It all began in Keikei City, China, with the news that a bioluminescent baby was born. After that, 'exceptional' individuals began popping up all over the world; the cause was unclear.
Time passed, and the 'exceptional' became the norm.
Fantasy became reality.
At present, 80% of the world's population consists of superhumans with special abilities. The world is in chaos. And a profession that everyone once only dreamed about entered the spotlight:
Heroes
**********
A young man with pale skin, white hair, and blue eyes stood before the gates of U.A., the number one high school in heroics and the most prestigious hero academy in all of Japan.
Around him, hundreds of other youths, of the most varied appearances, hurried toward the entrance, each displaying different degrees of nervousness. It was no surprise. In just a few minutes, they would all face the dreaded entrance exam — the filter that separated dreamers from true candidates to become heroes.
Thousands tried every year; only a tiny fraction succeeded.
However, unlike the other candidates, the white-haired boy showed no trace of nervousness. In fact, his face was completely disinterested, merely observing the crowd as it moved.
He remained like that for a few more seconds, until his gaze fell upon his right hand. He stared at it for a moment before clenching his fist tightly. "Let's get this over with."
**********
Inside the bus heading toward Battle Center C, a girl of medium height and slender build occupied a seat by the window, her legs crossed in a less-than-elegant manner. Her fair skin contrasted with her short, dark-purple hair, cut into an asymmetrical fringe that framed her face, with two locks descending to her chin on either side.
But what drew the most attention in her appearance were her elongated, flexible earlobes — like earphone jacks — that dangled from each ear. She twirled the left one between her index finger and thumb, an automatic, almost unconscious gesture.
Her black, sleepy-looking eyes, framed by notably long lashes, stared out the window, trying to distract herself from the nervousness consuming her with the blur of trees and U.A. buildings passing by.
It wasn't working. The waiting was making her stomach churn, and she hated it — Kyouka hated this pre-test tension more than anything, preferring a thousand times to just get it over with.
Thankfully, the bus began to slow down, announcing that they had finally reached their destination.
Kyouka stepped off quickly, standing before a massive red gate along with dozens of other candidates. She had no idea what kind of quirks the others possessed, but surely some were better suited than hers for this type of test— one that was purely about destroying as many robots as possible — much to her dismay.
It wasn't that her quirk was ineffective in this situation — just... not ideal. Her quirk, called Earphone Jack, made her earlobes resemble earphone connectors, allowing her to control them like extra limbs, stretch them up to six meters, and, when plugged into a surface, pick up even the faintest vibrations and sounds; she could also channel her heartbeat through them, generating devastating shockwaves.
It was useful for destruction, yes, but it required physical contact — which meant stretching her jacks and praying that nothing crushed, trapped, or tore them off in the process.
That's why Kyouka would have preferred a search-and-rescue test, or something involving locating hidden targets. Her advantage would have been enormous compared to the others. 'Ah, if only it were like that...' she sighed, letting the thought go and deciding to observe the other candidates to see if anyone seemed overly confident, but everyone looked just as tense as she did.
'Guess we're all in the same boat, huh...' Well, she believed that — until her eyes landed on a boy standing slightly apart from the group.
He had pure white hair and was dressed entirely in black: cargo pants, combat boots, and a hooded jacket with the hood down. His hands were buried in the jacket's pockets, but Kyouka could see they were covered by equally black gloves.
'That guy... he's trouble.'
Not because he exuded the confidence she'd been looking for — Kyouka would've understood that. But because he looked... disinterested. You could tell by the way his body leaned slightly to one side, as if there was no reason to stand straight. By his half-lidded eyes that wandered over nothing in particular. And by the constant tapping of his foot against the ground — like someone counting the seconds until something would finally be over.
Kyouka wasn't exactly an expert at reading people — far from it — but even she could conclude that, to that boy, the test was nothing but a mere inconvenience.
'Either he's too weak to pass and already gave up, or... too strong to see any challenge in it...'
As if sensing her gaze, the boy turned his head. And for a brief instant, their eyes met.
