"Regular speech,"

"Flash back speech,"

'Inner dialogue,'

'Phone Text Chat'

This sucked, Izuku had been given no time to see his girlfriend, and that simple fact had made him very frustrated.

Sure he had just seen Himiko the day before, but he was expected to finish cleaning his section of the beach today and he wanted to excite All Might by showing his progress. Not with just a section of the beach, but with the entirety of the sparkling sands being spotless.

If this had been all Izuku would need to do he would've been able to see Himiko after his training for the day was over, but he had to leave for the U.A. exam in a little under five hours from now.

"Move! Move! Move!" Izuku yelled to himself as he lifted garbage that not even a few months ago would've been completely impossible for him to even move an inch.

Izuku could feel his poor muscles screaming in pain at the extremely cold air of morning February. The sensation drove him crazy as his sweat both left a small haze of heat around him and began to turn cold as the longer droplets lingered.

He'd tried putting on his track sweatshirt, but every time he did the bulkiness of the cloth made him feel uncomfortable as it chaffed his neck and arms. Doing this had been so much easier in the summer months when all he needed was a shirt and shorts.

The steady progress he made when moving the garbage ensured he had gotten done on time, and ended with the most agonizing ache he had during this entire ten months of training.

As he stood on the scraped truck All Might had tried having him move just four months ago, without success, he could see the sprawling clean sands of the beach he had worked so hard in.

The piles of garbage around him were all packed away either in garbage bags or organized in easy-to-throw-away columns that all stood taller than he was. The site sent a jolt of satisfaction up his aching back and for a moment all he could do was stare.

And then for some reason he was yelling, whether in agony at his sore body, or the primal sense of accomplishment he just didn't know. He just knew that he was yelling and it was all he needed at this moment.

That was until his yell petered out sending him falling face-first to land on the now-clean beach below him.

'Guess I'll die after all,' he thought, way too tired to try and flail.

"You did good young man!" Said the familiar voice of All Might who had thankfully saved Izuku from his fall.

"Oh, hey All Might," Izuku croaked very tiredly," when'd you get here?"

"You serious? I was talking right next to you when you were up there screaming your head off."

"R-Really? Sorry, I guess I couldn't hear you," Izuku sighed trying not to just fall asleep in All Might's very warm hands.

To Izuku's annoyance All Might set him down on shaky feet, standing tall over Izuku and surveying Izuku's work," you've done great young Midoriya! You've done better than great! I want to show you something," All Might pulled his phone out of the pockets of the jeans he wore, unlocking the screen and scrolling to something.

When he finally showed Izuku what he saw was a picture of himself, barely a few weeks into the training crying on the ground.

"Uh, what am I looking at?"

"What, you ask? This was you not even ten months ago and look at you now!" All Might's hands gestured grandly toward Izuku who stood shirtless in the cold February air.

Now that Izuku thought about it, the muscle Himiko had complained about four months ago was now even more defined. His torso was completely unrecognizable from what it must have looked like almost a year ago today.

"You've worked hard, heck even harder than what I expected from you, and you've come out of your crucible stronger than when you entered! Now I can say with certainty that you are worthy Izuku Midoriya," All Might plucked a hair from his mane, giving it an odd look," so, tell me. Are you prepared to inherit my power?"

"Yes," Izuku nodded, his resolve only strengthened by All Might's praise of his hard work.

"Good! Not even a moment's hesitation! This is the moment you'll grab your destiny," All Might waved his strand of hair as if saying this was his thread of fate," eat this!"

"Huh," Izuku asked very dead-eyed and disbelieving at what All Might had said.

"Come on kid! You've gotta ingest a bit of my DNA for my quirk to pass on to you! We don't have time, the entrance exam is a meager hour away, so eat! Eat! Eaaaaaaat!"

"Aaaaaaaaaaaah," Izuku's scared scream echoed off the wall of trash above the pair.

"So nasty," Izuku shuddered, his hand clamped firmly around his mouth remembering how All Might's hair had stuck in his throat for almost a full minute before finally going down.

The testing hall for U.A. loomed over Izuku massive in its size, but he figured it would need to be. After all people from all over the country came here every year just to get a shot at U.A.

"Outta my way you fucking nerd," Kacchan's rough glare barely phased Izuku at this point, after all that look was nothing compared to Himiko's demonic training.

'Between All Might and Himiko I'm surprised I'm even alive,' Izuku thought crouching down acting like he was tying his shoes, but in reality, he was rubbing his poor shins at the memory of all those kicks he'd had to repeat.

