Chapter Seven: The Home Stretch
For Yaoyorozu, the final days before the Hero License Exam crawled by at a snail's pace. Between school, homework, and training, almost every second she wasn't moving or sleeping she spent drowning in textbooks.
If nothing else, U.A. wanted everyone in the Hero track to pass the exam, and it showed. Some of her teachers adjusted their classes less than others, but all of them had modified their lessons to benefit them for the Hero License Exam in some way. Topics had shifted to subject matter that could benefit them on the exam wherever possible, and in the few places where that didn't work, the homework load eased off compared to the usual.
Then again, several factors made preparing for this year's exam more difficult than usual, so perhaps her teachers were trying to compensate. Wednesday morning, Eraserhead used homeroom to unload a laundry list of unsavory developments regarding the League of Villains, culminating in the revelation that Kurogiri most likely was planning another attack on campus, this one more targeted than the USJ affair.
"Nedzu has deemed it wise for everyone to sleep in one room and in shifts to lessen the odds of another kidnapping," Eraserhead said. "Unfortunately, I can't disagree with him there. This time, though, you should be able to stay in your dorm: the common room should be spacious enough for all of you."
It did indeed have enough space. However, the second she spread her sleeping bag across the floor, she started to miss the privacy of her own room. At least it was better than inside the school, small comfort though it was. And the shifts took some getting used to, but once Class 1-A spent an afternoon working out how the shifts worked, even with being woken up in the middle of the night for her turn, her sleep schedule wasn't impacted too badly.
The last major change to her daily routine, of course, involved Scythe. The jury was still out on how hard she was trying, but she hadn't been helping much, to be honest. According to her, Eraserhead had asked her to make her last two lessons before the Hero License Exam non-contact lessons to prevent any potential injuries, which made Yaoyorozu breathe a sigh of relief. While she'd made it out of both practical Heroics lessons without any severe injuries, her classmates had suffered through far more than she had, and she appreciated that none of them would be repeating that scenario.
However, she appeared to be putting all the effort that would have gone into those lessons into scrutinizing all their other classes, the notebook Yaoyorozu already knew about filling at an almost alarming rate. And when she wasn't, she seemed hyper-critical of everything their class did: that Wednesday, she'd even interrupted Izuku in the middle of answering a question despite him not having taken very long.
Izuku had flushed when that happened, although whether it was out of embarrassment or anger Yaoyorozu couldn't tell. "My apologies, but could you please let me finish what I'm saying?"
"You should have finished already," Scythe said. "Stay on topic. It shouldn't be hard."
At that point, Present Mic had intervened, his disposition as sunny as always but his voice quite firm. That shut Scythe up for a time and let Izuku finish, but that didn't stop her from coming back with a vengeance before long. Izuku hadn't answered any other questions the rest of the class, even though one look at him made it quite clear he knew most of the answers.
She tried to put that to the back of her mind for now, though: Scythe couldn't interrupt her here. Right now, she was training with Jirou. Cramming any more information into her head at the moment promised to make it explode, so she decided to take a break from that for some Quirk training. Jirou had already gotten some practice in with Yaoyorozu, so now it was time for her to return the favor, even if she didn't really need Jirou in the room for this part.
"I'm thinking you should try making something that has multiple distinct parts," Jirou said. "If you can do that, then anything you need to make for the exam should be a cake walk."
Yaoyorozu took a few seconds to think about what she would do to test that, then she remembered one of her science lessons and her eyes lit up. "I've got something that might do the trick."
Jirou smiled. "What are you thinking of?"
"A sandwich," Yaoyorozu said. "I know that's not really the insult of choice anymore, but if I can do this, whenever someone tells me to make them a sandwich, I will. Just not in the way they expect."
She'd figured out Jirou's sense of humor by now: a chuckle escaped her. "And if they still eat it, you can write them off on the spot."
"Exactly," Yaoyorozu replied.
She decided to try a complex sandwich first to see how that came together: chicken, cheese, and lettuce on bread. She'd learned the chemical composition of bread in class quite some time ago, so that was the easy part. The rest of the ingredients required her to do some research on her own, but a few minutes later, she had all the formulas she needed to pull this off.
