The entrance exam comes by faster than Izuku would have liked.
In the two weeks between it and acquiring heroes' skills, he managed to learn he can safely use a very small amount of One For All for strength boost, but not much else. All Might unhelpfully informs him he's still too weak to wield it. He knows, ok? He just… He's gonna have to try harder, do more, he's aware.
For now he has to focus on passing the exam though, so he goes to sleep early, wakes up pretty early too, eats a healthy breakfast, prepares his writing utensils, and takes a train to UA.
"I wonder who's going to supervise us," he mutters as he makes his way to the written exam portion, and runs straight into Kacchan.
Fuck.
"Deku," Kacchan mutters angrily. "How dare you show your ugly mug here? This is a hero school you fuck, get out of my way now before I set you on fire!" He ends up yelling and shoving him back.
Izuku catches his hands and twists them, forcing the blonde to turn around and face forward as he holds onto his arm.
"Bad Kacchan," he says absentmindedly, as he analyses which hero the fast reaction speed came from. The answer is probably all of them so he lets the thought go as Kacchan trashes in his grip.
"Let me go!" The boy almost uses his explosions (Izuku can tell from the smell. it always gets stronger before an explosion from the accumulation of Kacchan's sweat) but refrains as Izuku lets him go. "What the fuck!?"
"Behave, we're gonna be late," Izuku says, turns towards the classroom and skips forward, satisfied with the outcome.
There are people staring at him, he's aware, but he doesn't feel too stressed. Anxiety management is a skill, and almost every hero had that in their skillsets.
It still feels kinda like cheating, but he can't help being grateful for the change and chance All Might has given him.
The written exam goes by quickly. It, once again, feels like cheating, since he copied the heroes' superior skills in the subjects they teach, be it maths from Ectoplasm or language from Cementoss and Present Mic. Sure he had to learn the theory, but it translates into practice so easily it's definitely some kind of a cheat.
And then they're ushered into a ginormous aula. His seat is right next to Kacchan, just his luck. The blonde looks at him weirdly, but doesn't say anything, thank Kami.
Present Mic starts off awkwardly, by calling out to the gathered students with 'Can I get a yeah!?'.
He did not get a yeah.
Izuku kind of wanted to yell out to make him feel better but… yeah not doing that was more beneficial to his social life and anxiety.
Present Mic wasn't at all bothered by the cold reception and continued telling them about the practical portion of the exam.
They were going to fight robots.
Ah hell.
People, Izuku could do, but robots? Well he could do robots too. Probably.
His muscles itched to try and fight them though. He wants to test himself, wants to see if he is capable of defeating them. After all, he is going to be a hero student, he needs to prove himself!
He grins to himself. Yes. He's going to prove himself.
Soon enough they're being transported to different places where the practical exam is going to take place. He and Kacchan got separated, thankfully. They're from the same school so it makes sense to separate them, Izuku muses as he stands in front of Battle Centre B which he is assigned to. He's kind of glad. Kacchan is sure to dominate his sector, Izuku doesn't need that in his exam.
"Ready? Go!" Present Mic yells, and no one moves. It takes Izuku a second to process what he said, and he bolts into the open cityscape. "See? This guy gets it. Come on people, come on, the exam has started! There are no countdowns in real life~!"
But Izuku is no longer listening to him. He notices the first robot in front of him, and speeds towards it. As it comes nearer it reveals lasers strapped to its arms, and Izuku mentally sighs. Oh this is going to hurt… but hopefully nothing bad would happen even if the laser touched him… He is right. As the laser sweeps over his skin, he feels extreme heat on the verge of pain, but, well, on the verge, not actually all that bad.
"Free depilation, huh?" he mutters to himself, as he kicks the front shell of the robot. It dents. Huh, so the metal is weak… He grabs by the 'neck' of the robot and yanks, which causes the camera head to fall apart from the main body. He stomps the body a few times for good measure, and the bot stops moving, defeated. "Okay, one point." He immediately takes off running searching for the next robot.
He manages to get five robots, three one pointers and two three pointers… but that isn't enough. People around him speak of 20, 30 points they got, and here he sits with measly nine. He feels tears pool in his eyes, thinking about how he is already failing All Might, but still he continues running, trying to get as many points as possible.
That is until he sees the zero pointer.
He freezes, then takes off running into a back alley, hiding from the view of the machine while still keeping an eye on it.
HOLY FUCK WHO LET THAT THING IN THERE!? Does UA have infinite money or something?
What's more important is the fact that the robot is actually targeting examinees. And that's bad. It could crush him. It could kill him. Fuck.
But then he hears a scream, and instinctively looks for where it's coming from… And there's a girl, trapped under rubble, trying to pull herself out from under it.
His legs are moving before he can process it, rushing towards her as others run in the opposite direction. His mind forms half a plan, and he furiously debates if he can even do it as he runs towards the girl, but then there's no time to think and he jumps, pulling One For All in his legs until it hurts, then releases and OW, that hurt, but he doesn't have time to dwell on it because he's rapidly pivoting towards the zero pointer and so he swings his arm back, fuels it with One For All, forces it to overflow with energy just like his legs did, and he punches.
The robot gets a massive dent when he punches it, and he marvels at the strength he put into the punch for a whole second before the pain catches up to him, and then gravity also catches up to him and he falls. He barely keeps calm as he pivots down, and extends his hand to pull off a similar trick to break his fall.
He prepares One For All in his pointer finger and waits… but just as he's about to release it to bounce in air and break his fall, someone slaps him. He belatedly realises he's no longer falling, and One For All slowly leaves his finger, which hurts but doesn't appear to be broken. Unlike his legs. And arm. Shit.
He looks at the girl under the rubble and sees she got out… and then he notices the rubble is floating just like him… The girl connects her fingers that glow pink for a second and he splats on the ground alongside rubble. OUCH. The girl barely spares him a look before she keels over and starts throwing up. Ah. Probably quirk overuse…
"The exam has finished!" Present Mic yells from his tower and Izuku sighs. Well… he did not get more points by destroying the zero pointer… So he has nine points. Measly nine points. He mumbles to himself to preoccupy himself from the pain.
Thankfully, before he had time to dwell on it, medical bots appear on the site and take him on a stretcher, and then, like an angel, Recovery Girl appears to heal his injuries and give him a gummy bear.
Healed, tired and heartbroken, he goes home.