Chapter 6
And I'm back.
I'm so sorry that I posted this a week late. Unfortunately, as I suspected, school was quite hectic because we needed to catch up on a lot of things. Unfortunately, that meant I couldn't finish the chapter in time. Plus this was my longest chapter and I wanted to make sure that the interactions were fleshed out and the battle scenes were adequate.
Thank you to Duckman154, SpectacularSpidey and JJafan for reviewing. I love all the support. As usual, if you have any advice or comments about the battle sequence of this chapter, I would greatly appreciate it. I'm not sure how good it is.
Notes about the poll will be in the post chapter AN though I will say that I have extended the deadline and would appreciate anyone who gives suggestions on pairings for the Battle Trial.
Now enjoy the chapter :)
Ochako had been extremely nervous today. Not only because she had the U.A. entrance exam, but also what passing the exam meant for her. If she passed the exam, she would have to move to Musutafu as she simply lived to far away to make the daily commute. In fact, just before the exam, she had gone to see a possible apartment and while it was good, just the idea of living by herself in an unknown city was frightening.
She had been conflicted about going to U.A. especially as her family weren't that well off. U.A. was expensive and going to the prestigious high school meant she would also have to rent an apartment which would just add to the costs. Nevertheless, once her parents found out she wanted to go to U.A, they had become adamant that she attend and hadn't taken no for an answer.
Whenever she brought up the issue of money, they would just look at each other before smiling at her and telling her not to worry. In the end, her parents made her promise that if she passed the entrance exam, she would definitely attend U.A. And she was glad that they had done so. Unfortunately, that didn't stop that nugget of worry in her of the future.
However, when she reached U.A, all thoughts of her worries flew out the window. Instead, the sheer sight of the school filled her with excitement at the prospect of learning here. Especially since the school had her favourite hero as part of the teaching staff.
As she walked past the gate, she saw a cute, green-haired boy simply standing in place, facing away from the entrance to the building. She decided to walk towards him. Maybe he was having second thoughts about the exam like she initially had. Hopefully she could convince him to take it anyway otherwise he would probably regret it later.
However, as she neared him, he suddenly twisted around awkwardly which caused his legs to get tangled together. Ochako quickly reached out with her hand and activated her quirk so that he stopped falling. It seemed to take him a second to realise he had stopped falling before he started waving his arms around. At this point, Ochako decided to release her quirk so he stopped panicking.
After she had introduced herself and apologised for using her quirk on him without his permission, she had to wait for a few seconds before he nervously introduced herself. She failed to stop the small giggle that escaped. She didn't know what it was, but his obviously nervous and shy personality was quite adorable.
As they walked towards the hall where the written exam would take place she decided to the boy 'Izuku' who his favourite hero was. She hoped that the question would break the silence between them and help them both relax before the exam.
While his answer itself wasn't that unexpected, the depth he went into showed his obvious admiration of All Might. Unconsciously, she smiled at the excited response. If anyone were to ask her about Thirteen, she would likely respond with the same level of enthusiasm as he did.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end and the short walk to the hall had seemed far longer in her head. Nevertheless, they had to part ways so they could find their own seats and after a few frantic minutes of searching, she was able to locate her seat which was in the lower-left half of the auditorium. Unfortunately, her seat was not near Izuku's seat, so she was forced to sit in the middle of a group of strangers, as she had been the only one in her school to apply to the U.A. hero course.
Seeing Present Mic's boisterous personality in person was something else. She normally just listened to him on the radio so seeing a live performance of sorts was thrilling. A quick glance around her revealed that some of the other applicants also felt the same. U.A's teaching line-up was truly amazing.
After the torturously long written exam came to a close, she was able to give a sigh of relief. She knew the practical portion would be tough, but she was just more confident with her quirk than her academics, especially maths. She had felt like crying when a question on projectile motions came up in the exam. But now it was over! She thought that she had done well enough to pass the cut-off mark, and in the end that was all that mattered to her. She could now focus on the practical exam.
'Deep breath in. Deep breath out.' Ochako closed her eyes and centred herself in an effort to calm her nerves. After a minute, she could no longer feel her heartbeat in her throat which she took as a good sign. 'Gunhead's advice works really well!'
After getting over the initial abrupt start of the exam, Ochako rushed into the city as fast as she could. She had already removed the gravity from her clothes and shoes thus shedding some weight but even then she wasn't very fast. One boy just zoomed ahead with some speed quirk. However, even others with no speed quirk managed to pass her. 'I really need to get more in shape.'
She - like many of the other applicants - headed straight to the centre of the city. It was simply the shorter route as opposed to going to the edge and Ochako just didn't have the physical stamina to run around the edge of the city and then use her quirk to get enough points to pass.
After roughly 5 or 6 minutes, she had managed to get 28 points. There were a bunch of other applicants in the same street as her and it looked like a warzone with smoking robot parts and debris littering the asphalt. She had been so focused on getting her own points that she didn't know how she was doing compared to other applicants.
Suddenly, a yell of "Forty-five points!" drew her attention and she paled slightly while panting. She turned around to take a look and saw the same uptight boy she had seen speed ahead of the competition at the beginning of the exam. Given his serious demeanour, Ochako hoped that he was one of the stronger applicants and that she had enough for the time elapsed.
