Bit of a smaller and later chapter than usual but I hope this came out okay? This is the first half of the practical exam chapters and it covers the OCs vs Bebe! Tune in next chapter for the other half of the exam, I guess?

V.

Entrance Exam (III)

Arc Theme: Hello, World! – BUMP OF CHICKEN

Ordinary house cat, his left asscheek.

Kaiten hid as best he could among the prop area, having been chased and herded into the forest setting along with many others by this damn cat. He managed to find a small storage shed to use so he could catch his breath, but it was only a matter of time before someone else tried to hide here or he was discovered.

God. It was chaos the moment they stepped into the exam. Kaiten wasn't part of the front of the examinees, but it was hard to miss what had happened to them when they all dropped like flies as soon as the gates shut behind them. That cat… That cat had been waiting for them in the middle of the city setting's road, and as soon as they got close enough it was all over.

Of the roughly two hundred people entering from the city setting gate, half of them dropped to the ground as soon as the cat known as Bebe entered the scene. From what Kaiten could understand, all it took was the cat screeching at the top of its lungs to down everyone. It wasn't a normal screech, sure, and maybe the ringing in Kaiten's ears was still fading this long after hearing the screech. But it was a screech from a housecat with a Quirk that downed almost a hundred people in one go!

Kaiten let out a wheeze and dropped into a squat. God. He really didn't prepare for a cat to be what stood between him and Zenshi Academy. He was anticipating the Quirks of the students more than the cat.

Wait, no. Didn't Sensor Girl say the cat was a student too? How the hell did a cat get enrolled into a school when its Quirk was nothing like Nezu's from UA? At least Nezu could talk, he thought. So how the hell did this cat pass its classes?

A yowl sounded out. Kaiten shuddered, hand clamped over his mouth in an instant, and he peeked through the storehouse window to see if the damn cat was following him. He couldn't see anything so far, just other applicants going still in the trees and hurrying into the mock shrine for a place to hide. He even watched one person with long red hair, almost like rose petals, slide under the shrine and create a cocoon of vines around themselves. Kaiten let out a slow breath through his nose. Smart, he thought.

And when the ground beneath him broke apart, the vines from earlier slithering out and creating a hole, his eyes went wide. Oh, now that was interesting. Was this guy making a tunnel?

As soon as he thought it, the redhead poked through and waved to him with brows furrowed. Kaiten glanced once more out the window—the entrance to the hole was covered by a bush now, hardly out of place among the garden around it—and obliged the redhead's request.

"We're both a little screwed if we're found in here." Kaiten kept his voice barely above a whisper. God knew what that cat was capable of.

The redhead's lips pursed before a reply came out: "Bara Momoiro. Call me Momo."

Kaiten gave him a disgruntled look.

"I control plants and make some grow," Momoiro elaborated. "I had an idea when I saw you run this way. You're the one who shoots nails, right? One of my root systems got sliced by those."

"Oh." Kaiten nodded once. "Yeah. Sasaki Kaiten."

Momoiro nodded sagely, seemingly happy with the confirmation. "I don't know how far the cat is, but they've been getting it to incapacitate applicants and then pick up the badges while they're down. I was thinking we take the cat out of commission for a while."

He opened his mouth. He closed it. Finally, Kaiten deadpanned, "Look, that cat is a nuisance, but I ain't gonna shoot it."

"I want to cage it. The cat has quick enough reflexes to move when you shot at it before running." Momoiro glanced at the window and waved for Kaiten to follow him. "They'll check in here first. C'mon."

That was it? Kaiten shook his head.

"No deal."

"What?"

"I said, no deal."

Momoiro gawked at him.

"What's wrong?" he sputtered.

Kaiten moved back for the window. As tempting as the offer of running through the hole was, he was better off somewhere with a better vantagepoint than underground. There was no telling what little Bebe was capable of once they were stuck in a tunnel, and Kaiten wasn't about to risk it on the off chance Momoiro could cage it. The cat's claws were sharp, too—if the root system was shredded by Kaiten's nails, what would stop Bebe?

