NOTE: Hello people, thank you for coming over! This is my first story, so I hope I don't screw up too much. As said in the summary, many things will be changed from canon but I will try to keep the canon events and timeline untouched. There will be no OCs and this is NOT an OP Izuku fic, although Izuku will get really strong later on. Since I don't really have a plan for this, if anyone leaves a review or comment that I like, I might add it and give credit. Please do not expect regular uploads, as this is just a hobby of mine to do on my spare time. Izuku's quirk was inspired by Mahoraga from jjk, but it has its differences and is not nearly as strong. Also, even though the fiction is rated M, I have no plans for including smut, as I think I would suck at writing it, but maybe if this fic is read by people and it is requested I could try something. Thank you again for stopping by and I hope you enjoy.

EDIT: This is the rewritten version of this chapter. I apologize for taking so long to update the story, I just hated how chapter 1 came out so I lost motivation. Now I'm back and I'll try to be a bit more regular. I hope you enjoy the rewrite, chapter 2 should be out very very soon and it will cover until Izuku's arrival to U.A.'s campus. After, I will get to writing chapter 3 which will cover until slightly after the USJ. I want to try and make chapter s 3 and onward longer so I can focus more on the characters, because I feel like I'm going a bit too fast at times.


CHAPTER 1:


It was a chilly Thursday morning around March and Izuku was making his way to school for what would hopefully be one of the last times.

For the first time in his life, Izuku was actually excited to make it to school. He couldn't wait to go there and finish with the day. He was willing to take any bullying from Bakugo and his classmates. He was in such a good mood he wouldn't even care for his teacher's snide remarks.

He might be hated by everyone in this god forsaken school excluding Bakugo, but he couldn't care any less. Today was the one day Izuku couldn't allow any negativity to reach him. Why? Well because that very day, after the sun had set, he would make his way to U.A. and sit for the entrance exam. It was 8 in the morning and he was counting every single minute until 3:30am, when the exam would take place.

As he was pondering about the exam, he made his way to the school and snuck his way to class. As much as he wouldn't let bullying get to him that day, he still wanted to avoid it if possible.

Izuku made it to the final period without anything more than just a few stares and shoves (much much better than the usual beatings) and was finally packing his things, about to make his way home.

Now, in an ideal universe, Izuku wold have made his way out of the classroom without any issues and gone home, however he had been late to pack up and was one of the last people left in class. That meant Izuku was stuck in his classroom with his bullies (who were making their way to him) and no crowd to blend into and disappear. He knew that Bakugo had kept them away as much as he could for the day, but there was nothing that could be done in this case.

The boy with the long fingers gripped the strap of his bag and forcefully tore it off his shoulder, sending it straight to the floor just as Izuku was about to get out of the classroom and sprint away.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going? You haven't talked to us all day! We missed our favorite meat sack."

Now, Izuku had been training for years and could make both the idiots following Bakugo eat their own feet... They were just gymrats after all, they never had any combat training. But that wouldn't really be true to his image as the weak little nerd with an intelligence quirk now, would it? So instead he opted to do a very dramatic falling motion and head straight next to his bag on the floor with a loud thud.

"Ughhh... could we not do this today please... I want to go home... I have another national coming up and I can't afford to not study..."

That was in fact a lie, but they wouldn't bother finding out so it didn't matter to him.

"Hey, Bakugo! Have a look! The poor nerd wants to go home and study! What do you say, should we send him for a trip to the hospital? If we try enough we might even manage to make him stay overnight!"

Izuku obviously wouldn't let that happen, but he had to play along for the time being.

"W-wait guys, how about I do all o f your homework again? I will even fail mine so you can look better! I'll even make sure you get extra credit!"

"That won't do nerd, we already got some other fucker to do it so you're late. The only thing you can offer is a bit of entertainment with your pleas while we beat you."

This time it was the fat winged idiot talking. Izuku had learned through the years that he was a twisted motherfucker that just liked seeing people suffer.

As the two boys prepared to beat Izuku to the ground, Bakugo intervened and pushed them both to the side, instead delivering Izuku a kick straight to the ribs. Izuku fell back and cried in pain, curling up to a ball

In reality, Bakugo had hit Izuku in a way they had both trained to make sure he pushed him rather than hurt him, but Izuku had become so good at acting that nobody could really tell so they could get away with it.

