After wasting almost an entire week playing VALORANT and planning out another MHA fic, I finally remembered I had this thing to continue, so here's the practical exam.

Special thanks to Writermakeshift for beta-reading.

X. My Trial, Part II

"Ah, Yagi-kun, you made it!"

Toshinori turned in the direction that the voice had come from, and looked down when he saw the headmaster walking towards him. "Thank you for having me, kōchō," he replied, bowing.

"No need to be so formal," Nezu replied with a smile. "Come in, come in! We're about to start soon!" He ushered Toshinori in, and after closing the door behind him, pointed him to a table, where there were several types of drinks. Unfortunately for him, however, most of them were most likely sugary, and so instead opted for the pitcher of iced lemon water.

(He couldn't take any risks with his injury and lack of a stomach, no matter how much he missed the taste of soda and fruit punch.)

As he slowly took sips of his water, Toshinori greeted a few of his soon-to-be co-workers and fellow teachers, before he then made his way over to the room's main attraction—a large black screen taking up almost the entirety of the wall it was attached to, with rows of comfortable seating in front of it, almost like a home theater.

After walking up the stairs and finding the seat labeled Heroics A, he sat down and waited while the other teachers and faculty members took their own seats. It was only once the last empty seat was filled, that the blank screen flickered to life, and what it was now displaying caused Toshinori to raise his eyebrows in surprise.

It didn't take a lot to figure out what he was here for (what with the sign right next to the doorway outside saying Entrance Exam Viewing Room and all), but he was still taken aback by the sight of the screen cycling through overhead views of every single Battle Center, with what looked to be several other cameras (all of them drones, by the looks of it) scattered throughout each of them at smaller heights.

"There's a tablet in the space next to you," Nezu said, pointing to his side. "So we can spectate each Battle Center at our leisure."

"Oh." Toshinori looked down at his left side, before his noticed a black tablet sitting in a small slot attached to the seat, and picked it up. "I see now. Thank you."

Nezu nodded and made his way to his own seat, leaving Toshinori to try and figure out how to actually turn on the damn thing—he was fairly sure it was one of those 'state of the art' models that didn't use any power buttons (he couldn't, for the life of him, understand how or why they ever went out of fashion), but the headmaster had already gone to his own seat, and he didn't exactly think to ask for any further help, leaving him in a bit of a predicament.

"How does this...?"

"Here—let me." Toshinori looked up, and upon seeing Midnight (Kayama Nemuri, if he remembered correctly) with her hand outstretched to him, wordlessly handed her the tablet, where she spent the next few minutes or so going over how to log into the device and connect to the cameras that overlooked each Battle Center, and how they could spectate individual areas or even the entire zone if they wanted to.

"I see. Thank you, Kayama-san," he said with a grateful smile, when she handed the device back to him.

"That's Nemuri to you, if you want," Kayama replied, winking. Seeing the friendly joke for what it was, Toshinori let out a chuckle at her response, shaking his head as she leaned back into her own seat, resuming her conversation with Cementoss (Ishiyama Ken).

Kids these days...

While he now understood how the spectating fully worked (and could definitely see the merit behind it), he thought the exact method was a bit much. Still, though, he wasn't about to complain—at least it meant that the score evaluation wouldn't be as hard as he thought.

'Go beyond', huh?

U.A. really spared no expense when it came to the hero course. Granted, he should've already known that, having, you know, taken it himself when he was a student, but the combination of having developed a decent head for finance from managing Might Tower, his injury from All for One, and the fact that he was pushing sixty really put what he was seeing into perspective.

After some amount of time, the lights in the large room finally dimmed out, and not long after, Present Mic (Yamada Hizashi) gave the signal for the practical exam to start, prompting Toshinori to drag his finger across the screen of his tablet, switching to the cameras of Battle Center B, and watched as Midoriya-shōnen quickly gain the lead with One for All.

He couldn't keep down the smile on his face at seeing his protégé make quick work of the various robots throughout the testing zone, and couldn't help but notice the feeling of pride that was swelling up within himself.

Might as well check how his friends are doing, he supposed, moving his hand across the screen again.

