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Izuku Midoriya wasn’t doing so well.
He had trained for the last ten months to inherit the Quirk of All Might, and this very morning, he had done so. By swallowing a piece of hair, but that wasn’t the important part.
It all happened at the eleventh hour, the morning of UA’s entrance exam. All Might had said that the Quirk would take about three hours to kick in, which would end up being after the exam had started. Fortunately, the first part of the exam was the written portion, which itself took a few hours, so it should have been ready for the practical portion.
But now it seemed like it wouldn’t matter. He had failed to get a single point so far, every robot in the vicinity had already been torn apart by the other examinees, and most of the ten minutes of the practical had already passed.
Then, there was a deep rumbling, followed by a sound like an explosion and great plumes of dust and smoke.
Izuku looked around, then turned his gaze up as a shadow covered him, catching sight of a gigantic robot taller than even the city buildings inside the battle center. A zero-pointer, as presented in the material before the test started.
‘Isn't this a little extreme?’ Izuku thought frantically.
The zero-pointer pulled back its arm, then smashed the street, creating a massive dust cloud. The examinees inside the battle center screamed as the shockwave from the punch threw wind and dust against them.
Izuku had landed on his backside, and as the robot rolled forward, the other examinees around him turned and fled. Izuku tried to crawl after them, lamenting how All Might’s efforts in training him were about to be wasted.
Then he heard a cry of pain and saw the nice girl he had met earlier this morning trapped by debris.
It went fast from there. After a moment of shocked horror, Izuku rushed to his feet and moved toward the zero-pointer.
He felt pure power filling his legs by instinct, and he jumped.
As he moved through the air, he filled his right arm with power too, preparing to strike. He was only vaguely aware of it at the moment, but he didn’t just feel the power in his arm and legs, but through his whole body, swelling by the second.
He reached the head of the zero-pointer.
“Smash!” he yelled, punching in the face of the robot, toppling it, and making it fall as it started to explode all over.
Then gravity kicked in, and Izuku was falling. He worried about it for a moment, but then reasoned that now that he had All Might’s power, he should be able to handle landing from a fall like this. He tried repositioning himself in the air, moving his arms and legs into new positions in preparation.
As the ground approached quickly, he did feel anxious. He had no experience with One for All and didn’t know what he could expect by making a landing like All Might. The best he could come up with was to pull a Detroit Smash at the last moment to cushion his fall.
A few seconds away from landing, he felt something slap his body, and suddenly, his fall slowed down dramatically, and he was hovering above the ground.
“Release…” someone, a girl, mumbled with effort.
Izuku fell the last bit, landing safely on his feet, and cautiously straightened himself up. He turned around and saw the nice girl he’d been trying to help, lying on top of a broken piece of robot, looking a little dizzy.
“Are you okay?” Izuku asked her, and she looked at him. When she didn’t answer, he tilted his head in confusion. Why was she staring at him? Why was her face turning so red?
“That’s it!” Present Mic shouted from the top of his tower. “Times up!” Sirens started to wail.
Izuku flinched. The test was over. And even after inheriting All Might’s Quirk and destroying a robot taller than a building, he’d failed to get a single point.
How could he face All Might now? He felt cold.
Actually, now when he checked, he only felt cold around his upper body and his feet. He glanced down and discovered that somewhere along the way of jumping up and punching the robot, he’d lost both his training jacket, shirt, and shoes.
Then Izuku frowned. All Might had pointed out how well-trained his body had become after the last ten months of training this morning, but had his chest and stomach looked like this then? And why did the ground seem too far off when he stood up?
In front of him, the red-faced brunette continued to stare at him, transfixed.
Inside the dark observation room, All Might stared at the camera feed.
This was not what he had expected.
How were they going to explain away this one?
Inko Midoriya was feeling anxious.
Izuku had gone away this morning to take part in the UA High School’s entrance exam for their hero course. She had noticed how Izuku had made an effort to prepare this past year, academically and physically, and she was proud of him for that.
She just didn’t know what to expect once Izuku returned home from the exam. It was one of the hardest entrance exams in the country, and it was for the hero course too, where Izuku had a disadvantage—
Inko shook her head. She shouldn’t think like that. She should just be ready to handle whatever was coming her way once Izuku returned home.
The doorbell rang, and Inko started. She hurried to the door and checked through the peephole. She had expected Izuku, but instead, it was a rather gaunt man with wild blond hair, dressed in a too-big yellow pinstripe suit.
She opened the door ajar without removing the chain. “Hello…?”
“Mrs. Midoriya?” the man asked, and Inko nodded cautiously. The man made a proper bow, then looked up. “My name is Toshinori Yagi. I’m a faculty member at UA High School—”
Inko gasped. “What happened to Izuku!?”
Mr. Yagi waved his hands apprehensively. “Young Midoriya is fine! Well… He hasn’t been injured. He went through the entrance exam splendidly.”
Inko looked at him in confusion. “Then why are you here?”
“Well… while young Midoriya wasn’t injured, there was a… complication…” Mr. Yagi twiddled with his fingers.
“A complication?” Inko repeated, now sounding agitated again.
“Mom, I’m fine,” came Izuku’s voice from beside Mr. Yagi, out of view.
“Izuku?” Inko said in surprise, unchaining the door and opening it to step out onto the walkway outside the apartment. “Why didn’t—”
Inko’s words died in her mouth as she caught sight of her son.
Izuku was standing to the side of Mr. Yagi, looking awkward and anxious. He wasn’t wearing his Aldera school uniform, or his bluish jogging clothes that he had brought with him to the entrance exam. Rather, he was wearing an unfamiliar dark blue training jacket and pants, along with an unfamiliar pair of shoes rather than his red sneakers.
That wasn’t the most eye-catching part.
As far as Inko knew, her son was a 5'5" boy with a roundish face who had recently gained some defined muscles from what she had seen of his arms the past few months. That was how it had been the last time she saw him this very morning.
The son that stood in front of her, must have been nearly two feet taller, with a face with straighter lines that made him look older than fifteen, including a strong jawline, and furthermore, his new jacket and pants were stretched out by a great amount of muscles.
“Mom,” Izuku said, twiddling his fingers like Mr. Yagi had as he looked at her. “I can explain—”
Inko’s eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she fainted.