Disclaimer: I do not own MHA nor am I earning money from writing this. As a rule of thumb, if you recognize something in this fic, I probably do not own it.
"I might be going insane" – Normal speech
'It isn't normal to have voices in your head' – Thoughts, Writing
True – The voices in your head
"You will never forget this day" – Remembered speech
Chapter 21
Izuku regained consciousness early in the morning, when it was still too dark outside to see anything. He rolled over, looking at the clock out of the corner of his eye. The soft white light of the numbers read '2:18'. Izuku shut his eyes and thought for a second. The bruises that he should be feeling, the aches and cramps that should have been there as a result of fighting for hours with minimal warm-up thankfully missing.
Izuku rolled back over into the warmth of the place he had been. He could wonder how he had gotten here later, after he had gotten more sleep.
Later that morning, at 5:57, Izuku woke up again. This time, however, the first signs of light were showing over the horizon. Sitting up and swinging his legs around to get up, he walked over to his dresser and picked out a set of clothes for the day. Throwing his towel over his shoulder, Izuku made his way downstairs to the showers. For the first time, when he arrived downstairs in the morning, someone else was already awake.
Sitting at the kitchen table was none other than Iida Tomoyo, absentmindedly eating from a bowl of cereal. She nodded in Izuku's general direction once she noticed him, a gesture that Izuku returned before entering the bathrooms.
Removing his shampoo from the cubby, Izuku walked into one of the shower rooms and locked the door behind him. After turning on the water and taking his clothes off, Izuku waited for the water to warm up while thinking about what had happened last night.
He mentally walked his way through the fights, from Bullet Hell to Ferra, and thought about what he could have done better. Ferra's words were still running through his head, causing him to wonder what he could have done to win the fights that he had lost. Her statement about Izuku only being able to beat five of them outside of the limited environment had rung true with his quirk, and the drive to improve himself had once again reawakened inside him.
The progression of people that he had found himself sparring against had long been stagnant, with All Might sitting at the top. Now, however, he had found a set of opponents with much more varied strengths and even one who surpassed All Might. Suddenly, the path before him was no longer a single cliff face, but a staircase of plateaus backed by several increasingly higher mountains.
The water had finally warmed up, and as Izuku stepped under it he felt a strange feeling. Beads of water began to pour from the skin of his chest, all slightly discolored. After staring at it for nearly a minute, the flow from his chest stopped and the feeling on his back returned to normal.
As he showered, Izuku racked his brains for a reason that what he had seen had just happened. After the first few minutes he had narrowed down the source of the occurrence to Aquarius, but it took him the rest of the time to figure out how she had caused that to happen. Apparently, she had run some water through him last night to heal him, and the waste product had been set to release as soon as the pores of his skin began to absorb any water.
Izuku shuddered at the amount of control that the process implied Aquarius had over her quirk. Toweling off, Izuku dressed in the fresh change of clothes and left the bathrooms, walking back up to his room to drop off the dirty clothes. After he was done, Izuku walked back downstairs and prepared himself some breakfast.
While he was eating, Katsumi came downstairs. Having taken a shower last night while waiting for Izuku to return, she was unburdened and immediately spotted Izuku sitting at the kitchen table.
Still shaking out the cold in her limbs, she made her way over to Izuku and punched him in the shoulder before sitting next to him. As Izuku playfully rubbed his shoulder, she reached over and stole a piece of his breakfast before beginning to rant at Izuku.
"'It's just a party, Kacchan, you don't need to wait for me' you said. And yet, you have to be carried back by All Might and some old lady and I have to carry you up to your room. What exactly happened last night, Izuku?"
Izuku shook his head. "In my defense, the first half of the party was exactly what I thought it would be. All of them are really interesting people, and their quirks are all unique in their own right. It was really fun, and I got to know a few of them quite well. After that, there was an announcement about my joining and a heroine named Bullet Hell leaving, and then things really started to go off of the rails."
Katsumi nodded, stealing more of his breakfast while he spoke. "And would that be the part where you, in All Might's words, 'fought all of us in a row'?"
Izuku nodded. "Yeah, I wasn't prepared for that. It went pretty well though, I won or drew against everyone except All Might, Quicksilver, Aquarius, and Ferra. I'm surprised that I did that well, but I don't think I'll be beating any of them anytime soon. Especially not Aquarius."
Noticing Izuku's shudder at the mention of Aquarius's name, Katsumi's interest was piqued. "What's she like?"
For a moment, Izuku struggled to find the words to describe her. "Well, if the 'old lady' that you said brought me back to the dorm is who I think it is, you've already met her. To describe her… imagine my mom, but forty years older and a hundred times more terrifying, and that would be a good description of her as an opponent. When you're talking to her, however, she's the epitome of the overly-caring grandmother. Very kind, treats you like an eight-year-old whether you're eighteen or eighty."
Katsumi considered the person he was describing. It matched well with the woman who had brought Izuku back to the dorms last night before flying away. Stealing one last piece of Izuku's breakfast for good measure, she stood up and walked over to the fridge to find something for herself. As she did so, she noticed Tomoyo staring at the two of them.
"I'm sorry, I must have misheard. You said that you fought All Might last night, as well as someone stronger than her? I…" Tomoyo's question trailed off, with too many questions to choose from. Before she could pick one, Izuku clarified.
"I didn't fight Aquarius, that would've been pointless. I surrendered the moment she stepped into the arena. All Might and I sparred until she got to about fifty percent, but those weren't the hard fights. That honor goes distinctly to Timepiece and Ferra."
Tomoyo, being relatively knowledgeable about heroines due to her sister, only recognized two of the four names. "You fought All Might at half of her maximum strength? And Timepiece is the one heroine that has a cloning quirk, but who are the other two?"
Izuku shook his head. "Fifty percent isn't half of her maximum strength, though I know that's confusing. It's around… one seventy thousandth? M4 could give you a better number, but that's close enough. You're right about Timepiece, and Ferra and Aquarius are retired heroines from a while ago. Respectively, they're a magnetokinetic and a hydrokinetic, and trust me when I say that you don't want to fight either of them."
By this point, Izuku had finished the remains of his breakfast and stood up. "I'm going to get ready for class, and we should probably wake everyone else up so that they can eat before classes."
