6

Even though he had spent the better part of 5 years at UA, walking through the gates for the entrance exam was still a surreal feeling for Izuku. The first step to starting his pro hero career was upon him, and he was going to grab it by the horns. He was going to seize the moment. He was-

"Fuck outta my way, extra!"

Falling. He was falling.

So surprised by the shockingly familiar voice and ash blonde head of hair on the boy who shoved past him, he almost forgot to right himself to avoid eating shit before he even made it into the building. However, a hand hurriedly slapped his shoulder before he could stop his fall, and he felt gravity leave him. The end result was Izuku floating just above the ground in a perpetual loop of front flips due to the inertia he carried with him.

"Oh no!" a high-pitched voice beside him intoned before his steady path toward the building was halted. Izuku saw the upside down figure of a girl with auburn brown, shoulder-length hair attempting to right him. Upon doing so, she tapped her fingertips together, and Izuku felt gravity return to him.

'What a fascinating quirk,' he thought while appraising the girl.

"Sorry, I hope you don't mind me using my quirk on you! It would've been a bad omen if you fell, is all. I didn't notice you already had it covered, though," she nervously sped out with a sheepish smile.

"It's fine," Izuku absentmindedly responded. "Your quirk is so cool; how does it work?"

"Oh," the girl was a little flustered at the excitement she could see in his eyes directed at her, or, more likely, her quirk. "It's called Zero Gravity. I can remove the gravity of anything I touch with five fingers and then restore it by putting my fingers on both hands together. My names Ochako Uraraka, by the way."

Ochako was not anticipating her day to begin like this. She was simultaneously pumped and cripplingly nervous about taking the entrance exam for the best hero school in the nation, and when she left her mostly bare apartment that morning, she didn't know what to expect. Obviously, she'd be taking a written test and some sort of physical exam, but she didn't know what it entailed, what kind of people she'd meet, or if she'd potentially make any friends.

She was certainly not expecting an admittedly cute boy to stare directly into her soul with childlike wonder as she explained her quirk and then mutter up a storm about the possible applications of her quirk in the field and how great of a hero she could become. It was actually pretty nice in her opinion, in a weird sort of way. She could feel some of the dread in her stomach diminish as he spoke.

He seemed to realize that he was muttering and quickly clamped his mouth shut, much to her slight dismay. "Sorry, that sometimes happens when I encounter something cool… or complex… or peculiar… it happens a lot, okay!"

Izuku was saved anymore embarrassment by Ochako's giggling. "We should really get going to the exam, we wouldn't want to be late. My name's Izuku Midoriya, by the way."

Ochako nodded in acquiescence with a smile, already feeling much better than she had been when she arrived. The two entered the building and registered, making light conversation along the way to the testing rooms which primarily consisted of Ochako carrying the brunt of the conversation with Izuku stumbling along as best as he could. If she noticed, she didn't mention it, and Izuku was grateful. She was bubbly enough for the both of them.

Along the way, Ochako noticed that he hadn't once looked at the map they were given to get to the testing rooms. "Have you been here before? You know your way around pretty well," she asked with curiosity coloring her already rosy cheeks.

Izuku was not prepared for that question, and it must've shown in his face because Ochako quickly tried to backpedal. "Oh, you don't have to say if you don't want to!" she said while frantically waving her hands.

"No, no, it's fine," he clumsily assured. He did not expect to have to reveal the fact that he was trained at UA already. Frankly, he wasn't planning on saying anything about it unless it came up, and he really didn't want to potentially scare away the first person his age that he had spoken more than a few words to in years, but he felt that taking the out she gave him and not answering the question would be a little suspicious.

'Eh, screw it.'

"My mom works here," Izuku simply stated.

"Really? That's so cool!" Ochako piped up, and they both left it at that.

Reaching the testing areas, they wished each other luck and parted ways. Izuku entered the room and found his seat, noticing Ectoplasm in the front of the classroom with a stack of papers. He held in his excitement over a pro hero administering the exam despite the fact that he had met Ectoplasm several times before, and he waited for the testing to begin.

