The auxiliary exam took place in a derelict warehouse. The whole place looked as if it might blow over at any moment. Aizawa dropped the greenette off and he checked in at a more or less normal looking "REGISTRATION" table, providing all of his information to the HPSC. As he finished initializing a liability disclaimer (he'd read it before he arrived, but they wanted to witness the signature) someone shoved a bag over his head.

Whether this was part of the test or not was irrelevant and Izuku immediately dropped his weight to keep his assailant from picking him up in a bear hug, then attempted to wrestle free from the numerous hands moving to pin him. He stomped on a foot and elbowed a solar plexus. He managed to blindly flip someone over his shoulder and the assailant yelped. A moment later, an individual who must have a powerful strength enhancement quirk joined the fray and Izuku was completely immobilized, hands held behind his back. An assailant zip cuffed his wrists together as he yelled for help--this was probably just a test but, regardless, he was going to treat it as if it were a real kidnapping. It certainly felt like one, save for the fact that he had not been injured in any way. If he hadn't been in so many situations much more terrifying than this in the last few months he would likely be losing his mind in a panic.

Izuku sprawled on a hard (but carpeted) floor and heard a van's rear door slam shut. The engine started and Izuku began a blind, likely futile battle to free himself. He wasn't wearing his hero costume; he had brought it with him but was told to arrive in civilian clothes with "no weapons or support resources on his person." He had taken to carrying a small pair of scissors in his wallet wherever he went (whether out of caution or paranoia was a matter of perspective) but his wallet had been stolen from him. Maybe he should start hiding a pair of scissors in his shoe somehow. Perhaps Hatsume from support could help him with that.

Anyway, he had no resources of his own at the moment. Maybe there was something sharp enough along this wall to cut the zip ties... nope. It was all just smooth plastic.

The bag over his face was thick and some sort of fan had turned on and was now making so much noise that Izuku couldn't hear anything, not even the engine. He couldn't couldn't tell what direction they were moving in or if they were still moving at all.

The fan stopped and then the van's engine cut out. Moments later Izuku was pulled roughly from the back of the van and hustled across a concrete floor. A door opened. A door closed. Izuku

stumbled to a stop on a chair. His hands were zip-fastened to the chair's arms before the bag was pulled from his head. The student blinked, squinting against the harsh light. This wasn't quite like UA's interrogation closet. It looked like a records room from an old office building--filing cabinets on every side, humming florescent lights, stained carpeting, office chairs.

"What's your name, kid?" demanded a tall, masked woman in a suit. He could hear the scowl in her voice. Her eyes seemed familiar somehow or... something seemed familiar. She wasn't the person who had checked him in. He must have met her before... somewhere. He couldn't place her.

"You saw my school ID, didn't you?" Izuku replied in a daze. "It was on the table when you grabbed me."

"Hmmm," the woman pulled said ID from a pocket. "Midoriya Izuku... UA first year. I don't think so." She shook her head. "Who are you really?"

Uh... this had to be just part of the test right? "To the best of my knowledge I am Midoriya Izuku," he said. "If you have reason to believe otherwise... I think you're really confused but I'd be happy to hear and refute the evidence?" What if it wasn't a test? What if he wasn't Izuku and they knew? What if they had some sort of identity detection quirk at work to verify that no villains tried to sneak into the auxiliary exam?

"Your age, for one, is obviously a lie," the woman said sharply. "I can have a dentist come in here, look at your teeth and confirm it but you are certainly twenty years old at least!"

"I am not," Izuku said. "You know that dentistry is not an exact science with the way quirks influence our bodies--"

"And you're obviously not quirkless," the interrogator continued.

"I'm not?" Izuku forced his breathing to remain more or less even. No matter what was going on, he had to act like the interrogator was the one being ridiculous. He couldn't afford to lose his composure now. It would cost him everything. "But I have medical records showing an extra toe joint. I can give you my mother's phone number and have her call and confirm and she could certainly--I mean there are all kinds of people who would be able to confirm my identity, Detective Tsukauchi, for one." Except Izuku probably wouldn't pass the lie detector test about that unless he were really careful and really lucky... god, this had better all be a ruse as part of the test or he was in so much trouble.

