Skywalker's first move was to try tackling Gang Orca, but he was swatted away into the ground easily. The hero had set himself in a wide stance, grounding him and not allowing himself to be lifted off the floor again so easily. His glaring red eyes made the heroes in training hesitate. Izuku's mind worked fast, his thoughts flying at him at the speed of light, and an idea clicked into place. If they drew Gang Orca far enough away from the tower, it wouldn't matter if they could hold out against him for five whole minutes. Izuku set his face in a determined glare, prepared to go as far as it took to pass this exam.

"Skywalker!" Izuku yelled.

The blond boy looked toward Izuku as he lifted up into the air. He flew over and landed next to Izuku, shaking his arm out. It looked like Skywalker had landed roughly on his shoulder, but had recovered quickly. Skywalker looked down at Izuku with an open expression, but kept his body facing toward Gang Orca in case he tried a sneak attack while they planned. Izuku did the same.

"I can destabilise Gang Orca from a distance, if you can follow up and lift him off his feet. Then we can get him out onto the street, and fight it out away from the bomb," Izuku said, letting Blackwhip fall in strands around his closed fists.

"Alright. What'll you do?" Skywalker asked, looking at Blackwhip with a hesitant frown on his face.

"You'll know it when you see it," Izuku said.

"Okay."

Skywalker soared into the air above, and Izuku brought his hands up. He coated his arms in a thick layer of Blackwhip, all the way up to the shoulder. He constricted it around himself, like a tourniquet, and then hardened it along the lengths of his limbs and fingers like a plaster cast, but kept the joints fluid so he could move them. He applied the technique he hadn't used since the summer camp, Dark Cowling, and armoured his limbs so that the blowback from what he was hoping to pull off wouldn't be so extreme. Izuku grimaced as the flickering power around him grew more intense, real bolts of electrical discharge blackening the ground where they struck. Normally, the halo of power that characterised Full Cowling was cosmetic, it didn't behave like real electricity. When he started pushing the percentage past a certain point his body could handle, though, Izuku began to emit real emerald lightning, as if the power was trying to harm anything but its own wielder. It didn't work that way, though, and Izuku's arm throbbed as he brought One for All up to twenty-two percent with a roar of effort. He could feel eyes on him, and met Gang Orca's as he seemingly took note of this increase in power.

The air felt heavy around Izuku, like moving through sand, but he brought his middle finger and thumb together on both hands. It was as if the miniscule space between his fingers was as dense as a ball of lead, and pushing on it sent pins and needles up Izuku's arms even with the protections afforded to him by his Dark Cowling style. Izuku flicked his fingers, and the effect began before he was even finished. As the air was pushed forward ahead of him, the space behind him became concave, and Izuku was simultaneously pushed back from the recoil of his Air Force and pulled by the air displacement behind him, so he flew off his feet and only maintained his balance because of Float, which he used to guarantee a safe landing about five metres away from where he'd started. He watched while twin bullets of air raced through the space between himself and Gang Orca, the hero's eyes widening as he tried to dodge out of the way, but they were too fast. The two jet streams crashed into Gang Orca and pushed him back almost as much as the move had thrown Izuku, the lumbering man somehow keeping his feet under him as he staggered a few metres back.

Before Gang Orca was settled, Skywalker streaked across the room in a blur of motion and punched the faux-villain in the chest with both hands. It was a shove that Izuku thought could have budged even the greatest of heroes in Japan, and it sent Gang Orca back another five or six steps. Power Packer then bounded across the room and landed a serious punch square in the jaw as Gang Orca had begun to regain his footing, which sent him tumbling another few metres closer to the curtain window opposite the one Izuku had shattered on his way in. Strider then appeared, taking Gang Orca's legs out from under him with a leg-sweep at hundreds of kilometres per hour. Izuku thought he heard a ripping noise and a muffled groan of pain from Gang Orca as the barrage of stunning attacks came at him within seconds of each other. The examinees were slowly but surely pushing him closer to the unshattered window, and one more push would do it, but everyone else looked spent. Strider was wheezing as she was forced to stop and stumbled to her knees, Skywalker was still flexing his arm in pain, and something was dripping from Packer's knuckles — blood, Izuku realised with startling nonchalance.

Izuku's arms burned. He knew he'd gone past his limit, disobeyed orders from all his teachers and doctors. He couldn't bring himself to feel too bad about it, though. He made a choice, and he was facing a consequence for it. What they didn't know couldn't hurt them. Izuku let his Dark Cowling fall away and sink back into his body through the tunnels on his gloves. He could move his arms and fingers, so that was a positive. His skin stung, like he'd been attacked by a hundred bees and then dumped in acid, but nothing was broken. Izuku couldn't help the smile that came onto his face at that knowledge. He crouched down, bringing One for All back down to twenty percent, and threw his arms out behind him, once again bringing his middle fingers and thumbs together. He lined up his shot, and pushed forward with as much power as he could muster in his legs, flicking his fingers at the same time in an imitation of one of Katsuki's signature moves, Burst Speed Turbo. Izuku streaked through the air, green lightning trailing behind in flashes of leftover, unused power, and a bolt of that usually harmless electrical discharge leapt over and made contact with Gang Orca's chest ahead of Izuku's foot, which followed the lightning and landed half a second later.

