UA High School. A towering behemoth of the world of heroes. The school of origin of many great heroes in both the past and modern eras. For many, this place is their point of origin in heroics, and Izuku was no exception.

The blue haired teen stared in awe at the twin structures that dominated the view from the entrance grounds. It was nothing compared to the realm of stars that Marris seems to inhabit, but heroes and everything to do with them has always been at the heart of Izuku as long as he could remember. He couldn't help but take in on what was essentially was his future school….

…until he was roughly shoved on to the ground on his rear. When Izuku reoriented himself from the sudden displacement, his point of view was shifted to meet a familiar angry face with spikey blonde hair. Bakugou's expression was a mixture of mild rage, and confusion. The blonde opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but seemingly decided against it. Rather, Bakugou snorted and twisted his faced into one containing amusement. He turned and continued his walk towards the entrance of UA and disappeared behind the glass doors. For once, Bakugou had managed to confuse Izuku by not devolving into his usual behavior seen in Aldera High.

"First Marris, now Bakugou. What is with everyone today" Thought the blue haired teen as he picked himself off the ground. He dusted himself for a second, then grabbed the straps of his yellow backpack with a look of determination in his eyes.

"No matter if everyone is acting weird today. This is a new beginning, and I have to not let anything stop me!" Izuku thought with resolution.

With his newfound resolve, Izuku took his first punitive steps towards his future… Only to trip on his own feet and once again plummet to the ground.

"Or I will just die."

However, Izuku did not meet death or the ground for that matter. In fact, he was surprised to see that his descent was completely halted midair.

"Sorry about that, but I figured that you probably needed some help there" said an unfamiliar voice, "But can you please pull yourself up, you're heavier than you look."

Without any hesitation, Izuku did as he was asked, and to his surprise, saw that a girl was the one who caught him. The girl was shorter than him with a head of brown hair and eyes that reminded him of a light coffee. Her skin was peach colored that was typically of most people in Japan, and the uniform that she was wearing indicated that she was clearly from another school.

"S-Sorry for troubling you like that, but thank you anyways for helping me" Izuku said nervously

The girl giggled in return, "You don't have to apologize, accident happen after all. Besides, it would be unheroic of me to not help someone who needs help"

"H-Heh, yeah. Are you attending the exam for the hero course?" asked Izuku

The brown-haired girl smiled, "Yeah, and I would guess that you are as well?" questioned the girl.

The blue haired boy nodded in return, and this only seemed to make the girl's smile grow larger.

"Well, I wish you luck and I hope that the next time I see you, we will be classmates. But that can't happen if we miss the exam." Said the girl as she started to hurry towards the glass doors.

Izuku was feeling braver than usual and piped up to get some parting words. "G-Good luck to you as well" Izuku shouted to her.

The girl stopped before opening the door and shot one last smile before disappearing into the building.

"What a nice girl." Izuku said out loud to no one in particular, "I talked to a girl?!"

The blue haired teen turned scarlet at the realization and covered his face with his hands in embarrassment. As sad as it sounds, this was indeed the first time Izuku had talked to a girl beyond a few words of pleasantries or a series of hurtful jabs directed at him. Marris, who was like an older sister, and his mother do not count in that regard. However, his moment of embarrassment was short lived as the teen remembered the words of the girl, and he himself made like a banana and left to attend his exam.

…

The written exam was nothing Izuku couldn't handle, it was only nerve wracking and nail biting as much as a written test can be. So, only the common feelings of inadequacy and anxiety followed the blue haired teen as he followed the crowd of students heading towards the auditorium for the practical exam. The rows of trophies, awards, and hero memorabilia lined the halls on route to the auditorium helped ease his test anxiety.

It didn't help that he was forced to sit next to Bakugou in the arranged seating, but thankfully the blond for once decided to ignore Izuku.