Tomoyo nodded. "An excellent point. I'll knock on doors on this floor if you can do so upstairs. There's no sense in being late to the first day of class, even if we're only going to an assembly today. As the class 1-A, we must set an example for our peers at all times!"
Chuckling at the enthusiasm of his classmate, Izuku nodded and made his way upstairs. Knocking on the doors of his classmates and calling out that they had little more than an hour and a half before classes led to a variety of results. Some of them were already awake and answered the door before he could say anything, while others were still asleep and made groaning noises at being woken up.
Once he returned to his room, Izuku began to prepare for the day, using his quirk to find out what he should bring. Some things, like his backpack, notebooks, and pens were a no-brainer, but when he asked about the undersuit for his armor and his quirk told him to wear it he abruptly began asking more questions.
By the end of them, Izuku was fully kitted out with his full bodysuit, a second skin of nanobots, and as many extra nanobots as he could fit into his armor and bag as possible. His quirk confirmed that he still wasn't ready, and that he should make a stop by the Support Course building before classes to prepare himself further.
Moving quickly, he hugged Katsumi before he left, jogging towards the building. Again using his student ID to get in, he made his way to the first-floor labs and entered. The lights were on and the doors were open, with a note on the whiteboard telling students to look around the lab until Power Loader arrived.
Izuku immediately made his way to the wall of materials and began to search through them with his quirk. Resistors, wires, specific pieces of plastic and metal, a motor, and several other components were moved from the shelves to one of the empty workbenches.
Over the next forty minutes, Izuku assembled the device. It was a sort of engine shaped around a capsule meant to hold a spherical object, one that was built to use one of his spare power cores for the nanobots to power it. Izuku then placed the device gently into his backpack. He didn't know how this would be useful for class today, but his quirk had never led him astray before.
As he stood up to leave, someone else entered the room. She looked like she had stayed up all night and yet still more energetic than anyone should be about getting to class half an hour early. Her eyes, rather than bloodshot, were entirely yellow with a crosshair in the center. She waved at him before catching sight of the equipment surrounding the room and dashing towards it, taking her time as she went over every piece of equipment.
Izuku tried to get her attention but received no response from the girl. Before he went to try harder, he looked at the clock and realized that he had to be in class soon, and if he left now he would just barely make it in time. With his goodbye falling on deaf ears, Izuku left the labs, arriving at the Hero Course building only five minutes before the class was supposed to begin.
Pushing open the larger-than-normal doors to the classroom, Izuku was greeted with a scene of chaos.
Katsumi was arguing with Tomoyo about putting her feet up on her desk, one which was more likely than not to devolve into fighting if the two remained as stubborn as they were about their positions. Mina, Melissa, and Tooru, among others, were huddled in one corner of the room, occasionally looking at one person or another all at once before looking away.
A few of them were just causing trouble near themselves, like Minoru Minerva, Kaminari Doi, and Kouji Kanna. The rest of his classmates were sitting on the far side of the room, looking in on the rest of their classmates.
Izuku quietly took a seat nearby Katsumi and Tomoyo, ready to intervene if he had to. He slid his backpack underneath his chair, leaning forwards slightly and resting his head on one hand as he waited for their teacher to arrive.
Eventually, she did, making her way into the classroom almost unnoticed due to the distraction that his classmates were unknowingly providing. Izuku kept his eyes locked on the woman as she made walked silently over to the desk at the front of the room and sat down. She looked over the rest of the students with a look of disgust on her face, only changing when she noticed Izuku looking directly at her. When their eyes met, her expression shifted to one of approval and regret for a second before moving on.
Once she was done surveying the class and their lack of reaction to her arrival, she pulled a sleeping bag from beneath the desk and pulled two stacks of clothing from it, setting them on the desk in front of her before stepping into the sleeping bag herself and zipping it shut.
The sound of the zipper attracted a few looks from the observing half of the room, and a few seconds later she cleared her throat, breaking up the argument and circle and sending them to take their seats.
"It took most of you a minute to realize that I was even here. If you want to be a heroine, then you can't miss details like that. Now, everyone come to the front and take one of these uniforms. We'll be doing some ability testing today, and all of you need to be changed and in the practice field in the next fifteen minutes. I'll be waiting there, and if you aren't ready and present by then, I will transfer you to General Studies. Are there any questions?"
Tomoyo raised her hand with the form and precision that Izuku had come to expect from her over the past few days. Their teacher raised an eyebrow and nodded toward her, prompting her to ask her question.
"Sensei, I have a multitude of questions. First of all, you have yet to introduce yourself to us, which is unbecoming of a teacher. Secondly, we are scheduled to attend a schoolwide assembly today, are we not? Will we not be missing out on important information if we do not attend? Also, transferring someone out of the course that they have worked so hard to get into on such a random cause is a blatant violation of power, a power that likely only the principal herself holds!"
Aizawa Shiko shook her head. Every year there was someone like this, and every year that person was usually the one who got sent to General Studies. Last year, there were three of them who had questioned her and they had convinced the entire class to stay in the room under the logic of "she can't kick out all of us".
How wrong they had been.
Still, as Shiko rationalized it, it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. When you were a heroine, after all, unless you were giving orders you were obeying them and there was no better time to teach them to listen than in the controlled environment of the classroom. The unreasonability of them getting kicked out of the Hero Course if they failed to follow simple instructions was simply the best way to do that and it also taught the teenagers that their actions could have lasting and serious consequences. It certainly gave a few of them a reality check, and when the heroines earned back their place in 1-A at the Sports Festival they were better for it.
"Here at UA, we teachers have much more freedom in our teaching methods so long as we first get them approved by Nozomi. So, if you'd like to take that particular risk, I invite you to ignore me. Otherwise, I expect to see you outside in fourteen minutes and twenty…seven seconds."
The statement implying that they were already burning time spurred the class into motion, Momo passing out the outfits rapidly as the rest of the students formed a line. When Izuku got to the desk, however, he noticed something.
There were only female outfits there, each resembling his undersuit in a way but distinctly different. Under the pitying, humorous, curious, and angry looks of the rest of the class, Izuku shook his head and grabbed his backpack, leaving the room and heading directly to the practice field. As he walked, he contemplated shifting the appearance of the nanobots to resemble a male version of the form-fitting uniform.
