I have a few more chapters of this ready, but I don't believe I've ever managed to keep to an update schedule.

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Chapter 4: Standing at the gate

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U.A. wasn't a high school in this world, it was a university. For that reason, I dialled the amount of training I did down a bit and spent a bit more time studying for the last few months before the entrance exam. Aside from standard topics, the mock exam for U.A. written test contained some questions about quirk laws and laws surrounding pro heroes which I revised as well.

I was making sure I had every spot covered, so that when the written portion of the entrance exam arrived, it seemed rather easy. There weren't many questions that I didn't feel confident answering, and I was sure that I had passed. The examinees were given a fifteen minute break after the written exam before everyone was called to the auditorium for what was arguably the most important part of the exam.

"To all of my listeners, welcome to my show today!" The Voice Hero: Present Mic called out once everyone had settled. The man the announcer for every sports festival that I've watched, and had his own radio show. He also has a habit of switching to English for a line before speaking Japanese again. "Everybody say 'hey'!"

"HEY!" I grimaced and mentally pulled Kuro back into my body, ignoring Fumikage's snickering. I've never regretted enjoying Present Mic's show more than I do at this moment.

Still, the man looked happy that even one voice answered is call. "Alright then! I'll quickly present you with a rundown of the practical exam! Are you ready?"

"Yeah!" This time, I was the one laughing as Dark Shadow answered, and I got to listen to Fumikage quietly muttering curses at his quirk. Several people around us started chuckling as well, making me grin harder at my friend's embarrassment.

"You've all seen the application requirements!" the hero continued. "You listeners will be conducting a ten minute mock urban battle after this!" The large screen behind him changed, showing seven different locations that we'll be split between. "You can take anything with you. After the presentation, you'll head to the specified battle centre, okay?" He paused, before repeating in English, "OKAY?!" The man was looking at us specifically, making Fumikage and I glance at each other and sigh, releasing our quirks.

""OKAY!"" Present Mic grinned at us and got everyone's attention again.

The screen changed to show an image of a city surrounded by silhouettes of enemies. "Three different types of villains are stationed in each battle centre. You earn points for each of them based on their difficulty. Your goal, dear listeners, is to use your quirks and skills to immobilise these faux villains, earning you points! Of course, attacking other examinees and any other unheroic actions are prohibited!"

"There's an opponent unaccounted for," Fumikage mused, looking over a printed version of what Present Mic is announcing. "A trick?"

"A trap," I corrected, remembering a massive opponent I saw in my last life. "... and possibly an opportunity." The boy looked at me, but I was cut off before I could say anything else.

"There is also a fourth type of villain worth zero points! This guy is here to be an obstacle, so to speak. There's one in every battle centre that wreaks havoc in narrow spaces. It's there to slow you down, since beating him won't affect your villain points. That's not to say he is impossible to beat, but there's no reason to either. I'd recommend that any listeners try to avoid it."

There was something about that part of the exam that was bugging me, because I could tell I had forgotten something. Something about the zero point robot...

"And that's all from me! Finally, I'll give you listeners a present - Our school motto! The hero Napoleon Bonaparte once said: 'A true hero is someone who overcomes life's misfortunes'. Go beyond, PLUS ULTRA!"

And with that, we were all sent off to the buses outside that would take us to the battle centres. Fumikage and I were split up, so we wished each other luck and prepared ourselves. For him, that meant wrapping up in his cloak so that Dark Shadow could 'gather' darkness to get a bit more substance, which would increase his durability in bright lights. For me, I was checking on my support gear.

After a second trip to I-Island during the summer of my third year in high school, Anesidora was complete. Sure, there were things Melissa and I could add to it or refine, but it worked as it was meant to and that's all I wanted. It's smaller than the initial design and has been split into two parts, each the size of a deck of playing cards, on each side of my hips. I also have a sleeve around my wrist and forearm that held Anesidora's control module, as well as the scanner that sat between my index and thumb knuckles.

And it's not like I was ignoring my quirk, either. While I only had Fumikage and my dad's quirks, along with a wall crawling quirk from an old man back home, I kept their samples in a specially designed wallet that I made to secure them and help me keep track of which is which.

