"The demonstration is over. Now it's for real."
"Megumi Fushiguro and Denki Kaminari. You're up first for the fifty-meter dash."
The class murmured, interest rippling through the group.
"Wait, Fushiguro? The guy who ranked first?"
"Didn't he, like… break the record?"
Bakugo snapped his head over immediately, eyes narrowing like someone had just waved a red flag in front of a bull.
"Tch. So THAT's the guy they stuck above me? You sea urchin, get ready.."
His new seatmate with half red and half white hair looked over as well. His eyes glaring daggers at him.
Megumi exhaled quietly and stepped forward.
Megumi ignored all of them with expert-level disinterest.
He walked up to the start line.
Kaminari froze mid-stretch.
"What?! I'm running against the number ONE scorer?" His hands flew into his hair. "Dude, why me?! Why am I the one fighting a boss in a tutorial?! I'm not emotionally prepared for this!"
Megumi walked past him with a flat expression. "It's just fifty meters."
"Yeah, for YOU," Denki said, dramatically stabbing a finger at him. "For me it's, like, a public execution. In front of new classmates. On day one."
Megumi stared at him for a beat. "…You're being very dramatic for someone doing a warm-up jog."
Kaminari slumped. "I cope with humor, okay?"
Megumi just sighed quietly and stepped onto the start line, already regretting the social portion of being in a hero school.
Kaminari dragged himself into the next lane, giving Megumi a defeated sideways look. "Listen, uh, just don't make me look TOO bad. I just got here. I'd like to make one friend before I get smoked."
"You haven't even run yet," Megumi said, deadpan. "Maybe wait before giving up on yourself."
Denki blinked. "…Bro. That was accidentally motivational."
"It wasn't."
Aizawa held up the timer. "Ready."
Megumi let his shoulders loosen, weight settled over the balls of his feet.
"Go."
He pushed off.
"Rabbit Escape."
His shadow rippled and the rabbits burst out, kicking the ground in sync under his heels. He moved in long, clean strides, gliding forward with practiced ease.
Kaminari ran like a normal person having a crisis.
"Oh COME ON," Denki gasped mid-sprint, "WHY are those DAMM RABBITS so FAST!!"
Megumi crossed the finish line. The timer beeped.
4.15 seconds
Kaminari stumbled across a two seconds, hands on his knees, wheezing like he'd just escaped a burning building.
Megumi gave a small nod, then walked back toward the group.
He caught Iida's engine-calf legs firing a minute later at ridiculous speed. The tail guy's balance. Others too. Everyone had their own way of moving when given an open stretch of ground.
Grip strength came next.
They had a row of devices laid out on a low table, each with its own digital display.
The purple midget's, Mineta, number came out low enough that he immediately started complaining to the universe. Pink girl, Mina, did decently. Tape-guy, Sero, hovered around normal. Tail-guy, Ojiro, scored high and grinned.
Then, the student with the multiple, muscular arms, Shoji, stepped up. He wrapped several of his appendages around the grip, his expression calm.
He squeezed.
The device beeped loudly, the number flashing high enough to draw astonished cries.
Mineta and Sero stared wide-eyed at the screen.
"540 kg?! Are you a gorilla?! Or an octopus?!" Sero shouted in disbelief.
Shoji merely pulled his hands away, unbothered by the comparison.
Megumi glanced once.
'Yeah. I'm not beating that. At least, by myself.'
Aizawa scribbled something. "Good."
Megumi stepped up to grab his own device.
He tossed the grip-tester straight up into the air.
Several students gasped as it arced overhead.
From beneath his feet, his shadow swelled.
"Great Serpent."
The ground split with a dark ripple, the shikigami erupting upward in one violent lunge, jaws snapping around the grip-device mid-air.
The impact was louder than a whip being cracked.
The machine beeped.
Everyone leaned forward.
Aizawa glanced at the number, one brow raising the tiniest bit.
"486 kg."
Not as high as Shoji, but well beyond normal human limits.
