...yes, this fic lives. To be fair I have like 10+ other fics running and this guy needs a delicate touch, so...whoops? I wanted to cut this to release earlier but I decided no, I'm gonna sit down and do this properly, AND I managed to get a head start on the next chapter that is gonna be pretty satisfying : )
I got lazy with the chapter title btw. I'm 3 coffees and a gutted fish early in the morning so I'm far from exactly sane.
...don't ask.
They get there with a good twenty minutes to spare.
Toshinori is extremely careful as he runs to the administration building, taking care to use alternative routes to not interfere with the young hopeful would-be heroes preparing to take their Entrance Exam. The towering structure overlooked the battlegrounds where the physical test was about to take place and was where the staff were getting ready to evaluate the exam.
Midoriya is quiet in his arms but he can feel the way the young boy was buzzing with excitement, stubbornly trying to lift his head up to look around and take in the sight. Thankfully he was physically unable to due to Toshinori's hand holding his head down, protecting his spine from the whiplash moving at such high speeds produced.
Soon enough they're through the doors of the building. Toshinori slows down considerably, One for All simmering down in his veins like the sea after a storm.
"Here we are, young Midoriya!" He declares, slowly to a jog as he heads up the stairs, too buzzed to use the elevator when he could do it twice as fast using the stairs. "It should start within the next twenty to thirty minutes, good thing we are on time!"
"That's good!" Midoriya pauses, hesitating. "Can we do a quick stop?" He suddenly asks, shifting in his arms.
His eyes make that odd little spin once, then again. Then thrice more, quickly enough. It's not the first time Toshinori sees Midoriya's Quirk doing that but it still tears his attention away from the boy's declaration.
When he recognizes what the young teenager was saying, he balks a bit.
"We don't have much time-"
"It's just a quick restroom stop."
Toshinori falters.
Oh.
Whoops.
"C-certainly!" He declares, realizing that the poor child had spent the better part of the last few days in bed rest and Toshinori had his fair share of hospital stays to know what it did on one's poor body. He turns around, looking for a sign. "Here, I think it's over there!" Toshinori declares, taking a step down the hall.
Midoriya tilts his head in the opposite direction. His eyes do another looped spin as he lifts his finger, points down a hallway and turns back to Toshinori.
"That way, actually."
Toshinori chuckles and does as asked. It's easy to find the bathroom; Midoriya slides out of his arms, hopping to the floor and stretching his limbs for a moment before heading inside with a quick thank you.
There's nothing for Toshinori to do but wait, so that's what he does. Resting against the outwards window of the hallway, back to the bathroom, he waits quietly.
For the next minute, and the one after that. And the one after that. And the third one after that. Time slowly trickles by and he can't help but feel a mixture of confusion and embarrassment.
He doesn't want to come in and ask for fear of embarrassing the child, so Toshinori keeps waiting.
And waiting.
Until finally, just when he was really starting to consider going in, he hears a pair of small footsteps. All Might turns around, smiling as he looks at the restroom door -which was firmly closed shut. And Midoriya was standing next to it.
Toshinori blinks. Midoriya blinks back, eyes spinning thrice. His hair is messier than Toshinori remembered it to be. There's twig stuck to the curly green locks, complete with a single leaf.
"Should we get going?" He asks, seemingly innocent enough.
Toshinori frowns, confused. How could he not have heard the boy come out of the bathroom? He's seen firsthand at the beach how silent Midoriya could sometimes be, but surely he should have at the very least heard the door open?
How odd.
It definitely was strange.
Midoriya didn't seem to share his opinion, if the way he was looking expectantly at Toshinori had anything to say.
"Are you okay, All Might?" The boy questions with an unsure tilt of his head. His eyes spin three more times. It's dizzying to witness.
Toshinori swallows, torn between the strange nature of the boy's appearance and the knowledge that they should get moving, less they be late. "I am...fine? No worries, young Midoriya!" It's easy to force those strange thoughts away. They were insignificant. "We should get moving, let me.."
He leans down to pick his charge up, but the future-seer darts away before he even completes the movement. Like he knew it would come before Toshinori even started moving -a thought that in all likelihood, rang true.
Midoirya bows down slightly, smiling sheepishly at his obvious confusion. "Thank you, but I want to walk this time!"
"I don't think that's a good-"
He's not even done that Midoriya starts skipping down the hallway, shouting over his shoulders merrily:
"I'll live!"
