Chapter 1: Entrance

Eight years ago…

A crowd of people mulled around outside U.A's gate, waiting for them to open for the entrance exam. A young teen with messy pink hair and striking yellow eyes stood off to the side, snickering at some of the conversations he overheard. A hand clapped on his shoulder.

"Hatsume! What are you doing here?" Toschi Hatsume turned around and grinned as he saw his neighbor, Ketaki Omakase. He was a relatively tall teen with black, red-striped hair and, creepily, pitch black eyes. An interesting thing people instantly noticed about Omakase was his lack of palms; instead of the lower four bones in his fingers fusing to form a palm, they extended all the way to his wrist, like he had five thumbs.

"Omakase!" he exclaimed, hugging his friend. "You're trying out too?"

"Yeah! I heard Netsuke got recommended here as well!" Toschi grinned, and Omakase looked out at the group of people. "Wow, this year they got a lot of applicants, huh?"

"Of course!" Toschi glanced at some of the other kids, smirking. "I heard they got a new teacher this year; you know the R-Rated Hero: Midnight?" he laughed at Omakase's dumbfounded expression. "She's teaching Modern Hero Art History, I think. Seriously, who decided she was appropriate for a bunch of high-school boys?"

"An absolute hero," Omakase said, and the two both cracked up laughing. They heard a boom, and the gates opened up. They filed into a large auditorium and sat down in the desks. In front of them was a large stage with a pedestal on it. The lights dimmed, and the pro hero Cementoss stepped out.

"Greetings, applicants to U.A! I am Cementoss, the Modern Literature teacher here at this school. I will be giving you an overview of the entrance exam, and then you shall take the written exam and the practical exam. At the mention of a practical exam, he heard a lot of worried whispering. "Fear not, the practical exam has been rewritten this year. So, starting this year, you will not be fighting the other applicants to gain admission." He chuckled as a collective sigh rose in the crowd. "Before I get into any of that, you will take the written exam. It will consist of a test that will take you approximately two hours to complete." Groans from the audience. "We shall begin in ten minutes. Please take this time to prepare your desks for the exam."

Two hours later…

"And time." Dozens of pencils clattered to the desktops, and a collective sigh of relief filled the auditorium. Omakase looked over to Hatsume and was shocked to see him sleeping. He reached over and shook him, and Hatsume snapped his head up, looking around lazily.

"What are you doing?" Omakase whispered as Hatsume stretched. "This is the most important test you'll ever take, and you're just sleeping?"

"Oh, I finished it already." Hatsume looked over, bored. "I finished it in like an hour. Did you really think that I would get stumped on a test that I spent two years preparing for?" Cementoss came by and collected their papers. "Besides, it was easy. Math is fun, and history is easy. The only problem I had was on the English section." He tilted his head back, rubbing his eyes. "I hate that language so much. Why does one word have, like, nine different meanings? And you can only tell the meaning based on what part of the word they stress? How do they get anything done in America?"

"Attention, please." Cementoss was back at the front of the room. "At this point, I will brief you on the practical exam. In previous years, we had the students fight each other; however, it has been determined that this gives some students an unfair advantage. To prevent this, everyone will be split into six groups and assigned to a specific battle area." He pressed a button on his pedestal, and a picture of four brown robots appeared on the screen behind him. "In each battle area, these faux villains will hunt you down. Your task is to destroy as many robots as you can in the fifteen-minute time period. Each robot is worth a certain number of points; after fifteen minutes, we will add up the total number of points of all the faux villains you defeated, and you will be given a score. The point values will increase based on how powerful the faux villain is; the weakest one is worth one point, then the intermediate one is worth two points, and the hardest one is worth three points."

A voice called out from the crowd. "What about the fourth one? You only mentioned three."