If he wasn't ready for this exam with All Might's strength training and quirk under his belt, then he thought about all the practical combat training Himiko gave him at least once every week for the past month.

'I can do this I didn't work that hard and train half to death for nothing!'

So, feeling very confident Izuku took his first step toward realizing his dream.

And he promptly fell face first tripping on his own feet,' or I guess I'll just die.'

Thankfully he didn't die, but a weightless sensation went through his bad arresting his downward momentum.

"Sorry," a girl with round pink cheeks said smiling at him. She quickly re-oriented Izuku setting him on his feet, and then she released her quirk," I kinda used my quirk on you without asking, but I figured it'd be bad luck if you fell right before the tests."

Her bubbly smile reminded Izuku a lot of Himiko, and she seemed to have the odd rambling quality his girlfriend often had when she was flustered. Somehow though, she didn't quite stack up to Himiko's cute blushing face and toothy grin.

"Anyway, good luck on the test, and watch where you're walking next time," the girl waved at him smiling.

"Uh, sure thanks," Izuku said absently, not sure the girl had even heard him.

'Well I guess I'm not the only one who's nervous, ' Izuku sighed watching where he put his feet for once.

Detective Tsukauchi was thoroughly stumped, close to a year ago a string of similar attacks had happened to leave each victim heavily wounded.

This case seemed to be no different, a house filled with bloody splatters, a pair of dismembered bodies, and a girl tied up bleeding left for the police to find.

The strange thing was, the girl they'd found tied up was the same girl investigating officers had seen fleeing the scene.

To any normal cop, it might've been cut and dry. The imposter running was the murder culprit and this girl had been framed. But Tsukauchi knew all too well because of his quirk that things weren't as they appeared.

At the scene, there were telltale marks that another fight had broken out, not between the daughter and parents but between the daughter and someone else.

When Tsukauchi had asked the daughter she had sworn up and down she didn't kill her parents. She claimed it had been another girl who had assaulted her, killed her parents, and after subduing her had been living in her house.

Of course, Tsukauchi knew that was a lie, not the part about the other girl assaulting her that was true, but Tsukauchi's quirk was lie detection. And this girl was lying when she said she wasn't the one to kill her parents, but the other girl.

This whole thing just got more and more complicated as it went on, but the first thing Tsukauchi had to do was establish a reason for the girl killing her parents. Then he would need to look into this mysterious "other girl", who'd attacked his current murder suspect.

The wounds the girl had on her body were very similar to a string of stabbings that had been steadily making their way down into Mustafa City. Each victim shared one thing in common however, they were in some form or another a criminal.

The first victim had been found in January of last year, and while he'd said he wasn't doing anything wrong the girl that came forward a few weeks later painted a different picture.

She'd said she had been walking home from school that day, and the alleged victim had taken her into a side alley to do only god knew what. Then a blonde girl had come from nowhere and stabbed the guy three times before running away.

The second victim had been a petty mugger, he'd just snatched a woman's person and taken a detour down an alleyway when, you guessed it, he was stabbed. The purse had also been returned minus a couple of bills, however.

This pattern continued until the victims became more and more dangerous, now leading to the girl sitting in front of Tsukauchi.

"Naomi Tanaka, right?" Tsukauchi asked the girl.

"Y-Yes, sir."

"If you don't mind humoring me for a moment I'd like to do a little test," the detective said having something in mind just to make sure his quirk wasn't being inaccurate," I'm going to ask you a few insignificant questions and you'll answer all but one of them truthfully. Got it?"

The girl looked at him very confused before she nodded," yes sir."

"You currently attend Mustafa High, is that correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"Your parents are Daisuke and Michiko Tanaka, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"And your favorite color is green, correct?"

"Yes, si-" Naomi froze for a second confused," wait no my favorite color is purple."

Tsukauchi smiled to himself, it was a cheap trick but it usually worked on nervous suspects and even more so when they were as young as this girl. He'd simply been asking her question all afternoon whose simple answer would be yes. Then he'd thrown her a random question that held no real significance other than helping confirm his quirk was indeed working.

Her favorite color was not green but purple. Of course, that meant when she said the girl who had assaulted her had killed her parents, she had been lying. The use of his quirk for evidence would not be admissible in court, but it gave them a solid basis to form the investigation on.

