"Attack!" - Regular Speech

'It isn't working!' - Thoughts

{My Noble Master} – Sword Spirit Communication

"Bankai!" - Spiritual Technique Usage

Chapter 4: The Swordmaster Exam

Two Hours Later

Changing Room, UA Swordmaster Academy

"Urgh…and here I thought I had a good idea of what was going to come…" Izuku groaned to himself as he massaged the bridge of his nose.

To be fair to Izuku, it wasn't that he had been unprepared when it came to the breadth of knowledge he needed, rather he had been sorely unprepared for the sheer amount of work that would be required. The UA Academic Exams had been rigorous in the extreme, with extensive questions on English, Classical Japanese, mathematics and all the other core subjects that were taught in middle school. In addition, there had been several questions on the basics of Swordmaster Law and even conventional law mixed in as well.

Aldera had never had any lessons on either of those last two subjects, and it was mostly thanks to his mentor that he had been able to answer those as comprehensively as he had. Toshinori-sensei had been quite good at explaining them, often using real-life examples from his long career to help get the point across.

A small part of him absently wondered if those particular questions had managed to trip up Bakugō, but he sincerely doubted that would be the case. His former friend was, if nothing else, quite smart and had likely included those subjects in his self-study and exam preparations. U.A. was widely considered the best Swordmaster Academy in Japan, it made sense they'd expect applicants to have at least a basic level of knowledge in the rules and laws surrounding their profession.

Shaking off those meandering thoughts for the time being, Izuku took a moment to smooth out the slate-grey hakama and white kosode top that he'd been issued for the Practical Exams. It was the standard uniform for Swordmaster trainees, or so Toshinori-sensei had told him, designed to be light, easy to move in and the fabric was specially made to be resistant to being cut by blades.

He still felt slightly uncomfortable wearing them, even after almost a full year of training under Toshinori-sensei. It wasn't that they did fit or were in any way uncomfortable to wear; in fact they were surprisingly comfortable. No, instead it was what they represented that still unnerved him at times. That he truly was a trainee Swordmaster.

It still felt like the past year had been some kind of surreal dream at times, like he was going to wake up in his bed one day and find that he was back to being worthless, normal Izuku. Then he'd look toward Spirit Sword Case and feel the link between himself and the Spirit Sword resting within and he'd once more be reassured that it was real.

There was no way he could have imagined the strange feeling of completeness just being near his Spirit Sword brought him in even his wildest dreams.

With that thought in mind and a small smile on his lips, Izuku picked up the sheathed form of his Spirit Sword, its case carefully stored in the locker he'd been temporarily assigned, and slid it into place on his belt before turning to leave. Thankfully, the applicants had been spread out across multiple changing rooms and the other boys assigned to his had changed quickly and left in a rush, either excited or anxious to get to the Practical Exam Hall. That gave Izuku the chance to change in private.

It wasn't that he had scars or anything, Bakugō might have been an ass-hat but he hadn't been that bad and his aggressions had never left more than bruises. It was just that Izuku was a bit…body shy.

"Hey, Deku-kun/Yo, Midoriya!" a call suddenly came from behind him as he walked along the corridor. Turning, he quickly caught sight of who it was…and immediately blushed.

Uraraka Ochako and Kendō Itsuka were jogging up to him in their own outfits, which were nearly identical to the one he was wearing. The uniform was unisex and should have made even well-endowed girls look…less well-endowed, but in the case of these two, the uniform just made them look really, really cute.

"K-Kendō-san, Uraraka-san!" he greeted them with only a slight stutter. "How was the written exam?"

"Ugh, please don't make me relive that nightmare right now; I felt like my brain was going to leak out of my ears near the end." the orangette let out a groan as she fell into step on Izuku's left. "Seriously, the questions weren't that hard but there was so much that it turned into an utter slog just trying to get through it all."

"Yeah. I mean, I knew it was going to be tough, it is U.A. after all, but that was just wow." the brunette put in as she walked at Izuku's right. "I'm just glad I studied as hard as I did, or I would have been doomed. What about you, Deku-kun?"

"I…think I managed to pull through." Izuku answered, absently scratching the back of his head. "Kendō-san was right that it was a lot…more than I was anticipating, even for an entrance exam."

"Well as long as we all managed to get through it's okay, right?" Ochako offered cheerfully. "I'm honestly a bit nervous about the Practical though…it's supposed to be real combat right?"

"Yeah, but it shouldn't be anything too drastic, we'll just have to face a C-Class Swordmaster in a sparring match and do well enough to impress the proctors." Itsuka responded with a reassuring grin. "At least, that's what it was like for…my parents when they took the exams here."