Izuku in turn was too busy Fanboying over the fact that Present Mic, the voice hero, was the one giving a seminar for the practical exam. The excitement of seeing one of the most popular heroes in Japan put the blue haired teen into one his trademarked muttering fit.

"CAN I GET A 'HEY', LISTENERS!" shouted the voice hero

He was promptly met with silence from the crowd in the auditorium, a bead of sweat dripped down his forehead. Present Mic awkwardly cleared his throat and resumed the seminar.

"Okay Listeners, I want to you to pick up the brochures that have been provided at your seating and take a real good look at them." Present Mic said with returning gusto, "In this exam, you will be facing robots set as mock villains in one of UA's mini cities. There are three robots that you will contend with, One Pointers, Three Pointers, and Five pointers. Each are worth the same amount of points in according with their names, and you are to destroy them to get the points to your score."

A hand in the near to the front row of the auditorium shot up before Present Mic can finish his explanation.

"Yes, examinee #428." Present Mic asked without losing his signature smile.

"Ah Yes, you said that we will only be facing three types of robot villains, but on the pamphlet, there are four listed. Is this a printing mistake and if so, it reflects poorly upon a school as prestigious as UA? Furthermore!", a black-haired teen with glasses rose up in a robotic like manner and turned towards the back of the auditorium, "You there with the blue hair! Your mumbling is disrupting the seminar! Are you even taking this exam seriously!"

Izuku jumped at the accusation that was directed towards him, and felt his ears turn red with embarrassment as the other examinees laughed at him. He lost his voice in a panic and could only stutter as a form of retort towards his accuser. This only fueled the laugher of the other examinees. The blue haired teen sunk further into his seat, trying to avoid any more negative attention. Present Mic luckily saved him from any further embarrassment.

"To answer your question Examinee #468. The fourth robot is what we call the Zero Pointer, and it serves more as an obstacle that you are to avoid rather than confront. I will note that if one manages to destroy the Zero Pointer, they will receive no points to their score." Present Mic said matter-a-factly, "Well, if there aren't any more questions, go change and hop on the city grounds that corresponds with your assigned letter. Good Luck, and remember…Go Beyond, Plus Ultra!"

Izuku was stretching his muscles as away from other people as he could on the starting line of City Grounds D. After the incident at the auditorium, he was avoiding the other students who would no doubt make fun of him. So, the blue haired teen opted to avoid the others to try to stay focused on the upcoming test. Every now and then he would peek into the crowd of examinees, trying to see if any were focused on him. It was doing this that Izuku saw her.

Brown hair, peach skin, and a smile that he was familiar with. It was the nice girl from earlier, dressed in track pants and a tank top with wrist warmers. She was seemed to have gotten her preparation done and was waiting idly for the test to begin. Without Marris around, and the dressing down he got in the seminar, Izuku certainly needed a friendly face.

"Perhaps I can go and say hello, it certainly wouldn't hurt to…"

"There you are!" shouted a familiar voice

Izuku turned to see that same examinee who had called him out in the auditorium storming his way towards him. Before Izuku could even do anything to reply or run away, the glasses wearing kid begun to run his mouth in the longest and worst dressing down that Izuku have ever faced. All the while the teen never ceased his robotic karate chop hand motion or even pausing to take a breath. Izuku could not even understand what he was even trying to say with how face he was speaking. He caught words such as "improper", "ashamed", and "respectable" in the rant that mirrored his mumbling. Just when Izuku thought the other teen was going to pass out from oxygen deprivation, a loud shout shot out.

"GO!"

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked towards the source of the noise. Only to see Present Mic standing a sort of sports podium with a smug smile.

"What are you waiting for? There are not countdowns in real life! GET MOVING!" Shouted the voice hero

Everyone paused…. And like a stampeding herd of cattle, the examinees raced into the artificial city.

