Another week, another chapter. Things are starting to calm down now that this is actually the end of the Entrance Exam arc, but I'll try not to make it boring until we get to Battle Trials.
Special thanks to Writermakeshift for beta-reading.
XIII. My Trial, Part V
"MIDORIYA—!"
While Subaru's body twitched at the sound of a voice yelling out his name, it was the sensation of something slamming into his side that forced his eyes open, and to his shock, he realized that it was actually the guy from before who got Mineta to safety, having just tackled him mid-air. It also took another moment for him to recognize Mineta being the one to call out to him.
The hell were they doing back here?!
Before he could even so much as open his mouth and react to what was happening, his brain finally caught up to just where exactly they were headed for. He immediately craned his neck behind him to confirm that yes, they were about to collide with the brick wall at the end of the street, and only had enough sense to at least cover himself in Full Cowl to try and soften the impact.
That was, until his eyes homed in on the rough-looking patch of purple balls decorating the wall. The same purple balls that made up Mineta Minoru's hair. The purple balls that could stick to things. Those purple balls.
Ah, he saw what was happening now.
In the ever-closing time window he had left, it was all Subaru could do to tuck his head in and brace for impact as he felt his back collide with the brick wall with an audible grunt. But because of the 'patch' from Mineta's Quirk acting as a makeshift cushion, there wasn't actually a whole lot of pain that came with it like he first thought would happen.
With a groan, he opened his eyes and lightly shook his head to try to get rid of the disorientation. Looking out ahead of him, he saw Mineta leaning on a wall of rubble that vaguely had the shape of a ramp, and he couldn't help but grin and give him a thumbs up, which the other boy returned. He even found himself letting out a low chuckle, because in spite of catching that debris and telling Mineta to get to safety, he was the one who ended up needing to be saved in the end.
(Man, it would really suck if he didn't see him in the hero course after all this.)
The foreign sound of someone clearing their throat brought Subaru out of his thoughts, however, and he was finally made aware of the weight of what felt like something hanging off of him. He looked down, and sure enough, there was that one guy from just before who helped carry Mineta out, looking like he was awkwardly hugging him from the way one of his arms was sandwiched in between Subaru's back and the patch of purple balls behind him.
"I, uh...don't suppose you'd be able to get us down from here?"
"Oh," Subaru responded. "Uh, I think I should be able to? Give me a sec." He tried moving his arms, but when he (obviously) didn't get past anywhere but how much his tracksuit sleeve could stretch, he ended up just activating Full Cowl (he was mostly sure the lightning it generated wouldn't hurt other people), but then that just ended up in him actually just ripping the thing, so now he was at a bit of a loss.
...until he remembered he had an entire other category of abilities, that was.
Because Invisible Providence was very much not something that originated from this world, it was immune to the effects of Mineta's Quirk, but that didn't change the fact that it was still just one singular hand, which meant having to remove themselves one sticky ball at a time. Fun.
"And TIME IS UP! THE EXAM IS NOW OVER, FOLKS!"
(Yes, thank you, Present Mic. Very helpful of you.)
Suppressing a sigh of frustration and the urge to swear, Subaru got to the painstaking task of removing the other guy currently attached to his legs, and then getting himself off of this kami-forsaken wall.
After finally removing the last of the sticky balls attached to himself (as discreetly as he could, anyway) and getting his feet back onto solid ground, Subaru and the other guy met back up with Mineta, who started going off about how 'insanely cool' Subaru looked as he took care of the Zero-Pointer, and then sheepishly apologizing for coming back for him.
"And I know you said to get out of there, but when I saw you about to fall, I kinda got the urge to just...try to help, you know?"
"It all worked out, so it's fine," Subaru replied. "Thanks for that, Mineta. I wasn't really sure how I'd land there. But what exactly did you guys do?"
"Oh! Uh..." Mineta then went on to explain how he convinced the other guy (who promptly introduced himself as Īda Tenya to the two of them) to turn back around and help, as well as what they did to break Subaru's fall.
"...and you came up with all of that in just that amount of time?"
"It was kind of a...spur of the moment thing," Mineta replied, making a 'so-so' gesture with his hand.
