Four Heroes

by Faff

For Ken it was personal. For Butters it was inevitable. For Izuku it was aspirational. For Itsuka it was principle. Each one had to become a hero, and each one would find themselves in the most chaotic student body U.A. had ever seen. From students to staff, this year there is no corner of this hero academia that could remotely be considered normal.

3. Entrance Exam (Part 2)

Chapter 1: Entrance Exam (Part 2)

—DEATH—

Ken sat towards the back of the bus, having filed out of the written examination hall ahead of the rest. He was looking out the window at the great expanse of concrete when a familiar voice caught his attention.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Satamu and Kairuou."

Poking his head up above the seats, Ken looked across the aisle and called out. "Catõman?" His voice coming out muffled as always, though this time from behind a scarf as opposed to his cold weather parka.

"Kenny?!" His fat best friend yelped in surprise.

Sure enough, from the seats Catõman had been addressing, a massive fluff of red hair poked up. "Oh, hey Kenny!" Kairou waved. "I didn't know if you'd make it!"

Kenny waved a gloved hand back, before shifting over and shimmying across the aisle, taking the seat next to the one Catõman had taken. "We all made a promise dude, fuck if I'm going to be the one to break it!" Off-handedly giving his chubby friend a fist bump, Kenny tilted his head at Kairou, in the gesture he used to show he was smiling widely. With his aversion to being seen, over the years he'd picked up various habits when it came to body language.

"What are the odds we're all in the same practical? I thought they'd have split us up." Sutamu said, scratching his neck in a thoughtful motion.

"Middle school, that's probably the reason." Kairou added, ever the reasonable one. Despite wildly different circumstances taking them to different middle schools, the four had stayed friends throughout. The distance between those of them who had moved not being great enough to push them apart.

Kairou's attendance of a hero prep-school. Sutamu going to a school deeper in the mountains, closer to his family's new farm. Ken himself going to an inner-city middle school closer to the orphanage. Catñoman being the only one of them who remained in Sausupaku to attend their local middle school.

"It's to stop us cooperating, right?" Ken asked his clever Jewish friend.

Before Kairou could answer though, the tubby Catõman Bulrog had interjected. "As if I'd need you guys help to pass this thing."

Kairou's response was practically second nature. "As if we'd help you, fat boy."

"Fuck you, Kai!" With the profanity began an old routine, electricity sparked across Catõman's head, his own quirk zapping him. The other three friends chuckled, and sitting here on the bus, Ken almost felt like he was back in that quiet little mountain town.

"School days, school days!" He started, an old song they used to sing at the bus stop coming to mind.

With an ironic smile, the other three boys picked up the refrain with no sense of pitch or tune. "Teachers golden rule days!"

"God damn it, shut the fuck up you stupid fucking extras!" Two rows in front of them a spiky haired blonde kid with mean looking red eyes stood up and span around to glare at them.

"Don't tell me to shut the fuck up you whiny little pussy!" Catõman naturally was the first to rise to the aggression, his sudden outburst of more unique profanity causing a wave of electricity to spark around him. Ken could give him credit, when things like this happened Catõman always opted to absorb the static himself, rather than let it loose. Well, maybe not always, but six times out of ten wasn't a bad lifetime record.

"I'll fucking kill you out there you bastard!"

"Oh yeah?!" Catõman spat back. "Well, I'll make you eat your parents!"

"Sit down!" An adult voice bellowed from the front of the bus, and as they turned their attention to the speaker, what they saw was a human wall of concrete. The pro-hero Cementoss, and one of the faculty at U.A. was staring them down with unmoving impassivity. His flat grey face offering no room for debate.

With a grumble and some deathly stares, the four of them and the red-eyed boy returned to their seats, facing forwards and out of each other's eyeline. Even though their fat friend had been the one to flare up, the other three of them had tensed, all ready to unify and verbally humiliate the stranger.

"I'm so going to zap that guy in the ass." Ken heard his fat friend grouse under his breath.

With a nudge, Ken lowered his sunglasses slightly and muttered back. "Dude, if you do that, they'll dock you points."

There was a slight subsidence in Catõman's bloodthirst, but that was quickly subsumed by a glint that Ken had seen in his friend many times. It was a look he had learned to fear and hate in equal amounts. Though there was a part of him that relish those dark schemes. Ken's willingness to do whatever as long as it was a distraction, and Bulrog's inability to let things lie made them something of a bad pair. That didn't stop it being fun though.

"Only if I do it on purpose." He heard the chubby vulgarity machine whisper before they fell into a little silence and the bus began to trundle off towards the exam site.

"Did you guys say you were from the same middle school?" Another voice, thankfully not one so aggressive as the kid from up front, asked. The kid leaning across the aisle to talk to them had a metamorphic quirk, one which caused Ken to have to look twice before he realized what the situation was. In place of a face the boy, or who he assumed was a boy, had a speech bubble for a head. Currently etched upon which was a large wavering question mark.

"Dude, what's wrong with your face?" And leave it to Catõman to immediately insult the metamorph.

"It's his quirk, dickwad." Kairou bit out with a roll of the eyes. "Don't be a fucking asshole."

"Sorry about that, it's best to ignore him." Sutamu put in, leaning forward to meet the gaze of the speech bubble examinee. Ever the mediator between their two friends, he continued. "We're from the same town, went to the same elementary, but different middle schools."

"Oh, right! I was wondering because I was here with some of my middle school friends who applied, and we got split up. I'm a little nervous not having anyone to talk to." The kid seemed excitable, the friendly sort, but was clearly laboring under the weight of some anxious jitters.

Sutamu shrugged casually and spoke. "Don't worry bro, I'm sure you'll kick ass."

"What's your quirk, if you don't mind me asking?" Kairou asked with a smile, offering quite naturally to bring the kid into friendly conversation.