"That looks high tech," someone across from me said. I looked up from my gear, spotting a dark purple haired girl with earphone jacks instead of earlobes. Interestingly, I think she was the only other person on the bus with support gear, which is probably what caught her attention. "Where'd you get it?"

"A friend and I designed and built it," I told her, getting an impressed eyebrow raised. "We started almost two years ago. What about yours?" I looked down at her boots, each with a front facing directional speaker on the tongue. An interesting design, if a bit limiting when it came to aiming.

"Some people my dad works with were excited to make them," she chuckled, twirling one of her jacks around her finger. "They all work in some music company, so they could get the speakers easily. Jiro Kyoka," she introduced.

"Monoma Neito," I returned. I gestured to her boots. "Do you mind if I scan those?"

After making sure it would affect them, Jiro shrugged. A button on my control pad had the scanners collect as much data as they could on her boots, compiling them into a three dimensional hologram that was then projected over the back of my hand. Her eyes widened as the program I worked on altered the dimensions to match my own feet and I saved the device under 'Sonic Boots'.

"Whoa... How do a pair of high schoolers make something like that? Do you have some intelligence quirk?" I snorted, amused at that.

"I would honestly fear for my intellectual ego if Melissa had an intelligence boosting quirk on top of her current smarts," I confessed, getting smirk out of the girl across from me. "And my quirk... Well, here."

I held out my hand to Jiro, who quickly took it. Her quirk bloomed in my perspective, Copy basically offering me a mental prompt; [Do you wish 'Earphone Jack' to make changes to your body? Y/N]. I called on the quirk, accepting its changes from the standard human biology, and felt an unfamiliar stretching feeling at my ears. My sense of hearing, already boosted from my training with Velvet's template, ascended to new levels, making me wince a bit as I heard every sound in a large radius.

Jiro looked astonished at first, her eyes tracking my wriggling earlobe jacks. "Wicked," I heard her mutter, only for her eyes to widen and her voice to continue at that low volume. "You alright dude?"

I nodded. "I've had enhanced senses before. I'll be fine. Anyway, this is my quirk." I gestured at the new appendages. "I can copy quirks on contact for around fifteen minutes."

"That's cool," she reiterated. Jiro looked to be thinking about something before speaking again. "If I focus on it, I can project my heartbeat through my jacks. It's how I use my boots after plugging into them." I heard the driver press the brake pedal as I raised an eyebrow at my new acquaintance. She looked back challengingly. "Don't think copying my schtick is gonna help you do better than me."

"Wouldn't dream of it," I replied honestly. Something I came to terms with early on is that my quirk didn't make me better than the original by default, only by practice. I smirked at her. "I'll do better than you because I am better, of course."

She didn't seem to take offence, thankfully, and smirked back. "Oh, it's on."

And it was, for everyone was getting out of the bus and waiting before the largest pair of doors I've ever seen. For the sake of the challenge, the two of us took spots near the front of the pack and readied ourselves. I accessed Anesidora and hopped on the spot slightly, letting the projection of Jiro's boots flash into existence around my feet, though with a distinct yellow-green hue to them when compared to the original. Very quickly, I pulled out my Quirk Case (as my mother has started calling it) and swiped my thumb across the three quirks I have there. Those, along with Jiro's quirk, still leaves me with one more slot to use in the field before having to drop one.

"Okay, start!" Present Mic's voice echoed from a far off tower.

Already on a hair trigger, Jiro and I started running for the city as its gates finished opening, letting the practical trial begin. The two of us ignored the pro hero shouting at everyone else as we split off from each other, silently agreeing to hunt in different areas of the city.

Machines whirred to life in my ears as I came upon my first group of bots. The first one I beat for didn't even have time to finish its declaration of "Target acquired" before Kuro sliced off its head, making it fall to the ground.

That was one point.

I scraped my hand against the robot as I passed, using my father's quirk to become a metal human. With all the defences I needed provided for, I focused my Aura on physical enhancement and jumped at a two pointer, kicking of its arm and taking its head off with a strong knee to the joints on its neck. Still in the air, I mentally called Kuro to catch me and throw, turning my metal body into a missile that sent me straight through the largest bot here, a three pointer that looked only a few steps away from being a tank.

