6 Entrance Exam (1/2)

(Timeskip 1 month, day of practical exams)

"My boy is going to U.A., your mom is so, so proud of you!" My mom babbled while holding me in a tight hug, her tears flowing out non-stop.

"Mom, stop..." I muttered in embarrassment. Thankfully we were only right outside our home rather than in front of U.A. Otherwise, I would have been too embarrassed to even show my face inside.

My dad came to us and put a hand on my shoulder, "Listen, Yasu-chan. No matter how you do, just remember, we-we'll al-always be p-proud *hic* of you."

Though he started out strong, he started choking and crying in the middle of the sentence.

I rolled my eyes but still smiled, "Oh god, you guys are so embarrassing. I have to go, or I will be late, since mom doesn't let me just fly over."

Mom let go of me and planted a wet kiss on my cheek, "Good luck, Yasu-kun! You can do it! Fighting!"

I rubbed it off hurriedly, embarrassed by her actions, "Yeah, I got it already! Sheesh. I'm going. Bye mom, bye dad!"

"B-bye, Y-Yasu-chan, good luck!" Dad tearfully blubbered out as I ran off to catch the train.

It did take awhile for me to reach U.A. High School since I lived in the suburbs of Musutafu City that was quite a distance from the school. It was at the top of a forested hill overlooking Musutafu City, but because people often went back and forth to the school, its transport infrastructure was more robust than one would think.

When I alighted the bus, I saw many other U.A. hopefuls just like me headed towards the school. Since U.A. had the practical portions of the entrance exams for all its applicants on the same day, it was unsurprisingly crowded.

Smiling to myself at the energetic atmosphere, I made my way through the tall, overarching gate that had the signboard with the message 'U.A. High School Entrance Examination Site' written on it.

After awhile, I walked into the building proper and was directed my signs leading to the school's auditorium. There, I took a seat somewhere in the middle and waited for the practical exam to start.

The auditorium was noisy, expectedly so since everyone here was buzzing with nerves, excitement and a vibrant energy that got me energized too.

My thoughts were cut short by a sudden loud shout coming from stage, "Welcome to today's live performance!! Everybody say hey!!"

The gathered students stared back in silence, unsure of what to make of the man's sudden entrance.

'That's... the Voice Hero: Present Mic.' I realized when I saw the man with a stereo system around his neck as well as the distinctively garish mohawk he had.

"I'm here to present the guidelines of your practical test!! Are you ready!? YEAHHHH!" He screamed, or maybe that was just his his regular conversational volume, only to be met with silence once more.

"This is how the test will go, my listeners!!" The screen behind Present Mic turned on, showing a diagram with six boxes labelled A, B, C, D, E and F. "You'll be experiencing ten-minute-long 'mock cityscape maneuvers'!! Bring along whatever you want!! After this presentation, you'll each head to your assigned testing location!"

"Each site is filled with three kinds of faux villains!! Points are awarded for defeating each according to their respective difficulty levels!!" He continued explaining, "Use your quirks to disable these faux villains and earn points!! That's your goal, listeners!! Of course, playing the antihero and attacking other examinees is prohibited!!"

The handout that had been distributed when we arrived in the auditorium had already detailed all these. Present Mic was just reiterating the rules for those who hadn't read it, I assumed.

"May I ask a question?" Someone suddenly asked, raising his hand standing up.

"There appears to be no fewer than four varieties of faux villains on these handout! Such a blatant error, if it is one, is highly unbecoming of U.A., Japan's top Academy! We're all here today in hopes of being molded into model heroes!"

'That was something I had obviously noticed as well, but I was just waiting for Present Mic to finish his explanation. Seriously, this guy is so impatient.' I thought to myself.

"And, you, with the curly hair!" He suddenly pointed at another student, glaring at him, "You've been muttering this whole time... it's distracting! If this is some sort of game to you, then please leave immediately!"

'Not just impatient, rude too. Geez, people are nervous, cut them some slack won't you?'

"Alright, alright. Examinee 7111, nice catch! But the fourth faux villain variety gets you zero points!! It's more of an obstacle!! Think of it as a gimmick, that will rampage around in close quarters that is to be avoided rather than to be confronted!!"

The student who had asked the question sat down, satisfied with the answer, "So it's just a gimmick to be avoided. Got it. Thank you, sir. I apologize for my rude interruption!"

I quirked an eyebrow, at least he is somewhat self-aware huh?

"That's all from me!! I'll leave my listeners with our school motto!! PLUS ULTRA!! Good luck, everyone!!"

With that, the screen behind him started listing out which testing locations the examinees were assigned to. I spotted my examinee number, 6969 assigned to testing location C. I made my way there with the others who were also assigned to testing location C.

There were a couple hundred of us, which made me wonder just how they were going to test all of us together until I entered the testing location - a gigantic area filled with urban structures that looked like a replica of the actual Musutafu City.

"...huge." I remarked, looking at the walls that surrounded the area, stretching from end to end miles long.

The gathered students were buzzing with nervous energy, some of them stretching and warming up their bodies while others calmly looked on, waiting for a signal to begin. Which came without warning.

"...AND BEGIN!"

"Huh?" People started looking around, thinking if the announcer had made a mistake or they had misheard something.

"What's wrong!? The test's started!! Run!! Run!!"

With that last word, the dam was broken and people started rushing into the testing area, swarming like ants.