She decided to head towards the exact centre of the city. She had noticed that the closer she had gotten, the more robots she had found. Maybe there was a place close to the centre where they were coming from. If she could find it, she could get a lot more points.
However, there was suddenly a deep rumbling which caused her to trip and fall. Something nearby seemed to explode and before she knew it, she was on the ground with an excruciating pain in her left foot culminating in a scream of pain being torn from her lips.
After a few seconds of simply lying on the ground, Ochako slowly manoeuvred herself onto her elbows. Every other movement seemed to jolt her leg causing her to release another whimper. After what seemed like forever, she managed to position herself so that she could see what had happened.
Glancing at her feet, she could see rubble had landed on her leg and judging by the pain, she had most likely broken her foot. 'But how did that rubble just fall on me?'
She was so deep in pain and thought that she almost didn't notice the rhythmic rumbling beneath the ground. However, a moment of clarity caused her to look past the rubble. As her eyes travelled higher, she finally noticed the absolutely massive robot now lumbering towards her.
'This must be the Zero Pointer.' That random thought forced a slightly delirious chuckle out of her. She cautiously stretched a hand out to touch the rubble, but the position was too awkward and moved her foot too much.
'People won't get critically injured in these exams, will they? Will the teachers intervene before the robot reaches me?' These were the thoughts the came in Ochako's mind. She was just a sitting duck as the robot came closer and a wave of pain caused her to close her eyes and grit her teeth.
Suddenly the pressure on her foot was gone and there was a hand gently pulling one of her arms. She grimaced as she was pulled up. She placed her arm over his shoulder and Ochako finally saw who it was that was helping her. It was Izuku!
However, the loud crashing behind her reminded her that now was not the time to dwell on such things and together, the two of them started to move away – or in her case, hop away – from the Zero Pointer. Unfortunately, due to her leg, they weren't making much progress. In fact, the robot was clearly gaining on them, if the larger tremors were any indication.
Ochako was about to suggest that he just leave her and run, but before she could even open her mouth, Izuku had placed her on a quite a large, flattish piece of rubble, before sending her away from the robot using his quirk. Ochako unconsciously lifted her broken leg onto her other leg as she moved so to reduce the jostling.
After sliding roughly 15 metres, Ochako came to a stop. But as soon as the platform stopped, Ochako looked back at Izuku. He had put himself in danger just to save her and she wasn't going to sit by and just watch.
She started to crawl towards Izuku when she was struck by how quiet it suddenly was. The creaking of the metal was absent as was the rumble of the ground shaking. She looked up to see a sight that terrified her. The robot had stopped walking in her direction and was standing just a few feet away from Izuku. However, it wasn't motionless. Its arm was moving back as if it as winding up for a smash.
"Watch out!" screamed Ochako.
However, instead of trying to escape, Izuku simply glanced back at her and sent her a watery smile before turning back around. He then proceeded to chuck large boulders at the incoming hand though it had little effect. Ochako was frustrated. She didn't know what she could do in this situation. She wouldn't be able to reach Izuku in time to do anything.
Ochako decided to closer her eyes so to avoid seeing the metallic hand of doom crash into the ground. However, just before she could turn away, she saw something that would be etched in her mind for years to come.
Something forced her to watch the scene in front of her play out. The ground started to shake, even though the Zero Pointer was not walking. There was a burst of power and Ochako saw Izuku's posture… change. His back had been to Ochako, but while he had just been flinging rocks at the oncoming hand, he was now standing there, relaxed, with his head tilted down.
He took to one knee and Ochako saw him place a hand on the ground. Ochako was glad that she was on the ground as she would've fallen from the amount of shaking. Her eyes widened in alarm as she saw cracks develop in the earth around Izuku. She could feel the build-up of pressure.
Just when the robot's hands had started to become far too close for comfort, Izuku thrust both hands into the sky and suddenly, a spire of rock thrust out the ground and speared straight through the attacking arm, all the way into the robot's chest. If one were able to see the view from the air, they would've seen the spire of rock in all its majesty, almost as large as the robot, be impaled through the Zero Pointer's chest.
The robot's bright red eyes dimmed almost instantaneously and Ochako could only look on, mouth wide open. Unfortunately, the Zero Pointer was surprisingly fragile. After being impaled, small parts of the robot started to break off and fall to the ground.
Ochako's eyes searched for the curly, green hair of one Izuku. However, unlike being on the ground like she thought, she spotted Izuku riding halfway up the spire. Unfortunately, that wasn't the worst part. Ochako saw Izuku suddenly go limp and he toppled over the side of the rock spire.
Ochako gasped in shock and knew that she had to save him. Even though she was in pain, she had to use her quirk. Luckily, the adrenaline from the scene that had just unfolded alongside the minute of reprieve had given her some energy back. 'But will I make it? He's falling so fast!'
Ochako dragged herself to a nearby piece of rubble and used her quirk on it and herself. She then pushed off the ground and rose almost 10 feet off the ground. Just as Izuku was about to fall passed her, she managed to stretch out and slap him on the face with all her fingertips. She cried in relief – and a bit of pain - as she felt her quirk activate and the boy floated.
"Release!" cried out Ochako as she abruptly turned off her quirk and they unceremoniously sank to the ground.
The adrenaline had made her forget about the pain in her ankle, but now that the ordeal was over, the adrenaline was leaving her system. This along with quirk overuse made her feel quite queasy.