"An excellent point," Cementoss responded. "This fourth faux villain is extremely strong; in testing, only 30% of pro heroes were able to defeat it." Hatsume and Omakase gulped. "It is not recommended you try to fight it, due to its size and strength. However," he paused for a moment, letting his warning sink in, "the school has decided to reward anyone who manages to defeat it. Destroying an Ultra-level faux villain will give you one hundred points." The auditorium filled with shocked whispers, and Cementoss raised his hands. "Be mindful of your own limitations, young ones. Even I was not able to defeat one. We shall begin in twenty minutes. When you receive your station assignment, get changed and head to the designated battle zone."

As Hatsume and Omakase waved goodbye to each other as they left, Hatsume felt a strange feeling in his stomach. He turned around, trying to shake it off, but it persisted. He ignored it, and as he arrived at the battle ground, he began stretching his arms, loosening them up. Suddenly, the feeling returned and struck him with a wave of nausea. He collapsed, vison spinning. He saw several other applicants collapsing around him, and looked around wildly. He saw one applicant smirking, rubbing his hands together rapidly. He heard a horn go off and the doors opened. The applicant stopped rubbing his hands and took off, and the vertigo instantly went away. Hatsume stood up and charged after the others. Trying to cheat, huh? Well, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve as well. As he turned a corner, a large robot cut him off. He quickly raised his hand and the robot froze, glowing yellow. He delivered a rapid barrage of punches to the robot, and saw the applicant from before. He aimed one final punch at him, and the yellow glow broke. The robot shot towards the applicant, narrowly missing him as it smashed into two others, destroying all three. The shocked applicant whipped his head around and saw Hatsume smirking at him. He rubbed his hands together and winked at the dumbfounded teen, then ran off to find another robot.

After about thirteen minutes, Hatsume had accumulated over 58 points. He panted, nursing a cut on his left knuckle. Alright, I think I might be in the lead right now.The ground rumbled, and he and a few others around him backed up, looking for the source. Suddenly, a massive rock came shooting at them. Someone screamed, and Hatsume threw his hands up before he even saw it. It froze, inches from his finger, glowing. As the other teens got out of the way, Hatsume heard a metallic clunk. He looked over the rock and saw a group of four Ultra-level robots. His face went white as he saw the sheer size of them. They stood over a hundred feet tall, and were crushing everything in their path. Applicants screamed and ran, and Hatsume quickly began hitting the still-frozen rock. When the glow broke, it rocketed towards one of the robots, almost as fast as a bullet. He cheered as it smashed directly into the eye of the robot, but froze as all four robots turned their gaze to him, undamaged. As they charged at him, he turned and ran, freezing objects to try and slow their movements. A yell behind him made him freeze in place. Whipping his head around, he saw two applicants on the ground. One was unconscious, and the other was struggling to drag him to safety.

"Help!" she screamed as the robots grew nearer. Hatsume was running before he knew it. He sprinted towards them and, just as the massive tracks were about to crush them, he froze the robot. It glowed, pulsing as he sweated.

"Do you have a strength-type Quirk?" he yelled to the girl. She nodded, remembering how she saw him fighting the robots. She stood up and hauled her arm back, then shot it forwards. As Hatsume watched in awe, her forearm began smashing into the robot faster than he could see, like a jackhammer. Finally, the glow broke, and the robot, having sustained such a high amount of kinetic energy, shot into the air. It crashed into another robot, and both exploded in a massive burst of smoke. Hatsume grinned at the girl, and they both ran towards the other two. He froze the closest one and began hitting it alongside the girl. The other robot barreled towards them, but Hatsume delivered one final punch as the first robot unfroze, blasting towards the other. They collided in a massive explosion like the other two, but the head fell off of one of them and hurtled down towards the duo. Suddenly, a blur shot between the two, and the other applicant, the one who was unconscious, leapt at the falling head, arm out. As the head touched his fingers, it suddenly rocketed back into the sky, flying off into the distance. He landed in front of the two.