From where the speech bubble had previously displayed a question mark, now a line-drawn smiley face appeared. "It's called comic, I can cause, well, basically if I shout onomatopoeia, I can cause those affects in the world."

"Like, pow or kaboom or whatever?" Sutamu asked.

With the appearance of a thumbs up on his bubble, the kid replied. "Yeah! Can't use it too much though or it gives me a sore throat."

Kairou nodded and smiled enthusiastically. "That's really cool, man!"

Putting into the talk, Ken himself added. "Yeah, you're sure to pass."

With a side-to-side head bob, the otherwise featureless boy adequately conveyed some level of humble acceptance, before asking. "What are your guy's quirks?"

"Fat-ass here—" Kairou began.

"Hey!" Catõman burst out.

Only for their Jewish friend to continue as if nothing had interrupted him. "—causes electric shocks whenever he swears."

Wiggling his fingers like a magician, Sutamu answered. "I can basically control industrial machinery with my mind."

"I can fire lasers from my eyes." With a slight activation of his quirk, Kairou's eyes glowed with yellow light for a brief second. "And Ken…" Then suddenly he remembered why that wasn't something they talked about, outside of Catõman being a scumbag. "Well…"

"I have a quirk." Ken drew their attention to him, the one place it had been avoiding despite him having the focus all of a sudden.

"Yeah…" Sutamu didn't sound as sure as someone should when answering such a simple question. Unfortunately, with Ken, it was anything but simple.

Clearly keen to redirect the conversation, Kairou waved his hands in a mimicry of kung-fu and spoke. "He knows all sorts of martial arts and stuff too, can kick our asses that's for sure."

"You can fucking say it you guys." Though his tone wasn't usually as petty as it became when Catõman ripped on him, he was still as blunt as a bulldozer. "We all know Ken doesn't have a quirk."

"I have a quirk douchebag." Raising his hands in relaxed dismissal, Ken looked between them all. It was a topic that had come up before, and it didn't bother him. Not as much as it should perhaps, maybe if he really didn't have a quirk, it would be less bearable. But long ago he'd figured out that it would take a lot of work for people to believe him, and even then, the nature of his quirk might still prevent it.

"Your meth-head parents were quirkless, your yakuza wannabe brother is quirkless, face it you poor piece of shit!" The insults didn't sting, coming from Catõman it usually took something especially vitriolic or petty to get a proper reaction from him. Even so, that didn't mean he'd ignore it. Though Ken did notice that the prick hadn't brought up his sister, which meant Catõman had at least learned his lesson from the last time.

Eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses; Ken felt his fists clench involuntarily as he stared down his supposed friend. "Fuck you, fat boy!"

Looking at Catõman, Sutamu butted in to stop their back and forth before it could flare up. "Knock it off, dude, plus…" Brushing his dark straggly hair to the side, Sutamu creased his mouth into a half-smile and half-joked. "Like, we've seen Kenny do some ratchet shit. I wouldn't do half the stuff he does, that's got to be some kind of power."

Not for the first time, Ken outright said it. "I told you; I have a quirk. I can't die." The awkwardness was palpable, but it wasn't something he was unused to. Part of him even thought if he said it enough, one day they'd believe him.

"What?" It was the speech bubble kid who spoke up, only after a drawn-out nervous silence. Upon his face a constellation of question marks bobbed up and down.

The ginger among them shook his head and definitively changed the subject. "It's complicated. What was your name by the way?"

"Fukadashi Manga! Nice to meet you all." Taking the exit from their spiky topic, Fukadashi gave a tilt of the head Ken was used to employing himself. Humble smile.

"Likewise, Fukadashi-san." Not for the first time Ken marveled at how much his friend had changed over the years, even if his eventual metamorphosis into an approachable likeable everyman was nothing but predictable. "I'm Hachikage Sutamu, this is Bunraku Kairou, that's Catõman Bulrog, and he's Koroserata Ken."

A big smiley face planted itself on Fukadashi's speech bubble as he replied, the jitters completely gone. "Awesome, good luck, I hope we all get in!"

"We will, no problem." His face hidden by a scarf, sunglasses, and a prodigious wide-brimmed hat, Ken gave Manga a thumbs up to show his support. The kid, who had seemed nervous without his friends to talk to had bounced back after some friendly chatting. It was just like Kairou to have noticed that and offered him an olive branch, despite Catõman's behavior being a natural deterrent to them all making new friends. But in the long run, with Kairou's perceptiveness, Sutamu's everyday friendliness, his own weirdness, and Catõman as a social defense system, maybe they made the perfect quartet.

Just a shame they couldn't help each other out in the exam. No, each one of them wanted to get in on their own merit, and not one wanted to risk losing points for cheating.

—DEATH—

Dropping a cement pillar to start the exam was certainly one way to kick things off.

Ken sprinted away from the start line, immediately veering into a side street to get away from the start area. He would miss out on the abundance of robots soon to arrive there, but the last thing he wanted to be doing was directly competing for points.

When he neared the exit of the alley, a one-pointer rolled into view. With finely trained reflexes Ken leapt up and twisted around the robot. The machine was nowhere near quick enough, and without even pausing for breath Ken had netted his first point, a fistful of wires withdrawing from the lower back weak point. Most people wouldn't plug a bare hand into live circuitry, but not only was he not most people, he had gloves. They weren't insulated, the exam requirements prohibiting most support items, but they were better than nothing.

Skidding out into the adjacent street, Ken took in the sight of three robots beelining for the alley, clearly programmed with a map of the battleground, or at least some detection system to funnel them towards where students were.

All one-pointers, he would have to be fast, they weren't worth the effort if he couldn't crush them now and find more bountiful targets.

Not slowing, moving into the guard of the closest. Weak point under the chin, a little panel which nimble fingers opened. As the metal fists came down on him the wires were already his. All impetus for movement stopped in the robot, just in time for him to duck out from under the clenching arms. Lowering down Ken pushed forward, using the wheeled machine as a battering ram for the other closing droid. His next target immediately went off balance and hit the ground.

