The afternoon sun beat down on Training Ground Beta like a personal grudge. Twenty students stood in a loose cluster on the field, their blue and white P.E. uniforms crisp and unworn, faces ranging from nervous to excited to one particular expression that could only be described as "already planning someone's funeral."
That last one belonged to Bakugo. Obviously.
Shota Aizawa stood before them like a scarecrow that had developed clinical depression. His capture scarf hung limply around his shoulders, and his bloodshot eyes surveyed the class with all the enthusiasm of a man watching paint dry in slow motion.
"Your middle school education was a waste of time," he announced flatly. "Physical assessments that banned Quirk usage? Completely illogical. The country's average is based on the abilities of normal people. It tells us nothing about what you can actually do."
He held up his phone. The screen displayed a list of eight tests.
"Fifty-meter dash. Grip strength. Standing long jump. Repeated side steps. Ball throw. Sit-ups. Seated toe-touch. Long-distance run." His voice carried all the energy of a funeral director reading a grocery list. "You'll perform all of these using your Quirks freely."
Mina raised her hand. "So we just... go all out?"
"That's the point."
Ochaco bounced on her heels. "This could actually be fun!"
Aizawa's expression didn't change, but something in his posture shifted. The temperature on the field seemed to drop several degrees.
"Fun? You think this is fun?"
The word hung in the air like a threat.
"Whoever comes in last place across all eight tests will be judged to have zero potential." He let the silence stretch. "And will be expelled. Immediately."
The class froze.
Izuku watched the color drain from several faces around him. Ochaco's excitement curdled into horror. Iida's engines sputtered audibly. Even Toru's floating uniform went completely still.
"That's not fair!" Ochaco stepped forward, her fists clenched. "We just got here! You can't just kick someone out on the first day!"
Iida joined her, arms already chopping through the air. "Sensei! This contradicts all established educational protocols! Students deserve time to demonstrate their growth potential before such drastic measures are—"
"Natural disasters. Villain attacks. Accidents that defy explanation." Aizawa cut him off without raising his voice. "The world is full of unfair things. Heroes are the ones who correct that unfairness. If you can't handle a simple assessment, you have no business being here."
His tired eyes swept across the class.
And stopped.
On Izuku.
Ah. There it is. The 'Quirkless kid who doesn't belong here' look. Been getting that since I was four, teach.
You're going to have to try harder than that.
He smiled.
Aizawa's eye twitched almost imperceptibly before he looked away.
"Bakugo. You scored the highest villain points on the practical exam." He tossed a softball toward the blond. "What was your best throw in middle school without using your Quirk?"
Bakugo caught it one-handed. "Sixty-seven meters."
"Step into the circle. Throw however you want. Just don't leave the circle."
The class parted as Bakugo walked to the marked zone. His shoulders were tight. His jaw was set. This wasn't the wild, explosive rage Izuku remembered from their childhood.
This was focus.
Interesting.
Bakugo rolled the ball between his palms, eyes narrowed at the sky. He'd been different since the entrance exam. Quieter. More intense. The news coverage of Izuku's beach cleanup had done something to him. Lit some fire that went beyond simple rivalry.
He'd actually been training.
Bakugo wound up. His arm snapped forward.
"DIE!"
The explosion wasn't the chaotic blast of his youth. It was compressed. Focused. A concentrated detonation that launched the ball like a cannon shot. The shockwave rippled across the field, sending several students stumbling backward.
The ball became a speck. Then nothing.
Aizawa checked his phone. "809.6 meters."
The class erupted.
"Eight hundred?!"
"That's insane!"
"How is that even possible?!"
Kirishima's shark-toothed grin stretched wide. "Bro! That was so manly!"
Kaminari whistled low. "Dude's literally built different."
But Bakugo wasn't paying attention to the praise. His crimson eyes found Izuku through the crowd.
Izuku's smile widened. He gave Bakugo a slow, condescending golf clap.