It would cause fewer problems in the long run if he at least looked like the rest of them, not obviously alienating himself from them, but at the same time, he was feeling annoyed at his teacher for not even considering that the standard female uniform wouldn't fit him.
In the end, he ended up shifting the second skin of nanobots into an outfit that was similar to the uniforms that had been handed out but was distinctly different. The faint lines that crudely traced his circulatory system were a darker green against the midnight blue of the uniform, a representation of the power flowing from the core resting above his heart throughout his armor.
When he arrived at the training field with ten minutes to spare, only Shiko was standing there, thankfully no longer in her sleeping bag. She glanced over at him, and a feeling that Izuku only barely remembered flowed through him. As he tried to place where he had felt it before, the teacher spoke.
"I'm fairly sure that's not the outfit that I handed out to the class, Midoriya."
There it was, the one woman at his first art exhibition. The one that his mom had talked to and he had never seen again. Quirk nullification by line of sight, according to his mother's story so long ago. There was only one heroine who matched that powerset.
"I am equally sure that a uniform designed to fit you would never fit me even ignoring the gender difference, Eraserhead-sensei."
That name got a flash of surprise from the heroine. "Fair enough, Midoriya. If you can, however, avoid mentioning that name to your classmates. It's always fun to see how long it takes them to notice, and if it takes them too long I can always send them to General Studies. So long as problem children like you don't give up the game, it makes a good lesson in awareness."
The two of them stood in silence for a minute as the seconds ticked by. "Out of curiosity, how did you figure it out?"
Izuku shook his head. "Even if I don't have a quirk, I can still feel when Onaic energy is being used on me. Also, I remember many things, including a certain incident at an art exhibit a long time ago."
Shiko shook her head. "A mere coincidence unmasks me faster than any non-analysis quirk. Well, good job anyway."
Their conversation ended then, with the first of the girls leaving the locker room and making her way over to where the two of them were waiting. The rest soon followed, and Tooru, the last one, joined them with three minutes to spare.
The reactions to Izuku's modified outfit were generally curiosity, with some disappointment and a knowing look from Katsumi. Before anyone could say anything, Shiko began the introduction.
"Today we'll be doing some basic physical testing. While you were in school before, you were forced to use your quirk as little as possible to provide a level playing field for people with different types or strengths of quirk and those without. Here, however, we're training you to use your quirk seriously for the first time."
Shiko glanced down at a printed copy of the leaderboards for the practical exam. Izuku was first, but as he was quirkless it wouldn't prove the point that she was trying to make. The second on the list was Katsumi, and with a quirk like 'Explosion', the demonstration would be assured to show the contrast she wanted.
"Bakugou, how far could you throw a baseball back in high school?"
After a moment of thought, Katsumi quickly replied. "On a good day, maybe a hundred meters."
The teacher nodded. Certainly a respectable score, especially without using her quirk. "Now, take this baseball and throw it as far as you can with your quirk. You can do anything so long as you stay within the circle painted over there."
Katsumi nodded, taking the ball from the heroine with her left hand and beginning to build up the explosions on her right arm. By the time she had reached the circle, the right forearm of her suit was blasted away with a glow of continuous explosions. For a moment they stopped, the sweat dripping down to pool in her hand as she transferred the baseball.
Then, with a thunderous sound, she blasted the baseball forwards at an incredible speed, the result easily clearing the one-kilometer limit of the training field and flying into the next field, and the next one. Unfazed, Shiko checked the program that tracked the balls.
"Two thousand six hundred meters." She turned to face the rest of the class. "This is the difference between the education you have received previously and the one you will receive here. We will teach you to bring out the potential that lies within you, but you need to be willing to take that step. So, show me your potential!"
Mina looked ready to clap in excitement. "How wonderful! This will be so much fun!"
A smile crept onto Shiko's face. That bait never failed to attract someone before, and it had worked once again. "Oh? You think this is going to be something fun, to take part in lightly? How about I up the stakes. I'll record all of your rankings on each of the tests we'll do today, and whoever has the lowest rank on average will be transferred to General Studies. Perhaps that will make it 'fun' for everyone."
Mina shrank back at the harsh response and a few of the glares from the other students. They quickly got over this, as they began to line up for the fifty-meter dash.
There were a few frontrunners, including Tomoyo, Melissa, and Katsumi, who stepped up to take the test first in the expected manner – running. After them, however, came the rest of the students, who had quirks less suited for speed, where creativity came into play.
Momo produced a scooter using her quirk, Mina slid on a stream of her acid, and even Minerva threw the balls that formed her hair at regular intervals to bounce off of them. Tokoyami Fumiko used her projection to carry her over the distance, while Tsuyu simply jumped the distance after a few steps of gaining speed.
After those with quirks suited to the challenge, however, came everyone else. Eiko, Tooru, Doi, himself, and everyone who didn't have a quirk that could increase their speed. Their results were grouped around five seconds with a few outliers. Izuku, Ojiro Makaira, and Kirishima Eiko, who had trained their bodies far more than the rest of the class, broke into the lower half of four seconds, while Tooru and Kanna, who had never trained that much, were nearly at six seconds.
The standing long jump had a similar separation, though there was much less overlap between the groups. Those of them who could fly using their quirks, including Katsumi, Fumiko, and Ochako, simply flew until Shiko told them to stop. The rest of the class, with the exceptions of Melissa and Tsuyu, were limited by their form more than anything else. Izuku and Makaira, again, led this particular group of students due to their years of training.
The repeated side steps, again, were separated into the elite few and the rest, with Katsumi, Izuku, and Minerva taking the top few spots. While Katsumi and Minerva used their quirks to rapidly propel themselves back and forth, Izuku used the simple fact that his legs were longer than anyone present to trivialize the test.
After the first three tests, they continued to the standard grip strength and distance run tests, albeit with a few modifications. The distance run was changed to laps of the field in a period of thirty minutes, which gave a much larger range. Unlike in the fifty-meter dash, however, the methods of flying, building a scooter, or sliding on acid were forbidden. They were only allowed to run under their own power for the duration, which led to a much different set of results.