'Please don't vomit. Please don't vomit!'
Two seconds later, it was clear her plea was ignored as she started vomiting rainbows. People, along with herself, viewed rainbows as beautiful. But there was no part of vomiting rainbows that was pleasant.
After just half a minute, Present mic's voice blared over the city declaring the battle over. Ochako just lay on the ground. A cursory glance at Izuku revealed him to still be unconscious.
When Ochako had set out today for the U.A. entrance exam, she hadn't expected it to end with a broken ankle and having to be saved from a robot bigger than her prospective apartment complex.
"Are you alright there, dearie?" A voice behind her jarred her from her thoughts and she turned to see an old woman hobbling towards her with a cane, shaped like 'is that a giant needle!'.
"Oh, it's Recovery Girl. U.A's school nurse," said one of the applicants. By now, most of the other applicants had returned to see the wreckage. A small, cynical part of Ochako's tired mind cursed the other applicants for returning confidently now where they had previously run away with the appearance of the Zero Pointer.
"Let me heal that for you," said Recovery Girl. She then proceeded to stretch her lips and kiss Ochako's ankle. Ochako was a bit weirded out by the lips, but she quickly forgot about it due to the relief she felt.
She turned to thank the nurse only to see that she had turned away from her and was staring at Izuku. "Of course, you overdid it Midoriya," said the nurse under her breath.
'Does she already know him?'
The nurse then kissed the boy and a green aura surrounded him. The strange thing was that there were no visible injuries. He hadn't even broken his hand!
Regardless, she knew that she had to make it up to the boy for saving her. She remembered him saying that he only had 16 points. 'I'll go to one of the faculty and offer my points. Hopefully it will be enough for him to get in.'
In another battleground (3 minutes prior)
Fumikage hadn't been that worried about the entrance exam. It had been his dream to go to U.A. and he had trained extensively for the practical exam. Admittedly, he had not practiced the academic side a lot. Having a sentient and – for some reason – excitable quirk that quickly became bored made it quite…difficult to focus. Though, Fumikage knew that he himself was just less interested in learning things like solving a differential equation.
A loud blare brought him back to the city before him. The physical test had begun. He scowled slightly as he felt the glare of the high sun rain down upon him, weakening him. Nevertheless, there was nothing much he could do about it. He would simply use some of his inner Darkness to power through.
He, like a few of the other participants, had immediately gone through the gates when the siren had sounded. Fumikage took note of an ash blonde-haired boy rushing past everyone to the heart of the city using some type of explosions as propulsion. He felt some relief at the boy's chosen direction as that suited his plans to go round the edge of the city. His light releasing quirk would cause The huge wall surrounding the battleground would provide greater shade so Dark Shadow would be stronger, and he wouldn't need to rely heavily on his Darkness.
Going to the outskirts had proved to be a greater boon than he realised. He hardly saw any other competitors and reasoned that they probably joined the crowd going towards the centre of the battle city. After all, those that had weaker quirks would most likely attempt to point steal. Fumikage shook his head at the disgusting tactic.
Nevertheless, it allowed him to concentrate on the robots instead of thinking about others gawking at his appearance. To anyone who didn't know better, his appearance was simply part of his quirk yet, for some reason, even in a quirk dominated era, others feared him just from his appearance. Fumikage never once regretted the circumstances that led to this appearance but becoming a hero despite this was one of his goals.
Fumikage had quickly gathered many points. The robots were surprisingly easy to destroy. Even the three-pointers simply required two solid hits from Dark Shadow before they were destroyed. He had barely needed to use any of his Darkness, though he had taken a thirty-second break in a dark building to replenish Dark Shadow's strength. After roughly 5 minutes, he had managed to rack up 45 points and was feeling more relaxed about the outcome.
"Well done Dark Shadow," Fumikage spoke slowly between deep breaths. While Dark Shadow had been the one to destroy the robots, Fumikage had been running around for 5 minutes and was now quite winded.
"Yeah, I'm awesome!" Dark Shadow exclaimed while flexing the non-existent muscles on his arms. Fumikage sighed slightly, but he had long since gotten used to his partner's antics.
Suddenly, a huge rumbling swept through the city and Fumikage decided to finally head towards the centre in order to investigate where it came from. However, his pace was definitely far slower than earlier, something that Dark Shadow made clear. Fumikage could only roll his eyes and pull the teasing spirit back into his body.
As he got closer, the shaking in the ground became more intense making Fumikage slightly worried about what could be the cause of the disturbances. Just as he turned a corner, he saw a girl fighting some robots. Her back was turned to him, so she didn't spot Fumikage.
However, more importantly, she didn't seem to notice the robot coming behind her. "Watch out!" yelled Fumikage, while sending out Dark Shadow to destroy the two-pointer. Dark Shadow made quick work of the metal machine.
The girl shifted her gaze to him and opened her mouth to say something but before she could, her eyes seemed to look past him and Fumikage quickly realised that the rumbling he had mistaken for the same as earlier was actually a robot. He leapt forward while the girl's tongue stretched out, wrapped around the robot and threw it.
Having dealt with the robots in the immediate vicinity, the two turned to each other. "Thank you," said Fumikage while Dark Shadow gave a grin and a thumbs-up behind him.
The girl smiled. "Thank you too. Ribbit."
The two then nodded to each other before turning around and going in their separate directions.