Bakugo's eye twitched. A vein pulsed in his temple. But he held himself back, which was perhaps the most impressive thing he'd done all day.
"Alright." Aizawa's flat voice cut through the excitement. "Let's see what the rest of you can do."
The assessment began in earnest.
The fifty-meter dash revealed the speedsters. Iida's engines roared as he crossed the finish line in 3.04 seconds, his form a blur of blue and white. But it was the girl who went after him that made Izuku's breath catch.
Hitomi Todoroki stood at the starting line like a statue carved from ice. Her heterochromatic eyes, one gray and one turquoise, stared straight ahead without emotion. The burn scar around her left eye stood out starkly against her pale skin.
The buzzer sounded.
She didn't run.
Instead, ice erupted from her right foot. A massive frozen slide materialized beneath her, angling upward and then down toward the finish line. She glided across its surface with her arms crossed, expression utterly unchanged, and crossed the line in 3.12 seconds without taking a single step.
The ice shattered behind her, dissolving into mist.
She walked away without looking back.
Cold. Literally and figuratively. The Todoroki girl. Half-Cold Half-Hot, if the rumors are true. And she only used ice.
Izuku filed that observation away for later.
He completed his own dash in 4.03 seconds. No Quirk to boost him, just pure physical conditioning. It put him in the top seven of the class, which earned him a few surprised looks and one particularly venomous glare from Bakugo.
The grip strength test came next.
Mezo Shoji's six arms wrapped around the device simultaneously, and the numbers climbed until the display ran out of digits to show. Somewhere around 540 kilograms, according to Aizawa's bored announcement.
Then Mawata Fuwa bounced up to the testing station.
The pink-haired girl was all smiles and sunshine, her star-shaped pupils practically sparkling with excitement. She looked like she'd wandered out of a shoujo manga and into a hero school by accident.
"Ooh, this looks fun!"
She grabbed the grip strength device with both hands.
And squeezed.
The machine made a sound like a dying robot. Sparks flew. The display flickered wildly before the entire device crumpled inward like a crushed soda can.
Mawata blinked down at the destroyed equipment. "Oopsie!"
She giggled, reached into her pocket, and pulled out a mochi. "Guess I don't know my own strength sometimes!"
The bite she took was entirely too casual for someone who'd just pulverized testing equipment with her bare hands.
Note to self: Do not underestimate the cotton candy girl. That 'oopsie' energy is a trap.
The standing long jump brought another revelation.
Yui Kodai, the quiet girl with the shoulder-length bob, walked to the sand pit without expression. Her cerulean eyes assessed the distance with minimal interest.
She reached into her pocket and produced something small. A metal spring, maybe two inches long.
She placed it on the ground.
Touched it.
The spring expanded instantly, growing from two inches to two feet to something the size of an actual trampoline. Yui stepped onto it, bounced once, and sailed clear over the entire sandbox to land on the grass beyond.
"Mm." She nodded once, satisfied, then touched the spring again. It shrank back to pocket size.
She walked away without another word.
Size manipulation. Simple Quirk. Brilliant application.
Izuku was genuinely impressed. The quiet ones were always dangerous.
The repeated side steps test devolved into controlled chaos as various Quirks created competing whirlwinds of motion. Izuku held his own through footwork alone, his body responding to the demands with muscle memory burned into his bones over ten years of training.
He noticed Mineta sidling up to him during a break between events.
The grape-headed boy's eyes weren't on the current test. They were locked onto the group of girls stretching near the water station. Specifically, they were locked onto areas that should not be stared at in polite company.
"Dude." Mineta's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "Did you see Yaoyorozu during the dash? The way her—"
"Let me stop you right there."
Izuku's voice was pleasant. His smile was not.
A thought bubble materialized in his mind. Two scenarios, perfectly illustrated.
Scenario One: A handsome, well-dressed version of himself approaching Jiro with casual confidence. "Hey, Compass. Those combat boots really complement your whole aesthetic. Very cool." Jiro blushed, her jacks curling with obvious pleasure. Hearts floated around the scene. Result: SUCCESS.