"The plan doesn't work for me," Kaiten decided. He hid by the window and peered out. Still no sign of the cat, but definitely some movements of colour belonging to the students. They were closing in. "To start, I'll be restricted and relying on just you, and no offense, but you're the last person I'd pick to carry me through a plan. I'd have better luck physically wrestling the cat than outrunning it in a tunnel. And second—my Quirk isn't infinite. Once I hit my limit, you have no cover left for your little plan. Nails don't grow on trees."

Momoiro was clearly holding back a snort when he glanced back at him.

"So unless your plant talent can make some herbs for me to chew on and keep the nails growing," Kaiten told him slowly, "and you can find a spot to intercept while I keep lookout up here, it's a no from me."

A flurry of movement once more. Kaiten's brows rose to his hairline when he saw another applicant fly through the trees and into the low torii nearby. Poor bastard was knocked out cold on impact, the remnants of his Quirk breaking his fall as he dropped limp to the ground. And Bebe just proudly stalked out and circled him as another student skipped alongside it.

"Good girl, Bebe!" the student cheered as he took the badge. "Oh, someone's getting so many treats today—yes she is!"

Bebe, the damn thing, let out a very proud, "Wah!"

Kaiten looked back to Momoiro quickly, stern expression in place—

Momoiro was gone.

The hole had been sealed with dirt and vines, and in his wake all he left was a small cluster of dandelions. Kaiten gritted his teeth.

"Would've preferred mint or chamomile," he muttered. Regardless, Kaiten snatched the dandelions and shoved them into his mouth, chewing quickly and ignoring the sour taste of the stem as he did so.

It was an agreement to his terms if he ever saw one. Kaiten watched the student skip off, probably to hide somewhere while the cat did all the work; part of him felt almost judgemental of the student, being so lazy and letting an ordinary housecat do everything for him while he collected the badges. But Kaiten digressed. For all he knew, this cat was one of the Big Three of Zenshi or something. Lord help the villains the cat wound up hunting down after graduating, in that case.

Kaiten swallowed the large clump of dandelions and sucked in a deep breath. The cat's ears twitched—and Kaiten burst out of the shed with a silent prayer the damn thing didn't lunge straight for him.

Bebe howled and immediately whizzed in his direction, otherwise innocent zoomies if not for the fact that this cat was on a mission. Kaiten aimed one hand in the cat's direction, his fingernails quickly spinning at a rapid pace, and he wasted no time firing just where the cat would be if it kept going in a straight line. The nails sent small clouds of dust up into the air and left small craters in their wake, and Kaiten switched hands as he ran across the shrine yard to give the first hand time to regrow its nails.

The cat at least knew to get away from the dust clouds and avoid the nails. Bebe emerged from the dust cloud with a growl, sniffing almost as soon as it was free of obscurity. Kaiten swallowed thickly, ignored the taste of the dandelions lingering around his teeth, and fired off more nails. Right before they came in contact with the ground, he saw something shift in Bebe—quite literally, the way Bebe's body seemed to jiggle and reshape itself as the fur, rather than standing on end, slowly smoothed out into armour. Okay, he thought as the dust settled over Bebe again, it was just an armour plating Quirk. No big deal. The cat was a tank in terms of taking damage and that was how everyone kept falling for its tricks.

But then, Kaiten recalled the poor fool launched all the way up to the top of the torii by Bebe. Didn't Bebe also make a hundred people pass out and give the rest tinnitus in the beginning?

It sure did.

Rather than lurch for him again, the cat let out a loud yowl that brought a ringing to Kaiten's ears again. At first he thought it would just be another stun attack, distracting him—but then Bebe's yowl turned almost feral, almost pained, and the dust cloud was pushed back by a goddamn shockwave generated by the boom of sound. Kaiten clamped his hands over his ears, dropped to his knees, and gaped at the ordinary fucking housecat that shook off what little dirt clung to it.

He couldn't hear anything. The ringing was worse than earlier. Shit, did his eardrums blow? He pulled a hand back from his ear. Blood was smeared on his palm, and Kaiten gulped. That was a hard maybe. The ringing got louder and louder, his head spinning and aching. No matter how much he tried to focus on the cat and kick up another dust cloud with his nails, he just couldn't find solid ground.