As he was nearing the centre, he saw a massive robot, taller than the buildings surrounding it. Fumikage could only wonder how he had managed to miss such a monstrosity earlier. This was obviously the fourth robot: The Zero Pointer. He must have been quite distracted to not realise this was the source of the rumbling. "Wow that's a giant robot," said Dark Shadow.
"We should stay clear of it. We aren't strong enough in the daytime to do anything to it," said Fumikage.
Dark Shadow crossed his arms in mock anger. "I could take him in the day as well."
Fumikage just gave the sentient spirit a deadpan look. "I simply do not possess enough Darkness to grant you the strength during the day. Even at night, we would find it difficult to do much damage to such a creature."
"That's not true Fumi!" Dark Shadow said while wagging a finger in Fumikage's direction, "at night I c-" Dark Shadow suddenly stopped speaking and Fumikage, who had been looking up at the giant machine, instantly turned to see what was wrong.
However, all he saw was Dark Shadow floating with his back now turned to him. Fumikage had rarely seen the sentient spirit stand – or rather float – so still.
"Dark Shadow, what's wrong? Dark Shadow?" Fumikage's shouts grew louder as he became increasingly worried as to what had fixed Dark Shadow's attention.
After a long minute, Dark Shadow seemed to snap out of his daze and turned to Fumikage with a serious expression. One that Fumikage hadn't seen on him since he first met him. "I haven't felt spiritual energy this strong for millennia."
Fumikage's eyes widened noticeably at those words. While elemental quirks were considered rare, Fumikage knew that quirks related to spiritual energy were far, far rarer. In fact, he didn't know anyone outside the Tokoyami clan that wielded spiritual energy-related quirks.
That's not to say that there wasn't anyone else who had a quirk allowing them to wield spiritual energy. Just that such a thing would be extremely rare. In fact, Tokoyami bet that the Order of the White Lotus would've snatched him up if they knew what his quirk allowed him to do.
However, his clan was almost dead. And the likelihood that there was a quirk outside the clan that had spiritual energy strong enough to be sensed by Dark Shadow over a couple of miles was very slim. Given that they were at the U.A. entrance exam, it meant that she had a host once more. More importantly, it meant that going to U.A. would complete more objectives than his personal one. "You don't mean…"
"She has returned to the physical plane," replied Dark Shadow, awe colouring his tone.
Izuku groaned and he opened his eyes. The light was bright, forcing him to open them slowly. This situation was oddly reminiscent of the incident four months ago when he first received One for All.
Izuku heard the tired voice of Toshinori Yagi speak from his right and slowly got up on his elbows and turned to face him. "Oh, you're awake. How are you feeling?"
Izuku opened his mouth and rolled his tongue around, trying to wet the dryness he felt. Toshinori noticed this and handed him a glass of water that had been sitting on the bedside table. Izuku eagerly gulped the entire glass down – some of it even dribbling from the corner of his mouth - and gave a sigh of satisfaction once the glass was empty before responding. "I'm feeling quite drained for some reason. What happened? How long was I out? Is the battle over?"
Toshinori held his hands up to calm Izuku down. "Jeez kid! Calm down! You just got up!" He shouted, a little blood spurting from between his teeth.
"Sorry," said Izuku, blushing slightly.
"It's all right," Toshinori replied calmly. "You've been asleep for 20 minutes and the practical exam has ended. You're in Recovery Girl's office as you collapsed during the battle. You had overused your quirk, so Recovery Girl used her quirk to prevent quirk exhaustion at the cost of some physical stamina which is why you're feeling drained. What do you last remember?" he asked.
Izuku thought carefully back to the exam before responding. "I saw a girl trapped under some rubble and the Zero Pointer was coming straight for her, so I decided to save her. I had thrown some boulders at the incoming robot hand, but it didn't do much. And then…" Izuku paused as he searched through his memory, struggling to remember what happened next. "I don't remember what happened next."
Izuku's expression instantly became sadder as his thoughts wandered back to the failed battle test. "I'm sorry sensei, but I only got 16 p-"
Toshinori decided to cut him off. While he wanted it to be a surprise, he wasn't going to let Izuku wallow in misery. "Do not worry. I am sure they will take into account how you saved the girl. I am proud of you."
At those words, Izuku teared up and Toshinori sweatdropped at the hypersensitive child.
He then nodded knowingly as he thought about Izuku's experiences. He had expected something like this given how similar the situation was to when he had given One for All to Izuku. Toshinori then took a remote and opened a video on the T.V. in the room. Izuku turned his attention to the T.V. only to see one of the most destructive displays of quirks he had seen.
Izuku just sat there shocked at the move he had somehow pulled off. "That was me?" Izuku was flabbergasted. "I've never pulled anything like that off. How… how did I manage to create a pillar the size of multi-storey buildings when I can only just about bend boulders a bit bigger than me!" It was clear that Izuku was a bit hysterical and that it was clouding his normally sound judgement.
"As a person uses their quirk, their body adapts to better deal with the power contained and slowly quirks get stronger. I'm sure you have noticed this with your classmate Bakugo. His explosions are almost definitely more powerful than when he first developed his quirk." Toshinori explained. Izuku nodded, the explanation placating him slightly. He had quickly noticed that Kacchan's explosions were getting stronger, especially since he was the brunt of a few of his attacks.