Mina gasped. "He just... he used a giant shadow snake to do a grip strength test?!"
Kaminari made a strangled sound. "Bro, that thing almost gave me a heart attack…"
Great Serpent hissed once before dissolving back into Megumi's shadow.
Standing long jump was next.
The sand pit stretched out in front of the white line, speckled with footprints. Most people had landed somewhere in the middle. A few had skidded right on the edge.
Mina slid forward on acid, using the momentum to launch herself. Ojiro launched himself surprisingly far using his tail. Asui cleared it easily with just one hop, landing like she had springs in her legs.
"Fushiguro."
He approached the line.
"Nue."
His shadow stretched outward, and the thunderbird erupted from it in full form, broad wings, sharp talons, feathers crackling faintly like they were holding static. A couple students yelped out of surprise.
Nue landed behind him with a heavy thud.
Megumi bent his knees. Nue hooked its talons around his shoulders, not painfully, but firmly enough.
Megumi pushed off the ground.
Nue beat its wings hard, giving a clean upward boost. It wasn't graceful, more like someone shoved a whole gust of air under him but it worked. His jump carried farther than it ever would on its own, stretching out into a short glide before gravity reclaimed him.
He landed past the far edge of the pit, knees bending to soften the drop.
Nue released him, circling once before going back into the shadow like nothing happened.
Aizawa tapped the clipboard. "Side steps. Move until the timer stops or until you can't keep going."
The class rotated in one by one.
Bakugo blasted across the three lines like someone insulted his entire bloodline. "Outta my way!" His feet hammered the dirt so fast he kicked up a dust cloud.
Asui moved next, light hops, smooth and rhythmic, barely any wasted motion.
Sero used his tape to yank himself across the lines like he was bungee-jumping sideways. "Efficient!" he said, totally pleased with himself.
Mineta, surprisingly, like an expert easily finished the test without breaking a sweat by just bouncing side to side using his quirk.
By now the lines drawn on the dirt were already scuffed to hell from everyone else.
Kaminari was still complaining about his own score ("I swear I slipped, I SWEAR!"), and Mineta was bragging way too loudly about how he "utilized the principles of ball adhesion AND rotational momentum to achieve maximum lateral displacement," which was definitely not how physics worked.
Aizawa didn't even blink. "Fushiguro."
Megumi stepped forward.
He glanced at the box, then at Mineta, who gave him a thumbs-up like they'd trained together in a past life.
Megumi looked away immediately. 'No thank you.'
He rolled his shoulders once, inhaled quietly.
"Rabbit Escape."
His shadow rippled like someone had dropped a pebble in it.
Then, boom, a tidal wave of rabbit shikigami burst upward, swarming him in a tight formation. A whole moving mass of ears and paws layered together until they formed something like a cocoon around him.
The class reacted instantly and loudly.
"W-WHAT..! THAT'S A LOT OF RABBITS..!!"
"They're like... like bumper cars but fluffy!"
"OMG!! THEY'RE SO CUTE!!"
Even Todoroki blinked, which for him might as well have been a gasp.
Megumi ignored all of it.
The rabbits moved for him, pushing, bumping, carrying him side to side.
In small bursts, they practically shoved him across the lines, then dragged him back again, their tiny bodies constantly tapping and correcting his balance before he even lost it.
From the outside, he looked less like he was running and more like he was being yoinked around.
"He's not even moving his legs... the rabbits are doing all the WORK!"
"Is that allowed??"
"Kinda adorable."
Megumi kept his face flat the entire time, even as the Rabbits juked him from side to side at borderline comedic speeds.
'This was a mistake,' he thought.
'I didn't account for the dizziness this might cause.'
Beep.
The rabbits froze, ears twitching, then melted instantly back into his shadow.
Megumi pushed a hand through his hair, trying to cool the sweat at the back of his neck.
Aizawa didn't react beyond a single scribble on his clipboard. "Next."
Aizawa called them back to the throwing circle one more time.
