for her to promptly launch it at a robot with a punch.
She didn't bother to try to count points as robots kept flooding around her. She just focused on taking down every single one that came her way. With another stomp on the ground and her tiger fists outstretched, she manipulated spikes to shoot out from the earth, striking four more robots.
Another robot came, this one larger. Kayda pulled a circular slab of earth, concentrated on shaping it to be flat, but with sharp edges, almost like a circular saw blade. She promptly launched it at the robot, keeping control over the earthen blade so she could boomerang it around to send it at two smaller robots that had come her way.
She let the make shift saw blade stick into the last robot, as she came out of her stance to wipe the sweat off her brow.
"Hey! Behind you!" A gravelly voice called out to her.
Kayda turned to see a robot almost about to fall on her. Her eyes widened in shock before slamming her hands into the ground, and causing a pillar to rise up, giving her enough time to move before the pillar collapsed under the weight of the robot.
A kid with spiked red hair ran up to her. His skin looking jagged from his quirk.
"Sorry! I didn't notice you before I knocked that guy out. Are you okay?" He asked, genuinely concerned.
Kayda nodded, smiling assuringly "I'm fine. Thanks for the heads up." Before she promptly ran off to fight more robots, not bothering to talk too long. She couldn't waste another second.
Her arms and legs were getting tired from the strain of creating large boulders to crush robots as she was running. But she kept pushing forward, not allowing herself to feel the burn in her arms from the muscles tearing or the shake in her legs with each sprinting step.
Sweat was dripping down her forehead by the time the earth started to shake. A giant robot, taller than most of the buildings appeared just a block away from her. The ground was shaking and buildings were collapsing due to its massive form.
'That must be the zero pointer.' Kayda thought, watching it.
A rush of students who had been in the area, ran away from the hulking robot. But as Kayda watched the swarm of examinees run, Kayda saw one blonde who was using lightning to strike an opponent before he ran away. She noticed though, that after the shock, the boy seemed to be confused and wobbling, almost as if he was drunk.
The zero pointer robot was slowly making its way towards them, crushing buildings that stood in it's way, and the boy still wasn't moving. Kayda was too far away to grab the boy at this point. So she did the next best thing.
"Sorry!" She yelled, gritting her teeth as she sent a pillar of earth rushing at the boy, effectively shoving him out of the way into an alley where the robot wouldn't get him and then focused to use the pillar she pushed him with, to create a dome to shelter him from falling debris.
She quickly ducked into an alley, still maintaining focus on the shelter she had made for that boy. She felt the rumble as the giant robot passed, crushing surrounding buildings in it's wake. As she sat still she really began to feel the fatigue of this exam hitting her, as her arms began to shake.
She didn't let that stop her though. Immediately after the titan of a robot passed, Kayda ran to the alley she had shoved the boy into. She heard muffled, slurred words, coming from under the dome of earth she had made to shield him.
She parted the rocks using her quirk, as another wave of exhaustion hit her, but she kept pushing forward. Kayda grabbed the boy and slung his arm around her shoulder, and braced his torso to her with her other arm.
"Can you walk?" She huffed out, as she tried to catch her breath.
"Yeeeeeeeee" the blonde slurred, putting his thumbs up with a dopey grin on his face.
"TIME'S UP!" Present Mic called through the speakers.
Sighing with relief, and then nodding to the boy, the two hobbled back to the center of the city. They both slowly met up with other examinees, one of whom was the red head from earlier. The moment he saw Kayda hauling the blonde around, he rushed over.
"Hey! Is he alright? Do you need some help carrying him?" The red head kindly offered.
Kayda nodded her head "Yeah, can you just lift his other side?"
Immediately the boy complied, mimicking Kayda in carrying the boy. She sighed happily as a good amount of the burden was lifted off of her.
"Thank you for helping me. I was getting a little worn out." She said as they kept walking towards the center of the city.
The boy smiled brightly as her, "Of course! It wouldn't have been manly at all to just walk by."
She smiled back at the boy's words, "I'm sorry, my name Kayda Aizawa." She said reaching one hand across the brain fried blonde.
"Ejiro Krishima!" He said meeting her hand with a firm shake. "Sorry again for that robot earlier. I should have paid more attention." He added sheepishly.
"It was pretty hectic out there, and I got out safely, so no harm done." Kayda shrugged.
"Yeah! Your quirk was perfect for that." Kirishima said in admiration.
"Thanks!" She smiled back to him, "What is your quirk?"
"Oh, it's just called Hardening, nothing flashy."
Kayda turned her green eyes to look at him. "Well, your not too flashy quirk put a pretty bit hole in a three pointer, so that's pretty impressive to me."
She watched as Kirishima's face split into a bright, toothy smile. "Thanks! I hope it was enough to get me in."
She couldn't help but smile back at him. They finally came upon a large group of examinees gathered, where Recovery girl was tending to those who had gotten hurt during the exam. Kayda suppressed a shiver, and clenched her teeth seeing the school nurse with her needley attire.
She continued on with Kirishima, before setting the blonde boy on the ground near the healing hero. Kayda made sure to keep a wide distance from the hero as she examined the boy.
"Seem's this poor boy has over used his quirk!" The nurse noted, "Not to worry!"
Kayda turned to look at the red head who had helped her while Recovery Girl used her quirk to heal the boy they had carried
"Thanks again for your help, Kirishima."
He flashed her a big, toothy grin, rubbing the back of his head "No worries! It really wasn't a big deal."
Kayda smiled softly at him before turning to walk out of the training grounds with the non-injured examinees.
Hitoshi was waiting outside the locker rooms for Kayda. Looking at his face, she could see that he was even more exhausted than normal. His hair was damp from the shower he had taken after the exam, his legs seemed to be shaking from just standing.
Kayda walked up to him, her own hair damp from a shower. She smiled tiredly at her friend.
"Want to come back to my house for some lunch?" She asked Hitoshi, who smiled and nodded gratefully.
The two began walking out of the UA building in tired silence. Both contemplating their scores and analyzing what they could have done better.
Kayda let out a deep sigh. It was going to be a long week of waiting.