"But even so, that was quite ingenious decision-making on your part, Mineta-kun," Īda said. "It would have never crossed my mind to do such a thing myself."
"Hehe, thanks..." Mineta moved to stand up straight, but when he saw him suddenly wince, and Subaru immediately moved in to support him when he saw it was because of him putting pressure on one of his feet.
"Looks like we need to get you checked out by the nurse," he said nodding in the direction of an old woman (the school nurse and a pro hero, if he had to guess), who was going around giving kisses to some of the other test-takers, a lot of whom now looked much better off than before.
"...yeah..."
"By the way, Midoriya-kun—" Īda suddenly said, as they slowly walked towards. "What exactly happened with the Zero-Pointer? I think I have a good basis on what you Quirk is from what I saw of you throughout the Battle Center, but what I saw up there didn't seem to line up."
Oh. "I'm not...really sure myself," Subaru admitted. It obviously wasn't related to either of his Authorities since both Īda and Mineta mentioned it...so did that mean it had to do with One for All then? "I don't remember doing anything like what I did there." From what he remembered, it functioned extremely similar to Invisible Providence, but instead of a hand, it was more like a couple of black ropes (or...tentacle-looking things...) came out of his arm.
This was something he'd need to talk to All Might about, the next time he saw him.
Once Mineta's leg got taken care of by the school nurse, Subaru, Mineta, and Īda promptly made their way to their assigned buses, where the majority of the time on the way back to the locker rooms was spent by Subaru and Mineta getting to know a little bit more about each other.
"According to the Quirk doctor, it's more or less a mutated version of my mom's minor telekinesis Quirk, where my Quirk has the ability to express itself either as a limited radius where I can freely use telekinesis on anything under a certain weight, or as an electrical field that surrounds my body and enhances my strength, speed, and reflexes," Subaru explained (read: lied).
"Wait, so like a dual-type or whatever it's called?"
"Well, kinda? It's a bit different than that, but I wasn't really paying attention to all the fancy science talk."
"Yeah, that's fair," Mineta replied, nodding like he understood.
To be honest, Subaru kind of felt pretty bad about lying straight to Mineta's face like that, but saving each other's skins still didn't change the fact that One for All wasn't just his secret to keep—he didn't know how well the other boy could keep a secret, not to mention that they were surrounded by a lot of other people who definitely looked like they were listening in.
Being the only guy in the entire testing zone to single-handedly take on the giant robot tended to have that sort of effect, after all.
Once their bus finally reached its destination, everyone inside slowly got up and filed out of it once again (Subaru couldn't wait to shower and get out of these dirty clothes he was in), and once he and Mineta joined the crowd of all the other student test-takers, he was greeted by the sound of someone calling out his name.
"Hey! Midoriya-kun!"
His ears perked up at the sound of Uraraka's voice coming from somewhere behind him, and he turned to see her, Katsuki, and another person (who was apparently shirtless) accompanying them, all walking up to them.
"Ah, there you two are."
Subaru turned to his side to see Īda walking up to him and Mineta, and greeted him with a wave.
"Damn, guess I should've brought my tag-a-long, too," he heard Katsuki remark, which got a snort out of him.
"Did you get yours from the Zero-Pointer too?"
"Yup. But get this—Uraraka threw hers at the thing."
Subaru's gaze snapped to the girl in question, who now had a sheepish look on her face. "Why?"
"Uh..." Instead of actually answering the question, Uraraka turned to the new guy beside her. "You tell him!"
"Eh? Why me?" the new guy demanded, pointing to himself, but when Uraraka still refused to answer (alongside Subaru and the others continuing to stare at him expectantly), he finally deflated. "Okay, fine."
He then promptly introduced himself as Kirishima Eijirō (with Subaru and the others giving him their own names), and then went on to explain how he saw Uraraka using her Orbital Momentum attack for most of the exam, and how he managed to convince her to actually throw him at the Zero-Pointer when it showed up.
And because his Quirk was apparently the ability to harden (that got a laugh out of Mineta), it meant that he pierced right through its head when she threw him and immediately shut it down. And when he messed up the landing (which Subaru could tell he didn't really think about), Uraraka ended up having to catch him.