"Fifth Test," he said. "Softball throw, with your quirk. You saw how Bakugo did it. Now it's your turn."
They took turns, one after another. Ojiro hurled his as if pitching in a game but with his tail. Sero used tape to whip the ball further. Asui used her tounge in a fluid motion. Some were creative. Some were simple.
Then Uraraka stepped up, palms glowing softly, and sent her ball up, up, up until it disappeared into the sky.
Aizawa turned the sensor display so they could see. The mark flashed a symbol instead of a number.
"Infinity?" someone yelled. "Is that actually even possible?"
Uraraka flushed pink. "Whoops," she said.
Aizawa clicked his pen.
"Fushiguro. Your turn."
Megumi stepped into the throwing ring, rolling his shoulders once. He lifted the softball, testing the weight.
He took one steady breath and glanced behind him at the stretch of field.
'There was never any rules against summons being outside the circle. He only said that I had to say inside the circle.'
That made things easier.
He held the ball loosely and murmured, "Toad."
His shadow stretch, and a massive toad erupted from it, landing outside the ring with a thud that shook the dirt.
The class reacted instantly.
"HUH?!"
"That thing's HUGE..!"
"How many shadow animals does he have?!"
Toad blinked slowly, as if bored. Then it opened its enormous mouth and let its tongue flop out onto the ground next to him with a heavy slap.
Megumi placed the softball lightly onto toad's tongue.
"Go." While commanding toad to walk as far as possible, he started to roll toad's tongue around the ball, keeping his hold on the ball creating a slingshot.
"Jump."
Toad with it's strong legs allowed it to jump high and stay in the air for a while.
Considering toad's strength, Megumi had to make an effort in holding onto the ball to create a significant amount of potential energy, so he summoned his rabbits to keep him grounded.
'Just a little more.'
THRRRPPP-WHAM!
The sound Megumi releasing toad's which resulted in him launching the ball, echoed across the whole training ground like a cannon firing. The ball shot out with ridiculous speed, slicing through the air in a perfect arc.
The robot sensor beeped and whirred as the ball finally crashed somewhere far down the field.
Aizawa lifted the display.
"Five hundred twenty meters," he read.
The class erupted.
Bakugo stared, eyebrows twitching. "Huh?! What the...?!"
"You cheating sea urchin!!"
Megumi blinked. "I stayed in the ring."
"Aizawa-sensei said that the only requirement was to stay inside the ring. He never said that anything that your quirk can project had to stay inside the ring. Is that correct, Aizawa Sensei?" Asked Yaoyorozu as she looked at Aizawa.
"That's correct. This is why we're doing these tests. For you figure out how to use your quirk in situations that are supposed to limit it."
"This is U.A.... You're expected to improvise at any moment's notice."
"Good job, Fushiguro."
Megumi let Toad dissolve back into his shadow. It croaked once before sinking away.
He stepped out of the ring, dust on his sleeves.
Megumi walked back to the group, hands in his pockets, already thinking about the next event.
Aizawa then shifted his eyes shifted to the green-haired boy who had stayed quietly on the edge of everything all morning.
"You," Aizawa said. "Midoriya. Your turn."
The boy jumped slightly. "M-me?"
"Midoriya isn't doing very well..." Ida said as he worriedly looked at Midoriya stepping up.
"Well, duh. He's a quirkless runt!" Bakugo responded offended that somebody thought that Midoriya had any qualifications to be in U.A., even more so by the thought that he had a quirk.
"Quirkless?! So you haven't heard about his feats during the entrance exam?!" Ida responded confused by Bakugo's statement.
"HUH?"
'He's quirkless...? There's no way that's true. If my memory served me right, then Midoriya placed in the Entrance Exam's top 10 '
Megumi watched his shoulders. The way tension sat there like a weight. He had not used his quirk once all day. That had to mean that either his quirk had been looked down upon for being 'evil' and he didn't want to use it or he had no control of his quirk. Either way, for whichever reason it is, at this rate he'll be expelled.
