Monoma's body went rigid.
For a second, everything around him—the sunlight, the low chatter drifting through the halls, the distant rhythm of footsteps as students moved between buildings—slid into the background like someone had turned the volume down.
Final exams.
His brain latched onto the phrase and refused to let go.
He had to think. Fast.
This was one of those quiet turning points that didn't look dramatic from the outside. No explosions. No theme music. Just a decision that would quietly shove the whole story onto a different track—like a river changing course when no one was watching.
And unlike a bad test score, this wasn't something he could shrug off with, "I'll do better next time."
The anime never even explained why Monoma failed the practical exam, he thought, irritation bubbling up in a way that felt unfairly personal. Like Horikoshi had done it just to make a point.
Outside, under a sun that felt a little too enthusiastic for a school day, Monoma forced himself to breathe.
In. Out. Calm down.
Panic was useless. Planning wasn't.
There were three factors that would decide whether he passed or ended up reenacting the one detail he really didn't want to reenact.
First: his Quirk.
Copy, right now, was nowhere near the version he remembered from the finale. The limitations were blunt and cruel: three Quirks stored at a time, and five minutes per Quirk once activated.
Five minutes sounded generous until you imagined a pro hero staring you down like you were a warm-up exercise and the only thing in your ear was the invisible click of a countdown.
Which led neatly into the second factor: his teammate.
If his partner had a mutation-type Quirk—something built into their body like Tsunotori's horns—then Monoma's options narrowed fast. He couldn't copy what wasn't "activatable" in the usual sense, which meant he'd be forced to rely entirely on whatever three Quirks he'd stockpiled ahead of time.
And then there was the third factor, the one that made the air feel heavier just thinking about it.
The teacher.
If the matchup landed on someone like Cementoss or Aizawa, he could at least imagine a fight where Copy mattered—stealing tools, adapting, forcing openings, playing a long game with short windows.
But if they drew a teacher whose Quirk he couldn't meaningfully use, or couldn't safely gamble on?
It could be over before it even started.
A vivid image stabbed through his head: borrowing Vlad's Quirk, forcing blood out, trying to control it with the confidence of a man who absolutely should not be doing that, only to realize the five-minute limit was ticking down and his body didn't magically come with a spare tank of blood to burn.
Monoma let out a long, controlled sigh, the kind that tried to pass as calm and almost succeeded.
Okay.
Focus on what can be controlled.
His biggest advantage wasn't raw strength.
It was information.
The opponent wouldn't know which three Quirks he was holding until he showed them—and if he showed them at the right moment, that surprise could be the difference between "victory" and "immediate defeat."
So he needed a set of Quirks that worked in almost any situation. Tools. Options. Things that created openings and forced reactions, even if the matchup turned ugly.
And there was one Quirk he absolutely needed to lock in.
Shoda's Twin Impact.
It was reliable. It was versatile. It was the kind of ability that made people relax after the first hit—right before the second one reminded them they shouldn't have. A delayed punchline you could choose the timing for.
It could turn a normal exchange into a trap with one touch.
It would make a huge… impact.
Monoma smirked at his own pun and immediately wiped it off his face as if it had never existed.
The rest of the day, he took what he already had access to and wrung it for everything it was worth: Kendo's Big Fist.
It wasn't a miracle. Borrowing the Quirk didn't suddenly download years of skill into his muscles. It didn't turn him into a martial artist. The power was there, sure—obvious and immediate—but using it smoothly, efficiently, without wasting motion or balance, was another story.
He trained on the grass field until his arms shook.
He practiced lifting heavy weights until his shoulders burned.
He tested how far he could throw, how quickly he could steady himself, and how to move without over-committing and leaving an opening big enough for a teacher to walk through.
Sweat slid down his forehead. His lungs worked harder than they wanted to. His body ached in that deep, honest way that meant he wasn't just playing at improvement—he was paying for it.
Copy gave him the ability to use a Quirk.
It didn't give him experience.
Right now, he was a jack-of-all-trades with none of the polish that made those trades actually dangerous.
The difference felt like reading a driving manual versus sitting behind the wheel for the first time: he could know every rule on the road and still stall the engine at the worst possible intersection.
Monoma stared at his enlarged hands as they slowly returned to normal, fingers shrinking back as if nothing had ever happened.
He flexed them once, quietly, like he was checking whether they were still his.
Then he exhaled.
"…Alright," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "We train. We plan. And we pass.
Horikoshi wasn't skipping this scene with him around this time.