"I'm not gonna lie," Subaru began, turning to Uraraka after Kirishima was finished with his explanation. "While that does sound pretty cool, that easily could've led to him dying."
Uraraka crossed her arms and puffed up her cheeks in response. "Well excuse you, mister Full Cowl—it worked out in the end, didn't it?"
"Yeah, I know," Subaru replied, resisting the urge to pinch his nose. "I'm not saying you shouldn't have done it—" Even though he kind of wanted to. "—but you really need to be careful about doing that with actual people going forward."
"I..." Uraraka started, before she deflated with a sigh. "You're right. I could've killed him if I didn't get to him in time...but I kinda wanted to take that chance to do something really cool, you know?"
"Yeah, I can understand that," Subaru replied, stepping forward and patting the top of her head. "But if you're gonna put someone in that situation, then just make sure to do that with someone who can actually land on their own, yeah?"
"Fine..." Uraraka said, before half-heartedly swatting away his arm, prompting a chuckle out of him.
"We should...probably get going," Īda interjected, after having stayed silent the whole time. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I would seriously prefer to be in clean clothes if we're going to stand around and talk."
"Ah, fair enough," Subaru conceded, before turning around and pointing in the direction of the locker rooms. "To the locker rooms, then, lady and gents!"
It didn't take very long (around twenty-five minutes or so) for everyone to shower and change back into their school uniforms, but as they continued making their way back to the school's entrance, Kirishima suggested they all hang out for a bit. However, Īda ended up declining, saying he already had plans to meet plans to meet up with his brother at his agency in Hosu.
"Oh, no worries," Subaru replied, pulling out his phone. "We can just add each other on LINE then, and we can hang out some other time."
"Yes, I wouldn't be opposed to that."
Once the two of them exchanged their LINE IDs (how the hell this app was still going after all this time was still mind-blowing), Īda split off from them with a wave when they reached U.A.'s front gate, and walked towards a sleek, black car that was parked by the front of the school.
"Guess he really is a rich kid," Katsuki commented, as they all watched the car drive off.
Well, yeah, he did say he came from an entire family of pros. Subaru actually wanted to ask Īda if he'd be willing to get him Ingenium's autograph, but like...even he had a bit too much pride to be asking for those kind of things. Even if he wasn't as much a diehard hero fan like a lot of other people, just the thought of having something a lot of them would be willing to pay good money for was somewhat appealing to his teenager-level brain.
"So—anyone up for getting some ramen?"
Six Days Later...
"Oh, so that's how Hitogami dies. Dang," Subaru murmured, slowly nodding his head at the revelation. In the hundred-something years since he originally disappeared from Chikyū, there was obviously a whole lot of stuff he missed out on. Actually scratch that—a lot didn't even begin to cover it.
Anime adaptations. Entire new manga and light novel stories. Single-player video games and visual novels. Hell, even American cartoons and superhero movies. For a guy who was originally from the early twenty-first century, the possibilities for entertainment were endless, even after more than ten years of combing through everything he could find.
If it weren't for all the baggage of getting re-isekai'd with unfinished business and his current social and moral obligations, then he could very well see himself falling back to his old hikikomori lifestyle. Just now, he finally got around to finishing up the sequel to Jobless Reincarnation after forgetting the first one was even finished in the first place.
"I-Izuku!" All of a sudden, there was a sudden bang! to his side as the door to his room was slammed open, the noise of which startled Subaru and caused him to drop the book he was reading.
"It's here...!"
"Huh? Oh, wait, it is?" Subaru asked, finally noticing the white envelope his mother had in her hand. Gingerly, he took it from her and flipped it over to see a big red wax seal, with the letters U and A layered on top of each other. But what's more, he didn't feel the usual paper letter, but instead something hard and circular.
"Well?" Inko prompted. "Aren't you going to open it?"
"Uh, right." Moving over to his desk, Subaru pinched the top and bottom of the envelope near the end, before he gingerly ripped it open and let the object slide out onto the desk, revealing itself to be some kind of gray disc. And when he got a closer look at it, he saw a small button sticking out from the side, and immediately chose to press it, causing a light to sprout from the center of the disc.
