Chapter Text
Senri Ite was having an excellent day. Mom made blueberry waffles, dad hung out long enough to wish him luck, and he was ten minutes early to the UA Entrance Exam. Enough time to find his seat, apologize to the three sets of toes he stepped on (oops), and tie up his bangs before the written exam. As he did, everything else seemed to fall away, leaving just him and the test he needs to take. The math portion was a breeze, but Senri had never struggled in that field. History was harder, but there were enough famous archers for him to piece things together. Everything else was rough, but he'll probably be fine. Probably.
After a short break for lunch, Senri finds himself face-to-face with Power Loader, who seems to be registering support gear. The Excavation Hero looks at Senri from under his helmet, asking in an almost bored voice, "Any gear you need to report?"
Senri grins, pulling out a few lengths of PVC pipe and placing them on the table in front of them. "These, to serve as a focus for my quirk. Also a handful of rocks I picked up on my way over, for ammo." To demonstrate, he picks up the straight piece of pipe and activates his quirk, a bow made of glowing white energy forming with the pipe as the grip. It disappears after a second, and Senri drops the pipe back on the table.
Senri Ite! Quirk: Construct Archer! Anything he gets his hands on, he can turn into a bow and arrow! All it takes is his stamina! For best results, a bow grip should have two ends, and an arrowhead should be rather small!
"PVC's hollow, yeah?" The hero picks the pipes up, checking all three individually before handing them back to the examinee. "Yeah, you're good. Next!"
Senri is shooed away, pocketing his tools as a red-haired hero hopeful comes up to the table, boasting a pair of boots, some metal gauntlets, and... "Is that a sword? That was an option? That's just not fair! Or maybe he's quirkless? It's so big, though..." Senri's thoughts trail off as he sits down in the auditorium, next to a boy with blue skin, all-black eyes, and purple hair shuffling a deck of cards. Said boy looks up, flashes a toothy smile, and offers a wave to Senri.
"Jirai Kizuki, pleasure to meet you! Wanna play a game while we wait? Think we still got like, ten minutes for everyone to get gear approved and whatever." As he speaks, he moves on to cutting the cards, his hands moving effortlessly over the table in front of him without even a second glance.
Senri shrugs, responding, "Eh, sure, why not. Let's do War, that doesn't take much attention or time to clean up. Senri Ite, by the way. Good to meetcha, man."
The deck is dealt out in seconds, almost too fast for Senri to follow. Once they each have a stack, they start flipping cards in silence. One to Senri, then a war, that Jirai takes. Another war, again to Jirai. Senri looks up as the red aces flip, arching an eyebrow at Jirai as they deal another set of three cards, ending with Jirai’s king claiming the third war in a row.
“You’re not very good at shuffling, are you? Or cheating, for that matter?” A win for Senri.
“What do you mean? You just took my eight, how could I be cheating? I think it’s just bad luck. See? A five and a three, both to you!” Two more wins for Senri, and a cheeky grin from Jirai.
“U-huh. After getting three wars in a row, and losing all of them. I’m still only halfway to recovering from that, you know.” Another two wins for Senri, then another war. The black-haired boy watches Jirai’s hands closely, trying to spot any foul play…
“Ahah! I break your streak! Mister five-in-a-row, complaining about me cheating? I think not! And honestly, those cards weren’t even that great, I don’t know why you’re complaining!”
And the game goes back-and-forth, with Senri even winning a couple wars. Only ever when he’s down to his last handful of cards, though. But finally, right as Present Mic walks onto the stage, Jirai cleans up with a double war and a queen, grinning to Senri as he tucks the deck into his pocket.
“You totally cheated. You stacked the deck or whatever.”
“And how would I do that, huh? You saw me shuffling, how am I supposed to stack a deck while I’m shuffling it?” Jirai slips the deck into his pocket, turning in his seat to face the stage with a sneaky grin.
“That asshole definitely cheated!” Senri thinks, but holds his tongue and settles down in a disgruntled silence as Present Mic begins explaining the exam. He notices the redhead from earlier on his other side ( “When did he slip by us?” ), but with a conspicuously missing sword. “Maybe he’s not quirkless after all. Huh. Wonder why he had so much gear, then?”
Senri’s only half paying attention as Present Mic explains the practical portion of the exam. One, two and three points, zero point obstacle, gimmick in close quarters, whatever. None of that changes what he’s gonna do. Get out there, shoot robots, and generally kick ass. Easy peasy.
Ten minutes after the explanation finishes, Senri finds himself standing in front of a massive gate with an equally large “2” painted on it. His left hand clenches around the pipe he’s holding, the ends of it just barely jutting out either end of his fist. Pale energy sparks around his hand, Senri’s quirk firing off in anticipation of what’s to come. He forces a nervous grin, the familiar jitters of adrenaline barely controlled in his hands and spreading up his arms.
All of a sudden, an impossibly loud voice cuts through the air, shattering the tension instantly and leaving the crowd fumbling to start moving. “GO!!! WHAT'RE YOU WAITING FOR, LISTENERS? REAL VILLAINS WON'T GIVE YOU A COUNTDOWN!!!"
Senri’s bow flares to life, and he surges forward with the crowd. He fights his way to the front of the pack, looking across the cityscape for a fire escape, even just a ladder he can climb to get a vantage… there! Right across the street, a ten-story apartment building!