"SMASH!"

Gang Orca was flung into the glass wall and shattered it with his body and the force of Izuku's kick. He tumbled through the air horizontally for about ten metres as the rain of glass came down around Izuku, forcing him to put up two weak Blackwhip Shields as he slid to a stop just short of the ledge he'd now put himself in danger of falling off now that the window was gone. The shards harmlessly bounced off his shields, and Izuku watched as Gang Orca fell into the streets below the tower five storeys below. He knew the hero had the durability to withstand that fall normally, since the iconic incident where Gang Orca had saved a person who'd been wanting to end their own life ended with him easily surviving a fall from such a height. Izuku felt bad for fighting him so hard at the reminder that Gang Orca really was an exemplary hero, one he looked up to a lot for good reasons. Green lightning still flickered around Gang Orca as he fell to the ground below, trails of the flashing electricity acting as a way to track him in the relative darkness of the underground replica city. The last of the aftereffects of Izuku's attack flickered around the hero as he landed, making a crater at least a metre deep in the street.

"Nice!" Skywalker said, landing and clapping Izuku on the back. "You've got some real firepower."

"Thanks! Let's get him quick, though, or that firepower will have been wasted!" Izuku said, dispelling his two Blackwhip Shields and stepping off the ledge.

Skywalker followed him easily, and Strider hitched a ride on Power Packer's back as the two of them joined the two airborne boys a few seconds later. The two fliers among them cushioned their own falls halfway down, slowly lowering themselves onto the ground nearby Gang Orca, who was still getting to his feet, but Power Packer had jumped at such an angle as to come down directly over the hero. He was still in the air when Packer kicked down at Gang Orca, the blowback of one of his stronger hits breaking the fall and pushing him back so that he didn't break his legs landing from storeys up. It showed Izuku that Power Packer had an incredible mastery of his own Quirk as well as physics, as he'd calculated both the angle at which he'd need to jump to land where he wanted to from twenty metres up, give or take a few metres, as well as which gear of his Quirk he'd need to shift into at the drop of a hat in order to reverse his momentum and correct his trajectory, all within about five seconds, with the extra weight of Strider altering his mass. It was some seriously impressive improvised science, and Izuku would've found himself in awe at any other time, but he found himself distracted by the wording he'd used to describe Packer's Quirk. His mind had immediately locked onto 'gears' in reference to the different levels at which Packer's Quirk seemed to enhance his strength, but that tickled his brain somehow, like that term was familiar in the context of Quirks. Izuku shook the distraction out of his head and forced himself to focus. He could think about it later.

Izuku led the charge. He darted in close to Gang Orca and engaged him in melee while Strider ran around the outskirts of their brawl and got in hits at his back and joints while the man was distracted. Trading blows with Gang Orca did not feel good. It felt as though he was being hit with a sledgehammer across the face and ribs every time the hero got in even a glancing blow. Izuku figured it was only the power of One for All that kept him from crumpling like cardboard after the first hit. If he hadn't been keeping Full Cowling up, or if he hadn't been firing on all cylinders at twenty percent, Izuku doubted he would've been able to even follow Gang Orca's movements, let alone defend himself at all against his powerful attacks.

Reigning down kicks and punches from above, Skywalker flew by every few seconds, creating brief openings for Izuku to get through Gang Orca's guard. From everything Izuku had seen and written about him, Gang Orca always preferred to incapacitate with his hypersonic attack before an incident even escalated to combat. He was just now realising why that was — it wasn't to protect civilians that might get hurt; it was to protect villains who would get hurt if he didn't choose the least violent path to minimise the potential harm done during an encounter.

!

His realisation made Izuku miss an opening, which Gang Orca turned around on him by throwing Izuku out of melee with a roundhouse kick, which Izuku did his best to block with his arms raised. He tumbled down the asphalt street, and used Float to level himself out before planting his feet on the ground and cracking the road as he forced himself to stop.

He hadn't sustained any major damage, just the same blunt force that One for All protected him against, though his forearms did throb from the impact. Izuku looked back at the fight and realised he'd been punted about two blocks down the street. He'd been about to panic at that realisation, but saw that Power Packer had quickly covered for his slip up and taken his place in the fight with Gang Orca. His heart stopped hammering so fast in his chest, but he did still need to get back to his teammates and make up for his rookie mistake. He'd gotten too caught up in his thoughts and left himself wide open for an attack that he was sure could've done more damage if this wasn't an exam. Gang Orca did have claws, which didn't help his consistently high rankings in the Heroes Who Look Like Villains polls. Izuku sighed heavily and lowered himself into a crouching stance. The idea that came to him was going to be difficult to pull off, but it would be worth it if nothing went wrong. The part of him that sounded suspiciously like Katsuki asked when anything ever went completely right for him, but he ignored it.