Scenario Two: A grotesque, goblin-like caricature of Mineta scuttling toward Momo on all fours. "BOOBIES!" The caricature drooled. Alarms blared. Police sirens wailed in the distance. Result: RESTRAINING ORDER. HELLO, HUMAN RESOURCES.
Izuku turned to face the shorter boy fully.
"Listen, Grape Boy. There's appreciating beauty, and then there's whatever you're doing." He kept his tone light, almost conversational. "One approach gets you dates. The other gets you a lawsuit and a permanent spot on a registry."
Kaminari, who'd been standing nearby, let out a snort of laughter.
Mineta's face twisted. "You think you're so much better than me? We're the same, Midoriya! I've seen you looking too!"
"The difference is in the execution." Izuku shrugged. "And the not being a creep about it. It's really not that hard."
He walked away before Mineta could respond.
The ball throw approached. Students took their turns, launching the sphere through various Quirk applications. Ochaco touched hers and sent it into low orbit. Literally. Aizawa's device displayed "infinity" for several seconds before he had to force it down with a command.
Then his bloodshot gaze found Izuku.
"Midoriya. You're up."
He picked up the ball.
Wound up.
And felt a piercing gaze on his back.
Aizawa's hair floated around his face. His eyes glowed an angry red. His capture scarf writhed like living shadow.
"I erased your Quirk."
The words hung in the air.
Izuku blinked.
My what now?
"I've read your file." Aizawa's voice carried across the silent field. "Completely illogical for someone aiming to be a hero."
Oh. Oh, this is hilarious.
"A hero who needs to be saved after every fight isn't a hero at all. They're a liability." Aizawa's tired eyes bore into Izuku with something approaching actual emotion. Disappointment, maybe. Or disgust. "You have zero potential."
The class had gone completely still. Izuku could feel the tension radiating off his classmates.
"What the hell, sensei?!"
Jiro stepped forward, her earphone jacks whipping behind her like agitated serpents. Her face had gone red with indignation.
"You're singling him out! He's been in the top seven for every single event without a single flashy move!" Her jacks twitched violently. "How is that 'zero potential'?!"
Toru's floating uniform moved to stand beside Jiro. "That's not fair! He saved people and scored first during the entrance exam! How can you say that to him when he's more of a hero than anyone here?!"
Ochaco's hands clenched into fists at her sides. Her eyes shimmered with angry tears. "Midoriya-kun risked his life to save me! He didn't even know me and he still came running! That's what a hero does!"
Aizawa's glowing eyes swept across the three girls.
The look he gave them could have frozen lava.
They fell silent, but the rebellion in their postures remained. Jiro's jacks kept twitching. Toru's collar was angled forward aggressively. Ochaco's lower lip trembled with suppressed emotion.
Aizawa deactivated his Quirk. His hair fell back around his face. His eyes returned to their normal, tired state.
"One more throw, Midoriya." His voice was flat. Empty. "Prove me wrong."
The ball sat in Izuku's palm.
He understood now.
This wasn't a test for him. Aizawa already knew what he was. Had probably known since the faculty meeting that decided his admission. The "Quirk erasure" was theater. The speech about zero potential was a script.
This was a performance.
For them.
Izuku looked at Jiro, whose face still burned with righteous fury. At Toru, whose invisible form radiated protective energy. At Ochaco, who looked ready to fight a teacher on his behalf.
He looked at the rest of the class. At Kirishima's confused frown. At Iida's troubled expression. At the spark of something in Hitomi Todoroki's mismatched eyes.
Then he looked at Aizawa.
And smiled.
You want proof, teach?
He rolled his shoulder. Felt his muscles respond with the familiar weight of ten years of suffering.
Fine. I'll give you proof.
He shifted his stance. Planted his feet. Let his body remember every sunrise at Takoba Beach. Every sprint through broken glass. Every punch against Hano's impossible defense.
Watch carefully.
The ball felt light in his hand.
School's in session.