13 A Test of Strength, not of Character: Ch 1
Hello all, and welcome to what might just be the shortest arc in the story! (What, with only 3 chapters planned- though knowing me, I'll drag it into 5 by writing too much)
Lost my job, due to budget cuts & management wanting to cut costs, and who knew- rent is a b*tch to pay without a steady source of income.
*Sips Hot Chocolate*
(Also, is it just me or has the site been really buggy here recently?)
(Also, Also: 10K Chapter!... well technically 9.85K, but STILL! Long chapter!)
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/?Site Not letting me Upload File?\
/!Might as Well Add an Opening Meme!\
-Rain of Sins-
-Arc Start: A Test of Strength, not of Character-
-A Test of Strength, not of Character: Ch 1-
It was a beautiful day outside.
Birds were singing.
Flowers were blooming.
On days like these.
Kids and adults alike should be enjoying life.
…
But.
Even on the most beautiful of sunny days, the light, by its very nature, will always cast shadows. Things hiding just out of view, out of sight and out of mind. A little, unassuming cluster of dark clouds, small enough to not be of any concern, but always sitting there. Waiting, watching, one stiff breeze away from turning a peaceful day, into a stormy nightmare.
And as fate would have it, one such breeze had made itself known, blowing across the sunny fields, and dragging the dark clouds along with it. Forever changing history- not with a trip and a fateful encounter, but with a confident smirk and a lab coat.
-Rain of Sins-
People were staring. People were pointing. People were whispering. But more than that, they were staring at him, they were pointing at him, they were whispering at HIM! … and he loved it!
In the past it had caused him to panic, to shy away, but this was different. In the past they had laughed when they pointed, in the past they whispered to one another as they looked down on him, in the past he had been a nobody without a quirk… but now, now they pointed in shock, now they looked on in awe, and they whispered not in mocking tones but in hushed reverence. And why shouldn't they? In this world, the people with the strongest and toughest quirks were the ones on top. They were the celebrities, the role models, the kings on top of the world!
So it only made logical sense that they would adore him now- before he had been a hopeless wannabe, a castaway, an outsider, someone without a quirk- So of course they had laughed at him! But now he had finally done it, he wasn't alone anymore, he finally had a quirk!
'Except you don't really have one do you?' a traitorous part of his mind whispered. 'It's all a lie, your no more than you've ever been~'
" ShutupShutupShutupShutup -" He muttered to himself as he brought a hand up to massage his temple. ' The procedure improved everything, I'm stronger, faster, tougher, I have better reflexes! What I have puts just about every quirk in my Jr high class to shame! What I have is BETTER than a quirk!'
'So you admit, it's not a quirk~'
He couldn't answer.
'You're still alone~'
Izuku Midoriya scowled as he forcefully pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind, forcing his way past a pair obnoxiously large doors, and into the school of his dreams, UA itself… only, as he marched past the golden arches, it was without a drop of the satisfaction he had been expecting all his life.
-Rain of Sins-
Ochako Uraraka was nervous, scratch that, Ochako Ururaka was downright terrified. But that was ok! She was convinced she had every right to be a bit scared, after all, she was about to take the UA entrance exam. The exam that would determine if she would get into the school of her dreams, the exam that would determine if all her hard work over the course of the past ten years of her life had been worth anything at ALL, the exam that would determine if she could be successful as a hero… if she could provide for her family.
… The exam that she had one shot at passing.
The exam that, if she made a single mistake, any of the other hundred or so students would gladly step on her head to climb higher in the ranks.
So yeah.
She was totally, in every way, right to be scared.
… But a small part of her couldn't help but be really excited! This was her chance to finally prove her worth! Prove to both the world and herself that she could be a Hero!
That small part of her only grew in size when she finally got to U.A. and realized, with a laugh, that it wasn't just her, everyone was a giant mess of nerves.
Well… almost everyone.
Ochako stepped back along with the people surrounding her, as the crowd parted like the red sea, rolling like the ocean as a man stepped forward. 'Not a man, a boy.' She corrected herself when she managed to get a clear line of sight, and as soon as she saw him, she understood why he was affecting the crowd the way he was. In a mob of mutants, fire breathers, and people with arms as thick as fire hydrants, it was very hard to stand out. But sweeping through the gates like royalty, this guy did it without even trying.
He was tall, especially for a first year, standing just at six feet, his emerald hair flowing in the wind as he strode forward with confident steps, a cocksure grin accented dark green eyes that practically glowed with an air of confidence. This combined with a coat that billowed behind him didn't just give him the aura of a hero, but the air of a King.
Except…
Ochako had to physically bite her lip to keep from laughing aloud.
'Those PANTS!'
Don't get her wrong, they were a nice pair of blue jeans, well maintained and obviously purchased from a decent clothing shop, but that didn't really matter if they were short.
Stretched taught, and even then still a good three inches from where his socks ended, he looked ridiculous! How was no one else noticing this?! What, did he grow half a foot overnight or something? What was this!?
Turning with a chuckle, she began her walk to the school entrance, putting both the crowd and the man behind her. She had a test to pass!
-Rain of Sins-
The wind blew across the paved field, blown in from the shifting air currents of the abandoned city ahead. To many onlookers, this city inspired a strange array of emotions.
Cities are something specifically built to house human life and everything that derives from it, be it restaurants, shopping malls, bars, nightclubs, parks, anything and everything that humans build and bring with them… to see such a place completely void of the thing it was built to house, seemingly without explanation, well… Ominous, Scary, Off Putting, Disconcerting, Unconcerning, the crowd gathered on the stretch of road before it had many unspoken opinions, but for one green haired individual-
A joke.
That's honestly what this must be, a joke.
"Excuse me!"