Relinquishing his grip, Ken hopped back before immediately diving forward. Not caught in the immediate chaos of the two hunks of junk falling, he was able to handspring over them, crouch down by the still live bot and rip out some key wiring. Having planned his next movement even as he was initiating the last, Ken rolled to the side, not even having to look to see what the final target was doing.

Its haphazard swipe was easy pickings for his next attack.

This time, maybe he'd show off for the cameras.

Just a little.

Hopping up, kicking into a higher leap with the aid of the collapsed droids, he executed a crane kick to the camera faceplate of the one-pointer. Electronics were crushed under the boot and the robot went spiraling backwards. After it hit the ground Ken confirmed the takedown by tearing out some key wires.

Four points, nearly one minute. At this rate he'd have around forty by the end… Not good enough. As those thoughts went through his head he was already moving.

One hand came up to resettle his hat.

Bigger targets, more points, was all his mind could focus on. It was like a freaking video game.

Into a building, two-pointer idling by some stairs, a little prize waiting for those examinees who were intrepid enough to go hunting.

Bigger robot, enclosed space, two points. Still not worth his time. Ken growled under his scarf, the harsh sound emerging from him in a shout as he sprang towards the machine.

"Target acquired." A technologically processed voice screeched from the machine, but Ken was already circling round it. The two pointer was raised off the ground by several sturdy legs, with drill-like arms spinning towards him as it rotated on its chassis.

Pushing off the wall to gain extra force, Ken slid under the robot's frame, eyes scanning for those promised weak points. It was then he realized his mistake, while sunglasses indoors looked cool, they weren't the best for picking out small details. Rolling over Ken narrowly avoided the stomping insectoid legs of the robot, bringing a hand up as he did so to flick his shades down. Sharp blue eyes roved over the machine.

This time when a leg came down towards him, Ken kicked his own up as if he were about to start performing prone bicycle kicks. His boots caught the leg and twisted it to the side. It wasn't enough to topple the thing, as it had more limbs to compensate its balance. The intent however was for Ken to gain greater access to the main body of the droid. His legs wrapped around the metal and Ken pulled his torso up off the ground in a hanging sit up. Face to face with the droid he lashed out with one arm, tangling his fingers into the exposed wiring that peeked out from beneath the neck joint. Hard to reach for anyone without exceptional aim, or as he had, close proximity.

As the robot began to crash to the ground, Ken drew one of his looped legs back and kicked off the knee joint. He twisted in the air, landing with arms spread just beyond the threshold of a door deeper into the building. It had taken him too much time, he scolded himself, but there was one thing he could also count on. He now knew where the weak points were likely to be on two of the three types of robots.

Close to eight minutes later Ken had downed considerably more robots, but as he veered around a corner into another alleyway. Ever pushing his search for more targets in every direction around the battle center, he crashed into something.

There was a feminine scream, and Ken went pinwheeling, taking both him and the person he'd run into to the ground in an ungainly heap. He could've reacted quicker, if there had been anything for him to react to, instead he seemed to have slammed into absolutely nothing.

Said nothing let out another scream as Ken pushed himself to his feet, or at the very least tried to. His hands pushed down onto a squishy something and a smooth well-toned something else. He was dislodged from the tangle by a decidedly not smooth not squishy knee jamming itself into his nether region.

Curling up in pain he rolled over and off of this invisible person. Both of them lay there for a second groaning in mixed pain and embarrassment.

"The fuck?" He muffled out from behind his orange scarf.

"You grabbed my boob!" The shrill voice shouted in his ear. The position of the voice was level with him on the ground, but he heard it rise in orientation as the girl let out a yell and he heard her fall back down.

"Why have you got your tits out?!" He barked back, locking the pain away and scrambling to his knees.

"Don't even start, it's my quirk, okay?!" Her tone was heated, even without a face or any body language to convey it her voice did more than enough.

"Okay!" He shot back, spreading his hands in a placating gesture. "Sorry, are… are you alright?"

"No!" Her answer was twisted through with pain, both emotional and physical. No doubt the stress of the exam taking its toll. "My leg, it really hurts, I haven't exactly been going easy here and— "

Trying not to sound impatient, Ken got an idea in his head. "Chill out, we're still on a clock here, let's not waste time!"

"Waste time?! Thanks to you I sure as hell won't be able to bag any more villain 'bots!" He heard a hand smack the ground next to where her voice was coming from, a flat palm frustratedly hitting out.

Ken took in a breath and was about to voice his plan when a loud klaxon blared across the battle center. The signal that there was one minute remaining. "Shit…" He breathed, before refocusing on his new companion and asking. "Can you walk?"

"Sort of." He heard her heavy breaths rise in height, the girl standing up.

With a nod he half-turned towards the exit to the alley. "Follow me, I'll set them up, you knock them down."

"What?" Her immediate response sounded disbelieving, but quite quickly as the sound of destruction erupted in the distance, she followed up. "Really?"

"Yeah, let's go." Jerking a thumb back from where he'd come from, Ken started on a brisk run. As he turned and sped down the street, he could hear the awkward stumbling and pained hisses following after him.

So far Ken had avoided the three-pointers, opting for the far easier pickings of Ones and Twos. Droids that not only tended to move in packs but were far more efficient points-wise, since there were also more of them. He'd also avoided the Threes because they had missiles. He didn't fancy taking his chances there with only the clothes on his back.

If his luck held, the three-pointer he'd passed up just a few moments ago would still be lurking. Sure enough, in the back lot of one of the hollow buildings it was sitting there, idling like the hulking tank it was. The segmented treads, the raised chassis, the pointed weapon-laden arms, and the glinting faceplate attached to the neck armature. The main thing that had kept him away, however, was how deceptively fast these things were. No sooner had he gotten the drop on one or two, had they let out a refrain of target acquired, and immediately fired a barrage of ordinance at him. Resigning himself to the reasoning that these were probably designed for people with high damage quirks to show off, Ken had been avoiding them. Until now.

