Musutafu City (IV)

For the first time in weeks, Izuku woke up from having chosen to sleep the previous night. He checked the time on the alarm clock sitting at his nightstand to his right and it was exactly eight hours after he'd last checked. He got up to prepare for the day as if it were any other, but the same could not be said for his mother as she failed miserably to hide her anxiety.

It was February 27th, the day that had been set for him to take the UA's University Entrance Exams. Along with Katsumi and various high school graduates in several of the surrounding prefectures, he'd be taking part in the Practical Exam for Heroics.

As far as Inko knew, Izuku only "awakened" his Quirk just ten months prior and the only sight of it she'd caught was when he first showed it to her. She had no idea just how overqualified he was for any exam; to say nothing about the practical exam which was bound to test his combat prowess.

It wasn't her fault entirely, given the kind of lifestyle she lived as a full-time nurse. But, the fact was, she was nervous for her son; scared that he might get hurt.

"Mom," Izuku said as he watched her shakily put down his chopsticks after she was done with her breakfast.

"Y-yes, sweetie?" Inko averted her eyes, ashamed she was feeling as helpless as she always did when it came to her son's dream.

In her mind, there was little chance Izuku could have managed to get on the same level as his competition — other high school graduates who'd been training for this day for years, if not decades.

"I want to show you something," he simply said as he gauged her reaction.

"S-sure thing. Just… remember neither of us can afford to be late today…" She cringed, disgusted by how uncaring her own words sounded to even herself.

"Oh, it won't take too long. Here, take my hand," Izuku snickered. His friendship with Katsumi had led him to grow a sadistic pleasure for shocking people with his true strength.

When Inko grabbed his hand, she found they'd suddenly found themselves near the edge of the roof faster than a literal blink of an eye.

"What the— Izuku?" She looked at him, alarmed and almost begging for answers.

Izuku ignored her implied questions. Instead, he said, "Look down at the street. You see all those people, walking, talking, and more or less going about their normal everyday life?"

When she eventually did as he asked and nodded hesitantly, Izuku snapped his fingers, drawing mother and son into the world of his soulborn illusion. "We are now in a kind of pocket dimension separated from the real world," he explained as he let her see for herself, how the people that were clearly present beforehand, weren't any longer.

"What is going on…" Her increasing alarm was slowly snuffed as she took in the sight of her son shaking his head.

He held his hand up and said, "Look, I promise I'll tell you everything after you return from work today. I just want you to know I'm strong enough to take care of myself."

He aimed his hand away and a moment later, the entire block was uprooted, displaced, and the resulting aftermath destroyed the next three city blocks over. Izuku closed his open hand with all but a finger held out and let loose hundreds of bullet-like projectiles that scattered in a vast cone of destruction, which left a few city blocks in another direction "swiss-cheesed" with massive clean-cut holes.

When he was done, he reached over and Blinked his borderline catatonic mother back into their apartment after breaking the illusion of his ID to let her see that he hadn't really just killed possibly hundreds or thousands of people and caused hundreds of billions of yens worth of property damage.

"You don't have to worry about my safety, Mom. Perhaps only the deadliest of supervillains could hurt me as I am, and I'm only going to be taking an Entrance Exam," Izuku said as he casually picked up the dishes from their table and walked over to wash them at the sink.

Unfortunately, Inko could not process everything she'd just seen and escaped the situation by leaving without saying another word to her son. There were too many things on her mind; too many ways the situation could devolve further if she stuck around and asked even a single question that was on her mind.

It was better than Izuku expected and worse than he had hoped for. But the day would keep progressing and eventually the time before the exams started would run out if he sulked about in his home.

So, he left his home as well.

…

[Ding!

Your Daily Gacha Role: 12-Pack Of 4-ply Toilet Paper (Uncommon)]

Izuku dismissed the prompt carelessly as he had grown used to doing. He'd rolled over two hundred times and not once had he seen so much as a Rare Grade drop. Locked away in a one-way subspace he could withdraw his drops from, there was only an assortment of random objects that were at best situationally convenient.

Really, he found out he could get drops that were pretty much anything. Aside from the "legendary" toilet paper — which technically shouldn't even exist, given toilet paper only went up to 3-ply — he rolled for a packet of pancake mix, a stapler, a half-eaten jar of jam, bandaids, a bicycle spoke, and even a refrigerator's condenser.