But even more than that, Izuku had noticed the changes to Kacchan's shoulders and arms. Over the years, while a serious aspiring hero would likely bulk up slightly, Kacchan's shoulders had broadened considerably and Izuku reasoned that it allowed Kacchan to deal with the force of his larger explosions. "But that can't have been what happened to be? My quirk seemed to grow many times stronger in the space of a few minutes." Izuku reasoned.
Toshinori nodded a bit proudly at his student's logic. He had ascertained as much himself, though his opinion was different. "Correct. While you have gained control and power since you received One for All and have focused on quirk training, no training can improve a quirk so dramatically in the space of a few minutes."
Toshinori wagged his finger while Izuku stared and listened intently to the impromptu lesson from the number 1 Hero. "During life and death situations, when a person is scared for their life or the life of others, and nothing they do works, they unleash inhibitors the body places on itself and gain a power-up. I believe yours is an extreme example of this. It is unlikely that you'll be able to consciously repeat such a feat anytime soon, but you may notice some change in how your quirk functions."
Toshinori smiled at the end and Izuku couldn't help but grin. The thought of being able to see improvement in himself was very satisfying. After the first time he used his quirk, Izuku knew that he was scared of using his quirk on some level which is why he had ignored its training. Then, for some reason, he had expected his quirk to grow stronger even though he didn't try. 'Kacchan was right.'
Suddenly a thought occurred to Izuku. "But if that power was from a life or death situation, why did I activate it unconsciously when I first received One for All."
Toshinori opened his mouth before closing it again. The Avatar was reborn and passed down every generation, like One for All. The Avatar's responsibility was keeping balance and peace in the world. Like One for All. Plus Nana had said that One for All would evolve when a person with an elemental quirk inherited it… like Izuku. The more he thought about it, the more parallels he could make between his limited knowledge of the Avatar of old and Izuku with One for All.
Izuku looked at him expectantly as Toshinori thought about the connection. At that moment, he cursed his inattentiveness. He didn't fully trust the Order of the White Lotus, but he should've listened in on the few meetings he had with them. Instead, he had scoffed and disregarded most of what was said and now, he barely remembered anything about the Avatar and 'bending'. 'Did they call it bending or something else... shaping maybe? Arghhh! I don't even remember that!'
"What's wrong, Yagi-sensei?" Confusion could be visibly seen on Izuku's face. Toshinori debated on whether he should tell Izuku about his suspicions. How he believed that Izuku was the Avatar.
On one hand, telling him could lead to arrogance. But he had never seen any display of arrogance or overconfidence from the green-haired boy. In fact, Toshinori had only seen Izuku display confidence on a few occasions. Overconfidence was much further away. Plus, Toshinori didn't want to raise his hopes. After all, he could be wrong. How would Izuku react if he told him he was the Avatar and then he wasn't.
However, in the end, he knew that those arguments were weak. If Toshinori truly wanted to protect Izuku, the best thing to do would be to tell Izuku so that he knew what to keep secret and from whom to keep it secret. After all, if the Order caught wind of this, Toshinori wouldn't put it past them to abduct Izuku given how fanatical they were. Plus, the burden of secrets was always lighter when shared with people close to you. And in the end, a secret that so directly involved Izuku should not be kept from him.
Toshinori sighed and turned back to the patient Izuku. "Do you remember the talk we had with Gran Torino and Nezu after you were given One for All?" Izuku just nodded. How could he forget? "I think I know what the evolution of One for All entails. What I am telling you is considered a Class 5 secret." Toshinori held his hand up to stave off any imminent protesting from Izuku. Tell me young Midoriya, have you heard of the Avatar?"
Nezu sat in his office, humming a merry tune after the conclusion of the entrance exam. There had been only a few minor incidents. The most major of which had been Izuku Midoriya's casualty who had been the only one to actually fight the Zero Pointer out of all of the battleground cities. Though it had been a joy to see the power he displayed. Elemental quirks had always been Nezu's favourite type since it reminded him of the books he had stolen and read about bending when he was smaller. Those books had been one of the few delights of his bleak childhood.
There had been a few other minor spats such as an applicant almost attacking another for "copying his quirk." In another battle city, a boy with an explosion quirk, while amassing a lot of points, had caused a lot of collateral damage and had indirectly caused some trouble for the other applicants. While that didn't warrant disqualification, it sure didn't make the other applicants to happy at him.
There was a knock on the door causing Nezu to pause his train of thought before saying, "come in." A slender pale-skinned man entered. He had shaggy shoulder-length hair and tired eyes gazed at Nezu from beneath his bangs. The black monotony of his outfit was only broken by the light grey capture weapon he wore around his neck as a scarf. Nezu smiled as he looked at one Shouta Aizawa. "Hello, Shouta."
"I wanted to talk about an applicant," Shouta interjected. Nezu's sighed a bit. Straight to the point as usual.
Nezu's smile faded slightly as he had an idea of which applicant Aizawa was going to ask about. Nezu prized himself on his intelligence. It was the one thing those rotten experiments had given him. Every year, he studied every applicant's quirk days before the exam and objectively judged the usefulness of the quirk in hero work. Then during the written and practical exam, he created mental personality profiles of the applicants that had caught his eye.