"Shock Reflection," he said, smiling. "I can reflect any force in the opposite direction." Hatsume grinned, and the horn went off.

"Time's up! Please report any injuries to the nearest official, and you are now free to leave. Thank you for applying to U.A!" As Cementoss's voice faded out, Hatsume rubbed his knuckle and winced as he felt tendons. Looking down, his entire knuckle, from his index finger to his pinky, was split open from the repeated hits. The girl gasped in shock.

"You need to get that looked at!" she said as Hatsume knelt down, pain clouding his mind. The guy helped him stand, and the two walked him over to the entrance, where a small woman in a nurse's outfit was standing.

"Oh dear," the woman said, seeing his hand, "what on earth did you do to yourself?" She pulled his hand closer and planted a big, sloppy kiss on his knuckle. He recoiled in disgust, but was amazed to see the cut close itself up, all the blood disappearing. "Now don't you go doing whatever it was you did again," the lady called as he walked away, "I don't want to have to see you all the time in my office!"

Afterwards, he met up with Omakase and another friend, Jataka Netsuke, for dinner. Netsuke was a short, curvy girl that had known the two for a long time. She had been recommended for entry into U.A, and was eager to hear about the trials her friends had gone through. "Man," Omakase said, sipping his milkshake, "those robots were tough. How many points do you think you got, Hatsume?" He quickly counted on his fingers. "I think I might have gotten around 40 or so. I bet you got like 50."

Hatsume nodded. "I'm certain I got at least 58. Did anyone in your battle ground manage to defeat one of those giant ones?"

"One kid tried." Omakase shuddered at the memory. "It literally flattened him like a sheet of paper. Luckily, that guy's Quirk made him super elastic or something, because he was fine, but jeez. What about you?"

Hatsume rubbed the back of his head, looking away. "I teamed up with some girl and we ended up defeating four." Omakase spit out his milkshake on Hatsume as Netsuke laughed.

"What? How did you do that?" he asked, loudly, drawing several glares from the other customers.

"It was actually kinda easy," Hatsume said, shrugging. "She had a Quirk that let her hit things super-fast, like a jackhammer; combined with my Stasis, those robots didn't stand a chance." Netsuke raised an eyebrow.

"She can move her arm like a jackhammer, you say?" A lecherous grin crossed her face, and Hatsume threw his napkin at her, rolling his eyes.

A week later, he was playing a video game when a small seven-year-old girl with pink dreadlocks rushed into the room holding an envelope. "Toschi!" Mei called, running to him, "It's here! It's here! Open it up!"

He laughed at his little cousin, then took the envelope and placed it on the table. He tore open one side of it and a small projector slid out. It activated, and a small, white mouse-like creature wearing a suit appeared.

"Hello! I am Principal Nezu of U.A. Academy! We're sending you this message to inform you of your results in the entrance exam!" Mei clutched his arm, bouncing up and down in excitement, to her cousin's amusement. "Toschi Hatsume, you performed exceptionally well in the exam. You received a 97% on the written exam, the second highest in the pool of applicants." Mei gasped, and Toschi's jaw dropped. "As for the practical exam, you managed to accumulate 58 points from various level robots. That alone would put you in the top eight, but you and another applicant took your exam Plus Ultra! You two worked together to defeat four of our Ultra-level villains; you two were the only people to defeat one! As a result, we have decided to award you each… two hundred points! Congratulations, and welcome to U.A!"

As the message ended, Mei wrapped her dumbfounded cousin in a big hug. "You did it! You did it!" she exclaimed, jumping in the air. "You got in! I gotta go tell mommy and daddy!" As the young girl ran out of the room, Toschi sat staring at the wall where the projection was. I got in. I did it. I got in to U.A!His phone rang, and he picked it up.

"I got it!" Omakase yelled, joy filling his voice.

"Me too! I got in too!" Toschi cheered, laughing. The reality of that statement struck him, and a tear slipped out. "I got in!"