3 Months Till U.A Entrance Exam
"Okay, 200% Full Body Overdrive!!" Akari shouted as his whole body felt like it was overflowing with strength.
He took a step — and in the blink of an eye, he was already 100 meters away. Looking back, all the trees and rocks were either crushed to pieces or blown away by the wind pressure.
"My control is messed up... ahhh!" He winced in pain as he looked ahead — a massive boulder stood blocking his path.
"Okay, let's see if I can crush this thing or not." He clenched his right fist, taking a proper punching stance to maximize his power.
'Oh god, my body hurts so bad... I can feel my organs bursting. My stamina's declining rapidly... if this keeps up, I won't even have enough strength to use my quirk...'
Even though he knew he should stop while he still could, he had to know — how far had he come?
"Detroit Smash!" he shouted — a famous move of All Might. In this move All Might use his quirk to channel immense power into a single blow, capable of even changing the weather.
Of course, Akari couldn't reach All Might's level of power, but it was still a good move to learn — channel your entire strength into one punch, and use the wind pressure generated from it. Like that, it could even attack from a distance.
Still, the huge difference in their physical abilities meant that, even if he tried to use the move, he couldn't generate enough wind pressure to deal real damage.
But it was still good for secondary impact.
Akari's fist collided with the boulder — in a flash, the shockwave blew away small rocks and shook the trees as if they were about to be uprooted.
CRACK!
Like a spiderweb, cracks began spreading across the boulder. It looked like it was about to shatter into pieces — but it didn't. It stayed in one piece.
"~Coughs blood~ Damn... still not strong enough... this boulder is one of the smallest ones and I still couldn't break it... da—m...n..."
Akari collapsed heavily to the ground as blood flowed from his mouth, nose, and even his eyes.
His right hand was completely broken, looking burned and blackened. The rest of his body wasn't in good shape either — badly bruised, turning purple in places.
His face rapidly paled as he lost too much blood.
"I don't... have much stamina left... shit..."
Using the last bit of his strength, he crawled toward his bag lying nearby. With bloodied lips, he unzipped it — inside was a bottle filled with a strange green liquid.
With his mouth, he grabbed the bottle, turned toward the sky, and bit down on the glass, crushing it like a savage.
A portion of the green liquid slipped into his mouth along with small pieces of glass that cut his tongue and gums — but luckily, he managed not to swallow them.
The green liquid was actually a mixture of water and his quirk. A few months ago, while bathing and healing his torn tissues, he had noticed that the water began to show traces of his quirk's effects.
Of course, it wasn't that powerful, but after experimenting, he found a few useful properties.
Right now, it wasn't actually healing him — instead, it was temporarily stopping his life force from fading. He wasn't recovering, but he wouldn't die for a while either.
He also learned that the effect disappeared after a certain time, but for now, it was enough to keep him alive.
And so, Akari lay there for a full ten minutes — half-dead but still breathing. After that, he began healing his internal organs.
One thing that had changed in these past few months was that now he could heal multiple vital organs at once instead of one at a time — which was also why he had become so reckless lately.
He remembered reading about the Quirk Doomsday Theory a few days ago. It was proposed by some doctor — though he couldn't remember the name — and Akari had started to believe it, at least to some extent.
Just days ago, when he was on the brink of death, his quirk had suddenly grown stronger. It was then that he learned to use it on multiple injuries at once. It was also the first time his quirk had evolved so quickly that his body couldn't adapt — some of his cells became unstable, and he even grew two extra arms.
That had scared the hell out of him. Luckily, after evolving, he managed to stabilize his cells. It was the first time he truly felt lucky to have this quirk.
"Oh god, I'm so tired I could sleep for a whole week," Akari sighed as he sat up weakly on the ground. He was completely exhausted — so much that he knew if he closed his eyes for even a second, he wouldn't wake up until someone found him.
"It's almost school time... this sucks. I can't even walk right now."