Unsurprisingly, Tomoyo placed first, running the three-kilometer loop over twenty times in the half-hour period. Following her undisputed first place were Izuku, Eiko, Melissa, and Makaira, all of whom made between four and six laps. After them were the rest, everyone making at least two laps before time was up.
From there, they returned to the area where they had started to repeat the ball throw. Katsumi, having already gone, stood to the side while the rest of the class went.
Similar to the standing long jump, this was about form for most people. With the majority of quirks unable to do anything to aid in this task, most of the results were under a hundred meters with a few noticeable exceptions.
Ojiro Makaira used her tail to throw the ball with more centripetal acceleration, achieving a distance of three hundred meters. Tsuyu, similarly, tossed the ball straight up and then kicked it with both legs, just falling short of the five-hundred-meter mark.
Tokoyami Fumiko, on a different train of thought, sent out Dark Shadow backward into the shadow of the building behind them to strengthen the projection before throwing the ball six hundred meters, an act that raised questions about whether she was still "inside the circle". Shiko dismissed their questions, stating that as long as her physical body remained within the circle she was still following the rules.
Melissa pushed herself to five percent of One for All and then punched, the ball flying just over six hundred and thirty meters before touching the ground. Momo pulled a small cannon from her stomach and broke a kilometer with ease, but the truly impressive scores had yet to come.
Kouda Kanna, using her quirk, managed to call down a bird of prey and convince it to carry the ball in the direction she wanted. The tracker in the ball stopped moving after five minutes, just over four kilometers away from their current position.
Her first-place spot, however, was not to last. Ochako simply touched the ball, applied her quirk, and threw it in the general direction that they were supposed to without much care. The class watched in silence for ten minutes while the device Shiko was holding tracked the distance of the ball. After that, Shiko pressed a few buttons on the screen and more readings appeared.
Position: 13,411 meters
Velocity: 22.352 meters per second
Acceleration: 0 meters per second per second
The implication of these readings was staggering. Rather than simply removing the effect of gravity on the ball, Ochako had removed the effects of all forces acting on the ball other than her throw, meaning that the velocity and direction of her throw would remain unchanged until she dropped the effect of her quirk.
After watching those numbers remain constant for a minute, Shiko voiced her opinion. "I'll mark this down as infinity, and we'll move on if that's good with everyone." With the general agreement of the rest of the class, Ochako had secured the top spot.
Only Izuku was left now, and he had seen why his quirk had prompted him to build the device earlier. Once he entered the circle, he opened his backpack and pulled out the capsule. In a short few seconds, Izuku had placed the ball inside of the capsule before locking it. M4 pushed one of the local power cores to the palm of his hand, and Izuku inserted it into the slot before snapping it closed. The engine began to burn while he was still holding it, and before it got too out of control Izuku threw it with a slight roll to stabilize it.
By the time it reached the end of the field, the engine had reached its maximum output and was still rising in altitude. On the screen, Izuku could see the statistics for his "throw", still enabled from Ochako's infinite throw previously.
Position: 1,438 meters
Velocity: 184.081 meters per second
Acceleration: 22.500 meters per second per second
Instead of assigning him a similar infinite score, however, Shiko gave him an unamused look. "Preparation is certainly an essential skill for a hero to have, but any of us could have done what you just did." She handed Izuku the last of the balls that they had, activating her quirk as she looked at him. "No fancy preparation this time, Midoriya."
Izuku thought for a moment. A quirk like Momo's was allowed, and she had built herself a cannon. If that was allowed…
"M4, Railgun."
The nanobots forming his armor melted off, revealing the black undersuit beneath. Izuku removed the hood and mask of the suit before directing the shaping of the railgun itself and the aerodynamic shell surrounding the baseball.
As the class watched, Izuku built a cannon several times the size of the small one that Momo had used earlier. Melissa, the only other student there with a serious interest in technology, listened to the instructions Izuku was giving with interest and slowly growing awe. Midoriya arrived about ten minutes into the construction, and poured his body into the construction of the railgun, fleshing out the frame that Izuku had been working on.
From his armor, Izuku removed the backup core of his suit and placed it in the shell of the baseball. It wouldn't do, after all, for someone to recover the projectile and his nanobots without his knowledge, nor would a standard local node produce enough power to withstand the forces that the shell would soon receive.
Once he was finished, Izuku placed the cone-shaped object into the holding area and looked over at Shiko. Receiving a nod, he pressed the holding area downwards and stepped as far away as he could while remaining in the circle.
With the sound of the sound barrier breaking muffled by the railgun itself, the baseball was spat out of the end of the three-meter-long barrel and immediately left their vision. Shiko tracked it for nearly a second with the use of her quirk before looking over at the screen.
Position: 31,407 meters
Velocity: 12,981 meters per second
Acceleration: -10.972 meters per second per second
Shiko shook her head and sighed in exasperation. "I'll mark you as second place. I couldn't go one year without getting another problem child, could I?"
Izuku shook his head with a smile. The railgun fell to the ground, part of it returning to Izuku's suit and backpack while the rest formed Midoriya. Midoriya smiled at the class before stepping away.
Afterwards, they went back inside without changing and walked through the halls until they reached a gymnasium-like area. A folding table was set up next to the entryway, with many identical devices spread out evenly on its surface. Against the wall on the other side of the entryway were two machines with padded metal plates and digital displays, while the rest of the room was open.
Once they were finished looking around, Shiko cleared her throat and began. "On the table to your right are a set of grip strength machines. Once you pick one up, please record the number next to your name on my tablet. The devices will automatically record the highest median value over a three-second period for your result, so please don't try punching them to get a higher instantaneous value, that's what the machines to the right are for."
"Once you have received a result that you are satisfied with for the grip strength test, please form a line next to the striking strength test machines on our left. Once all of you have finished I will be explaining the procedure for that test."
They formed an orderly queue at the table, Momo both passing the devices out and recording their numbers. After thanking her and receiving their device, the students spaced out in the open area of the gym. There were certainly a variety of attempts, from Minerva using both hands to push at both ends of the device to Tsuyu using her legs to Momo using a clamp.
