Chapter One

"Good luck, Katsuma!"

"Kick this exam in the nuts, little bro!"

Katsuma laughed at his phone screen, where his dad and sister were wishing him last-minute luck from the room of their hotel in Musutafu. "Thanks, guys. I love you." He hung up and slipped his phone into his pocket before taking a deep breath and looking up at the famed edifice of UA High. Students flowed around him as he gazed up at the H-shaped building of steely-blue glass, his heart thundering with equal parts excitement and anxiety.

"Excuse me," came a high yet raspy girl's voice and Katsuma yelped and whirled around to find a pair of girls his age looking at him with a steady gaze and amused smile respectively. "If you're just gonna stare, at least move to the side, huh?" continued the girl on Katsuma's left, a willowy girl with green hair and very wide eyes who somehow resembled a frog or even a tadpole. She was buried under a heavy coat, scarf, thick gloves, and earmuffs against the February chil.

"Uh, yeah, sure," Katsuma said, blushing as his boyhood shyness reared its head. He stepped to the side in his puffy blue coat to let them pass. "I'll do that."

"Don't mind her," the other girl on his right said kindly. She was about a head taller, maybe an inch shorter than Katsuma, with long, wavy, silver-white hair that hung past the horn to the side of her forehead and framed ruby-red eyes. She wore a dark-pink trench coat and a strange, very long and thin scarf. "She's blunt, like her big sis. But she means well."

"I try," the first girl added, her small resting pout twitching into an equally small but genuine smile.

"You ready for this?" the second girl asked, her cheeks flushed as she shuffled her feet. Katsuma's nerves at talking to a pair of very cute girls who were not from his home island seemed to clear as he realized that the girl with white hair was just as nervous as he was. The tadpole girl seemed unaffected, but maybe that was an act, too?

"We'll find out soon, right?" Katsuma tried to joke with a smile. "But no matter what," he held up a fist, "we'll give it our all!"

"Yeah! That's the spirit!" the taller girl cheered, holding up her own fist. The tadpole girl did the same, but remained quiet. "Come on, let's go in together."

And so they did, Katsuma taking a place beside the taller girl and keeping to himself as he half-listened to the girls banter and they all strode into the heights of UA High.


Eri groaned as she massaged her forehead. The written portion of the test had been tough. She was fairly certain she'd passed, but she still felt exhausted. And now she was sitting with Satsuki as the school prepared to explain the practical side of the exam. She sighed and burrowed into her capture scarf for comfort, having worn it in the exam after it had been thoroughly examined for notes by some of the examiners.

"Kero. Look, Eri," Satsuki whispered, pointing over the terraced seating. Eri looked over and found a head of familiar chestnut waves. She smiled and waggled her fingers at the boy's back before the stage darkened and out strode Present Mic, UA's long-time presenter and commentator.

"What's up, hero hopefuls?" he called, acting as his own microphone. "Are you ready to get to the good stuff?!"

The crowd cheered, and Eri giggled at a few memories she had of Mic complaining about years where the students didn't react at all. It seemed he wouldn't have that problem this year.

"A'ight, settle down," he called, but you could tell he was enjoying himself. "Let's get the stage directions!"

Eri listened carefully as Mic described how each testing area would be set up. The premise of the exam would be the wake of a natural disaster or major villain attack. Everyone would be sent to a training ground where they would have to fight robots for point values. In addition, others would be placed about to simulate bystanders to avoid harming — actively or accidentally harming them would lead to loss of points and interfering with other examinees would lead to disqualification. He also mentioned the zero-pointer that would be making an appearance as another obstacle.

"Any question?" Mic asked, and the students remained silent. "Alright, then. Testers, take the shuttles to your designated locations and get ready!"


Katsuma was taking deep, rhythmic breaths to slow his heart rate — otherwise he worried it might thump right out of his chest. Dressed in blue gym clothes with white highlights, he tapped the twenty-eight inch escrima sticks in their holster on the side of his leg. He'd made sure to clear it with UA before the exam, registering them as support gear. He continued his measured breathing before looking around at all of the examinees at his site, numbering in the dozens.

A flash of white drew his eyes and he gaped at the sight of a familiar waterfall of silver-white waves, over a red tracksuit and the strange scarf she was wearing before. Was she really that cold? He brushed that thought aside and, before he could think about it, he was approaching and tapping the nice girl's shoulder. She stiffened and turned around, a nervous gleam in her eyes … but she smiled brightly when she saw him. "It's you!" she gasped.

"Hi," he said with a small wave. "I, erm, I saw you and realized that we were never actually introduced." He held out a hand. "I'm Kat-"

"And BEGIN!" announced Present Mic's voice.

