Two words. That's all Hano said.
But Izuku understood perfectly.
This is the exam. The final test. He wants to see what ten months bought him.
Izuku grinned.
He dropped into his own stance, mirroring Hano's posture but adjusted for his height and build. His body remembered the form instantly, muscle memory carved so deep it was basically instinct now.
He felt lighter than air. Faster than thought. Like someone had removed the handbrake on his entire existence.
Alright, old man. Let's dance.
Hano moved first.
The old bastard covered three meters in a blink, fist aimed at Izuku's ribs in a straight punch that would've cracked bone if it connected.
Izuku wasn't there.
He'd already read the tension in Hano's shoulders, seen the shift in weight distribution, calculated the angle of attack before the punch was halfway complete.
He sidestepped. The fist passed through empty air so close to his torso he felt the wind of its passage.
Hano transitioned smoothly into a spinning backfist aimed at Izuku's temple.
Izuku ducked under it, dropped low, swept at Hano's legs.
The old man jumped, planted a hand on Izuku's shoulder for balance, and launched a knee toward Izuku's face.
Izuku caught the knee with both hands, redirected the force, used Hano's own momentum to push him back.
They separated. Circled each other on the sand.
Hano's expression had shifted. The usual mockery was gone, replaced by a focused intensity. A corner of his mouth twitched, a flicker of something Izuku had never seen on the old man's face before.
Holy shit, I'm keeping up. I'm actually keeping up. He's not treating me like a training dummy anymore.
The fight continued.
Izuku stopped defending and started attacking. He closed the distance with a burst of speed that would've been impossible three months ago, threw a jab at Hano's centerline, followed it with a cross, transitioned into a low kick aimed at the old man's lead leg.
Hano blocked the jab, slipped the cross, caught the kick mid-swing.
For half a second, Izuku's leg was trapped.
He didn't panic. Panic was for people who hadn't been thrown off trash mountains six hundred times.
He twisted, used the trapped leg as a pivot point, and swung his other leg up in a wheel kick aimed at Hano's head.
Hano let go of the trapped leg and leaned back just enough for the kick to pass a centimeter from his nose.
Izuku landed, reset his stance, and kept moving.
The beach became their arena. They moved across the sand in a blur of strikes, blocks, redirects. Every technique Izuku had drilled for ten months came out to play. The Water Stream principles that let him flow around attacks. The Tile-Breaker concept that turned his bones into hammers. The Read that let him see half a second into the future.
He still couldn't hit Hano cleanly. The old man was a ghost, always one step ahead, one degree out of range.
But Izuku was forcing him to move. Forcing him to block. Forcing him to take this seriously.
That's new. That's progress. I'm not just surviving anymore. I'm fighting.
Hano finally ended it.
He caught one of Izuku's punches mid-flight, redirected it, and used the opening to sweep Izuku's legs out from under him with a move so fast Izuku's brain couldn't even process it.
Izuku hit the sand flat on his back.
The impact knocked the air from his lungs. He lay there, staring up at the sky, chest heaving, body screaming that it had opinions about what just happened.
Hano stood over him, barely winded.
Then, for the first time in ten months, the old man smiled.
Not a smirk. Not a condescending grin. A real, genuine smile that reached his eyes and transformed his entire face into something almost grandfatherly.
"Not bad, brat," Hano said. His voice was warm, approving, touched with something that might've been pride if Izuku didn't know better. "You've earned it."
Izuku stared up at him, still flat on his back, still trying to remember how breathing worked.
Did he just... did Hano just compliment me? Is the world ending? Should I be worried?
Hano extended a hand.
Izuku took it. The old man hauled him to his feet with surprising strength for someone his age.
They stood there for a moment, teacher and student, surrounded by the clean beach and the rising sun.
Then Hano nodded toward the refrigerator.
"One more thing."
Izuku followed his gaze to the last piece of trash. The final remnant of the hell that used to be Takoba Beach.
Of course. Can't let me have a nice moment without one last bit of suffering. That would be too easy.
He walked over to the refrigerator. Up close, it was even more massive than he remembered. Industrial-grade, built to withstand commercial use, probably weighed close to 200kg on its own.
Izuku crouched down, got his hands under the bottom edge, and tested the weight.
Heavy. But I just spent ten months carrying 200kg everywhere I went. This is basically nothing.
He adjusted his grip, took a breath, and lifted.
The refrigerator came up smoothly. His legs coiled, his back engaged, his core tightened to support the load. He straightened up, shifted the weight onto his shoulders, and stood tall.
The refrigerator sat on his back like it weighed nothing at all.
Izuku turned toward the beach access stairs. Started walking. Each step was solid, stable, the weight distributed so perfectly across his frame that it might as well have been part of him.
Behind him, Hano stood on the clean sand and watched his student carry the last piece of the old world away.
The sun finally broke free of the ocean horizon.
Golden light spilled across the beach, painting everything in shades of fire and honey. It caught Izuku's green hair, his broad shoulders, the muscles that moved under his skin like living architecture. It illuminated the clean sand, the sparkling water, the sky that had finally decided to stop being dramatic and just be beautiful.
Izuku didn't look back.
He climbed the stairs, refrigerator on his shoulders, body transformed into something that defied every limitation society had tried to place on him.
Ten months. 200 kilograms. One beach. Zero Quirk. And I did it anyway.
Because someone's gotta prove that hard work beats genetics. Might as well be me.
He reached the top of the stairs and kept walking, carrying the past on his back, heading toward whatever came next.
Behind him, the beach stretched out pristine and perfect under the morning sun.
A monument to ten months of absolute hell.
And proof that impossible was just a word people used when they quit too early.