When he had sat down to take the written portion of the test, he had honestly thought they had forgotten to give him the second half, the damn packet was tiny in comparison to half the stuff Ujiko had him take.
And that's not even talking about the questions! Dear God those things- they were so simple he was embarrassed just ANSWERING them!
"Hey! Excuse me!"
Practically the entire test was basic, and he did mean basic , problem solving skills, and what actual material they did have was laughable: basic Jr high arithmetic, a brief multiple choice section on the history of the Hero profession, and an absolutely pathetic general science portion- one that had him dying inside as he had to bubble in answers that were technically correct, but so overwhelmingly oversimplified and dumbed down, that it was like saying "Air is breath". Which, if you took off any glasses/contacts, tilted your head, and squinted, could technically be argued is true, but sounds fucking stupid when you actually know the material!
"Excuse me! Sir! I'm talking to you in the white lab coat!"
No WONDER those Heroes were no help at the slime Villain scene, the education standards were so low, they might as well have been DUMB AS BRICKS! And to think, he had spent an entire month pouring over documents and papers by some of the brightest minds in the world to prepare for this! This was supposed to be UA, the top Hero school in the world where only the best and most promising Hero aspirants were allowed to attend!
But that wasn't what made him mad, no, that would be the written essay they had decided to tag onto the back!
"In no less than two pages, describe your quirk's abilities and it's potential uses in Heroics"
"EXCUSE ME! I'M TRYING TO TALK TO YOU!"
A hypocritical question for a so-called "equalist" school, especially one that had spent a good while preaching about being the only Hero school to allow quirkless applicants. But that's all it was wasn't it! Hollow preaching, for a big publicity stunt! Quirkless people weren't meant to attend this school, they were never supposed to pass the physical exam! Hell, they were never supposed to apply at all !
Izuku growled as his teeth ground together. After all this time, after so much hope, And to think of how much work he had put into this- What he had Gone Through to achieve this-
He buried his head into his pillow, biting it as hard as he could in an attempt to not wake up his mother. Desperately trying to stifle his screams, as blood poured from his nose and ears in torrents, his insides ripping themselves apart as his organs decomposed and regrew into something better.
His hand twitched, as he narrowed his eyes. He would prove them wrong, he'd show them that it was a mistake to doubt him just because he was quirkless. Izuku's hands clenched into fists. He would get in, and he'd show them!
He'd show them all…
"I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME! ANSW-"
"GO!"
At President Mic's signal, Izuku blasted forward, leaving the annoying glasses wearing kid behind him. His feet hammered on the pavement to carry him down the road at an impressive 15.73 meters a second (35mph)- a speed that had gleefully confirmed his serum's success when he timed it that morning. And considering Usain Bolt had only managed to barely eek out 12.3 in his prime, back before quirks, as well as the fact Izuku had previously been nowhere close to that, his serum had been very successful.
'But not successful enough to match a good speed quirk, now is it?'
Izuku ground his teeth, he needed to stop doubting himself! If he was going to do this, he needed to have absolu- MOVEMENT!
In an instant his hand shot out, grabbing the pole of a passing streetlight to help divert his momentum's direction, and, with a solid jump, Izuku launched himself into the alleyway where he had seen something move- granted it was with all the grace of someone launching themselves into an ally via lamp post for the first time, but he stuck the landing, so whatever.
The reaction was instantaneous, a large dark green robot rose from where it had been hiding in ambush. Gears whirled, and a steam valve hissed as the mechanoid rose to its full height of almost 7 feet. Its singular large optic glowing a sinister red, casting crimson shadows across the alleyway.
Izuku merely huffed- this was only a one pointer after all, really only a waste of time, he should be going for groups of 3s and 2s to maximize his points and impress the instructors.
The robot's metal groaned as it slowly lurched forward, its steel plated limbs tearing chunks out of the concrete with each step.
Oh well, he had plenty of time to burn, he'd just have to dispose of this one and then he'd…
Izuku froze, his entire body tensing up as every fiber of confidence, pride, and anger that had burned so fiercely just moments ago vanished away on the chilling winds of realization.
Izuku Midoriya, scientific prodigy, apprentice to and personally taught by the greatest mind of the century, the young man single handedly responsible for reopening entire fields of quirk research for further investigation, who created and successfully implemented the closest thing to an artificial quirk the world has ever seen-
Didn't have the slightest idea how to fight.
The mechanoid shook as it silently raised its arm.
And Izuku Midoriya was once again a scared boy in an alleyway.
-Rain of Sins-
"NEZU!" The doors to the teacher's observation room flung open, as a very pissed All Might stormed in.
"Oh! Toshinori!" The small bear/mouse/thing smiled as he lowered his glass of tea. "I'm glad you could make it!"
"Don't ' Toshinori' me, Nezu!" The Number one hero growled, his voice substituting it's usual boisterousness for a vicious edge, as he stomped forward and forced a piece of paper in front of the mouse's face. "What the HELL is this!?"
"Oh… that…" The bear's cheer dimmed as he read the paper. "Thaaat, is something I would love to discuss more in detail, but as you can see I'm a tad busy at the moment," He gestured to the large TVs displaying the exam, "So if you wouldn't mind waiting in my office for a bit, I w-"
"That's the thing Nezu, I do Mind!" All Might spoke through grit teeth as he shook the paper. "I specifically told you about who would be taking the entrance exam, so why the HELL did you add this!?"
"W-Well," Nezu coughed, All Might's anger on this catching him off guard, "We have to remake the written test every year to help avoid cheating a-and..."
The small president's words died out as All Might began squeezing the paper so hard it practically turned to dust. The tension in the room was palpable, no one had seen the Number 1 Hero this angry in a long time, and no one knew what he'd do when he was this furious outside of a fight.
"...I put it on the test."
