"what? you posted a chapter within a month of another? holy fucKing shit the world is end"

yes, thank you, very cool

I'm testing out a new pacing style because I don't think the one I usually use works very well for intro sequences like the first few chapters of this fic.

For the second time in thirty seconds, Izuku's backside slammed into the padded dojo floor.

"You got some nerve comin' in here with a weapon like that when you ain't even able to use it," the instructor grunted, offering him a hand. Izuku accepted, and the stocky man pulled him to his feet with a grin. "We're gonna hafta start with the real basics for a greenhorn like you."

Izuku frowned, patting his forehead to ensure there were no horns there, but said nothing. Perhaps he'd simply misunderstood.

He'd replaced some of his exercise schedule with training, which was exercise in its own right - getting up off the floor every forty seconds was making his legs burn. Today was his first day, and he'd brought the - the bone staff, he corrected himself, having decided that the name "Boner" was more trouble than it was worth for reasons he remained unable to figure out - along to get a feel for it. He figured it was best to train with the weapon he would be using in the exam; if he were to use a standard wooden staff, the change in weight could throw him off on exam day. Additionally, he could modify or repair the weapon using his Quirk in case some aspect of it felt wrong or it sustained damage.

Unfortunately, it had drawn quite a lot of attention upon his entry into the dojo, as it wasn't every day that someone walked in with a bo-staff made of reconstructed bone. To be perfectly accurate, it wasn't any day that someone walked in with such a thing, and the instructor assigned to Izuku (when he'd filled out all the paperwork and paid the membership fee) had been intensely curious as to just who he was.

Despite handing Izuku his own ass on a silver platter, the stumpy man turned out to be quite kind, patiently teaching his latest protege the correct way to hold his weapon while tactfully avoiding physical contact with it. (Izuku, for his part, had cleaned the staff thoroughly with soap and water, but he understood the man's caution.)

"Ya might be greener'n your hair, but ya learn quick," came the compliment, when Izuku managed to deflect an attack for the first time. "Stance helps, doesn't it?"

"Yes," Izuku agreed. "Bracing myself with my back leg...I should have thought of that earlier. It would have helped me keep my balance."

They practiced and sparred (both armed and unarmed) a while longer, and by the time Izuku left the dojo a couple of hours later, he was sweating and bruised - but also a little proud.

He visited the dojo for training as often as possible, making sure to take at least a day between lessons to let the information "sink in" and practice on his own. Week by week, he could tell that he was improving, and a day before the start of winter break, he managed to get a hit in on his instructor for the first time.

"Shit," he said, a moment after the weapon made contact with a burly upper arm, but the man barely moved, and after a couple of seconds, Izuku realized he'd started laughing.

"I'll be damned. Good job, kid. I bet you'll send any bullies at your new high school runnin' away scared stiff."

Are there bullies at Yuuei? Izuku wondered. I thought they had a good reputation. "Yes," he replied, on instinct, and when his instructor fixed him with an expectant glance, he decided to elaborate. "Uh - thank you," he said instead. "It means a lot to me. Your compliment, I mean."

Another round of guffaws. "I know yer not a talker. Don't try and force it," the man told him. "Sometimes ya gotta let yer actions do the talkin'. Some folk like t' do that more'n others. Better to be a man of action than one who talks all the time but never does nothin'.

Izuku frowned. "I want to make friends at Yuuei, though," he said plainly.

"Those'll come with time. Yer goin' into the hero course, yeah?"

He'd been rather tight-lipped about his motives for joining the dojo, but here and there, Izuku had let a hint slip. It wasn't a stretch to conclude that a young man with a weapon built for his Quirk was interested in becoming a hero.

"I'm going to try."

"Ya won't just try - you are gonna make it. A kid who's willin' t' put this kinda effort in just for the chance stands out. Bet you anything there's dozens of slackers thinkin' they can coast by on shootin' lightnin' or laser beams. Effort shows, n' any teacher worth their salt can see it a mile away." This declaration was followed by a grandfatherly wink, and Izuku felt the little bubble of pride he'd begun to carry in his chest grow.

The next day, his classmates were almost uncontrollable. A combination of desperation for their break to begin and anxiety over their second-semester exam scores had them frothing at the mouths all through Japanese and Algebra. The only students exempt from this were Izuku - who, having no social life, had always had spare time to study - and Bakugou Katsuki, the class's natural genius. Even without studying, his marks were never far behind Izuku's, something about which he never missed a chance to gloat.

"Hey, Deku. How long did you have to study to solve this problem? Imagining your shitty ass wasting so much time on this simple shit makes me feel sick."

Izuku ignored the taunting, choosing to pack his bag in silence. It was raining again, and while he'd once again forgotten his umbrella, he had remembered something else. A small smile spread across his face as he spotted the separated bone staff, its pieces arranged like a bandolier around the inside of his bag. I can probably use this to make an umbrella frame, he figured. Then some leaves for a canopy. I should think about carrying other materials with me, but for now, this will be enough to get me to the mall for okaa-san's present.