Squinting, he looks back at the bathroom, unsure. Had he simply not heard Izuku come out? He turns his gaze to the young teenager, gaze shifting from that strange twig in his hair and to his bare feet.
The floors are pretty clean. There's no need for Toshinori to worry beyond the child getting a bit cold -but if that's what Izuku wanted, he couldn't really refuse the boy. He wasn't his parent. He was just looking out for him -though in reality, Toshinori quickly realizes, up until now it's more of the other way around.
It's not his place to question Midoriya Izuku's choices.
Resigned, Toshinori makes his way down the hall towards the observation room, the quiet, quick pitter-patter of Izuku's feet following after him.
.
.
.
Izuku feels bad for about one minute.
Kacchan must be rubbing off on me.
It's thirty seconds more than it should but as his feet hit the ground, he forces those thoughts away in favor of focusing on the now. Gritting his teeth, Izuku rolls with the landing just like he remembers Kacchan doing so the rare times he's allowed to see his best friend train.
Getting up is a hassle, his head feeling heavy and dizzy from the unexpected exercise after such long bed rest. Izuku doesn't let it deter him -it can't! Not now of all times! It was time for him to muster up all of his strength if he wanted this to succeed! So he shakes his head, slaps his cheeks a few times for added measure, stands up and rushes down the path leading towards the desired test grounds.
He's very lucky it's close by.
He turns around a few corners, pauses behind a tree as Kacchan was in one of the students groups ahead, then deviates between the hordes of anxious candidates to head towards one particular side of the path. There's a tree up ahead, it's long branches heavy with bright, lively green leafs that swayed in the light breeze.
If it wasn't for the mass congregation of anxious, stressed candidates rushing to their respective test grounds, this would almost be the perfect place to lay down and rest. But not today.
Especially with the tree's shade already occupied by someone.
A very unhappy and frowning someone.
One with messy, gravity-defying purple hair, the largest eye bags Izuku had ever seen save his own reflection and shoulders so tense their owner could give Kacchan a run for his money. He's unmistakable.
There you are.
As furtively as he can, he sneaks up behind the teenager, keeping his head low to duck under the low branches of the tree. He feels them brush against his hair but Izuku ignores it, choosing instead to silently plop down a foot or two away from his target, right up against the tree's trunk.
Good. Shinsou's too busy staring off at the mass of candidates with a far away look to notice Izuku, and the noise the crowd made was more than enough to keep the sounds of his movements muffled. Which now left Izuku in the perfect position to move forward.
He takes a breath, thinks it through, and then puts on his best ditzy impression before chirping loudly enough for the insomniac to jump slightly:
"What's wrong with your eyes?"
The other boy's head snaps towards him as if he hadn't realized Izuku's presence until now. Izuku watches as Shinsou takes in his appearance and within a split second bites back:
"What's wrong with yours?"
Never let it be said that Izuku was a smart man.
.
.
.
Hitoshi's not sure what to expect.
His day is already crappy enough as it was. He'd done passable in the written portion and now his chances of ever passing and getting into the Heroics program had pretty much been shot to hell. His Quirk was already very specific -he could not control people unless they spoke to him, and neither could he maintain that control if they were hurt or startled in any way.
Robots though?
Robots were completely immune to Shinsou's Mind Control. He'd never put it to the test against an actual machine but if it didn't work on his adoptive mother's coffee machine the logical thought would be that it wouldn't work on Yuuei's machines either.
He was essentially now heading to the test grounds to be humiliated in front of a entire crowd of people.
Thus was the reason he was sitting under a tree, minutes away from fucking up his entire life on a stupid dream. A low sigh leaves him at that sordid thought.
What was even the point?
He knew he was going to fail. He'd never had the time to train physically too much between school work and bending over backwards to keep his foster family happy -there was no way he would be able to take down enough robots to qualify for the Hero Program. Especially Yuuei's Hero Program.
Grades wouldn't save him either; he'd done his best, Shinsou knew. And yet he was painfully aware that he was going up against a good two hundred candidates that statistically, were just as good if not better grade-wise and in all likelihood, had the Quirks to make it through. At the bare basic, enough to leave Shinsou in the dust.
Fuck.
What am I even doing-
"What's wrong with your eyes?"
Hitoshi jumps.