For a few moments, she just sat against the wall, eyes closed, visualizing what she wanted her finished sandwich to look like as she went over the ingredients one last time. Then, she closed her eyes and concentrated until she felt the telltale sensation of her creation beginning to bulge out of her body.
She grabbed the edge of the sandwich, and with an almighty pull, she yanked the rest of it out of her body as her stomach started to growl. It looked fine at first glance, but once Yaoyorozu opened it to check that all the ingredients were there, she noticed the color of the chicken was a bit weird. Upon further investigation, it was revealed that while her Quirk handled many things about what she produced, cooking was not one of them.
"I wouldn't eat this, it'll just give you food poisoning," Yaoyorozu said. "Looks like everything made it onto the sandwich, though."
"That's at least good," Jirou said. "Well, if you ever really want a sandwich, now you can just make one yourself, no ingredients needed."
Yaoyorozu decided not to follow that advice for a multitude of reasons. The calories she put into making that sandwich definitely exceeded the amount she'd get out of eating it. Not to mention, it felt kind of wrong eating something that she'd just pulled out of her body. If she conjured a weapon and wielded it, she could live with that, but ingesting it brought up all sorts of questions she didn't know how to answer at the moment.
Her stomach growled even harder, causing her to shift her objective. "I'm going to grab something to eat. That sandwich took way more out of me than I was anticipating."
"I'll come with," Jirou said. "I could use a quick snack."
As the two of them made their way toward the cafeteria, Yaoyorozu took her sandwich, inedible though it was, as a boon to her confidence. If she could create something that complex with minimal issues, then making whatever she needed for the Hero License Exam didn't threaten to pose a problem when the time came. As long as the stress of the day didn't get to her, her practical exam would be as flawless as she could make it.
The common room in Class 1-A's dorms was just as crowded as usual, but this time, they weren't trying to have fun together: the television was off, the games were tucked away, and the noise level was just above that of the library. Every table in the room had been pushed together, their surfaces piled high with textbooks, most of them covering material from Hero License Exams of the past. Enough chairs to seat every last member of their class surrounded it all, only a few of them currently unoccupied.
Each of Class 1-A's students had decided to put the pedal to the metal for one last study session that Saturday evening to try and cover all their bases. Not everyone was in the room at the moment, a handful either exercising or sparring outside to hone their techniques, but more than half the class was accounted for at the moment, a number that would only grow once night fell and wandering campus became ill-advised, given the current conditions.
Right now, while no one believed this was anywhere close to perfect harmony, everyone was trying their best to help everyone else in any way that they could. Even though the subject changed now and again, the same pattern repeated over and over: the strong helping the weak, the weak practicing with all their might to join the strong.
The sight made Izuku smile despite his nerves. He didn't consider himself a poor test-taker by any means, but this was shaping up to be by far the hardest sanctioned test he'd taken in his life, regardless of how much preparation he'd done. Every bit of help he could get was appreciated.
Those feelings changed in an instant: he had no warning this time, not even a friendly hello as with last week. One second nothing was out of the ordinary, and the next Scythe was in the center of the common room. She'd entered without so much as a word: perhaps she had less of a flair for the dramatic than Izuku thought.
"It's a good thing you're all studying," Scythe said. "While I can't say much about your theoretical capabilities, I'd say your practical skills still need some work. I wasn't able to get in all the lessons I wanted to before the exam, so I don't think I helped you as much as I could, but I'd like to think I got you closer to a passing grade than you might have been otherwise."
Surprisingly, Izuku couldn't say no to that with certainty; at the very least he now felt prepared for the slim chance that the practical exam went off the rails. Not a common occurrence by any means, the last time had been almost thirty years ago, but a disastrous one when it happened: that particular exam had the gadgets simulating severe weather malfunction and kick into overdrive with no way to turn them off, turning a test of perseverance and adapting to harsh conditions into a rescue operation on the fly. Miraculously, no one died, but the event caused several dozen major injuries and an avalanche of lawsuits, and the resulting ripple effect affected the practical exam portion even today.
Yet, everything else about his training for the practical exam could have been done without Scythe. He didn't share that information with her, but he still gave what he considered an honest opinion. "I can't deny you helped improve things a little, but I feel like everyone here would have passed the practical exam were it held before you got here: U.A.'s taught me well in that regard."