Izuku placed his hands on opposite sides of the clamp and pressed them closer together until his fingers got close enough that he could lace them together, further increasing the amount of force that he was able to exert. Eiko used a similar method, as did those close enough to see either of them do so.
After about fifteen seconds of pushing the halves of the device closer and closer together, Izuku reached a point where he couldn't push any further with his own strength. At that point, M4 took the initiative to press slightly harder with the suit he was wearing, moving the device a few centimeters more compact before holding for a period of five seconds. He then slowly relaxed his muscles, allowing the machine to expand back to its original state before he placed it back on the table and walked over to the other half of the room.
Five minutes later and the rest of the class had finished as well, prompting Shiko to start her speech.
"This next test has two portions. While we encourage the usage of quirks, we also need to know how physically strong you are. When you reach the front of the line, please first punch the pad of the machine to your left without the use of your quirk and then strike the pad of the machine to your right with the use of your quirk. There are to be no cannons or railguns for the sake of this test. Are there any questions?"
The assembled students shook their heads and began to line up in front of the machine to the left. As Izuku watched his classmates punch the machine, he was both impressed by some of them and appalled by others. The first part of this test was about physical strength, yes, but it was also about form. If you couldn't throw a punch well, the amount of force that you could exert was limited.
For example, Kaminari Doi's and Jirou Kyoka's scores could be compared. Despite having similar muscular development, Jirou was able to punch with nearly four hundred newtons more force than Denki. Makaira's form was a perfect example of this as well, putting the motion of her entire body, tail included, into the punch. While she wouldn't necessarily be able to improve that score, it was still far above the rest of the scores before her at eight thousand four hundred newtons. Eiko and Izuku achieved similar scores, with the two of them just falling short.
On the other machine, however, some of the attempts were much better. Tsuyu opted to kick the pad instead of punching it, tripling her score. Shoko threw a bolt of ice into it, Melissa used One for All, and Katsumi accelerated herself from across the room with her explosions before unleashing a much stronger one as she reached the machine.
While he was waiting in line, Izuku decided to form the nanobots in his suit and backpack into the shape of a hammer. By the time he had finished, he was holding a Warhammer with a handle longer than he was tall and a head that weighed more than anyone in the room aside from himself.
As he swung it around, getting a feel for it, he felt a tap on his shoulder. Looking over, he saw Momo with a similar hammer scaled down for her size and strength. Neither of the two had noticed the plans of the other, and after a brief standoff, Izuku smiled. "Great minds think alike, I guess."
Momo smiled as well. "I suppose they do. Good luck with your attempt!"
Seeing that Momo was next up for her attempt, Izuku nodded towards the machine. "Good luck to you as well."
Both of them achieved a much higher score on the second machine, with Momo breaking ten thousand newtons and Izuku nearing twenty-five thousand. Once everyone had finished, Shiko gathered them in the center of the room for their final test.
"Though all of you have competed in the same tests today, we realize that not everyone is suited for the challenges put before them. Even though you can't choose all of your battles as a heroine, you certainly can choose some of them. For example, Iida can run faster and for longer than any of you can, while Uraraka can throw a ball as far as she wants to."
"For this final test, you are given a choice. You can choose to have one of your results from a previous test count a second time, or you may propose a test of your own that allows you to fully display your potential. The first-place scorers on previous tests are as follows: Iida Tomoyo, Minoru Minerva, Uraraka Ochako, Bakugou Katsumi, Eiko Kirishima, Asui Tsuyu, and Melissa Shield. Would any of you like to choose an alternate test or would you like the first-place score to be counted twice?"
None of them elected to take another test, so Shiko made her way through the rest of the students one by one to see if they wanted to propose a unique test for themselves. Out of the twenty-one students, only six of them accepted the alternate test: Eiko, Doi, Tooru, Kyoka, Sero Hana, and Izuku.
Doi, as expected, wanted to test the maximum strength of her electric discharge, reaching well over a million volts according to a device that one of the supplementary staff members brought over.
Kyoka did an interesting test of her ability to find the resonant frequency of various objects, shattering them directly upon touching them with one of the earphone jacks of her quirk.
Tooru tested her stealth by removing her uniform and then stealing something from everyone in the room, with only a few people noticing her presence.
Hana swung around the room for a few minutes, building an elaborate web of tape that collapsed into a cocoon at the slightest touch.
Eiko wanted to test her durability, and asked everyone from the lowest to highest strength test ranking to hit her until her quirk was about to fail. She made it remarkably far, tanking blows until Shoko hit her with a bolt of ice and she called the test.
Izuku, once again, was the last to take the test. However, he wasn't trying to do the same thing as the others. He had no quirk to use, to display the potential that was unable to show itself on the test. Instead, he was here to prove that he didn't need a quirk to be strong.
"For my test, I'd like to engage in single combat. One weapon, no armor, and we fight until someone yields. Quirk usage is allowed, but no injuring anyone."
Shiko nodded. "That's certainly an interesting choice, but I suppose the difference between confidence and foolishness is competence. Who would you like to fight against?"
Izuku smiled. "Who better than the person judging the fight?"
The look of tiredness on Shiko's face that had persisted throughout the day was gone now, leaving a serious expression with elements of contempt. "If that's the hill you want to die on, I suppose."
The rest of the class moved away from the two of them, most of them expecting Izuku to lose with the sole exceptions of Katsumi and Melissa. As the armor melted away from Izuku and moved away, part of it coalesced into the blunted form of his sword in his right hand. Adopting a ready position, he found that his teacher had removed her scarf and was holding it in both hands, ready to fight him as Eraserhead.
At Eraserhead's call of "Begin!", the two of them began to move, testing each other with probing attacks before moving forwards into closer combat. Eraserhead's movements were like those of a professional dancer, flowing past Izuku in movements that left her scarf trailing behind her to restrict his movements while kicking at him wherever she saw openings.
Izuku, meanwhile, had adopted a modified form of his usual style. His movements were ethereal, moving just barely enough to avoid each blow and making every swing of his sword count. Rather than solely defending, however, he was always moving closer to Eraserhead, striking to disarm or put her in a worse position.