Bebe licked its lips. Kaiten began to see double. Now his ass was about to get kicked by two housecats.

Like a flowery saviour, the ground beneath the cat cracked and shook as the grass grew wild and clung to its legs. Kaiten wasn't having the best vision right now, but he was damn sure he could see flowers and thick blades of grass snake along its body and almost drag it into a crouch. The cat snarled, fought back against the grass, but the sheer layers were too tough for even the superfeline Bebe to fight off.

Kaiten let out a slow breath. Christ, was this how Momoiro planned to catch the cat? Talk about last-minute.

Ever so slowly the grass and flowers wrapped around Bebe until only a ball of greenery was left in the cat's place. It rolled around some, almost like a device from those monster catching games that would jiggle and tease whether the capture was successful, and then it was still. From underground, not far from the encased cat, Momoiro's head sprouted from the ground and he sucked in a deep, gasping breath. He almost looked like a rose blooming through concrete, with his stupidly pretty red hair arranged like petals.

Momoiro crawled out from the ground and hobbled on over to Kaiten. He slowly helped the other boy to his feet, a mound of dirt in his hands that he held out as medicinal herbs began to sprout. Kaiten plucked one of the finished sprouts thankfully and chewed it, though not without a wince at the taste.

"Ears," Kaiten said around the herbs. Momoiro gave him a sheepish smile, almost proud of his plan.

"I felt the shockwave, but it didn't go through the ground too much. I guess it was a good idea to keep digging a tunnel to get under the cat."

Yeah, yeah. As if it wasn't Kaiten who did all the heavy lifting first, though.

"Heh?" she drawled. "That's no fun. Sensor Girl made that thing sound like a monster."

"P—Pardon, Hachisuka-san?"

One eye glanced over at the bulky boy crouched across from her. They weren't near the cat at the moment, hiding among the trees that Bebe had passed in its haste to chase down the poor bastard who got flung into the torii, but they were close enough that she could do some snooping and figure out a game plan.

"Cat," Hime said blankly. "They caught it."

Her… ally, she supposed—Shizu Shogo—let out an almost relieved breath as he relaxed his posture some. From what she could gather, he wasn't one of the ones who underestimated the cat even after the thing had knocked half the applicants out; he was more the cautious one, wary of how well the cat could overpower him despite his Quirk. A tad cowardly, in her opinion, but it did take some kind of balls to apply for a school near an active murder zone.

She hadn't intended to ally with anyone on this little test, but her hand had been forced when Bebe had chased after her and started attacking the bees she sent out to sedate it. None of them were able to sting the cat, get though its thick skin with their tiny needles, and just when Hime had been about to lose her badge to the cat—Shogo appeared, wrapping her smaller body in his own and exploding with muscle and bulk thick enough to make the cat bounce off of him.

And then they rolled and rolled until Shogo let go of her and struggled to keep his breakfast down.

Bebe had clearly given up on her with a wall like that in its way. She was almost impressed, until Shogo's less-than-courageous plans came to light. Her own plan had been to hide and avoid as many people as possible to keep her badge, but that was because Hime was more of a support-based person. She was good at reconnaissance and sleuthing, not physical things. Shogo seemed to be good at those—it made no sense why he would hide away like he wasn't built like a truck with the horsepower to boot.

The bee on her shoulder crawled up along her neck, and Hime idly lifted her eyepatch to let it back into the socket. Shogo shuddered as he watched her.

"U—Um. Pardon me for prying, Hachisuka-san—"

"What?"

He pursed his lips and cleared his throat. "You seem a bit familiar," he said, less than confident. "Not personally, but—"

"Just ask me if there's a relation to Hachisuka Kuin."

Shogo hesitated. "Is there? If that's okay to ask?"

Well, he wasn't the first to ask. Not that he actually did ask at all.

"Sort of." Hime ceased observing the cat and its captors to give more attention to their surroundings. Surely the cat's handler would come back their way to finish the job soon. "Would you like to know how?"

She glanced at Shogo again. He seemed to gulp, lean forward a bit, and nod.