I cracked my neck and smiled. My objective here was obvious - to show off as much as I could and grab the attention of the pro-heroes and teachers who were undoubtedly watching us. This was also a great opportunity for me to see what I was really capable of. It has been a long time since I tested myself. What better way than a test that tallied points?

My hero career takes its first steps today!

Unlike the rest of the U.A. applicants who were running around mindlessly, I released my psychic energy and lifted my body into the air.

"W-woah, that guy is flying! …That's cool." I heard someone comment but I ignored it.

I levitated myself high up in to the air and looked down at the city scape below me, seeing some explosions here and there. It seemed like the fights had already begun.

Thinking that I couldn't fall behind, I spread out my psychic sense to the ground below me. With a range of roughly 1 kilometre in diameter, my psychic sense could roughly cover half of the entire testing area.

I ignored other unnecessary stimuli and focused on identifying the faux villain robots. This was a measure I had figured out in order for me to process as much information from my psychic sense as I could. Rather than taking in every single bit of data, I could filter my 'search results' and focus on just the things I were looking for. This way, I could save my brain unnecessary headaches while making full use of my psychic sense's wide range.

I reached down with a hand and smiled.

"I am here U.A. Look at me!" I declared out loud, hoping they would not miss what I was about to do.

Gathering my psychic energy and directing my willpower to form the image visualized in my head, I pulled my hand up as though lifting a heavy weight with my arm.

Instantly, several dozen faux villain robots that had been scattered throughout a quarter of the city froze and began floating up in to the air.

"H-huh, what's going on? Can the faux villains fly?" I heard a particularly loud examinee shout.

Nope, I'm the one who can.

The faux villains was forcefully levitated twenty or so feet up in the air by my psychic energy, several dozens of them in fact.

"Crush." With my command given, the several dozen faux villains were crumpled up as though being crushed by an invisible force. Their metal shells caved in, creaking in resistance before they were all squashed. The robots exploded in mid-air, but the explosions were contained by my psychic energy.

"WHAT THE FU-" I heard a scream from below, followed by the disbelieving cries of exclamation that echoed throughout the cityscape.

"T-that guy! It's that guy!" One of them pointed at me, calmly floating in mid-air and having just accumulated roughly a hundred points in a single instant.

Although I looked calm, my flight actually wavered for a moment.

'Wew, that was actually harder than I thought it would be. Lifting all those robots up wasn't an issue, but simultaneously applying my psychic energy to destroy them all at once was rather draining... but still, it looked cool though.'

With over a hundred points earned, I decided that I didn't need to continue hunting down faux villains after that. Since it would be too unfair if I took away the points of the other examinees in this manner. With my previous action, I should have sufficiently impressed the pro-heroes and U.A. teachers that were watching.

There was still 9 minutes remaining in the test, so I decided to spend the remainder of the time to help the other examinees with my psychokinesis. I won't help them disable the faux villains, but saving anyone who was in trouble would be the right thing to do.

-----Underground Observation Room------

"Who in the world is that kid!? Did he just- there's no way right, am I being punked!?" Vlad King shouted incredulously at the monitoring screen.

In the Observation Room that had a hundred different screens displaying the camera feed from a hundred different cameras placed in the testing venues, there was only one that everyone in the room was currently watching.

Nezu, the principal of U.A. High School scrunched up his tiny, white forehead in concentration before making an 'Aha!' face. "Oh, I know who he is."

Vlad King turned to him, "You know him!?"

"Yep, I almost forgot about that boy. I received a report about him 10 years ago from the Quirk Assessment Center. They told me about this boy, Kurogami Yasuo, who had one of the strongest quirks they had ever witnessed. They said to keep an eye on him because in 10 years he was definitely going to be coming to U.A. as the most eye-catching examinee. I guess they were right." Nezu elaborated.

"They were right about the eye-catching part. Look at him go, holy crap." Midnight remarked, her eyes hardly leaving the screen.

On the monitor, Yasuo was now seen zipping through the testing location, occasionally using his Psychokinesis to stop a robot who was going to land an attack on an examinee or lift up rubble from someone trapped underneath.

"Just what is his quirk exactly?" Vlad King asked.

"It's actually a really common quirk." Nezu responded.

"You call that common?" Midnight commented, unconvinced.

"Yep. It's just psychokinesis.... the strongest psychokinesis the world has ever recorded." The U.A. principal explained, calmly sipping his tea from the cup in his hands.

"...the strongest ever?" Aizawa who had been quietly standing by the side muttered doubtfully.

"Well, not when he was 5 years old. If I remember correctly, his quirk was recorded to be able to lift up 200 kilograms at maximum capacity. A year after that, it was 2,680 kilograms. That was 9 years ago. Now, every single one of our faux villains weigh upwards of 3000 kilograms, and he just lifted and destroyed more than sixty of them. What do you think?"

(The robots weigh so little because they aren't designed to be super durable. Their internals are rather hollow and easy to destroy since this is just a test. From a brief google search, Truck-kun weighs around 7 - 8,000 kilograms.)

The rest of the teaching staff stared back slack jawed, their minds hardly able to process what their principal had just stated. Perhaps, strongest in the world was not an exaggeration...

The computer that had been tallying the scores of each individual examinee was simultaneously the results on a large screen in the Observation Room. At the very top, was a single candidate whose current villain points sat at 102. No other candidate even came close right now at the 2 minute mark of the ten minute long exam.

"I think... that this year is going to be very interesting." Aizawa simply remarked before turning his attention back to the screens.