Everyone seemed to pause in confusion, but the girl took his hand and ran with him behind her. "Come on!"

"There are no countdowns in real life, kiddies! Go, go, go! Time's a-wastin'!"

Thanks to this girl's initiative, they were ahead of the pack as the gates to the exam grounds opened, revealing a- Holy moly! Was this a constructed city?! Katsuma heard the roar of the examinees behind him and the girl, who had let go of his wrist to pull ahead, and focused, snatching one of his escrima sticks from his leg holster and flourishing it to prepare, leaving his other hand free.

In a burst of movement, a humanoid-ish one-point robot appeared and took aim. But before Katsuma could react, something long, thin, and white lashed out and wrapped around its neck joint. With a cry of effort, the girl pulled on the white something that turned out to be her strange scarf and beheaded the robot before pulling the scarf back towards her and darting to the next robot.

Speaking of which, robots seemed to have swarmed the area. A two-pointer prepared to attack and Katsuma's training kicked in. With a forward flip and a kiai, he smashed the robot's head, shattering its eye lens, before falling into a pattern of strikes that disabled its arm and two of its scorpion-like legs. In the back of his mind, he wondered if the robots were meant to be broken with relative ease, as his training dummies back home seemed sturdier than this.

Before he could lock onto another metal opponent, a woman's scream cut through his awareness and he whirled to find a woman with a stroller being chased by another robot, a one-pointer. He ran and leapt, his other escrima stick smoothly coming into hand, and plunged them into its neck socket, which that girl had luckily shown was not well-armored.

"Are you alright, ma'am?" he asked.

"Y-Yes, I'm alright," she stammered.

"Are you sure?" Katsuma asked, to worked up to wonder what a random woman was doing in a UA testing ground. "My Quirk has healing capability. I can patch you up if you need it."

"Really, I'm fine," the woman said, then her look of fear morphed into a professional smile. "Six points," she said. "And three more for the offer of healing."

Katsuma was confused for a long moment before he realized the truth: there were no robot "others" in this exam. The bystanders were people. Actors, maybe? He shook it off and thought over what a hero would say next. "Make your way back to the entrance gate," he ordered, pointing with one of his escrima sticks. "All of the other heroes will have cleared that area."

"Thank you," the woman said and pushed the probably-empty stroller toward the gate.

Katsuma nodded and raced further into the cityscape, his Quirk licking at the edge of his consciousness and ready to act. He kept that at bay and spread his awareness, trying to track all of his senses for the fake villains. A cry of pain caught his ear and he adjusted his run, homing in on another examinee who was being targeted by a one-pointer. He shouted a kiai and leapt to kick away the machine before following up with a strike to its eye lens — he'd really taken to that tactic quickly — and a double lunge with his escrima sticks above its chest plate to wrench it off and then drive the sticks into the circuitry beneath to power it down.

"You okay?" he asked when the robot collapsed.

"Ah," the student, a girl with long, wavy black hair that matched black opera gloves and pointed fingers, hissed and clutched her ankle. "I think I sprained it."

In a split second, Katsuma was on his knees and holding her ankle in a gentle, two-handed grip, his hands glowing with the soft green light of his Quirk. "This'll speed the healing. You'll be fighting these robots again in time to get more points." He let her go and nodded for her to try it. The girl rolled her ankle and smiled, then looked at him with suspicion. "Why did you do that?"

"It's what a hero would do," he said simply before getting to his feet and racing off to keep it up.


Eri shouted as she stepped on her capture scarf, forcing a robot she's snared off-balance. With that, she juked to the side, her weight forcing it into another one to slam together. A one-pointer and two-pointer; three more points.

"Okay, who's next?" she asked aloud.

As if in reply, the ground shook as multiple buildings exploded. She barely caught herself before a shadow loomed over her and she got a good look at the zero-pointer. It was huge, taller than most of the buildings as it rolled in her direction. The handouts and Present Mic's visual aids hadn't captured the scope of it at all!

Then, as the shadow drew over her, Eri felt her heart clench and her knees lock as the towering robot was replaced in her mind's eye by something else. Gone was the machine, in its place was a multi-limbed horror of mutilated flesh, and in the center from the waist up was … Overhaul. He gazed down at her with greed and violence in his wide, bloodshot eyes over that terrible beak-like mask.

"Eri …!" he growled, the sound guttural and menacing. He reached his human hand out to her, and she screamed at herself to snap out of it, to move.

Then it was gone as she felt someone jostle her shoulder. Her reflexes kicked back in and she whirled on whoever it was on instinct, but her arm was blocked by a firm, but gentle hand. The boy from before, who had tried to introduce himself as "Kat" something.

