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Chapter 22: Chapter #22 | Necessary Subterfuge

Chapter Text

The world bathed in the sounds of screeching metal as the Zero Pointer was torn apart from the inside out. Impact force caused the metal to shear apart as it traveled upwards and internal systems overloaded and tore themselves free. Any examinee that could see the gigantic robot could do nothing but stare as plumes of orange crimson smoke were discharged in a series of cascading system failures.

Uraraka still had her eyes closed and her ears plugged, but even then she could hear the roar of explosions and see the flashes of light. The atmosphere changed, and she knew she was safe, that somehow the guy from before had dealt with the massive robot. She cracked one eye a bit to see what was going on, sue her, she was curious, and was blown away by what she saw.

She could see the man's back from where he stood, broad and strong, coiled with tension and pain. He breathed heavily, releasing what looked like steam from his mouth, much like the fog of a winter morning. His arm hung limply at his side and blood dripped from his knuckles where the skin had been torn apart. His shirt was gone, revealing his holster and revolver, fitted over the tight black undersuit that was being worn underneath. Her eyes traced up his injured arm. The undersuit had been shredded and hung in strips around his muscles. Oh wow, those muscles. Ochako could feel her eyes being dragged almost against her will across his body.

She couldn't help but wince when he simply reached over and grabbed his clearly dislocated arm at its wrist before pulling it forward and straight in front of him. Ochako unplugged her ears just in time to hear him hiss as the ball of his arm bone clicked back into its socket.

Izuku took a deep breath before putting on a careful smile and turning back to the girl still trapped under a pile of rubble. "That was rather scary, wasn't it? Let's do our best to get you out of there." Izuku reached down, carefully picking the pieces of rubble off the girl and tossing them to the side.

The siren indicating the end of the exam rang out through the arena, and Uraraka watched as the man's eyes flicked upwards towards the sound for the briefest of moments before he returned to his task. As the last of the rubble came off her back, she tried to move, only to be met with the man's hand keeping her in place. "Woah there. Don't move yet. We don't know what kind of damage that debris landing on you might have done. Let me check you over before we move you. My name is Midoriya Izuku, yours?"

Ochako couldn't help but blush slightly and stutter out a response. "I-I'm Uraraka Ochako. T-Thank you for saving me." Midoriya had been carefully examining her for injuries and, at this, rocked back on the heels of his feet.

"Don't mention it. What kind of a person would I be if I didn't give someone help when they needed it? By the looks of things, you got lucky. No spinal injuries or lacerations. You did break your leg and you'll be sore, but that isn't anything the school nurse can't handle." Reaching out carefully, Midoriya picked Uraraka up and, despite her sputtering, began to carry her back towards the entrance where he knew Ms. Shuzenji would be waiting to tend to the plethora of injuries that occurred during the exam.

Ochako had prepared herself for a lot of things that day. Failure, success, giant killer robots, and even getting herself seriously hurt trying to get into the hero course. What she had not prepared herself for was to be carried in the arms of a six-foot man. Much less a man that had the physique of a greek god. Uraraka couldn't help her face when it heated up, and she certainly wouldn't have come out of her mental spiral if it weren't for Midoriya suddenly stopping and sighing.

When she looked around, confused, Uraraka found one very tired looking purple-haired body with Midoriya's rifle on one shoulder and the other hanging limply, much like Midoriya's had been before he resocketed it. Izuku chuckled darkly, the rumble of his chest transmitting to his companion. "You tried to shoot it, didn't you?"

"What the hell else was I supposed to do? You suddenly disappeared on me." The purple boy glared at Midoriya while Midoriya glared back at him. Uraraka felt rather awkward being in the middle of this until both boys started laughing all of a sudden.

"Yeah, yeah, you're alright. Let's get you to Recovery Girl as well, shall we?" The walk was relatively short with the company. She learned the purple boy was one Shinso Hitoshi and once you got him talking was a pretty funny guy. Evidently, they weren't the only ones Midoriya had saved, because the moment they reached the medical tent, Recovery Girl had spotted them and started yelling at and beating Midoriya with her cane. Ochaco was doing her best to not laugh, resulting in giggles slipping out, and even Shinso was struggling to choke down his snorts.

"Do you have any idea how many students you bruised the hell out of! Stop! Making! More! Work! For! Me!" Each word was accentuated with a smack of the small women's cane, and Izuku could do nothing more than try to shield his face as the blows rained down on him. "GAH. Just get out. Out! I will take care of your friends here. Nedzu probably wants to see you anyway, and I suspect after that showing, you're wanting to speak with him. He's in the observation room with the other professors."