Scythe raised an eyebrow, her gaze growing sharper. "Really? You're telling me you're confident you didn't need any more practical experience?"
"If anything, we've had too much practical experience," Uraraka said, coming to his defense. "We've already been attacked by villains multiple times, and we've held our own every time. That's why we're focusing on the theoretical portion of the exam at the moment; shockingly, the League of Villains didn't cover that with us."
Something in the room shifted: Scythe didn't take that well. "Oh, really? Even with all that 'practical experience,' and with your class having a significant numbers advantage every time villains attacked, every fight you engaged in was either ended through significant intervention by an outside party or had an… undesirable outcome." Her gaze lingered on Kacchan as she paused, Izuku's fists clenching under the table as he imagined Kacchan's doing the same. "If you can't even win reliably in a situation that favorable, perhaps being heroes just isn't your calling."
"I would beg to differ, Scythe."
While Izuku was confident everyone in their class could identify that voice by now, it didn't quite erase the shock of seeing Eraserhead in the doorway with All Might right behind him. Both of them were glaring daggers at Scythe, whose attention now shifted to the new arrivals. All of Izuku's classmates also lost their focus, but with Izuku joining them he couldn't throw stones on that topic.
Something in Scythe's voice had changed even since their earlier conversation: the words coming out of her mouth sounded like they'd been pulled out of a frozen lake. "I didn't expect to see you two here tonight. Is there something happening that requires your presence?"
"No," All Might said. "However, the Hero License Exam is tomorrow, and we thought it prudent to offer our assistance where we could."
For a minute or so, neither party said a word, instead opting to stare each other down. Izuku attempted to return to studying, but the sight kept distracting him no matter how hard he tried to put it aside. If nothing else, judging by the noises he kept hearing, his classmates all had the same problem, so not much was getting done at the moment anyway.
"I'm sure I can handle this," Scythe said.
"And we can do the same," Eraserhead said. "I think you'd be better suited for assisting with the practical portion of the exam: I've been around the block enough times to have a firm grasp on the theoretical portion, and I think it's safe to say I have more experience with that portion than you do."
Another long pause. The room held its breath. Something dropped to the floor unnoticed. Then the silence broke all at once.
"Well, I have no arguments against that," Scythe said, her voice sharp and cold. "I'll be available to spar or otherwise train if anyone wishes to try their luck. Otherwise, I'm sure your other professors have a better handle on the curriculum than I do."
Sparring sounded like the absolute last thing Izuku wanted to do at the moment: getting injured during combat tonight wouldn't be a death sentence with Recovery Girl on the premises, but it threatened to kill his chances of passing the exam. Still, it meant Scythe left the room and stopped breathing down their necks, something which Izuku could appreciate.
"All right, students," Eraserhead said. "If you have any difficulty answering a question and your peers cannot help, feel free to ask either I or All Might. In the unlikely event that no one in the room has an answer for a question, I'd be willing to bet Nedzu could fill in the gap provided he's willing to cooperate."
Fortunately, they didn't need Nedzu. Although it was nice having them there to help, they rarely even needed Eraserhead or All Might. Most times when someone was struggling with a question, they simply asked those nearest to them, the web of crosstalk spreading until it either encompassed the whole room or someone determined the correct answer (or an adequate starting point, in the case of the open-ended questions). Once that question was out of the way, they achieved relative harmony until the next difficult question, this pattern repeating for several hours as Class 1-A prepared with everything they could.
Their joint study session petered out at around eleven, All Might insisting that everyone get the best sleep they could before the exam, especially given its rigorous technical components in addition to its written portion. Izuku knew a handful of his classmates might pore over their notes late into the night, but he decided not to be one of them. He'd answered enough scenario prompts and Hero law questions to last a lifetime, and he trusted his training and control of One for All was enough to get him through the practical exams. Everything else was more or less out of his hands.
The rest of Izuku's nightly routine passed in a haze: he showered, brushed his teeth, checked his door to ensure it was locked, then dragged himself into the communal sleeping area before joining most of his classmates in trying to sleep: he had the last shift tonight, which meant an early morning but otherwise uninterrupted sleep. His mind still buzzed, but it always did that no matter the time of day: it didn't impede his sleep schedule anymore, for which he was grateful.