"We gotta go!" he said, adjusting his grip on her arm before dragging her away from the robot. They'd barely taken two steps when a groan of pain caught her ears and she looked back to find an old man trapped beneath rubble.

"Help … me …!" he rasped, reaching out.

"Look!" she shouted, and ran toward the old man. She grabbed at the concrete slab pinning the man and heaved with all of her might, but it barely budged. She took a deep breath, noting the zero-pointer getting closer and closed her eyes to try again … and this time the slab moved. She blinked her eyes open and saw another set of hands, tanned compared to her pale skin, and looked to find the boy with the sticks helping her.

"Hold it!" she commanded, a plan snapping into place in her mind. She knelt and dragged the old man out from under the rubble. "I got him," she said, and the boy let it go. "Under his arm," she said, for once not worrying about being polite. The boy nodded and put the old man's arm over his neck and they ran away with stumbling steps.

As they were running, a sound like rushing wind roared and they heard and felt an explosion behind them. Eri looked back and saw the zero-pointer's arm falling, blown cleanly from its socket. Then she registered a scream of pain and looked forward to find one of the examinee's covering his forehead, tears trailing down his dusky face as he screamed.

The zero-pointer seemed to grow angry and lunged with its other massive arm down at them all, but another examinee leapt forward and swung what looked like a cane at the massive fist. Then something happened and the huge robot's arm rippled before it was forced backward by a terrible force. The examinee was blown backwards, too, with a cry of shock to land with a grunt on the ground.

"Is he okay?" Eri asked.

"I can heal him," the boy said, and Eri stumbled as the old man they were carrying seemed to grow heavier. "Hold him!" The boy raced towards the fallen examinee and began to check him over. His hands began to glow before Present Mic's voice rang out, "And time's up!" A buzzer rang out and the old man she'd been supporting stood up on his own feet and straightened his coat, apparently unhurt as he bent his back with a few popping joints.

"Nice work, Miss," he said casually. "Ten points for each of you." He had a radio on his collar that he spoke into as he began to walk away. "You hear that, judges? Ten points for this girl and boy. And if you didn't catch it, the boy's healing up that other kid." Eri blinked at the man just walking away until she caught a very familiar whirring sound, her face breaking into a wide smile.

"Yes, yes, well done," came an aged voice. Soon, the school nurse Recovery Girl came into view in a mechanized wheelchair. Eri rushed to her side with her smile undiminished and bowed at the waist.

"Good morning, ma'am," she said.

"Ah, Eri," Recovery Girl said. "I thought this was your zone." Her eyes became mischievous behind her glasses. "Care to lend a hand, dear?" Eri nodded and listened to the Recovery Girl's follow-up directions, the old hero-nurse's eye for injury as sharp as ever as she directed Eri to some people who were hurt, while the nurse herself handled others.

What few knew outside of UA faculty was Eri's unofficial apprenticeship under Chiyo Shuzenji, preparing to become to her what Deku was to All Might: a successor. Eri's Quirk was marvelously suited to repairing injuries, to the extent of outclassing Recovery Girl's Healing Kiss in a few respects, such as being able to restore lost limbs or organs if applied soon enough.

Eri kept her breathing level and focused on her horn, the source of her Quirk's power, and directed a bit of its energy into one of the students with some bad gashes. She kept the energy flowing in a trickle until the wounds closed and then cut it off to conserve her stored power. That was the only real disadvantage of her Quirk these days: a finite energy store that took time to build back up.

It was one reason she hadn't used her Quirk during this very exam. That, and the fact that it would have had no effect; Rewind affected only living things — plants, animals, people. Not robots.

"All participants please clear the course!" came Present Mic's voice. "Please gather your things at the main building and head on home! You did great, listeners and we hope to see you in high school!"

Eri looked up from a girl whose wrist had been broken and looked around for that boy who had helped her. She found him looking back at her and he blushed with a shy smile and waved. She couldn't help but wave back with a smile of her own … and she felt sad when he turned and walked away as instructed.

She found herself praying to Whoever might listen that this "Kat" would get into UA. And that she and Satsuki would, too.


"Eri?"

Satsuki looked cautiously at her friend across the dining table in the staff apartments who was staring forlornly at her dinner, her eyes glazed in thought. Satsuki hummed and checked her water before letting her jaw drop and lashing out her tongue, curving it until the sticky tip landed in Eri's ear. Eri jumped with a shriek and batted at her ear while Satsuki retracted her tongue, pawing at the tip before taking a swig of water and rinsing.

"Ugh, Suki!" Eri complained. "You know how much I hate that!"

"Well, I tried everything else," Satsuki said. "But you didn't respond."