She looked away immediately, her face heating up with embarrassment at being caught staring. 'Damn it. I looked too long.' Kyouka turned to the other side, pretending to be watching the gate, the ground—anything.
"You know, I'm aware I'm handsome. But it's rude to stare like that, you know?"
Kyouka felt her whole body shiver when an unfamiliar voice sounded right beside her left ear. She jumped, heart leaping to her throat, spinning around—and there he was, the white-haired boy, just inches away, leaning slightly forward with a half-smile.
'How the hell did he get so close without me hearing anything?!' Kyouka stepped back, her jacks twitching instinctively. "H-how did you—?"
"Kurokawa Rei." He cut her off, extending a hand.
Kyouka stared at the offered hand for a second, then back at his face, trying to make sense of what was happening—and failing miserably.
"Come on," Rei waved his hand in the air, "Don't leave me hanging like that. You'll ruin my image."
She watched him for a few seconds longer, torn between slapping him, ignoring him, or simply pretending she hadn't heard. In the end, Kyouka shook his hand—mostly just to get it over with. "Jirou Kyouka…"
"Pleasure, Kyouka-chan," Rei said cheerfully, shaking their hands up and down.
'Kyouka… chan?' Kyouka repeated mentally, mortified.
"So, why were you dissecting me with your eyes?" Rei continued, his voice loud enough to make a few other candidates turn their heads. "My beauty? My protagonist aura? Or was it love at first sight?"
Kyouka felt blood rush to her ears in embarrassment. She yanked her hand back sharply, crossing her arms and trying to recover a shred of composure. "F-first: don't call me that. Ever again. Second: I wasn't dissecting you."
"Oh?" Rei arched a brow, his smile only widening. "Then what was it? Love at first sight—?"
"Third—" She went on, her jacks twitching slightly "—if you keep talking nonsense like that, I swear I'll make you deaf."
Rei let out a short chuckle, not seeming the least bit intimidated. "Heh, that sounds like a threat. I like that."
Kyouka huffed, deciding to completely ignore the lunatic whose attention she had drawn and focus on the test that was about to begin—
[LET'S BEGIN!!!!]
Present Mic's amplified voice echoed from all directions, making Kyouka freeze. 'What?' She looked toward the tower where the voice came from, just like the other candidates.
[WHAT'S WRONG? THERE'S NO COUNTDOWN IN A REAL FIGHT! RUN! YOUR FATE IS SEALED!]
The gate opened, and in the blink of an eye, all the candidates started running.
Kyouka didn't think twice, sprinting along with the group inside. 'Alright. Focus. One robot at a time.'
Battle Center C looked exactly like a real city, with signs, streets, and tall buildings. It was impressive—enough to make Kyouka wonder how, and how much, U.A. had spent to build all of it. But she didn't spend much time thinking about that because… she wasn't finding any robots.
Maybe a minute had passed? She had run deep into the city and turned several corners, yet she hadn't found a single robot! 'Something's really wrong here…'
"Hey, has anyone seen any robots so far?" A green-skinned boy asked from across the street, just as lost as she was.
"Nothing!" another replied. "They're supposed to be everywhere, right?!"
Kyouka bit her lower lip. 'That doesn't make sense.' Stretching out her jacks and plugging them into the ground, she closed her eyes, trying to catch any vibration that could indicate the direction of where the "villains" were.
Nothing.
'Okay… they must be deeper into the city.' Motivating herself, Kyouka started running again. Still, doubts began to creep into her mind. 'Could this test actually be about something else?…'
She turned into a narrow street, then another, going deeper and deeper into the artificial city until, finally, something caught her attention.
A metallic, burnt smell.
It was smoke.
Following the scent quickly, Kyouka turned a corner, soon finding the source of the smell ahead.
In the middle of an intersection, there were destroyed robots—many robots, from different points. They were scattered across the ground, each with a hole in its chest, from which black smoke was rising.
'But… what…?'