He nearly ends up on his feet, head snapping towards the source of the too close, too loud, too fucking happy voice yipping right next to his ear. The first thing he sees is bright, spinning blue, and Shinsou's mouth runs before he fully registers the situation:
"What's wrong with yours?"
The eerie, too big, too bright blue eyes spin, rotating in their sockets like little glimmering wheels full of stars. Not the whole eye spun, just the irises, and there was no pupils in sight. It was the oddest thing Shinsou had ever seen. Almost odder was the person whom those strange bug eyes belonged to.
Sitting at his side somehow without Shinsou ever noticing was a small, dark haired teenager. He's thin and short and has gangly limbs, alarmingly thin, a face full of freckles and the messiest bird's nest of a hair in the world. Not black hair -green, just like the tree over his head or the grass under Shinsou.
For all he knew, this kid had grown out the fucking ground. He most certainly had the body type for it.
Brat looks worse than me.
"You look terrible." Shinsou tells the summer sprite. It earns him a head tilt that belonged to a owl, not a human.
The stranger smiles. It's creepy in its gentleness.
"That's okay, I just woke up from a coma."
What.
This time it was Shinsou's turn to stare.
"You're strange." Shinsou ends up saying for hell, how could you reply to that ? "You should go then, I'm sure you shouldn't be up."
Blue Eyes bobs his head up and down in a nod. It makes his hair bounce. There's a small twig stuck to them. It only adds to the oddity of his appearance -he wasn't even wearing shoes, Shinsou noticed with a glance down. And his clothes looked anything but like the sport clothing most of the other candidates were wearing.
Was he even part of the exam or did he somehow find his way into Yuuei?
"Oh I'm fine. All Might thinks I'm still in the bathroom."
What the fuck.
Shinsou stands up and takes a step back from this other boy. He'd rather not contract whatever sort of madness this kid had. Sure, the boy looked like even Shinsou could put him to the ground, but with those glowing eyes of his there's no way he can guess what kind of Quirk he had. He preferred staying in one piece, thank you very much.
Especially since he needed to be on his best for the exam. As unlikely as it was that he would succeed.
"You look like crap."
"Thanks." Shinsou replied sarcastically, looking away. There's so many candidates here. All of them looked far stronger than Shinsou. More prepared. Better. Likely they all had combat Quirks or some way to deal with the machines. "I feel like it."
The green haired kid hums.
"Oh, well," He starts, walking to stand at Shinsou's side and looking at the stressed candidates making their way through the street towards the gate of the exam area. "You know what they say about hitting rock bottom. The only way left is up." He points out.
The sheer sappiness of his declaration has Shinsou chuckling bitterly.
"I'd need a ladder to get up." Or a jet pack. "We're going to fight robots. I'm fucked."
The strange kid bobs his head with a nod. "Your Quirk doesn't work on robots?"
Shinsou looks away.
"...no.
"Oh, what's your Quirk then?" The green haired creature asks, tilting his head. His eyes spin in their sockets -or rather, his irises do, along with whatever was supposed to be his pupils. How did that work, Shinsou had no idea. It was interesting to look at, but faintly disturbing.
Better than my Quirk, at any rate. Bitterness filled his mouth at the thought. Shinsou looks away, shoulders hunching as he bites out:
"Why would I tell you?"
"Why not?" Blue Eyes quips back, far too chipper for Hitoshi even when he was in a good mood -which he was not. Not today. At all.
The sheer simpleness of his response throws Shinsou for a loop. Gritting his teeth, he squints at the shorter teenager. "It's not a good Quirk."
"I had a neighbor who could turn his pee into different colors at will." The kid responds without even missing a beat.
Shinsou makes a face. He doesn't want to think about what such a Quirk would entail. Just the description made his stomach churn with disgust. How did the other boy even know how that Quirk wor -fuck, repress. Repress. Away from his brain that goes. Far away.
"Mind control." He ends up spitting out. "My Quirk is mind control."
"Huh." The boy says and yeah, Shinsou's already waiting for the grimace. It hasn't happened yet, but he's optimistic it will soon. "So, mind control." Blue Eyes repeat, squinting in a way that looks oddly forced and exaggerated. His strange eyes and namesake of the nickname Shinsou mentally gave him make a couple more spins, faster now.
Was that the extent of his Quirk or could he do more?