A few seconds later he heard the huffing and puffing of an invisible girl join him. Casting a look over his shoulder to where he assumed she was, Ken said. "On me, flank to the right, closer to the wall."

"Are you crazy?!" Her words hit his back because as soon as he'd finished, the faceless examinee had swung around the corner into the concrete yard.

No sooner had he appeared did he hear the telltale phrase. "Target acquired."

What he had surmised so far, was that the One and Two point robots were slower to adapt, making it advisable for him to rush them. Getting inside their guard to where they couldn't react as quickly. Seeing as they were robots their articulation was also limited, making it far more advantageous to get into close combat. Where the three pointers differed however, was that they were designed to prevent that. You either had to move at inhuman speeds, or attack from afar.

Or… as Ken had realized on their run here, attack with a coordinated assault.

Instead of charging in, Ken sprinted parallel to the machine. Rockets fired off from its primary launchers. The explosives spiraled through the air, not precise at all, but then they didn't need to be. Heat and shards of concrete scarred up his back even as he made it fairly clear of the impact zone.

Just as he was about to duke back and play keep away with this thing, he heard something that set his nerves on fire. A triplicate chorus of. "Target acquired."

A pair of one-pointers cycling into the yard from behind him, and a two-pointer skittering out from the darkness of the building. Shifting one-foot back Ken took a sidelong stance, keeping both the One's and the Three in clear line of sight. This left the Two-pointer obscured by the bulk of the missile happy tank-bot, but since it was primarily a melee combatant, he didn't pay it too much mind yet.

He waited, listening to the three-pointer. A muffled hiss, followed by a deep whirring sound and then twin clunks. As the sound of reloading played out, ken backpedaled towards the tank, even as the unicycle One's came at him. Left to right he danced from side to side and back into the arms of the three. Right in between the aim of its two missile arms, Ken jumped straight up, twirling his body in a pirouette to reduce his shape as much as possible. Simultaneously he pushed his jump further back into the tank-bot, bringing both arms down on top of one of the launchers. The firing mechanisms had already activated, and with both arms gripping he could force the aim of the right rocket to strike the ground between the twin one-pointers.

As the smaller robots were scattered and broken, the three-pointer let loose its second explosive. Whoever had programmed these things, Ken thought, hadn't had the good grace to give them a self-preservation instinct.

He bent his back into the launcher he'd grappled, and if he was honest, ken could say that this was a new one. The sensation of a rocket burning across your face certainly had a unique kind of pain that accompanied it. Before he could blot out the pain and shove it away with the rest of the aches and bruises, he'd garnered over the exam however, he was treated to a new threat. The two-pointer advancing on him.

Ken's body was so contorted from dodging the missile, that he had no room to avoid the incoming drill arms. Their sharp spinning pain promising to be another new sensation to add to his macabre collection.

Then the three-pointer lost all balance and dropped backwards. Over the sound of his lower back crunching, he could hear the triumphant shout of the invisible girl. From the fistful of wires hanging in the air over its head, Ken could see where his last-minute save had come from.

Slipping down to the ground off the motionless tank-bot, he rolled himself under the two-pointer and in a motion he'd gotten to practice a lot so far, ripped out the undercarriage wire in a flash. He kept on rolling as the machine died a grinding electrical death, and within seconds was out from under the crushing machine.

"Hell yeah! Take that you metal piece of—oh my god you're on fire!" His fellow examinee flipped the switch from overjoyed to frightfully concerned as soon as, assumedly, she turned her eyes on him.

"Oh fuck!" He yelled, not having noticed the fire that had caught on his hat from the cheek kissing missile. Just one of the many downsides of his quirk, sometimes when he was in that combat mindset his pain sense just completely switched off. Though switching wasn't quite the way he thought of it, it was more like a slow dialing down of his awareness of pain. The longer he fought the more he forgot he was supposed to feel it. But death couldn't stop him, why the hell would pain do anything?

Tearing the hat off and turning away from his combat partner, ken swatted the fires off, before returning the singed article to his head. The less he showed of himself, the less likely people were to realize just how badly hurt he was. That was part of the reason for his style at least, the other part he would have to talk about in therapy. Such a shame he didn't have a therapist really, they'd make a fortune off him.

"Time is up!" Another klaxon sounded out across the battle center, signifying that their ten minutes had ended, their chance was done. Now all they had to do was hope.

Two teenagers heaved exhausted breaths standing there, letting the fact that it was all over wash over them. After a few seconds of catching his breath, Ken looked to where he thought the girl was and offered an apologetic shrug.

"Sorry I grabbed your boob."

—MIGHT—

He'd been here less than fifteen minutes, and someone had already had to come to his rescue. Walking into the campus Izuku had tripped on his own feet and been sent straight to the floor without so much as a consoling pat on the back. To his luck and embarrassment, a girl, with chestnut brown hair framing a round hopeful face, had saved him. She had smiled, waved her hands at him, explained her quirk maybe? He couldn't even fully recall that frighteningly friendly encounter.

It had been fifteen minutes and it was already too much.

A pretty girl with an amazing quirk, saving him from inevitable death… Okay, he was exaggerating. Maybe that fall would only have injured him permanently. Was he being overly pessimistic? Izuku didn't think so, but then again, he didn't exactly have the most unbiassed perspective on the matter.

He'd watched her go, skirt fluttering in the cool breeze. She had a skip to her step, a relaxed, happy, bounce. Now he sat in the assembly hall feeling like he was made out of lead. Lead, interestingly, is one of the less bouncy metals… If he remembered rightly. He might not be though, seeing as how his stomach was also doing somersaults, his nerves and anxieties apparently having decided to take up tap dancing earlier.

This was awful. Why had All might chosen him, where was his confidence, the strength he'd been feeling grow day by day. He had worked so hard, never stopping, never relenting. Why was he so afraid now?