Despite the stress tomorrow promised to bring, or perhaps even because of it, he'd let go of his worries before long. Once he did, sleep took over in seconds, and he spent the remainder of the night venturing through fantastical lands as his brain sorted itself out before one of the biggest days of his life.
Uraraka rose bright and early that Sunday morning, taking her time to savor her day off from school for about ten seconds before reality caught up with her.
Hero License Exam day. Unlike every other Sunday, she didn't have even a second to dawdle.
A glance at the clock on the wall revealed that at least her nightmare scenario hadn't materialized: she still had an hour before they had to leave. She was willing to bet that even if she'd overslept, some combination of Iida, Bakugo, and Eraserhead would be shaking any late risers awake, but she didn't want to leave that to chance. Better to avoid holding everyone else up, or worse yet, getting left behind.
Her morning routine went by in a blur: she showered, stretched, bolted down a quick breakfast, brushed her teeth, changed into her hero costume, then went outside to meet with the rest of her class. Once she joined her classmates on the grass outside their dorm room, she resumed stretching: even if she'd probably stiffen up again on the long ride to the exam, at the very least she wanted to be one hundred percent awake.
Iida approached her as she stretched. "Do you feel prepared for the exam?"
"As prepared as I'm getting," Uraraka said. "I just want to be awake when we get there, it's going to be a long day."
"Agreed," Iida said. "I wish you the best of luck."
Uraraka nodded, then went back to stretching. Iida returned to his own routine.
Everyone seemed to share her desire to not hold anyone else up: even Kaminari showed up fifteen minutes before their deadline, if more than a bit frazzled. Eraserhead, All Might, and Scythe joined them not long after; once Eraserhead did a head count and made sure all of them had anything they needed with them, they began walking back to the main campus to get on the bus to the Hero License Exam.
Class 1-B joined them before long, including Vlad King and a spindly man with a strange gait Uraraka assumed was Bounce Back. Very little communication occurred between the two parties: even Monoma seemed too stressed to do any catcalling. That didn't alleviate the tension much, though, so Uraraka was glad when they reached the street and could split off again.
Fortunately, Classes 1-A and 1-B got separate buses. While she wouldn't have minded doubling up with someone, she appreciated having her own space and some guaranteed quiet time. Some of her classmates sat before reaching her, others filed past her, then Eraserhead, All Might, and Scythe took the seats right behind the driver and they were on their way.
Their bus pulled out of the campus parking lot, sending its passengers embarking on their journey. All of her classmates passed the time spent on the long ride to the exam site in different ways. Some attempted a bit of last-minute studying. Others slept. Still others engaged in conversations, either admitting their nervousness or trying their best to hide it.
Uraraka did none of those things, instead choosing to look out the window and contemplate her chances, not wanting to raise her stress any further. Even though she knew she'd have other chances to take the exam if she failed it this time, unless something horrible happened the majority of her classmates were bound to get their provisional Hero Licenses. With how much she'd prepared for this, a failure would burn quite fiercely.
She had time to ruminate on the possibilities: in Tokyo traffic, even though the exam location wasn't too far away it'd take at least forty-five minutes or so to get there. No matter how far her thoughts wandered, though, she kept returning to the same conclusion again and again.
Tonight, she'd either return as a hero, or as nothing at all. And for her, nothing wasn't an option.
I'd like to wish everyone reading this a merry belated Christmas. My apologies for the delay: I got distracted by Worm (great story so far, would recommend), then writer's block (would not recommend), then COVID (really would not recommend). Thankfully, this chapter wasn't too hard to put a bow on once I started it, even if Yaoyorozu's scene gave me some trouble.
Furthermore, in case the prior chapters haven't tipped you off yet, my version of the Hero License Exam will differ quite a bit from canon. You'll get to see the extent of those changes next time; hopefully, they'll be ones that you'll like, or at least can get behind.
We should be back to the regular schedule for our next chapter, so it should be out on the 7th. Thanks for putting up with me, and I hope to see you next time for Chapter 8!