They had 2 hours to answer 100 questions and an opinion piece essay on what they believed a hero should be. He figured that it would've been more challenging than that, but he didn't complain. When he finished, he checked the clock and saw that only 45 minutes had passed. He didn't even need to wave Ectoplasm over, as one of his clones appeared beside his desk to collect his test.

"Principal Nezu figured you'd finish early," the hero said in his deep, vaguely mechanical voice. Izuku still found it so cool. "You can hang out in the courtyard until it's time for the practical."

Izuku nodded and pointedly ignored the stares and glances he received as he left the room. Closing the door, he let go of the deep breath he had unknowingly been holding. Being around other kids was something he'd really have to get used to again.

Finding a bench to sit down on in the courtyard, Izuku decided to kill the next hour and 15 minutes by reading hero news. He saw the usual stuff: recent debuts, big takedowns of villains and other criminals, gossip surrounding heroes in the Top 10, etc. However, one particular headline caught his eye:

Sludge Villain Still at Large in Musutafu

His interest piqued, he read the article that detailed a criminal made of sludge who robbed a store and evaded capture from…

"All Might? All Might's in Musutafu?"

Continuing to read, the article went on to explain that the Sludge Villain, as they're calling him, escaped detection by entering the body of a civilian and disappearing into the crowd, likely killing them in the process. Since then, there was a string of robberies and murders that police were connecting to the Sludge Villain using the body of his victim and potentially swapping into others when necessary.

"Well that's comforting," Izuku sardonically said to himself. "I'll tell mom to be on the lookout."

He scrolled a little further and another headline caught his attention:

Is UA Parading Child Soldiers Rather Than Creating Heroes?

"…The fuck?" he questioned, skimming through the article for its author and publisher.

"Chitose Kizuki, Shoowaysha Publishing. Should I tell Nezu about this?" He considered it for a moment before shaking his head. "No, he's probably already seen this. If not, I shouldn't trouble him with some random hit piece."

Getting lost in the hero news for the next hour was easy enough, and the time for him to make his way towards the auditorium was approaching. Looking up from his phone, he unconsciously activated his quirk and lit his hand ablaze with the familiar rainbow of flame. Manipulating and fanning the flame in his hands to kill a little more time, he felt a pair of eyes on him, and he turned to the left to see someone else with him in the courtyard. She had black, shoulder length hair that was similar in style to Uraraka's but longer. She wore a stoic expression, but Izuku could somewhat make out a bit of curiosity in her gaze.

'I guess she wasn't expecting anyone else to finish early, either,' he thought as they returned each other's unblinking stare. Oddly enough, there wasn't any awkward tension amid the silence. Her eyes traveled to his hand, and they fixed themselves on the unique fire he wielded. Conversely, his eyes traveled to her right hand to see a handful of what he could make out to be sand. He noticed her eyes on his hand and she realized that his eyes were on hers, and they came to a silent agreement. Izuku fanned and brightened the flame, meanwhile the girl picked up a small rock with her left hand and enlarged it to the point where it barely fit in her hand.

Pocketing the sand, the girl shrunk the rock back to its original size and seemed to hesitate for a moment, then she nodded to herself and approached Izuku with her phone in hand. Curious about her intentions, he killed the flame and watched her make her way toward him. She stopped beside the bench, sat down on the edge with a measure of distance between them, and she handed him her phone with the "New Contact" page open.

Izuku was momentarily dumbstruck before everything clicked, and he gingerly took the phone and added himself to her contacts before handing it back to her. She silently took it, and then she flew into the fastest, most furious texting speed that Izuku had ever witnessed. His phone vibrated, and he saw that he had a text from an unknown number.

"Hi, I'm Yui Kodai. Sorry about all of this, I'm not great with social interaction. Your quirk is really cool."

Izuku was taken aback for the 4th time since he got to the courtyard, but he didn't mind it this time around. Rather than answering her verbally and potentially make her feel awkward or obligated to speak up, he responded to her text in kind.

