"I… I got in," Izuku said, looking distant; lost, even.

"You got in?" His mother parroted before she started lighting up. "Into U.A? The Hero Department?!"

"Y-yeah… Look, it says I've been accepted and will be attending Class 1-A if you—"

"Sweetie, that's great news!" She cut him off as she ensnared him into a life rending hug. "Don't worry," she added, perhaps a bit quicker than felt natural as she said, "From… From now on, I'll do what I should have done from the very start. I'll… support your dreams."

"Thanks, mom..." Izuku said. When she finally let go of him, he began to relay to her the results of his Entrance Exams.

On the academic exam, he scored a respectable mark of 91 overall; maxing out in the sciences with a score of 98 while his worst, still impressive, score of 85 belonged to Japanese Language and Literature. The practical on the other hand…

"So, it turns out there was a secondary hidden system of hero points," Izuku explained. "Had the villain points I got from destroying robots been the only factor they looked at, at U.A., I wouldn't have made it in with just eighteen points. Luckily, I got a whole thirty additional points from rescuing that one girl from the rubble and then running away with her."

Apparently, he had really impressed the judges by daring to rescue someone when confronted by the zero-pointer. He thought, 'Either, people rarely do what I did, especially given the circumstances of it being a test. Or...' He balked at the thought, 'All Might used his influence to make sure I got in...'

He hoped it hadn't come down to that, but when he really thought about it: Would "rescuing" a single person be worth almost twice as my points as he had gotten from destroying over ten robots? It's not like he obliterated the zero-pointer to stop it from troubling everyone else, or something.

Later that night, Izuku would meet with All Might and get some closure. He had the pro's word that the reason he had avoided contact in all this time was to ensure Izuku that there would be no chance for favoritism to be at play. Besides that, he shared with All Might his progress with One for All and received some ideas on what he should do in the two weeks leading up to the new school year.

…

The next day, just as the time reached exactly seven in the morning, Izuku arrived at U.A.

He quickly got registered as a student and got his I.D. which he immediately used to enter one of U.A.'s custom gyms. As someone who registered as soon as possible, he found himself alone in the specialized weight lifting gym for freshmen.

Izuku didn't mind as he quickly set his things down and prepared for a new day of training. His body quickly took on the green coat of lightning he had grown used to with One for All being active and it would remain this way until he left.

He felt his body start to creak and crack under the pressure of anything greater than 4% of One for All's total output, so he stuck to that limit as he began to load up a barbell for bench presses. When he was done loading the bar with seventy-five kilograms he tried the motion and found it disturbingly easy, so he doubled it... twice, before he found himself able to only complete six reps until failure.

He did six sets of eight before he moved on to work on his legs. It turns out, he could now squat over a ton, so he did that for a while until he felt like his legs would fall off.

From legs, he moved on to work on his biceps, then abs, then shoulders, then his back, his triceps, and after all that, after spending nearly an hour and a half at the gym… Izuku found that his chest and arms could continue to bench press as if he hadn't worked out a full session for the day.

He made a mental note to himself before he redid the entire routine. By the end of his second turn, he thought, 'It should be safe to say that One for All not only boosts my strength, speed, endurance, and constitution.' He loaded up a barbell to 350 kilograms just to see if he could move it, and as he pressed the weight from his chest, he added, 'It probably also boosts my recovery...'

Many hours later, Izuku would leave the gym after cleansing his body and all the gym equipment he had used over the course of the day that had been covered by the grime and sweat that had built up over the hours of intense exercise. By the time he reached his home, he was completely refreshed; like, he had at most completed a bit of light jogging.

Still, just because his workout for the day had ended didn't mean that he couldn't continue to increase his familiarity with One for All. Even after he ate dinner with his mom, Izuku had hours to kill before the time to sleep came. So, in that time, both to train and to amuse himself, he searched for any new information about heroes he could find and began to put pen to paper while pushing One for All to his limits.

He wrote about new and up-and-coming heroes, analyzing and breaking down their Quirks with ideas of how to improve them with hero gear or defeat them with One for All if ever he found himself in that kind of situation. After he felt his hand eye coordination was good enough, he even started to sketch.