"SHUT UP YOU FUCKING EXTRAS! The nerd isn't worth our time. Just leave him and let's go already. I have to prepare for my competition. And you, shitty nerd! If you want us to stop bullying you then jump off the roof and pray that in your next life you aren't born being as much of a useless reject as you are now."

.

.

Silence.

.

.

Bakugo made his way out of the class with the two stunned idiots following shortly after.

Even for their standards, suicide baiting was a bit much, but it did the job so Izuku couldn't care any less. He picked his things up started walking home.

Of course, all of that was fake. He and Bakugo not only saw each other as brothers, but they were willingly doing this whole ploy at school. They had both lied about their quirks when coming to Aldera. Izuku had taken the role of the nerd with an intelligence quirk and Bakugo had said his quirk was the ability to smell tastes, which helped him cook perfect dishes. Of course, both Bakugo and Izuku had many awards to show as proof of their "quirks".

You see, in the society Izuku lived, heroes always kept their identity a secret. Revealing your quirk was pretty much equivalent to revealing your identity when you became a hero, so all aspiring heroes lied about their powers.

Even hero school exams required applicants to wear plain white masks to hide their identity. Revealing your quirk was a sure way to become a target in the future as a hero.

The reason heroes lived in secrecy in the first place was that any hero ever who had revealed their identity to the public had been found dead along with his entire bloodline a day later. No matter how strong they were, no matter their status or the amount of protection they had. The only exceptions to that rule were Nezu, the principal of U.A. and All Might, no.1 hero worldwide and symbol of peace.

Generally, the whole hero business was pretty unpopular. The Hero Network and the HPSC (Hero Public Safety Committee) were separate entities from the government, so heroes couldn't gain popularity, fame or big sums of money legally without revealing their identity. That led to very few people actually pursuing the career. In addition to that, very few heroes ever even made it past the age of 30, with the oldest age any hero had made it to (excluding All Might and Nezu) being 35, which was achieved by the current no.2 hero, Endeavor.

Excluding all that, to even have the chance to apply to a hero school one needed to look very, very, very hard in many many very obscure places. Izuku had gotten many viruses while trying to apply for U.A. In addition, U.A. looked at your school record before accepting you. Now, Aldera was a shithole full of prejudiced idiots who believed that intelligence quirks were a sign of physical incapability and were worth less than nothing. Izuku had no idea about that when he came up with his fake quirk and by the time he realized it was too late.

To remedy that, he and Bakugo had made a deal. Bakugo would "bully" him and ascend the social hierarchy of the school to reach the top, in order to have a chance to apply to U.A. and would then vouch for Izuku and report the school for harassment. In the meantime, Izuku would become the target of all the hate and bullying of the entire school, to allow Bakugo a clear way to the top and would hope that once they applied, they would have a chance to explain why Izuku's record was (falsely) pitch black.


Due to the little incident in class and him being lost in his thoughts, Izuku arrived home about 10 minutes later than his usual time. He opened the door and made his way inside. Upon reaching the kitchen, Izuku saw his mother with a grim expression staring at her untouched plate of food.

"Please sit down dear. We have to talk."

Izuku knew what was coming, so he mentally prepared himself, sat down and started eating. Admittedly, the conversation he was about to have was gonna ruin his appetite, but he needed to be well fed if he wanted to perform at the entrance exam.

"Would you like telling me what happened for you to be late?"

"It was only 10 minutes, I just made a wrong turn and had to go back"

"Oh, is that so? A wrong turn? Is that what kids call drugs these days?"

"Mom, I-"

"Don't you dare backtalk to me! Tell me the truth! Were you out with those so called "friends" of yours again? Doing drugs and vandalizing property?"

"I don't even have any friends at school except from Katsuki, I simply got lost in thought and made a wrong turn."

"Your lies don't work on me! Just tell me what you were doing already. You're only wasting both our time by being stubborn."

"There is nothing to be stubborn about, I'm being honest with you. It was just an accident."

"Very well then, you aren't allowed to leave this house until you tell me the truth."