"It's nice to meet you too, Kodai! Don't worry, I was pretty much homeschooled, so my social skills aren't the best, either. Your quirk is amazing! Is that what the sand in your pocket is for?"

Yui's phone vibrated, and a small smile broke through her stoic visage. She replied to his text within seconds; Izuku really needed to learn how the hell she typed so quickly.

"Thank you, and yes. I can enlarge the grains to create a barrage of projectiles, or I could just toss sand in someone's eyes. Depends on how I'm feeling."

Failing to fight back a snort at her text, Izuku checked the time and saw that they only had 10 minutes to make it to the auditorium. "We should start heading back to the building, the practical will be starting soon."

"Mm," she simply responded in agreement. She stood up to make her way back, but she stopped and appeared to deliberate something in her head. Making up her mind, she turned around to face him. "You can call me Yui," she finally said before turning away once more and walking back into the building.

Izuku stared in mild shock at the development before the same small smile formed onto his own face.

Upon reaching the auditorium, Izuku checked the notecard that had his seat number, and he found it in the back next to a boy with purple hair even wilder than his own and bags under his eyes to a level he had only seen on Mr. Aizawa. The boy spared him a lazy, cold glance before refocusing on the stage. Izuku thought about saying hi and potentially making a third friend that day, but the other boy didn't look like he was in the mood.

He kept his excitement in check when Present Mic showed up, and he made sure not to mutter aloud to keep from annoying the boy next to him. Pretty soon, the rules were explained and the examinees were loaded up onto buses to be sent off to the exam zones. Izuku was trying to keep the nerves at bay to varying degrees of success. He knew that he wasn't unprepared, but the idea of everything he trained all those years for finally coming to a head in the coming exam naturally put him on edge a bit. He hoped that Uraraka or Yui (he still hadn't gotten over being on a first name basis with someone again, and so quickly) were doing okay.

At the starting zone of their exam, Izuku was running through his stretches when he spotted Uraraka on the other side warming up as well. She was slightly trembling, so it was clear to him that she wasn't doing any better than him on the nervousness front. He elected to go over and attempt to ease her nerves, but movement in his periphery made him tense up. Certain that it wasn't a threat, he allowed the hand of a taller boy with glasses to clamp down onto his shoulder. Giving the taller boy a curious look, he saw the other boy looking down at him with a stern countenance.

"That girl looks like she's busy preparing for the exam," the boy started, his glare tightening on Izuku. "Do you intend to distract her and the other real participants here? Are you perhaps an impediment planted by the school to hinder us during the exam?"

Taking a moment to recognize the boy as the one from the auditorium that interrupted Present Mic, Izuku quirked an eyebrow at him. "Do you see the worst in everyone, or are you just really intense?"

At the taller boy's aghast sputtering, he continued, ignoring the many pairs of eyes that were watching the scene unfold. "I know the girl over there; she's a friend. She seemed nervous, so I was going to try to help ease her mind for the exam. Also," he pried the boy's hand off of his shoulder, "I saw you coming, and I figured you weren't a threat, so I didn't do anything to you when you grabbed me. Had I not seen you, I can't promise that the bones in your hand would still be in working order. Don't sneak up on people in a bid to intimidate them; it's bad for your health. Now, I'm going to go encourage my friend to do her best on this exam. Is that okay with you?"

Not waiting for a reply from the completely mortified boy, Izuku turned back around and walked away from him and the wide-eyed stares of the other participants. He had no idea where the hell all that even came from. He figured that he'd spent way too much time with his mother over the years.

"START!" blared the voice of Present Mic over the intercom as the gate to the training ground swung open. Izuku flew into action, darting toward Uraraka and tapping her on the back to snap her out of the shared stupor that everyone was in at the sudden announcement.

"What are you all waiting for?" Present Mic came over the intercom again. "There are no countdowns in the real world! Those two up front have the right idea!"

The collection of examinees looked to see Izuku blasting off in a vibrant blaze with Ochako hurriedly bounding in behind him before they all rushed in themselves.