The answer was quite simple; this was it. If he failed here his hero career would stop before it could even start. Could he be exaggerating again? There were other hero schools in Japan; Seiai, Ketsubutsu, Shiketsu even. Despite that, there was still only one UA. Trying to snap himself out of his thoughts, Midoriya refocused on the assembly hall around him.

Honestly, the orientation was passing in a haze. The faces of everyone around him, even Bakugou, his childhood antagonist seemed to fade away. All his attention was consolidated on the exam. Unfortunately for Midoriya, when he got like this he tended to mumble. The tension unlocking any inhibitions he had about speaking his mind, every thought coming out of his mouth in a slightly deranged murmur.

He could have died when a tall examinee wearing glasses had called him out on it, the intimidating boy waving a demanding finger around like a spear. Jabbing it in Izuku's direction when his mumbling had interrupted the examinees question about the test.

Three - technically four - types of robots. Each type similar in design, though not uniform, and each being worth a different number of points based on their strength. Droids worth one, two, and three points respectively. The images of the things set the hair on the back of his neck standing. Even the one-point robots looked like they could crush him. Then there was the zero-pointer, the arena trap. A robot so apparently destructive and powerful that it was worth no points because the intention was that no potential student, fresh out of middle school, would be strong or crazy enough to attack it. It was more of a disaster to be avoided than an enemy to be conquered. That didn't stop Bakugou Katsuki from looking like he'd scented blood, however.

More to get away from Katsuki than anything, Midoriya shuffled out of the exam hall as silently and quickly as he could. In doing so, hopefully he would escape the attention of that tall boy who had called him out as well.

Directed through the school halls by signs posted on the walls, Izuku was able to collect his exam ID slip. On it he could see which hall he would be in for the written portion, and then when and which battle center he would be in. Given the potential intake for UA the examinees had been split up into four different groups, which had subsequently been split again to accommodate for as many students being tested in one day as possible. Groups ranged from one to four, and were then subdivided from A through H. With about thirty examinees to each. This put two groups to a battle center, so while one group would have their practicals in the morning, the other half would take the written. He was group 1A, which meant he would be sitting his written test first, then taking the bus to center 1 after lunch. With so many students being tested on just the first day of entrance exams, Izuku was starting to feel just a little queasy. With so many people, would he even stand a chance? No matter how much All Might had been training him, no matter how much he wanted it, no matter the quirk he had been given… It just felt too impossible.

"Hey, are you doing okay?"

The person addressing him hadn't exactly snuck up on him, in fact she had moved to stand right in front of him to prevent that. And now that he thought about it, yes, she had been waving her hand in front of his face with a worried expression. Oh no, had he been mumbling again?

"Yeah, you were. Do you need to sit down?" She said, and Izuku realized he'd been speaking out loud.

Slapping his hands over his mouth to reassert control over himself, he bowed - perhaps unnecessarily -and spoke. "No! No, sorry, I'm fine, I'm just really… really, really, really— "

"Nervous?" The girl inserted, cutting off his train of thought before it could once again derail. With her mostly black school uniform, and long dark hair, Midoriya might've been intimidated by her sheer appearance alone. Several seemingly innocuous things about her went towards offsetting that impression however, one was her bubblegum pink beret, the other were her uneven bangs which brushed her forehead in a deliberately unkempt fashion, and lastly was her open and friendly expression. Admittedly tinged with concern, her sharp face fit the kind of features that one might expect on either a high-powered businesswoman or a news anchor.

"Yeah." He replied dumbly, swallowing down the lump that had caught in his throat even before such a pretty girl took the time to talk to him.

"Do you want me to give you some advice?" She offered; hands folded in front of her. As she stood there another thing leapt out about her to Izuku. It was her eyes, they seemed to almost lack a physical presence. As if they were just projections of light rather than actual orbs. What tipped him off were the colors that danced behind her retinas, like her eyes had no one color and were instead filled with flashes of neon from all over the visible spectrum. Around the pupils the rest was even slightly luminous, giving her gaze a somewhat magnetic quality.

"Yes please." He answered simply. Was she hero course, business course, something about her hinted that she would succeed just as highly on either. Her easy confidence and subtle authority were a trait Izuku could only ever dream of having. Though he hoped All Might would never catch him thinking like that.

"Focus on one thing at a time. You've got your written exam coming up, of which the first section is general education. So, Math, Science, Japanese. Then it's the respective written sections, so the three questions for whatever course you're applying to. Then a break. Then practical exam if you're applying to be a hero."

It was information they all had but she laid it out so simply, waiting for him to nod that he understood before she continued. "If you think about all of that at once you're going to panic. So just focus on what's next, one thing at a time. It's hard to stop worrying completely, why not make sure the anxiety you do have is pointed in a productive direction?"

Taking a deep breath, Izuku processed the advice. Maybe it was the concept itself, maybe it was her presence alone, but he suddenly felt a lot more at ease. Not calm, not by a long shot, but certainly more settled. "Okay… I… Thank you." He tried to say more but couldn't come up with anything.

"Great! Good luck." She smiled a beaming grin, and then turned and headed off into the crowd. Which made two pretty girls who'd saved his life today.

One thing at a time.

A long monotonous stretch of minutes later, Midoriya was sat at a small desk, inside a different hall of UA's main building. Pro-heroes stood at the front, though he supposed that he should think of them more as teachers. About five of them had divided up a stack of exam papers and were now walking the aisles of desks and passing them out.

Despite trying not to get distracted again, Izuku couldn't help but be surprised he didn't immediately recognize more of the teachers. The only two he could identify were Snipe and Midnight. Snipes distinct gas mask and guns looking as iconic as ever, even in such an academic setting. Midnight's provocative costume, with its skin-tight… One thing at a time, he scolded himself. Looking for too long at Midnight's costume was begging for trouble, like looking at the sun.

