Chapter 34 - U.A. Entrance Exam 3
Izuku and Toga separated as they wanted to see what they are capable of alone. Ochaco looked in the direction Izuku pointed before he moved and noticed Present Mic above a tall building as if he was about to begin a performance.
She rushed into the front, following his instructions, and heard a loud "START" from Present Mic and rushed into the building, trailing Izuku and Toga, who had already somehow run far ahead of the rest.
The rest soon followed suit, not wanting to waste any time asking silly questions. Quirks flew around as they all rushed in, trying to gather as many points as possible.
Izuku didn't turn around or take it slow, he wanted to at least gather 50 points before calming down, just in case his written exam dragged his scores down. Better be safe than sorry.
As he dashed through the replica city, Izuku turned a corner and three fast 1-point robots appeared in front of him. They were a few heads taller than Izuku and looked quite reinforced, with paintball-shooting Gatling guns mounted on their "arms".
Izuku didn't hesitate to use Shinra Tensei as he threw his sword onto the middle robot, targeting its brittle head. He opened his two arms wide, snapping his fingers before clapping them in the middle as the two other robots followed his movements, crashing into each other and turning into scraps.
A neat thing Izuku discovered is that he could target two objects to crash into each other with Bansho Ten'in. With enough force, he could simultaneously destroy two things in one go.
Izuku could do everything he did without using any hand or body gestures, but doing so increased his focus and decreased his consumption. Besides, it filled his power-fantasy so he'll keep doing so until he's bored of it or is in a serious match.
Izuku held Lin with his right arm as he recalled his sword back and rushed toward another direction, trying to get as many points as possible before everything vanished. He considered flying to get a better view of things, but why expose everything all at once?
~~~~~
A humanoid animal sat on his chair inside a dark room filled with monitors, capturing every moment of the entrance exam, sipping his tea and watching the ongoing exam with great interest.
Several pro-heroes / teachers surrounded the monitors, counting the candidate's total points and keeping an eye out for anything interesting on the screen. Bakugou is one of those who managed to catch everyone's attention.
After taking constant beatings from Izuku, he began to improve himself, including his use of quirks. By this point, he had destroyed far more robots than the candidate in his sector ahead of him.
"Katsuki Bakugou and Midoriya Izuku, both from the same school" The rat humanoid, Nezu, uttered out loud as he looked at the two students' files in his hands. "One has a high-potential quirk while the other was quirkless until a year ago…"
The people who heard him were taken aback. Not only because of Izuku's unusual awakening but also because of his apparent trained mastery over his newly acquired quirk.
Training a quirk isn't as simple as riding a bike; it takes time and effort, and a year isn't nearly enough time to even scratch the surface of a quirk's full potential.
Izuku, on the other hand, had managed to score the most points out of all sectors by a wide margin, outscoring even the purely destructive Bakugou by more than 15 points.
"What's his quirk?" A lanky, wrinkled man with pale blonde hair inquired. Nobody would be any wiser to know that this man is All-Might.
"It was registered as [Matter Hole], his first quirk outburst led him and his mother into the hospital, and he hadn't taken any official quirk assessment yet," Nezu said, to the disappointment of others.
"His quirk should be something akin to telekinesis, and a powerful one at that. He controlled his sword and the robots without breaking a sweat while carrying a kitten no less," All Might or Yagi Toshinori commented. He was the one who rescued Izuku when his first quirk awakening happened and saw the destruction it can cause.
Nezu agreed and continued to observe until he noticed Izuku had stopped gathering points. They were all watching with interest as Izuku carried his cat while climbing to the top of a large building in the middle of the city and sat on its edge, looking down on the battlefield.
"How many points has he got?" Nezu asked an operator beside him who swiftly responded with, "50 villains and 0 rescue points,"
"50 in less than 5 minutes. That's a new record," All Might said, very impressed by Izuku. In fact, everyone was. They were initially skeptical of Izuku because he was the first person to bring a pet into a testing ground, but what they thought was stupidity turned out to be confidence.
They all start paying attention to the other candidates after 1 minute of seeing Izuku doing nothing but playing with his cat. After all, he wasn't the main character, and there are plenty of other interesting aspiring pros like him.
With 3 minutes left on the clock, Nezu decided it was time to unleash the zero-point robot. As they dubbed it, The menace of supreme dread.
After Nezu pushed the button, everyone watched with anticipation, anticipating the upcoming three most thrilling minutes of these candidates' lives.
Nezu, however, looked towards the wrinkled All-Might.
"Did you see anyone suitable?"
All Might shook his head in regret, scrunching his brows and said, "Perhaps if this young Izuku Midoriya is a good man and stayed quirkless, maybe. His body is strong enough but alas…"
Nezu followed as he shook his pointy furry head slowly. He, just like Yagi, hoped for a quirkless candidate with an adequate body and mind to appear but who in the right mind would apply for U.A. when they are quirkless?
"Then there is no other option. There are no suitable quirkless candidates, so we must choose someone, even if they are born with a quirk..."
All Might had a vision of a figure, but he wanted to keep it hidden until the very last moment. It was too costly, and his heart couldn't take the potential sacrifice his protegee would have to make.
"No," All Might shook his head slowly, breathing a loud sigh, "I still can hold on for a year at least. We can put it off until then."
Nezu sighed in response to Yagi's determined stare. Few people were aware of the true nature of Japan's number one hero's deteriorating health. He trusted his friend's judgment, but he'd still prepare enough backups in case all else failed.
~~~~~