I dug my hand into the concrete below me, dragging myself to a stop while Kuro cleaned up the remaining one pointer. I listened as I got to my feet, quickly running into a narrow alley and using my wallcrawl quirk to wall jump and climb the building far faster than I could climb some stairs.

The nearest robot was actually in a building the next street over, several floors off the ground. Once I got to the right height, I didn't bother jumping off the wall and chose instead to smash through it, my metal flash and Aura protecting me as I sprinted through the building. I spotted the two pointer getting a run up, preparing to smash out of the building and thought 'hey, let me help with that'.

A second later, I was falling on top of the robot as we tumbled through the air. It and the floor shattered on impact, but I was fine. In fact, I was fine enough that, on the way down, I was able to see what kind of trouble my target wanted to interrupt.

Three students were surrounded by two and three pointers, and I may have mentioned that the latter of the two were rather tank like. They were having trouble dealing with the walls of metal, and couldn't escape easily thanks to the two pointers firing weak missiles at the escape routes.

Kuro emerged again, targeting the two smaller two pointers while I ran in front of one of the two three pointers, trusting Jiro's preparation and her father's work as I plugged my jacks into the projected boots, focusing on the sound of my rapidly beating heart and pushing something metaphysical through my ears. I could feel the resulting shockwaves in my bones, and grinned as sections of the three pointer fell apart and were blown away, and the cameras in its head shattered.

My Anesidora had different limits when compared to Velvet's. With the tech developed from that woman's quirk, its projections didn't have a life span as much as Anesidora itself did, that being about two hours of constant use. Hard light projections also couldn't leave five meters of the projector, or the energy frequencies would become unstable and the construct would quickly fall apart, returning to normal photons, so I couldn't create projectiles with it.

"Thanks for dropping in," I heard from behind me, alongside several groans. I just grinned.

"Not a problem," I smiled. The trio seemed to be able to handle the other three pointer when working together, now that they weren't being hounded by the two pointers and second three pointer. A girl whose arm is still on fire, a boy (the one with the pun) with some kind of ram's horns, and another boy who was tapping his feet far faster than he should be able to. I eyed the two boys. "Some kind of super speed and headbutt quirks, given the dent in that thing?" The two boys looked surprised, but grinned at the recognition. I nodded to myself. "I'll be borrowing those."

I tapped each of their arms, dropping wallcrawling and gaining horns and the feeling like I just injected myself with pure sugar. I waved off their confusion and interest, running off with a burst of speed and a shout of "Hope to see you in class!"

The speed was indeed a rush, and I'd ran straight past several other examinees and saved some by charging at the threats and smashing my head into them. Soon though, I had to stop running, my legs feeling like they were falling asleep.

I stopped at an intersection, heard Present Mic call for the remaining time, and sent Kuro to handle a nearby two pointer. I pulled up Anesidora's controls and dismissed Jiro's boots, projecting a 1.5 meter staff that I leant on while I stomped feeling back into my legs.

The wall behind me shattered and I jumped away from it on instinct, cursing myself for missing it. I was too busy trying to get my legs to work to notice the machine winding up its fist, ready to punch. It must have been still, and then quickly moved to break the wall in the way that it did.

"Target acquired. I'll kill you!" The voice line made my eye twitch, not working to intimidate me. I could see how it could, but I've died before.

Now with a pair of working legs, I ran at the two pointer and used my staff to vault over it, letting go and landing neatly behind it. With a slight physical boost from the speed quirk, I dashed forwards head first and smacked my head into the robot's back, feeling the impact of the headbutt get amplified greatly, sending it straight into Kuro's waiting arms.

"That's twenty nine," the quirk said, which was good to know. I wasn't keeping track, and we were about halfway through the exam's time limit. I focused my ears and found the nearest fight, only to get a little concerned.

Kuro and Dark Shadow were mentally connected to their users, so I didn't have to say anything for it to pick me up again and spin me around, taking advantage of my ramming quirk to remove obstacles as I was sent flying head first through a building and into a trio of one pointers and a two pointer.