"Prepare to die—"

BOOM!

The Three-Pointer never got to finish its line (and why did they all have the same exact one?) as Katsuki thrust his arms forward. and activated his Quirk. With just a thought, he ignited the sweat on his palms, and a great burst of orange-yellow energy engulfed the entire thing, and he stayed only for a moment to make sure he actually finished it off before taking off to find more of the robots.

It hadn't even been about five minutes since the test started, and Katsuki already had what, forty-eight points now? Yeah, if he ever had any doubts he was getting into the hero course before today, then what he just did blew them out of the water.

"Oi, watch yourself!" he called out to some pink girl, moving in front of her and taking out the robots that had her cornered. He didn't check to see if she was grateful or not after, though, instead just leaving her behind as he shot out bursts of Explosion behind him to run faster.

Honestly, it was unfair just how too easy it was. Where was the challenge he was promised? Sure, it felt pretty good to seriously let loose with Explosion, but the old man kept hyping up the entire practical into some big struggle. Okay, fine, with what he could do, that bit was probably meant for Izuku and Uraraka, so he shouldn't exactly—actually, not even Izuku. Not when he had a second Quirk, of all things.

Even a whole entire month later, he still couldn't believe All Might chose Izuku to be his successor, but he had to be real, though—how in the hell was he supposed to get in U.A. with all these robots otherwise? As much as Katsuki respected his best friend, he wasn't about to lie to himself and say that he had a good chance, not with the way the practical was structured out.

If he had to be honest, then he probably shouldn't have humored him for months, but that didn't exactly matter now, did it?

Now was Katsuki jealous that the Number One Hero didn't pass his Quirk onto him? Eh, not really. He already had Explosion going for him, not to mention that personally, he liked to think that it would have felt cheap if he got to where he wanted to be without putting in his own blood, sweat, and tears into getting good—he earned all of his achievements, and he wasn't about to stop now.

Throughout the next few minutes, Katsuki kept up this routine of taking out as many robots as he could find, saving whichever extra (sorry, student) looked like they needed help, and building up as many points as possible. There was even a moment where this one guy who could turn silver yelled at him for saving his ass, but hey—Katsuki wasn't the one with the skill issue, here. Fuck him for trying to help someone out, right?

At some point, there was even this huge earthquake that had everyone around him stopping to see what was going on, before a really fucking huge robot came out of the ground, and was now rolling towards the center like it was the apocalypse or something.

But to Katsuki, it was exactly what he wanted to see when he stepped foot in the school, finally served to him on a silver platter.

"Now that's more like it," he said to himself, his mouth widening into a shark-like grin.

With the excitement that was bubbling up within him threatening to burst, Katsuki broke out into a sprint towards the Zero-Pointer, before he stopped and laid out his palms on the concrete pavement, using Explosion to launch into the air, repeating his Quirk activation several more times as he came face-to-face with his target.

This probably might just be the most fun he's ever had.

"And...release!"

After spinning around enough times, Ochako slammed her palms together, releasing her Quirk's hold on the various pieces of rubble and rebar that had been orbiting around her and sending them flying towards the Two-Pointer just ahead. And just as she thought, while the broken bits and pieces of concrete didn't much else but dent the robot's armored shell, her aim with the rebar did strike true and pierced its front legs, leaving it now unable to move them.

But just because it couldn't move towards her anymore, it didn't mean that it couldn't attack her.

Good thing she wasn't done yet, then.

Using the brief window of time that she had before the Two-Pointer eventually used its tail on her, Ochako rushed forward and placed her hands on one of its immobile legs, and she felt the familiar onset of slight nausea as it slowly rose into the air. When it finally looked like it was high enough, she put her fingertips together, and the robot unceremoniously fell back to the ground, now letting out smoke as the red lights of its 'eyes' flickered out.

"That's thirty-one points...!" she whispered to herself, before she jogged away from the damaged robot, looking for more of them to gain points from.

The way her Orbital Momentum attack worked was that since it was more or less her Quirk working horizontally (something about it 'possibly manipulating spacetime', according to Midoriya-kun), then that meant she wasn't able to use it in conjunction with using it in the usual way.