Izuku, bathed in the familiar heat of his quirk, launched himself toward a group of 1-pointers and blasted each one with a fireball, quickly disabling them before bounding off again into the heart of the city. Scores of faux-villains attempted to intercept him in all manner of ways, but Izuku was ready for them. Pausing his base flames and igniting a bright yellow, he dodged and weaved through the rubber bullets, claws, pincers, and the occasional missile with Nezu's face on it. He'd be sure to have a talk with the principal after the exam about that last one.

Letting green fire overtake his arms, he launched himself toward the robots and cleaved right through them, not paying any particular attention to their point values. Without a moment's hesitation, he grabbed a large panel from one of the robots he'd taken down and batted another robot away with it, then he pivoted to block a third faux-villain's attack from behind with that same panel. Pushing the panel into the robot, the emerald flames engulfed his legs for him to jump and drive his heel into the head of the machine, disabling it in an explosion.

Reaching the ground, he let the green flames die down and swallowed the pain he began to feel in his muscles, igniting his base flames again to relax some of the pain away for the moment. It was then that he noticed that the other examinees had made their way into the city as well, attempting to keep clear of him and the carnage in his wake.

In a dark control room, a group of adults watched over the exam with careful scrutiny. The many screens showed different vantage points of each exam area, and they got to see the various approaches that the participants took. One screen showed a blonde blowing the robots to kingdom come while laughing maniacally and sporting an equally maniacal gleam in his eye. That boy warranted further observation.

Another screen displayed the tall boy who had the unfortunate run-in with Izuku kicking through the robots with ease. He then used the engines in his legs to blast off to the next one, though he seemed careful to stay out of the way of the trail of colorful fire ahead of him.

On another, a duo of 3-pointers had cornered a girl with pale grey hair covering one of her eyes until a barrage of giant grains of sand intercepted them and took down one of the 3-pointers, allowing for the grey-haired girl to telekinetically smack the remaining robot with the pieces of the former. The two gave each other a silent thumbs up and nod before heading off in different directions.

"Good crop this year," Midnight spoke up. "A lot of hot-blooded action around…"

"Behave," Aizawa tiredly commanded, also keeping a close eye on the screen, or, rather, one screen in particular. He wasn't the only one, either. Three other people had an eye on one particular screen, and that screen showed Izuku leaving a trail of mangled parts and whimsical fire in his wake. Nezu watched on with his usual smile, Yagi watched quietly and attentively, and Inko watched with an unmistakeable smile full of pride for her son. That pride grew even more when he seemingly bounced from building to building onto a light post before diving into the middle of a group of faux-villains that were ganging up on a short boy with purple balls for hair.

The boy was clearly being overwhelmed, and when one of them opened fire with rubber bullets on the boy's blindspot, Izuku leaped in and blocked the boy from harm with his own body. If that wasn't crazy enough, Izuku's colorful fire had become a solid orange and flattened out into a seemingly solid barrier that the bullets bounced right off of.

"That's new," Inko said loudly enough for the others to hear.

"Indeed," Nezu agreed, "I've never seen his fire become a solid orange. It must have manifested recently."

"You know that boy?" Yagi asked the principal. He hadn't been around for very long, so he was surprised that Nezu knew the boy he remembered from Dagobah Beach.

"Why, of course. He's my protégé," Nezu answered.

Yagi did not expect that at all. He considered Izuku even more carefully, now more sure of his feeling that the boy might be the right candidate to be his successor if he had already gotten the super genius chimera's attention. He watched as the boy stared quizzically at the wall of orange flames surrounding him for a moment before shrugging and rolling with it, turning to say something to the shorter boy that was staring back up at him with something akin to reverence.

They spoke back and forth before seeming to come to an agreement, and Izuku kneeled down for the short boy to hop onto his back. The orange wall dissipated, and the newly formed duo leaped above the robots onto a street light. The shorter boy on Izuku's back then started pulling the balls from his head and throwing them at the robots, sticking them to the ground and getting into their joints to stall them so that Izuku could launch a powerful fireball at the vulnerable group, destroying them.