"...have you thought about controlling the other candidates?"
Shinsou frowns.
"Why would I do that?"
"Because you could get them to help you?"
His declaration gives Hitoshi some pause. It's not a thought that hadn't crossed Shinsou's mind. He was practical. He knew what his Quirk could do.
The points would go to those who destroyed the robots, not him. Even without his Quirk they would still have gone after the robots anyways.
"That would disqualify them." He chooses instead to say.
"Not if you don't use the same one constantly." Blue Eyes responds promptly. "-and I'm sure there's other parameters for the exam. Sheer combat power's not gonna do much if you can't deal with panicking civilians trapped in the middle of a villain fight."
Shinsou looks away, huffing.
"Sure."
"Hmm." Blue Eyes swings his arms a bit, the gesture so childish and out of place Hitoshi can't help but watch him from the corner of his eyes. "Just something to think about, Shinsou." He hums.
And with that, this strange odd kid turns around and steps into the crowd. About that moment a large boy with six arms walks past followed by a shorter kid with craggy, rough skin and a unsure expression, their tall figures blocking Hitoshi's view of Blue Eyes. By the time the tall boy passes with his companion, there's no sight of the green haired stranger.
He's lost to the crowd.
Gone like magic.
Or gone to dig his way back down to hell where he belongs.
There's a brief moment where Hitoshi wants to look for him, but then he hears Present Mic's voice coming from the speakers set up ahead and he pushes the thoughts of that strange kid away in favor of rushing towards his designated test ground.
It was only after he reached the gate of the test ground that he realized with alarm that he'd never given the boy his name.
.
.
.
"Glad you could join us, Mr. Midoriya!"
Izuku feels his face go red as every single head in the room turns at the sound of All Might pushing the door open, their attention zeroing on him like hawks. All adults, all teachers. Pro-Hero teachers. It's one thing to see them through his visions, another to see them in person.
One is definitely more anxiety-inducing. He hopes it's not showing on his face.
"All Might, you're just in time." Principal Nedzu congratulates serenely from his seat at the very front of the room. He's plopped in the middle, before the mass wall of screens showing footage of the testing grounds. The light of the screens create a halo effect on his fur, turning it to thin, powdery silver instead of an immaculate white. "As are you, Mr. Midoriya."
There's a knowing look in those eyes of his.
Izuku looks away, diverting his attention to the rest of the room in a manner that he hopes looks casual. He'd only seen some of the teachers since his arrival, and more than a few give him a small wave or a nod at the sight of him, undeniably curious by his appearance but too busy preparing for the upcoming observation to give him attention.
It seemed like all of the Pro-Hero teachers Izuku had yet to know were here….
….and when All Might leads him to the front of the room towards one of the seats, Izuku suddenly realizes that this might have been a not good, bad, very embarrassing idea.
Namely, given the fact who he sits next to.
"Problem child."
Aizawa Shota looked relatively unchanged from their first meeting. The man's dark purple eye bags were brought even more in the semi-darkness of the room, and so was the dark red shade of his eyes. Eyes that were currently piercing and very much as unimpressed as their owner's voice as the man all but politely stared down at Izuku.
"Mr. Eraserhead." He can only swallow, resisting the urge to shrink back towards All Might who sat on the chair on the other side of him.
The underground Pro-Hero says nothing in response, his gaze unrelenting.
Suddenly he reaches out with one arm; Izuku freezes as the man's hand reaches for his face -no, his hair. All too quickly Omniscience gives him an uncomfortable but not unwarranted jab at the back of his eyeballs, one that warns him of what was about to happen before it happens.
Thus was the reason he was able to keep a straight face as the man's hand pulls back, showing his find.
A single twig, leaf attached.
Izuku all but squirms in his seat, stewing in the deafening silence. He can feel the weight of All Might's stare at the back of his head. It doesn't feel good. The Number One Hero's brain was probably working overtime trying to figure out the twig. Izuku feels like he's about to be squeezed in between two solid walls and it takes all of his will to keep his composure from cracking.
Aizawa narrows his eyes at him, holding the twig out for him to grab.
"I'm never doing that again." The man rumbles with finality.
Izuku takes the tiny tree branch and hesitantly tucks it out of sight.
"...right."
And that was that. Izuku's nowhere near enough of a fool to test the man. He ducks his head and turns his attention away as Nedzu calls for it.