Thinking about the upcoming written exam he needed to pass to even think about getting into U.A., he felt his mind overheat.
"I'm not even that good at studying, and now I have to pass one of the hardest written exams in all of Japan."
Right now, Akari wasn't even as worried about the practical exam as he was about the written one.
He wasn't that smart — he barely passed even after studying so hard. And his middle school wasn't great either... actually, it was one of the crappiest in the city (His personal feeling).
"At least I have an excuse I can tell Mom...why I am so late...though she won't be thrilled about it...not like she was from the start...."
---
Inside School
Akari was peacefully sleeping on the last bench as the teacher was teaching math, when suddenly a flying piece of chalk hit him hard on the head.
"Akari Hayashi! I know you're so smart that you barely passed your mid-terms, but still, don't ruin the decorum of the class!" the long-nosed teacher said, glaring at him angrily.
In response, Akari hurriedly focused on his textbook in embarrassment as the other students laughed.
'Damn it, it's not like anyone is actually studying!' he shouted internally as he saw other students secretly talking and throwing small notes to each other.
RING!
"Okay, that's it for today. Remember to do your homework," the teacher said as he picked up his books and started walking out.
"OKAY, Sensei!" the students shouted as he left, and then chaos broke out.
With some difficulty(no difficulty), Akari managed to get out of the classroom and headed to the library to study.
When he reached there, he noticed that, as usual, no one was around. Finding a good seat near the window, he sat down, took out his math textbook, and started solving questions.
He was so focused that he didn't notice Ochaco coming in and sitting nearby.
'He's so focused,' Ochaco thought as she took a seat near him. She was kind of surprised to see him here.
Since the U.A. entrance exams were near—and she was aiming to get in too—she needed to study, and the library was the best place she could think of.
'Well, I really want to talk to him… I just never got the chance,' she thought.'But it's not a good time. Seeing how focused he is, I should wait for him to notice me…'
Ten minutes later…'Wow, he's still so focused.'
Half an hour later…'Hayashi-kun is really something…'
An hour later…'Okay, I think he's just ignoring me now…' Ochaco thought with a smile on her face as she slowly turned and looked at her empty notebook—she hadn't studied a single word so far.
Sighing, she picked up her pencil and started writing. After a minute, she reached out for her eraser—only for it to fall off the table because of her carelessness.
The eraser bounced on the floor and rolled under Akari's chair. He finally snapped out of his concentration, picked it up, and handed it back to Ochaco before turning straight back to his notebook, diving once again into his "hellish" math practice.
"Okay, you're really ignoring me!" Ochaco shouted, pointing her finger at him.
"Huh?" Disturbed by her shout, Akari looked at Ochaco. He blinked once, then again.
"Say something, Hayashi-kun!" Ochaco said in panic.
"Oh, uh—yeah, Uraraka-san, is there something you need from me?" he asked.
Ochaco blinked, then said, "Wait, that's it?"
"Ah—what are you saying? I don't follow," Akari said, having no idea what was going on. He was a bit nervous since Ochaco was sitting so close.
Previously, he hadn't noticed her—of course, he knew someone was there, but he thought it was just some random nerd. After all, it was a library.
"I came an hour ago, you know," she said with a sad expression.
"Oh, yeah, sorry. I didn't realize it was you," Akari said, feeling it was really rude of him.
"It's okay. I just wanted to say sorry to you, actually," Ochaco said, bowing as she apologized.
"Sorry? For what, Uraraka-san?" Akari asked, confused—he had already forgotten everything that happened on the first day of their third year.
Ochaco was surprised, then hurriedly said, "About what I said on the first day! Sorry—it's been a month, I should've said it sooner. Still, I'm sorry I said something sensiti…v…e… ahh."
Ochaco looked at Akari's blank face—he seemed to have no recollection whatsoever.
'Don't tell me I'm the only one who's been thinking about it!!!' Ochaco screamed internally as she felt her world turn upside down.