This girl was the murderer and our stabbing vigilante had most likely either witnessed the murder or walked in on it. So their top priority at this point was to find the girl who had assaulted Naomi. However, she had inadvertently given them a big clue about her identity. She had some sort of shape-shifting quirk because there was simply no way the girl fleeing the scene was Naomi Tanaka.

'That written exam wasn't too difficult,' Izuku thought smiling to himself as he stood in front of the practical exam's Test City A.

Looking around Izuku could see a few familiar faces in the crowd of kids in his testing group. For one the very strict-looking boy with glasses was glaring in Izuku's direction, no doubt remembering Izuku from when he had called him out for his nervous muttering. The nice girl who'd stopped him from falling was also here, Izuku might have approached the girl if she didn't already look so clearly on edge herself.

The entire assembly of kids looked extremely nervous though,' m-maybe I'm not the only person freaking out.'

Izuku slapped both of his cheeks remembering what Himiko often told him.

"If you don't focus you'll just make mistakes, so if ya need a little encouragement just remember the marks on your neck," the wink she had shot Izuku after saying that made him blush from head to toe.

A gentle smile curved Izuku's lips as he ran his fingers over a bite mark on his shoulder that Himiko had left a few days ago.

A loud buzzer sounded signaling the start of the test, most of the kids froze in their conversations with one another and looked around confused.

Izuku just tan eyes focused on the opening gate leading into the city, he could hear Present Mic yelling over the loudspeaker," hey at least one of you has the right idea! There's no point in being a hero if you gotta wait for me to tell you to start kicking but!"

That made the other dumbstruck kids watching the small curly-haired boys back getting further away snap out of their confusion, and chase after Izuku.

The first person to reach and pass him was the boy with glasses. Izuku could see his lips pressed into a thin line as he refused to make eye contact with Izuku.

'I wonder what that was about,' Izuku frowned shaking his head then focusing on his sprint, very thankful Himiko had made him begin building up his speed.

A few other examinees were close behind Izuku, but none could catch up to him before Izuku caught sight of a robot the size of a car. It was built very strangely, walking on all fours, and sporting a scorpion-like tail.

Izuku grabbed his neck, thumbing the teeth marks Himiko had left,' I can't hesitate now!'

Tensing his legs for a fast upward lunge, Izuku was very surprised when he cleared the robot's legs landing butt first on its back," holy whoa! I knew I could jump high but I haven't ever really paid attention!"

Izuku stood shakily on his feet as the robot tried in vain to shake him off.

'I need to look for a weak point, ' Izuku looked around at the robot's body, quickly noting the joint on the tail loosely connected, and the delicate-looking head casing to hold the cameras used for the eyes.

Izuku quickly grabbed hold of the stinger bracing his foot against the base of the tail and yanked with all his might. The satisfying sound of metal and wires tearing made him grin.

Hoisting the tail over his head Izuku brought it down on the robot's head destroying the delicate casing. He couldn't stop now, even if he destroyed it he'd wasted too much time on this one robot. Looking down at the large stinger in both his hands, Izuku found an odd mechanism near the tip he was sure he knew the function of.

"Gotta make this easier to carry," Izuku studied the sections of the tail for a moment, noting that each section had a power cell," so if I do this, it should still work."

Izuku quickly smashed the longer sections of the tail, and he kept only the stinger along with the joint directly below it. He quickly ran from the destroyed robot catching site of three more robots lined up.

' Perfect ,' Izuku grinned pointing the stinger perfectly vertical to the line the robots had inadvertently made. Izuku flipped the mechanism near the stinger, and a concentrated beam shot from the stinger shooting through the heads of two of the robots. The final robot had taken the dulled blast quite well only losing a few legs, but Izuku wasn't about to let it get away.

He quickly jumped over the rubble of the two robots he'd destroyed and brought the stinger viciously down on the robot's head.

"That's four! Not bad but I've only got nine points. I destroyed that two-pointer at the start, then another one with the blast, the one behind that one was one point. Then this last one was a three-pointer."

Izuku stepped down from the three-pointer scrap pile and looked at his improvised laser. The thing was all but out of juice with that intense blast he'd used, and then he'd finished it when sinking it into the head of the three-pointer. So he dropped the useless weapon and turned.

A metal arm nearly took Izuku's head off in surprise, but thankfully Himiko's constant sneak attacks helped improve his reaction time. He still took a cut to the side of his cheek, but as he twisted away from the robot he brought his leg around and smashed his shin into his attacker's head casing. It promptly shattered under the force.