He hopes the Pro-Hero found his embarrassment punishment enough.
.
.
.
"-go!"
Shinsou knew he was at a disadvantage, but the moment Present Mic declared the start of the trial was the moment this belief firmly settled into a fact. Two thirds of the candidates around him practically flew into the arena, using their Quirks to their advantage to launch themselves into the fray and take out the first row of machines.
For a moment he stands there, wide eyed, at the destruction going off all around him.
Gods, he was truly fucked.
No amount of last minute training in the past few months could save him from people who had been using their combat-oriented Quirks for years. As soon as Present Mic gives them the green light there's more than a few that are gone before Hitoshi can even goddamn blink. Most of all was a crackling, suspiciously too loud and far too happy blond who could create goddamn explosions with a flick of his wrists.
It's about that moment that part of Shinsou mentally checks out.
He's not going to win this.
Still, he runs into the arena. He dodges other contestants and scrambles around machines far bigger and heavier than himself. Any time he tries to get close to one of the machines, there's already someone on them. And the other kids are tearing through them pretty fast; there's quite a few lost souls like Hitoshi though. He spots them wandering in between the more skilled students, weakly attempting to take scraps from those who were nearly mindlessly tearing through the machines -like the crazy blonde.
That one seemed very happy about how things were going so far. He shot from machine to machine like he had a vindictive grudge against all things mechanic, skillfully destroying every last one of them with terrifying accuracy. He was laughing too, the maniac.
If Hitoshi wanted to try and get at least some meager points, he couldn't stay here. The main streets of the arena were full of students.
He had to branch out.
Hitoshi runs through one of the nearby alleys, reaching the side streets around the edges of the arena. There's a scattered bunch of students here, much fewer than the center of the testing grounds and if he could just…
The screech of metal snaps his attention away from his panicking thoughts.
A small robot about a meter taller than him stood in his path, large arms raised as it cut off his run. It's main body was slender and it stood on one wheeled leg. On each of the thick metal guards on it's forearms was painted a bright white one. If it's not the shape that gives it away, it's the number.
A One Pointer.
Shinsou takes a step back as the machine approaches menacingly, red camera eye fixed on him.
It was...slow.
Slower than expected.
Kind of lanky, too. It's movements stalled. Not as quick as the Two or Three Pointers Shinsou remembered seeing. Of course it wasn't -it was weak. They're not supposed to be super dangerous. And this machine -it was at the bottom of the barrel.
That didn't mean he could do much against it.
Shinsou dodges as it rolls forward, the slow swipe of it's arm telegraphed a arm away, likely purposely. His eyes run over the frame of the machine, spotting the gap around the flexible long neck where cables were peaking through. That had to be the weak point. It was so glaringly so.
Now how will he stick his hand in there without getting it crushed by a few tons of metal?
That Shinsou did not know.
Think, think! He screams mentally as it comes after him again, an attack he ducks under easily. What can I do?
Physically he was much lighter and fragile than this thing, as clumsy as it was. He couldn't just jump on it and get close, he didn't have a combat Quirk. There was nothing he could do without getting injured.
Gritting his teeth, Hitoshi watches as the few students around him take down their own machines. Fuck, if he could just get a bit of-
Wait.
'Why would I do that?'
'Because you could get them to help you?'
Suddenly, Shinsou knows exactly what to do.
It doesn't take him long looking around to find another candidate.
"Hey! You there!" He yells at them and the girl turns to him, irritated. Her red head bounced with the gesture.
"Oi, can't you see I'm bus-"
Hitoshi activates Mind Control and whoops, there goes the blank faced look. Silently apologizing to the poor girl, he points at his One Pointer and yells:
"Damage that robot, but don't destroy it!"
Redhead Girl does so obediently. Her hands grow in size as she launches herself at it, two swipes of the limbs twisting the One Pointer's own arms in a way that warped the metal frame. The One Pointer wiggled it's arms, trying to move them but failing. It was helpless now. Defenseless.
Shinsou's eyes widened with the realization it had become nothing more than a walking free point. It...it's fucking cheap, but it's all Shinsou has at this moment.
He runs up to the robot just as he releases the girl from his Quirk. She stands there, confused, as Hitoshi plunges his hands into the machine's neck and rips out cables that detach far too easily. THe One Pointer twitches, whirring loudly, then collapses.
He did it.