***********
Inside a dark room, the U.A. staff watched the practical test unfold across the different Battle Centers. A huge screen occupied almost the entire wall in front of them, divided into dozens of frames showing various candidates facing the villain bots.
Some fought with technique and strategy; others relied solely on brute strength, and there were also those who stood frozen, too afraid to act.
"Interesting... this year's group seems quite promising," one of the teachers commented, his voice filled with enthusiasm.
"'Promising' is a generous word," another replied, arms crossed. "Most of them are just running around without thinking."
"Ah, but look at that boy there!" someone pointed to a screen filled with explosions. "Quick movements, good terrain reading! That kind of instinct is rare in rookies."
As the comments piled up, one of the teachers monitoring the performance data frowned. "Hmm... Principal Nezu, you should take a look at this."
"Yes?" Nezu turned his head, curious.
The teacher enlarged one of the screens, centering the image. On the monitor, a black-haired boy stood at the edge of a building, calmly looking down at the streets below. He seemed completely unaware of the test, displaying a relaxed posture with his hands in his pockets, as if he were simply there to enjoy the view.
"What about him?" Midnight asked, voicing everyone's question.
"This candidate... destroyed 86% of the robots in Battle Center C."
"What?!" She almost jumped out of her chair.
Everyone focused on the screen, including Aizawa, who had been watching an indigo-haired boy. "Was there a system error?"
"No," the professor replied. "The data confirms —only 14% of the robots remain active in that field—" He was about to continue, but stopped to look at the screen, for the boy had moved.
A simple step forward — just enough to fall from the building.
For a moment, no one said anything, merely watching the boy fall, his jacket fluttering in the wind. But unlike what they expected, there was no sign of a quirk, nor any attempt to stop the fall.
"He's not going to...?" Someone began, but never finished.
When the boy was supposed to hit the ground, he simply passed through the asphalt. No impact, no sound. As if he had been swallowed by the ground.
"That... that was an intangibility technique?" Snipe ventured, still fixed on the screen.
No one answered.
Nezu, with his eyes shining with curiosity, grabbed his tablet and began typing rapidly. "Oh...? Ohoho. It seems we have someone very interesting here."
Two clicks later, the candidate's information and photo appeared on the big screen — and unlike how they had seen him before, he had white hair.
Name: Rei Kurokawa
Quirk:Shadow Manipulation
**********
Itsuka Kendo expected many things from the Practical Test. First, ease — mainly because of her quirk, Big Fist. After all, giant hands were perfect for smashing robots and delivering punches that could turn any machine into scrap metal in seconds. Second, some degree of difficulty, since with so many candidates fighting for the same targets, the chaos of quirks would be inevitable. And lastly, some kind of trick from U.A., which would never make things easy for them.
But what Itsuka definitely didn't expect — not even in her worst nightmares — was to find no robots at all to score points on!
She had already run through entire blocks, turned corners, peeked into alleys — everything — only to find nothing. No, 'nothing' wasn't exactly the right word. Itsuka had found dozens, maybe hundreds of robots. The problem was that they were already destroyed.
And it wasn't hard to figure out, judging by the same type of damage on all of them, that the one responsible for defeating them had been the work of a single person. Somehow, she'd had the terrible luck of ending up in the same group as someone absurdly strong — powerful enough to wipe out all those robots in just a few minutes.
She wanted to cry. Just a little, to let all the indignation out. But she wouldn't! A true heroine would never give up... not until time ran out, at least.
Letting out a long sigh, Itsuka leaned against the wall of a building and wiped the sweat from her forehead with her hand. 'Running this much… is really exhausting.' Pausing for a moment, she watched the street, noticing some candidates still running up and down in desperation, while others already seemed to have given up, sitting on the sidewalk.
'Come on, Itsuka. Think. There must be another way to score… right? U.A. wouldn't limit us only to the robo—'
BAAAAAAMMMM!!!
A deafening sound echoed, cutting off her entire line of thought. The ground beneath her feet trembled, and a thick cloud of dust rose high at the end of the street, hiding everything behind a gray veil.