They weren't the target though, and I skidded across the ground and in between the treads of a dead three pointer, coming to a stop under it. A boy, rather small for his age, had some kind of explosive quirk, if the ominous crackling sounds coming from withing the three pointer was any indication, but he was stuck under the thing that he just set to explode and shouting for anyone that could hear to run.

I was fortunate then, that Mother had helped me train with Aura so much. Spreading the forcefield around myself was like breathing. Spreading it to cover any clothes and gear I'm wearing wasn't much harder, and was instinctual by this point. Covering things I was holding is harder, but that's what I've been training. I knew dad could do something similar, but this was going to cost a lot of Aura, and I was prioritising the boy's safety first. Being made of metal was going to be helpful.

I tore my jacket off, covering it with my aura as it acted as a shield for the short explosion user. "Curl up, small as you can," I told him while I used my strength to push the three pointer up a bit so he could move, which conveniently placed me between him and the machine as well. "And brace yourself."

The words had barely left my mouth as a massive shockwave washed over me, sending my very enhanced hearing into a frenzy from the noise. Then I felt the heat, even if it was dulled by my Aura. My Aura itself had broke in the blast, though I was still shielded by my Dad's quirk. The boy seemed to be fine enough, if coughing a lot.

I rolled off him and onto my back, encouraged by the lack of blaring pain in that area. There was a lot of coughing from the both of us as we tried to recover from the blast, though I was able to see the damage. The guy either had a hell of a quirk, or the explosion was based off of mass exploded, because it created a ruin with roughly a sixty meter radius, including buildings on both sides of the street and a crater around us.

I was tapped on my shoulders, making me look over to the guy. His mouth was moving, but I couldn't hear him, making me realise that I couldn't hear anything but ringing right now. I hoped that wasn't permanent as I shook my head and tapped my ears. The slight pain and wet feeling on my fingertips told me about the bleeding, but I trusted my Aura to recover quickly enough that it could fix what damage I may have suffered.

The guy nodded as we helped each other to our feet, and I called Kuro to check the area for anyone else. he came back about a minute later and shook his head, making my next action a charades game as I tried to get the guy, who looked guilty beyond belief, to understand that no one else seemed to have been caught up in the blast.

That was when the rumbling started.

We both just started as a robot that towered over the building emerged from the ground and started moving forwards. It wasn't even on our street, and we could see it clearly.

I quickly turned back to the explosion guy and gestured to what could only be the zero pointer (wreaks havoc in narrow places, my ass. A whole street is apparently narrow in the minds of pros). He pointed at himself and shook his head, looking afraid. I smiled and shook my head, simply pointing at myself and nodding.

He pointed at himself, made a gesture for speaking before pointing at me. I pointed towards where we entered the city, opened my hands like they were gates, and held my hand like a stop sign. He nodded, giving the giant robot a wary look and raised an eyebrow. I nodded, placing my hand on his head and pushed, sending him running back towards the entrance as my ram horns disappeared.

That has got to be the strangest conversation I've ever had.

I felt Jiro's quirk fade from me, my hearing worsening as my copied time ran out. The time between copying the quirk and the start of the test must have been about six or seven minutes, meaning that even with this being a ten minute test and my time limit being fifteen minutes, Jiro's quirk didn't last me the entire exam. A shame, since it would be good to find anyone who needed help.

(To be honest, I probably should have let go of her quirk before the explosion. The enhanced hearing it granted did nothing but harm when at ground zero.)

I barely registered Kuro before he tossed me again, sending me flying up a wall that I clung onto and started climbing. Then Kuro floated up to my side and, with his lack of need for leverage, threw me to the roof. Roof hopping, so long as I wasn't trying to cross a street, wasn't difficult, and Kuro could throw me across a street rather easily.

With the speed quirk, I made it to the zero pointer with about a minute on the clock. The thing must have had sensors other than the blatant cameras on its face, since it started turning towards me when it shouldn't have seen me. It stared, I was sure of it, before I felt the impact of it's arm against the building I was on, nearly knocking me to my feet. I applied my wall climbing quirk to my feet, keeping each step steady as I ran up to it and called out to my quirk.