"You listening, shitty Deku?" Bakugou interjected, barreling into his thoughts like a furious, piss-soaked badger. Izuku shook his head.

"Not really. You're worse at holding a conversation than I am."

He hadn't even realized what was coming out of his mouth until he'd already said it and their classmates stopped to stare. Nobody stood up to Bakugou Katsuki, least of all the outcast that was Midoriya Izuku - the weirdo, the loner, the caterpillar kid. Not one of them stopped to consider how he'd ended up that way as they held their collective breath, eager for a smackdown, but Izuku simply wasn't having it.

"You wanna die, Deku?"

"No," Izuku said mildly. "Kacchan, if you're trying to make conversation, you're doing it wrong." He was about to repeat something Togata had told him - if you can't think of anything to say, try to get the other person to talk and play off of them! - but Bakugou's temper was long lost, and the first explosions popped and crackled their way across his palms.

"You really think you can talk shit to me now?" he snarled, teeth bared, eyes narrowed, and Izuku stood up, expression sharpening.

"I just want to leave in peace. I have something I need to do. Please leave me be."

He was fairly certain a few of the people listening had never even heard his voice before.

Izuku had always been one to bow and scrape before his former friend - though those days were long past, he couldn't quite forget how close he'd once been to the raging beast in front of him. Even after he'd started training for Yuuei, he'd kept responding to the blonde's taunts, insults and threats the same way he always had; it hadn't been until the last couple of weeks that a seed of hope, of confidence, had planted itself in his chest and grown from the pride he'd felt welling up there as his martial ability developed alongside his newfound fitness.

Perhaps if he'd simply been going home he'd have let the taunting slide, but even for something as simple as a Christmas present, Izuku couldn't bring himself to let someone else ruin his plans to make someone happy who deserved it for taking care of him all these years.

Even though I've never been an ideal son...even though our family has always been just the two of us...okaa-san never stopped supporting me, no matter how hard it was on her. Am I really going to let someone else send me home feeling shitty again?

He supposed Christmas shopping was odd grounds on which to take a stand against a lifetime of bullying, but he'd already made his decision. No turning back now.

"Wonder if they'll give you a discount after I fuck up your face?"

Izuku knew what was coming a second before it came, and with reflexes borne of months of hard work, he shifted his body to the right, lunging forward to cross his right hand over his own body and grab Bakugou's wrist as an explosive punch struck air where Izuku's head had been a moment prior. The pop of the blast sent some emotion shuddering through his body, and before he could properly identify it, he'd brought up his left fist to sock Bakugou squarely in the gut. Well-muscled as the blonde was, he was still unprepared, and the air in his lungs escaped in a sputtering cough.

What Izuku felt was anger.

"Stop it!" he demanded. "Just - cut it out, Kacchan!" Why? What the hell is it that keeps pushing you to do shit like this?

"Die!" was the response he got, but as another explosion - larger this time - snapped in his hands, Bakugou winced. "The fuck?" he growled, turning his palms towards his own face. "Deku, what the fuck - "

"The calluses on your palms keep you from feeling the effects of your Quirk, right?" Izuku asked. His voice was quiet, one hand now raised to point five fingers at Bakugou. "They help me use mine, too. They're just dead skin, after all." Maybe you'll start to understand what it's like to have a Quirk used to hurt you.

With that same hand, he pointed to the floor, where two small mounds of dead, callused skin had neatly detached themselves from Bakugou's palms to repose peacefully upon the tile below. Angry red weals sprang up in their place, and Izuku knew it would be a while before the skin would toughen again. Jaw set, he picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder, determined to leave before things escalated any further - until a sudden impact with the back of his head sent him reeling, pain throbbing through his skull.

A perfectly normal punch, no explosions added.

Izuku turned to face the second punch, knowing that Bakugou wasn't one to let up after a single hit, and managed to react in time to swipe the incoming fist away with his own forearm; the blow grazed his ear, and he bit his lip, flinching a little from the pain. The third hit, an overhead swing, came hard and fast, but instead of trying to retreat away from the blow, Izuku threw himself into it.

His balance is off, and the pivot for his swing is just beneath his shoulder at the back, he noted. It's safer to be well within the range of his arm than to be at the edge of it. The impact only gets stronger further from the pivot point, and I might be able to interrupt him like this.

Caught off-guard, Bakugou stumbled as Izuku's shoulder rammed into his chest. The latter knew he would soon recover - he was a good fighter, but anyone could fall victim to the element of surprise The blonde might have been brash and arrogant, but he wasn't stupid enough to keep underestimating someone who'd bested him even once.

Even so, this is nothing compared to sensei. He's fighting in a style I'm familiar with. I can do this.

As his opponent's other fist shot up towards Izuku, he struck Bakugou in the face with an angled uppercut from the right, sending him reeling backwards. It hurt his hand, but he knew he'd dealt enough damage to force Bakugou to reconsider before things got uglier.

"I'm leaving."

It was all he could think to say before he strode from the room.

Bakugou Katsuki did not follow him that day.