Meaning that, alongside it having a lower weight limit because of how she figured out how to use it just a month ago, left her having to rely on a sort-of combo where she would use Orbital Momentum on to build up a 'ring' of debris around her and spin around to build up enough kinetic energy to 'shoot' it out, before using Zero Gravity to do the bulk of the damage and finish the job.

And while her training with Yagi-sensei (read: All Might) made it so that she could withstand a much higher weight limit, she could already feel herself being overcome with fatigue with the amount of times she had used her Quirk.

That didn't stop her from at least trying to help out other test-takers take down their own robots when she could, though—her tendency to be nice and help people out aside, there logically had to be some system in place for helping others, because Heroes regularly helped each other against Villains, right?

But less than a minute after she had reached a score of forty-two points, the entire area around her started to shake violently, and before long, a giant robot that couldn't be anything else but the Zero-Pointer came out of the ground, and was now making its way to her and the students trying to run away from it in the street that they first came through.

And Ochako could only stare on with a bleak expression, wondering how Midoriya-kun and Bakugō-kun would deal with this.

"And...START!"

As instantaneous calling forth One for All was, Subaru's concentration in showing off to Mineta was still broken by the sudden voice, and he looked up to see Present Mic looking down at them from one of the towers next to the large doorway.

"What, you expected a countdown?" he asked. "That's not how that works in the real world, listeners! The clock's a-ticking!" He was even tapping the outside of his wrist with his finger, and Subaru realized that yes, the practical really had already started.

Well, if he said so.

Subaru looked back in front of him and got into a quick stance, and with Full Cowl already engulfing his body, shot forward at a tremendous speed (he mentally apologized to Mineta for leaving him behind like that), almost immediately overtaking the near-stampede of the other students in front of him and even getting ahead of a guy who had pipes in his calves, before he was now the first one inside the testing zone.

As he ran through the streets of the replica city, he looked around, managing to catch sight of a multitude of large, green structures scattered throughout the area, but when he tried to make his way to them, he was suddenly stopped in his tracks by one of the structures rearing its head from around a street sign.

His eyes hardened as he recognized the pronged legs and scorpion-like tail of what was undoubtedly a Two-Pointer, and crouched down in a stance when he saw it turn to face him, the red lights that made up its 'eyes' wildly blinking as if it recognized him.

"Target spotted. Prepare to die."

Subaru's eyes tracked the robot's movement, only having a moment to watch as the Two-Pointer reared its mechanized tail back. But the green lightning surrounding his body was now audibly crackling, and he made the decision to take a step, and another, before he shot forward at a tremendous speed, using the energy of One for All to quickly close the distance between him and his opponent.

The Two-Pointer's tail finally lurched forward with the intent to strike at Subaru, but with his increased perception, was able to easily react to the attack by sliding under its legs and avoiding it altogether, before he immediately stood back up and used the split second he had to put his foot on one of the robot's legs and jump on its back, aiming his own attack at its abdomen.

With a roar, his fist shot clean through the base that connected neck and body, pulling out a mass of damaged wiring in his hand. The whirring sounds coming from the Two-Pointer sputtered out for a few more moments, before it finally stopped and the robot finally slumped forward, unmoving and letting out smoke where it shouldn't be.

"Two points," he murmured, taking a last look at the robot before he was running down the street once more, looking for more and more robots to destroy and more and more points to gain.

With All Might's guidance and his own dedication, Subaru's control over One for All: Full Cowl was now at an impressive twenty percent after just under three months of training, and he couldn't help but notice everything and everyone around him moving even slower than he thought they would be. Even the rubble and particles of dust in the air were busy taking their time being affected by gravity.

But before he could think about it further, he looked back in front of him as he continued running towards another villain robot—this time a One-Pointer.

Three Points.

He came across another Two-Pointer after that. Five points.

Two One-Pointers then tried to gang up on him. Seven points.

This time there was a Three-Pointer. Ten points.

He fought off all three robot-types at the same time. Sixteen points.