Suffice to say, all of the faculty in the command center were pleased at the scene for both examinees. Midnight, in particular, had a few comments.

"Ugh, such a magnificent display of selflessness and ingenuity. It gets me hot-" she began before stopping when she felt death trickle up her spine. Looking over, she saw Inko side-eyeing her across the room, much too still for the R-Rated Heroine's comfort.

"Go ahead," Inko calmly said. "Finish that sentence."

Midnight did not, in fact, finish that sentence, and she fearfully shrunk back into her seat.

"I warned you to behave," Aizawa chided, the vindicated smirk he sported hidden behind his scarf.

Unbeknownst to Aizawa and Midnight, Yagi had shrunk into his seat as well. The aura of murder that Inko radiated reminded him too much of his former sensei's when she'd get angry. One For All seemed to agree as well, as he felt the quirk buzzing even more than when he encountered Izuku. He'd have to investigate it further later on.

"I think it's time to unleash the final obstacle," Nezu remarked and pressed a big, red button.

Izuku would gladly admit that he was truly having fun. He hadn't ever gotten the chance to cut lose like this before, as he didn't often unleash the full brunt of his flames while training with his mom, and if he did, they never hit their target. Now, however, Izuku could do all the damage he wanted to disposable targets and practically fly around the testing area without fear of an S-rank threat kicking him in the jaw. He even discovered a new aspect of his quirk; apparently, the orange part of his flames acted as a protective barrier that he only needed to concentrate on to maintain. That meant that he now had access to red, white, yellow, green, pink, and orange. It was such a fascinating development that he couldn't help but analyze the possibilities-

The ground began to shake, snapping him out of his muttering and toward the edge of the city. In the distance was a behemoth of a machine, dwarfing the buildings and completely towering over the examinees. Izuku took a long look at the Goliath ahead, and he turned to give a flat glare at the camera-bot "conveniently" standing beside him. He knew Nezu was watching him, and he hoped that he got his message across with the glare.

Before he could turn and leave with the other participants, he spotted something odd a good ways ahead. Under a pile of rubble, he saw someone struggling against the ground. Hurrying forward to help them out, he grew alarmed when he recognized that it was Uraraka pinned under the rubble. Igniting his yellow flames, he bolted past the fleeing participants towards the 0-pointer.

Arriving in no time, he assessed the situation: his new and one of only two friends was stuck, and she couldn't reach the concrete on her ankle to make it weightless. Without a second thought, he pushed the ever-looming 0-pointer from his mind and ignited in a flash of green, quickly grabbing and tossing the concrete off of her before picking her up into a bridal carry.

"Midoriya? What are you doing?" she asked as her usually rosy cheeks flushed with even more color.

"Getting you out of here!" Izuku answered, ignoring if she could walk or not before blasting off wreathed in yellow. The heat curiously did not seem to affect the girl at all, almost blanketing her alongside him. "Besides, I'm not dumb enough to fight that thing," he continued, feeling even more of the familiar strain in his chest as well as his muscles.

As if responding directly to his comment, the 0-pointer smacked the top of a building, sending chunks of concrete, metal, and glass directly in their path. Izuku stopped on a dime as the wreckage slammed into the ground rather harmlessly, only serving to separate the two of them from the rest of the applicants.

"Looks like I don't have a choice in the matter," Izuku sighed with a mixture of frustration and resignation. "Stay here, and don't put pressure on your ankle," he ordered the girl who stared back at him with wide eyes.

"You're not seriously going to fight that thing, are you?" she shouted.

"If we leave it unattended, it might harm the others," he responded with urgency. "Can you make me weightless?"

She reluctantly removed his gravity while also curious as to what he'd do with it, and then he ignited his kaleidoscopic fire and blasted off toward the head of the robot. This time, she had actually had time to look at and appreciate the unique flames. They were pretty fuckin' rad in her opinion. She had to remind herself to get his number after the exam ended.