A calm, monotone voice cut through the air like butter, and All Might calmly, eerily calmly after his shouting just moments ago, turned around.
"Or I put it back on the test, if you want to be specific." Aizawa stepped forwards, out of the group of teachers and in front of All Might. "When Nezu saw that it came up in rotation, he took it off the test and substituted it for a different one. I swapped it back in once he submitted the form for finalization, and by the time he realized, the tests had all been printed."
"You…" All Might poked the underground Hero in the chest, the force making him stumble back a few inches. "I endorsed that boy's application."
"Yes, but endorsement and coddling are two different things." Aizawa brushed himself off. "This is real life, you don't get to change test questions just because they might 'hurt someone's feelings'. Besides, the boy's quirkless, at best he'd be a burden and an active hindrance in any serious situation that occurs, at worst he'd get himself killed."
"I didn't coddle." All Might seethed, his voice dangerously quiet. "I proactively submitted an unfair portion of the test for review, because -in case you've forgotten- the essay is worth 20% of the test's credit, 20% that a student now won't be able to earn no matter what he puts! As for the second bit..." He leaned unnervingly close, his height towering over everyone in the room. "You don't get to decide that."
Where any lesser man would have cowered, Aizawa stared directly back, holding the gaze of the uncontested strongest man in the world.
"He's struggling with a one pointer, it's clear the kid isn't ready for this level of combat. If anything, you're at fault here All Might- trying to leverage Nezu to get the kid in, you're going to get him killed."
All Might scowled. "That's not for you to decide after a minute of watching, that's for each individual person to decide for themselves. And even if they aren't, UA's a school, it's our job to teach them to be ready."
Aizawa scoffed and turned back to the exam screens, unwilling to put the effort into a staring match against someone as stubborn as the No.1.
"If… if somehow the boy manages to pass both parts of the exam, and gets put in my class…" Eraserhead sent a passing glare over his shoulder. "I'll intentionally set up a test he'd fail, and expel him on the first day-"
SLAM
"...It's for the kid's own good." Aizawa muttered before turning back to the screens.
Nezu could only sigh as he stared where All Might had stormed out of the room, slamming the doors behind him hard enough to knock them off their hinges.
...they had been very expensive doors.
-Rain of Sins-
This was bad! Well, no, that would be an understatement, let's try again. This was very very bad! Hmmm, no, still not quite capturing the situation here.
"AHHHHH! I'M GONNA DIE!"
Closer, closer, much closer, but still not quite there. Let's try one last time.
"AHHH! HEL-PHHGHLGH!" Izuku's scream was abruptly cut short, as one of the mech's swings finally made contact, forcibly expelling the air from his lungs and turning his plea for help into a painful gurgle.
Izuku coughed as he was flung through the air, spittle and blood flying from his lips as he crashed into the wall behind him. He could feel something inside him break as his momentum overcame the concrete and dragged him through the wall, skipping him along the stone floor inside, before finally depositing him into the far corner with a sickening crunch.
Ok, Ok, much better, but I think it needs just little more to really drive home the situation~
The wall exploded outwards as the robot threw itself through it, using it's sheer weight as a battering ram to flatten any obstacle in its path. It landed with enough force to shake the room, sending spiderweb cracks across the floor. With a mechanical hiss it once again rose to its full height, its head swiveling about the room for signs of its prey, scraping across the ceiling as it did so.
Perfect~
Izuku wheezed as it's optic passed over him, apparently not built to operate in low light conditions.
'Think you idiot! This is a level ONE bot, you can't die here!'
He bit his lip and attempted to stabilize his breathing, which was a lot harder to do when he should be DEAD right now. That hit would have crushed any normal person's spine to dust, and practically liquidized their organs. Thank GOD for his serum's increased bone durability and slight regeneration boost, if he had gone in without it, like he had been planning on doing back before he met Ujiko…
'No! Get your head in the game! Analyze the problem, break it down into manageable sections, and work it out one piece at a time.' He squinted at the robot through the dark, silently nagging himself for deciding night vision would be too dangerous a risk to gamble in his serum.
The bot was pretty damn tall at just over seven foot, it stood on four clawed legs, it had a humanoid-esk torso, two dark steel arms, and a cylindrical head. The entire thing was covered in dark green steel armor plates, excluding the joints, but it was quick to defend those if it saw you going for them. Apparently the builders had programmed it with counters to most of the obvious things students would try. It's optic on the front of its head was the first of said obvious things, being an obvious weak point, and as such it was covered in a kind of reinforced glass, obvious to the scientist because of the metallic sheen that coated it's surface. The fact he had managed to get a good rock throw at it, only for it to bounce off, also helped with the theory.
As his mind began to turn its gears, Izuku's panic melted away without him realizing as he slipped into the dangerous calm his 'thinking mode' provided.
Knocking out it's eye had a lot of benefits beyond the obvious ones, the mech's operation in particular seemed to be particularly dependent on it's sight. Actually, now that he thought about it, it hadn't reacted to any of the noises he'd made thus far, despite him being the only other thing in the room that reasonably could make noise. And considering it didn't have a nervous system to feel with, the damn thing might have been acting entirely on its sight.
Izuku hummed, before taking an educated risk and rapping his knuckles on the stone floor. 'It really can't hear huh?' He noted as the machine rumbled forward in the wrong direction, it's head still swiveling around on a pivot.
So the best option would be to take out it's sight, but he couldn't break the glass protecting the optic, and it was probably programmed with a response counter so it would be best to do it without it seeing him, and do it in such a way it wasn't hard programmed to counter... hmmmm, a puzzle indeed. Lucky for him, he was quite good at solving puzzles, and as the bot's head completed yet another swivel, Izuku came to his solution.
