Izuku looked ahead. Everyone was coming in, ready to pass the exam. Since he and Ranni were there by recommendation, they were following a different path than the rest. In the distance, he could see Katsuki, who looked surprised to see them and also somewhat annoyed, although the latter was normal for him.

Izuku recalled that, after the Bakugo family's visit, Ranni had asked him if a person's Quirk could affect the way he acted. The answer had been yes, but not always. Although he wasn't sure that was the case with Katsuki; after all, his father was very calm and the explosive part of his Quirk came from him.

"This is it," Ranni pronounced, standing in front of the entrance door. Izuku noticed that all UA doors were huge and wide, probably to let in students with Quirks that gave them gigantic proportions.

Izuku stepped forward a bit and pushed the door for Ranni, bowing slightly as she crossed. Ranni rewarded him with a small amused smile at his antics.

Upon entering, they found an almost empty room. "We're early," Izuku said, checking once again the papers that had been sent to them. On the paper were the tests they would pass and the hall they were to attend. They had not been in the wrong hall.

"According to what you told me, you Japanese hold punctuality in high esteem, but you don't like it when someone is too early," Ranni explained. They had arrived right on schedule, not a minute early and not a minute late.

"Well, yes, but no one gets mad if you're a few minutes early or late. We just don't like to waste time or waste other people's time," Izuku explained, walking in next to her and taking a seat.

They had to wait a while for all the other students to arrive, forming a colorful group of several young people. Izuku thought they would be few as they were only recommended students, but it seemed that many had received recommendations. It made sense, there were probably people from all over Japan and even neighboring countries; after all, AU is one of the best hero schools in the world.

When they were all there, the same man who had supervised Ranni's test the day before introduced himself to them. "Good morning, I am Sekijiro Kan, known as Vlad King, and I will be the one to put you through your first test," the man said.

He pointed out to them that there were papers on their desks for them to fill out. That would be their written test, for which they had an hour and a half. After answering a few questions, he gave them the go-ahead to begin, which Izuku did immediately.

Reading the sheet and its questions, Izuku was relieved to note that the written test did not focus much on conventional subjects, something he was grateful for since he had forgotten much of his school term.

The questions were mostly about how to react to hypothetical situations, something Izuku found logical, given that they were auditioning to enter a hero academy.

The first questions tested your mentality and heroic spirit, or rather, they checked to see if you didn't have some kind of mental illness. No one in their right mind could answer those questions wrong.

The following ones were more interesting and required more thought. One of them, for example, said, "You are contacted by a villain who explains to you that he locked a man in a vault about to explode and a woman in a pond that is about to fill with water and drown her. Both places are thirty minutes from your position, one to the south and the other to the north, and you have only 40 minutes before they do you do?" That question not only evaluated morality, but also the person's intelligence beyond numbers or accumulated knowledge.

For Izuku, the answer was obvious: contact the police or another hero to go rescue one while he rescued the other. The question didn't say you could do that, but it seemed the most logical option.

After almost an hour, he had finished. Ranni, next to him, seemed to have done it thirty minutes ago, which did not surprise him at all. Not so much because she was smarter, but because Ranni was much older than him and her experience far surpassed his. Moreover, as crown princess, Ranni had received political and military training.

I knew she had answered correctly, but I was curious to know exactly what she had answered. Knowing her, she probably gave a very elaborate answer that left no doubt about her thoughts and intentions.

They had to wait for everyone else to finish before they could turn in their exams and leave the room. "So, what did you think of the exam?" asked Izuku to his wife as they both walked out of the classroom, followed by other teenagers.

"Simple, but effective. The questions serve to test your morality, your intelligence, and whether you are able to understand well the directions you are given, as well as think outside the mold," she replied to him. Izuku nodded.

Looking at the rest of those who had passed the exam, he noticed that not all of them looked as calm as they did. Some even looked close to tears, probably because they weren't able to answer all the questions or weren't sure they got it right.

On second thought, he could not really compare himself to them. These were teenagers with zero experience; the exam was certainly more demanding for them. Izuku had the advantage of ten years living in a post-apocalyptic magical world, with all the stressful situations he had had to deal with. His mental process was very different from these boys and girls who had never had to deal with anything more stressful than doing homework.

He wondered how many would actually make it into the academy.

"All right, follow me. It's time for the practical exam," Vlad King pronounced, beckoning them to follow him. They did so, arriving at the back of the main academy building, where several buses awaited them to take them to the practical exam grounds. Truly, AU is great if you need a bus to get from one point to another.