Izuku shot Blackwhip out in wide nets, catching on street lights, the walls and corners of buildings, the street itself; everything in sight that Izuku could be reasonably sure was solidly connected to the ground, he tethered himself to it. Then he began to leap backward, pushing himself dozens of metres further down the street — he wasn't sure exactly how far. He allowed Blackwhip the elasticity to not rip the street lights out of the ground but kept it rigid enough for him to feel the tension across the membranes he'd put out as he backed up along the street. He shuffled around so that he could be certain he'd hit Gang Orca and not one of his teammates. Down at the intersection the fight was contained to, Power Packer had gotten Gang Orca in a headlock from behind, and Strider and Skywalker were going at the man with all they had, though Izuku could tell they were running out of steam. The hero had taken quite the beating, but this would be the finishing blow if it landed right. Izuku took a deep breath and pushed off the ground, pulling his hands behind him at the same time as Float allowed him to ignore gravity so that he was flung forward, rushing up to meet the others almost faster than he could process. This had to be another kick. Izuku was afraid that if he pulled off another big move like this with his arms, it would hurt him the way he'd been lucky to avoid last time at the top of the tower.

Izuku was lightning — or he felt that way — as he appeared before Gang Orca, the hero's red eyes widening as he was illuminated in bright green light. The yanking of Blackwhip, which trailed after Izuku as it retreated back into the hands that he'd let flail behind him from the air resistance alone, had pulled his upper body back and pushed his legs out in front of him, which meant that his finishing move ended up becoming a four hundred metre dropkick that landed with the sound of thunder and a flash of lightning that crackled and fizzled out of the concave depression in Gang Orca's costume. Izuku's foot had dented the armour worn underneath, which surprised him — he'd always thought the man was just built like a brick wall, not that he wore any kind of plating underneath his clothes. Now that he'd fought Gang Orca, it made sense, though; he was solid. Gang Orca and Power Packer both went flying, tumbling through the air and down the street, so that Packer landed on top of the hero, who went limp with another groan. Izuku skidded down the street after them, slowing his momentum where he could as he bounced along the ground near-uncontrollably. Izuku finally got himself to stop and he sat down hard on the ground, his legs giving out as pins and needles poked at his joints, not unlike the hypersonic attack that had paralysed him earlier.

Panting, Izuku got to one knee and paused, keeping One for All up despite all his limbs yearning for release from the stiffness brought on by extended uses of his power. He waited until the count of ten, Skywalker and Strider speeding to his side, to be sure that Gang Orca was down. When those ten counts passed, and the hero did not get up, a satisfied grin split Izuku's face. He had helped in taking down the tenth ranked hero in Japan. Pride bloomed in his chest, and he looked around at his teammates to see they shared identical smiles to what he thought his own must look like. Power Packer got to his feet and got out a roll of capture tape, which shocked Izuku to see in a non-UA environment for some reason, and bound Gang Orca's hands behind his back to confirm his defeat. He then gave a grunt, the only sound Izuku had heard the boy make. Izuku let One for All drain out of him, the crackling green aura of power fading with a few more pops of electricity, and his whole body sagged, though he kept himself from collapsing again.

"Well done, everyone. That's one objective down," Skywalker said, panting as well. He had the beginnings of a nasty bruise peeking out from under his costume and up his neck, but he didn't seem to feel it based on the glowing expression on his face. "Now we just need to take care of the bomb. Echo, how's the bomb?" Skywalker said, pressing a finger to his ear as he addressed Echo. Izuku guessed he'd dropped her off with Pointer before joining the fight up topside. Some more respect for his decision-making skills made Izuku stand up a little straighter when meeting Skywalker's gaze.

"We're almost there. Pointer says it's harder than she thought it would be, but she thinks she can do it in a minute, maybe, two at most," Echo said, her voice buzzing through Izuku's earpiece. At the last part of her message, her voice changed into Pointer's, and Izuku realised another handy application for her Quirk; there was no risk of miscommunication or a game of telephone twisting a message if she delivered it personally. Echo could just say exactly what she heard, even if she had forgotten the exact wording, because her Quirk let her reuse the sound. She'd get along swimmingly with what 1-A had started calling the Recon Squad among themselves — that being Hagakure, Jiro, Shoji, Hitoshi and Koda.

"Great. We'll meet you up there and hold down your location in case any stray minions try anything," Skywalker said, and took his finger away from his earpiece. "Follow me."