Izuku blinked slightly when he noticed the slight flinch in her tone when she mentioned her parents, and the brief flash of pain in the girl's teal eyes that accompanied it. He delicately decided to pretend that he hadn't seen it; it was obviously a personal issue involving her family and he doubted his new friend would want him sticking his nose in it. To use an odd phrase that Toshinori-sensei had seemed quite fond of: not his circus, not his monkeys.

"W-Well, its pretty much the same, but they've changed it so that we're instead being paired against a second- or third-year student of the Swordmaster Course of the same Class, depending on your recorded skill level in Middle School or Junior High." Izuku explained, before continuing when he got a couple curious glances. "M-My mentor told me about it, he said the process changed about five years ago or so."

"Mentor?" Itsuka blinked curiously. "You mean the person responsible for teaching you Jinzen when you first Awakened?"

"I…no, it's…" the verdette stumbled over his words. "I'm…I'm a Battle Awoken, if you know what that means…"

Ochako just looked confused, but Itsuka's eyes widened instantly and a gasp of mixed shock, horror, and realization emerged from her throat as she covered her mouth with one hand.

"I…don't get it?" the Mie native offered, looking between the two of them in confusion.

"Ochako, are you the first in your family to gain a Spirit Sword by any chance?" Itsuka asked carefully.

"Yep." Ochako agreed. "Well, we think that my great, great, great grandfather on my mother's side might have been a Swordmaster, but with how bad things were back then, we can't really be sure."

The other two nodded in understanding. Ochako's ancestor would have likely been a part of one of the very first generations of Swordmasters, the ones who had literally no idea about what the hell was going on to them, and had needed to fumble and stumble their way towards any kind of understanding about their Spirit Swords. Not all had come forward to join the first ten Swordmaster Guilds, and many had either turned criminal or lived quiet lives without raising their swords in anger. Itsuka decided to elucidate her.

"A Battle Awoken is someone who awoke their Spirit Sword during a life-threatening situation." she explained in a quiet voice. "It's rare, like really, really rare, nowadays, but it can happen."

"I'm apparently the first Battle Awoken to emerge in Japan in over thirty years." Izuku added softly to clarify.

"Oh…" Ochako blinked concern creeping into her features. "Were…were you okay after it happened?"

"Y-Yeah, I…I was stupid lucky. I was attacked by a Mask Spirit." He admitted, getting worried gasps from both girls as they realized just how badly he was underselling it. "It…it tried to eat me…and I panicked. There was no way I could get away so I tried to fight back…and I-I just Awoke. But even after my Spirit Sword manifested, I didn't stand much of a chance; the Mask Spirit was at least a Class 2 and I couldn't even hurt it. Luckily, a United Alliance Swordmaster was nearby and he saved me, and thanks to an old law and tradition among Swordmasters, he became my sponsor and mentor. He'd been training me on and off for the last eight months or so.

"Wow…" the brunette offered, clearly still taking it all in.

"You were seriously lucky, Midoriya." Itsuka stated with a shake of her head. "When you first Awaken, most Swordmasters are little better than your average person, they'd be helpless against even a Class 1. The fact that you lasted against a Class 2 long enough for help to arrive is nothing short of a miracle."

"W-Well, like I said it was either fight back or die." Izuku shrugged sheepishly. "Wasn't much choice."

"Yeah, I guess there wasn't." the orangette acknowledged as they entered their assigned dojo hall, which was massive, the girl shivering for some reason as she crossed the threshold. Thankfully, the main floor was divided up into eight small sparring areas, so one examinee wouldn't have the entire hall's eyes on them during a match.

For his part, Izuku was in awe at the sheer number of Swordmasters gathered in one place. He had never seen so many Spirit Swords at once; katana, wakizashi, kodachi and even nodachi were all being worn. There were even a couple of the highly rare tachi swords that only someone of Ainu descent could possess! And was that a rapier? A foreign exchange student maybe?

"Wow…there's a lot of people here." Ochako muttered, looking around nervously. She wasn't used to crowds like this, what with coming from a fairly isolated part of Mie.

"It'll be fine." Itsuka reassured her. She'd gone to a couple of martial arts tournaments before, so she was dealing with it far more easily than her friends. "Just watch your step and you'll be fine."

Izuku was busy looking at all the people around him. Some had more extreme bodily differences than his own green hair and eyes. Differences like his indicated that at least one person in his lineage had been a Swordmaster. The more different to the norm the person was, the more people that they had in their family tree who had once had awakened Reiryoku. By this point, almost no one was 100% 'normal' in all respects in any country of the world.