When they finally returned to school after the break, the first thing Izuku noticed was that Bakugou seemed to be avoiding him. Whether or not this was a direct consequence of their confrontation that day before break was unclear, but Izuku didn't particularly care.

During his dojo sessions, he tried his hand at a couple of different types of weapons, using his Quirk to reconfigure the bone-staff on the fly; he knew he wouldn't be able to get through the exam using just a staff, and Togata had suggested showcasing some degree of creativity with his Quirk. In the end, he found himself most comfortable using a polearm-style weapon, sculpting one end of the staff into a blade while keeping its weight evenly distributed. This wasn't unexpected - a polearm was only a minor modification away from the weapon he'd spent the past seven months practicing with.

It would help a lot to be able to use different types of weapons, but it's smarter to stick with something I'm capable with, he reasoned. What matters right now is getting through, after all. They're not looking for a self-trained hero - that would be ideal, but the exams are designed to showcase students who have the potential to be heroes.

As January crept into February, bringing with it the nastiest bout of winter frost, Izuku trimmed down his exercise time in favour of study time. The written exams weren't on the level of academic institutions like Shuchiin (where anything less than full marks or a rich family meant rejection) but heroes were expected to possess at least some level of intellect. Very rarely were exceptions made for the dimwitted; Izuku had heard that All Might was one such exception due to his overwhelmingly powerful Quirk, but he also found it difficult to imagine the greatest hero in the history of the world being an idiot.

Besides, better safe than sorry.

The day before the exams, their homeroom teacher asked the question every single student there had been waiting weeks to hear.

"How many of you are applying to Yuuei Academy?"

Without fail, every hand in the room shot up besides Izuku's. He raised his slowly, the prospect of the exams more terrifying than exhilarating. Aren't any of you worried in the slightest? he wondered, surveying his classmates. Your Quirk lets you magnetize ants. Yours allows you to precisely fold fitted sheets. How is that any different from being Quirkless when it comes to being a hero?

He supposed it didn't matter. They'd get a healthy dose of realism during the practical tomorrow.

Sleep came fitfully to him that night; it wasn't until well after midnight that Izuku finally drifted off, and it was well before the sun had fully risen when the sharp screech of his alarm clock dragged him back into the waking world.

"How come when I need to wake up early, I can't sleep, but when I have the next day off, I fall asleep before I hit the pillow?" he groused aloud, forcing himself to stand and shower. As usual, he didn't make much of an attempt to fix his hair beyond combing the knots out of it and letting it dry; the few times his mother had made him try, it wound up springing back into a spiky mess within the hour, and she'd since given up.

As hungry as he wasn't, breakfast was necessary, and by now he was accustomed to eating without an appetite. After wolfing down what he could - some leftover vegetables and a (strangely crunchy) egg - Izuku changed into his uniform and packed his school-issue tracksuit into his backpack alongside the deconstructed bone-staff.

I did file a support equipment request, right? He had to think about that one; it was entirely possible he simply thought he'd done it and subsequently forgotten to actually do it. Thankfully, the confirmation email sitting in his inbox was very much real, so he heaved a sigh of relief. Showing up with a bag full of surprise bones sounded much like something he would do.

Before he left, Izuku took a moment to leave a note - Yuuei's entrance exam is today. I'll call you when I can - then paused before he reached the front door. After thinking on it, he doubled back into the kitchen, picked up the pen, and added a postscript.

Osewa ni narimasu. Thank you for all that you have done for me.

Feeling better, he made for the train station.

Yuuei's main campus was, in a word, huge. Even the stoic, stone-faced Izuku couldn't resist a few wide-eyed blinks as he stepped through the front gate into the sprawling compound.

Ahead of him lay the administrative building, where his fellow examinees and prospective classmates trudged up a flight of marble steps for orientation, but he'd arrived early enough that he had a couple of minutes to step aside and survey his surroundings. Not thirty seconds of that time passed before someone tapped lightly on his shoulder; glancing back at them, Izuku was greeted with an open, honest smile set in a round face framed by brown hair.

"Might wanna get in while ya can," the girl told him. "We'll have lots of time to look around once we get in, y'know!"

A little dazed by her positivity, Izuku frowned. "Only thirty-eight - " he began, then stopped, remembering the conversation techniques he'd gone over with Togata the last time they'd met.

"Wait, why do I need to learn how to talk to people for the entrance exam?"

"You really think a future hero can afford to go around giving one-word answers and being depressingly realistic? They'll evaluate you based on how well you get along with the other examinees, too!"

"Oh."

"Just oh?"

"...You're right. I'll give it a shot."

"That's a start."

"You sound confident," he tried instead, offering a smile he didn't really know how to form. To his relief, the girl actually laughed, beaming brighter than the sun behind her.

"Well, if I came in without believing I could make it, why try in the first place?" she countered.

"That's fair," he said, turning and making for the administrative building before remembering that cutting off a conversation by walking away was rude. To his relief, the girl fell into step next to him, taking his departure as let's go rather than okay bye. "I thought we were early, though."