The class murmured. Some pity. Bakugo muttered something cruel under his breath, eyes narrowed like he was daring the boy to embarrass himself.
Midoriya stepped into the circle. His hands shook a little as he set his feet.
He took a breath. Pulled his arm back.
Then something changed.
Not the wind. Not the light. Just a subtle drop in pressure around him, like a buzzing light turning off.
Midoriya threw.
The ball went far enough. It wasn't pathetic. Just normal.
The device chirped an answer.
"Forty-six meters," Aizawa said.
Midoriya stared down at his hand. "Huh... But I was trying to use it..." he muttered, panicked.
"I 'Erased' your quirk." Aizawa said. His hair floated up again, scarf rising with it. His eyes glowed red at the edges.
"That ridiculous entrance exam... Completely irrational when you consider someone like you got in."
"ERASED...?! Those goggles... Of course...!"
"He's the Erasure Hero, Eraser Head!!"
'Quirk Erasure...'
He felt the weight of that gaze from where he stood. If Aizawa looked at him like that in a real fight, none of his Shikigami would answer.
'Terrifying,' Megumi thought.
"I saw it... How you can't control your quirk, you'd just be incapacitated again." Aizawa told Midoriya. "Were you hoping someone would step in to help afterwards?"
"N-no, it's not like that..."
"Whatever you were planning..." Aizawa said. His voice was not cruel, only tired. "It would have inconvenienced those around you."
"Way back when, a certain hot-blooded hero... Saved over a thousand people during a disaster. He made himself a legend."
"You've got the same reckless streak, but... you're totally useless after saving just a single person. Izuku Midoriya. You cannot become a hero with that power of yours."
'Yikes... How bad is his control. But... Aizawa-sensei is right, as of now he'd be a liability.;
"You've got your quirk back... Give it another go." he added. "Let's get this over with."
He turned away.
The class burst into whispers.
Midoriya still stood in the ring, ball in his hands. His shoulders were hunched high, almost up to his ears. For a moment, Megumi thought he might step back and walk away.
Instead, the boy inhaled. His chest rose. His head came up.
His fingers tightened around the ball in a grip that looked… familiar somehow. Like he had been prepared for this moment since the moment he was born.
His eyes were still wide, still scared, but under that fear something steadied. A stubbornness in his soul. A small, angry determination.
Megumi felt an odd pang of sympathy.
'He reminds me of Tsumiki,' he thought. 'A weak person willing to help no matter what even if they get hurt in return.'
It was frustrating. Admirable. A little stupid. Mostly familiar.
'The ability to reach out with your hand...'
The air around the circle felt heavier.
Midoriya bent his elbow, murmuring something into it that Megumi could not hear.
Then he threw.
The power that burst out did not feel like Bakugo's explosion. It was not hot. It was raw force that seemed to claw at everything around it. Wind slammed across the field. Dust jumped. Megumi squinted on instinct.
The ball shot up like a rocket.
Megumi's whole body, something within him, braced for an impact that did not come.
He scrubbed grit off his cheek with the back of his wrist.
'So that's his quirk.'
One finger on Midoriya's hand hung limp, already turning purple. The boy cradled it, sweat beading on his forehead, jaw clenched to keep himself from yelling.
"Sensei...!" Midoriya biting his lip, looking at his finger, clenching his fist, then at Aizawa. "I... Can still move."
Aizawa's expression twitched, almost into a smile, then into something sharper.
"This kid..!" he muttered, too quiet for most to hear.
The device chimed as the ball finally landed, far outside the field.
"Seven hundred and five point three meters," Aizawa read, holding the screen up.
The class reacted instantly.
"Over seven hundred?"
"His finger looks mangled."
'There's the backlash from his quirk. His body simply can't handle such power.'
Uraraka yelled. "Woo! Now that's a Hero-like record if i ever saw one."
Bakugo's face went oddly blank. Then it twisted.
"WHAT THE HELL?" he yelled, storming forward, palms already popping with small blasts. "EXPLAIN YOURSLEF DEKU!!"