…

When Present Mic had ended the countdown or lack of one, Izuku was not prepared for main ingredient of the practical exam. Pure Chaos. The scene he witnessed took the blue haired boy made him lose focus, causing the teen to just stand still like an outplace piece of furniture. It was like a ravenous swarm of locusts had been released on a small field of corn. Each examinee was or trying to gorge themselves on as many of the villain points as possible with no regard to anything else. The ones with the more flashy and powerful quirks were mechanically destroying the villain robots without any regard. There were a few times in which they nearly caused the debris from the destroyed robots to hit some of the other examinees. The examinees with the less flashy or more utility oriented quirks were not having an easy time to begin with in trying to take out the robots. It didn't help that the examinees with the flashier and destructive quirks used them as distractions in order to add onto their own score. In response, the other examinees took to hindering their competition using their own quirks as an act of petty revenge, desperation, or to fuel the chaos.

"These people are what the future heroes will look like?" Izuku whispered in disbelief. His thoughts drifted to that of some anonymous poster on an old hero form. He openly condemned UA and other schools like it, saying all they did was breed a generation of heroes who care only for fame and fortune. Izuku venomously disagreed with the old poster, but now he couldn't help but feel so disgusted with what he was seeing. It was like he opened up a repressed memory, a memory that he shouldn't have.

"Why does this feel so familiar to me? I've never even seen anything so cut-throat before" Pondered Izuku. But whether it was his memory or the memory of a ghost, he wasn't sure. But the blue haired teen did not let it distract him from the exam. He couldn't afford to fail now.

…

Izuku was growing desperate. Despite all his training these past nine months, he was not doing the best in acquiring points. The cloud of chaos around the exam had made it actually rather difficult to take down a robot. On nearly every occasion he used his Invisibility power, he was nearly blown to pieces by an exploding robot when it was hit by a twinkling laser beam, or had his messy curls grazed by a beam that went wild. Any other robot was taken down by that kid who had reprimanded him for his muttering during the seminar, his speed quirk allowing him to blitz through robots left and right.

"Dammit! How many points do you need to get for yourself!" Izuku shouted to no one as yet another three pointer was taken from him by a ranged quirk. "I can't fail this, not after everything Marris did for me!"

However, the atmosphere of the testing grounds changed as menacing aura filled the artificial city. The earth trembled as a titan made its appearance on to the city. The zero pointer that Present Mic had mentioned had been released in the last minute of the exam. Present Mic was lying when he said the robot was like an obstacle, it was more like an unstoppable force. The robot itself took the appearance of hunched humanoid figure that was the size of a small skyscraper. It was armed to the teeth with an assortment of missiles, guns, and claw-like hands, and at the cusp of the test's end it was released.

The examinees' appropriate response to the zero pointer was to run like hell away from the thing. For Izuku, the choice was clear, he needed to get some points and perhaps he finally can get some while everyone is distracted by the….

"Help me!" …

….

"Help me!"

The voice was faint, nearly lost on the in the sea of other sounds of the mock battle. Izuku turned to look at the source of the plea for help. It was that nice girl from earlier, only this time she was trapped under large chunks of rubble, leaving her only head exposed to the world. Izuku wouldn't have noticed her if not for the sharp increase in his senses over the last few months. The only problem was the fact that the Zero Pointer had noticed her as well and was converging upon her location.

The blued haired boy took a step, then another, and another but then the steps turned into a sprint as he was headed straight towards the danger. Test be damned, someone was in trouble, and Izuku was not going to stand by and do nothing about it.

However, Izuku's rescue charge was interrupted when something snagged him from his run. Izuku turned his head to see the same kid who berated him earlier, he had sprinted up to him to him and was holding him back by his arms.