The motherboard and processing unit for a machine this big would almost certainly be in the section where it could be equipped with the most efficient coolant system: IE the spacious torso.
The eye one the other hand was located in the head, and while he couldn't break the casing protecting the optic, he could most certainly break the wires that connected it to the CPU, wires that ran right through its very unarmored neck.
Glancing around the room to see what he had to work with, he noted with a smirk that, while his supplies were very limited, amounting basically to just wall rubble, they were more than enough.
Grabbing a broken piece of the wall that had been flung in with him, Izuku slowly pushed himself up with a pained grunt. After tossing his newly acquired rock in the air a few times to get a feel for it, he reeled back and threw the chunk past the mechanoid, where it flew right behind its head before bouncing off a wall and landing at its feet.
Believing the rock had been thrown from the direction it ricocheted from, the bot swiveled and revealed its back to an already sprinting Izuku. Leaning down and snatching one of the many iron support rods that had been tossed about the room when the wall exploded, he twirled it to get a better grip before launching it like a javelin at the mech's neck, where it struck true. Unfortunately, due to never having thrown a javelin before, Izuku' aim was a tad off, and it didn't sever the wires he wanted, but that was fine.
You see, the biggest problem with robots is that they can't feel. Give them a visual or audio cue and their cameras and microphones will allow them to respond accordingly, but when faced with a situation where they need to respond without proper input, like for instance- stabbing them through the neck without triggering one of those?
Well…
They don't even notice.
Jumping into the machine's chassis, Izuku grabbed the bar with both hands and pulled !
With a sickening groaning sound and a few metallic snaps, the entire beast's head wrenched to the left before snapping off it's bearings and falling to the side, where it hung dangling by a few spare wires.
After it's processor stopped receiving video input, the mech switched to a backup script for operating without it's camera, which basically amounted to wildly swinging its arms in an attempt to catch it's assailant. But because it couldn't feel Izuku on it's back, its swings didn't even begin to come close… and they never would.
Thrusting his hand down the newly opened weak point, Izuku grabbed as many things that felt important as he could and began methodically ripping them out one at a time, before finally, with a quiet whimper of the engine giving out, the giant contraption stopped moving and toppled to the ground.
Hopping down, and dusting off his hands, the young scientist admired his handiwork, and silently concluded that it would probably be best to find a better way of dealing with these things, especially if this was only a 1 pointer.
But before he could get any further, fate decided once again that it was time to change up the playing board.
"FIVE MINUTES LEFT!"
And the world shook.
-Rain of Sins-
Ochako Uraraka, despite almost a decade and a half of schooling, and countless hours of studying & practicing for this exam, had only a single intelligent thought repeating in her mind.
'Shit!'
'Shit!' This wasn't supposed to be happening
'ShitShitShit!' This wasn't how this was supposed to go!
Straining her arms against one of the large concrete chunks that pinned her to the ground, Ochako attempted to activate her quirk, but was almost immediately forced to let go, less she make the situation even worse by soaking herself with her own vomit.
Well… she says that, but it's not like the situation could get much worse anyway…
There, lumbering down the main road, on a direct collision course with her head, was the zero pointer that they had mentioned in the opening.
Of course it would have been nice to have been told the damn thing was GIANT !
The only thing that seemed to be going in her favor was the fact it was about a quarter mile away, and moving with half the speed you'd expect of a zamboni.
Things had been going so well too. Despite not having a directly combat oriented quirk, she'd managed to get quite a few pretty points, and she was confident several of her displays were impressive enough to grab the judges attention. 'Of course, that's if there's anyone watching us at all!' Which seemed like such an obvious thing at first, but was something she'd been increasingly doubting as the giant hunk of steel lumbered closer and closer to squashing her into a pancake.
Of course things had to have gone to shit, hadn't they?
She couldn't just get a good score, could she?
What really pissed her off about all this was the fact she could have avoided it all together, but no she just had to be greedy .
When that giant thing popped out of the ground, everyone else had run off, but she, in all her brilliance, had decided to stay and use the opportunity to snag the last points everyone else was leaving.
It was supposed to impress the instructors and show that she performed better under pressure than her competition. What wasn't supposed to happen was for all the shaking to knock loose the top of a building, and trap her beneath a metric fuckton of concrete and the remains of a three pointer she'd been dealing with.
And needless to say… anyone who could help her was already long gone.
'Geeze.' She strained as she pushed against the rock without her quirk. 'What happened to rescuing damsels in distress?' Not that she would ever willingly classify herself as a 'damsel' or 'in distress', but the point still stoo-
"Hey."
"EEP!" Startled, her hands slipped, dropping the stone she'd managed to push up a few inches.
"A-Are you alright?"
"Y-Yea…" She coughed painfully. "I'm good."
Standing in front of her, covered with the wear and tear of battle, his lab coat billowing in the wind like something out of those old All Might TV shows, was the green haired kid from that morning. And with a hand outstretched and a confident grin (as obviously forced as it was), the scene was the dictionary definition of 'Heroic'.
... or well, it would have been, except-
Ochako bit her lip, and turned her head to hide her laughter
'Those pants look hilarious on him!'
-The pants kinda ruined the picture.
"Here, take my hand. Let's get you out of there."
"O-Ok." Grabbing his hands with both of hers, she braced herself as he started pulling, and was genuinely impressed as he managed to pull her almost halfway out without so much as breaking as seat, untill-
"OW!"
"I'm so sorry! Are you ok?" The boy- she still hadn't gotten his name, had she? immediately stopped pulling, and bent down to check on her.
"Y-Yea, I'm all good."
"That didn't sound very 'good'"
"No, it's-" She hissed in pain. "My leg's caught underneath something, your not gonna be able to pull me out, not without pulling apart the entire pile."