"Oh," Eri muttered, calming back to her original mood, gaze falling back to her untouched food. "Sorry, Suki."

"What's wrong?" Satsuki asked, before Eri could slip back into her own thoughts. In a motion similar to but different from her sister, she placed a knuckle against her lips in thought. "Is it that boy?"

Eri blinked at the assumption, but shook her head. "No," she replied, and it was largely the truth. He'd crossed her mind several times, but been brushed aside by … darker thoughts.

"Nerves about the test?"

"No."

"Worried about our classmates next year?" Satsuki was adamant that both of them had passed and would hear nothing else. "That Kota won't be there?"

"No," Eri answered more intently, now feeling frustrated.

"That's three guesses," Satsuki pointed out. "That means I lose. So what's really going on?"

"If you lose, then why do you get the reward?" Eri asked, her tone full of very clearly tempered impatience. She was trying , but it was leaking out.

"Because you're my best friend and you're hurting," Satsuki said easily. There was no emphasis, no heaviness, no attempt to guilt her. Just the simple, honest truth. "So what's going on?"

Eri finally looked back up into Satsuki's wide, understanding eyes. She bit her lip and stood suddenly, walking with heavy steps down the table. Satsuki sighed and toyed with her own food, sad that Eri wouldn't confide and share whatever burden she was carrying but understanding of her choice. They were teens ready for UA now, not little girls like when they had met. Then she registered footsteps growing louder and the chair beside her slid out for Eri to settle.

Oh. She'd just been walking around the table.

"During the exam, when the zero-pointer emerged," Eri said, and Satsuki nodded, "how did …?" She took a fortifying breath. "How did you feel?"

"Oh, um, I dunno," Satsuki said. "Scared. Awestruck." She croaked a chuckle. "I kind of wondered how UA has so much money."

"Nezu plays the stock market like a fiddle," Eri said absently. "When it came during our exam, I-" Her throat tightened and she had to swallow before the words would come out. "I froze. I- I saw-!" She screwed her eyes shut against tears and Satsuki pulled her into a hug.

She saw. Those two words meant a lot coming from Eri. It had taken a long time for Eri to open up about her past beyond the vague explanations from the adults. "She had a very hard time growing up." "She's been through more than you know." "…More than you can know."

Eventually Eri came clean to her, though she suspected that she had not told Satsuki everything. She also suspected that Kota knew more, but that was a different matter.

"She saw" meant that she'd had a flashback. That her mind had created an image of that monster Overhaul to taunt her. It had happened many times during their friendship, though less so as time went on. Satsuki wanted to kick herself for not preparing for it to happen during something as stressful as the entrance exam.

"What can I do?" Satsuki asked, the same as she always did.

Eri returned her embrace, her body shaking with sobs even though there were no tears that the frog girl could feel. "You already are," Eri whispered, the sound hoarse.

Satsuki felt her heart crack a little as she held her best friend. Soon enough, Eri drew back and brushed her eyes, but she gave a wobbly smile and reached over to draw her lunch tray back over, actually eating now. That was a good sign.

Satsuki gave a small smile as she continued to eat, too. Samidare would be arriving to pick her up soon on his way back from university and she wanted to enjoy this meal with her dear friend.

Chapter Two is here! Past the prologue and starting the plot itself.

*I was originally going to have Katsuma encounter Kota – as a call-back to Midoriya and Bakugo – before Eri and Satsuki, with Satsuki consoling him and Eri telling Kota to be more considerate in the morning. But then the idea that the recommendation exam is on a different day hit me and I just couldn't do it. But don't worry, they'll definitely meet soon.

*Considering the series's occasional point that the examination should be updated to focus less on flashy and battle-oriented Quirks, I thought I'd take a page from the provisional license exam from canon. And let's face it, UA can afford those specially trained actors. And yes, these actors are from HUC, just like in the series's provisional licensing exam.

*A "kiai" is the short shout before an assault in many Japanese martial arts. Many would recognize "Hiya!" These are meant to fortify one's intent and to startle the opponent, and some schools of thought consider them an attack all their own upon the opponent's spirit or will.

*Recovery Girl's Quirk is officially titled "Healing." But that's a little too generic for me as a Quirk title, as there are other healing Quirks, even if they are rare. So I always add "Kiss" to differentiate it a bit.

*Why yes, Satsuki's tongue-in-the-ear trick is straight from "Tangled."

*The "different matter" of Kota knowing more of Eri's past than Satsuki is a simple matter of trauma bonding. Kota's losing his parents and being attacked by Muscular before Deku saved him; Eri's … everything before Deku and Lemillion.

As always, I hope it was a fun read! Leave a review if you like! And may your own inspirations flow freely!