Izuku winced, not in pain, but at how powerful his kicks were. He knew he'd gotten a lot better at the leg attacks, and sure he'd been kicking super hard stuff. But this was ridiculous, that barely even hurt.

"Make that ten points," he muttered looking at the one pointer," but at this rate, I won't get many points, I need to find some way to destroy them faster."

'Maybe if I just focus on their heads,' he thought.

As he moved to attack the next robot he could hear someone groaning nearby. Izuku stopped, looking around, all thoughts of points gone. A boy was on the ground nearby, one of the robots wailing on him, giving no mercy.

Izuku's feral snarl was almost on par with Himiko's when he quickly ran toward the robot. He leapt into the air, kicking the robot's head clean off without hesitation.

"You okay," Izuku asked holding a hand out to the boy, whose tired purple eyes met Izuku's.

"Yeah, I'm good. Thanks for that, I knew this would be hard but I didn't think the robots would just beat the crap out of us."

"Y-Yeah, one of them almost took my head off a second ago," Izuku said pointing at his cut from the one pointer as he hoisted the purple-haired boy to his feet," I'm Izuku Midoriya."

"Shinso Hitoshi, listen thanks for the help but I'm gonna get back to it alright?"

Izuku stopped realizing he'd forgotten the test altogether," r-right me too, I'll see you around Hitoshi-san."

The boys parted, and Shinso headed further into the city, Izuku for his part was thinking.

'I've only got eleven points currently so I'm gonna have to pick up the pace, but there are a lot more people around here, now the points are gonna be way more scarce in this area.'

A loud rumbling filled the city near Izuku when he tried to head deeper as Shinso had, the large looming figure of the zero pointer made Izuku shudder.

'That thing is huge ,' Izuku thought starting to run along with the other examinees.

"Ow," a familiar voice said in the direction Izuku had turned away from. He turned dread filling his stomach knowing he'd regret it if he didn't turn to look.

Sitting on the ground with her leg under a large chunk of concrete Izuku recognized the same girl with round red cheeks. The enormous zero pointer was steadily approaching her and the grinding of its treads gave no illusion the girl would be fine if she fell beneath them.

Looking down in fear Izuku realized his stupid feet were moving again running, not away from, but toward the girl and the giant robot.

"Oh come on," He yelled in fear at his stupid instincts," what the hell am I doing!"

The girl seemed to hear his shouting, their eyes met for a moment before Izuku was past the girl and leaping with all his strength in one leg to propel him.

Snap*

'Shit,' Izuku gasped feeling the utter pain that shot up his leg making his brain go fuzzy. Even through the pain, Izuku could feel the cold wind on his face, and he could see he'd leapt so hard he had already reached the robot's head,' gotta get it just right !'

Winding his unbroken leg back, Izuku brought it forward like he was kicking a soccer ball. The force of his kick sent even more jolts of pain up his sides making him gasp.

The robot's head was all but obliterated at the force of his blow, the destruction didn't stop at the head, however. His windup had made a trail of wind that followed the initial blow of the attack that slammed into the robot impacting it a second time and sending it flying into the distance of the sprawling test city.

"Huh?" Izuku asked no one in particular very confused. He'd just meant to destroy the thing, but he'd punted it like a soccer ball.

Before he could stare in even more open shock he felt the whoosh of air slamming into his body as he fell several stories.

"Aaaaaaaah!" This fall was very different from his attempt at taking his life almost ten months ago. This time he was extremely scared of the impact that would definitely end his life.

'Wait, All Might lands all the time without breaking any of his bones. Idiot! All Might doesn't have already broken legs when he tries to land! But if I use the wind force from a punch I can stop my momentum, but do I use one or two arms for that? The force of one kick was this destructive, so a punch should be powerful but not anywhere near the earlier blast.'

Izuku cocked back his fist ready to sacrifice another arm for the meager chance he could survive this fall," aaaaaaah!"

Just as he could feel his arms tense up a soft-handed slap slammed into the side of his face arresting his momentum and sending him flying sideways. The familiar weightless sensation of the hurt girl's quirk made Izuku feel dizzy, but it seemed to be worse on her.

"And release!" She sighed seeming very relieved, and then she promptly vomited all over the ground in front of her.

Izuku felt awful, his legs were bent at odd angles and he could feel them beginning to swell," ow, that hurts," he winced sitting up on his butt trying but not wanting to touch his legs.