Izuku's eyes narrowed and everyone shivered. "Oh yes. Thank you, Ms. Shuzenji. I do believe I'll go do that now." Midoriya turned as if to leave and Uraraka called for him, remembering something. "Oh, wait! We should all exchange numbers first. That way we can talk." Shinso gave her a strange look before glancing at Izuku and shrugging. Can't be worse than when my classmates got my number.

"Sorry guys, I've not got my phone on me right now, but here." Reaching into one of his pockets, Midoriya quickly produced two small business cards. "Stop by sometime. We'd love the company." Midoriya quickly exited the medical tent while Ochako gave him a strange look. Wasn't his fist torn up?

…

The robot on-screen exploded as it was ripped apart from the force imparted upon it. The teachers watching had completely forgotten to observe the other exam sites, because all of their eyes were glued to the sight of Midoriya snarling and punching the Zero Pointer. Nedzu was the first to snap out of his shock, although he was still shaken from what he had just witnessed. "I, ah, may have underestimated how dangerous young Midoriya is."

Everyone in the room except for All Might turned to give their president the most deadpan stare they could before the silence shattered into a dozen voices yelling a variety of things. All Might was staring at the screen with a massive smile, and Nedzu made a note to keep an eye on him. Sekijiro was the first to speak up after Nedzu had regained control of the room.

"He lied. No way in hell that was the work of someone who is quirkless." Much of the room agreed with him, while several others shook their heads. Both Midnight and Ectoplasm agreed with Kan, while Snipe sat very still.

"Ah had to run him through a full check fur his carry license. He was diagnosed quirkless at age four when it didn't come in, was tested for ah quirk when he was put into ah coma, and recently had it redone to give the disbelief in the media some closure after the slime villain incident. He's quirkless."

"That isn't possible though" Kayama chimed in now with a serious face. "Okay, sure, with the proper training and experience someone, even someone quirkless, could move like how he moved. Fight like how he fought. But he's only eighteen! Where the hell would he get that level of training or experience? That not even taking into consideration that he punched a building-sized robot to pieces in one shot."

"I don't particularly care either way." Everyone turned to find Maijima nursing a bottle of what looked suspiciously like whiskey. Where the hell had he pulled that from?! "Do you know how much repair work I have to do now?! God damn it all…"

Hound Dog rumbled from where he was sitting and watching the examinees filter out of the testing zones. "As much as I hate to agree, it doesn't really matter at the moment if he is or is not quirkless. What matters is that we have a student we need to keep an eye on. We don't know what he's capable of or how he's gotten like that. Besides that, we need to shelve this conversation. He's coming our way and he looks pissed."

…

Izuku was indeed pissed, and when he literally kicked the steel door into the observation room off its hinges, Nedzu couldn't help but scream in the back of his mind. A good number of the professors had filed out of the room, leaving the chimera with Aizawa and Snipe, both of whom had stayed under the pretext of needing to speak with the boy for some reason or another.

Izuku's eyes glowed an unearthly green, and Nedzu shuddered when he noticed the boy's pupils were shifting into slits. His face was twisted now in a grimace, and when he spoke, it came out a growl. "You have thirty seconds to explain what the fuck that was. You want to test me? Push me? Almost kill me? Fine. I signed up for your patent brand of crazy. Those other examinees didn't. You came entirely too close to killing them with your bullshit."

Nedzu could do nothing to refute the statements, as much as he would like to. "It was a mistake. A rather egregious mistake, but a mistake all the same. The Zero Pointer was never intended to have its restrictions rescinded, and we are truly sorry for any trouble it may have caused you during the exam."

Izuku could feel his eye twitch at the canned response. "Oh, was it a mistake? Then I guess I'll have to go have a long conversation with Powerloader regarding his programming of the bots then, won't I?" Nedzu paled underneath his fur and made a mental note to send Maijima both a warning and a bonus for dealing with what he'd brought down on him. "And you're apologizing to me? The person you need to be apologizing to is the one in the medical tent right now who got her leg broken and very nearly got her gods damned spine broken because of your mistake."

Nedzu winced as he realized his wording hadn't been great there. "Alright, your point is made. That was a poor choice of words. What do you want to keep this quiet, Midoriya?" Aizawa's eyes went wide and even Snipe turned his mask-covered face to stare at their president. He was going to try to sweep this under the rug?

Midoriya smiled a cold smile and took a seat now before turning to them and pinning them in place. "In this case, you'll be allowing Miss Uraraka into the hero course. You did, after all, ruin her chances in the exam. You will also be grading Mr. Shinso fairly, yes? No taking points off for me technically disabling the robots first."

The teachers waited for more demands to come, and when none came, they were surprised. Hesitantly, Nedzu spoke now. "Will that be everything, Midoriya?"

"I do believe that is everything I'm asking for, unless, of course, you can think of something I missed? I also believe that I passed your exam, am I wrong?"