He runs up the stairs, wasting ninety precious seconds to get to the top. Once he’s there, he starts firing at anything mechanical he lays eyes on. So he steals some points from his fellow examinee here and there, who cares? They’ll find more, he’s sure.
The one-pointers are fragile. Even the smallest pebble can take them out, so those are what Senri uses as he takes two more down. “ Twenty-six, twenty-seven. Not nearly enough.”
Two-pointers aren’t much better. They’re nimbler, but their heads are fragile. Death from above takes them with ease. “Thirty-two. Five minutes left… Come on, I need more bots to show up! This isn’t nearly gonna be enough!”
Three-pointers almost aren’t worth it. Pebbles won’t cut it, he needs bigger ammo. If only his pockets had more room for bigger stones… maybe he can fire three pebbles at once? Oooh, no, that’s just three arrows that don’t do much. “Wasteful. And only thirty-five points, too. Come on, come on! I need more ones and twos! And more ammo while we’re at it…”
Senri glances at the roof he’s on thoughtfully. “It’s not very heroic, but… Do what you gotta do. Better to ask for forgiveness,” He thinks to himself, pulling out one of his last pebbles as he squats down, drawing the arrow and firing at an angle to send a spray of smaller rocks scattering across the roof. Perfect.
The archer runs over, scooping up the pebbles and dropping them in his pocket before going back to his lookout, scanning the large street for any points he can take.
“TWO MINUTES, THIRTY-SEVEN SECONDS!!! DIG IN, LISTENERS!!! IT’S THE FINAL STRETCH!!!”
As Present Mic’s words echo into nothing, as Senri mutters his score after four more arrows fly away (“Forty-four, forty-six, -seven, fifty…”), a rumble shakes his perch beneath him. Across the exam field, a massive robot emerges from seemingly nowhere.
The zero-pointer. “Some gimmick. That thing’s huge!”
It starts moving, crushing buildings beneath its hands as it leans on them, looking for any victims it can find.
Senri frowns in response, his bow vanishing as he drops the pipe.
“Man, they weren’t kidding about going Plus Ultra, huh? Well, what kinda hero would just let something like that roam around? I’ve probably got enough points. Let’s make a statement!”
His lips turn up into a grin, pulling out an X-shaped piece of pipe. Energy flares to life around it, and Senri’s hair blows out of his face as the massive bow forms, bigger than he is. The biggest rock he can find gets placed on the grip, and he hauls the crackling string back with all his might.
“ FOUR-LIMBED BALLISTA: FIRE!!!”
Senri can create a bow limb from every “end” an object has! And, he can make the bow as big as he wants! But while both make the shots stronger, they also take a ton more energy! Not a technique to use lightly!
The massive arrow streaks through the air, aimed perfectly for the robot’s head. Senri grins, falling backwards to sit as his bow vanishes. The grip clatters on the ground, left to float as he worked the string.
To Senri’s disbelief, the robot’s chassis crumples moments before his arrow connects. It soars through empty space, his last burst of power wasted as someone else took down the robot first.
“Dammit. Guess it’s karma for stealing points. At least I’ll probably be able to turn whoever did that into a pincushion at UA. Is fifty points even gonna be enough with monsters like that? God, I hope so…”
As he flops onto his back with a sigh, Present Mic’s voice rings out one final time, exclaiming, “TIME’S UP!!! EVERYONE MAKE YOUR WAY BACK TO THE GATES NOW!!! IF YOU’RE INJURED, MISTER MITARAI WILL HEAL YOU UP! ANYBODY IMMOBILE? NO? AWESOME!!! FIRST CLASS IN YEARS TO NOT BREAK YOUR LEGS! NICE JOB, EVERYONE!”
Senri just lays there for a couple minutes before rolling onto his feet with a groan. After picking up the grip he dropped, the examinee starts descending the fire escape. He waves off UA’s nurse, a stern-looking man with black hair and a long white coat, saying he’s just tired from his quirk. The nurse nods, moving on to other bumps and bruises that he heals by… blowing bubbles?
“If it works, it works, I guess. That’s UA for you.”
By the time Senri gets home, he’s too tired to remember going to his room and sprawling across his bed, asleep before his body finishes bouncing off the plush mattress.
“Let’s see… Next, we have young Ite. Very interesting quirk, though it’s odd that he needs a focus for his bows and arrows. I wonder who his quirk physician was…”
Izuku leans forward, tenting his fingers in front of his mouth as he thinks. In moments, the muttering begins. As it does, the black-haired teacher next to him rolls his eye and goes off to get himself a third cup of coffee. Anything to avoid that storm of mumbled theories, but he’s not quite fast enough to miss his former student mentioning the Singularity Prevention Society.
Shota Aizawa frowns as he pours himself his drink, mixing in just a little sugar as he thinks. It makes sense, from a certain point of view. If one really believes in the Singularity theory, then one of the best ways to prevent something like that from happening would be to trick children into thinking their stupidly strong quirks had some kind of inane weakness. But on a country-wide scale, that kind of approach was just illogical. You’d need almost half the children’s quirk physicians in your corner just to have a chance at pulling it off, but only a fifth of all quirk researchers in the country accepted the Singularity theory, at least the last time Shota checked.
The hero shrugs, returning to his seat as Izuku looks at the next student’s profile. Coffee on the table, he picks up the essay he was looking at with a frown. Why was Basho such a nuisance? Bad enough that Souko put in the minimum effort. Those two were such a handful…