Hime grinned at him. Another bee wriggled under her eyepatch. She toyed with the elastic loop teasingly.

"Do you really?" she drawled.

Either the sight of the bee gave him an upset stomach, or he could infer the connection himself. Whatever it was, Shogo cleared his throat and shook his head; the back of his hand covered his mouth, and he blinked quickly to dispel the image of a bee in her eye from his mind. "N—No," he managed. "I apologise for asking."

Coward. No fun.

Hime decided to level him with a question of her own. It was no fair if she was the only one being interrogated. "You're a big guy. Your Quirk is… interesting," she said. And it was. The way Shogo had shielded her was every definition of 'meat shield', and it was all because his limbs ballooned alongside the rest of his body and became too thick to actually harm conventionally for the cat. "Why are you hiding?"

Shogo gave her a furrowed look on his square-shaped face. "Isn't… I'm sorry, but isn't hiding what we're supposed to do?"

"Technically, sure. But you're one of those fancy people who can actually use offense as a defence."

He blinked. He looked away from her. His face was a little flushed with shame, she noted.

"Oh… Violence," he said, voice soft. "S—Sorry… I've never been a big fan of it. And it was a little cat—I can't hurt a person, let alone a cat. Only monsters hurt animals."

"Ever stepped on a bee before?"

He gave her a horrified look. Hime didn't flinch.

"I have. I was scared it was gonna sting me. That make me a monster?"

"M—Mammals, then?"

"Man, you owe butchers either an apology or a sternly worded letter, in that case," she scoffed. And then Hime cleared her throat. No, that was too much cruelty. He was right. Bebe was still just a cat, and as much as it hurt when the cat stepped on or ate her bees, she still adored cats. It was just… Kuin who had the beef, she supposed. "Nah, that was rude of me. I'm sure you have reasons why you don't like violence."

Shogo blinked at her again. "You aren't… going to push about it more? Laugh at me?"

"I'm a girl with bees in her skull who has to run away from most encounters because the bees are my only asset. Who also happens to be afraid of bees that aren't mine." Hime shrugged. "I have no room to laugh."

There was a small, almost relieved little, Oh, that slipped out when she said that. Hime said she had no room to laugh, but it was still amusing to see how docile someone with an otherwise solid Quirk was. Most people with an ability like his—and she could think of someone in particular that her grandmother hated who fit the bill—were prone to flexing that power whenever they got the chance or felt slighted. Hell, Shogo could crush Hime to death if he wanted right here and now.

Nah. He was too nice for that. Poor thing would faint if he ever got told he was capable of that.

Well, at least the company was nice—

A sharp pain ran through her eye. Hime doubled over, hands covering her face in an instant, and she grinded her teeth together so hard that her skull rattled in time with the frantic bees inside. She pulled one hand back—faint traces of blood were on the palm, which meant she was bleeding through the eyepatch, and if she was bleeding then there was only one thing that could've happened.

Shogo rushed to her side, but she ignored him for the most part. She ignored him as he picked her up and looked around frantically—probably to find someone to help her out, or make sure no one caught her while she was down—and instead her focus went to the sentries she had all over the place. One cluster was fine, watching a group fight two masked… students? Whoever they were, they weren't the ones she remembered seeing in the roster. Another cluster observed some hero students lazing about and counting badges while they compared notes.

It was the cluster at the shrine that bore fruit, and in the worst way possible.

"The cat—" Hime winced so hard that she bit her tongue, but she couldn't help what came out in the complete and utter shock of the moment. How the hell was it even possible? "The cat spits acid, oh my fucking God."

If she weren't in incredible pain and trying to spectate how the fresh hell the exhausted kids at the shrine would stop Bebe, she'd swear Shogo started running faster in his panic.

Useless! They were all so useless!

As soon as the cat threw up that disgusting acid and melted the vine rubber band ball, the fools forgot to even try running again. Sure, in their defence, a cat spitting acid was the last thing any of them expected—but the point remained that they should've been prepared to run with everything else the cat had been capable of so far!