Skywalker rose into the air without moving a muscle. His cape billowed as if a hurricane was pushing against him, but he slowly and calmly hovered in mid-air, as if he were standing in an invisible elevator. Izuku noticed that little particles of dust and dirt had risen with him, and wondered if Skywalker's Quirk wasn't flight, but something more complicated that looked like simple flight from an outside perspective. He'd heard of heroes with Quirks that looked like Skywalker's, the most notable being Captain Celebrity, one of the top ranked heroes in the United States — the last Izuku had checked, he was third behind Star and Stripe and Vigilant. Captain Celebrity's Quirk was publicly known as Flight, but it allowed him to do things like lift entire ships out of the ocean with his bare hands, and he even kept the Sky Egg in Tokyo from collapsing by himself when he was in Japan a few years ago. Flight didn't let someone pull off feats of physical strength that even Izuku had to admit, though it pained him, rivalled All Might in his prime. Skywalker's Quirk could've been like that, like a field of telekinesis that allowed him to levitate anything within it, like himself, which looked like flight, but if you paid close enough attention, you could see all the other little things that he brought with him. Izuku was brought out of his own head by Strider tapping him on the shoulder, and he realised that he'd spaced out again.

Izuku flew up to join the others up on the fourth storey, through a window that had been broken in before Izuku and his allies had taken the fight to the streets, judging by the fact that he'd never heard it break. Inside, Pointer was furiously working on a nuclear warhead that stood in the middle of the room, which would've seemed comical had the face of a keypad not been taken off to reveal that its insides looked like one of the strange machines that he'd noticed keeping All for One alive from the shadows the time they'd met in his underground lair. Izuku pushed that thought away, and heard the ticking that filled the room at a regular interval — a timer. He walked around and looked at the face of the keypad that had been taken off, revealing it had a little under ten minutes until it was theoretically rigged to explode. Pointer grunted and groaned as her fingers snaked around inside the bomb, reduced to intelligibility from the sheer focus it took to disarm even a theoretical nuclear device.

"We've hit a couple of roadblocks, but we should be done in a few minutes," Echo said when everyone had gathered around Pointer and begun watching her work.

"I need space, people," Pointer suddenly barked, startling Izuku, who'd leaned in to get a look inside the device.

"Right, let's patrol the building, guys, and get out of Pointer's hair," Skywalker ordered, and oddly enough, it was Izuku's first instinct to follow the order, rather than stay and help with the bomb. He knew he would be way beyond his pay grade with that kind of task.

Izuku took the ground floor. He'd be the first to know if any of Gang Orca's goons tried to infiltrate the building. Over the next couple of minutes, he had to swat a few of them away and back out onto the street, never using anything above ten percent as he started slowing down and getting tired after a long twenty minutes or so of fighting. He noticed that it was taking much longer than Pointer had estimated it would take for her to disarm the bomb. Izuku counted five minutes passing before he felt the eyes on him. Hundreds of eyes from the street made the hair on the back of Izuku's neck stand up. He immediately knew something was wrong. Danger Sense wasn't actively warning him, but he could sometimes tell just from his gut instinct that something was about to happen, and that same feeling was twisting his stomach as he pressed his finger to his earpiece and hesitated. How should he explain?

"Guys, I think they're grouping up on the street for one final push. I might get overwhelmed," Izuku said, hating that his voice shook, in part due to how tired he felt, but also from the raw adrenaline that raced through his veins at the thought of that many goons swarming him.

"How can you tell? I can't see anything from here," Skywalker said. He'd gone up to the top of the tower to do aerial recon, so that had to mean something.

"I'm sure," Izuku said as he saw the shadows directly across from the entrance to the tower shift, like something was getting ready to pounce from within.

!

"They're coming!" Izuku said, his mind reeling from the intense feedback from Danger Sense.

Biting down the yelp he wanted to make at the stab of sensory information warning him, Izuku kicked One for All awake within himself, bringing it up to fifteen percent, Full Cowling style. He leaned to the right to dodge a clump of wet cement that would've hit him right in the face had he not had warning, the clump ruining the wall behind him. Izuku froze, watching dozens upon dozens of those same black-clad minions racing out of every alley, every nook and cranny it was possible to fit in across the street, and sprinted for the front doors to the lobby, where Izuku waited for them. Knowing this was the final stand, as they had mere minutes until the exam ended whether Pointer disarmed the bomb or not, Izuku kicked himself into high gear — there it was again, what was so weirdly familiar to Izuku about gears? — and pushed himself back up to twenty percent, feeling the dull throb in his limbs become a stinging burn as he pushed his body further than he reasonably should have. They'd be upon him any second.

Skywalker dropped in from above and swept across the front line of the mob. A few of them dropped to the ground as he hit them on the head or pushed them over, tripping up the goons behind them as well, but it wasn't enough. Power Packer slammed right into the middle of them and began to throw adults around like they were nothing, which would lighten Izuku's load, but he was still looking at maybe hundreds of people, and as strong as he was, he could only take on so many people at a time. Some would inevitably get past him and sneak up to the bomb room, where Pointer would be distracted and be unable to disarm the nuke, thus failing them the test. He didn't know how he'd hold the line by himself, and his mind was being pulled in a dozen different directions trying to find a way.