Slowly, Nedzu nodded, wary of whatever he wasn't quite catching. "I can accept those conditions. You did indeed pass. You can begin moving into the hero dorms in a week when we send out the acceptance letters." Izuku quirked his brow, and Nedzu explained his question, already knowing what it was even before he was finished. "All hero course students are required to live on campus. For the students in the hero course, this is more of a four-year bootcamp than it is a college."

Izuku nodded his head. He understood full well and could appreciate that this wasn't some game to them. "Alright. Snipe, may I have my gear back?" Hesitantly, Snipe pulled Izuku's sidearms out of his belts and handed them over to Midoriya, surprised when the young man handed him his revolver.

Izuku shrugged, "I don't need it. It's technically not legal, as it has no serial numbers, and I figure you may as well put it in the armory. It's an old model, but a sidearm is a sidearm. Could be useful for starting your third years' firearm training." Snipe would have loved to take the plasma rifle, as well, if only to disassemble it and find out how it worked, but he had a feeling pushing that right now would be a bad idea.

…

Izuku had made it most of the way to the university gates when Aizawa caught up with him. "Problem child." Izuku turned and raised his eyebrows, snorting at the nickname.

"I'm hardly a child, sir."

"Yes, well you're all children to the professors here, and until you've got your license, it'll stay that way. I've not seen the president squirm like that before. You could have gotten more out of him, and if I know that, then you know that. Why didn't you?"

Midoriya began to shrug when he stopped halfway through the movement and sighed. "The best deals are the ones where both sides walk away feeling like they screwed the other. Not that I wasn't pissed, mind you. I still am. But I got what I wanted from it, and anything else would have just been overkill. Especially when I plan on attending the institution. I'm guessing you didn't just catch up to me to ask that though?"

Aizawa shook his head. "No, I didn't. At the start of every year, I play a little game with the students. I need to know how capable they are and their potential. As you apparently know, I've expelled plenty and have no qualms with doing it day one." Izuku snorted because of the understatement. There was a reason there was no class 2-A currently. "Yes, well. Considering how you react to these things, you'd just ruin my entrance to the class. So rather than have that occur, how would you like to play a little game with me?"

Izuku smiled now, an excited, sharp smile that Aizawa returned with his tired bloodshot eyes. He purred out his words now. "Oh sir, you do really know how to cheer a problem child up. I have the perfect idea, too."

…

Yaoyorozu was excited and extremely nervous. She had put so much effort into memorizing everything from atomic structures to other countries' histories. She had even managed to get through the recommendation exam, much to her surprise. She had practically been certain that she was going to fail and have to take the normal entrance exam. Nervously, she pushed through the main doors of the dormitory. She'd never stayed with other people before. Would they like her? Was she good enough to be here?

Momo shook her head. She'd gotten through the test, hadn't she? Maybe six steps in the door with her suitcase, she had tripped over the entry rug. Oh well, I guess that's a sign, isn't it? Momo braced herself for the impact of hardwood floors that never came. "A-Are you okay, ma'am?"

Her eyes snapped open, and it took her a moment to realize that she was being held up by a pair of very masculine arms. Midoriya?! Looking up as she regained her footing, she was met by a well-built man that most certainly wasn't Izuku. He was shorter, and his facial features plumper, without the stress lines that had already begun to ingrain themselves into Midoriya's face, despite his age. His eyes and hair were a shade of silver she'd only seen on her kitchen utensils, while black streaked through his hair, breaking it up. Why am I thinking about Mr. Midoriya at a time like this?

"I-I'm rather sorry for grabbing you l-like that. I just didn't want you to hityourheadoranything." Momo stared for a long moment as the young man descended into a panicked storm of words before she rapidly waved it off.

"No, no, I should be thanking you. It was a massive help, and you saved me what could have been a major injury. So thank you for that. Is anyone else here?"

The young man couldn't help but blush, and he shook his head. "N-No, we're the o-only ones here right now. I-I'm sure that plenty of people will s-start showing up by the e-end of the day though! W-We all have to be here before sundown o-or we forfeit our s-spot in the hero course."

Momo couldn't help but smile at the young man who barely seemed to be keeping himself from descending into a nervous wreck. "Well, I'll be sure to settle in before everyone gets here then, so I can greet everyone as they get here. I'm Yaoyorozu Momo, and you are?" She reached out to shake his hand and was surprised when he stared at her in awe for a moment.

"A-As in the daughter of the Yaoyorozu Industries? I-It's suchanhonortomeet-" Momo's laugh cut him off as he realized what he was doing again, and she watched as a blush spread across his face. "S-Sorry" he took her hand in his and gave her a shaky smile "I-I'm Iwasaki Hiroki! I look forward to working with y-you!"