He didn't feel too bad over it, given he had been cursed to be Unlucky. Although, a cursory review of the effects of that particularly tame curse didn't inspire much hope for Izuku. With only one roll allotted per day, the Gacha System seemed like an underwhelming waste of time.

It was only slightly remedied by the fact that Izuku could actually buy Gacha Tokens from the Gamer System's Store. Unfortunately, a cost-benefit analysis revealed that to be a tremendous waste of resources.

"Common" Gacha Tokens, the biggest oxymoron Izuku had come across, were easily the most expensive item he could currently buy from the Store. They cost a hundred million Store Credits each, and the best resources he could consistently exchange for said credits, his Excelia, had a conversion rate of 100:1 Excelia to Credits.

Even now, as ridiculously powerful as he — and the training he put himself through — was, he couldn't even afford an additional Gacha roll every day. Even if he could, there wouldn't be any logic to wasting a resource that could directly make him stronger for a 99% chance to roll for something he'd never even use.

"Now arriving at UA Station," the train's electronic announcement system stated.

"Finally!" Katsumi said as she dragged Izuku out of the train, "Are you ready to murder this exam?" She asked, more than half of her attention focused solely on Izuku.

"As ready as I'll ever be," Izuku said as he relaxed, rather enjoying the way Katsumi pulled him along through their linked arms.

They walked the whole way to their assigned seats in UA's auditorium arm-in-arm. After a hero called Present Mic gave them an orientation for what they'd be put through throughout the day, the auditorium full of hero student prospects was emptied as each individual made their way to their assigned testing room.

From 8:00 A.M. until noon, the examinees were tested on all the educational knowledge they should have acquired through their schooling. They had five sections to the exam, Japanese Literature, English, Mathematics, Science, and a section dedicated to writing an essay.

Excluding the essay, Izuku barely ever stopped to think as his fully stocked mind palace effortlessly spat out the answers to any question he came across. Even the Literature and English portions that needed comprehension, the questions therefrom were processed in the time he spent marking down his answers.

The essay, however, required more "finesse" to properly answer the given prompt. Essentially, Izuku — along with all the other examinees — were asked to explain their motivations for becoming a hero.

The exam directions explicitly noted that the examinees should be entirely honest and give their genuine reasons, even if they weren't entirely noble. There were excerpts at the back of the packets given to write down each examinee's exam, which contained the names and unheroic motivations some of the current top hero alumni had given during their own exam.

Still, with Izuku's outright Intelligence and Wisdom Stats, his Analysis Ability, and the fact that he'd had almost his entire life to ponder the very question being asked… It didn't take him long to start drafting his essay.

He was struck with melancholy as the words that naturally flowed out from his pencil were not the hopeful, optimistic kind he'd once genuinely believed in. In all honesty, he was no longer interested into become a pro hero just to "save everyone he could with a smile on his face."

He clearly conveyed his initial inclinations in following after All Might as one of the millions the man had inspired. But, ever since that fateful day, when he accepted the Gamer System and the Main Quest that followed with it… After everything he'd experienced, everything he'd seen…

His own personal torment across the Doom World and Dungeon World. The hate people were capable of in the Broken World. The nature of a true power struggle and how a society led by the powerful would seemingly do anything to further their interests, in the Ninja World. And, even just how easily the very world could crumble due to the actions of a single unhinged, if ridiculously powerful, man in the Supernatural World…

As Izuku understood things now, no matter where you went, wherever there were good people trying to contribute and improve their societies, there would always be bad people who acted out to further their own interests. It wasn't exactly a black-or-white dichotomy, so much as every bad person could have initially been good but then turned bad due to circumstance or vice versa.

Whatever the case, all it took was a single bad apple to ruin the bunch, and like a doctor preventing a pandemic, Izuku now just wanted to stop the plague of villainy from spreading by stopping as many tragedies as he could.

His goal was no longer to save people but to stop villains; or anyone that could become one by association. Before, he was reactive, and now he wanted to be proactive.

Did his essay make it seem like he had a God complex?

Objectively, even Izuku would accept the criticism. But he knew better than to hope he'd grow powerful enough to stop every villain from committing every crime, everywhere at once. Even if he could eventually do that, if he managed to get strong enough to complete the Gamer System's Main Quest, he understood that doing so would eventually lead to the collapse of civilization after people internalized the fact that they no longer had free will.