He could build a wall of netting with Blackwhip, or blind them all with Smokescreen, but those came with disadvantages. He'd be unable to fight if he dedicated himself to maintaining the barrier, and he'd lose the precognitive aspect of Danger Sense if he went Full Blast like the second option necessitated, which was bad when there were so many enemies. He almost thought about abandoning the lobby and using the exit onto the fourth floor as a choke point that he could control more tightly, but he was saved from his indecision by a blur of motion that stopped by his side. Strider slid until she collided with one of the first minions through the door, sending him back into the crowd and delaying the goons directly behind him using her leftover momentum. She grinned back at Izuku and sped back to his side, smiling like she knew they could win no matter what. The sight reminded him that it wasn't all up to him, and that he could lean on his teammates if he wasn't certain he could do it alone. Strider's grin was suddenly infectious, and Izuku smiled as the first wave of minions finally escaped Skywalker and Power Packer's preventative measures.

Izuku lost track of exactly how much time was passing. He grabbed one of the minions with Blackwhip and knocked down a whole line of them using the first one as a bludgeoning weapon. He zipped around the lobby like a streak of lightning, glancing blows sending minions flying around the space. They initially seemed to think that Smokescreen could be poisonous, so Izuku forced them back with a low, crawling wave of it, before using Air Force to take them out two or three at a time from afar. When they realised they could breathe the purple mist, the minions charged forward, roaring as they approached. Some of them tripped as Strider sped past, some of them fell at Izuku's hands, and some of the minions at the back of the horde crumpled as Power Packer and Skywalker did their best to work their way through the swarm toward their teammates. Izuku thought it was going well, but a thought occurred to him as he fought that he wasn't sure he wanted to share with the others.

The wording of the announcement that they'd heard all the way back at the beginning of the exam bothered Izuku. Only then did he realise, facing off against so many of the minions, that the announcer had said one of their two objectives was to defeat the 'combatants'. Izuku had a bad feeling that they'd used the plural form of the word intentionally, meaning that they hadn't actually completed one of their two objectives. If the objective had just been to defeat the big bad, Gang Orca, they would have, but it was to defeat the combatants. Did that mean that even if Pointer and Echo disarmed the bomb upstairs, they'd fail if there were minions still standing when time ran out? Izuku frowned at the thought, but he couldn't falter. He wouldn't repeat the mistake he'd made with Gang Orca. He knocked a row of the minions away, and looked up at Skywalker, who'd made his way inside the lobby through a window some of the minions had shattered to avoid the choke point the door had become.

"How much time do we have left?" Izuku yelled as he caught three minions in Blackwhip and slammed one against the ground, one against the ceiling and the third against the closest wall.

"Time check!" Skywalker yelled into his earpiece. He'd stopped going for punches and shoves with his right arm, the arm Gang Orca had forced him to land hard on. He was focusing more on kicks and single-arm attacks.

"Three minutes. Guys, I don't know if—" Echo said through the earpiece.

"We're gonna make it!" Izuku said at the same time as Skywalker. They locked eyes from across the lobby and nodded to each other. Somehow, Izuku caught a glance behind himself from the other boy, and understood what it meant without the need for words.

"Fall back! We'll hold the stairwell!" Skywalker cried.

Izuku was already moving before he'd heard the order, and was standing just inside the stairwell holding the door open for everyone else by the time the others realised what the plan was. Skywalker took a few potshots as he flew over to the stairwell entrance. He almost crashed into the first few steps, but managed to regain control of himself as he landed on top of the first flight of stairs. Strider blurred past Izuku and stumbled to a stop just inside the door, wheezing in a way that made Izuku's lungs burn just hearing it. Power Packer was the last through the door, leaping and landing on a few of the minions who'd been about to reach the stairwell, and lumbering through at the last second before Izuku slammed the door shut and crumpled the door handle with ease. He heard the lock shatter, and when he stepped back from the door, it did not allow the minions easy entry. He'd hoped breaking the lock would do that, but hadn't been sure. The banging on the door from the other side was all the evidence he needed that it worked, though, and he let himself feel the satisfaction of pulling off such a hastily put-together plan. He turned to the others, who were still recovering from the fighting outside.

"We need to decide where we want to hold the line. If we're too close to the bomb, they could overrun us in no time, but if we hold it right here, then there's no room to move around for us mobility types," Izuku said as he caught his breath.