For example, this year, he knew that applicants like Katsuki Bakugo, Eijiro Kirishima and Jurota Shishida would – given a sufficient level of proficiency with their quirk – likely easily get enough points to clear the practical exam. Unfortunately, Nezu quickly realised that Bakugo would likely have to be placed under probation. While the psyche evaluation was still two weeks away, the boy's anger management problems were glaring, though his drive to become a hero was also quite clear.
However, the results of the practical exam were surprising in some cases. One was the number of applicants that had correctly identified the loophole he had left in the rules. Candidates like Minoru Mineta and Kojiro Bondo had taken to trapping the robots in place using their respective quirks: Pop off and Cemedine.
He did allow himself a small chuckle at the little side test he had concocted for Izuku Midoriya. Toshinori may have decided to train Midoriya to one day take his place, but Nezu wanted his own proof. It wasn't at all to mess with the boy a bit. Nezu had secretly changed the programming of the robots in Battle city B so that only a few robots went round the edges of the arena. As he predicted, that resulted in Midoriya only earning a few villain points. Then, when the Zero Pointer came, Nezu was able to test his true nature. And he performed admirably. Instead of running away and getting more villain points, he had stayed and helped the person in need, thus sacrificing his chance to get in – at least in Midoriya's opinion.
Meanwhile, Shouta was standing there, waiting for some kind of response from the bear principal while counting the seconds in his head. After 33 seconds, he decided that enough was enough. Time was precious and Nezu was wasting his. He moved to turn away which prompted Nezu to focus back on the room. "Which applicant?"
Shouta sighed at the question. He knew that Nezu had probably figured out who he was talking about but Shouta had long since accepted Nezu's various idiosyncrasies and even though he was a bit impatient, he decided to humour the bear. "Hitoshi Shinso. Quirk: Brainwashing. I believe he would be a good hero. The entrance exam is illogical as it discriminates against people with quirks like his. He should make it to the hero course."
Nezu's eyes widened slightly. He had deduced a possible 15 candidates that Aizawa was most likely talking about, of which Hitoshi Shinso was definitely his top prediction. But he rarely heard Aizawa say something positive so openly about a student, let alone a candidate that – to his knowledge – he had never met. It only took a few moments of thinking before he gave his answer.
"No."
This time it was Aizawa's turn to widen his eyes. Shinso's quirk was extremely useful for a hero and while he hadn't gotten many points in the practical exam, he didn't think he would be rejected so quickly by Nezu. "But why? You know the entrance exam is illogical."
"Aizawa, we have discussed the entrance exam before and the use of robots in a battle is the best balance of ease, safety and consistency."
Aizawa nodded reluctantly before speaking, "but what about Hitoshi Shinso?"
"I stand by my decision. His quirk is extremely useful, and he could be trained to be a great hero, but he has not displayed a lot of motivation. He only got 6 villain points and no rescue points. There are several other applicants joining us this year who relied on physical strength for a major portion of their points as their quirks could simply not be used in the battle cities such as Koji Koda. His quirk is Anivoice that grants him command over animals. As you know, the battle cities lack animals save some birds which aren't strong enough to even destroy the One Pointers."
Aizawa nodded in more understanding albeit reluctantly. While Shinso's quirk was not suited to the test, he had clearly not tried hard in fixing his weaknesses. Still, Shinso reminded Aizawa of himself and seeing him not get into U.A. was a bit painful. When he was younger, he had barely scraped into U.A.
Nezu knew what Aizawa was thinking and quickly responded. "However, all is not over for young Shinso. He has already received a place for our General Studies class. Therefore, he has more chances to prove himself. If he shows sufficient motivation and growth at the U.A. Sports Festival, then I will allow you to personally train him, whether he joins the hero course this year or not."
Aizawa was stunned at such a proposal. It was a completely logical proposal… except for one thing. "When did I say I wanted to personally train him. That would take time out of my nap time!"
However, Nezu had simply turned away from him and was fiddling with something. Aizawa grumbled in annoyance. "Don't ignore me!"
Nezu turned to him with a stack of papers and a USB. "Here are the notes on your future students for Class 1-A and the USB has their individual performance."
Aizawa was quite annoyed by the whole conversation but he knew a dismissal when it hit him. Still, he vowed to get some form of revenge on Nezu. 'Nezu does prize his orientation, doesn't he. Hmmm. It would be logical to do the Quirk Apprehension Test as soon as possible.' He smiled slightly sadistically as he left the room.
It had been one week since the U.A. entranced exams and Izuku felt like he was going crazy from the wait.
After getting only 16 points, Izuku didn't think he would get into U.A. but Yagi-sensei had been quick to comfort him.
Izuku hadn't thought about it then, but he found it surprising that Yagi-sensei knew so much about his battle. That means he had seen his performance and knew something he didn't. But how could he see his performance? Izuku thought that only the U.A. schoolteachers had that footage.
Izuku had tried calling him multiple times in the last week, but Yagi-sensei had been avoiding him. Izuku had only received a message from him saying to call tomorrow.
However, he had also been stressing slightly about the whole Avatar thing. Ok, there was no 'slightly' about it. It was right up there with his U.A. result in terms of the stress it was giving him. Izuku had already accepted being tutored by Toshinori and had agreed, hesitantly, to one day take the mantle of Symbol of Peace. On some level, he still doubted his ability to do that.