Fucking cheaply, but he did it!
With an expression that might be a bit too maniac, he turns to the redhead girl. She seemed a bit dazed and confused, but fine.
"...eh…?"
"Thank you!" He yells at her before taking off, going after another One pointer. There's a student with a strange lazer Quirk running nearby and Shinsou wants to have a go at that.
Holy shit, I might be able to do this.
.
.
.
He's collected about twenty eight points when karma hits him in the face.
In his cockiness he'd edged closer and closer to the middle, taking control of stronger candidates just long enough to damage the machines for him to finish off. He doesn't reuse the candidates, sending them off to do their own thing because yeah, Hitoshi might be being a really cheap asshole right now, but this asshole had twenty eight points and he wasn't going to take more of their time as he already had.
But a few minutes into the fight, Shinsou fucks up.
Or rather, Yuuei decides to drop the metaphorical nuke.
He's just dismissed a girl with a strange plant Quirk and deactivated the robot she restrained for him with vines when the earth shudders and a nearby building starts crumbling, revealing a massive metal body. Shinsou freezes alongside every other student around him as the machine disguised as a building stands up, rising above the nearby buildings with ease.
The Zero Pointer.
As one, everyone starts fucking running. It's pandemonium. Candidates are pushing and shoving and Hitoshi gets an elbow digging into his side from a panicking girl as everyone scrambles to get out of the way of the very slow but massive machine coming their way. And fuck, while it was understandable, it didn't do Hitoshi any favors.
If he could duck back into the side streets, he could avoid the big machine. But wait, with the Zero Pointer running around everyone was going to do the same-
"Help!"
Hitoshi stumbles at the desperate cry, whirling around.
A girl he didn't know was laying on the ground several feet behind. She looked faintly sick, face pale and sweaty as she tried to heave herself up, stopped by a piece of rubble holding her legs and back down. Her brown hair was disheveled and all over the place; her eyes, glazed and panicked, wandered across the street and settled helplessly on Hitoshi.
"...I know...there's a test...but please help!" She whimpers as she pushes weakly against the sizable chunk of rubble. "I'm too tired...my Quirk's not…"
Her panicking eyes are pleading to Hitoshi. He glances at her, then around him spotting the way no one else stopped. A few looked back, but they kept running. Ahead, Crazy Blond was already going at it on some robots, ignoring the Zero Pointer and the girl entirely.
In a flash, Hitoshi realizes he's the only one who stopped.
The only one who was listening to her.
The only one who-
At that moment, again, Shinsou knows exactly what to do.
Righting himself up, he turns around towards the fleeing students. Putting both hands on either side of his mouth, he hollers as loud as he can:
"Hey blondie!" A few heads turned towards him, questioning. Not the one he wanted, so he yells louder. "No, the spiky one with the overcompensating attitude!"
That does the trick.
Crazy Blonde's head snaps towards him so fast Hitoshi almost head the crack of his neck above the chaos. Those red eyes are almost glowing with rage and the expression the taller, stronger Quirk-user teenager makes is truly the most fearsome of them all. Teeth bared, hands popping tiny explosions as he stomped towards Shinsou promising some ungodly amount of pain.
"What did you call me you fucking sleep deprived bobble head-"
Shinsou doesn't allow the rabid kid to finish his sentence. He activates his Quirk and watches the way Crazy Blonde's eyes glaze over immediately. He shouldn't feel as satisfied as he was, but eh, Hitoshi knew it was for a good cause.
Gotcha, you sadistic little bastard.
With the equivalent of a nuclear bomb in hand, Hitoshi points towards the approaching robot and commands:
"Destroy the Zero Pointer!"
Crazy Blonde blasts off like a soda bottle popping open, the explosion resulting from his Quirk nearly sending Hitoshi on his ass. He's going towards the Zero Pointer and that's exactly what Hitoshi needs him to do.
With the machine occupied, Hitoshi rushes to the brown haired girl's help. She mumbled something to him as he forces the rubble up -thankfully it's not that big, good- and drags her up to her feet.
"T-thanks you." The girl mutters, face white and swaying. "I overdid it and...urgh."
"Don't throw up on me." Shinsou finds himself saying automatically.
The girl smiles weakly up at him. "I'll try." She wavers.
Good enough.