To his annoyance, Midoriya couldn't identify the other three heroes in the room. A lanky man with long dark hair, nothing particularly eye-catching as part of his costume. Then a balding man in bright green shirt and slacks… Maybe not all the people working here were heroes, janitorial staff perhaps?

Then the balding man's heft hand swiveled around and Izuku noticed something very strange, and most certainly quirk related. Where the hand should end in fingers and knuckles and such, instead it looked to almost grow into a puppet. Fabric and felt comprising a roughly humanoid figure with a striped, white-red hat, a violet shirt… and still nothing was coming to Midoriya's mind. He thought he knew almost every well-known hero in Japan, and most of the lesser known one's as well. Even so, something about a puppet tugged at his mind. A news story several years back, it was possible, but the connection still wasn't being made.

A slap of paper on wood snapped his attention back to his desk, and the other pro-hero who was already moving along. A large man with a bright white apron and chef's hat, an array of cooking implements tucked into several belts. He wore no mask, his open friendly face bristling with a beard. Izuku could have smacked himself for not recognizing the cafeteria hero, Chef. It was even emblazoned on his apron for crying out loud. That at least made it three out of five heroes he could identify.

One thing at a time.

Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Midoriya focused entirely on doing absolutely nothing until the exam formally began.

Many seconds ticked by, before finally all the teachers were back at the front of the hall.

"You have one hour and forty-five minutes. Starting now." The dark-haired teacher said, raising his hand and bringing it down on a large digital clock. Immediately a timer started, and the sound of dozens of exam papers being turned over filled the room.

Mind-numbing general education questions came first, plenty of multiple choices, and the sort of questions that had only one right answer. It was relieving in a way, for things to be so black and white. That ended however when he made it to the part of his exam that truly mattered.

Each course had three essay questions, the business, support, and general education tracks all having specialized papers. A part of him was curious as to what they were, but as a hero applicant he only had three before him.

'In your opinion what does it mean to be a hero? Refer to heroes you admire, aspects of the hero profession you see as valuable, and what type of hero you would seek to become. (250 words)'

'Describe an important historical event as it relates to heroics. This can be an event that involved heroes, contributed to the development of hero society, or otherwise influenced the current state of the world. (250 words)'

'Discuss the positive and negative attributes of either the hero public safety commission, or of wider hero society. (350 words)'

Those three questions, each at the head of their own sheaf of paper, stared Midoriya in the face. He had breezed his way through the general education portion of the test, confident in his scores if not amazingly so. He didn't need top marks there, generally if students did well on the practical section of the exam the general education tests would be considered unimportant unless they were abysmal. The only factor those scores had is if the teachers were considering someone for the general education course… The thought suddenly put a rock in Izuku's stomach. Should he really have rushed that portion of the exam? If he failed the practical, failed the general test, then he wouldn't even make it into the regular course in UA.

It didn't matter now, he'd already filled out the questions, and time was running out. The three written heroics questions were now before him, and he had to decide where to start.

—MIGHT—

Hand aching from all the writing, Izuku left the hall feeling somewhat lighter. Those essay questions had felt so easy. He'd run out of space on every single one, making sure to stop at the word limit, but not being able to stop himself from adding footnotes and references for the more obscure bits of information he'd referred to.

A big part of him whispered that it had been too easy, but as Izuku made his way towards the bus pickup area, he consoled himself. If there was one small thing he could allow, it was that he had been preparing for this his whole life. Maybe he hadn't realized it exactly, maybe he hadn't physically been training, but his mind travelled back to a certain stack of notebooks. Years' worth of academic prep, hero theory, quirk analysis, significant villain attacks.

After taking some time to himself to reflect, and also visiting the little hero's room, Midoriya turned his mind to focus on the next thing. One step at a time, easy does it.

Climbing onto the bus, Midoriya immediately cast his eyes around for the girl with the pink beret, or the gravity quirk girl he'd met this morning. To his slight disappointment they were both indisposed. The pink beret girl chatting animatedly with a blonde examinee next to her in a back row. He couldn't see the gravity girl anywhere, but she had been quite short so maybe he was just missing her, or maybe she was yet to get on the bus and might even sit next to him. Crushing his roving mind before he could get his hopes up for nothing, Midoriya took a seat by a window and stared out of it.

All he had left now was the practical exam. An exam he'd only trained for for a total of ten months, an exam he would be taking with a quirk he had never used before.

A thought rotated back to the forefront of his mind.

There was something in him, the power of All Might's quirk; one for all. If only he could have had time to figure out how it worked. Thinking hard, Izuku thought back on all the times he'd seen All Might use it. Yagi called it his muscle form, it granted him speed, strength, reflexes, God knows what else. But despite all his studying of heroes over the years, Midoriya couldn't say he had any idea how All Might used his quirk. He just seemed to do it, like it was natural.

"Hi, my name's Scott Malkinson, what's your name?"

The boy who sat down next to him wasn't Asian. For now, that's all Izuku could tell, mostly because he'd been blindsided by the sudden opening up of conversation. He would never be able to understand people like this, who could just start talking to strangers. It was practically a superpower itself.

There was something about how the boy spoke though, maybe it was his grasp of the language. Either way it was hard for Izuku to understand what he was saying. Luckily the phrase was one of those universal phrases that can be identified even when spoken by someone with no fluency. Like asking where the nearest train station was. "I-I'm Midoriya Izuku?" He gave in stammered response, his anxiety at being spoken to suddenly making him turn his answer into a question.

The American - or was he British, maybe Australian? - boy put back. "Cool! Wait, my name is Malkinson Scott, sorry, I'm new to Japan."

The was something indeterminably hard to understand about how the other boy was talking. Was it his fluency? His accent? Confusedly Midoriya answered generically, all he could make out about what the boy had said being his name again. "Right?"

"Yeah, I'm from America." His wide happy eyes looked at Izuku from beneath a wisp of brown hair, a little curl that dangled down on his pale forehead.