Hibana practically ran out from the shrine's front doors and fumbled with her bag for her supplies. Stupid, useless commoners couldn't be trusted to do the dirty work themselves. How could they be? She was always better at this kind of thing than everyone else and today was no different. The "save" would earn her points to get into the school, at least, and that was the extent of the good things she could say about the two idiots who'd tried to catch the cat.

The large Twister mat she pulled out practically flew out over the expanse in front of her, extending to the cat and beyond as it settled on the ground and embedded itself in place firmly. She clicked her tongue, the eight-by-ten rows of colours flashing once as her Quirk activated and set down the rules of the game, and the cat reared back to pounce in an instant.

Hibana commanded the cat, "Bebe! Left leg on green!"

The cat was pulled in the direction of the nearest green dot, its left hind leg practically glued to the middle of the dot as its claws tried to find purchase on the mat. Bebe tugged at its leg, tried so hard to escape, but the cat was stuck fast until Hibana gave her another instruction.

"Whoa." One of the boys behind her, still acting entirely useless in the situation, pushed hair out of his face. "Where were you earlier?"

Hibana didn't deign them with a response. She just stood back up and dusted herself off from her run, one foot still on the white space to hold the mat down just in case. She flicked her hair over her shoulder, adding this time, "Bebe, put your left hand on green as well."

The cat's front left paw landed on the green dot in front of the last. The cat may have been a regular animal, but it still knew it was trapped in place the way it was.

"U—Um, are you guys okay?"

Great, more company.

Hibana glanced over her shoulder at the blue-haired girl running over from behind the shed. If she'd been there all along, why hadn't she done anything either? Damn cockroaches, the lot of them. She crowded the redhead and the bleeding boy, fretting over them like some kind of bleeding heart type of person. Those were the worst, Hibana thought, and she barely caught the name of Yumeya Hanabi before she turned her attention back to Bebe with a scoff.

She pulled out her deck of Uno cards from her bag and sifted through them. Hibana hummed and pursed her lips. Which combination would be best… She was definitely using a numbered card and a skip card, but would a draw two be necessary? No, it'd be tough to get close to the thing—maybe a reverse card instead.

Footsteps approached from behind. Hibana didn't hold back rolling her eyes. Of course someone was coming up to her. Couldn't they see she was busy carrying their asses to the finish line? Ugh.

It was the girl's voice that stammered at her, an innocent question of, "A—Are you alright, Kirameki-san?"

Hibana raised a brow and sneered at the girl. "So you know who you're talking to," she said flatly. Figured someone would recognise her in here. How disappointing that they weren't more grateful for her intervention, though. "Maybe you have some sense to not get in my way, in that case."

The girl nodded fervently. A people pleaser? Even worse. But at least that kind of person had the redeeming quality of praising her at every chance they got. She supposed Yumeya Hanabi wouldn't be totally in the way.

"Oi, Bara-san asked why you didn't jump in earlier!" the bleeding boy demanded. Hibana didn't even glance his way.

"I'm a big fan of yours, Kirameki-san," Hanabi stammered. She patted her face, her cheeks flushed in awe of a celebrity standing in front of her no doubt, and beamed at Hibana like a child being given a candy. "You really are stunning!"

Hibana stuck her nose in the air as she set aside the deck of cards she didn't need. "Don't tell me something I already know," she scoffed. "Now if you don't mind—"

"Can I help, Kirameki-san? W—With the cat, I mean. If you don't mind."

This people pleaser dared interrupt her? The gall. Hibana clicked her tongue and didn't bother to answer. She simply readied her number card to use when it was needed.

Perhaps she was sloppy. Perhaps this fool distracted her too much. Whatever it was, she noticed far too late that the cat had been breathing deeply and bracing itself. Another sonic boom? Hibana readied the skip card frantically. Who cared if the other three got caught up in it? She had to save the reverse card for a better opportunity to throw the attack back at Bebe. As Bebe squatted and wiggled its little body about like a kitten, it finally threw its head back and stretched as far as it could as it let out what almost sounded like a word. The sound was loud and echoed through the trees, far from a sonic boom but definitely louder than a cat should've been able to sound with just a meow.

"Ooba!" the cat howled.