There was rarely a moment of rest for Subaru as he ran and ran throughout the testing zone, taking down robots left, right, and center. There was even a moment when he managed to clear an entire block of them, but he had a feeling that thirty-two points wasn't anywhere near the required amount, so he kept pushing himself to keep going and not waste time.

"Hey, man, go find someone else's points to steal!"

"Sorry about that!" Subaru replied, releasing his hold on One for All to slow down and cease his attack, before he ran off again, leaving the blond guy (whose Quirk may or may not have reminded him of Pikachu) to take the two points he rightfully earned.

Even though they were all in a competition for a spot in one of the world's most prestigious hero courses, Subaru was still the type of guy who believed in fair play—if someone was already about to take out a robot, then he wasn't about to deliberately swoop in and steal the points from them like he saw a lot of the other students were doing.

Fortunately, however, when it came to One for All, he didn't need to worry at all about whether or not he'd be treated with the same courtesy, what with the whole 'being able to move faster than everyone' thing he had going on.

And so for the next several minutes, Subaru ran around what was basically the entire testing zone, taking out as many robots he could still find, but he also tried to step in and get anyone out of the way of a robot's strike if it looked like they needed it, even if some of them ended up getting mad at him for keeping them from getting their points.

He did, however, have quite a few close calls with almost stealing some points because he simply couldn't see the people behind the robots, but at least those were few and far between.

But eight minutes and fifty-three points after the practical exam had started, Subaru was now finally feeling the edges of exhaustion creep up on him, alongside the urge to start taking it easy. So he did just that, slowing down from near-constant sprinting to a relatively fast jog, as there were now less and less intact robots to find around the 'main street' of the replica city.

And then the ground started rumbling.

Thinking it was the cause of someone carelessly using their Quirk, Subaru picked up the pace and ran around trying to see if anyone was hurt or needed help getting to safety, but when he saw their faces light up with shock and fear, he turned around, and his eyes went wide at the sight of something that looked right at home in a kaijū movie.

(Yes, that was the Zero-Pointer, Subaru's inner monologue. How could you tell?)

And this was now happening. Present Mic couldn't have mentioned how big the Zero-Pointer was actually going to be?

By this point, all of the other students had come out of their collective stupor were now high-tailing it in the other direction and screaming bloody murder, while the giant fuck-off robot was now menacingly wheeling its way over to them, covered in the ominous cloud of dust that it was continuously kicking up.

Subaru's face was emotionless as he continued to stare at the Zero-Pointer, and for a moment, unconsciously grit his teeth and balled his hands into fists at the sight of the behemoth causing memories of the White Whale to resurface in his mind's eye. The two looked nothing alike, and yet in that instant, the shock and mild fear that he had been feeling fizzled away, as his rational thought slowly gave way to nothing but pure, unadulterated rage.

Subaru took a step forward.

He wanted to put it down.

And then another three steps.

He now had what it took to take down the Great Beast by himself.

He called forth One for All, and the green lightning of Full Cowl seemed to only add to his conviction.

He wasn't weak anymore.

And then before he broke into a run, he suddenly stopped.

(But who exactly was he going to prove that to, when no one knew about Natsuki Subaru in this day and age?)

As quickly as it came, the desire to step in and take on the Zero-Pointer and avenge his previous shortcomings finally left him, leaving Subaru to just simply blink at the approaching behemoth, before he briefly closed his eyes and slowly took a deep breath, turning around, finally deciding that it just wasn't worth his—

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit...!"

Subaru immediately paused.

It was extremely faint, but he recognized whose voice that was.

He whirled back around, and just as he thought, was met with the sight of one Mineta Minoru, who appeared to be holding his foot in his hands, and the heightened perception of Full Cowl seemed to slow down time even more as he watched a large slab of debris grow ever closer to meeting the concrete, with no regard at all for the boy in between.

Kōchō (校長) - headmaster/principal

Kaijū (怪獣) - literally 'strange beast'. The Japanese subgenre of tokusatsu (e.g. Super Sentai) that's all about the giant monsters (Godzilla).

I will now attempt to get the next chapter out before the 28th.