Inko got up and went to her room, slamming the door.

Izuku finished his meal in silence and also went to his room. He loved his mother and he knew she loved him too, but for the last year she had that unshakeable belief that Izuku was spending time with gangs and doing drugs. Apparently she even had evidence, although Izuku had never actually seen it.

whatever the case, Izuku decided not to let it get to him. He was 18 after all, so she couldn't keep him inside no matter how hard she tried. He changed out of his school clothes and decided to revise a bit before the exam. He made sure to sleep as early as 6pm and set up an alarm for 1 in the morning. He laid in bed and tried his best to sleep through his nerves. He had to focus on the exam and he refused to allow anything else to bother him for the time being.


'Shit.'

It was 2:35am

'I woke up too late. I was supposed to be there by now. Kacchan is gonna kill me.'

Izuku had just made it out of his house and was now sprinting to make it to U.A. in time. He only live about 30 minutes away from U.A. but he wanted to be there early to talk with Bakugo. Sadly his mother had stayed awake and he had to leave the house through his window, which took him more time than he would have liked to admit. He was in the fourth floor after all.

He had sprinted about halfway, when he decided to catch his breath for a bit, under an underpass.

As Izuku was getting ready to start running again, he noticed the manhole cover behind him very slowly moving to the side. He looked curiously for just a second, before a huge amount of goo spewed from the sewers, forming into a big blob with a few organs floating inside.

'Ah, finally! That oaf should have lost me by now! And just as luck wold have it, I also found a perfect meat suit for me to use when day comes around again!'

Izuku barely had time to dodge to the side, before a slimy tentacle was slamming down on his previous position. He tried to run but it was too late, as the sludge had reached behind him already and caught him as he triend to escape.

'...Fuck! It's too late at night, I can't expect a hero to intervene and I can't deal with him as I am now. The only chance I have is to wait for Kacchan to hopefully come looking for me...'

Izuku silently hoped that his best and only friend would eventually show up and he braced for what was coming. Everyone who knew Izuku (excluding Bakugo) thought that he was just a timid nerd. That, however, couldn't have been further from the truth.

Both Izuku and Katsuki had been training since they were 6 years old for the U.A. entrance exam, meaning that they had gone to every dojo, gym and training camp there was for fitness, agility and fighting techniques. In addition ot that, they had both been doing acrobatics and training parkour on their one whenever they had time. Izuku and Bakugo were both monsters for their age when it came to fighting prowess. Izuku was even a step above Bakugo in quirkless fighting, due to Bakugo usually relying on his quirk for his fights.

That being said, Izuku was not as powerless as the sludge villain thought.

As he was dragged to the villain's main body, Izuku jumped along the sludge pulling him, using the villain's strength against him and slamming his heel straight into one of the villain's floating eyes, which made his drop him and make a terribly disgusting sound akin to a flushing toilet mixed with a burp.

While the villain was stunned, Izuku made a second attack, aimed at the villain's floating liver, which thankfully connected. As the villain was screaming for help, Izuku tried to aim this time for the villain's brain but he was just too late. Right before he connected his strike, the villain erupted in a wave of awfully smelling slime, splattering all over the underpass. Before Izuku could recover, the villain reconstructed himself around Izuku's body, trappingh im in the sludge.

"I'll give it to you brat, you're good. Much better than I ever was. Unfortunately, you won't make it out of here alive. Don't worry though, I will keep your body in pristine condition, as a little reward for coming closer to defeating me than anyone before you!"

'Maybe "pristine condition" means I get to take it back when he gets out?'

"Granted I'll replace your organs with mine, killing you in the process, but everything else will be perfectly preserved!"

'Or, I can be killed in the most gruesome an painful way possible. And I will miss the exam too... I can't even tell Kacchan not to wait.'

Izuku was honestly not panicking. He wasn't scared either. He felt weird about the situation. Although he knew that he was very much in danger and about 30 seconds from letting his mouth open to breath and allowing the sludge to enter, he couldn't feel anything. He had an odd feeling that everything would be fine. To be honest, he had no idea how he was gonna get out of there, but he felt like there was no need for worry whatsoever.