The cute little backpack on the cat was not for show. The cute little backpack, which was so obviously part of a hero costume, was equipment for Bebe to use.

The back opened up and a long, metal rod began to unfold from within. Hibana was too busy waiting to see what would happen when it finished unfolding to notice the cat hardening its fur again into armour; she just stared, awestruck and dropping one of her cards, as the metal rod unfolded into the form of a flamethrower. One little pilot light was lit on the end, and for a brief second the nozzle remained pointed at the sky as though processing where it was.

Hibana grabbed another card just in time before the nozzle pointed down at the Twister matt and let loose a spray a fire.

For a brief moment she was falling backwards, pushed aside by a form she didn't quite catch a look at before the smoke clouded her vision. She just knew, when the smoke cleared and the fire burned away at the matt to free Bebe, someone was on her lap and holding onto her waist, caught mid-tackle.

"Kirameki-san, are you okay!?" came Hanabi's voice.

At first Hibana scowled. And then she noticed that the body on top of her was lacking in blue hair. It had her own orange, and Hibana let out a sigh of relief. No one touched her. It was just the clone she made with the numbered card. She wasn't dirty yet.

Where she once stood, though, the blue-haired girl cradled the other clone in her arms and panicked at its state of unconsciousness. What a moron, Hibana thought. As if she would be taken down so easily by a flamethrower like that. Who did this girl think she was?

A small yowl came from the cat, and Hibana glanced in the direction of the retreating metal arm just in time to see Bebe resume its movements. It prowled slowly, clearly annoyed by the fact that it had been stuck, but it hadn't noticed that there were technically three Hibanas right now. It only noticed the one in Hanabi's arms, believing that one to be the real deal.

Idiots. Idiots, the lot of them.

But, to Hanabi's credit, she at least tried to protect to clone. The blue-haired girl gulped at the sight of the cat and carefully dropped the clone to the ground. She stood in front of it, and boldly declared, "Y—You can't hurt Kirameki-san!"

Bebe meowed innocently back at her.

Much like Bebe had before, Hanabi sucked in a deep breath. She must have had some decent lungs on her, able to suck in the small clouds of smoke without choking immediately, and Hibana found herself actually curious to see how this little people pleaser would try to play the role of hero. An almost morbid curiosity—if Hibana was impressed, maybe the people pleaser had some redeeming qualities outside of boosting her ego.

The thick cloud of pink mist that was expelled from Hanabi's mouth overpowered the smoke and flames around Bebe. Hibana's eyes widened and her brows rose high along her forehead. A smoke Quirk? Pink? Why was it so thick? It was like the clouds you saw on TV when a dream sequence began. Hibana blinked and shoved the clone off of herself—it vanished immediately once she stood—before slowly, with the reverse card in her hand, she approached the other clone and Hanabi.

When the smoke dissipated, Hibana was stunned to see Bebe passed out on the ground and twitching as though in deep, peaceful sleep.

Hanabi coughed into her hand, and then immediately turned and placed that same hand on the clone's face to check its status. Hibana grimaced and recoiled from the sight. Gross. Disgusting. She was glad it was the clone and not her. "Kirameki-san, wake up!"

"I'm awake, you daft fool."

The clone dissipated as soon as she said it. Hanabi startled, but soon found the source of the remark and smiled in relief. "You're okay!" she cheered.

Hibana let out an unimpressed hum. The boys still watched from the sidelines, barely keeping up with everything that had happened; of course this whole encounter had ended with Hibana having total control. Hanabi just happened to try and play the role of hero and win Hibana's favour in the process.

"Don't insult me," Hibana drawled. "I'm not some pushover like certain other people."

Hanabi laughed nervously and nodded, almost as though apologising. Hibana knelt down and began to reach out, and Hanabi beamed as she reached back for Hibana's hand.

Hibana picked up the discarded skip card and pocketed it without so much as a glance at Hanabi.

"Don't ever try to touch me with those disgusting hands ever again," she warned Hanabi. And then she stood back up and dusted herself off again. With any luck, Hanabi put her all into that sleeping mist and knocked the cat out for the rest of the exam.