"WAHHH!!"
'Deku..?'
Aizawa's scarf snapped out and wrapped Bakugo mid-charge.
"What the... This Cloth... It's stiff!!"
"It's a capture weapon made of carbon fibers and a special alloy wire." he said, eyes glowing again. "Geez. Stop using your quirk already..."
"I'm getting dry eye over here."
He released Bakugo with a small shove. "What a waste of time. Prepare for the next event."
They finished the last rounds of testing with a strange mix of awe and shell shock.
At the end, when everyone looked like they had at least sweated out their breakfast, Aizawa brought them back together.
"Moving along. Time for the results." he said. "Your total scores simply reflect your performance in each of the events."
"Explaining the process would be a waste time, so all you get are the final rankings."
'At least there should be a review section... On what to improve on.'
He tapped a button on his device. A holographic list sprang up.
Megumi scanned looking for his name at the top.
First.
This is what he had been training for the last three years. Although he hadn't had any professional help. He knew the amount of blood, sweat, and tears he had put into his training. His body was being molded into becoming a hero. There was no holding back.
His eyes slid down further.
2nd Momo Yaoyorozu
3rd Shoto Todoroki
4th Katsuki Bakugo
...
20th Izuku Midoriya
"Also, I was lying about expelling someone."
"That was a rational deception... Meant to bring out the best in all of you."
"WHAAAAAAA?!"
Yaoyorozu, the girl with the ponytail, crossed her arms. "Well of course it was a lie..." she said. "Didn't take much to figure that out..."
Megumi looked at Aizawa.
'He would have done it,' he thought. 'If someone really had been hopeless.'
His impression of Aizawa in last couple of hours had improved compared to his entrance. His approach to teaching was what Megumi needed. He didn't need coddling. That had ended a while back.
"Anyway. We're done here." Aizawa said, already moving on. "Your documents about the curriculum and such are back in the classroom. Give them a look."
He paused, eyes landing on Midoriya's crooked finger.
"Midoriya," he said. "Have Recovery Girl fix you up. Tomorrow's trials aren't gonna be easier."
'Alright,' he thought, turning back toward the building with the others. 'If this is the academic pace that U.A. taking on… Then I'll be looking forward to the next three years.'
...
"Aizawa, You Big Fat Liar." All Might yelled appearing out the corner of Aizawa's eyes.
"All Might... So you were watching... Good to know you don't mind wasting time."
"A ration deception?!"
"April Fool's day was over a week ago."
"Last year... you expelled an entire class of first years."
"You mercilessly discard those with zero prospects. But now you go back on your word? Could it be..!"
"That boy, Midoriya... You sense his potential as well, yes?!"
Aizawa fully turned to All might in the eyes as he said. "As well?"
"You will be supporting him..? I understand that's usually not your style, but..."
"He doesn't... have NO chance. That's all I can say."
"Because if he had no prospects, I would cut him loose. There's nothing crueler than letting someone chase their half-baked dreams."
"Right... Let's agree to disagree."
"And while we're talking about potential…"
He glanced back toward the field where Megumi walked off quiet and unbothered.
"…the kid with the highest ceiling in that entire class isn't Midoriya."
All Might blinked. "Eh?"
"It's Fushiguro," Aizawa said simply.
All Might's eyes narrowed a bit. "Fushiguro..."
Aizawa nodded. "That one. His quirk is versatile, strong, and he adapts quickly. His results were consistent across eight different categories."
He let out a tired breath.
"He's calm under pressure. He thinks before he acts. Unlike you. That's rare in heroes nowadays. "
A painful pause.
"…and his potential for growth is terrifyingly high."
All Might looked back at Megumi too, watching the boy quietly walk.
"Hm." All Might's voice softened. "A quiet one, but… strong-hearted, yes? A good hero in the making."
Aizawa didn't smile, but his tone warmed half a degree.
"He'll surpass most of them if he doesn't burn himself out first."