"I think we split up again," Skywalker said. Izuku and Strider opened their mouths, and Packer looked at Skywalker with a strangely expressive silence, but he put his hands up to silence the backlash before it could begin. "I've thought it through. Packer will stay down here as our first line of defence, then it'll be me up on the second floor, with Strider on the third. Then it's Nexus on the fourth floor as our rear guard. I figure having our powerhouses as the first immovable object and our last unstoppable force gives us a pretty good chance of holding down those crucial points. If they somehow manage to get past Packer, and then me, and then Strider, then there's no shot they'll be ready to go toe to toe with Nexus at the end of the race. Remember, people, this is a marathon, it isn't a sprint. They're not pacing themselves, and that's our advantage. Burn them out at the beginning with a big hitter and pick off the stragglers that filter through."

Splinters flew as the door rattled. A crack appeared, deep and jagged, as a grey substance oozed through it. Izuku realised they were trying to hammer the door in with their cement projectiles. The examinees all silently nodded to each other, unable to come up with a better plan in time, and Izuku brought One for All back up to twenty percent. He fell to one knee, though, every muscle in his body spasming, and let go of the power. Power Packer helped him to his feet, and Izuku nodded his thanks as he tried to figure out what had caused that. He must've just been too tired to go full throttle like that. Izuku swallowed his worry that he wouldn't be the powerhouse Skywalker was counting on him to be, and flared One for All to ten percent. That was much more comfortable, the searing heat of the power he could just barely handle becoming the warmth of a more familiar, safe strength that he'd come to know well. Izuku took a deep breath to quell the anxiety that rose in his chest, and jumped.

Skywalker flew up behind him and peeled off at the first chance, settling himself on the landing of the second floor. Strider ran in dizzying rotations up the stairs and stopped just as she reached the third floor. Izuku figured that he just barely wouldn't have been able to make it up to the fourth floor in one jump with just ten percent, but Float did the work of maintaining his momentum, and he let himself touch down as he grabbed the railing and spun himself around to the landing of the fourth floor. It looked like an office space, with cubicles and desks placed around the open floor, the doors along the walls leading to offices, one of which contained the bomb. He walked over to the room that he remembered the bomb was in, frowning at the fact that it was within sight of the stairwell, and poked his head in, seeing Pointer and Echo both working on pieces of circuitry they'd pulled out of the bomb.

"I'm gonna break the lock so they can't get in here. We're holding the line right outside," Izuku said, and immediately closed the door behind him and broke it shut like the stairwell door.

As Izuku was getting back into position at the stairwell, the tide of minions broke through the door on the ground floor. A surge of black-clad fighters swarmed through, Power Packer's wide body rebuffing their attempts to get past him as he stood on the first few steps. Every counterattack from Packer seemed to be his strongest, a height of power Izuku hadn't seen from him in this whole exam so far. Every blow knocked back half a dozen minions, and Izuku could've sworn he felt the gentlest touch of air rushing up the shaft from below, but it wouldn't be enough. All of Packer's hits were also blowing him back a few steps each time, and there was still dark red blood dripping from his gauntlets from within, and Izuku got the feeling that he'd pushed past his limit with his Quirk during the fight with Gang Orca and had been running on adrenaline alone since then. Packer's movements became sluggish before he had even been pushed past the first flight of stairs, and soon a snap echoed up the stairwell as Power Packer's arm went limp. That last one had blown back at least ten minions down the stairs and the ones behind them back through the door, though, delaying the horde by a few moments. Izuku felt his heart leap up into his throat as the minions overcame Power Packer, leaving him broken and bloody on the first landing.

Skywalker offered them no challenge after Packer's extraordinarily heroic display. He was overcome immediately, getting pinned to the ground by a cement clod. Izuku had feared that would be the way it went, since Skywalker's arm had been more or less limp at his side since he'd joined the fight with Gang Orca upstairs. He had been in bad shape, but had put himself on the front lines ahead of his other teammates just because he thought it was right. Izuku's stomach churned, and he breathed deeply, trying his best to channel his anxiety into the steely determination he knew he had in him. He set his face in a hard expression, and brought One for All up to fifteen percent with no regard for how much it burned through his muscles and stabbed at his joints.

Before the minions even got to Strider, Izuku was sending blasts of Air Force at the ranks of them that happened to be on the very edge of the stairs, where he could see them from up on the fourth floor. They reached the third floor and began to swarm Strider, but despite Izuku's expectations, she managed to repel the initial wave of them. She stood still for once, and used her Quirk solely on her arms as she punched and shoved the minions into those behind them, all the way back down the stairs. She breathed in heavily in one continuous breath as she barraged the minions and kept the horde at bay, never stopping to exhale. It confirmed Izuku's theory that her Quirk used oxygen to fuel her speed. Could it be that only speeding up her arms consumed a small enough amount of her air that she could force herself into some kind of feedback loop and never have to slow down to catch her breath? Izuku was in awe of that kind of Quirk mastery, and resolved himself to meet the standard these young men and women had set for him, no matter what. Izuku kept flicking his fingers and sending blasts of air down the stairwell at the minions who had begun to slow down at the back, while Strider engaged those on the front line.