But now, there was even more responsibility placed on his shoulders. He was the Avatar?! Someone that had died out many millennia ago and was tasked with keeping the peace. He didn't really want it to be true, but after presenting the evidence, Izuku was forced to admit that there was a good chance that it was true.
He didn't know what to do with that and was worried that things would change, but Toshinori had assured him that nothing had changed between them. He had assured Izuku that he was telling him because Izuku deserved to know. The genuine trust Toshinori had for him had sent Izuku into tears which took several minutes before coming to a halt.
"Izuku!" A loud voice sounded from outside his room causing him to jump in his seat. The door burst open and Inko literally jumped in which just startled Izuku more. "It's here. The U.A. letter is here!"
Izuku gasped in both horror and excitement. He gingerly took the letter from his mom, holding it delicately with two fingers at the corner. He then collapsed on his chair at the desk and simply stared at the letter.
Meanwhile, Inko quietly left the room so that Izuku could do this privately.
After 5 minutes of simply staring intently at the letter, Izuku finally decided to get it over with and tore open the letter roughly. A small, round, grey object exited the letter and a hologram appeared causing Izuku to yelp.
"I am here… as a projection!" Izuku's eyes were already as wide as they could go and his level of surprise was as high as it could go, so upon seeing All might appear in his U.A. letter, Izuku had no visible reaction and just said, "it's All Might."
After a second, Izuku's brain rebooted and he gave a more appropriate response. "Huh! What is All Might doing here?!"
All Might gave a booming laugh. "Haha! You may be wondering why I'm here. I didn't come to this city simply to fight villains. No! You are looking at U.A.'s newest faculty member!"
Izuku gasped in excitement. While he had been learning from All Might for the past year, the idea of doing so publicly in his dream school was almost overwhelming. While Izuku had been kept out of the loop, no part of him felt hurt at the action. It was such an amazing surprise! Izuku quickly turned his attention back to the projection so that he didn't miss anything.
"Huh? Who's showboating?" All Might had turned to someone off-camera and was talking to them. Izuku sweatdropped at his slightly oblivious attitude.
"Anyway… You passed the written exam with flying colours and were in fact one of the highest scorers we at U.A. have seen. However, you only got 16 points in the practical."
Izuku's excited mood slowly diminished. He had been hoping that there was something else throughout the week that would make up for his small number of points in the practical. But perhaps not.
"Now that isn't enough points to get in." Izuku started to tear up. "If that were all we were testing! Let me show you an interesting clip."
Izuku blinked as suddenly, Uraraka, the girl he had met from before the exam, appeared on the projection. "Hi. I was in Battleground B. I was wondering if I could give my points to one of the boys in my Battle city. He has green scruffy hair and his face was a bit plain-looking. His name was uhhh… Izuku Midoriya. He destroyed the Zero Pointer."
Izuku winced slightly at her description of him. But at the same time, he blushed slightly that she had remembered his name.
"He saved me, and I wanted to repay him," she continued speaking to Present Mic.
Present Mic simply smiled calmly before responding, "you don't need to worry. Trust me."
The video ended abruptly and Izuku suddenly saw the ever-smiling visage of All Might on the hologram.
"As you can see, there was a secret element to the exam. There was a panel of seven judges monitoring all the cities. They would award points on every heroic act. After all, how could we call ourselves one of the greatest hero schools if we do not reward heroic behaviour? And what is more heroic than self-sacrifice!"
Water started to literally stream from Izuku's eyes, but for a different reason than before.
"For your heroics, you have earned 60 rescue points, bringing your total points to 76!" That is a truly heroic score." All Might's smile grew wider, growing to titanic proportions as he held his giant hand up in a thumbs-up gesture.
A table popped up showing the top 10 scores. Izuku barely registered that he was a second-place though he did notice that Kacchan had placed first… with no rescue points!"
"With a score like that, U.A. openly welcomes you to the hero course. Well done Young Midoriya. This is your Hero Academia!"
Endeavor sat cross-legged in his training room. It had been quite a boring week and he had left a lot of the villains for his agency to deal with, instead, focusing on keeping up to form. Something that fool All Might was probably not doing since he had joined the U.A. faculty. Lately, he had felt that the sidekicks at the Endeavor agency had been getting complacent and had thus decided to force them to deal with a lot of the situations that cropped up. It was make or break at his agency.
However, there was some good news. Endeavor smiled as he had learned that both Midoriya and Bakugo had made it through the entrance exam and would be in his Shoto's class. While he had tried to disguise his motives, he knew that damn bear knew what he was thinking when he had asked him.
Shoto had gotten through the recommendation exam easily last week though Endeavor had been extremely displeased when he learned that someone had beaten him. Not only did that person have the gall to refuse a place at U.A, but he also had a powerful elemental quirk. Needless to say, Endeavor was enraged by that. How could his son dare lose to another elemental user!
The door to the training room opened causing Endeavor's cold blue eyes to turn to the intruder. "Ah, Shoto. I need to show you something."
Shoto was slightly surprised by Endeavor's 'I refuse to think of him as my father,' calm attitude. He had come to the training room to vent some frustration at the recommendation exam. Shoto would defy Endeavor's teachings as much as he could, but one trait that he had unfortunately picked up from Endeavor was the fury caused by losing to another elemental quirk user. He knew the old man had been training more the past week, but after he stopped hearing the usual bangs from his room half an hour ago, he had thought that Endeavor had left. Thus it was a bit surprising to see him still here.