Some of the more interesting people here were a boy with yellow slitted eyes like a bird of prey, another boy had hair that was so dark that it seemed to absorb the surrounding light, a girl near him had blue hair that seemed to flow and move on its own like a liquid, another boy wearing a facemask tall enough to tower over most of his peers and a bubbly looking girl whose skin and hair were pink; her skin was a slightly deeper shade but her hair was a bright, bubblegum pink. She also had interesting eyes; the sclera were black, while the irises were a startling shade of gold that almost seemed to move as she blinked her eyes.

He was just relieved that Bakugō wasn't here.

"Alright kids, eyes on me!" a loud voice resounded through the room. The source was a man dressed in the uniform of the United Alliance Swordmaster Guild. Then again, every Swordmaster Guild's uniform was exactly the same; men wore a smart pair of trousers, a white shirt and a uniform jacket, while women wore the jacket, but could wear skirts and tights rather than trousers if they chose to.

The only differences in the uniforms of the various guilds were the colours and the badges. The United Alliance Guild (and U.A. High students for that matter) had slate-grey (the jacket) and dark green (the trousers/skirts and tights) uniforms, with the badge simply being the white block letters 'UA' set on a black background.

No other Swordmaster Guild in the country, or the world even, had such a simple, unassuming badge. Most strove to show some manner of deep meaning or iconography in their guild's symbol. Some said that it was a display of arrogance, but Toshinori-sensei had told him the truth; that it was a simple and plain statement of who and what they were, a united alliance first and foremost, with no flourishes, alterations or pretentiousness getting in the way of that.

The man currently standing front and centre was one that Izuku quickly recognized; Yamada Hizashi, codenamed 'President Mic' due to his charismatic, if eccentric, personality and bombastic manner. His blonde hair was slicked up into a style resembling a cockatoo's crest, and he wore his ever-present orange-tinted shades that obscured his eyes from sight. He was the man in charge of the United Alliance's radio show, Radio UA, which donated all its profits to charity, and helped warn people of Mask Spirit sightings in the area as they came.

"As some of you may or may not have already realized, I am President Mic!" the man announced. "And I'll be acting as this halls MC for the duration of the Practical Exams! Can I hear y'all say 'YEAH'?!"

Absolute silence greeted him from the students.

"Jeez, tough crowd." Mic muttered, before getting back into it. "You're a cool lot, I can dig it! Listen up, I'm gonna give y'all the down low on how this portion of the exams will go down!"

As soon as he finished speaking there, more people entered the room wearing the same uniform as the rest of the students. The only difference was the armbands around their right arms that declared, in block capitals in English, 'EXAMINER'.

"Everyone say hello to your future opponents!" President Mic smirked. "How will they be decided? Look to the sides of the hall, where you'll see my colleagues, each holding a box! Once I give you all the word, line up at one of them and grab a paper ticket from inside of it. That will hold two different numbers; the topmost one will indicate your sparring area, while the other will indicate the order you'll be fighting in! For example, a slip with '6' and '18' on it means you should boogie on over to sparring area six, and you'll be the eighteenth person to spar with an opponent out of your group! All opponents for each match have been pre-designated as well."

Grinning, the radio personality looked around at the hall full of students. "Some rules for you all to pay attention to! First off, no swappin' tickets! That'll cost ya half of your points from the exam, no matter how well you do in either portion! Second, each sparring area will have its own invigilator, who will act as both the referee and judge for the matches. The matches start and end when they say so! Ignoring an invigilator's ruling is an instant disqualification, listeners! Keep this in mind! Third, no using Shikai if you have it! This is just a spar! Using Shikai is an automatic disqualification for the user too! Now, go grab yourselves a ticket!"

Immediately, the examinees split up and streamed towards one of the eight other Swordmasters standing around the walls of the hall.

"Do you think each one represents a different sparring area?" Ochako wondered.

"Nah, they've likely mixed things up so everything's totally random." Itsuka shook her head. "No way the examiners would make it that predictable."

"We'd…we'd better go and grab our tickets." Izuku offered, swallowing a bit as anxiety began to work at his gut. He knew that the matches wouldn't be predetermined, but to find out that they were basically picking their own opponents based almost entirely off of blind luck made the situation all the more nerve-wracking.

Luck had never been Izuku's strong suit.

There were eight Swordmasters lined up against either side of the dojo, four against each wall; Nemuri Kayama (Codename: Midnight), Kurose Anan (Codename: Thirteen), Ishiyama Ken (Codename: Cementoss), Inui Ryō (Codename: Hound Dog), Majima Higari (Codename: Power Loader), Kan Sekijirō (Codename: Vlad King), Aizawa Shōta (Codename: Eraser Head) and a short old man that Izuku took a moment to remember was Torino Sorahiko (Codename: Gran Torino), a previously semi-retired Swordmaster of the United Alliance who had come out of retirement recently due to a teacher shortage at U.A High.