Hitoshi quickly looks around, searching for a back alley that would take them out of the center of the arena. There's none nearby, and instead he finds that the girl is not the only one who got caught in the Zero Pointer's destruction. Hitoshi winces as he spots a few other candidates limping away, or struggling to stand.
Fuck.
Well, he'd already helped someone, he didn't need-
'...I'm sure there's other parameters for the exam. Sheer combat power's not gonna do much if you can't deal with panicking civilians trapped in the middle of a villain fight.'
...wait.
Don't tell him. That couldn't be true, could it?
I'm being crazy. That weird kid couldn't be right about that, could he?
A candidate runs past them as Hitoshi frantically wonders if he had hallucinated that encounter with the strange blue eyed kid. This guy is tall, with glasses and a form fitting tracksuit. He's speeding away and dodging ruble and slower candidates alike and the sight of it makes Hitoshi snap and bark out:
"Hey, you could at least help us!"
Glasses skids to a stop ahead, frowning at him. "They're going to be fine, the staff is watching this is just a test-"
For a moment Shinsou thinks about using his Quirk, but he ultimately dismisses it.
"Don't give a shit!" Shinsou snaps back, irritated as he heaves the girl's arm over his shoulder and helps her up. She stumbles, face green. A tiny part of Hitoshi fucking prays she won't hurl on him because that's the last thing he needs today. Irritated, he looks at Glasses and tosses this out flatly. "I'm sorry, I didn't know doing the right fucking thing had special parameters!"
That seemed to ignite something in Glasses, for he goes over one of the fallen candidates and helps them up. Great. That's taken care of.
Loud laughter and explosions draws his attention behind as he drags the girl away. Crazy Blondie was jumping all over the Zero Pointer like a particularly angry tick, explosions going off at the robot's joints. One of its arms was tilted, fallen at it's side and with the way things were going, it's neck was next.
He's not sure the blond was even under his control anymore. He probably was. He seems very intent on destroying the Zero Pointer pointer and for Shinsou that's exactly what he needed.
Brown Hair Girl lags at his side and he has to readjust his grip, frowning. Part of him wants to drop her but another knows that that is fucked. Besides, if Blue Eyes was right then this might be what he needs to do.
Or maybe it was just the right thing to do. Fuck, Hitoshi doesn't know anymore. Maybe he's just gone crazy. He'd already walked into the test ground knowing that he'll likely fail. With how things were fairing he'd likely at most make it into the General Education course.
But...
If he got the girl to safety maybe he could get some extra points on the side…?
Just as Shinsou starts gathering that hope again a loud siren rings out, marking the end of the test blares out.
Fuck.
Brown Hair Girl promptly throws up at his feet. And goes unconscious, sagging in his grip and nearly taking him with her. It takes all of his self control to not drop her in her own vomit.
.
.
.
Snipe's unsure of what was going on.
The Sybil was sitting next to All Might, legs crossed under him and hands on his lap; avidly staring at the multiple screens with wide, glowing eyes that felt dizzying to just look at. There's a few moments where Snipe even sees the iris and pupils spin like little wheels.
It's hard to associate what he knew of the Sybil to the tiny child sitting not too far away from him.
He knew who the Sybil was. Of course. Any hero worth their salt knew who the Sybil was, or at least caught the rumors. The Sybil's warnings were a blessing when it came to natural disasters and the occasional villain attack. Snipe met the child before today too, though it was when he sneaked a peak at the unconscious teenager. What luck it was the day Nedzu was meant to introduce him officially to the staff that the little incident occurred.
Even knowing what he looked like and what he could do, however…
...the kid had a twig stuck to his hair, for god's sake. Snipe's not sure how that added to the boy exactly, but the way he reacted to Aizawa handing it to him certainly pointed to something. The addition of All Might staring maybe a bit too hard at the kid like he was trying to figure something out only added to the strange scene.
Part of him wants to investigate, or at least sit back and watch the events unfold, but the screech of Hizashi's voice through the speakers marking the start of the test drags his attention away.
Snipe watches the screens carefully, tracking the candidates and noting down those who looked promising. This year's lot was a bit bigger than usual, no doubt because of All Might coming to teach. There's a few interesting combat Quirks, like the oddly cheerful blonde with the explosion power. Snipe's certain he's not the only one noting that down.
One oddity was another boy in the same testing ground. At first, there was little surprising about the purple haired boy on screen. He looked like those children who went in and realized quickly enough that he would be no match for the test robots.