"O-Oh, well then, umm," The boy scanned the rubble on top of her, trying to think of something, when, "Wait…" He blinked. "Is that a rocket launcher?"
"Hah?" Ochako turned and sure enough, right next to where her head had been, was the three pointer's explosive weapon.
"O-Oh, would you look at that," The future gravity Hero stared wide eyed at the very dangerous weapon, as she realized just how precarious her situation had been- and still WAS! "That is a rocket launcher isn't it?"
"..."
"..."
"Would you mind helping me remove it?"
"Y-You know," She gulped, "I think that would be a good idea."
Using her new positioning to her advantage, she carefully, ever so carefully, with much more care than her green haired friend did as he grabbed it, grabbed the rectangular device and with one - huff -two - nrrrg -THREE pulls, it popped loose off the rubble and slid off of the pile.
"Thank you for that." Ochako sighed in relief "That was a liiiittle unnerving if you know what I mean."
"No, it was no problem!" The boy laughed as he picked up the rocket launcher "In fact I should be the one to thank you."
"Eh?" She blinked.
"I've been looking for another one of these, this is the last one I needed in fact, so extra thanks!" He nodded to her and tossed the green hunk onto a metal sheet with a pile of other robotic parts- How had she not noticed that before!?
"W-Wait, wha-"
"But really, that thing-" He gestured towards the ever looming zero pointer. "Is getting really close, so I've got to move fast!"
"W-Wait! Hold on!" She called as he picked up a metal wire that was wrapped around the sheet, and began dragging it down the road. "Aren't you going to save me!?"
"Don't worry!" He called as he ran down an alleyway, dragging his scrap pile behind him. "That's what I'm doing!"
"WAIT NO! DON'T… go…"
Ochako could only dumbly stare down the path her supposed "hero" had disappeared down. Flinching when the zero pointer decided to remind everyone it existed, by letting out a metallic roar.
Sighing, she pulled at her leg again an- OW! Yup! Still Stuck!
Looking back at the alleyway, and finding once again that yes, he really had run off, Ochako Uraraka only had a single thing to say.
"Shit!"
-Rain of Sins-
"Remember kid, the best way to impress someone is to make your statement big, loud, and most importantly, as memorable as possible! And remember-"
"-Don't Fail!" Tightening his grip on his makeshift sled of explosives, Izuku pushed his legs to carry him even faster.
He had an idea. It was an absolutely stupid, crazy idea, that was reckless, and not thought out at all, but considering the situation, Ujiko's advice of "Big, Loud, and Memorable" just might be on the money!
But to get this to work, he needed to be perfectly timed, which was why he was running down the alleyway instead of the main street, he couldn't afford to waste time running into any bots.
Judging that he had covered the right amount of distance, or at least close enough to it, he ran to the closest door on a building he could find on his left side, and kicked it open. The door flew open, snapping it's lock and revealing a wide, empty bottom floor with absolutely nothing of value in it.
"Perfect!"
He dragged his sled inside, and immediately set to work.
This plan, flimsy as it was, was built entirely on a single observation that he could guarantee literally every other student who'd ever taken the test before had missed.
What made him so sure? Well, no other good quality student to get this far- sans him, would be weak enough to get punched through one of the walls, and everyone who was unlucky enough to have been, most likely didn't have the background knowledge in construction of all things to realize the significance of it.
(Don't ask, Ujiko liked to have him read various books on random subjects to keep him busy when he was off work)
Anyway, when he had been launched through the wall, he had been sent through a load bearing portion of the wall, and while he didn't hit the support beam- thank God, the wall was still far too weak! Much more than it should have been. Granted it still should have turned him into a pancake regardless, but whatever. This alongside the reinforcement bars being made of iron and not steel, had led him to realize how U.A. could afford to build these huge mock cities.
They were cutting costs.
Hard.
While normal buildings were forced to abide by various housing and safety regulations, UA's cities technically weren't for people to work or live in, and as such they could bypass all those pesky laws. The standard grade concrete for use in buildings such as these was a range of C40/20 to upwards of C50/20 depending on PSI, with C60/20 being used for important supporting columns and load bearing beams.
The concrete used in the walls of these buildings was more alongside what he'd expect of C25/20, maybe even C20/20 when they could get away with it. And if the supports followed the trend, which he was almost positive of, then they should be grade C45/20 maximum, and again, it was reinforced with normal iron instead of steel.
But even though it was weaker, it was still just as heavy.
Weak enough to purposefully break, and heavy enough to maybe, just maybe, knock the lights out of the giant mech rampaging through the mock city.
The idea to crush the zero pointer beneath a giant building was an insane one.
The possibility of impressing the instructors so they passed him was appealing.
Doing it to save the girl he had run into, before she gets run over, made it important.
But it was the school's own cheap building supplies that made it doable.
Izuku grunted as he propped his final rocket launcher up against the last support beam and kicked the barrel until it was warped enough the rocket would get trapped, and detonate inside.
The ground's shaking increased in intensity, signaling the titan's approach as the young scientist ran from launcher to launcher with a control board he had ripped from a defeated three pointer's head, manually tweaking the frequency of each one until they all were synced with the board.
The moment the final piece synced, he jumped to his feet and bolted to the front door, flinging it open to find the giant mech practically on top of him.
This was going to be close, far to close.
Izuku sprinted down the street with an eye over his shoulder, trying to get as far away from the blast zone as possible, and as soon as the monstrosity of machinery was in position, he crossed the board's wires.
And Izuku's world went white.
-Rain of Sins-
In the dark observation room, Nezu, Midnight, Cementoss, and even the ever stoic Aizawa watched with wide eyes as half of a building's base was blown out from under it in a violent explosion, causing it to groan and topple over, crashing into the Zero pointer's right flank.