Ochako, a long-time fan of Thirteen, made a beeline towards her, while Kendō headed towards Midnight. Izuku wavered for a moment before he found himself joining the queue for Gran Torino. His sensei had spoken of him, in the voice of a man deeply haunted by something. Almost like he was afraid of him or something. Surely not though?

"Form up, you bunch of zygotes!" the old man barked as the initial group of candidates moved toward him, causing them all to momentarily freeze. "One at a time! Try to snatch things and you'll be out on your asses! I'm wearing a new set of boots and nothing would please me more than breaking them in on your overeager rears, understand me brats!?"

…then again…

When Izuku reached him, he greeted the old Swordmaster with a polite bob of his head as he grabbed what looked to be the last ticket, a piece of paper folded in half.

Was it his imagination, or did the old man give him a knowing smirk as he turned away?

"I'm in group 4." Itsuka announced to her friends when they regrouped in the middle of the room.

"Oh! Same here!" Ochako said, waving her paper.

"M-Me too." Izuku said, hardly able to believe his luck. "I'm number 32."

"Sixteen." Kendō chimed in.

"Twenty." Ochako said, somewhat nervously.

"It's just a spar, Ochako." Kendō offered the other girl reassuringly as they headed towards their designated sparring area. A quick headcount of the examinees gathered at that particular ring, including himself and his two acquaintances, numbered exactly thirty-two, which meant that, given all the rings seemed to have roughly the same number of applicants, that there were somewhere between 250 and 275 applicants in this one hall! Given that this was only one of five different Dojos being used for the Practical Exams this year (and assuming they were all the same size), that meant that there was close to 1300 teenagers were applying today!

And all of them had to be at least B-rank Swordmasters just to qualify for applying to U.A. High's Swordmaster Course. That was…awe-inspiring.

A cough drew him out of his ruminations and brought his attention, and that of all the other applicants, to the centre of the ring, where their proctor was standing. The man honestly looked like he hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in months judging by his bloodshot eyes, the deep bags under said eyes, and his messy bedhead of black hair. His uniform was surprisingly clean compared to his bedraggled appearance, albeit looking like the man had simply thrown it while still half-asleep.

"Alright, all of you shut up and settle down." the man stated coldly a moment later. "The name is Aizawa Shōta, and, for my sins, I've been assigned as your invigilator for today. Sit your asses down, seiza or cross-legged I don't care which, and wait for me to call your number. You and your preassigned opponent will enter the ring and draw your swords, the match will then begin on my mark. Matches end on disarming, forfeit, at the three minute mark or whenever I call it."

"We're using live weapons!?" one student exclaimed nervously.

Aizawa rolled his eyes in annoyance, but answered none the less. "The entire Dojo has been inscribed with a Spiritual Formation that mitigates and downgrades all forms of lethal damage, including blunting bladed weapons. The worst anyone can suffer in this Dojo are some bruises or maybe a bloodied nose." he drawled out. "But if that's still too dangerous for you brats, feel free to bow out now. It'll save me and the others a lot of work not having to deal with you. So, anyone feel like backing out?"

There were no takers.

"Spiritual Formations? Oh, that makes sense!" Izuku breathed excitedly, eyes darting across the training hall. Spiritual Formations were the latest and greatest innovation of the Japanese Institute of Spiritual Theory, the organization assigned with researching and finding new applications of Reiryoku for both Swordmasters combating Mask Spirits and for more mundane uses. Having only entered mainstream usage only four years ago, Spiritual Formations allowed someone to basically enforce instructions or 'rules' onto an area via inscriptions carved or written onto wood or stone posts infused with an immense amount of Reiryoku using a special method that Izuku had no clue about. The infused posts would then be set into the four cardinal directions around the area affected and then activated.

It was an incredibly useful technique, but also supposedly very Reiryoku intensive. Each pillar had to be recharged regularly in order to keep the Formations active. Depending on the materials used to inscribe the Formation on they could hold a charge for only a few hours (for normal, common wood) to several weeks (for specially formulated pillars using materials similar to those that made up U.A.'s gates). And the actual cost of the recharging each pillar varied depending on the area it covered and the complexity and difficulty of the 'rules' it enforced, but keeping even one fully charged could be a draining experience for a C-ranked Swordsman.

All Might himself regularly donated quite a bit of his Reiryoku in order to keep the various Spiritual Formations that were emplaced throughout U.A. High functioning; it was one of the reasons he regularly worked out of his Guild's Headquarters rather than his 'personal' office in Tokyo. Now that he knew what to look for, he could feel the slight weight of Yagi Toshinori's powerful, overwhelming Reiryoku flowing through the background of the entire dojo.