"Cut the bullshit!" The interrogator snarled, lunging over the desk and grabbing Izuku by the hair. She didn't yank, though, just implied that she could and would if he kept annoying her. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"I am Midoriya Izuku," unless he was Switcher or Bit Weasel or whoever, "I am here to take the HPSC auxiliary provisional exam for undercover heroes in training."

"No one here is ever going to believe you," the interrogator hissed. "We will keep you here, no food, no water, no bathroom, until you tell us what we want to hear."

Alright... Please be a test. Please be a test. How should he respond to this? Same way as he would respond if it weren't a test. How did he manage to get Nedzu to stop reciting bad poetry... right. "What do you want to hear? I can lie if you like. Will you let me go if I lie and tell you that I'm someone I'm not?"

"Of course not!" she growled.

"How can I prove to you I'm telling the truth?" Izuku asked.

"We'll know." Did that mean there was a lie detector involved already? Was this... was this

supposed to be a test originally but then they realized he really wasn't who he said he was and...?

"I have not committed any crime," Izuku said, hoping togod that was true. His voice quavered a bit but he soldiered on, trying to project confidence he didn't feel. "You are kidnapping me. My teacher knows exactly where I was and when I don't reappear this evening he will know exactly where to start looking. You won't get away with this."

"We'll see about that," the interrogator snarled, pulling the hood back over his head. "Call for me when you're ready to talk!"

She got to her feet, stormed out and slammed the door behind her. Izuku's heart beat against his chest like the wings of a humming bird with an anxiety disorder. Okay. This was... one way or another it would be fine. Either it was a test and they were bluffing or it wasn't a test and they weren't bluffing in which case Aizawa would come for him or... at the very least the jig would be up and he would find out who he really was and how he had ended up here thinking himself to be Midoriya Izuku. That would be a relief... maybe. If he found out that he'd murdered "himself" it would be the opposite of a relief. If murder were the answer, hopefully he'd never learn it...

He found himself treading through forbidden territory yet again, unable to stop thinking about who he might be. If he remembered being Midoriya Izuku, remembered the greenette's entire life, did that mean he was Midoriya Izuku? How did you define a person anyway? A collection of memories? A personality? A pattern of neurons? A list of morals, thoughts and actions? A physical body? By most of those definitions he would be Izuku regardless of whether or not he had always been Izuku. By at least one of those definitions he was both Izuku and Bit Weasel which was a bit... disconcerting. It was less disconcerting than everything else in his life but still disconcerting.

He wished he could at least see through the bag or that it were a bit less stuffy. He sneezed three times in short succession, eyes and nose streaming. There was nothing he could do about that. He could not free himself without some sort of tool or outside intervention and there was nothing in this room but filing cabinets and paper, not that he would be able to reach a tool if one were available.

How long had he been here? How long would he have to stay here? Oh. This was one of those spinning office chairs. They'd left him in a spinning chair... he might as well spin, right? That would pass the time... it also made him dizzy, but that was probably a fair trade.

The door opened. Izuku put his foot down to stop his spinning. Someone pulled the bag from his head and then cut the ties from his wrist. "You passed that portion with flying colors," the masked woman told him as she offered a hand to pull him to his feet. Oh thank god. Just a test. They were just messing with him the whole time... they didn't know anything--unless this was still part of the test? Were they still playing mind games? "Always happy to see another quirkless person moving up in the world. Good show."

Izuku couldn't help but smile despite his lingering wariness. "What now?" he asked. Would it be the written portion or another bluff?

"The written portion starts after a break," the interrogator motioned for him to follow her down an unfinished hallway and Izuku did so, eyes flitting about as he prepared for a potential attack. "The rest of your colleagues aren't all through with their practicals yet. We're getting some... really entertaining reactions to the premise this year. One of the students has, unfortunately, allowed the interrogator to convince her that she's not actually who she thinks she is. That's... going to be a fail

and a rather problematic one."

Why was she telling him this? "Are you... just trying to set me at ease that the practical is really over?" Izuku asked slowly.

"Yes," the woman replied. "The practical is really over, though I do appreciate your paranoia. I'll add five points to your score for that. Constant vigilance will serve you well." The large room they entered next had floor to ceiling windows. Izuku could see that he was still in the original warehouse. In fact, the registration table was right there. They probably just drove him around the block during the mock kidnapping. "Restrooms are there," the proctor pointed. Nine other students milled about in that area. "All of your things are in the lockers to our left." She handed him a piece of paper with a locker number and combination. "Feel free to get a drink, a snack, whatever you need before the written portion. Good luck, Midoriya."