The teachers, alongside everyone in the city, held breath and watched as, for ten long seconds, the beast struggled against the weight of an entire skyscraper. And, just as it seemed the mechanoid would continue to push forward, something in it's left leg gave out with an audible SNAP! Causing the beast to succumb to gravity and topple to the ground, crashing into the building on it's left as it did so. The sheer weight of the impact caused the city to shake. And, like a set of concrete dominoes, the entire block of buildings surrounding the impact tilted inwards, before crashing down on the fallen titan. Crushing it beneath a grave of rock and metal.
The world seemed to bite its tongue, holding a deafening silence as it waited to see if anyone would step forward and explain what it had just witnessed.
And as fate wept for what should have been, one man in a lab coat stepped forward.
-Rain of Sins-
His head was fuzzy.
His face felt wet.
Strange, he didn't have a water bottle on him, or did he? He couldn't really remember…
… was that blood he was tasting?
Reaching up he ran his fingers from his forehead to his lips, and when he pulled away-
'Yea, that's blood…'
Well that explained it, something must have caught his head in the explosion. A rock, a rod, a pipe, or otherwise, he didn't know, all of them tended to become quite deadly when accelerated to high speeds and then flung at people.
Reaching up and wiping the blood off with his sleeve, Izuku began pushing himself up from, well, wherever it was he landed. As he raised his head, he realized that it wasn't just his head that was foggy, everything was.
White dust from the crash filled the air, and made it almost impossible to see anything, but despite this, he was still able to see it very clearly.
"I-I-" Izuku rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. "...I did it?"
The sight had him falling back down on his ass.
"I did it?" He asked no one, seemingly begging for confirmation, and sure enough-
There, not 20 feet away from him, laid the head of the zero pointer, buried among the rubble that seemed to spread as far as Izuku could see, it's lights were dull and lifeless.
"I did it… I… I did it…" Izuku's slack jawed expression slowly morphed to one never seen on his face before, a wide grin that was just ever so slightly… twisted. One eerily similar to Ujiko's when he was working on one of his "Artworks".
"ha...haha...hAhAHAHA!" He pushed himself up, swaying ever so slightly, though whether it was from his head injury or something else entirely…
"HAHoAhoaHAOHOAaOAHaAHAHAhaHOaHOOAIHaHAA!" The scientist cackled as he was overcome with a sense of glee, a sense of worth that he had finally accomplished something, a sense of pride at finally proving he wasn't just some 'quirkless' nobody to push around, a sense of…
Vindication
….
But wait… someone could take this from him… they'd never believe that it was him who did it without proof… he had to make them know that he did this!
But how!?
How should he announce it?
His mind immediately went to All Might's blinding smile and thumbs up, but just as quickly went back to their fateful conversation on the rooftop.
No. No All Might, he was nothing but a liar. Hmmm, who then was a good example.
Who had believed in him even though he was quirkless, like actually believed in him?
Who had inspired him with more than just lies and fake smiles?
Who had actually helped him get here?
…
And then a strange thought flew into his head.
"What would Dr Ujiko do?"
-Rain of Sins-
Ochako blinked rapidly, and rubbed her face, desperately trying to get the dust out of her eyes.
"Excuse me ma'am, are you alright!? Don't worry, I've got you!"
Ochako 'eeped' as she felt an arm grab her and lift her to her feet. Thankfully the blast had helped her more than hurt her, knocking the rubble off of her, and throwing her down the street.
Squinting, she quickly identified her "savior" as the glasses kid who had been loudly talking before the test, distracting and annoying literally everyone nearby.
Wait, hadn't he left with everyone else? Glancing around she quickly confirmed her suspicions, all the other students who had run off when the zero pointer popped up had come back to see what was happening. Glad to know it only took the explosion and subsequent collapse of a fourth of the damn city, to get their attention.
"Look!" Someone shouted, pointing towards the center of the mayhem. Ochako gave her eyes one last rub and followed the confused shouts, and the rapidly growing number of pointing hands.
There, among the clearing dust, on the largest pile of rubble, and standing triumphantly on the shattered head of the Zero pointer was the green haired boy from earlier!
"Well don't just stand around like scarecrows!"
He spread out his arms.
"Applaud!"
-Rain of Sins-
/Many hours later\
Deep beneath the empty roads of the moon lit city, beneath patrolling Heroes, small time crooks, and at least a few mailboxes, down in the bottom most layers of an underground laboratory, home of the personal researcher of the most notorious villain of all time All For One, in a place where inhumane experiments were conducted and researched everyday… There was laughter.
"And then HAHA then I said, mind you that snrk this is still with the paperwork strewn across his desk, I sai- * cackle * I said 'Have you seen JOHN RECENTLY!?'"
"BWAHOHOAHaOAHoHA!" Ujiko erupted into laughter at his own story, banging his fist against the table. "HAHOHOoHOAhAOhaAHAOOahoAoH!"
Izuku bit his lip, and held the back of his fist over his mouth to keep himself from laughing, he had no idea why he was laughing, Ujiko's stories weren't really that funny if you heard them from anyone but him, but the way he told them was hilarious! His laugh especially was contagious! Even if you went through the entire story with a stone face, his laughter at the end would be guaranteed to make you smile!
Or well, that was Izuku's opinion anyway, no one else at the lab seemed to like his stories, and they had asked Izuku what he found so funny about them- if there was some inside joke they weren't in on. Well, it wasn't like he could answer them even if he wanted to, he just enjoyed listening to Ujiko tell them.
"HaHAaho, Ohh, but enough about this old man's past," Ujiko waved away some smoke that had wafted up from the chemicals they were tinkering with, "You requested a day off, filled out all the required forms, had more than enough hours to qualify, and then you do this!" He gestured in Izuku's general direction with a laugh. "When everyone else is clocking out for the day, you pop back in, outta nowhere!"