"Since none of you have decided to take the easy way out, I suppose we should get this farce started." Aizawa's voice once more drew Izuku's attention back to the ring. "Number one, step up."

A boy with bright red hair styled into a large pompadour that almost looked like a rocket got up from the mass of seated students and gingerly made his way toward the centre of the sparring ring.

"Your opponent is…Tōgata Mirio." Aizawa stated, looking utterly done at this point. No sooner than he had uttered the name than a tall blond-haired boy with bright blue eyes had leapt down from the ceiling of all places and yelled, "POWER!" into the air as he quickly rose back to his feet.

Every student, examinee and teacher in the hall just looked at this 'Tōgata' person in a mix of shock, disbelief and (from the teachers and student examiners) exasperation and resignation.

"Tōgata." Aizawa deadpanned in a voice of the long-suffering, "I know we've been over this before, but I shall reiterate. No making dramatic entrances, real life isn't some manga or super sentai show."

"Aw c'mon Aizawa-sensei!" the boy smiled unrepentantly as he tossed the increasingly dead-looking teacher a thumbs up. "It reassures people!"

Aizawa just breathed out and seemed to resign himself. "You know what, they don't pay me enough for this. Just stop freaking out your opponent so we can get this nightmare over with." the instigator casually waved to the redhead, who did indeed look incredibly unnerved by the athletic feat that his opponent had just performed. "As for you, get your head in the game or get gone, kid."

The redhead stiffened and gulped, but fell into a shaky starting stance.

"Hai, sensei." Tōgata agreed with a pout, drawing his Spirit Sword with the grace and ease of an experienced swordsman. Every student in their group who'd taken their sword training even moderately seriously suddenly felt the air around him shift, danger emanating from the formerly jolly figure in waves.

His opponent was lost once more, practically scurrying back in a rush to get away from the blonde.

"Oh, right. Nearly forgot." Aizawa sighed out, bringing one hand to his own wrist and briefly flaring his own Reiryoku. Instantly the sense of danger, while still present, plummeted. "I just activated the Spiritual Restriction Formation embedded into the armbands of all the student examiners in the group. They will now match their opponent exactly in terms of Reiryoku and Reiatsu. This is to even the playing field a bit so no one can complain that their loss was due to their examiner's 'greater spiritual reserves' or some other such drivel."

Indeed, the Examiner armbands that all of the senior students were wearing were now covered in dozens of lines of glowing blue Sanskrit characters. Another example of Spiritual Formations being put to active use, but not one that most people would have expected.

Then again, Guild Master/Principal Nezu was one of the few 'people' in the country to have already been acknowledged as a Master of the newest spiritual discipline. While the Awakened Animal might not have been a part of the team that had developed the Spiritual Formation art, he was one of its greatest pioneers and strongest backers. He was already credited with inventing dozens of preset formations that were quickly becoming common use among Swordmaster Guilds and Schools.

'I fucking hate this.' Aizawa groaned in the safety of his own mind. 'This entire exam is nothing more than an irrational waste of time, and to make it worse I'm stuck dealing with All Might Version 2.0. Seriously, fuck my life…'

Aizawa Shōta would far prefer working on night patrols for Mask Spirits (damned monsters were even more aggressive at night for some reason) rather than dealing with this inane bullshit. But, of course, Nezu, in his infinite and generous wisdom (note the sarcasm there) had decided that he needed to act as one of the invigilators today. Most of the student examiners fighting today were nothing more than creations of Ectoplasm's Spirit Sword, Bunshin (Alter-Ego). An insanely useful Spirit Sword, it allowed the Maths teacher to not only create a multitude of doppelgängers but also allowed those same doppelgängers to perfectly imitate anyone the user had interacted with, down to perfectly mimicking their Reiryoku and Reiatsu signatures.

The man was a blessing when it came to any mission that required infiltration or decoys, one of the reasons he was mostly kept at U.A. High unless his special skills were needed for a specific mission. The man's unique skills were simply too valuable to risk on Mask Spirit hunts and patrols.

Unfortunately, as a means to motivate both students and applicants, the top twenty members of the newly advanced second- and third-year students were given the opportunity to spar with the new applicants, which included the newly christened 'Big Three' of Tōgata Mirio, Hadō Nejire and Amajiki Tamaki, or as Aizawa called them, the Three Problem Children. Thankfully, the bubble-headed word-vomit machine that was Nejire was currently chatting Vlad's ear off, while the guy who could barely stand to be in the same room as another human being was hiding behind Thirteen as she tried to gently nudge Tamaki toward the ring.