Maybe it was hope? His quirk was supposed to be one of the rarest quirks in the world, adaptation. The doctor had described it as completely useless due to how weak it was, but maybe it could awaken? Or perhaps the doctor had been wrong?

'No matter... Even if I survive this, I'm not making it to the exam. It's over. Sorry Kacchan, but I don't think I'll make it to U.A.'

As Izuku's lungs finally gave out and his mouth shot open, all the sludge from on top of him simply vanished. It took less than a second, but there was no trace of slime left anywhere in the underpass anymore.

"Hello there young man! I'm sincerely sorry for mixing you up in my villain chasing but this one was a slippery fella. It took me all day to locate him after he escaped through the sewers! Are you feeling ok? I hope he didn't cause too much trouble! I assume you are heading for the U.A. entrance exam, right?"

'Ah yes, it's All Might! Of course All Might would be able to get rid of him that quickly! Wait... IT'S ALL MIGHT!'

"A-ALL MIGHT! Oh my god, it's All Might! ImsuchahugefanandIhonestlyadmoreyousomuchandIamsohonouredtoseeyoucanIpleasehavenaautographAllMightIpromisetocherishitforgenerationsitwillbeafamily

heirloomohmygodamImumblingImsorryAllMightIamjustsoexcitedtomeetyouinpersonIreally-"

"HAHAHAHHAHAHA! Young man, you are quite a talkative one aren't you? Let's take a breather now, shall we? Are you sure you have the time to be dilly dallying here in the first place? There is a certan exam starting soon enough..."

All Might was right. It was 2:50 and he still jadn't made it to U.A.

"You're right, All Might! I have to go to uhhhh FAMILY BUSINESS! I just wanted to ask you so much..."

"Hmmm... Young man, let me tell you something... Make it to U.A. in time tonight, pas the exam and enroll. If you do make it, I will personally answer everything you could possibly ask. In addition to that, I will personally make sure to mold you into a hero better than I ever was! That is my offer to you, young man. That is my offer to you and to anyone else who makes it past the entrance exams! I swear in my title as the Symbol of Peace that if you make it past tonight you will have all your questions answered! And I say this with everything I have, regardless of whether you have a quirk or not, regardless of the power of said quirk, as long as you can make it past today, which I believe you can, I will be all yours when we meet at U.A.!"

Izuku was tearing up. He never had any issues with his confidence, but still... hearing someone believe in him so wholeheartedly and so honestly just got him emotional.

"Well young man, I better get going. I wish you the best in your uhhh family business as you called it."

With that and a little wink, All Might suddenly disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared.


Izuku made it to U.A. just 2 minutes after 3, but the exam didn't start until 3:30 so he was ok. After All Might had left, he had worn his mask to hide his face and sprinted the rest of the way. He found Bakugo near the gates and rushed to talk to him.

"Kacchan! Sorry for the wait, I got caught up"

"WHAT THE FUCK NERD! BE LATE LIKE THAT AGAIN AND I'LL KILL YOU!"

"Yes, yes, I'm sorry I'll explain later, for now let's focus up."

"I thought there would be more extras... as long as I have been here, I only counted up to about 150."

"Well even better for us... the less applicants, the more of a chance we have."

"AS IF! We have been training for years! Even if 1000 extras apply, we will still beat the motherfuckers and make it!"

"You can't really scream that in public you know... especially when the "extras" in question are all around us..."

"As if I care. If they wanna prove me wrong then they are welcome to do so in the exam."

Izuku was about to interject, when the gates suddenly opened and a tall blonde figure walked out.

"WELCOMEEEEEEEE! TONIGHT WE SEEM TO HAVE QUITE A CROWD! I AM, AS YOU CAN PROBABLY TELL, PRESENT MIC AND I WILL BE CONDUCTING YOUR EXAMS TODAY!"

With that, all talking instantly halted and every single applicant there turned to look at present mic.

Izuku knew that U.A. employed pro heroes as teachers, but he didn't know that they had them as conductors for their exams too.

Not that he was complaining, seeing two pro heroes so close in the same night was already a miracle for Izuku.

