Chapter 9: The Starting Line

Phase Shift was possibly one of the best abilities I could have feasibly gotten.

It instantly made up for my lack of offensive AND defensive capabilities. The only problem was that it was rather energy-demanding so I probably won't be able to run it with Cellular Overdrive as managing that kind of energy would be bothersome to say the least.

I needed to test the proper parameters of it first however, I may have read the Western comic it was featured in but I don't have perfect memory and I don't think the power translates one to one across universes.

"Hey Toga-chan, want to help me test my new ability together?" Hearing me address her Toga immediately perked up.

"Sure~! Where are we going?" She replied instantly, just eager to spend time with me I suppose.

"Well, I was thinking maybe you might know some secluded place I could test my ability at without getting in trouble with the law?" Hearing my words Toga fell into thought as she cutely placed a finger on her lips before slamming a fist down on her palm as she got an idea.

"Oh yeah, I know a place! Let's go, follow me Hakari-kun!"

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"Here! We can practice all we want! No one ever comes here, I usually use it to practice parkour and knife throwing!" Toga spread her arms to present her hideout, it was an abandoned construction site a little ways away from Musutafu, I could see a tree with numerous indents from what I assume was Toga's British skill practice.

It was basically perfect for what I wanted to do.

"Alright then, Toga-chan, hit me as hard as you can." Hearing my words Toga tilted her head cutely like a cat.

"Why? Are you sure?" I nodded "Well, okay then" I held my arms in front of me as Toga reared her arm back and punched while bending her waist to generate more power.

*Thud!*

Ow.

Toga was deceptively strong as I felt like my arms were hit by a sledgehammer. That was definitely bruising.

I shook my arms like I was trying to shake the pain away. "Okay, now then, I will activate my ability, hit me again" Toga nodded as I activated Phase Shift.

'Defensive Form'

I felt my body get heavier and sturdier as my eyes glowed yellow and my body up to my face turned a dark amber-ish grey.

"Woah! Is that your new ability? So cool! Alright, brace yourself." Toga said excitedly, rearing up another punch and swinging but this time.

"Owie, that hurt." Toga said wincing as she rubbed her knuckle while I sported a stupid grin.

I barely felt that. It was like a child was punching me instead.

"Alright, my defensive form looks formidable. Then what about my offensive form?" I shifted to offensive form as the grey retracted and instead, I gained an amber-ish hue around my body, I felt way lighter and more powerful than usual.

"Umm, Hakari-kun, I am all about helping you and all but I don't wanna get hit by that." I chuckled at Toga's apprehension. I wouldn't either.

"Don't worry, I will be testing this out differently" I already knew my strength and speed, I just needed to see how much they changed.

Taking a deep breath I felt a pull as I thought about moving as fast as I could toward the tree near us and moved.

*Whoosh!* "Whoa!' Toga yelped the world around me blurred before in a single moment I was before the tree, that speed was insane, I could use absurd speeds for close distances almost like a dash from a video game. Consumes a lot of energy though.

Now for the real test, I wound up an arm and threw the strongest punch I could toward the tree.

*Bam!* *Crunch!*

The outer bark of the tree shattered to splinters as the entire tree bent like it was hit by a car. My hand stung a bit but this was massive, I nearly ripped through an entire tree with a single punch.

If I turned up the amperage on my ability even more I could probably put in more hurt but I valued reliability and consistency over wasting excess energy to hit only slightly harder.

After I ran some more tests, such as a long sprint. While it was slower than my 'dash' it was still around 190kmh(120mph) which was massive considering I was physically weak and my meagre energy reserves.

I could hold either Offense or Defense Form for 7 minutes of active use or by my estimate an hour of passive use by just having it on, thankfully my energy was improving steadily. I just wish I had a stat sheet to check.

Then, it was time to spar with Toga, I was experienced in beating people but not really drawn out fights or fights with people with powers so having a peer I could spar with while I practiced my powers really helped.

Sure, my wounds really bothered me since they weren't really healed but they had no impact on me so they may as well not exist. Battle Continuation was broken, as long as the wound wasn't lethal or debilitating I could power through it like it wasn't even there.

Also, in a rematch without me using Phase Shift Toga completely washed me.

Obviously, I had the upper hand in hand to hand but in no holds barred she has insane skills with her knife(plastic stand-in) and her basic stats are a touch above mine.

And well, with Phase Shift she couldn't do anything to me. With Offensive Form I could outpace and overpower her and if I used Cellular Overdrive I could probably slap her head off her shoulder in one swift motion.

When I used defensive form the threat of her even her real knives was about as much as plastic ones. I don't think she could kill me even if she tried if I protected my face, my eyes were not covered by my durable skin. I am not exactly as confident against bullets but I am sure that my skin is tougher than bulletproof vests.

And as I was practicing my abilities I got a new notification that gave me a rush of excitement.

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You have acquired 5 unique abilities! +1 Active Ability Slot

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A simple sentence that sent waves of excitement down my spine. A quick check showed that I indeed had gained another ability slot. Although less punctual than I would expect from an otherworldly gacha I shall take this boon without complaint.

