The gates groaned open like the jaws of some mechanical beast.
Izuku watched the other students tense up, coiling like springs, eyes locked on the opening as if waiting for some divine signal. A countdown. A starter pistol. Something.
Silence stretched.
Then Present Mic's voice exploded from speakers hidden somewhere in the concrete jungle.
"OKAY, GO!"
A beat of confusion rippled through the crowd.
"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! THE TEST HAS STARTED! THERE ARE NO COUNTDOWNS IN A REAL FIGHT! GO, GO, GO!"
A jolt of panic shot through the crowd.
By the time the first students started moving, Izuku was already gone.
He'd shot forward the instant the word "GO" hit his ears, body low, steps silent despite the speed. The kid with tape elbows stumbled trying to catch up. The frog girl croaked in surprise. Someone with wings actually tripped over their own feet.
No weapons allowed. Absolutely ridiculous. A hero uses every tool available. Depriving me of brass knuckles or even a simple staff isn't testing adaptability. It's just making my life harder for no reason.
The geezer would laugh and call this character building.
I call it bureaucratic nonsense.
He rounded a corner into the mock city proper, eyes already cataloging everything. Fire escapes. Narrow alleys. Exposed wiring on a lamppost. The shadows cast by the fake storefronts.
The city wasn't a battlefield.
It was a playground.
A one-point bot rolled into view, its boxy frame clanking along the asphalt. Some girl with glowing hands blasted it from twenty feet away, the explosion reducing it to scrap in a shower of sparks.
Wasteful. Loud. Effective but completely lacking in finesse.
Izuku spotted another one-pointer turning the corner ahead. He didn't charge it head-on like the explosion girl. That would be boring.
Instead, he angled toward the building on his left, hit the wall at a dead sprint, and used his momentum to run three steps vertically up the brick surface before kicking off. The world tilted. His body arced through the air, and he came down on the robot's shoulders with the grace of a cat and the intent of a sledgehammer.
The bot didn't even have time to register the threat.
Izuku drove his fist down onto a specific panel on its back, the one where the manufacturer always cheaped out on reinforcement. His knuckles connected with a short, sharp strike that sent a shockwave through the metal. The Tile Breaker technique didn't rely on raw power. It relied on vibration, on targeting the internal structure.
The panel popped open like a cookie jar.
Wiring spilled out, sparking and vulnerable.
Izuku ripped the bundle free with one hand, twisted, and dropped off the bot's back as it sparked, shuddered, and collapsed into a smoking heap.
+1 Point.
One down. Fourteen minutes and fifty-seven seconds to go.
He landed in a crouch, scanning for the next target, when movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention.
An alleyway.
A kid with wild purple hair was pressed against the wall, eyes wide, watching as robots trundled past the alley entrance without even glancing his way. The kid looked like he was trying to become one with the bricks.
Non-combat Quirk. Probably mental manipulation or something equally useless in a robot gauntlet. Poor bastard.
Izuku didn't slow down. He had points to earn. But as he sprinted past the alley, he called out over his shoulder, voice loud enough to carry but not breaking stride.
"Hey, Purple Hair!"
The kid's head snapped up, eyes wide with shock.
"You're not gonna win by hiding."
The purple-haired student opened his mouth, probably to argue or ask what the hell Izuku was talking about, but Izuku was already moving again, his voice trailing behind him like a ghost.
"These things are cheap mass-produced junk. External kill switch on the back panel, right between the shoulders. Rip it out, they die. Get to work."
He turned the corner before the other boy could respond, leaving him there with a stunned expression and the faintest spark of hope flickering in his exhausted eyes.
That's one freebie. Use it or don't. I've got a score to beat.
The points started racking up fast.
Two-pointer tried to flank him from the left. Izuku kicked a chunk of rubble into its optical sensor, blinding it, then vaulted over its frame to tear out the wiring from behind. +2.
Another one-pointer rolled into the intersection. He didn't even touch it. Just grabbed a discarded metal pipe from the ground and hurled it like a javelin straight into the thing's central processor. It died mid-roll. +1.
This is almost too easy. I've fought Hano-sensei on worse terrain than this. These bots move like arthritic senior citizens.
He rounded another corner, breathing steady, adrenaline singing in his veins, when he heard it.
A sound.
Not the clank of metal feet or the whir of servos.
A directional, concussive blast of noise that hit like a physical thing, vibrating through the air and making a three-point bot stagger mid-step.
Izuku's head snapped toward the source.