All Izuku could hope for was to be strong enough to stop as many villains as he could and reinforce peace to a healthy medium. In knowing the evil that hid in every society's underbelly, Izuku just wanted there to be a respectable balance between criminals and civilians.

…

"So?" Katsumi asked as she set her tray of food down and sat across Izuku. "Do you think your bullshit powers are good enough to ace the first exams?" She grumbled.

"I mean, aside from the essays which are subjectively graded… Yeah," Izuku nonchalantly said before taking a bite from his own tray of food.

"Hmph," Katsumi snorted, "Must be nice being all-powerful."

"If it makes you feel better, I've technically almost died dozens of times just training to get this "all-powerful." I went insane and lost my original arm in Hell, got stabbed in the chest while resting in a Dungeon, fought against undead super ninjas, kaijus, and even the incarnation of an angel that was close enough to the Biblical God to be named."

"Yeah… I don't think I'd accept having to go through half those things to get even a tenth as strong as you are," Katsumi quietly said, apparently depressed after being reminded of the "bullshit" repercussions associated with Izuku's "bullshit" strength.

"Hey, cheer up," Izuku chuckled. "To me, it was all worth it."

"Weren't you the one who told me it was selfish to hurt myself in the process of getting stronger? Even before you accepted your weird power… Didn't you know you had people like me and Aunty Inko in your life who'd be devastated if you'd never managed to get back?" Katsumi asked as she set chopsticks, she was no longer in the mood to eat.

"I… wasn't in my right mind when I accepted my power. But, despite everything I had to face afterward, I still don't regret it," Izuku left unsaid the extent to how anguished he'd been by the end of that particular day. He'd already told Katsumi about it once and didn't see the need to remind her of what she perceived to be her biggest mistake once again.

"Excuse me, do you mind if I sit here?" A voice called towards Izuku and Katsumi, the only people sitting at their six-person table.

"No, go right ahead," Izuku said, smiling in greeting at the woman who had conveniently appeared just in time to end the relatively heavy conversation he'd been having with Katsumi.

"Thanks, ribbet," She all but confirmed she possessed some king of Frog Mutation Quirk. "I'm slightly worried about the practical exam. And, you guys?" She asked.

"I'm only worried about this guy, right here," Katsumi jabbed a finger into Izuku's chest, "breaking the score record so bad that even by getting in second place, I'll look like a joke."

"Er… You know I'd never do that right? I'm just going to go for a hundred points and let the others in my testing center at least have a chance…" Izuku lamely said.

"You're that confident in your skills? What kind of crazy Quirk are you working with?" The frog-woman asked.

"Draconification," Izuku said as he showed her with his arm. "It makes me faster, stronger, and more durable than a tank."

Katsumi turned to try and hide her scoffing. Izuku's comparison of his Quirk to a tank was so under-representative of its abilities, that she couldn't hold herself back from laughing. Just last week, she'd unloaded an explosion with the yield of a "small-scale" tactical nuke, and he barely even lost a dozen scales after the fact.

"Very cool," the frog woman simply said. "I wish I could just transform whenever I needed to. Having a Mutant-type Quirk that's passively active isn't really that useful in everyday life."

'Tell me about it,' Izuku commiserated with her through his lived experience with Exposed Nature.

"What about you? Are you confident in your chances of getting into the Hero Program?" The frog-woman asked Katsumi.

"Oh, I certainly won't be as merciful as Izuku, here. I'm going to make him regret not having tried harder when I absolutely destroy his hundred-point score," Katsumi snorted.

"Explosions," Izuku answered the question the frog-woman was about to ask. "She's literally going to blow up all the enemy robots in her way."

"Wow, ribbet. I'm not so sure about my chances now, knowing there are monsters like you guys here," the frog-woman said.

"I wouldn't worry too much about it," Izuku replied as he finished the last of the food on his tray.

"I like to think of myself as an outlier and Katsumi has been training all her life to master her naturally destructive Quirk. I can't say for sure how you'll fare, but I wouldn't get my hopes up when there are forty total seats available for the Premier Hero Program. Even if you don't make it in through that, there's still the General Hero Program which will give you ample opportunity to work your way up into the Premier Class or graduate with a Hero License regardless."

"The Practical Heroics Exam will now start bussing examinees to their respective testing city centers. Please begin making your way to the busses at this time." UA's Public Announcement System announced.

"Good luck," Izuku said as he took off to discard his tray and get bussed to his assigned testing city center: City B.