Every once in a while, Eraserhead would activate her quirk to cause a sense of unease that quickly passed, allowing her to create some room despite the decreasing effectiveness. While her style was effective against people that relied on their quirks, forcing them to adjust to an entirely new style of fighting, Izuku never had to shift from the style he had honed for more than a decade.
After a few minutes, Izuku saw an opening and abruptly switched his style, moving from his elegant movements to Katsumi's rushing ones, lunging out at Eraserhead in a bid to disarm her or knock her back. Unfortunately, the heroine had used her quirk to distract him midway through, causing his attack to falter. He returned to his original style and continued as if nothing had happened, continuing the fight until Eraserhead called the end of it.
"Well, Midoriya, I have to admit that that was a pretty impressive showing," Shiko said, only slightly tired from the spar. "You were able to defend yourself, but weren't able to expand your range to bring the fight to me or take the initiative. As the hero, you can't let the villain dictate the flow of battle; you must decide how the fight will go as much as possible."
Izuku nodded in acceptance as the nanobots that were his armor swarmed back to him, crawling up his body as the sword melded back into them. Now that he was done, Shiko walked back over to where she had set down the device that she was using to enter her scoring for the student-choice exams and entered her mark for Izuku's performance before turning the screen away from the students.
After a few more inputs, she nodded and turned the device off. Looking at the gathered students, she figured that it was time to wrap up the aptitude testing.
"All of you except for Bakugou, Midoriya, and Shield can return to the locker room and change back into the clothes you came to class wearing. Place the uniforms that you are currently wearing into the same locker that you placed your clothes into before and leave a note on the locker with your name for future identification. Once you're done changing, head back to the classroom and wait for me to get there. Any questions?"
After the rest of the students had re-entered the main building, Shiko turned to the three of them. "First of all, congratulations on scoring the top three places in the aptitude tests. Because of that, however, I'm going to make some statements about the three of you when we get back to class, and I just wanted to let you know beforehand so that it didn't look like I was singling you out and that you didn't take it to heart. Are you all okay with that?"
Melissa and Izuku nodded after a moment of thought, while Katsumi had a few words to say. "So long as you aren't outright insulting us, that's fine with me."
Shiko's laugh in response bordered on sadistic. "Don't worry, I won't be insulting any of the three of you. Well, at least not intentionally. If you don't have any more questions, hurry along. I have to submit these results in my office before I get back to class, so I'll be taking long enough for everyone to get a quick shower in. Midoriya, since you didn't go to the locker rooms on the way out here, just walk through the same doors that everyone else left through and look for the labeled door."
With that, she turned and walked to a different door leading into the gymnasium, scanning a badge in her pocket before slipping through the door. The three of them looked at each other and shrugged before walking to the student door. Just before they parted ways, Izuku spoke up.
"Do you two think we should or shouldn't tell the rest of the class what she wanted to talk with us about?"
After a second, Melissa replied. "We probably shouldn't, she seemed like she wants to do a big reveal. I feel really bad for whoever's going to be kicked out though. Less than a day of class, we haven't even learned our teacher's name, and suddenly you're sent to the General Studies program? It sounds miserable."
Katsumi nodded in agreement. "Yeah, it would suck to just get kicked like that. Maybe whoever it is will be able to appeal or get back somehow. Our teacher- this is getting annoying. I can't believe she didn't even introduce herself when Tomoyo asked! How are we supposed to talk about her without everything sounding awkward?"
Izuku shook his head, looking over his shoulder as he pushed open the door to his locker room. "I found out her heroine identity's name before the rest of you got out of the changing rooms, and apparently she makes a game out of it to see how long it takes people to find her name. A little bit of quirk analysis goes a long way, remember!"
With his last few words, the door to the men's changing room clicked shut, leaving the two of the staring at the door. Katsumi stared for a moment before turning around and walking into the opposing locker room. Melissa quickly followed.
Their arrival was met with a great deal of attention, and after sharing the news that they would have the time to get in a quick shower before they went to class, a few cheers.
Izuku faced the small room with a sigh. There was a single locker on one wall, clearly new and unlocked with a bench bolted into the floor in front of it. There was only one shower stall connected to the room, which smelled of cleaning supplies used to hide the lack of scent that normally came with such a room.
The locker room at Aldera had been larger, with more than five times as many lockers as the male population of the school. At the time, Izuku had disliked the way that the school have covered up the emptiness of the room by filling up the walls with unused lockers, but now Izuku saw why they had done it. It was much lonelier to only have what you needed without the façade of company.
After a quick shower, Izuku put the undersuit back on. The nanobots did a wonderful job of cleaning the suit while he wasn't wearing it as well as preventing it from getting dirty or smelling bad in the first place. He would need to wash it eventually, but for the rest of the class, he could wear it again without trouble.
Shifting the skin of nanobots back to the appearance of the clothes he had been wearing before they had left the classroom, Izuku walked back through the halls of the building. He was the second person to get back to the classroom, with the stoic Kanna sitting at her desk with her eyes closed. He took his seat as well and waited as the rest of his classmates trickled into the room.
Nearly half an hour after they had been dismissed in the gymnasium, Shiko returned to the room with the same device she had been recording their scores on earlier and an adapter cord. Ignoring the questions from the class, she plugged the cord into both the device and a port on the side of the projector screen, letting the coils of the cord spill across the floor between the wall and her desk. When she cleared her throat, the room fell silent.
"Well, this certainly was an interesting class. In some ways better than my previous ones, in others much worse." With the press of a button, the rankings from the aptitude test appeared on the projector.
1. Bakugou Katsumi: 3.667
2. Midoriya Izuku: 3.778
3. Melissa Shield: 4.333
4. Ojiro Makaira: 5.667
5. Asui Tsuyu: 6.000
6. Kirishima Eiko: 7.222
7. Yaoyorozu Momo: 7.778
8. Tokoyami Fumiko: 7.889
9. Iida Tomoyo: 8.000
10. Kouda Kanna: 10.000
11. Todoroki Shoko: 10.444
12. Sato Rikku: 10.556
13. Shouji Mai: 11.556
14. Uraraka Ochako: 11.778
15. Minoru Minerva: 13.778
16. Jirou Kyoka: 14.000
17. Aoyama Yui: 14.556
18. Hagakure Tooru: 14.889
19. Sero Hana: 15.000
20. Ashido Mina: 15.111
21. Kaminari Doi: 15.556
"The numbers next to your names represent the average of all of the rankings that you received on the tests today. While I know that some of you may be disappointed in the ranking you received, I can only say one thing."