A new ability slot opened a lot of new avenues for experimentation, or it would have if any of my abilities had synergies. Technically Offensive Form and Momentum did but it would just be wasting a lot of energy to turn me into a discount speedster who can't make precise turns and needs a decently long straight path for building momentum.

Regardless, things were looking up for once.

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Days passed by fairly quickly as both Toga and I prepared for UA, thankfully for once I was lucky enough that Toga was early enough into her career that it was impossible to trace her to any of her crimes, and the only person who actually knew her real appearance was Giran who helped her forge some of the other certificates she needed to get into UA due to her troubled past.

Her being a doppelganger really helped.

I spent most of the days either practising my abilities or focusing on improving my energy cap while also helping tutor Toga. While I certainly didn't act like it and despite my line of work I was ranked top 100 nationally in terms of academics and even won some competitions in my first year of high school before I got into a life of crime.

Coincidentally that was the most miserable year of my life so...

Anyway, I did not fear a high school entrance exam was the point the only thing different about this world was the history subject and every other subject was relatively unchanged.

Then slowly the days crept by until it was finally the big day, the entrance exam.

Toga and I walked toward the UA high school while holding hands together at her request, although we agreed to keep our relationship private I let her since it seemed to make her happy and I could easily play it off. Besides, sue me, I like spoiling my little blood gremlin.

And man was the high school large, just the campus alone was bigger than some universities and the giant main building was hilariously in the shape of an H, as in Hero.

As we got closer Toga had to regretfully let go of my hand. There were tons of people walking alongside us,

"Hey hey, Hakari-kun, think I'll do well?" She asked tugging on my sleeve as I smiled back at her.

"Don't worry, you'll do amazing, I don't think there is a real possibility of you failing this. Trust me if you can whoop my butt you can easily whoop this exam so have some faith in yourself ok?" Hearing my Toga smiled and nodded.

"Un!" Dos? Oh, wait, right, anime girls do sometimes agree like that.

Alright, UA here we come!

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Well, the written exam went somewhat well I would say.

It was boring as all hell but at the same time, it was pretty darn easy. As expected really, I was entering high school again, I could probably solve the exam in half the time and still get near perfect. Only the history section fucked me up since I sure as hell wasn't spending time studying this world's newer history and I would be dammed if I remembered much from og history.

After the boring exam, we were put into the exam orientation auditorium as Present Mic explained the exam to us. Honestly, he was loud but had charisma as he explained the exam in an easy-to-understand way, I only paid attention to the most important parts though.

I was pretty damn tired, both because I was still severely wounded as ever and because I was preserving my energy for the exam by getting some shuteye, I knew thanks to Battle Continuation(God bless this beautiful perk) that it would be a non-factor during the fight but it didn't change how scuffed I was feeling.

But to summarize his words, find and eliminate the robot villains and avoid the big guy number 0 because he is just not worth it.

As I was half zoning out just as I remembered the engine boy started spouting off about how UA apparently made a misprint or something and that he was very disappointed or something. In short, some major stuck-up snobby shit probably.

I also heard him drilling Deku about muttering too much and not taking things seriously, I forgot how much of an asshole he was before the exam.

I just closed my eyes and slunk further into my seat when apparently it was now my turn to catch a stray.

His finger suddenly pointed his finger toward me.

"And you! If you are going to be sleeping do it at home! If you won't take this exam seriously you are better off leaving immediately."

Huh? What the fuck was this bastard spouting out? Does he want to lose mobility in his legs or something?

I settled my glare on him after he disturbed my nap.

"Huh? Maybe you should be the one taking this seriously, start by taking out that huge stick out of your ass, it's going to be pretty hard to fight with it so deep inside you." The one thing you don't do to a man is interrupting a man by placing the spotlight on him. I have permanently crippled people for far less.

*Snicker!* I heard some people snickering but I didn't care. If you can't be bothered to remember someone's name then don't bother concerning yourself with their opinion.

I saw Engine Boy get taken aback as he fixed his glasses. Go sit your mechanical ass down and drink some petrol diesel boy.

"I can assure you I have no-!" He was cut off by Present Mic intervening.

"HEY HEY! LETS KEEP IT PG HERE ALRIGHT EVERYONE!?" Damn, he was loud. At least he made the dastardly diesel drinker go back into his seat.

And I went back to my rest, slightly more agitated than before. But it was fine.

At least I would get to vent out all of my frustrations on those faux villains in the actual fun part of the entrance exam.

A smirk found itself on my lips.

I can't wait.

A/N: Hakari finally earns his second badge- Ability Slot, he earned his second ability slot. And when he actually gets abilities that work in tandem it will be very useful. And Phase Shift by itself has already multiplied his power level by a lot thanks to living up to its name of being an Elite level ability.

As one might imagine, the exam won't be a challenge to Hakari due to how hard he counters everything inside of it. Just how badly he will mess up the exam still remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure. He will get some juicy rolls out of it.

Also poor Hakari, always catching strays.

What did you guys think about this chapter? I would love to know, comments help motivate me to write more, so they are always welcome.