He didn't expect to hear the boisterous laugh of All Might (and the sight of him in his 'powered state' and wearing a yellow pinstripe suit) instantly replacing the once-silence of the room. "You expected a written message, didn't you? Instead, I am here, but as a recording! Now, I bet you're wondering: 'Why am I the one giving you this message?' Well, I'm sure you already know the answer, but I'll get right to it."
Subaru watched on as his mentor cleared his throat before looking back at the camera. "Midoriya Izuku," he began. "Because of your outstanding performance in the entrance exam—" Here, he stopped talking, and the hologram screen transitioned to show what looked like a montage of hun going around and taking out the various robots with Full Cowl.
Okay, yeah, I guess I look pretty cool here, he had to admit.
"—you've managed to earn yourself fifty-three Villain points. This puts you in the overall top fifteen scores, meaning you've definitely made it into the hero course. Good job!" After that, All Might stopped speaking for what felt like several seconds, and for a moment, Subaru thought the recording was already finished. "However, that's not all I have to tell you!" All Might continued, raising a finger.
The screen then transitioned to a fast-forwarded recording of him running towards Mineta and catching that thing of debris, and then him running towards the Zero-Pointer and pulling out its parts with those appendage things that came out of him.
"Because you saved several of your fellow examinees from certain injury and made the preemptive call to stop the Zero-Pointer, you've been awarded something we like to call rescue points. As the name clearly implies, you can only gain these by helping out other examinees avoid danger as it's about to happen, because what kind of hero school would we be if we didn't reward one of the most important parts of being a hero?"
"As it happens, your efforts to stand by your heart even in a seemingly-selfish environment has earned you...drumroll, please..." Here, an actual drumroll sound effect played, and the screen once again changed to a scoreboard. "...fifty rescue points! This brings your final score up to a whopping total of one hundred and three points, bringing up to second place out of everyone in the practical entrance exam!"
And sure enough, there was his name, ID number, and all of the points he had gotten, all listed right right below Katsuki's first place column and his own score of seventy-two villain points and thirty-one rescue points. And right below himself in third place was Uraraka's name, and her score of forty-one villain points and thirty-five rescue points.
"Well done, Midoriya-shōnen," All Might continued, with the screen cutting back to the man and him now clapping in applause. "I look forward to seeing your growth at U.A. High School." He gave the camera a double thumbs-up, before the screen promptly cut to black and the playback ended, leaving just a floating text box with the word 'Replay?', and two more boxes right below it labeled 'Yes' and 'No'.
"You...you did it!" Inko exclaimed behind Subaru, who felt her giving him a tight hug. "We have to tell someone. I have to tell Mitsuki. We should celebrate! How do you feel about katsudon? Is it too late for katsudon?"
"Uh...didn't we just eat dinner?"
"I'll just make it tomorrow, then," Inko replied, waving him off. "But then we should have a party. We should invite your friends! I even saw Ochako-chan's name in the top ten too. And the new ones you said you made at the exam, too! I wonder if we should also..."
Right...best to just let her get it out of her system, Subaru mused, softly smiling and shaking his head in amusement at his mother's antics. If he had to be honest, even he wanted to raise his fist in the air and yell out a 'yatta!', but that would've just woken the neighbors up.
Turning back to his desk, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone to text his friends about their own scores, but when he turned it on, the sight of a notification banner at the top of his lock screen and its subsequent message caused him to frown at what it said.
Yagi Toshinori: We need to talk. How soon can we meet at Takoba Beach, all three of you?
Chikyū (地球) - Earth (the planet).
Yatta (やった) - Hooray!/I did it!/Let's go!
Even if I had Subaru promise himself to live his new life to honor his old one, the reality of almost two hundred years of very likely perfectly preserved pop culture (remember, MHA's internet is still the internet) would be extremely enticing for any teenager (especially one who had been missing out on his favorite shows and series since 2012) to just hole up in their room and binge everything for the rest of their life.
Bro doesn't need to be depressed all the time, you know.
There's going to be a 'filler' chapter after this, and then it's finally off to U.A. (and all the good shit I have planned), but until then, I'll see you all next week!
Chapter 14 ETA: 05/19/23