"Hammer of Nyx!" Kuro's body conformed around my arm as I leaped, making the jump to the head of the zero pointer and slamming my fist into it. Kuro tore a hole straight through one of the cameras acting as its eyes, grabbing my arm to haul me inside.

The interior of the machine was about what I expected. There where supports and wires all over the place, a central server in the middle of it, but otherwise seemed rather open. There was a hole under the server acting as a brain, which I could not see the bottom of.

I shifted my metal hand to make it sharp, mentally relaying orders to Kuro. Together, we both carved the bot's brain out of most of its supports, before I placed my hand on it and hopped down the hole, letting Kuro cover my body as we fell into darkness.

Several things happened next, all at once.

I felt Kuro's strength surge in the dark and try to overwhelm me, and I let it. Kuro enveloped me in the pitch black and rampaged for a moment, slowing me down as it clawed at the shell of the robot we were falling down. That only lasted a moment because of the explosion above our heads, bathing the pit in light and letting me and Kuro work together with the strength the former darkness granted it.

See, over the years Fumikage and I have experimented with the Dark Shadow quirk more than any other. We've fount that if it absorbed the dark around it to get stronger both mentally and physically, then even though light will make it more timid, it will still hold that strength for a time. It just won't use its full strength by itself, needing to be controlled by me and Fumikage to do so.

So with the darkness enhanced strength of Kuro, as well as the bright explosion of the quirk of the boy I saved to give me control, I tore my way out of front of the robot and onto the street it was travelling along. Kuro went on ahead and caught me before I crashed (heavily, given my currently solid metal body and the speed of falling), and I scanned the surroundings for anyone potentially in trouble.

There was no one in immediate danger, though I did see Jiro of all people in the middle of using one of her jacks to break apart a wall that seemed to have fallen on someone. I hadn't tried to keep track of her, an impossible task even through I'd heard the effects of her quirk and boots a time or two with my copy of her quirk. She was looking at me like I'd just dropped out of space, her jaw dropped and her efforts to free the trapped guy (who was also staring) had stuttered before she realised what she was doing, letting the guy stand up relatively unharmed.

"TIME'S UP!" Present Mic called, his voice echoing across the city. I looked up at the sky, happy that my quirk and Aura hadn't let my hearing be damaged by the explosion I was under. I didn't want to end up hunting robots after the exam was done. Jiro came up to me as I let my dad's quirk return my body to flesh and bone, seemingly more shocked now that she's realised that it was me.

"The hell was that?" she asked incredulously, eyes flicking up to the shattered head of the zero pointer. I narrowed my eyes, thinking.

"Some kind of super speed enhanced leap,-" I still hadn't figured out that guy's quirk properly, and likely never would. "-into a punch with the weight of Dark Shadow behind it to break into the head. Then a quirk which turned things I touched into bombs, the strength dependant on the mass of the object, which I used on the bot's brain, making it explode. I used the darkness inside the bot to fuel my Dark Shadow quirk,-" Kuro waved, now back to normal. "-to claw my way out through the thing's stomach." I turned to Kuro. "We did essentially jump down that thing's throat, right? I mean, we entered through the front of the head and jumped down it's neck."

"Pretty much," Kuro agreed. "Though if we'd fallen any further, we would've been pissed out rather then coming through the stomach."

I looked back at the robot and sure enough, we were about two dozen meters from breaking out from between the legs of the robot. I snorted, as did Jiro when she saw that for herself, making me turn back to her.

"So, do you think I won?" I asked, enjoying the expression on her face.

"Do I think you- Of course you won!" she almost shouted. "After seeing that, I'm more than willing to say you're better than me."

"Well, it is worth zero points," I pointed out. "And I ran out of time with your quirk before I destroyed it."

"Nah, you win," she said, huffing out a sigh as she looked at damage I caused. "So that's what someone can do with multiple quirks, huh? That's honestly scary."

An image- no, a memory flashed through my mind, seeing the big villain of this world stood in a crater of his own creation as he faced the number one hero. "Yeah, it can be."