It took them at least ten minutes to reach the field, which appeared to everyone as a gigantic race track with several obstacles.

"Well, the test is simple. This is a three-kilometer obstacle race. You have to make it to the finish line. You can use your Quirks in the race. you will run six at a time. Please take your numbers here and stick them on your chests," explained the white-haired hero.

Izuku and Ranni reached over to take their numbers. "A race...it's not what I would have chosen as a practical exam," the princess pronounced. "It's very limiting. Some Quirks are not physically oriented, which would force participants to rely one hundred percent on their physical qualities."

The green-haired man agreed with her. They were limiting the test too much; maybe it was something done on purpose. Most heroes had combat-oriented Quirks, maybe that was why. Simply because the schools put a great hindrance on those with less combat oriented Quirks.

"There's not much we can do about that... in fact, how do you plan to accomplish that?" he asked her. He had already chosen the powers he would pass off as his Quirk, and luckily he had mobility with them, but Ranni had selected something not very mobility oriented.

She looked up at him and smiled, "Dear, let me tell you, without any desire to brag, that my way of using magic has nothing to do with your way of using magic." Her proud smile seemed absurdly adorable to Izuku, so he couldn't help but laugh.

"Choose our Quirk?" asked Ranni.

"Yes, it's something we have to go through, I'm already registered as a Quirkless, but apparently that can be changed, for you it would be the first registration" Izuku explained to her.

They had received a set of papers that Ranni had to fill out all for the purpose of obtaining an identity, something told the green-haired man that things like this are not usually done as quickly as they are now, but considering that he had asked All Might to allow Ranni to enter AU as well he thought that the number one hero was probably using his contacts to expedite the whole process.

"From what you've told me about Quirks they follow certain rules" Ranni said more to herself than to him "I guess my frost magic can be considered a Quirk."

Izuku nodded at that "Yes but it would be quite limiting, although I guess it's not really that much of a problem."

He didn't like being a one trick dog, he had become a master of everything in the lands betweens for a reason, from using spells to enchantments to using light, heavy, ranged weapons and shields, sure it made his journey last longer than it should but it also helped him get past obstacles he would have found himself held back by.

Though of course he was still more powerful at using magic than anything else.

"Maybe, but not as much as you think, I'll go that way...should I name my Quirk?" she asked, looking at what the paper said.

"Yes, a custom that's been around for years, it's like a way of appropriating it" Ranni just looked at him raising an eyebrow "Don't look at me like that, it's not much different than Messmer with his flames or your family with their Carian spells."

"I guess you have a point, well then I'll call it gelid magic" She said writing down the name "And what will you choose to pass off as your Quirk?"

"For me it's a bit more complex, I've been a quirkless for years, if out of the blue I write one someone might find it odd that I didn't discover it sooner, we have a lot of eyes on us because of my disappearance and the rescue we faked...but I think I have something" He smiled "It'll be a surprise."

They were divided into groups of six, and Ranni would go in a different group from his. They all lined up as Vlad King raised his hand with a pistol that would give the signal to start.

"On your marks!" the man shouted. Everyone took positions ready to run, except Ranni. "Ready!" Everyone tensed their muscles, except Ranni. "Out!" and he fired, at which the students bolted, using their Quirks to propel themselves if they could.

Ranni, on the other hand, only raised her hand. Everyone had already left, except her. Then, magic began to condense around her as she ascended into the air and something began to surround her body, like a shell that looked like a moon. That confused Izuku. he didn't understand how using Ranni's Dark Moon would help her in a race.

But then he realized that Ranni wielded magic at a level he could not even dream of reaching. The moon began to move with Ranni still inside. Her speed was incredible, outpacing the other participants who were already several seconds ahead of her. Obstacles were copiously ignored as she flew over them with the moon, and within seconds the three kilometers were covered. The moon disappeared without causing any damage and Ranni landed on her feet with the grace of a butterfly.

Izuku couldn't help but marvel as he watched her fall to the ground as the moon dissipated, releasing strands of blue magic around her.

When he used that spell, it was simple: he cast the moon, but he could neither make it change direction nor hold it for long. But Ranni didn't have that problem; she controlled it like it was nothing and, on top of that, held it for several seconds. he supposed it made sense, since not only was it literally her spell, but also Ranni was Rennala's worthy daughter.