Skywalker's plan was working. There were only about two dozen minions left, when Izuku's original estimate of their numbers had easily been in the hundreds. He hadn't wondered where these minions had come from, but now that Izuku thought about it, Skywalker and Echo would have had to leave their assigned tower with most or all of its inhabitants left unharmed, if the numbers of the two decoy towers were the same as the one he and Packer had dealt with. They must have followed immediately after the two of them, but because they couldn't move like Skywalker, Packer, Strider and Izuku could, it took them upwards of ten minutes to cross the city while remaining unseen. The front line was getting thinner, and Izuku was picking off those in the rear, so about twenty of them remained.

Izuku was about to think that Strider could take the last ones down herself, but then her breath hitched and her arms fell out of super-speed mid-swing, throwing her off-balance with their momentum. Izuku was peeking out from the fourth floor, but even he could see that she'd become pale, shaky and sweaty from cheating her Quirk like she had. Izuku frowned and tried to head down to help, but a voice in his head told him that he had to hold the line. He was the last one left, after all. The instant Strider faltered was the moment that one of the minions two flights down shot a wad of cement at her, and she flew back against the wall and was stuck there as the wet cement hardened in seconds. Izuku silently wished the universe wouldn't make things go wrong just as he was thinking they were okay, and put his hands up for a fight as the last wave of minions approached him up the stairs.

He started with a dropkick that sent one of the minions flying back into the rest, and the air displacement that followed threw all of the other minions down the stairs. Float kept him up in the air, which allowed him to spin around back to his feet before hitting the ground. Izuku met them on the stairs and grabbed two of them with Blackwhip, and tossed them over the guardrail to land on the landing of the third floor.

!

The remaining minions had gotten up. A wad of cement flew at Izuku's chest, but he twisted around it and used Blackwhip as a bludgeoning weapon to fling the one who'd fired it against the wall, knocking them out cold with a grunt. The two he'd thrown over were getting up, but he focused on the ones in front of him, who were all aiming their cement shooters at him. Izuku didn't wait for Danger Sense to tell him, and dodged backward as he kicked a Full Blast of Smokescreen at them, obscuring everything in sight.

He might've gone a little too 'full' on the Full Blast, though, as the entire fourth floor became shrouded in dark purple smog, not just the stairwell. Izuku's sense of direction was blinded for only a moment, before something in his core shifted and he suddenly knew where everything was without seeing it. It always made him a little dizzy when Danger Sense shifted states like that, but he had the advantage now. Only he could see, though he'd had to trade in his precognition advantage to get in that position. That was fine. Izuku took deep, heavy breaths as the back of his throat became disgustingly hot and dry, and his fingers started going numb — the tells of Quirk overuse from Smokescreen and One for All respectively. It was fine.

Izuku sensed the minions all rushing forward, and wondered how much time had passed since Echo had last checked in. More than three minutes, surely. He wondered if there were secret conditions to the exam, like somehow adding time to the test if they did certain things. The bottom line was that the exam wasn't being called, so Izuku had to keep fighting, and nothing else mattered. He met the minions halfway to the bomb room, and from the way they moved, like they were sure they were stepping where they wanted to step, Izuku figured they had some kind of infrared technology in those goggles, because of course they did. Izuku threw two Blackwhip strands and caught a couple of the minions, throwing them through random walls where he was sure they didn't connect to the bomb room. He sent blasts of Air Force at four or five of them, slamming them against the walls and floor and ceiling, and even flinging one all the way back into the stairwell. He whittled them down and reduced their numbers slowly, going from twenty, to eighteen, to fourteen, to eleven, until the Smokescreen faded and seven of the minions stood around Izuku in a semicircle, forcing him to turn his head to see them all as he pressed his back into the door to the bomb room. He grimaced as his equilibrium shifted once more, giving him his danger sensing power back but taking away the sight advantage he supposed he'd never had.

!

They all raised their shooting arms and fired at the same time. Izuku ducked down under the projectiles and they all collided in the space where he'd been standing seconds ago. The massive clump of wet cement still had momentum, which sent it crashing into the door behind Izuku. His heart might as well have stopped as the door was ripped off its hinges and fell to the floor inside the room, his measures to secure it being rendered irrelevant by the force of the combined attacks. Izuku immediately leapt back through the doorway and hunkered down just inside the bomb room where he could hear Pointer and Echo arguing behind him. His mind raced for a plan, and he took the first one that looked at least semi-feasible. Remembering an earlier strategy, he threw out his hands and grabbed onto the door frame with five or six Blackwhip strands, and then took a few steps back as the minions crowded around the door and pointed their cement shooters at Izuku and his teammates.

Izuku jumped, and let Blackwhip slingshot him back through the doorway feet first, bowling all the minions over and making half their shots collide with the other minions, pinning three of them to the floor outside the bomb room. Izuku forced himself to count the remaining four minions, and tried his best to control his ragged breathing. Suddenly, Echo and Pointer appeared at his side, grinning as they spread out to level the playing field between the examinees' side and the minions'.