Somewhere between the lockers and the table where he would take a written test to prove to the HPSC that he was not naive and would be able to handle the often harsh realities of undercover heroics, it dawned on Izuku that he was not going to survive another two and a half years of this let alone a life time of it. That interrogation... he'd managed to keep his act together but this day so far had been the psychological equivalent of battering his skull with an ice pick. He was going to spend weeks thinking about this, the mental toll being paid with interest every day. He couldn't keep doing this. He had to figure out what had happened to him, preferably very soon, or at least share enough of his suspicions for someone to prove or disprove them. He couldn't... he just couldn't go through life doubting every single thing about both himself and the world he walked through. He would lose his mind, provided he hadn't lost it already.

The written portion was trivial. A lot of it was just definitions or questions about famous undercover operations, typically the ones that went wrong and got everyone involved killed. "Read the following passage and identify the critical mistake that reveals one of the characters to be an undercover hero," was a particularly entertaining question. The final task was inventing an alias appropriate for infiltration of a horse race gambling ring.

There were a few surprises, questions about operations or practices that Izuku had never heard of, but overall the sample tests Nedzu gave were much harder. Izuku was one of the first to finish, which might have been more impressive had there been more than twenty-six students testing. The greenette knew he'd passed the practical and left with no doubt that he had passed the written portion as well.

Now he had to pass the actual provisional licensing exam. He expected that to be a good deal more difficult for him given his circumstances. He was right.

"Why does this always happen to me?" Izuku wondered aloud, running for his (metaphorical) life from a hoard of students from another school. He wasn't even sure which school they were from, not having time to spare to inspect their uniforms.

No one had managed to hit him with a ball yet and it would take three hits total to disqualify him

from the provisional exam, but he hadn't struck any of the targets he needed in order to pass and for some reason like fifty people were chasing him! Why? He was only one person! They were wasting their time! At least he'd had the opportunity to catch a few of the balls thrown, meaning he had more than enough to take out the required number of targets as soon as he could turn from prey to predator.

A wall of ice rose up behind him and he heard To--Zuko laughing manically. "Why don't you pick on someone of your own powerset?" The other student was, as far as Izuku could tell, causing chaos for fun. Maybe he was trying to level the playing field for his UA allies, many of whom were being targeted? Honestly, the glacial teen was... starting to sound a bit like Nedzu and wasn't that a terrifying thought?

The greenette made his way to a fake building complex, clambered from a chain link fence to a balcony to a flat roof, and began to stalk a group of Ketsubutsu students. Now this was fun. He felt as maniacal as Todoroki--he couldn't call him Zuko in his head, it was just too weird--sounded.

The targets didn't see him as he slipped between shadows, leaping to a neighboring roof and crouching down below sight in case the noise of the landing attracted attention. Now how should he do this? Ah. One was splitting off from the group. Bad choice, easy target. Izuku leapt down from his perch, taking the impact easily so he landed like a cat behind his target. She heard him and whirled to attack, but she was flatfooted and Izuku was "in the zone." He pinned her with a joint lock, smacked all of her targets with the same ball for efficiency, released her, and bounded back onto a nearby balcony via a trellis before her cry of furious dismay had even reached her allies. By the time the other students arrived, Izuku was well hidden and--miracle of miracles--the Ketsubutsu students split up to look for him. They split into pairs, so they were not completely foolish, but even pairs were easy enough to take by surprise when one could leap down from above... Where would be the best place? Ah. There was a small pond around this corner. Throwing one enemy into the water was risky not knowing anything about the opposing student's quirks, but it was likely a worthwhile gamble. Water based quirks were not particularly common.

Izuku lay in wait behind a short, brick wall, listening and scanning his surroundings. His prey approached. They were wary, but not wary enough. He tripped one, catapulting him into the pond, and fell upon the other, twisting the student's wrist to disarm him of his projectiles in the same way he would disarm someone of a knife. This student managed to get a shot off with his quirk. It was similar to Aoyoama's; a laser projected from his hands, but he missed and Izuku disqualified him a moment later before he could try again.