So that left him to deal with the overly energetic and far too annoyingly similar to the Number One Swordmaster, Tōgata.

Seriously, Aizawa had seen the kid's father and the family resemblance was powerful, and he still sometimes wondered if the rumours about him being All Might's secret love-child had any truth to them.

'Coffee, coffee, my kingdom for a decent mug of coffee.' the broody Swordmaster thought longingly. Unfortunately, none of his beloved caffeine fix was available to make this hell a little bit more bearable. 'Stupid Nezu. 'Have to look professional for the applicants' my scrawny left buttock.'

"What are you waiting for? Draw your sword and get back in position!" he snapped at the quivering examinee impatiently.

The still twitchy redhead quickly moved to obey, hurriedly retaking his position and drawing his own Spirit Sword. It wasn't anywhere near as smooth or practised as Mirio's own draw, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it was still a passable draw for someone at an examinee's level.

Just passable though, nothing more. That was a mark against him already; U.A. trained the best of the best. You had to be more than 'passable' to earn your way in.

"Begin!" Aizawa declared mere seconds after the boy's blade had cleared its scabbard. It was a test to see if the kid's ability to react on the fly was worth anything. Or, it would have been if Tōgata hadn't deliberately waited until the other boy had recovered from his clear shock at the sudden announcement and let him fall into his stance before actually striking.

Then again, it didn't make much of a difference; Tōgata swiftly and decisively disarmed the boy in less than five moves and twenty seconds. Even with his Reiryoku reduced to match his opponent's own, Tōgata Mirio's training and skill at controlling what Reiryoku he could access was unmatched among U.A.'s current students and he'd used it to quickly and precisely augment his physical abilities and utterly overwhelm the other boy,

"Match over. The winner is Tōgata Mirio." the grumpy man droned out.

As the other boy dejectedly picked his Spirit Sword up and sheathed it, a crackle came over the ear-bead that Aizawa wore in.

"Aizawa-kun, don't do that again, or you will not enjoy the consequences!" Nezu's voice said cheerfully. "This is supposed to be a fair and even test, not your Shikai Exercise on the first day of term. Behave yourself, or else."

With that, the bead clicked off.

Mentally reciting a long-since memorized mantra of foul curses he regularly directed towards the foul rodent known as Nezu, Aizawa resigned himself to watching suboptimal swordsmanship and poor postures for the foreseeable future.

With Izuku

Seeing how easily the blond boy (Tōgata) had disarmed the redheaded boy had been something of a shock, but ultimately not surprising. Although muted now, the sense of DANGER flowing off of the slightly older Swordmaster since he'd drawn his blade was still very much present in Izuku's mind. The applicant might have been able to put on a better showing if he hadn't been so overwhelmed by the blonde's dramatic entrance and overpowering Reiatsu, or if their invigilator had allowed a few seconds to regain his mental equilibrium before he started the spar.

Thankfully, Aizawa didn't repeat his sudden start for any of the following matches, though with how most of the gathered applicants were immediately taking stances after drawing their blades in case he tried it again, the trick likely wouldn't have had a pronounced effect either way.

Maybe he was waiting until they lowered their guard to try it again?

When it came time for Kendō to step into the ring, Izuku finally got a chance to get a proper look at her Spirit Sword. It was a standard katana in shape, with a burnt-orange tsukamaki (hilt wrap) and a tsuba (guard) that oddly enough resembled a picture of the earth as seen from space, with Japan on the right of the hilt and the rest of the Asian Continent on the left.

Compared to his own, which looked more like a bunch of thin twigs spreading out all over the tsuba, Izuku thought Kendō's looked very refined indeed.

Faced against a tall pink-haired girl, the orangette was actually the first applicant to take the offensive rather than staying on the defensive and actually pushed the older Swordmaster trainee to match her rather than the other way around, so much so that the prescribed three minutes of the match ran out before the girl could muster a proper counterattack.

"Wow…you've trained a lot, and not just in kenjutsu." the pink-haired girl (Haya Yūyu, Aizawa had introduced her when the spar started) said with a smile as she sheathed her blade. "I'll be looking forward to seeing you here next year, freshman."

That left Itsuka pleased as punch. The girl, Haya, obviously thought she had a good chance of getting into U.A., and that was cause to celebrate as she headed back to sit next to her friends.

"You were awesome!" Ochako quietly enthused. Next to her, Izuku nodded as well.

"Y-yeah…was Haya-sempai right that you have a lot of martial arts experience?" he asked curiously.

"Yep. My family owns an MMA dojo…" she answered happily, before clarifying when she saw the confused looks on her new friends' faces. "That's Mixed Martial Arts. My family has practised a mixture of Shotokan Karate, Jujitsu and Aikido since before the Era of Swordmasters."