"THE TIME IS 3:30 AM SO WE CAN NOW GET STARTED! PLEASE FOLLOW ME IN AN ORDERLY MANNER! PLEASE REMEMBER TO WRITE YOUR ID NUMBER INSTEAD OF YOUR NAME ON THE EXAM PAPER AND REFRAIN FROM USING ANY OF YOUR NAMES FROM THE MOMENT WE PASS THE GATES!"

Present mic lead the stunned crowd through the gates, straight into U.A.'s examination facility. It wasn't even the full school and yet it was of a humongous size. After about 10 minutes, they reached a crosswalk, splitting into 4 directions. The roads were all surrounded by walls that seemed to pierce the sky itself and at the 4 corners where the roads connected were 4 doors leading into the walled off sections.

"ALRIGHT, LITTLE LISTENERS! PLEASE LISTEN TO THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY AS FROM THIS POINT ONWARD YOU WILL BE ON YOUR OWN! YOU WILL ALL BE GIVEN A CARD WITH A LETTER CORRESPONDING TO EACH OF THE 4 GATES AROUND US. PLEASE ENTER THE GATE WHOSE LETTER YOU ARE GIVEN AND FOLLOW THE ROAD INTO THE EXAMINATION HALL! SIT DOWN IN ANY SEAT YOU'D LIKE AND START WITH YOUR EXAM. ANY CHEATERS WILL BE INSTANTLY DISQUALIFIED AND BLACKLISTED FROM ANY OTHER HERO UNIVERSITY! ONCE YOU ARE DONE WITH YOUR EXAM, SET YOUR PEN DOWN AND PRESS THE BLUE BUTTON ON YOUR DESK. YOU HAVE 2 HOURS TO FINISH THE EXAM AND AN EXTRA 15 MINUTES AFTER TO RELAX AND PREPARE FOR THE PRACTICAL EXAM! A SHEET CONTAINING ALL THE INFORMATION YOU WILL NEED ABOUT THE PRACTICAL WILL BE GIVEN TO YOU AFTER THE WRITTEN EXAM! I WISH YOU ALL THE BEST OF LUCK!"

The moment present mic finished his speech, he started handing out small cards with gate numbers to the students.

Izuku got gate B and Bakugo got gate A.

After a quick nod, the two boys went their separate ways.


The two hours for the written exam had just finished and Izuku felt like shit. His brain felt like it had been massaged and he was certain he had never had to think so hard in his life. It felt like the entire exam was just a joke at his expense. Furthermore, after reading the practical sheet, he was certain that this was targeted.

He had to deal with robots. Big hunks of metal. From the pictures, he noticed a button at the back of the robots, allowing them to be turned off. Even so, Izuku dreaded the practical. Even after all that happened with the villain and All Might that night he didn't feel winded (thank god for Bakugo making him run through waist deep water carrying a microwave on each hand, while chasing him with a taser) but he was just scared of what the robots would do to him. The one pointers had spikes on their hands and all over their body, the two pointers shot rubber bullets and the three pointers had rockets. What was he supposed to do against rockets? Even if his adaptation wasn't completely useless, rockets would still be too much.

Izuku was trying to form plans, when suddenly the walls and ceiling of the building they were in literally folded outwards, revealing to the contestants the fake city they had passed by to get to the hall. A loud buzzer sounded and countless bright red lights opened all across the streets.

The practical had begun.


Izuku had spent the last 40 minutes getting beaten up. He had deactivated some robots, sure, but mostly he had just gotten beaten up. The robots were much much MUCH worse than anything he could have ever imagined. They were merciless, fast and immune to anything he had tried. He had thrown concrete on their heads from roofs, rebar between their wheels, pulled out their eyes and much more and yet that had all done nothing but make them replay that same annoying mechanical laughing sound.

It was horrible. He had saved at least 5 contestants from trips to the hospital by taking attacks for them, pulling them away or deactivating robots just before they smacked a poor soul straight to next week.

The whole exam he had barely managed to defeat 3 two pointers and 1 three pointer and the latter nearly broke his back in half, so he had almost all of his point from 1 pointers. He had counted about 40something points for now and the highest other number he heard from a contestant was 23 so he decided to take a break.