Back with Izuku, he was practically over the moon to be simulating unassisted flight with the propulsion of flames, but got a hold of himself and refocused on the task at hand. He weaved through the swipes of the giant robot and projected his flames to full blast on his way toward the head. Lighting his right arm with as much green fire as he could manage, consequences be damned, he threw a punch with all of his might and slammed it into the face of the 0-pointer, blasting it backward and practically off the body of the robot. The rest of the machine soon followed suit, and it tipped over to slam into the ground behind it, luckily only flattening empty buildings.

Izuku, meanwhile, was running on the barest of fumes, and he just barely righted himself and slowly began the process of lowering himself to the ground until the last bit of strength left him and he passed out mid flight. He was left approaching the ground with his inertia carrying him the rest of the way until Ochako hobbled toward him and guided him back within arm's reach. She cancelled her quirk and tried her best to catch him, but he was heavier than he looked and his deadweight came crashing down on her right as Present Mic's voice blared over the city.

"AND THAT'S TIME! THE TEST IS OVER!"

The other examinees only barely heard him, as they were too focused on the sight they just witnessed. The tall boy was especially floored; the green-haired boy he had wrongly accosted before the exam had gone back into the heart of danger to rescue a fellow examinee from the 0-pointer, then he turned around and destroyed the giant robot with what appeared to be shocking ease. He had accused the boy of having nefarious intentions, only for the boy to have the most heroic heart and spirit of everyone there. He had a lot to think about when he returned home.

Recovery Girl was rather displeased with Nezu. The brutishness of the exam that encouraged reckless kids to be even more reckless was one thing, but she knew the chaotic gremlin had a hand in the destructiveness of this particular zone's 0-pointer. He wanted to make it entertaining for himself and for Midoriya, and it would certainly give poor Inko a heart attack. She just hoped she would make it back in time to see the mama bear throttling the chimera for his stunt.

Making her way through the crowd and healing injuries where they were present, she found the man of the hour himself. Or, rather, she found him passed out laying across another examinee who was practically dying from her blush. Shaking her head in amusement, the Youthful Heroine made her way towards the duo.

"Are you youngsters okay?" the old woman asked Ochako, who looked relieved to have literally anything else to focus on.

"I think I twisted my ankle under some debris. He passed out though, you should look at him first!" she worriedly fretted over the unconscious boy.

Kneeling to examine him, she noted that he was breathing normally but felt even warmer than usual. "Ah, don't worry, it's just quirk exhaustion. It happens when he overuses his flames. I can't do much for it, though. Hand me your hand so I can fix up your ankle."

The younger girl complied, and Recovery Girl kissed her on the hand, zapping her of whatever energy she had left while mending her busted ankle. Ochako would've stumbled had she not still been pinned under the unconscious Izuku, so she only laid her head back on the ground and absentmindedly took the gummies the medic handed her. Meanwhile, a team of medic bots came with a stretcher, and they lifted the boy off of her and onto the stretcher to cart him away.

Recovery Girl quickly followed behind them. Maybe if she was fast, she could catch the end of the beatdown.

"YOU FURRY LITTLE DIPSHIT! WHAT IN THE 9 LEVELS OF FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?!"

The faculty of UA were hiding behind the farthest table away from the livid mother unleashing hell on their principal, and rightfully so; he knowingly endangered her son with a giant robot to test him.

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA JUST HOW BADLY HURT HE COULD'VE GOTTEN?!" Inko broke her throttling of her boss and comrade to allow him to respond.

His snout returned to its original white from the blue it had been previously, and he cleared his throat. "I wouldn't have orchestrated it if I didn't think he could handle it."

"But the other examinees could've been caught in the crossfire!"

"Unlikely, as the 0-pointer was specifically programmed to neglect the other examinees and focus on Midoriya when it spotted him."

"That doesn't make it any better! In fact, that actually makes it worse!"

Yagi, against his better judgement, decided to interrupt to take some of the heat away from the principal's… admittedly worrying decision. "Uh, if I may-"

"No, you may not!" Inko silenced him, and he quickly returned to his place next to an absolutely quivering Power Loader. He suspected that she would find out that Power Loader had been the one to actually program the 0-pointer under Nezu's direction any minute now.