"Early's on time, on time's late, late's fired," came the return. "Well, for us, not accepted. It's somethin' my dad likes to say," she added, seeing Izuku's brow quirk. "My parents run a construction company, so I grew up around business stuff."

"My mother's a nurse, so I grew up learning how to take disposable gloves off properly," he blurted out. "And, uh, I can wash my hands in exactly twenty seconds."

To his surprise, she burst into a fit of giggles, and Izuku felt some unfamiliar sensation stir in his chest. Unfamiliar, but not bad, he decided, allowing himself a smile - a real one, not the awkward baring of teeth he'd fudged earlier - and looking up at the building's façade as they walked up the steps together.

"Oh yeah? I learned how to load a lumber truck when I was six," the girl prodded, still grinning.

"I once fed a whole boiled egg to a goose at the hospital pond."

"Wait, what?"

"I was eating ramen," he explained, not picking up on why exactly she was confused. "I didn't like eggs much when I was a kid. My Quirk and animal products don't go too well together."

"Oh, what's your Quirk?" she asked, perking up.

Shit. That went in the wrong direction. What if I tell her and she reacts like everyone else? Izuku bit his lip, trying to think of a way to divert the question elsewhere, but nothing came to mind. "Uh. Sorry, I - people don't like my Quirk," he finally admitted, looking anywhere but at his erstwhile conversation partner as they made for the auditorium.

"Why not?" the girl went on, eyes wide and innocent. "Is it dangerous?"

"Yeah - no? Uh. It's just creepy, I guess."

"How can a Quirk be creepy? Does it let you peek up skirts or somethin'? Or do you turn into a big spider? That sounds kinda cool, actually. The spider one, not the peepin' one."

"It's Necromancy," he sighed. "Dead stuff."

"Ooh, like zombies?" the girl went on, completely unfazed; on the contrary, there was a spark of enthusiasm in her eyes that reminded him very much of Togata's expression whenever Izuku made some kind of creative breakthrough on his Quirk usage or social skills. "That sounds cool, though! I bet a lot of villains wouldn't be able to do anything against a zombie - I hear you gotta go for the head, right? Not that my parents let me watch horror movies at home."

Izuku shook his head. "No. But also yes. I've never used it on a person before, so I don't know. I can manipulate dead matter at a cellular level, so I can trigger muscle tissue and 'reanimate' things, but I got chewed out for it by a pro hero last summer, so I've been trying to learn to use it to add on to my own abilities instead of pretending I'm a summoner or something."

"Wait, how'd ya get chewed out?"

Unfortunately for her curiosity, at that exact moment, they stepped into the darkened auditorium, and within a matter of seconds, they'd been separated by a tired-looking proctor who handed each of them a temporary identification card and sent them on their way to different sections of the room.

The last he saw of her he saw was her cheerful smile and wave.

Orientation was, as Togata had warned him, an excruciatingly dull affair in which a rigid woman with a powerfully soporific voice droned through a word-by-word reading of the Yuuei orientation slideshow, which was available online year-round and which Izuku (and, judging from the number of sleeping examinees, at least half of the others in the room) had already gone over multiple times. He listened anyway, just to make sure she wasn't throwing in any new information, but there was none.

The written exam wasn't particularly difficult; the biggest challenge Izuku faced was a wrist cramp that struck him halfway through and forced him to use his left hand to write. Fortunately, he'd developed a habit of answering the long-form questions first, so the messiest of his handwriting was relegated to a few scattered characters and lopsided multiple-choice circles.

They took a break for lunch afterward, and it occurred to him to search for the girl from earlier, thinking perhaps she'd come alone and would (like him) appreciate the company, but by the time he managed to spot her in the crowded cafeteria, it seemed she'd made fast friends with a small group of girls their age. He turned away, searching for a seat and completely missing the fact that she'd noticed him and was, even as Izuku scanned the empty tables by the far wall, frantically waving to get his attention.

They returned to the orientation room for an introduction to the practical exam, but this time the speaker was someone far more charismatic, and he noticed a few of his fellow students perk up at the sight of the man now standing behind the podium. Granted, a two-speed desk fan would have demonstrated a greater variation in tone and cadence than the woman from earlier, but that didn't change the fact that they were now being lectured by the one and only Voice Hero, Present Mic.

"Hey you guuyyyss!" he hollered, by way of an introduction, then struck a dramatic pose with a hand cupped around his ear. When there was no response, he frowned. "Seems like today's company isn't very electric!"

Still no response. Izuku had the distinct impression he'd missed something.

"Al-right!" Present Mic continued, a comically large smile springing back onto his face. (The fact that it looked natural was, Izuku thought, exponentially more disturbing than his sudden change of mood.) "In just a few minutes, it'll be time for the annual Yuuei Academy entrance exams! Who's pumped!?"

Nobody was pumped.

"This test's as easy as they get, listeners! One - you head on down to our training grounds! Two - go Plus Ultra and smash some robots! You're gonna run into four different kinds: one-pointers, two-pointers, three-pointers, and zero-pointers!"

This seems a little too simple, Izuku observed. I've spent the past year training my body and learning to fight so I can one-on-one some robots? Plus, isn't this skewed too heavily towards students with combat Quirks? Hell, if I wasn't allowed to bring in support materials, I wouldn't even be able to get in...there's no way I could fight something made of steel with my bare hands. On the flip side, wouldn't someone like Kacchan have too much of an advantage? What if you've got a flashy Quirk but you're a complete idiot?

Unfortunately, Izuku didn't have time to break down the implications of the exam during the allotted 10 minutes for questions. As Present Mic went on, more and more students turned to murmur amongst themselves, and audible shock rippled through the crowd when he announced that this year's exam was themed around a villain attack, and that volunteers from the Hero Association would be playing the part of innocent civilians, feeble and unable to fight off the robots themselves. In addition, at random points during the exam, structures would collapse to simulate collateral damage or a natural disaster, essentially ensuring that the prospective hero students were always on their toes rather than simply searching for the next robot to smash or the next "civilian" to "save".

That's more reasonable. Now people with Quirks better suited to rescue work have room to show their skills, and the students with combat Quirks have to think on their feet instead of just blowing things up.

Questions were called shortly thereafter, and several dozen hands shot into the air.

"Why are the zero-pointers worth zero points if they're so hard to take down?" a girl asked, after a boy sheepishly requested directions to the restroom.

"Great question, listener! That's because, like the name, there's zero point in fighting them! It's important to know when to prioritize escape over victory!"

Something about those words struck Izuku as a little ominous. Why are they trying to teach us that kind of lesson in the exam? he mused. That doesn't seem like the kind of thing you'd pick up in passing just from running into a difficult enemy. Maybe it's some kind of comprehension test where you get bonus points for responding properly instead of stubbornly trying to win a fight where you're outmatched.

Feeling more confident, he trailed along at the rear of the mass of students heading to the training grounds. As they neared the simulated city, his heart started to pound in his chest; the sheer height of some of the buildings there rivaled Tokyo's tallest office blocks, and he shuddered a little at the thought of this concrete jungle collapsing in on itself.

They were split into two groups, A and B, and sent to opposite ends of the training ground, where they were shown to changing rooms where they could assemble and put on any support equipment they'd brought, on top of changing into their tracksuits or - in some unfortunate cases - homemade hero costumes. Izuku had settled on his usual dark grey fitted tracksuit; loose clothes would only impede his movement, and the color...well, I just like the color.

He wasn't surprised to find that not many students had brought support equipment, and he was used to being stared at, so it didn't at all bother him when all eyes found the bone weapon he'd assembled in the locker rooms.

Do not call it a boner, he had to remind himself, approaching the steel gate that separated the examinees from the training ground.

"Al-right, listeners!" Present Mic's voice boomed; he'd chosen to forgo using the speaker system in favour of simply amplifying his voice with his Quirk, ensuring it reached every corner of the training grounds. "When I say go, those gates will open, and that'll be your cue to head on in! You have one hour! Go!"

Most of the students had, presumably, been expecting a countdown and were stunned for a moment when the gate flew open with a bang, but there were plenty who did not, and Izuku - ever-prepared - was among them, running full-pelt for the test that would determine his future. Predictably, those with movement Quirks quickly gained an edge, leaping and bounding ahead of the others, but that was fine, he'd be fine. First through the gate doesn't mean first in the exam, he reminded himself. Where can I go?

The faster students ran for the center of the training ground, and Izuku figured they believed the highest concentration of both robots and rescue targets to be smack in the middle of the arena, with the sparsest distribution around the edges. Whether or not that's the case, I'll take the middle ground and head just a little further in, he reasoned. If things do get more intense at the center, then I'll be somewhere that I can handle, and if there's an even distribution of robots and victims across this entire city block, at least the showoffs are out of my way.

Turning into an alleyway, Izuku found himself face-to-face with his first opponent; judging from its massive arms, it was a one-pointer, but despite its bulk, it had a crippling, obvious vulnerability.

This stupid dipshit's a fucking unicycle.

Years of online gaming and exposure to Bakugou Katsuki had not been without their effects on Midoriya Izuku.

Without hesitating, he leaned left, dodging the hook it threw his way; the metal fist whooshed heavily through the air where his head had been, and as it reeled back for a second attack, he used his Quirk to shift the bulk of his weapon to the head, driving it hard into the bottom corner of its body and sending it sprawling backwards. Before it could recover its balance, his spear punctured the flat plate on the underside of the body and tore through the robot's fragile insides to emerge from the top of its head.

One.

This was good. He was doing fine. He'd run into an enemy and, thanks to the training he'd done over the past months, hadn't hesitated in his first "real" fight. Then -

"Help! Please, oh god - help me!"

Caught off-guard for a moment, Izuku wondered if one of his fellow examinees had already gotten into trouble, then remembered what Present Mic had mentioned about Hero Association volunteers.

That's gotta be one of the actors playing a disaster or villain attack victim. Nodding to himself, he took off in the direction of the yell, bracing the spear against his chest as he ran. The metallic clank-clank-clank of a robot's footsteps reached him before he saw her, a woman in her early twenties in a purple cardigan and white skirt, her long brown hair streaming behind her as she ran full-tilt for the safety of the "hero" that was Izuku.

"Please! Hero, I'm begging you!"

Lady, this benefits me as much as it does you, he retorted, shifting his focus to her assailant - a two-pointer, judging from its appearance. Four plate-armored legs gave it the agility and balance that the one-pointers lacked, though its main body was much smaller, trading power for mobility. This, Izuku knew, would be more challenging; lacking a normal combat Quirk, he'd developed a fighting style based on fast, precise strikes rather than bulldozing his way through obstacles and opponents.

To test his latest adversary, he went for a straightforward stab to the head, and sure enough, the robot brought up one of its legs, deflecting the blow and sending a jab at his midriff with the other leg as it reared back. He backstepped, bracing himself against the concrete, and the machine's steel limb met only air.

It can both parry and riposte against anything I throw at it with simple spear techniques. This thing isn't going to be fazed by what I'm doing right now, and it's not like I can knock it off balance or rely on it having an opening. At the same time...I'm not limited to a spear, am I?

Unconsciously, a grin worked its way onto his face. It had blocked with one leg, and it wouldn't be able to strike back with the other if he was on the same side as the blocking leg. Furthermore, he knew exactly the kind of weapon that he could use to facilitate the kind of rapid movement it would take to put himself in a position to move past its defenses.

When Izuku came at the two-pointer again, he swung a scythe over his head; as expected, the right leg came up to block the blow, and the scythe tip glanced off of the steel plate, but this was exactly what Izuku had been counting on; rather than retreating, Izuku pulled hard on the scythe, hooking it behind the plate and kicking hard off the ground to vault himself onto the robot's back. The sudden, unsupported weight sent it crashing to the ground, and even as its tail lunged for Izuku, he shifted the scythe blade back into the haft of the weapon and drove the bone-spear through the robot's head just as the impact of the tail threw him several feet.

That's embarrassing. To make matters worse, the woman he'd "saved" had stuck around to observe his fight, and he felt himself flush as he rubbed the spot on his lower back where the steel scorpion tail had rammed him.

"What are you waiting for?" he called to her, before she could say anything. "Run! Get out of here!" Put the clipboard away! Don't write down that I let it hit me in the ass! As he turned to retrieve the bone spear, however, a low rumbling shook the earth around the two of them, and a moment later, a three-pointer burst from the side of the building closest to her; it was larger than both the one- and two-pointers, sporting a heavily-armored body held up by three thick legs and bearing two large heads on top.

And how in the hell am I supposed to fight that? he wanted to scream. The two-pointer had been more challenging than the one-pointer, but this was on another level entirely; he wasn't even sure how he could get high enough in the air to even strike at its smart car-sized heads.

Bakugou, he was certain, was experiencing no difficulties right now.

Unlike the last two robots, the three-pointer didn't hesitate to resort to ranged attacks, likely as a byproduct of its sheer bulk, and Izuku found himself staring down the loaded chambers of a missile bay -

He had exactly two seconds to react before the ground where he'd been standing turned into a cracked crater.

Holy shit, is this even legal? I don't remember signing a waiver that said "sure, go ahead and shoot explosive missiles at me".

Still, he knew this wasn't a battle he could afford to fight, at least not with his current range, and he found himself lamenting his lack of foresight. He wasn't yet at a level where he could do something like run up one of its legs or use mid-flight missiles as stepping-stones (that was what pro heroes did, right?), but he was at a level where he could help the woman behind him outrun the robot.

"Do I just have to get you to the gate?" he asked, bluntly.

"There's a mock medical site in the middle of the training ground," she replied, breaking character for a moment. "They didn't tell you?"

Izuku shook his head, but before he could say anything else, there was a mechanical whirring and a series of loud clicks from the three-pointer. A glance told him that the robot had reloaded its missile bay, but rather than firing again, it began crawling across the cracked street towards the two of them at an alarming speed, its bulk swaying unpleasantly from one side to the other as it tore up the asphalt. Thinking it was still focused on him, he took off for the outside of the arena, thinking that he'd be able to give the woman enough reprieve to escape, but no - its focus was solely on her, and with a frustrated huff, Izuku changed direction mid-stride and tackled her out of the way just as a massive claw slammed into the pavement, dragging the thing's entire body forward and bringing its two heads close to the ground. When Izuku helped his erstwhile rescue target to her feet, the three-pointer's attention shifted back to him, and the missile bay lit up again.

That's it, he realized. They won't use ranged attacks so long as they're targeting the Association volunteers, or if they're too close for the attacks to be accurate. That must be why both of the robots from earlier resorted to close combat from the start. I guess the volunteers have something on their person that tells whatever tracking system these robots have to ease up.

He weighed his options for a moment. Using a civilian as bait wasn't heroic, but at the same time, if he could show that he'd figured out the robots' targeting mechanisms this quickly, would he receive any kind of extra consideration? It was a gamble, but it was the only way he had to win this fight right now.

Leaping away from both the woman and the three-pointer, he managed to avoid the second barrage by rolling as he landed, and they shot straight over him to detonate on the side of what looked like a grocery store. As he'd expected, the robot changed targets again, and as it hauled itself towards the volunteer once more, Izuku was forced to repeat his tackling save - only this time, he got to his feet, leaving her on the ground long enough to drive his spear through one of its heads.

Unfortunately for Izuku, this seemed to trigger a change in its behaviour, and when it picked itself up from the ground, it went for another missile strike almost immediately. It was half by sheer luck that he even managed to avoid them - he'd not quite gotten his spear all the way out of its metal box of a head when the robot started to rise again, and as a result, he'd been dragged forward several feet. To his dismay, it also didn't change targets, choosing to stay focused on Izuku alone, and it hit him belatedly that perhaps its two heads took turns deciding what to do.

So if I'd destroyed the other, would it have kept doing those claw attacks? he wondered. Did I just make this way harder on myself than it had to be?

It paused to reload, and Izuku knew he'd not be able to keep running away or trying to bait it - it was too fast for his civilian charge to run away from, and it was no longer performing the one action that left it open to attack.

Think. You need range. Is there anything you can use to give yourself more range?

Lengthening the spear would compromise its structural integrity, making it more likely to break. He didn't know how to use any kind of flail or whip, so even if he had the materials to create them, they were out of the question (and, frankly, not quite ranged enough for this fight). Throwing the spear was an option, but he only had one shot, and while the robots seemed a little too fragile - seriously, the non-armored plates are like aluminum foil - he wasn't willing to risk losing his weapon. What he needed was something capable of firing a projectile that wouldn't lose him his weapon if he missed.

A bow would work, he reasoned, but I don't have anything to use for a string...or do I?

His own hair was out of the question - he didn't have enough of it. The woman with him, however…

"Hey!" he called to her. "Can you do something for me?"

"What is it?"

"Put your hair in a ponytail!"

"I'm sorry, what? Why!?" She was, understandably, confused.

"Just do it! Trust me!" he shouted back, just as the three-pointer unleashed another volley of rockets. It didn't seem particularly inclined to move, so in the seconds he had before it reloaded, he made a dash for the volunteer, who'd reluctantly complied with his request and who was regretting it as Izuku gently took the ponytail in one hand. "Thanks. I promise I'll give it back in a minute."

"Wait, what?"

Release.

Her hair separated cleanly where she'd tied it off, leaving Izuku holding a foot-long rope of hair about two inches thick. Without hesitating, he slammed it against the spear and activated his Quirk again; before their very eyes, the hair braided itself into a solid bowstring, fastening itself to either end of the length of bone. In no time at all, Izuku found himself holding a grisly recurve bow that looked like something out of a horror movie, but he didn't have time to think about it - there was that whirring sound again, and he was forced to move away from the woman to prevent her from becoming an even more grisly splatter on the pavement underfoot.

Izuku had never used a bow, but his target was huge and he was out of options, so with a silent prayer to the void, he used his Quirk to separate a sliver of bone from the body of the weapon, notching one end and modeling the other after the spearhead that had so far torn through three robot heads with brutal efficiency. Gritting his teeth, he dodged the three-pointer's final assault, dropped to one knee, and took aim, staring down the length of the makeshift arrow as he nocked it and drew the hair-string back.

Aim just a little higher because of gravity, right?

He loosed the shot.

At first, he didn't think it had done anything; the bone arrow had punched straight through the thing's colossal head, leaving a visible hole, but it didn't give any sort of response. Then, as it took a step towards Izuku, its entire body sagged and crumpled to the ground with a deafening crash, leaving an overwhelming silence in its wake.

Izuku disconnected the hair from the bow, returned it to its original state, and jammed the bone into the puncture mark left by the arrow, feeling around in the torn-up wires until he was able to reconnect the arrow with the rest of the weapon. He then strolled over to the woman and held out the chunk of hair. "Sorry about that," he said. "If you turn around, I can reattach it for you."

He couldn't read her expression; it was somewhere between shock, horror and awe. At length, she simply burst into nervous laughter, turning around without a word and allowing Izuku to use his Quirk to reattach each strand to its root. When he'd finished, she patted the hair, as if she couldn't quite believe it was actually there, then gave Izuku a hard stare.

"You'll probably get points off for that, but I can't say it wasn't clever," she admitted. "As a hero, though, you'd want to minimize the danger in which you leave civilians."

"You could have run away at any time," he pointed out. "I'm sure I'd have figured something out eventually."

She sighed. "Yeah, but sometimes disaster victims are in shock and it won't occur to them to do anything except stand around until someone else pushes them to act. Got it?"

A nod. "I understand." It does make sense, he reflected. Back when I intervened in that bank robbery, all the cops were in shock and didn't even respond to what was happening until the guy was immobile. I was in shock when that three-pointer smashed through a wall out of nowhere.

As they made for the center of the arena, Izuku tallied the points he'd gotten so far. He had at least six, but compared to someone with a powerful combat Quirk, that was nothing at all. Bakugou most definitely had many, many more.

It didn't take the two of them long to reach the mock encampment - a haphazard cluster of white tents with red crosses emblazoned on the sides - and here Izuku parted ways with the person who'd (unwillingly) supplied him a temporary bowstring, returning to the fray just as Present Mic's voice echoed across the training grounds. "Forty-five minutes left!" he boomed, and Izuku bit his lip.

Six points in fifteen minutes. I need to steer clear of any more three-pointers - they take too long. Focus on rescues and the one- and two-pointers.

The next fifteen minutes were largely spent keeping his eyes peeled and barreling straight for any smaller robot that entered his line of sight; they didn't seem to possess any kind of networked intelligence, because each one fell to the exact same tactics as the first two. One-pointers would fire an opening shot, he would take cover or roll to evade it, they would pause to - reload? cool down? - and he would kick them backwards and spear them through the body and head in one motion. Two-pointers would use their agility to get in close, perform the same blocking maneuvre, and inevitably fall when Izuku used his weapon as a hook to vault himself onto their backs and spear their heads. He even figured out that all he needed to do to stave off the tail attack was use the spear to jump back off of the robot before its sensors caught up to his position.

At one point, he came across a volunteer beleaguered by a one-pointer and a two-pointer that had pushed him into a dead-end alleyway, and for the first time he'd been forced to block, concentrating most of his weapon's mass into a bone buckler at the center of the shaft. The impact was enough to crack the shield and send him staggering backwards, winded and bruised, but they're still too slow and dim to keep up the pressure, so if I retaliate in time, I can still win this!

He ended up using the scythe again, this time to lop off the two-pointer's tail in order to buy himself enough time for the one-pointer to take aim at him and throw another punch, crushing the two-pointer instead as Izuku jumped and buried the scythe in the back of its bulky head.

In spite of the three-pointer and the two-on-one, something about the exam still felt suspiciously easy, and as he took a minute for breath, he watched another examinee strike an extravagant pose and decimate two one-pointers at the same time with a brilliant blue laser from his midriff.

Was Togata-senpai exaggerating how difficult the exam was supposed to be? Izuku wondered. It feels like everyone who's anyone is just tearing through these things like paper. I don't even have a Quirk I can use to directly attack and I've gotten twenty-six points, not counting rescues. Is this really - ?

Boom.

At precisely the half-hour mark, a series of explosions raced across the arena like a napalm strike, lighting up the tops of the tallest buildings - chunks of concrete blasted into the air, then hurtled toward earth like meteors - shards of glass fell glittering from above -

Looks like I spoke too soon.

Izuku didn't have time to watch, however. In no time at all, the air some fifty feet over his head detonated, and the tops of the buildings closest to him began to fall. Thinking fast, he ran straight ahead, directly opposite the path of the explosions, and made for a cluster of shorter buildings where the rooftop rubble hadn't had so far to fall to the ground and lay still and unthreatening upon the pavement (as opposed to the crush hazard half a block to his right).

That most likely didn't do a whole lot for my rescue points, but...wasn't that a little too extreme for the collapsing building thing? Present Mic made it sound like they'd just be periodically taking damage. For a moment, he reached out with his Quirk, feeling for dead tissue, but he detected only the vague impressions of hair, the hallmark of living people. At least nobody within range died. That's good, but something's not right here...shit, what if someone really did get hurt?

As the closest debris slammed into the ground, Izuku decided he'd make his way into the affected parts of the arena and try to help out any volunteers or fellow examinees that he could. He reactivated his Quirk, figuring he'd try and use it to track down anyone who wasn't moving - that is, anyone who could be stuck or injured - and, with a response time borne of long training, immediately dove forward into a roll, whirling as fast as he could as the person he detected directly above him landed gracefully in front of him rather than on top of him.

"Nice moves, kid."

Izuku didn't respond, bracing his weapon with both hands as he used his Quirk to remove the spear head, opting for a less-lethal approach. A quick once-over of the newcomer was not reassuring; it was clearly an adult male, his build slender, his entire body covered by a skintight black suit. This outfit was reinforced with shiny silver knee and shoulder pads, with a brown utility belt rounding off the ensemble. All in all, it wasn't anything like what any of the examinees he'd seen had been wearing, and even if this man were somehow an examinee, there was no reason for him to confront Izuku this way.

There's no doubt about it. This is an enemy.

"No" was the only word that left his mouth.

"No? Just no?" his latest adversary taunted.

This guy can't hold a candle to Kacchan, he told himself, holding his silence. Don't be goaded into doing anything rash. Just see what he wants.

"Y'know," the other continued, unprompted. "The boss said this'd be an easy job, but I never seen a wannabe hero just stand still thinkin' there's a villain right in front of 'em. You waitin' for an introduction?"

no