Ujiko's grin turned smug as he reached to pick up a partially dissolved brain they had been fiddling with. "Now it's not like I mind the company," He shook the brain, causing Izuku to cover his mouth again, not out of nausea- no he'd seen worse, but to hide his grin, Ujiko's shitty puns had been getting to him recently. "And I especially don't mind when it's the company of my number one assistant! Why I can only pray that I'll one day have the honor of meeting the absolute genius who taught you!" He elbowed Izuku causing them both to descend into another round of snarky chuckles.
"But it does make me curious! What could be so important that you have to miss an entire day, but put you in a good enough mood that you come running back here at almost 11 o'clock at night? Could it be, dare I say," His smug grin returned, "A girl?"
Missing lab time to go on a date, please, he'd be the last person to worry about that with… although... Izuku couldn't help but flash back to the exam, to that one girl he saved… who he'd been a hero for.
"My God…" Izuku blinked back into reality to find Ujiko staring at him slack jawed. "There actually is a girl involved! HAHAHAHOHOAHAOHOAHA!" Ujiko erupted into another wave of laughter.
"HAHHOAHA! T-To think HAHIAHA You did ALL THAT for a girl! HAHAHA!"
Izuku froze.
"W-What do you mean, did 'all that' for a girl?" he asked as sweat began to creep down his neck. Did Ujiko somehow know about UA?
"HAHA! Why your serum Boy!" He banged his fist against the table. "You used your serum on yourself!"
"W-W-Wait, how do you know that!? A-And you're not mad?"
"HA! Of course I know, what, do you think I'm blind!? My Boy, yesterday you were a scrawny twig, and now look at you! HAHAHA!" He gave Izuku a good natured shove- thankfully after removing his gloves. "Six foot tall and built like a spartan! And it's to impress a girl you like! HAOHoAHAIHaAhoO! C'MON! You've got to tell me!"
Ujiko laughed as he pulled Izuku down so he could throw him into a sideways bearhug. "Is she blond? Brunette? Green haired like you? Let me guess, she's a childhood friend right? Tell me, and you can be honest, is she hot?"
"You're really not mad…" Izuku said, slack jawed.
"Well of course not my boy! In fact I expected it!" He laughed as he released his apprentice. "Listen, kid, you're a lot like I was when I was your age, decently quick witted, well organized, you've got a good head on your shoulders, some good intuition, and most importantly of all-" He jabbed Izuku's chest with his finger, "You've got curiosity, a burning sense of curiosity that'll drive you forward, and the stubbornness to keep it from killing you! HAHA!"
"Kid, I'm the Doruma Ujiko." He guffawed, "I'm the genius of the century, what do you think I did when I first made something like you did?"
Izuku blinked, "You used it on yourself…" He realized.
"Bingo kid! You got it in one!" He ruffled Izuku's hair. "Granted there's just a little difference between the projects. Yours is, well," He gestured to Izuku, "all that, while mine was an enhancement for photographic memory- granted it was one with a few unintended side effects!" He laughed and rapped his knuckles on the side of his head. "But I trusted you had listened well enough to avoid the same mistakes that I made back then!"
He leaned back and let out a hearty laugh. "My boy!" He clapped Izuku on the Shoulder and gave him a proud nod. "You did good, Kid!"
And of course it was at this moment that the universe decided it wanted to intervene.
"DR UJIKO!" A familiar voice cried out as the door was flung open with enough force to rattle several chemical vials, sending the more precariously balanced ones into a spin.
"YUYARA! What have I told you about slamming doors in the lab!? You're gonna break something and damnit, I'm not gonna be the one to clean it up!"
"Sorry boss!" Yuyara wheezed, hunched over against the doorway "I've * gasp * been looking for you * pant * all Fucking day * gasp * but I couldn't get ahold of you!"
"Well of course not! I've been in important meetings all day, with my phone turned off, if you had gotten ahold of me, I'd be angry! Impressed, yes, but angry!" The doctor slapped the table for effect, unfortunately causing one of the vials that had been rattling from the door swing to fall and break on the floor.
"...Also you've officially been demoted to 3rd most liked in the building, behind me and the kid here. You've been bringing me coffee in the mornings which, while an obvious attempt at kissing up to get on my good side, was well thought out- and I'm more than self centered enough to accept such treatment! That was what had kept you ahead of my apprentice here, but no longer!"
"BOSS!"
"Yes Yuyara?"
"GREEN! Green did something stupid he-" Yuara pushed herself up from the door, only to freeze as her mind registered what she was seeing. There was some 'That's Green!' accompanied by some ' That's Green!?' and a few never-to-be-talked-about 'hot' s and of course the underlining 'WhattheactualFUCKishappening!'
"THAT'S GREEN!"
"Yes Yuyara."
"HE'S BESIDE YOU!"
"Yes Yuyara."
"HE- HE DID THE STUPID THING!"
"Yes Yuyara."
"WAIT- YOU KNOW WHAT HE DID!?"
"Yes Yuyara."
"AND YOU'RE NOT STRANGLING HIM!?"
"What? BWAHOAHA! No, of course not! Why my boy and I have been working together on an old project of mine that I shelved a few years ago!" Ujiko waved to the mess of chemicals and brain matter on the table. "Haha! Why yes, we're as close as two brothers at the fruit market, buying food for our mother because she was ill and couldn't go herself, and we didn't want her to painfully starve to death over the course of a few weeks!"
…
…
…
"Anyway!" Ujiko coughed awkwardly. "What was it that you needed?"
"O-Oh, it was nothing important." Yuyara gave a strangled laugh as her eye twitched. "Apparently it wasn't important at all!"