"The bomb's disarmed," Pointer said, running up to punch one of the minions right in the middle of their face, causing them to crumple like a puppet without strings. From what Izuku had heard earlier, she could see weak points in things, and that must have extended to people, too.

"All that's left is to get rid of these guys," Echo said.

Echo took down another of the minions by running up, jumping up and pushing off the wall and roundhouse kicking another before they could get a shot off on her. Pointer threw what looked like ball bearings in the exact right place to trip a minion who had been aiming at her, causing the shot to miss and glue a third minion to the wall, and suddenly there was only one minion left, the one that was regaining their footing as they stepped away from the ball bearings. Izuku felt a surge of strength as he realised they were so close to ending it, and found himself flying toward the minion with his arm thrown back for a punch.

"SMASH!" Izuku screamed, uncaring that his voice broke, as he landed a hit square on the minion's jaw, sending them flying into the stairs that led up to the fifth floor.

The minion landed with a groan, and they passed out on the spot. Izuku stumbled to a stop and looked back at all the unconscious goons lying around the office space. His heart was beating so hard that the blood rushing in his ears was all he could hear. His mouth and throat were dry and hot, like he hadn't drunk anything in days. His legs felt like play-doh under him, and his arms were limp at his sides, but Izuku laughed. A triumphant soaring feeling in his chest kept him standing as he smiled at Echo and Pointer, who grinned back at him, and Izuku was surprised to find that even the previously cagey and flat Pointer was smiling as the three of them processed that they'd won. Izuku had no idea if they'd passed or not, if more than thirty minutes had passed since they'd started, but the thought was distant, drowned out by his satisfaction with even a pyrrhic victory. He was startled when speakers, which of course had been disguised as smoke alarms, whined and the same sleepy announcer's voice rang out around the building.

"That concludes the exam. If any examinees require healing, they may report to sickbay down the hall from the arena's exit. You will have your results in one hour. Thank you, trainees, for your hard work and dedication to the ideals upheld by our superhuman society."

Izuku immediately collapsed, but managed to struggle to his feet again. Some of the minions were getting back up, too, behaving so differently from how they had just moments earlier that it gave Izuku whiplash. They came over to the examinees, asking if they were okay, and Izuku had to admit that he'd pushed himself a hair under too far during the fighting, which got him some help limping down the stairs, where the minions had freed Skywalker and Strider from the cement and gotten Power Packer to his feet. Three of the former faux-villains stayed with them to help them to the sickbay the announcer had mentioned, and the rest left. On the way to sickbay, the examinees were silent, but if Izuku judged correctly by the looks on everyone else's faces, they were all overflowing with pride at what they'd managed to pull off. They all limped off together, sharing in the endorphins and the company, and waited for their results to come in.

Strangely, Izuku was able to ignore not knowing his result just yet. He was able to just enjoy having overcome a challenge with these kids, and even if they were older and more trained than him, he felt that they really were peers. He respected each and every one of them, even Pointer, and he knew that he'd be following their careers when they went out into the world a year ahead of him. Izuku was confident they'd all be excellent heroes, every single one of them, even if they didn't pass, which was a foreign feeling for him. Confidence did not come naturally to Izuku, it was something he'd had to build over his time at UA, but he was filled with it as he laid in sickbay, talking with his teammates about what they thought were the coolest parts of the exam.

He amended his earlier claim that they couldn't have been expected to be friends and collaborate without knowing each other's Quirks and names. He could feel the friendship they had, the bond they all shared as he sat among them, and felt that even if he would be leaving them after they got their results, he'd made an impression on them, shared a hard experience with them, and he'd remember that forever, as he thought they would as well. These kids were good heroes in training, and good friends, and that didn't change whether they passed or failed, or knew superficial details that had nothing to do with their personalities and how they cared for each other in little ways, like how Power Packer had helped Strider up the first time she'd collapsed, or how Skywalker had become fluent in sign language for Packer. Little things like that transcended names and trivia. These people had a bond, and it reminded Izuku of how much he cared for his friends back at UA.

A smile came to his face, and he simply enjoyed that for a while. He still did regret having to leave his friends on Christmas, and his chest ached when he remembered that Ochako was celebrating her birthday with everyone except him at that very moment. This had been worthwhile, though, despite his personal feelings. He'd gotten some new perspective on how things worked outside his school, and he might have just secured himself the power to pursue Aizawa's mission with him over winter break. Izuku guessed it would always be that way as a hero, giving up some things for work, or having to take himself out of the field for the people he cared for. That was okay. That was life. Izuku figured he had to learn that sooner or later, and counted himself lucky that it had been sooner.

Author's Note

SKYWALKER — AI SORATAMA

QUIRK: FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT

Ai can fly using a personalized aura of tactile telekinesis that he can propel himself with in any direction.