When she returned to his side, he couldn't help but applaud her, to which Ranni flashed a proud smile. "And here I thought you couldn't impress me anymore. I am but pitiful in comparison to you, oh my moon lady," Izuku said in a joking tone, earning a soft chuckle from Ranni.

"It's good that you know your place," she said in an obvious joking tone.

"Although... aren't you afraid you've overdone it?" he asked, noticing that everyone was looking at them with wide eyes and mouths, including Vlad King. The other participants were still running.

"No. If I had exaggerated, I would have finished the race the instant he gave the starting signal." Izuku supposed she was right. She could have simply teleported to the finish line, and he was pretty sure that, if she wanted to, she could go even faster with her moon.

"So... should I do the same?" he asked, not quite sure. Truth be told, he planned to make the race somewhat more complex, slowing down just enough so as not to appear to have a huge advantage over the others.

"That's up to you. As long as you pass, it's all right with me." Izuku nodded at that.

Shoto Todoroki watched with displeasure as the final results came in. He had come in third, just behind the loud boy with wind powers and the four-armed blue girl, who had left everyone behind with impressive ease. The gap between his position and the girl's was so wide that it almost seemed as if they had been in different races.

Frustration grew in his chest as he looked down at his hand, where frost was beginning to form involuntarily. He had pushed his Quirk to the max, freezing the ground beneath his feet and creating ice ramps to propel himself forward. However, that wasn't enough. The girl had effortlessly passed him, passing him as if he were standing still.

"That was awesome!" he heard one of the boys say as he approached the blue girl and her green-haired companion. It was the same boy who had come in second, just a little faster than him. Unlike Shoto, that boy seemed animated, fascinated by the girl's skill.

Shoto, however, hardly paid attention to what they were saying. His eyes remained fixed on the girl, who responded with short sentences and a neutral expression, while her green-haired companion smiled softly and talked more.

The inevitable question arose in his mind: could he have beaten her if he had used his fire? He dismissed the thought quickly, with an intensity that almost made him dizzy. He would not use his father's fire. His ice had to be enough. That girl... she was just lucky, he convinced himself.

Vlad King called out to the other groups, and Shoto, with nothing else to do, stood on the sidelines watching the next attempts. No one came close to the level of the blue girl or the wind boy. They all seemed mediocre in comparison.

However, his interest was renewed when it was the turn of the green-haired man, the blue girl's partner. Shoto looked at him curiously as he prepared for the race. Before going to the track, the boy said goodbye to the girl and the other boy. Shoto tried to decipher the relationship between them. They had the same hair texture, but she was blue and had four arms, while he did not. It didn't seem likely that they were related, which meant they didn't share the same Quirk.

When Vlad King gave the starting signal, the other participants ran off. But not the boy. He began to fly.

Two golden wings emerged from his back in a flash, and he shot into the sky. With this ability, he didn't have to worry about obstacles, allowing him to maintain a significant advantage over the rest. Still, Shoto noticed that his speed was not as impressive as the blue girl's. However, the green-haired man's real advantage lay in his ability to fly and avoid obstacles, which allowed him to leave the rest of the competitors even further behind.

Frowning, Shoto thought that, while the green-haired man's speed was not extraordinary, his flying ability gave him a considerable tactical advantage. Shoto was convinced that he could have beaten him if he didn't have to deal with the obstacles.

When the race was over, the wind boy shouted excitedly, approaching the green-haired man. The latter just smiled, showing no signs of fatigue. Shoto, on the other hand, felt a mixture of frustration. Three. Three students had beaten him in this simple test. He knew AU only attracted the best, but that didn't make the defeat any less bitter. It was frustrating...

It's time for the interview, it was not the most expected moment for Izuku, he knew what would be the most important question he would be asked and a part of him didn't really know what to answer to it.

He could lie, he had gotten good at it.

He entered the office observing the interviewer. She is a young woman, in her twenties with long black hair, she does not dress like a heroine so she probably is not.

"Welcome, you must be Izuku Midoriya" He nodded "My name is Makoto Tsukauchi" She introduced herself with a smile.

Izuku raised an eyebrow at that "Tsukauchi...that last name sounds familiar" He said.

She nodded with a smile "Naomasa Tsukauchi is my older brother, he participated in your rescue" She said, she didn't seem too worried that she was bringing back unwanted memories.

"Right, I remember" Izuku said, also not interested in pretending to be affected by that.