"Uh-huh?" He answered again after a short pause. The only word Izuku could decipher being America.

"I'm pretty sure I've got the language down, it's just the name stuff I'm having trouble with."

Izuku finally couldn't take it anymore, why were there so many s's in this boy's speech? He cringed visibly as he broached the subject. "I'm sorry, I'm… I'm having trouble figuring out what you're saying."

"Is it my Japanese? My Japanese is pretty good I thought." The foreigner put a thoughtful hand to his chin, which didn't help to translate any of the words he'd just said. Except for maybe Japanese? He'd definitely said that at least once.

"I… maybe…? Some of your pronunciation?" It was so unbearably awkward. His whole life Izuku had avoided correcting people, avoided causing any discomfort whatsoever. And now, as he was sat on the bus to the practical, more stressed than he'd ever been, holding a power within him that he barely understood… this had to happen?! Something so mundane, so every day, so awkward?

"Huh. Oh, that might be my slight speech impediment, you may not have noticed, but I have a little bit of a lisp?" A dozen words made their way out of the boy's mouth, along with a not unnoticeable amount of spittle.

It didn't take the final word Malkinson-san had said for it to click with Midoriya. He leaned back slightly, out of the firing range of the boy's saliva and just nodded. "Yeah."

With a friendly shrug the American grinned back at him. "Yeah, it's not usually a problem, but you know, what can you do!"

"Are you from America?!" Izuku wasn't proud to say that the new voice almost made him leap out of the window. A head of sunshine blonde hair had poked up from the seat in front of him. Two bright shining blue eyes were looking between the two of them. Midoriya couldn't take this, so many new people, all so quick to start talking to strangers, how could this get any worse.

"Kero kero, hello there." But then a girl had to pop up from the other seat in front of them and see him visibly freaking out.

"Yep, that's me!" Malkinson chimed with a satisfied smile.

A look of pure amazement came across the blonde's face, like he'd been told he'd just won the lottery. "Oh, gee whizz! I went to America when I was little, have you ever been to this place called Bennigan's?!"

Why did everyone have to be so collected, so excited, so not like him, it was maddening! "I've been to a Bennigan's before, yeah." Replied his seat neighbor with a bob of the head.

The blonde's eyes went wide as saucers as he cooed. "There's more than one?! Wow… what a country."

"Did you come over from America just for the exam?" The girl had dark green hair just like him, but unlike him she was so calm and cool it made him marvel at her sheer presence.

"Not just for this one, but my stepmom is Japanese, and my dad just moved out here to live with her. So, I'm visiting as well." How was everyone understanding what Malkinson was saying? It took an extra ten seconds for Midoriya to catch up to what the American was talking about.

"And I thought I came a long way!" The blonde laughed. "I'm from Sausupaku, it's in Yamanashi. prefecture."

Her face expressionless, but not unfriendly the girl added. "I'm from Aichi, felt like a long journey as well."

With a vigorous nod of the head, the blonde boy set his hair flopping all over the place. "I know, I'm really nervous."

Later Izuku would wonder how he ever had such a thought, but right now, sitting where he was, he was amazed by just how normal these people were.

—MIGHT—

It was not going well.

Today he'd been saved, shouted at, saved again, then maybe flirted with by a member of the same sex, then shouted at again, then upstaged, embarrassed, and on top of all that he hadn't even managed a single solitary point. The robots were so fast, so tough, so frightening. Every time he approached one his nerves would cause him to delay, and given how many examinees there were it wouldn't be too long before someone else destroyed it.

It was all going to be for nothing, he would fail and be nothing more than a bystander in other people's legends. Years from now he would sit on a park bench, an old and lonely man and lament about how he could have been the next All Might. Yagi-sensei would see the mistake he'd made, take back all for one, and then, and then… Then something even worse started to happen, something that made all his impotent whining and panicking seem insignificant.

The girl with the gravity quirk, the one who'd helped him at the very beginning of the day, was in danger. The zero-pointer towered over her, except it wasn't just striding forwards, now it was falling. Arms as big as several train carriages cutting waves into the nearby skyscrapers. The sky was becoming nothing more than dust and rubble, each segment of concrete enough to decapitate a normal person.

She was running but given how gigantic the zero-pointer was she wouldn't make it. Once again, mirroring the action that had put him in this position in the first place Izuku was moving before he could think.

His mind took in the girl, the distance he had to cross, and finally the gaping hole in the titan's chest. A wave of energy raced down his body as he neared her. Every part of him reacting without thinking, even his quirk. "Hold on!" He shouted, voice straining from the exertion as he unceremoniously grabbed her up in his arms and hunkered down.

"Wait, what?!" Her own shout was strewn to the winds as the sound of heaving metal crashed down towards them. Izuku didn't so much jump as he did kick the Earth. Even as he and his charge left the ground, pain followed with him faster than gravity.

Izuku screamed as they soared through the air, whipping through the hole in the middle of the robot's chest and flying out the other side. Through the pain and agony splintering his legs, Izuku's happiness was short-lived as he realized he didn't exactly have a landing strategy. Even as his cries of pain turned into one's of panic, the girl in his arms remained if not calm then at least coherent. "I've got us!" She cheered as Izuku felt his whole-body bounce as if he'd ridden his bike over a pothole. Suddenly they weren't falling, and the girl was holding him more than he was her.

The green-haired boy couldn't help but smile and laugh, even though the tears and crushing agony. As they coasted down to the ground in a relaxed arc, Izuku's tears had not stopped falling. Tears of joy, of pain, of the sheer worry about being pressed so close to a girl he'd only just met. Upon landing he was unable to support himself as she let go of her quirk, and he crashed to the floor, legs twisted out behind him.

Izuku smiled looking up at her, the two of them having saved each other. It was exciting, again even in spite of the pain. It was the first moment he had felt like an actual superhero, the first time he felt like All Might had made the right choice. This is where true heroism happens, he thought, in that split second moment where you had to make a choice, and without granting it permission your body answered for you.