He was silent throughout the entire way there, from the moment he left the two women he'd been eating with, until the moment the last of the examinees were dropped off at the mock city. Even after he was left to wait before the gates would open once the exam started, he quietly deliberated over what he'd actually do when the time came.

'Even near the gates, within my maximum Aura Sensing range of a few hundred meters, I can sense dozens of mock villain robots waiting on standby. It makes sense for there to be a few thousand, given half will probably never even be involved in a fight and the other half will be managed by the hundreds of people competing to get in.'

'A hundred points seems like it'll be a respectable score, so I'll stick to that. I'll even make it somewhat of a challenge by trying to minimize the amount of collateral created by my battles. But, what should I do after? Just stand back and wait for the exam to end? No… I should check out the other examinees and see what kind of Quirks the people who think they're good enough to get into UA have,' he thought.

"Go!" Present Mic's voice reverberated across all seven mock cities, carrying over with the sheer power of his Quirk.

Izuku, with his hypersonic reaction time and processing speed, understood immediately that the exam had begun and was the first examinee to run into a mock city mere milliseconds later. He Draconified his limbs if only to keep up the illusion that his ungodly strength was borne of his Quirk, and immediately began dismantling all the robots he came across.

Minimal collateral, Izuku soon found was much harder to achieve given he was up against robots that were programmed to attack with wanton abandon.

The one-pointer robots had guns that peppered their targets with rubber nonlethal bullets and with their less-than-stellar aim, they usually also shot down windows and left marks of property damage everywhere.

The two-pointers made up what they lacked in the guns of their one-pointer counterparts, with scorpion tails and reinforced armor which cracked the ground and blew up chucks of any walls their missed attacks landed on.

Worst of all, the three-pointers, just by virtue of existing cracked the ground wherever they walked due to their sheer weight and were capable of even more damage as they were each outfitted with hundreds of missile-like projectiles that made the one-pointer's rubber bullets look pitiful in comparison.

It was a foregone conclusion that there'd be marks left from his battles against the robots, but Izuku at least tried to keep the damage down as he weaved through a slew of robots, only stopping to make sure the backlash of his attacks did cause collateral as well. He couldn't even afford to use the most watered-down versions of his long-range attacks as the compositions of even the toughest three-pointer didn't look like it was sturdy enough to not get blown to pieces.

'Oh well… Maybe it's for the best if I keep as many of my abilities a secret for as long as possible. I'm pretty sure I can get away with making many of my techniques seem like a derivative ability of being able to turn into a dragon. But, it'll probably not go over well if I start teleporting all over the place or suddenly vanish with the complete suppression of my presence,' Izuku thought as he finished destroying the last two-pointer he needed to get a perfectly even hundred for his score.

With his original goal for the exam complete, Izuku began surveying the competition from the rooftops of the mock city. He jumped from roof to roof in search of some interesting Quirks or at least the creative application of such Quirks, but most of what he saw left him disillusioned.

Months of training with Katsumi had skewed his perception of what to expect from the people that would be taking the exam when, in reality, anyone — even him, when he was Quirkless — could apply to take the exam.

Sure, perhaps the majority of the people he watched at least made an attempt at preparing for the practical exam. But statistically speaking, less than one in ten Quirks was even useful for combat. Of the people who did have hero-level Quirk that could be useful for the practical, perhaps another one in ten trained as much as Katsumi had before she been inducted into Izuku's world of insanity.

Everyone else…

Izuku cringed as he watched examinees that were clearly unfit, arrogant, and or overconfident.

…Everyone else was an utter disappointment.

He sighed as he broke his own resolution to keep his Abilities a secret to save a purple-haired man from getting attacked by a group of robots. Even the most restricted use of Argent Bullet left the robots he'd targeted with missing robotic limbs and their weapons completely destroyed; the ground around them, in a similar state of destruction.

More than a few times, he had to pull off the same maneuver to help his peers when he saw they were about to be overwhelmed by the mock villain robots. The realization that he could have been him like them had he dared to attempt to take this practical when he remained Quirkless, untrained, and utterly helpless… It left him feeling hollow.

It was pathetic, unsightly, and even disgusting to the man he'd turned into. Not that he could have been weak, but the fact that he had chosen to remain as weak for as long as he had.

To think that it took an otherworldly force to rope him into their Game, for him to even start training… That was worthy of his contempt, now more than ever.