As he poked at his right leg an intense pain shot up his entire body," yep they're broken. The test!"

Izuku glanced around himself scrambling to find something when his frantic hands closed around a baseball-sized rock," perfect!"

He gazed around setting his eyes on another robot that hadn't been destroyed, but just as he was winding up to send the stone through the robot's head the exam buzzer sounded.

"Uh oh! Heads up everyone looks like time is up and the exam is officially over!" Present Mic yelled through the loudspeaker.

Izuku fell back dropping the stone to his side letting his hands fall to his sides," I only got eleven points," Izuku sighed very dejected, no point dwelling on it though.

A very large crowd gathered around him and the girl who had saved him.

"Are you alright," Izuku asked sitting up from his painful position.

"Me! Your legs are broken!" She screamed at him before the loud jarring of her voice made her retch again.

"H-Hey calm down," Izuku said very worriedly.

"What's all this racket," came a very wizened voice to Izuku's right.

A very small old woman was pushing her way through the crowd of kids making her way over to Izuku.

"Whoa! You're Recovery Girl," Izuku yelled very star-struck," I saw you when you were volunteering at the same hospital I went to as a kid!"

A soft yet firm wrap of her cane on Izuku's head made him shut up instantly," stop yelling boy! Your legs are broken enough as it is without all your fidgeting."

"O-Oh sorry," Izuku sat quietly very ashamed of himself, but not so much as when her lips pressed against the side of his head making a wet smooching sound.

Before he could recoil in utter embarrassment he could hear loud creaking, snapping, and popping noises that made him cringe. But in a matter of moments, his legs had straightened and fixed themselves.

Izuku poked at his legs feeling no more pain, so bracing himself he stood on shaky legs.

"Oh! You can already stand? You've got some good legs on you huh," Recovery Girl remarked whopping the backs of his knees with her cane.

"Y-Yes ma'am, I did a lot of strength training but I focused the last month on reinforcing my legs."

"Well, at least you put some thought into it and didn't just come here trying to take the test easily."

As Recovery Girl made her rounds healing participants who needed it, Izuku was making his way to the exit not wanting to waste any time getting home. After all, Himiko was waiting with his mom in the apartment.

"I don't think I did too bad, all things considered, I still managed to get eleven points, but I don't know how that score is gonna compare to the other people's."

Himiko and his mom were listening to him as he explained how his exam had gone. At the mention of almost getting a concussion from one of the robots, his mom was all but in tears, and Himiko was slapping his back playfully.

"I'm glad my combat lessons helped ya not die!" She squealed making his mom's sobs intensify at the mention of Izuku dying.

Izuku stumbled over his words not knowing who to respond to first," m-mom! T-Toga-chan you know how sensitive mom is!"

As her crying subsided his mom smiled widely at the pair," you too should head into the living room and talk, I've got to get dinner ready to celebrate Izuku finishing his test."

" 'Kay!"

"Alright!"

"Say Izu? Now that you're done with the U.A. entrance exam you've got a lot more free time right?"

"W-Well yeah. Why?"

"Let's go on a date!"

"H-Huh?!" Izuku's heart leapt into his throat, sure they'd said that they were dating, and they'd done some intense things. But a proper date? Neither of them had out right said they were on a date before.

"A-A-Are you s-s-sure? W-W-We've been doing stuff like that already and I know we're b-b-boyfriend and g-g-girlfriend, but-"

A rough toothy kiss met Izuku's lips cutting his stuttering off and sending jolts up his spine. For a moment he froze, but then he wrapped the smaller girl in his arms giving her a tight hug and returning the kiss. Just not as roughly as Himiko had.

"A-All right, did you have something in mind?" He asked as Himiko broke off the kiss plopping down on the couch.

"Mhmm, I wanna go watch a movie!" The grin that spread across her face made Izuku blush as he sat beside her.

"That's a pretty normal date idea, what'd you want to watch?"

Her smile widened making Izuku very worried," a horror movie, of course!"

Izuku just knew he'd probably be shaking by the end of that date. He was no good with horror, heck even the slightest surprise made him jump several feet.

But it was what Himiko wanted, so he'd give in after all maybe they'd have a lot of fun," o-okay, just let me k-know when we'll go."

"Okay!" Himiko cheered falling sideways to lay across Izuku's lap.

Izuku smiled resting his hand on her head just running his fingers through her blonde locks, a gentle smile on his face.