A girl stood on a fire escape two stories up, petite frame silhouetted against the fake skyline, choppy purple hair catching the artificial sunlight. She had a punk-rock aesthetic that screamed "I dare you to tell me what to do," complete with combat boots and a scowl.
And extending from her ears were two long, plug-like jacks, currently jammed into the metal railing beside her.
Emitter-type. Sound manipulation. Uses the environment as an amplifier. Smart. Very smart. Also, nice combat boots.
The three-pointer she'd disoriented stumbled, trying to recalibrate its targeting systems. The girl unplugged from the railing, jacks whipping through the air, and prepared for another strike.
Then Izuku saw it.
Another three-pointer, this one bigger, meaner, with missile pods on its shoulders, rolled around the corner behind her. Its optical sensors locked onto her exposed position on the fire escape.
The shoulder panels opened with a mechanical hiss.
Oh. That's not good.
The girl saw it too. Her eyes went wide. She was too exposed, too high up, and the missiles were already priming.
Izuku didn't think.
Thinking was for people who had time.
He moved.
A pile of rubble sat to his left, chunks of concrete stacked like a makeshift ramp. Izuku hit it at full speed, used the incline to launch himself into the air, and soared toward the missile bot like a very angry, very attractive meteor.
He landed on the thing's head with both feet, the impact making the entire robot shudder. Before it could react, he stomped down hard on its primary optical sensor, the reinforced lens shattering under his heel.
The bot jerked, blind and confused.
Izuku dropped down its front, grabbed onto its shoulder plating for leverage, and drove a vicious kick into the servo-joint. The joint buckled. The bot stumbled.
And in its mechanical panic, it fired.
Oh. Oh no.
The missiles launched wild, spiraling through the air in every direction. One of them slammed into the building directly beneath the girls fire escape.
The explosion was deafening.
Metal shrieked. Concrete crumbled.
The fire escape beneath her groaned once, tilted at a sickening angle, and then simply gave way.
She let out a startled yell as the world dropped out from under her.
Izuku had just torn the power core from the bot's back when he heard the scream. His head snapped up.
A body. Falling. Purple hair whipping in the wind.
There was no time to think. No time to plan. Only Hano's training, beaten into his bones over ten years of suffering.
React. Control. Absorb.
He dropped the sparking core, spun on his heel, and planted his feet in a wide, low stance. The kind of stance designed for catching immense weight, for redirecting momentum instead of fighting it.
She fell.
He braced.
And she landed.
He didn't catch her in his arms like some storybook prince. That would've broken both their spines and probably cracked the pavement.
No, she landed in a seated position, her entire weight crashing down onto his lap as he crouched low to absorb the impact. Her back hit his chest. Her legs splayed out in front of her. One of her jacks whipped around, the plug grazing his cheek with a faint electric tingle.
For a split second, the world went silent.
The explosions faded. The crashing metal became distant white noise.
All Izuku could register was the warmth, the weight, and the very immediate awareness that this girl was not as petite as she looked from a distance.
Thick thighs save lives. Also, apparently, punish spines.
She was gasping for air, winded from the fall, and absolutely furious. Her head whipped around, sharp purple eyes locking onto his face, ready to unleash verbal hell on whoever's lap she'd just crash-landed into.
"What the HELL do you think you're—"
Her voice died mid-sentence.
Because she saw him.
Green eyes. Calm. Amused. Completely unbothered by the fact that he was currently serving as her emergency landing pad.
And then he smiled.
"Nice legs," he said, his voice a low murmur meant only for her. "You must do squats."
Kyoka Jiro's brain short-circuited.
Her face went through several colors in rapid succession. White. Pink. Red. A shade of crimson that could probably be seen from space.
Her mouth opened.
No sound came out.
Her jacks twitched.
Still nothing.
She was completely, utterly, catastrophically frozen.
And Izuku, bastard that he was, just kept smiling.
Ten months of hell. Ten years of training. All leading to this exact moment. Worth it.
Around them, the battle raged on. Bots exploded. Students shouted. Somewhere in the distance, Present Mic's voice boomed encouragement through the speakers.
But in this small pocket of chaos, time had stopped.
Izuku Midoriya, Quirkless delinquent, shameless flirt, and future hero, had just discovered his favorite part of the entrance exam.
And Kyoka Jiro, punk rock drummer and aspiring hero, had just discovered that her biggest threat today wasn't the robots.
It was the green-haired asshole currently smirking up at her like he'd just won the lottery.