"Well, I'm here to do this interview with you, but first I must tell you, my Quirk allows me to know if someone is lying, but for that I need to touch them, do you have a problem with that?" she asked.

Saying yes would probably make him fail this, Izuku can't be fooled. This interview is also a test, if they chose a person with a Quirk like her for this test it's for a reason "No problem" Izuku advanced his hand towards her.

The woman smiled and took his hand, Izuku didn't feel anything strange, neither in his mind nor in his body, and he already had experience with people playing with his mind, damn Miquella for that.

"Well Izuku, you have been through a very traumatic event recently, could it be that it motivated you to take the path of heroism?" she asked, she seemed quite calm and friendly.

Izuku on the other hand knows that the only thing he can do is to answer with the truth "No, since I was a child I wanted to be a hero" he explained.

"I see, something as a child motivated you to be a hero or is it just a desire that came on its own?"

"All Might, I was a big fan of All Might, I wanted to be like him, a hero who saves everyone with a smile" I explain, though somewhat disgruntled at not really knowing how much of a limit his ability to tell if someone is lying does or doesn't have.

"You speak in the past tense, are you no longer a fan of All Might?"

"No, although I still respect him as a hero."

"And why the change? Did you find some other hero to look up to?"

Izuku wanted to grit his teeth, but he restrained himself, now she was asking the compromising questions.

He had lost his runes... They weren't many, but they were enough to finally buy Kalé a weapon, or maybe a shield or some piece of armor, anything that would help him.

But he had lost them.

"Why?" he whispered, feeling despair work its way into his mind.

Everything was unfair, everything was absurd. He had only tried to help Kacchan and now he was in this horrible place, where almost everything that moves seeks to kill him.

He had no weapon, no armor, not even a Quirk with which to defend himself, and he had already experienced death more times than any person had a right to.

He tried to stay positive, telling himself that someone would come to his rescue at some point. That was short-lived. The next thing was to convince himself that somehow he could find someone to help him.

That's why he approached the Tree Sentinel. He was a knight; knights help people in stories. Perhaps he should have listened to Varré when he warned him not to. That was his second death, crushed by the Sentinel's halberd.

No one would help him. "Nothing is free," Kalé had told him.

He was right, but Izuku hadn't wanted to believe him. People couldn't be that mean and selfish, could they?

Now he could only scoff at the thought. The worst part was that all this was happening in just one week. Just one week and he had already died five times. Just one week and I felt like I was on the very edge of insanity.

Only a week and he had not been able to get far from the Church of Elleh.

Kalé advised him to get a weapon. According to him, it was easy: either buy it or loot it from some place or corpse. Izuku refused to do the latter, but the former was no better. In this place, the currency is runes, and those are obtained by killing.

Izuku didn't want to kill; heroes don't kill. He wanted to be a hero and, consequently, he should not kill... but that meant no runes.

But he found another solution: animals also give runes. If he killed some deer, rabbits or birds, he would get runes. It was still killing, it was still wrong, but... it was less worse than killing a person, right?

It was also easier.

So that's what he did. For days and days, he killed animals, mostly birds, with the help of stones. There were many, many birds. Some, even after the first stone, were still alive but dying... He had to approach and put an end to their suffering.

But all that would stop; I had enough runes. I would have a weapon, I could move forward, trying to find help further away.

But he saw in the distance a group of pilgrims being attacked by bandits. Godrick's soldiers would do nothing for them; their orders were to hunt down the Tarnished, not defend his people. Being the altruistic boy he was, he tried to help... but there is little an unarmed, unarmored boy can do against a group of bandits.

He died, and lost his runes. Probably the bandits took them, and he did not manage to save the pilgrims.

A complete and utter failure. I was back to square one, exactly where I was a week ago.

"Why!" he cried, banging his forehead against the floor.

"It's a little too early to fall into despair," Kalé said, looking at him from a distance.

Izuku looked up at him, his face covered with tears. He no longer cared whether he was seen crying or not.

The merchant let out a heavy sigh. "At least, if you plan to do it, do it farther away. I don't want to deal with it."

Izuku bit his lip. No one was nice, no one cared that he was just a teenager, no one would take pity on him.

"What should I do?" asked Izuku, still crying. "I... no matter what I do, it's no use. I just die... I just die over and over again."

"Mmm, dying is normal for yours," the merchant just lifted his shoulders, downplaying it. "But if dying bothers you so much, then get stronger and stop dying, or stop getting into dangerous situations."