That explained the way she moved so gracefully; she had literally been performing martial arts since before she had awoken her own Spirit Sword. Transitioning to using a sword would have only taken a minor adjustment, especially considering karate had several armed styles that made use of a sword.

"You're totally right!" Kendō said, an impressed look on her face. "Not many people pay attention to unarmed styles these days."

"Oh…I said all that aloud then?" Izuku blushed. "Darn. Stupid bad habit."

It was only a few minutes later when Ochako got called up and, as before with Kendo, he took a closer look at her Spirit Sword. It had a muted pink and black tsukamaki, with an oval-shaped tsuba decorated by what look like sake cups...given her name, it looked as if her Sword Spirit was greatly fond of her.

Ochako's opponent, a hulking older teen that stood over six feet tall but had a kind smile, was a lot faster than he first appeared. However, the girl from Mie proved to more than capable of keeping up, her calm and focused defence moving to block or intercept any strike the older boy (Izuku hadn't caught his name when Aizawa announced it) tried to launch. Her fighting style, from the brief glimpse Izuku had gotten of it, seemed to be almost entirely reactionary, focusing her efforts on dodging and deflecting incoming attacks, only attacking when she managed to create an opening in her opponent's guard; Izuku had to wonder how well she'd do if she took the offensive.

"Whew…that was nerve-wracking!" the brunette said as she returned to her seat with her friends. "I'm not used to sparring in front of people outside of the local kendo club back home."

"You did very well." Kendō said encouragingly. "Your style seems to pretty focused on defending though; I don't think you went on the offensive more than once or twice during the spar."

"Eh, I'm pretty awkward when I go purely on the offensive." Ochako demurred with a slightly embarrassed shrug. "I prefer to react and then counter-strike when my opponent is vulnerable. At least with human opponents. Never tried to fight a Mask Spirit, so I dunno how I'll react to fighting them."

Izuku grimaced. "Trust me, those things are really scary. The one that…that attacked me was just plain terrifying. It was pretty much immune to regular physical impacts because it could turn its entire body into slime; and any slime that was knocked off the body would just flow back and rejoin the main body, like a crude version of regeneration."

"Shit…and you'd just Awoken, so you wouldn't have had access to Shikai!" the orangette cursed in a quiet voice. She didn't want to think about what the Mask Spirit would have done to the boy sitting next to her if that Swordmaster hadn't stepped in.

The rest of the matches went by fairly quickly, with a few interesting people in their group; a stoic-faced girl, with long hair in a much darker shade of green than Izuku's own, was the first in the group to have a Spirit Sword that wasn't a katana. Hers was in fact a wakizashi, a short sword that was the second sword given out with a daishō to a samurai noble coming of age.

Her fight was interesting, as she was against someone wielding a nodachi, a field sword. The longest (practical) katana one could find, it was also known as an ōdachi, and was three shaku/35.8 inches long, compared to the length of the girl's wakizashi, which looked to be about sixteen inches long by comparison. She had to get inside of the reach of her opponent and keep him from making use of his weapon's longer reach to keep her at bay. Honestly, it was a poor match up and the fact she lasted the whole three minutes was impressive in and of itself.

Eventually, however, he heard the dreaded call of, "Number thirty-two." from Aizawa. Gulping, he came to his feet and headed for the centre of the sparring area, drawing his Spirit Sword as he stepped into the ring.

"Your opponent is…Zuiun Seiran." Aizawa stated, an almost imperceivable air of tension as he said the name.

The girl who advanced to the centre of the room instantly put Izuku on guard. She looked fairly innocuous; delicate, high-boned cheeks, wide eyes with long lashes, pale skin and immaculately arranged turquoise hair. But it was her red eyes that set him on edge. They evaluated him, but not as an opponent in a spar. No, those were the eyes of someone looking at a toy and wondering how much fun they can pull from it before it breaks.

He'd seen looks like that from several of Bakugō's cronies over the years, and the same look from a girl who was at least one year his senior and far more experienced in swordplay did not fill him with joy at the prospect of facing her, but asking for a different opponent wasn't allowed. Just a year ago he'd have given up immediately at seeing that look in her eyes, running away rather than confronting the problem head on.

Instead, he let out a breath and let the anxiety drain away as he set his in a determined mien and inclined his head respectively to his senior.

He was different now. He would not let himself be used as a chew toy. He would face her with all that he had and would stand strong no matter what came after.

Izuku wasn't a worthless 'Deku' anymore.