"Yuyara…" Ujiko sighed, disappointment evident in his tone. "I told you not to interrupt me unless it's important, I thought you would've understood this by now! I was fine with you coming in and interrupting our fun- er important work," He gestured again to the brain table, "Because I thought you had good reason to!" He slammed his hand on the table for effect, but aimed a bit too far to the left, hitting the tray and causing brain goop to splatter on him.
…
"Tomorrow you're bringing me three morning coffees."
"Yes Boss."
"And you're going to be in charge of bringing them to me all day."
"Yes Boss.."
Another vial fell and shattered.
"For a week!"
"Yes Boss…"
Ujiko sat down with a huff as Yuyara dejectedly closed the door like a beaten puppy. He gave the (now smushed) brain a few good pokes before addressing his apprentice. "So what did you do with your day off?"
Izuku laughed, the situation getting to him. "You'll see."
'And when I get into the school without a quirk, and I prove everyone wrong'
The Teachers, his Bullies, and even All Might Himself.
'They'll ALL see.'
-Rain of Sins-
The moon hung in the midnight sky, peering through the city windows, and illuminating Nezu's office.
The principle stared, unblinking, at the paper in front of him. It was the last paper he had to sign off on, and it was the one he had wanted to start with, but wound up putting off because of this exact problem.
He just wasn't sure.
And while that might sound mundane to an average person, it was anything but to Nezu. He was the genius behind UA's success, the highest IQ ranked individual in the world, he was undefeated in every board game in existence, be it against human or AI, in chess, GO, or any other. He was Nezu, owner of the High Spec quirk.
To Nezu there was no "sure" or "unsure", there was only "logical" and "highest probability of success".
And his logic said that the "1" in Izuku Midoriya's score box meant he failed the test.
All Might had ranted, and when he called down, tried to reason with everyone.
He believed that the boy deserved rescue points. All Might claimed that the boy tried to lift her out of the rubble, but stopped when it was clear he'd hurt her if he continued- a claim Ms Ururaka's story supported- but it was after this that his claim fell apart.
All Might had said Mr Midoriya, knowing he couldn't face the Zero pointer head on, had pulled his grand elaborate stunt with the building in order to save her. Which… honestly… just… really Toshinori?
After All Might left, the other teachers had smiled softly and talked about "Classic All Might!" and how "He always sees the best of people, even if it isn't there".
Nezu saw it for what it really was.
Naivety.
Unfortunately for All Might, the rest of the teachers saw it exactly like Nezu did. The boy had moved Ms Ururaka out of the way, retrieved the weapon he was collecting, and then continued on. The only reason for the interaction between the two was because she was in his way.
Zero rescue points were awarded.
…Although, strangely, Aizawa of all people suggested that he be allowed to transfer into the gen-ed course, even though the boy hadn't applied for it, but he was outvoted.
And as such the principle of U.A. sat with the boy's paper on his desk, a paper with a single point.
Izuku Midoriya. #1
He should fail him, it was the logical thing to do… and yet…
All Might's pleading and almost religious endorsement of the boy's character, the recorded videos of the boy's actions at the slime villain scene, the ever impossible Aizawa being swayed by the final performance… something about it made him hesitate. And from that hesitation, thoughts that he could almost swear weren't even his own, started slipping into his head.
'The boy's written scores were outstanding, completely flawless across the board, if it hadn't been for that scam question at the end- one that you specifically ordered to be removed- he would have been the first to score a perfect 100 in almost four decades~'
'You saw the boy's mind in action during the exam, setting the explosives in just the right place to get that building to drop exactly how he wanted, and rigging a contraption to do it at the exact right time. The boy might just be a prodigy in the making, one overlooked because of his quirklessness, if you took him under your wing just imagine what he could accomplish~"
Nezu shivered as a cold feeling ran through his spine, it was almost like fate wanted the boy to pass!
Bah! He shook his head.
The world runs on logic, reasoning, and probability! Superstitions such as 'Fate' were for the weak minded who refused to open their eyes to the truth of the world.
"Fate" was best to be sealed away and forgotten.
And so with a stamp of red ink, that's exactly what the little mouse did.
[Fail]
-Chapter End-
Two things.
As I rewrote that ending segment in the lab for the third time, still without the slightest clue how I was supposed to turn "Yuyara warns, but Ujiko misses point +add comedy" from a poorly written bullet point into a feasible scene, I got DAD!Ujiko vibes, and low and behold DAD!Ujiko vibes apparently makes scenes like this much more workable. I Always thought the entrance exam was being way underplayed, I mean-
*Sips Hot Chocolate*
Izuku doesn't have control over OFA, doesn't even know he can punch with it yet, and he gets thrown into a giant abandoned city, crawling with terminator robots.
Normal person without usable superpowers + killer robots + abandoned city, that is the most obvious recipe of a horror movie I've ever seen.
I mean, I guess it works because all the other kids are killing said robots in droves, but if Izuku somehow managed to get one that had been programmed with more than 'be big and roll forward'? BAM! Instant genre change!
*Sips Hot Chocolate*
I'm actually kinda sad the show didn't use the entrance exam more, think about it- have Izuku realize his weakness and arrogance (thinking he could pass the UA exam without training for it, back before he met All Might) and runs desperately from a mech he couldn't defeat, have it get destroyed by someone else really easy, he realizes the gap between him and them, then BOOM now you put in the Zero pointer, he sees Ochako, he doubts himself but runs for her anyway, then BAM one for all activates, he sees what he can do, and then (this is important) CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM So gud!
You could even give him some inspirational internal monologue or something- anime writers love those! Ochako slaps him right afterwards so it'd be easy to transition out of it, and into a more lighthearted scene.
*Sips Hot Chocolate*
But hey, I'm just a Fanfic writer who can't update on time, what do I know? It's not like I have my own original story to, no, that would be crazy!