But then he started using his Quirk.
Some form of mind control, if the way he commanded other candidates had anything to say. He would order them to damage the machines then he would finish them off quickly. At first Snipe was alarmed -what would happen if he just dragged around the candidates and cost them their own time for points?- but it quickly became clear that the boy was realizing that, for he only used the candidates once and then moved on to his next robot and next target quickly, leaving his victims to continue their own tests, although a bit confused.
"That's an interesting tactic." Nemuri murmurs behind him. Snipe has to agree.
"He's being very creative." Nedzu acknowledges at the front of the room. "He's not wasting much of the other candidates' time. That's good."
"He's making due with what he has." The Sybil suddenly pipes up, voice soft and calm. There's an undertone of pleased happiness that has Snipe tearing his gaze away to look at the child.
Midoriya was smiling. It was a small, innocent smile -but there was an underlying darkness in that little grin, something knowing and sly that had the back of Sniper's hair at the back of his neck rising.
"Number 85. Shinsou Hitoshi." Nedzu interjects, looking through his phone and undoubtedly at the candidate application list. "His Quirk is Mind Control, initiated by responding to him."
"Fascinating." All Might's voice is loud in the quietness of the chamber. "He's being very considerate of his comrades, too! If he keeps up, he'll be well on his way of making it through the test."
"We'll see." Aizawa rumbles on the other side of the Sybil, arms crossed. He's interested, Snipe can tell, but skeptical. Typical Shota. "He needs more than just a powerful Quirk to graduate. Ie he just makes everyone do the work for him, he's useless."
"Maybe." The Sybil acknowledges, nodding. "Keep watching though, I'm sure he has potential."
"Potential is often squandered." Aizawa replies with quickfire skill.
"Well, good thing he's trying . Goodness knows if there's ever a flawless candidate." The Sybil shrugs, nonchalant. "Just wait, I'm sure he'll impress you."
Snipe tries hard to not frown. That wasn't….strangely specific at all.
.
.
.
Izuku knew he was kind of shoving a foot in his mouth but hey, at least this time it was willingly!
Eraserhead looks very much suspicious about his declaration, and that was scary. Already the man was starting to realize something was off. Why did Izuku not notice a tree twig in his hair when he had an all-seeing Quirk was beyond him. Oversharing when he didn't want it to, useless when he needed it.
Joy.
But, he'd done it. He's most certain he's done it -Omniscience presses against the back of his head, excited with the new information and Izuku knows right there and then he succeeded.
Shinsou was getting in.
The future was already beginning to solidify. Cementing itself into something unyielding the more and more Shinsou ran around using other candidates and sending them off as soon as he was done. And when the Zero Pointer showed up, he's quick to put it to use again.
Part of him feels bad about Kacchan getting used like that, but his best friend already had all the points to get his first place. A little padding by destroying the Zero Pointer wouldn't be that damaging. Kacchan lived for bragging rights, after all.
Further adding to that is the way Kacchan kept at the Zero Pointer even after he snapped out of Shinsou's control, the knockback of his explosions causing enough startle to free him of the Quirk.
...he could tone down the laughing, though.
Never change, Kacchan.
Izuku has to hold back a smile as everything plays out close to what he was aiming for. Uraraka gets saved by Shinsou, Kacchan gets his prize and all three of them were now locked in for the Hero Program. The teachers around him hadn't decided yet, of course, but the way Omniscience was buzzing something fierce within his eye sockets informed him of this certainty.
Things were looking up.
Discreetly, Izuku reached up and traced the curve of his right cheekbone. Finger trailing over his lower eyelid, he can't help but let his mind wander to older memories as his eyes drank in the sight of Shinsou attempting to hold a sickly Uraraka Ochako up whilst keeping her at arm's length from himself.
Maybe the future I seek will happen after all.
Bakugo: You used me! Like a cheap tool!
Izuku: Actually that was my idea.
Bakugo: ...
Bakugo: ...
Izuku: A-actually on second thought I said noth-
This was fun to write lol. I'm not saying Izuku experiences a bit of envy for everyone else that he tries to cover up, but he...kinda does. As powerful as his Quirk is, it's also a big ball and chain. He's human too, yo.
Next Chapter:
Yuuei opens its doors for its first semester. Toshinori has a very important question to ask Izuku.