The enemy spluttering in the pond was no threat. For all that they were clever and enterprising hero students, these two hadn't been in a real fight before. They didn't understand what it was to need to win in order to secure your life. Izuku did. He knew all too well. He knew what it was to fight to the death against an enemy soldier, to bluff against a monster to save a classmate's life, to see a friend gutted and dismembered like a slain deer, to close a subordinate's eyes on the battlefield, to lay down, bleeding, on that same battlefield and accept death. No one could... well, these people couldn't understand how those memories made him ferocious. These students didn't know how to handle life and death stakes yet. They would learn, but perhaps it was better they didn't pass the exam this time around.

After awkward apologies to those he had disqualified to gain victory, Izuku trudged across the arena towards the waiting room where those who had passed would stay until the beginning of the exam's second phase. The announcer yelled something about only a few passing slots remaining. "Wonder how everyone is doing," Izuku mused. There wasn't much need to worry. Everyone in his class was a capable combatant.

The greenette entered the waiting room and found Todoroki and a tall Shiketsu student glaring at each other viciously. "Uhh..." Could Izuku walk around them to get to the water bottles on that side table? No. There wasn't space... "Excuse me?" Izuku said. He swore he could see the air beginning to steam with the heat of the two students' mutual enmity. "I... uh, need some water?"

"Hello, Midoriya," Todoroki said, reaching to his side, picking up a water bottle, and presenting it to the greenette. "This gentleman was just about to tell me why he's glaring at me."

"No, this guy was going to explain why he's glaring at me," said the Shiketsu student. Apparently this was atypical behavior, because the other Shiketsu students stared at their tall classmate with open mouths.

"To-Zuko," Izuku corrected himself. "Uh... I think the second part of the test is cooperative so uh, maybe you might want to... sorry, I shouldn't say anything, sorry." It really wasn't his place to tell Todoroki whether or not he should be doing... whatever it was he was doing. It wasn't Izuku's business.

The announcer let them know that the test was over. Apparently everyone who was going to pass had. Where was everyone? Ah. There were a few of them. "Kacchan!" Izuku waved to his friend, spotting him at last. The blonde was lounging on a chair in a corner with Kirishima and Shouji. "You made it."

"'Course we made it," Katsuki snorted. "What happened to you, nerd?"

"Ended up on my own... and then Todoroki froze all the people chasing me, I think just for fun, and I ambushed some Ketsubutsu students."

"We had... a very disturbing experience with a student who can apparently turn people into living meatballs," said Shouji, shuddering. "He seemed..."

"Unstable," Kirishima put in bluntly. "I... he was saying some..."

"Weird shit," Kacchan put in. "It was like... not quite Hero Killer level rhetoric but... not so far off and all together I'm really glad that guy didn't pass the exam." Old videos of Stain preaching his philosophy had been making the rounds on the internet lately. Izuku could have done without that; the Hero Killer's existence was something he liked to put out of his mind.

"Oh thank goodness," Shouji said, waving towards the door. There was the rest of 1-A. Yes, that was everyone, every single classmate. "Hey Ojiro!" The tailed boy walked briskly to them, circumventing the ongoing cold war between Todoroki and the Shiketsu student.

"Do you know what's going on with those two?" Ojiro asked, gesturing with his tail towards the glowering parties.

"The Shiketsu jerk was being rude first," Kacchan replied, "and then glacier lord got all huffy and they started being super passive aggressive like, "no, you get a water bottle first..." and here we are."

"Huh," Ojiro furrowed his brow. "Well, I suppose it's not really my business?"

"Idiots are both gonna' flunk the test," Katsuki huffed, then yelled louder, "you idiots are going to flunk the damn test if you spend all your energy being assholes to each other for no good reason!" Shouji, Ojiro, and Izuku were not the only ones who winced at the bluntness, but perhaps someone needed to say it and Katsuki was the only one shameless enough to do so except maybe Tsu. She didn't look well right then, though. The first round had not been kind to her.

Todoroki gave the blonde a sideways glance. The Shiketsu student glowered. "He's right," Todoroki said. "So why don't you turn around and walk away?"

"Why don't you turn around and walk away?" demanded the other student.

"Maybe I will," said the glacier summoner, pivoting on his heel and marching pointedly towards... a wall. He could only take three steps before he had to stop.

"Well this should be interesting," Ojiro said. Shouji shrugged. "I guess that's one word for it."