For a solid week after he got his results, this was what became of his routine. He worked out during the day and wrote or sketched at night.

…

"What are you doing?"

Izuku groaned as he picked himself off the ground. He had all but smashed into the side of a building, distracted by the sound of someone speaking in the mock city training grounds that had been empty all day.

Granted, he would be the first to admit that he probably would have failed and smashed into the side of the building regardless of any distractions as he had only started practising advanced movement techniques and applications of One for All earlier that day.

Picking himself off the ground, Izuku faced the person calling him, expecting a member of the staff. "Oh, um… It's like parkour, I mean I envision it to be like parkour but with my Quirk active, it'd let me scale up a building by jumping between them," he fumbled his response until he made eye contact not with a teacher, but a girl with orange hair.

"Really? Because, for the past ten minutes I swear I must have heard you crash at least fifty times."

"Well, I've never really had the opportunity to use my Quirk like this. Plus, I'm not even hurting myself despite how it must look… So, just, uh… Don't mind me, heh," Izuku awkwardly said.

"If you say so," The orange haired girl said before turning to her black-haired friend that Izuku hadn't even noticed until that very moment, when she added, "Come on, Kodai."

As Izuku made eye contact with the other girl, his eyes widened ever so slightly when she returned a nod. Throughout the whole exchange this Kodai girl remained completely silent.

'Strange,' Izuku thought before returning to his attempts at consecutive, and more importantly, consistent, wall jumping.

He would struggle immensely as gravity, human biomechanics, timing, and his control over One for All all needed to surpass a certain level of understanding to use this relatively skilled movement technique. Alas, he couldn't afford to step all his time just practising wall jumping; not when his years of idolizing All Might had given him plenty of ideas of other techniques to learn and add to his arsenal.

So, Izuku opted to split up his days training at U.A. before classes started from that point on into thirds. First he would develop his muscles and the amount of One for All he could summon without cracking under the pressure at the weightlifting gym. Secondly, he would work on movement — wall jumping, at the moment — at the mock city training grounds, before ending his day working on perfecting All Might's super move "Smashes."

He started simple.

"Detroit Smash!" His powered-up punch made a small gust of wind, but...

Newton's third law of motion checked him mercilessly into falling on his face.

In between coughs, he muttered, "Ok… So, even a simple straight punch or uppercut shouldn't be taken lightly..." It didn't help his case that he had never been in a — cough, fair, cough — fight ever in his life.

He had a lot of work to do.

The sound of someone sighing from behind him confirmed at least another thought so too…

'Wait,' Izuku paused. He looked behind him and the black-haired girl from before, Kodai, was looking at him whilst shaking her head.

"..." Picking himself up, he waited for her to say something, but even as the seconds passed with the two of them staring at each other, Kodai could only muster another sigh.

Eventually, she got into a fighting stance. Izuku noticed immediately, but only after she started grumbling did he ask, "You want to fight me?" After she shook her head and even snickered, Izuku asked, "Then—" he noticed she was gesturing at him to mimic her, "—you want me… to follow along?"

She made the slightest of smiles as she nodded.

When he copied her stance she showed him to properly throw a punch; once, as if she were in a fight and then again much slower. Once she gestured for him to give it a try, he didn't active One for All and managed to punch without falling off balance.

Still, Kodai shook her head as she showed him another punch and began to literally point out the flaws in his form. Because she was apparently mute, Izuku would constantly ask and mentally jot down, "You want me to slightly rotate my arm as I progress through a punch?"

"You want me to use less force? To keep myself from getting off balance and to recover faster if my opponent manages to dodge, yeah?"

"Swivel my hips? Eh, I guess it makes sense when you look at the difference it makes to baseball players with a bat."

Eventually, Kodai gestured for him to stop as she nodded approvingly.

"Wow, um… Thanks for the help—"

"Hmm..." She grumbled at him to stop and once he did, she got into a fighting stance again and threw an uppercut.

"Oh," He went to rub the back of his head awkwardly as he asked, "You'll keep teaching me more punches?"

For some reason, he felt a chill run down his spine when in response to his question… she just grinned.