The class, Doi especially, switched their focus from the rankings to their teacher, hoping for good news. Reassurance, a way to improve their rank, even in their wildest hopes for her to say that the threat of kicking the lowest scorer to the General Studies program had been a test or a "logical ruse". Unfortunately, they were met with the stern expression of the woman who had a long track record of doing such things and no mercy to spare.
"I am equally disappointed in almost all of you."
These words killed their hopes in a heartbeat.
"The whole lot of you have had your quirks for your entire life, and yet only one of you managed to do better than a quirkless person. While some of you beat him in a few tests, at the end of the day only one of you managed to do consistently better than him. That is by any standard, especially mine, unacceptable."
"As the heroines of tomorrow, you must stand ready to face the evils of the world, usually at a disadvantage. The villains that you will be facing when you graduate won't be quirkless, and they will surely have more experience than you for a long time."
"Let me propose a hypothetical scenario. If instead of going to UA, Midoriya were to become a vigilante or a villain and you encountered him after you graduated, how would you fight him? This isn't a rhetorical question, so I'd like to hear a few answers."
There were a few seconds of murmuring before Momo raised her hand and was promptly called upon. "I'd stall him as best I could and call in for help, preferably somebody with a quirk that has the range or ability to counter him."
Shiko nodded. "Knowing when to fight him and when not to is certainly useful, but what happens if you can't stall him or run away?"
Both Katsumi and Shoko raised their hands at the same time, and Shiko arbitrarily selected Shoko to give her answer first. "I'd freeze him in a block of ice and beat him until he's unconscious."
The abruptness and vicious nature of her response shocked the class for a moment before Shiko questioned the answer. "And if he's too fast for you to trap him?"
The look in Shoko's heterochromatic eyes as she answered could only be described as apathetic. "Then I'd freeze everything. Even if I can't capture him, he won't be able to touch me."
At this point, an incredulous laugh escaped Katsumi's mouth, drawing the attention of the room's occupants to her. As if confused at the attention, she looked at them like they were fools. "Isn't it obvious? Any of us would simply lose."
Shiko looked over at her, a hint of curiosity entering her eyes as she spoke. "Would you care to elaborate on that? As the only student here who outperformed him, I expected a slightly more optimistic outlook from you."
Looking around the room before she spoke, Katsumi took in the curious gazes of the rest of the room. Most were curious, a few angry, and two were uninterested in her pessimistic judgment of the situation.
"As Izuku's oldest friend, I've known him far longer than any of you have, just so you extras don't waste time questioning me. When we were four and the two of us were playing together, he found out more about my quirk than I have independently over the course of an hour. Without his help, I wouldn't have done better than him today by a long shot."
"Even though he doesn't have a quirk, he's been training since he was eight to make up for that, physically and mentally. The night the two of us graduated high school, he asked me to pick a villain and then proceeded to dissect her – her pattern of attack, her quirk, the location and timing of her next attack, and even what most of her face looked like from a few blurry images of security camera footage. She was arrested the next week from the information he provided on a whim."
"Last night he went to a party of the highest scorers on the entrance exam. He was only afraid of fighting one person there, and it wasn't All Might. From the way he's been writing in his notebook this entire time, I'm sure he's finding some way to win all of those fights next time. I didn't get to hear as much about it as I'd have liked this morning, but I'm sure that there's more to the story than what I heard over breakfast."
"If he were a villain and he decided to attack one of us, it would already be too late. He'd have the advantage and he would neutralize our quirks in some way, turning the fight into a game that he could win instead of a head-on clash. The worst thing you can give him in a fight is time to think or prepare."
At this point, Katsumi locked eyes with Shiko. "Even if he couldn't win then and managed to get away, he would win the next time. I saw him freeze up while you two were sparring earlier, and each time the duration shrank. If the two of you were in this hypothetical scenario, by the next time you met he would have found a way to keep himself from freezing up due to your quirk, and you wouldn't have been able to hold him off so well."
From there, her eyes jumped between a few people in the room, as if to make a point about how Izuku would work around their quirks specifically. "He would lure you away from your animals, he would have a base to neutralize your acid, he would shine a spotlight at you, he would fight you in an enclosed space, he would dilute my nitroglycerin until I can't ignite it, and he'd find a way to repeat Kyoka's trick on your ice. Just because we have quirks and he's quirkless doesn't mean that he'd lose against any of us."
The people she was singling out were, in order, Kanna, Mina, Fumiko, Tsuyu, herself, and Shoko. She could have continued with the rest of her classmates,
If she had known about Izuku's identity as The Librarian, then she would have mentioned it, but as it was her explanation was enough to cow the room into silence. The only sound, which quickly drew the attention of everyone else, was the scratching of Izuku's pencil against the paper of his notebook, putting his thoughts on last night's party on paper. As he lifted his pencil to move to a new line, Katsumi snatched the notebook from in front of him, bringing his attention to the rest of the class as she began to read what he had just written.
"Caritas (retired)"
"Quirk: Intent-based barriers"
"Notes: Strength of barrier related to the intent of forming it? Definition of intent – would robots trigger this? Where is the intent judged as originating from? What counts as intent – inanimate objects sometimes affected by intent but not always. Lack of aging – barrier of a concept? More research required."
Just as Izuku was about to reach over and take the notebook back Katsumi handed it back to Izuku, who quietly closed it and placed it back into his backpack. Katsumi turned back to face Shiko, who was trying to place Caritas in her memory of famous heroines. "I rest my case."
The explanation over, Shiko picked up from where she had left off. "While that was a far more informed opinion than I was going to give, you captured the main point perfectly. Just as any of you could beat each other in the right circumstances, Midoriya has proven that he is equally as capable of this as any of you are. If you want to say something about his support gear, I have it on the word of the Support Course that it was entirely self-developed and therefore counts as a part of his own strength just as much as anything Yaoyorozu makes."