Then she vomited all over him.

"I'm… her… so… her… sorry!" She wheezed through strands of bile. "My quirk… I've never used it so much… it was really, and I've been using it the whole exam… her,…and… oh no, watch out!" Another bucket of puke was this time thankfully directed onto the ground instead of onto his torso.

"It's not a problem!" Izuku cried, his body cringing from the sticky shirt that now clung to him. He tried not to think about the chunks as he waved his hands. "I broke my legs!" He started rambling, words marching out of his mouth like a disorderly battalion of soldiers. "It's not like you're the only one whose quirk affects them negatively, you've got nothing to apologies for, if anything I should apologies since I put you in this position!"

"You saved me!" She exclaimed indignantly. Before realizing something and hiding her face behind her hands, then further hiding from him as she turned away.

Anxiety rising in a flash, Izuku blurted out, "What's the matter?" What had he done this time, did he really look so bad, well, with his broken legs maybe. He'd deliberately kept his eyes away from them, fearing he'd pass out if he saw the damage.

Her answer was obvious. "I've got puke all over my face, I got it all over you, oh my god this is the worst!"

"It's fine, really!" He cried, tears uncontrollable at this point.

Gingerly she turned her wide watery eyes back to him. Eyes that got even wider as she took in his injuries. "Your legs! Help! We need a nurse, quickly!" Her voice rose and rose in alarm.

Which is when Izuku finally looked at his legs.

—CREATE—

"So, who makes the cut, in your opinion?" Sitting back in her chair, the mossy haired girl, Tokage, asked her, eyes twinkling with delight.

Momo hummed in consideration, though really it was to hide her panic. The sheer power she'd seen on display, rivalled only by the quick thinking and battlefield expertise of some of the other examinees. "The strangely behaved blonde boy from battleground one."

"Yeah! He was crazy, like, maybe literally crazy!" Tokage grinned, showing off sharp animalistic teeth.

"He lacks proper control of his quirk though, which put other students in danger." Momo replied, eyes distant yet focused as she replayed the events in her mind.

"That sort of thing can be taught though; it makes me wonder what his quirk is." Tokage mulled over, rocking back and forth with built up excitement. "Gah! I just want to be down there!" Her hands raised up Tokage gripped at her hair.

"What do you two think? Who else will pass?" Turning her gaze to the right, Momo offered to bring the two boys in on the conversation.

At first there was no response, but eventually Todoroki spoke up, his heterochromatic eyes narrowing in deep thought. "The two violent one's from ground two."

"Yes, despite their attitude and… little scuffle, I'm certain they will make it in on power alone." She nodded at his suggestion, having been transfixed by the short and explosive argument that took place in ground two. Momo wasn't sure what had been said, given that they didn't exactly have clear audio for the battlefields, but things had looked heated between the blonde bomber and the overweight boy.

"I think the techno-kinetic will come out with the high score." Tokage interjected. The lizard-like girls' excitement was still buzzing in her voice, but the consideration she spoke with belied her fierce intellect. "He had the perfect quirk for the exam, all he had to do was touch a robot and it fell apart."

"From my memory, I believe the first-place student receives some sort of accolade?" Momo asked, something in her research on U.A. and her plain old general knowledge nudging her towards a realization. For their part the others looked blank.

"What do you think, Shirakabe-san?" Tokage asked, leaning far forward to look at the silent boy who sat on Todoroki's other side.

There was a long moment of consideration, a scholarly pause for thought. Then Shirakabe let out a devilish chuckle, one that sent a shiver down Momo's spine. Throughout the boy's eyes had been moving like those of a hawk, from their initial introduction she had been told that Shirakabe harbored a mind like a quantum computer. He would have to, in order to have scored a perfect one hundred on every one of the recommendation tests.

With a finger upraised, the boy shouted clear and loud.

"Timmy!"

The three of them blinked. Shirakabe Tomimitsu just laughed, spinning his wheelchair around and rolling towards the entrance.

—AUTHOR'S NOTE—

Lets face it, if anyone is going to fall prey to that most ancient of anime tropes 'the accidental boob grab' then it was going to be Kenny!

Anyway… Ta-da! More characters, all interacting in a crazy stew pot. I moved some of the material I had for this chapter into a part 3 for the entrance exam, which will deal with the aftermath, since this chapter is already 9000 words give or take. So, look forward to that chapter coming soon!

In response to a review, I won't be including the New Kid from the South Park games. There's just not enough to their character beyond their powers for me to bother including them. Since they're the typical video game silent protagonist by design, I'd have to come up with an OC personality for them, and I don't think the joke of them being silent would work as well as it does in the games, since they're part parody basically. Though as I'm thinking about it maybe it would be fun to include a version of them down the line, except instead of parodying video game protagonists I'd do it for fan fiction OC's. That might be fun, but in general the New Kid won't be in this story. I've got too many characters from SP supplanting MHA characters already. If I included the New Kid, I'd have to start replacing the MHA characters I actually care about, rather than just ditching the ones who aren't as interesting to me. That's a topic for another chapter later down the line though.

Time for Name Corner! By which I mean I point out the deep cut references that hide within character names. As with Craig, I took the names for Cartman, Stan, and Kyle from the episode Good Times with Weapons. Their given names are all translated versions of their actual names, although I chose the spellings that have Kanji which fit them better. This won't factor in since I won't be writing in Kanji, but hey, it was fun to research. Oh, and Scott Malkinson is just Scott Malkinson, I really made myself laugh too much with that one. I'd be curious, for anyone less familiar with South Park, do the names sound authentic, or at the very least do they fit in? That's something I'm eager to know.

That's all from me for now, leave a review and let me know what you want to see in the future! From pairings to potential ways to use the South Park canon in MHA, I'm all ears!

- Faff