With Zuiun Seiran

When the green-haired boy had stood up, Seiran had already been looking forward to beating him down. Even with the tight-arsed bastard known as Aizawa acting as the invigilator, and the restricting three minutes of time for the spar, beating this rookie into the ground should have been an enjoyable distraction.

Something happened as she stood up and walked towards him though; his eyes flashed in…recognition? If not of her specifically, then of what she was planning on doing. Then his face had gone all hard and determined, with just a hint of resignation and fatalism at the edges of his expression.

'Oh come on, you're going to take all the fun out of this.' she thought with a mental pout. She really couldn't stand the gutsy ones that got all stubborn after they saw her true colours. She wasn't a bully, not in the least! Zuiun Seiran instead considered herself an…educator. She was a rookie crusher, someone who found no greater joy than in crushing aspiring Swordmasters beneath her heel. It was for their own good after all, the quicker they realized that they weren't anything special, the quicker they could start getting better.

And if they ended up throwing in the towel afterwards? Well, that was just their own weakness; not her fault that their egos were so fragile.

The fact she enjoyed doing it was entirely beside the point.

This kid though…she quickly recognized the type. Little guy had clawed his way up kicking and biting against people constantly trying to push him back down. He already knew just how mean the world could be. And given the way he'd shifted gears so fast when he recognized her type, he was probably still in the stage where he expected someone to show up just to try and boot him back down again.

Ugh, she hated that type. Give her the 'prodigies' and 'small-town heroes' any day, they made such delightful faces when they realized that they were just little fish that had just wandered into a great big ocean. It was a feast for her senses.

This…this was going to be like chewing on old boot leather. No fun at all.

Sadly, doing anything less than her best would result in Aizawa having an excuse to punish her (the man honestly did not get her in the least), so she would just have to make do with what was put on her plate. Drawing her Spirit Sword, a standard katana with a lavender and white tsukamaki, and a plain square tsuba, she smoothly flowed into a ready stance. Fighting head-to-head like this wasn't her preference, but she could do so if needed.

As Number Thirty-Two copied her, she was surprised by how fluid his own stance was. Hmm, little man had obviously put some serious efforts into his training. Maybe she'd at least get a decent warm-up from this even if she didn't get a good meal.

"Ready…" the perpetually tired man looked between the two kids. "…start."

Seiran immediately executed a standard kesa-giri, a monk's-robe cut. It was a downward diagonal cut that was a basic attack from kendo and kenjutsu, and she often used it to gauge her opponents' reaction times.

Most of the time people would either block it, or try to blade-lock, both of which she knew how to deal with. This kid? He moved to the side to avoid it and immediately moved to counter!

In a kendo spar, like most of these kids had been in before, you could only dodge by retreating. The thing most of the kids didn't get was that this wasn't a regular kendo spar; this was more akin to randori than regular sparring, thus there was no penalization for making use of the entire sparring arena. None of the kids who had fought today had grasped that this wasn't a regular kendo spar; this one had.

'Time to turn up the heat then!' Seiran thought with a smirk as she easily parried the strike, her blood starting to speed up just a tad. She struck back with a kiriage, an upward cut, which was essentially a reversed kesa-giri. She kept putting the pressure on the kid, never letting up and this kid? He pushed right back. Dodge and counter, divert and push back. More than that he was getting better as they fought; he was starting to fucking read her moves after the second minute passed and she was forced to up her own speed and power to counter his offensive.

She tried to overwhelm him and he just…kept…pushing…back!

It was infuriating!

'This is over!' she mentally snarled as her frustration grew, funnelling more of her limited Reiryoku to bolster her speed for one last push. No rookie was gonna show her up!

"Time's up, cease!" Aizawa commanded sharply, as Seiran's blade halted an inch short of Number Thirty-Two's neck…and the tip of his blade halted an inch short of piercing her chest, where her heart lay.

"Holy shit!"

"That was intense!"

"That was a mutual kill!"

The two stepped back and sheathed their Spirit Swords in nigh-unison, red eyes locked onto green and vice-versa.

"Not bad, Rookie." Zuiun Seiran said softly. "Not bad at all, I look forward to seeing you at U.A. in the future. Next time we spar, I hope we don't have such limiting conditions to get in the way of our…fun."

Words said, the girl turned and strutted away, inwardly fuming in spite of her stoic face.

'A mutual kill? Like hell it was!' she snarled to herself. 'He would have impaled me through the heart before I could have completed my swing! I fucking LOST! No fucking ROOKIE beats me! When we fight at the end of the first term, Imma crush him with everything I have!'

Meanwhile Izuku, sitting between Ochako and Itsuka congratulating him on his spar, got a shiver running down his spine.

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Next Chapter: United Alliance Dormitories

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