As he was resting against a destroyed coffee shop, Izuku felt the ground shake. He got up and went around the corner, only to see a huge metallic contraption slowly walking through the city, leaving everything in its wake completely flat.

(Even after Izuku graduated from U.A. years after this exam he never realized how did they ever get the money to do all the crazy bullshit they did. That stunt with the zero pointer was one of the things Izuku genuinely never found out how hey could afford to do every year.)

Izuku turned around with the intention to run away from the gigantic death sentence slowly inching towards his exact location, but he stopped in his tracks when he heard a scream. It was barely audible within the cacophony of sounds coming from the walking natural disaster, but he heard it. He scanned his surroundings to see what he assumed to be a girl stuck under rubble.

At that moment, Izuku genuinely cursed every single life decision that had lead to him doing what he did next... and then proceeded to sprint towards the mechanical behemoth, right to where that girl was.

"Hey, you! Yes, you under the rock! Help me lift it off of you! I can't do it alone!"

"O-oh my god, thank you so so much! I'll try to help as much as I can!"

"Ok, let's try on 3!

1!

2!

3!"

As Izuku pushed, he felt the boulder suddenly become weightless. It lasted just a split second, less than the blink of an eye, but it was enough to barely tip it over the girl and roll it away.

"I don't know what it was that you did, because there is no way that you managed to push at all from the position you are in, but it was enough. Can you walk?"

"No, I'm pretty sure I twisted my ankle... very badly... I can't even move it."

"I see, I see... Well then, excuse me but we don't have much time to find a good solution, so..."

Izuku picked up the girl bridal style and sprinted away, the spot they were just standing on being squished flat a few seconds later. He was exhausted and dizzy, he could barely run without falling over and every part of his body hurt.

But the zero pointer was somehow just barely slower than him.

He made it with the girl back to the entrance to the fake city. The moment he set her down, he collapsed from exhaustion right next to her and waited for the exam to finish.

He wanted to get a few more points but even standing up would probably have him fainting.

"Hey, thank you very much for coming back for me... I don't have much to offer you, sadly, so I hope this will be enough."

The girl searched in her pocket for a bit and then handed Izuku a slightly squished piece of mochi wrapped in a colorful paper adorned with highlighter pink details.

"I know it isn't much... but it's all I really have with me. I promise to make it up to you if we meet at U.A."

Izuku could tell the girl was smiling behind her mask. For some reason, Izuku felt really happy at that moment. He never really had friends in his life other than Bakugo, so whenever someone was nice to him like that he couldn't help but feel nice. He took the mochi and smiled back at her (even if she couldn't see it).

"No need to repay me! I wanna be a hero, so saving people is what I do"

Before the girl could reply, an elderly woman came over both of them.

"Excuse me dearies, is any of you in need of medical treatment?"

Izuku noted that she was wearing a lab coat with a bullet proof vest underneath, similar to the ones S.W.A.T. units wore overseas. The vest had a big red cross painted over the chest and the initials R.G. right underneath it. She was wearing a white helmet with a tinted pink visor, which hid most of her face. Her costume was completed with a big cane shaped like a syringe.

"Wait, you are Recovery Girl! You are U.A.'s healer, aren't you?"

"That's correct dearie, I am Recovery Girl. Now, do you have anything that needs treatment?"

Izuku shook his head and got up to make space for the nurse to work on the girl he had saved,

"Thanks for the mochi, I hope to see you in U.A."

With that, Izuku left the examination site. He didn't meet Bakugo on the way, but he didn't care. All he wanted was to go to bed.


By the time Izuku made it home, the sun was already out. He barely made it to his room before his mother woke up for her job. No doubt, if she had seen the situation he was in, she would have grounded him for his whole life, but he didn't need to worry about that now.

Izuku collapsed on his bed and closed his eyes.

He was happy with his performance. Sure, both exams were excruciatingly hard, but he gave it his all and he had a really good feeling for them.

He closed his eyes and allowed sleep to take him away.

And then his alarm clock ringed. It was 7:30 and he had school.


NOTE: I'm finally done with the rewrite! I'm much happier with how this chapter is now. I should be releasing chapter 2 either later today or tomorrow and after that hopefully more chapters will come soon.

Thank you for reading!