"Do you have a death wish or did you not pay attention to our Instructor? He told you to avoid the Zero Pointer!?" barked the taller examinee

Izuku begun to struggle against the other's hold, "Let go of me! There is someone trapped in the rubble, directly in the path of the villain" he half-demanded half-pleaded

"Even if there was someone there, they would've called out for help, and I don't hear a word! You think I would believe an obvious lie from someone who is clearly not suited for the hero course", retorted the other teen face contorting in anger

For the first time in Izuku's life, he felt a burning white sensation in his chest at the accusations of the other examinee. For the first time in his life Izuku was angry, at the wonton greed and pettiness of the other examinees, at a test that was biased for uncaring brutes like Bakugou, at this other teen who had the gall to say those words. The white mark on his arm was burning like his chest, ready to explode the hidden power underneath his flesh.

A loud crunch briefly took Izuku out his fury, and as the teen turned his head to see what was in front of him. The colossus-like robot was nearly upon where the nice girl was trapped, but Izuku could not see her head anymore and the only sounds he can hear was a very faint whimpering.

"Do they let kids die in examines like this? Will they even stop it to help?" Izuku frantically thought

Desperation crawled out and replaced the fiery anger that was previously inside Izuku, and he redoubled his efforts to get out of the other teen's hold. Like a cornered animal, Izuku struggled against the hold with all his strength and when that was not enough, he even resorted to trying to elbow the other kid to get him to let go.

"Hey, you with the red hair! Help me hold this guy down, he's gone hysterical!" Izuku heard the teen shout.

Another even stronger grip replaced the other on his right side, and it seemed whoever it was activated their quirk, turning the soft feel of flesh into a hard-sharp texture. No matter how hard the blue haired teen fought against his captors, it, like so many times as before, was never enough. Escape was impossible.

Izuku felt tears stream down his cheeks as he screamed his voice raw, begging and/or demanding the two to let him go. His innards twisting into gordian knots as the faint whimpering disappeared into silence, as he still vainly tried to break free. Flashes of the white figure flared across his eyes, as he sees her in a slideshow like manner mirroring his predicament. Except that she was struggling against her captors who were taking her to a pole standing atop a large pile of wood.

Izuku would only have to bear the unbearable for a short while longer, as the bell sounding the end of the test caused the Zero Pointer to freeze in its tracks. Izuku went slack in the grip of his captors and he completely blotted out the world around him as his head was lost in its own prison of dark thoughts.

"It wasn't enough. Not enough to pass the exam. Not enough to save that girl. Not enough…I wasn't enough"

The blue haired teen ignored the stares from the other examinees who had witnessed the ordeal. He ignored the words of the school nurse as she came to asset the injured kids. He ignored to the gasps of his captors and the other kids as the unconscious girl was pulled from the rubble by a group of rescue robots. He ignored the dull throbs in his arms as he mechanically walked away from UA and to Dagobah beach. He ignored the dings and rings of his cell phone as he sat in the sand huddled into a little ball. He ignored the cold chill in his body as the sky began to drop buckets of water on the teen.

He couldn't ignore anything anymore when the overcast sky descended into darkness and a rather large white garment was draped over his shivering and wet frame. He looked up from his spot to see the blue skin, black eyes, and tendril-like hair of Marris. Her aura was surrounded with clouds of worry that he had not seen in years, whilst her blank face carried an expression that he was all too familiar with. It was an expression that she always had when Bakugou and the other students were even nastier than usual, when the teachers would go the extra mile to increase the misery he would face that day, or the day when his mother told him in tears that his father wasn't with them anymore, it was her silent way of saying things will be okay. It was at that moment that Izuku finally broke down, and the lamprey mermaid took him into a comforting hug.

It was on the twilight of the day of the UA entrance exam, in which Izuku's childhood dream would die in the rising night. He would find another dream in the darkness of the night, changing the future of the young boy and the society he was born into. But for now, Izuku cried his heart out in the arms of his only friend, as the sound of rain pelted the sands of a forgotten beach.

Hello everyone, It is me the author and this is the first time I am speaking to you on this site. I would've done this earlier, but laziness held me prisoner. Anyways if you have any questions regarding the story feel free to ask in the review section. Or if you have anything to say about what you like about this story or hate about it, also drop a review. Anyways see you nect time.