"Well done on getting through the recommendation exam." Endeavor continued, already having turned away from Shoto.
Shoto's eyes widened at the praise only to narrow in disgust at that feeling. He didn't want to derive any joy or happiness from the man sitting in front of him.
His mood only darkened at Endeavor's next words. "However, it was very disappointing that you did not place first. It seems your training was lax. If you had used your fire instead of your ice, you would have easily beat the applicant with the whirlwind quirk."
"Tch." Shoto turned his head to the side in frustration.
The flames emitted from Endeavor climbed a few centimetres higher signalling Endeavor's increasing rage and Shoto smiled slightly at having managed to irritate him so easily but was quickly disappointed when the flames died back down.
"There will come a time when you will face a challenge that cannot be beaten by your ice. If you do not train your fire, you will regret it. You have been given the gift of possessing two elements and it is a disgrace to the benders of ancient times and to me that you refuse to train one of your elements!"
By this time Endeavor's face had morphed into a slight snarl, something that Shoto took pride in. Meanwhile, Shoto disregarded Endeavor's words. However, Endeavor already knew that Shoto would not take him seriously and decided to motivate him by showing him the villain incident from 10 months ago. "Are you aware of a slime villain attack from 10 months ago?"
Shoto blinked at the odd turn of the conversation but quickly shook his head. 'What does this have to do with my quirk?'
"In this attack, the slime villain had taken a middle school student hostage, and All Might was involved in defeating said student." Endeavor continued on, ignoring the growling look of confusion on his son's face.
'Of course, All Might was involved. I'm sure the world would collapse before Endeavor didn't go a day without thinking of All Might.' Shoto thought bitterly.
"But All Might is not the reason I want you to watch this video." Those words from Endeavor stopped Shoto's train of thought.
"Instead, another school-boy rushed in and managed to pull the first boy free and only then did All Might show up and save the day. Here watch this."
Shoto grudgingly turned to the T.V. in the room, slightly interested. He saw a villain comprised of sludge surrounded by fire in an alleyway. He quickly noticed a boy with blonde, spiky hair trapped in the clutches of the villain. Standing around the villain were multiple Pro Heroes just barely managing to control the situation.
Suddenly, another boy appeared on the scene. This boy had green, messy hair… and had an earth quirk! Shoto hated all connections he shared with Endeavor, but another habit he had picked up was viewing elemental quirks as more special. Outside from the Todoroki family, Shoto had only seen three elemental users: the pro Hero Wash, this green-haired boy and the whirlwind user from last week.
The green-haired boy managed to free the other boy using a rock to distract the villain and a slab to separate them. The spiky-haired blonde used a massive explosion against the villain though ultimately All Might had to deal the final blow.
By the end of the video, Shoto was confused as to the purpose of it. Sure, they had impressive quirks – though the green-haired boy's quirk was noticeably weaker than the explosion boy - but why show it to him. "Why-"
Endeavor raised a hand and Shoto went silent by reflex and watched as Endeavor changed the video. This time, Shoto only saw the green-haired boy's back and the blonde-haired boy was nowhere in sight. In front of the boy was a massive robot, roughly 50 metres tall.
"This was a robot that the applicants of the normal entrance exam had to face. Although why that blasted bear put a fee for destroying it is beyond me." Endeavor said.
Shoto knew that he could easily incapacitate it using his ice quirk, but the green-haired boy hadn't displayed anything close to that kind of power in the last fight. Therefore, it was a complete surprise when a rock spire almost as large as the robot shot out of the ground and destroyed the robot.
Shoto was speechless.
Endeavor took note of the look of shock on his son's face and took some pleasure in having been partly the cause of it. He took the time to turn off the T.V. before turning back to Shoto. "You are going to U.A. where you will meet people likely to be some of the strongest heroes of the new generation. This is the Midoriya's progress in just 10 months. The other boy you saw in the slime villain video was Katsuki Bakugo and had the highest number of villain points in the entrance exam this year."
Shoto turned his head to face Endeavor and knew that his face displayed his shock. "If you don't want to get left behind, you must use all your power." In all honesty, Endeavor himself had been struck speechless when he had watched the footage, which he had received from Nezu. The progress he displayed was quite scary to him, though he would never admit it. However, he quickly realised that it was likely a spur of the moment action due to the risk to his life. But Shoto didn't have to know that. A challenge was always a great motivator.
Endeavor then turned away and Shoto took the opportunity to silently leave the room.
Shoto's gaze hardened as he steeled his resolve. 'Midoriya and Bakugo. I vow to beat you using only my ice to prove to Endeavor that what he gave me was useless!'
28/3/21
Edited 28/3/21: Sorry, just forgot to put page breaks between scenes.
*POLL: The poll is still tied up between the 3 real options (keeping everything the same was obviously stupid and I don't know why I included it in the poll choices). Because of that, I am forced to extend the deadline to the next chapters post (which should be two days from now). It would be helpful if anyone who hasn't already voted, to vote so that I can start planning it out. Also, I would like you guys to give your opinions on what pairings you want to see. If you have a specific pairing in mind, either leave a review or PM me.*
On a less boring note, who else has seen episode 1 of the new season. I know it was basically a filler episode, but I really can't wait for the future episodes.
Thanks for reading my story!
Until next time :)