Itsuka froze, staring wide-eyed at the scene. "What… just happened?" As if to answer her, a gigantic shadow began to emerge from within the smoke. And then, something appeared at the top — a colossal metallic head, with six glowing red visors.
It was the Zero Pointer.
************
'I really… should've stayed in bed.'
Kyouka coughed harshly, her throat burning as she tried to process how the hell she'd ended up face-first on the ground, her elbows stinging and surrounded by a thick cloud of dust that seemed to swallow everything.
A second ago, she had been catching her breath after spending the last few minutes desperately hunting down the villain bots. In fact, she had the impression she'd run through the entire damn Battle Center chasing them.
And for what? Ten points. Just ten miserable, insignificant points.
Well, she should've been at least a little happy to have gotten them, compared to the other candidates who were running in circles, not knowing where to go. It had all been thanks to her jacks, which picked up the robots' vibrations through the ground.
But then, in the blink of an eye, the impact of something had thrown her to the floor.
'What… happened?' Still dizzy, Kyouka pressed her palms to the ground and pushed herself up slowly, coughing again. She blinked several times, trying to focus her vision despite the sting in her eyes from the dust. 'Practical test… my ass… they're trying to kill us…'
Staggering a little, Kyouka began to walk. Her body felt heavy, and each step made her head throb harder. She didn't know exactly where she was going; she just wanted to get as far away from there as possible.
She took one, two, three steps. But before the fourth, she heard something.
"–lp!"
It was a weak, trembling sound, coming from somewhere to her left.
Kyouka stopped immediately, for a moment thinking it might be a hallucination. Maybe she'd hit her head harder than she thought?
"H–lp!"
It wasn't in her head. Someone needed help.
Without hesitation, she ran, forgetting the pain in her body. Kyouka moved quickly toward where the sound had come from, and even with the dust still hanging in the air, she managed to find a pile of debris. She knelt beside it and connected her jacks, confirming that the call for help had indeed come from there.
And that there were two people trapped inside.
'Damn it!' Disconnecting her jacks, Kyouka bit her lower lip, thinking about what to do. Her quirk wouldn't be useful, since any sound wave could make the situation worse for whoever was buried. 'I… uh...'
"H-HEY! I know you're in there! I'll get help and be right ba—"
THUM!
Kyouka froze as the ground vibrated again, the sound of something huge moving came from her left. 'W–what?' The dust was already thinning, revealing an enormous silhouette approaching them.
'Ah, shit.'
*****************
"Are you okay?"
"Y-yes, thank you."
"Alright, get out of here," Itsuka said, helping a boy in shock to his feet. He was trembling so much he could barely stand; his glassy eyes fixed on the giant robot at the end of the street. She gave him a gentle push on the back, gesturing for him to go the other way. "Go!"
The boy nodded, stumbling over his own feet as he ran.
The sudden appearance of the giant robot had caught everyone off guard, leaving some candidates paralyzed by fear and others injured by the debris that had been hurled around.
Itsuka knew she was doing exactly the opposite of what Present Mic had shouted during the test's explanation, heading toward the Zero Pointer instead of running away. But how could she leave knowing there were people who needed help?
That would be anything but heroic.
Kneeling beside a girl whose ankle was trapped under a metal plate, Itsuka expanded her hands and lifted the plate with ease, freeing her. "Can you run?" she asked, helping her up.
"I—I think so."
"Then go! Don't look back!"
The girl limped away while Itsuka straightened her posture, glancing around to see if anyone else needed help. The dust was beginning to settle, improving the visibility of the street. 'Was that everyone—?'
THUM... THUM... THUM...
A deep, metallic sound that made the ground tremble echoed once again.
Itsuka turned toward the noise and saw that the giant robot had begun to move, but something else caught her attention. A few meters ahead, in the Zero Pointer's path, a girl with purple hair was kneeling in the middle of the street, desperately trying to remove stones and concrete blocks from a heap of rubble.
'Someone's trapped there?' Itsuka guessed, starting to run without a second thought.
