Chapter Text
It is 8 o’clock in the evening. Cloudless. Balmy. The sun sets on the city of Musutafu, a number of historical villain battles in its past and a great many more scheduled for its near future. On this day, 15-year old Izuku Midoriya stands before his idol, training hard, because he, too, can become a hero. But this isn’t about him— at the very same moment, 18-year old Ochaco Uraraka falls, flailing, out of a nap in her childhood bedroom. This is her old shoebox room in her parents’ old shoebox apartment— before UA, before graduation, before moving herself and her family out to their own high-rise penthouse with its high security, marbled floors, and parking garage.
She hits her head on the floor, so the first thing Ochaco thinks is, Ouch!
She remembers the last thing she saw, so the second thing she thinks is, Fuck!
“Fuck!” Ochaco leaps to her feet. The thin strap of a pajama tank top falls off of one shoulder. She looks down at the matching bottoms, sees a ragged panda-print flannel set, and says, “Oh, shit—!”
This pajama set was thrown out years ago, when Ochaco was 16 and moving into the UA dorms for the first time. Ochaco flexes a thin arm and pulls up a pant leg to gape at an undefined calf. This is, by all appearances, her 15-year old body, before regular meals, the inflection of a religious workout routine, and a few more years of growing had honed it into a frame that could keep up with the demands of a pro-hero’s lifestyle.
A knock at the door makes Ochaco’s fists curl in alarm.
“Is everything alright in there?” says the groggy voice of her father.
“Y— yes!” Ochaco blurts.
The door opens. Mr. Uraraka pokes his head into the room, squinting around for anything unusual. He settles against the door frame with a tired smile at his daughter. Ochaco stares, wide-eyed. There is less gray at his temples. There are less lines in his face. Both of Ochaco’s parents are young yet, but life had aged them fast— they had aged faster, still, out of stress for their daughter’s safety starting from her acceptance at UA all the way to her debut as a pro hero.
There are bags around her father’s eyes. It’s been a long day for him, and Ochaco knows from a half-remembered routine that he must have just returned home from work. