The UA entrance exam, the most popular in the country, but also the one with the lowest passing rate.
It had always been Izuku's dream to take part, but it wasn't since that fateful day ten months ago, that he ever really stood any semblance of a chance to pass.
The boy idly grabbed the watch that had been attached to his wrist ever since it had come into his possession, the item that gave him confidence in his success.
Looking at it reminded him of the ten months of hell he put himself through in order to better harness its capabilities.
Day and night he would train himself at the beach, using what everyone else perceived as trash to train his body, all eleven of them.
After all was said and done, he'd managed to extend his transformation time to a maximum of ten minutes, as long as he didn't push himself, and reduced the cool down to roughly fifty percent of how long he stayed transformed.
All his effort had now amounted to him standing confidently before the towering structure of UA, a small smile of awe plastered on his face and his clenched fists shaking in anticipation, ignoring the weirded out expressions and looks he was receiving from those hurrying past him to get to the exam.
'This is it! I'll show them now, everyone who has ever doubted me.' The image of an imposing two meter tall blonde flashed through the boy's mind. 'I'll show him that he was wrong!'
He took his first step, the first step towards greatness.
He tripped.
'CURSE YOU LEGS!' He screamed internally as he careened towards the ground, 'it's fine though, just a small hiccup, as long as I don't smash my teeth in I'll be fine.'
He braced himself for impact, taking a few seconds to realise he had stopped just above the ground.
"Are you okay?" Came a light, sweet voice.
"Hmm?" Izuku mused, turning his floating body towards his saviour. He blinked at her appearance, she was rather short, with fair skin, big round, brown eyes, and a round face. Her hair was similarly brown, reaching her shoulders, two locks framed her face, with a short bob at the back. 'Holy shit, she's so cute!'
Which was good and bad, good because well a cute girl had approached him, bad because now he would need to try extra hard no to let his social anxiety make a fool go him.
He was getting better at the whole confidence thing, he'd spent the last ten months confronting most of his old bullies, and there were a lot of them.
A lot.
The girl helped Izuku back to his feet, "Sorry for using my quirk on you without permission, but I feel like it's a bad omen to trip and fall, especially today."
Izuku chuckled at this.
"Y-yeah, thanks, I'm Izuku Midoriya." He laughed awkwardly, hopefully his face wasn't going too red. "You've got a cool quirk, um… does it reduce density or is it gravity based?"
"I'm Ochako Uraraka, nice to meet'cha, and yeah it's called zero gravity, I can remove gravity from anything I touch with all five pads on my fingers." She smiled showing the boy her hands for a few moments, there was a slight pause, Izuku didn't really know how to respond, this had been the longest conversation he'd had with someone that wasn't his mother in the last ten months.
Lucky for him, Ochako seemed more versed in the art of social interaction, she released a long, nervous breath, before chuckling "This is pretty nerve wracking, huh?"
"I s-suppose, but taking an exam usually is." Izuku said, giving his best laid back smile, placing his hands behind his head like he'd seen done by 'cool' people in media, and closing his eyes to calm his heart, speaking to a girl was more difficult than he thought, the two then started their way to the entrance, "with what I've seen of your um… quirk though, I'm sure you'll be fine."
"Eh, how can you know that? Do you know what the exam is?" She quizzed.
"No, but this a hero school, so it reasons it'll be something common to hero work like rescue or combat, your quirk is pretty versatile in those cases." The boy replied, averting his eyes from her interrogating gaze.
"Reasons? Versatile? You sound so fancy Midoriya-kun." The girl giggled, relaxing visibly, "so, what's your quirk?"
"Me? You sure you're ready to hear something so amazing?" Izuku asked seriously, causing the girl to nod, clench her fist in anticipation and stare unblinkingly, ready for a big reveal. "What I can do." He paused, "is a secret!"
Izuku would safely shout from the rooftops that being a lovable ass was the only social role he could well.
"Eh?" Ochako paused, "Wait a minute, that's not what you're meant to say!"
The boy gave a large grin, proud at the reaction, feeling a surge of confidence, he opened one eye to look at his companion, regretting his decision as her cuteness basically attacked him, he shrugged with his palms facing the sky to hopefully distract his face from the blush it was trying to build again.
"Maybe, tell you what, if we both pass I'll tell you."
"Alright, I'm pumped now!" The girl exclaimed, before she paused for a second, "Thanks by the way, you really helped to calm me down."
"Think nothing of it, I f-feel like we'd get along really well if we both got in, so I um… Couldn't stop myself from helping you." Izuku smiled, hoping it wasn't too crooked.
The two had reached the entrance to the amphitheater where they would get briefed before the exam, there they were directed to sit in school order, which meant the two recently acquainted teenagers had to separate.