"I... don't have a maiden," Izuku reminded him. Becoming stronger was not an option for him. Varré had explained to him what a finger maiden was, though at first Izuku thought the man was mocking him for not having a girlfriend.

Kalé just lifted his shoulders. "It's not the only way to become strong. Train, buy yourself some good equipment and move on. Before all this chaos, people didn't get strong with maidens. Or just hide in a cave away from everything."

The option of hiding was tempting, but... also, if he did that, he might never come home, might never see his mother, might never fulfill his dream of being a hero. He couldn't just hide, no matter how much a part of him wanted to.

But the first option was still a bad one. To have equipment, he had to kill. He could spend several more days killing animals, hoping that someone wouldn't kill him and steal his runes, or worse, that another Tarnished would find him and kill him, or that a Godrick soldier would capture him and take him to his lord. According to the information given by Kalé, those are ways to kill a Tarnished for good.

"I... I can't," that made the merchant let out a sigh.

"Why do you refuse to kill?" he asked. "I've watched you, running after animals instead of trying to kill a Godrick soldier. You'd be doing everyone a favor by getting rid of those bastards, and you could steal their equipment, plus get runes to buy whatever you need."

"I-I can't... I mustn't kill. Heroes don't kill," Izuku said.

Kalé raised an eyebrow. "What is this stupidity? As far as I know, Malenia, Radahn and Godfrey killed a lot of people, and I don't think anyone is against calling them heroes."

Izuku knew about those only from the mentions of Kalé, who had given him a summary of everything that happened in the lands betweens, or at least what he knew. He did not make him pay for that information because it is common knowledge.

"Where I come from, heroes don't kill," Izuku answered him.

"Yes, but you're not in that place. You're here, and here... it's kill or be killed," Kalé took his instrument in hand, preparing to start playing it. "It's your choice, kid. Whatever your goal, if you don't stain your hands with the blood of others, then the others will stain their hands with your blood. Unless you hide, but even then, sooner or later, they will find you."

After that conversation, Izuku had tried to stay the same, clinging to not killing people, convincing himself that only by killing animals would he get anywhere, that he would achieve something.

Then, one day, he picked up a stone, as big as his head. It was difficult to lift it, but he succeeded. He hid in the bushes and, when a Godrick soldier passed by, he lifted the stone and dropped it hard on the soldier's head. Although he fell to the ground, the man was still moving, so Izuku hit him once more with the stone. But he was still moving, so he hit him again and again without stopping, until the man's head was a bloody mass on the ground. He took his sword, sold the armor that was of no use to Kalé, and for the first time, he really began to move forward.

It was funny, none of that was All Might's fault, and yet, it was at that moment that Izuku began to lose his admiration for the man... for all heroes, really.

"I... I guess the events I went through made me stop admiring them as if they were anything more than people," Izuku finally replied. The interviewer looked him in the eye.

"Do you hate heroes?" A curious question, why would someone who hates heroes try to get into the hero course?

Perhaps his way of responding made her think so.

"No, I respect what they do, I think it's a good thing, and I guess it's okay for me to try to do some of that too." He wasn't too sure about the latter. Realistically, he was getting into the hero course only because All Might proposed it and Ranni told him to accept. If it were up to him, he'd be trying to get into the general course. Moreover, if the hero's course ends up not fit him, he plans to orient himself to the general course.

"I see, all right then. I think we can call this interview to a close. It was nice meeting you, Midoriya." Izuku nodded at that.

He let go of the woman's hand and left the place. Ranni was waiting for him outside.

He was sincere, except at the end. Although, thankfully, not on the part about respecting heroes; that was true. But she knew how to spot the lie as soon as he said he thought it was okay for him to do the same.

She let out a heavy sigh. Nezu had informed her to be careful when interviewing young Midoriya and young Caria.

The director did not want a scandal in which his acclaimed institution caused a PTSD attack on two young people, much less those two who are still under the media's radar.

Still, she could not help but be surprised by the interviews she conducted with both of them. Young Caria's was simple; she was straightforward in her answers and she couldn't detect any lies. She wanted to be a heroine so that others would not go through what she did.

But Midoriya is a case apart... She sighed. Well, it's not like she can do much more. She'll just report everything to Nezu and wait to see what he decides.

And here we have the first Flashback of Izuku in his adventures.

This chapter was a little difficult to write, especially because from here the differences with the canon begin and I think some of you will notice it.

Thank you very much for all the good comments you have for this fic and I hope you continue liking it.