The ground trembled with every step of the Zero Pointer, and the air grew heavier with each passing second—but Itsuka didn't slow down. As she drew closer, she could see the desperation etched on the other candidate's face, her fingers scraped raw and her face streaked with dust.
"Hey!" Itsuka shouted, stopping beside her. "Is there someone under there?"
The girl turned her head, breathing heavily. "Y-yes! Two people!"
"Alright, leave it to me!"
Itsuka's hands grew again, expanding to their limit. She prepared to lift a large block of concrete, but before she could move it, the girl beside her stopped her.
"Wait! If you move that one, the rest will collapse!"
Itsuka froze mid-motion. The girl was right—the pile was unstable; one wrong move and the buried ones could be crushed. "Then what do we do?!"
The girl pointed to a gap in the debris. "There's a gap down here... if we move the smaller pieces, maybe we can pull them out—"
A massive shadow fell over them both.
The Zero Pointer had arrived.
They looked up in alarm and saw the robot's enormous hand descending toward them.
Fear took hold of them. Even so, something stronger burned in their chests.
Protect.
Save.
Defend.
Both braced themselves, muscles tensed, quirks ready to fight and shield the people trapped beneath—
FWOOOSH!!!
When something black, fast as lightning, passed above their heads.
BAAAAAAMMMMM!!!!!!
***************
Sitting on the edge of a building, Rei rested the side of his head on his hand, his elbow propped on his knee. The strong wind stirred his white hair as he watched the chaos the Zero Pointer left across the Battle Center.
He was... impressed.
Not by the robot's size—that was a toy compared to what he had already seen— but by the courage, or rather, the recklessness of U.A. in putting something like that against inexperienced teenagers.
Could someone die? Get seriously injured? Maybe lose a leg? He'd like to know. Not out of morbid pleasure. God, he despised sadists. But out of pure sociological curiosity.
How would public opinion react if someone walked out of there in pieces? Would parents storm U.A. with posters and tears, demanding the immediate shutdown of the institution? Would newspapers boil with headlines accusing negligence and turning the incident into a media circus for weeks? Or would society— that apathetic, resigned mass— simply shrug, saying something like, 'it's the price of seeking heroism', while switching channels?
"Ahh, so many questions. So few answers. And it's not even my first day..." Tapping his fingers rhythmically against his leg, Rei's attention was then caught by two girls who, unlike everyone else, weren't running from the Zero Pointer.
"Oh?"
One had orange hair and gigantic hands. The other was the girl he'd exchanged a few words with before the test… Kyoke Jere… something like that. Both stood before a pile of rubble, looking more concerned with the stones than with the giant robot seconds away from crushing them.
'Why are you— Ah.' Rei felt his stomach twist as he understood what was happening. It was obvious, really. A grimace of disgust warped his lips. 'So that's how heroes are born.'
Not through strength, nor through intelligence. But through a blind instinct to put themselves second, to risk their own skin for strangers, while the world watches and applauds the sacrifice as if it were virtue. A theater of altruism, where fear becomes an example and risk becomes a résumé.
'How pathetic.' Standing up, Rei adjusted his jacket before raising one hand, palm facing downward. He flexed his fingers, as if touching something invisible, and moved his arm smoothly upward.
Down below, the shadow of the building began to tremble and ripple, reacting to his gestures. Then, in an instant, as if it had come to life, it climbed up the side of the structure, slithering toward him. When the black stain reached his feet, Rei made another motion with his hand, causing the shadow to lift off the ground, gaining density and becoming both solid and pliable.
Rei moved his hand again, this time in circles, condensing the shadow into a black sphere. 'Let's earn those rescue points and get this over with.' Now bringing his other hand in front of his body, Rei assumed the stance of an archer as the black sphere stretched and sharpened at the tip, transforming into a large arrow.
He smiled, aiming at the Zero Pointer's head. 'Skadoosh.' Rei released.
The arrow shot forth in a blur, slicing the air with a sharp whistle, crossing the distance in a fraction of a second and striking the robot's metallic skull.
BAAAAAAMMMMM!!!!!!