"Well, good luck to us both, see ya!" Ochako smiled, before running on ahead.
Izuku released a breath before a triumphant smile crossed his face.
'I-I did it! I talked to a girl!'
Izuku looked up at the cityscape in which he was to take the exam, it was huge, and it impressed him how UA could even afford to build one of these let alone the multiple they seemed to own.
Based on the rules, time limit, and his own abilities, the young boy began formulating the best plan to pass.
'If I take into account the nature of the exam, then it's safe to assume they want to not only test combat ability, but also the ability to track villains, and mobility, therefore, the Faux-Villains would be spread out initially, that would give a chance for candidates with tracking and movement type quirks to rack up some points, that means the heavy hitters shouldn't be getting many points in the first few minutes, as the density of points will take some time to build up.' The boy didn't realise he was muttering all this under his breath, gaining the attention from the candidates around him. 'If I were to use Wildmutt or XLR8 straight off the bat I could gain a lot of points in the early stage of the exams, but that would leave me at a disadvantage for the last five minutes of the exam, which is likely when they will release the obstacle they mentioned, I don't believe that something considered run on sight is really worth zero points, so I can't miss out on it. If I take the first couple minutes to get to the town centre, and transform after that, I'll be able to stay transformed for the rest of the exam regardless of inconsistency of transformation time during physical exertion, but I need to use a form that I'm familiar enough with to get a passing grade with less time than everyone else, I only have one form I'm that experienced with so…'
"You, the one who is muttering!"
Izuku looked up at the tall boy with blue tinted hair and glasses that had just addressed him. He knew that tone well, and it triggered an automatic reaction he always had to people who tried to intimidate him "Yes, you, the one who is shouting!?" The boy replied.
Being an ass worked wonders.
The tall boy looked taken aback at the response, but quickly regained his composure.
"I suggest you stop muttering, you are unnerving the other participants, is that what you're here to do? Sabotage our chances?" He questioned.
"Me?" Izuku asked, "Imagine that? I'm not nearly smart enough to sabotage anyone, but if you guys need an excuse for why you failed today, to feel better about yourselves or whatever, then sure, you can say I sabotaged you." This got him a host of dirty looks from the other participants, especially the one standing directly before him, "Oh, that's a heated look, sorry, but I don't swing that way."
The tall boy looked like he wanted to retort, but at that moment Present Mic declared the start of the exam.
"There are no countdowns in the real world, go!" The blonde yelled.
The tall boy turned back to Izuku for the last word, only to realise that his fellow participant was already running ahead of the rest of the group.
'No hesitation? It seems I underestimated him.' He thought, but his praise was misplaced.
'Gotta thank Present Mic later for the save, this confident thing is way harder than I thought, I'm glad I got given the chance to escape.'
He had been practicing his acting skills in the last few months as well, a hero need to act like everything was in control even when it wasn't so he knew it was an important skill.
He still had that pesky social anxiety, but acting tough for a few seconds wasn't a problem, unless the audience were female, then hormones were added to the mix, and that ruined any chances he had of not muttering or stuttering.
The boy continued making his way towards the centre of town, even as he could hear the other participants using their quirks to gain points.
It would have been too much to ask to be avoided by the robots until his self imposed time limit was up, so it was pretty easy to predict that a one-pointer would roll up in front of him.
Izuku froze.
'Shit, I thought I got over this!' He yelled mentally, even after all his training, after he promised himself he would be more confident.
Izuku shakily reached for the watch.
'If I transform I can easily deal with this, it would only take a few seconds, and then the watch would recharge just as quick' but he stopped himself, he knew he couldn't, something like that would exhaust his cells and reduce the time he could stay transformed, and then he'd lose precious minutes to gain points right when doing so would be easiest.
This would greatly increase his chance of failure, and all that work he had put in, all the gruelling hours, would be wasted.
Then he wouldn't be able to prove that man wrong.
"NO!" The boy screamed, his body moving on instinct, he dodged the incoming attack, before grabbing onto the arm of the robot, he swung himself under the arm and up, landing on the robots shoulders, before he grabbed the robot's head and ripped it from its socket.
Izuku snapped out of his stupor.
'Those moves, it was just like Wildmutt…' before he could look into it further he heard present Mic announce that two minutes had passed.
That left Izuku with a sour taste, just a few more seconds and he wouldn't have needed to doubt himself, but neither would he have learnt a lesson in acting without the power the watch gave him. It was a paradoxical situation he found himself embroiled in more often these days.
Snapping himself out of his deep thinking, he rolled his shoulders, and pressed a button on the watch, the cover extended out, and Izuku turned it a few times until he found the silhouette he wanted.
He took a deep breath.
"It's hero time."
Then he slammed his hand down.