Leaning forwards, she rested her elbows on the desk and laced her fingers before resting her chin on her hands. "I have to say, when I first saw these results, I was tempted to expel everyone who did worse than Midoriya to prove a point."
At that sentence, a wave of dread swept through everyone who would have been kicked out, though a sliver of hope appeared on Doi's face.
Shiko continued. "However, even if you haven't realized it yet, I see the potential in all of you to improve and, for better or worse, none of you will be sent to General Studies today. However, don't think that this means you're off the hook. After the Sports festival, we'll be doing this set of tests again with any students that outperform you in the festival. If you don't show any improvement, fully expect yourselves to be replaced."
The class let out a sigh of relief and Doi began to cheer at her good fortune. The people at the desks around her offered congratulations and their own words of relief that she wouldn't be leaving them. In this commotion, the class missed Shiko's mumbled follow-up remark. "And if I kicked all of you out I'd have to deal with All Might, Nozomi, and Endeavor. What I would give to trade classes with Kan…"
As she glanced over at the clock on the wall, Shiko decided that it was late enough to end class. It was a few hours after lunch, but holding them here for another two hours seemed inhumane. Clearing her throat, she regained the attention of the classroom.
"All right, class is over for the day. Go out, get some lunch, do whatever you want. I'll see you all tomorrow, and if you don't show up I'll send you to General Studies."
While she was folding her non-combat scarf into a square to use as a pillow, she was interrupted by a called-out question from Tomoyo. "Sensei, you still haven't introduced yourself to us. What should we call you, your heroine name?"
Shiko slipped back into the sleeping bag and zipped it up, leaning forwards onto her scarf before replying. "Call me Aizawa-sensei. And if any of you can find out my alias, I'll give you extra credit. No asking Midoriya for help."
And with that, Aizawa Shiko pulled the sleeping bag over her head and shut her eyes, fully intent on enjoying the little sleep that she could get.
Author's note: Hello everyone! I feel that some explanation is warranted for the aptitude tests. Before this chapter, I have never read the manga or watched the anime, but for this, I felt the need to because the aptitude tests are one of the first stations of canon that we have properly arrived at without it getting butterfly effect-ed along the way.
So I understand that theoretically the tests in canon are a replication of the theoretical fitness standards in their middle schools, but I just think that most of them were uninspired or lacking creativity. This is a bit of a rant, and you are free to skip over it.
The canon tests were the 50-meter dash, the standing long jump, the distance run, the repeated side-to-side steps, grip strength, the ball throw, and offscreen they did sit-ups and seated toe-touches. I will now go over my thoughts on each of these in detail.
50-meter dash: This one is a good judgment of a hero's ability to move quickly in the field and I fully approve of it. It was pushed into irrelevance a bit by the general physical enhancement that Onaic energy provides, but I believe that it still serves its purpose here.
Standing long jump: As mentioned, this test is kind of built for Tsuyu and negated by people that can fly. I left it in because I felt that it provided a chance for me to differentiate the rest of class 1-A.
Distance run: Here's where I made some changes. In theory, Momo could re-use the scooter(motor vehicle) that she had made for the 50-meter dash, but I felt that this test was best used as a measure of the stamina and general physical fitness of the class so I made quirks forbidden here. This doesn't apply to Tomoyo or Tsuyu, who have mutant quirks that they can't not use, but it serves as a good measure for the rest of them.
Side-to-side steps: This is used in canon purely to make Izuku last by giving Mineta a first-place score. I left it in, albeit for a similar purpose after I saw how badly Minerva was getting clowned on in my rankings.
Grip Strength: Again useful for a hero to have, and I see no problems in keeping the test.
Ball throw: This is the big one, the one that gets displayed in every fic that makes it to this point regardless of how AU it is. I felt that I had to do it justice, allowing everyone that I saw potential in to shine.
Unfortunately, there were a few problems in canon. Specifically, Momo's cannon. The manga says that she shot the ball 28 kilometers with a relatively small cannon. This is simply unreasonable. I could go on and on about the why and how, but the maximum range of cannons of that type was about three kilometers. Even then, the kickback is nothing to joke about, and certainly isn't safe to be standing right behind. Sure, there are cannons that could shoot a ball 28 kilometers, but the one she used simply isn't one of them.
Also, why did nobody think that the person who can talk to/control animals couldn't just have an animal carry it an incredibly long distance, on the ground or in the air? Regardless,
Sit-ups: This is a pointless test. There is little to be gained from it hero-wise, and it's something that should really be used for training instead. Here I replaced it with the striking strength tests, something more immediately relevant and useful.
Seated toe touch: This is an EVEN MORE POINTLESS test. 1. Girls are naturally more flexible than boys due to their different physiology. 2. If you have longer arms, great! If you have shorter arms, that's simply too bad! 3. If you have long legs, you lose! If you have short legs, congratulations!
Assuming everyone trains to their theoretical limit of flexibility, this test is still too arbitrary. I have eliminated it.
Instead, we get the opposite, something which never appeared in canon: the ability for students like Hana and Doi to stand out! Some quirks simply don't get effectively tested, and I felt that allowing the students to keep a test that they felt displayed the use of their quirk and make it count a second time balances out the students that need to display their potential apart from their peers.
I also get frustrated with how nobody ever gets kicked out because they did badly on the tests and not simply because the author didn't like them (Minoru), didn't want to write them (Minoru), or them getting kicked out was a necessary part of the plot (Generally Izuku, though I could see an argument for another character). I was tempted to have Doi kicked out and sent to general studies, but it just threw off the tone of the next chapter too much. She gets to stay… for now.
The rant is now over.
Unit conversions:
1 meter per second = 3.6 kilometers per hour ≈ 2.2 miles per hour
1 meter ≈ 3.3 feet
The position is where an object is, velocity is the rate at which the position is changing, and acceleration is the rate at which the velocity is changing. This goes further, with jerk, snap, crackle, and pop (I assure you that I am not making this up, these are the official terms for the derivatives of position with respect to time [ wiki /File: Time_derivatives_of_ ] {remove spaces}).
All statistics for average throwing speed, punching strength, and running speed have been researched and increased to account for Onaic Energy affecting physical ability.
Please leave a comment or review if you have any questions or if there's anything you'd like me to know.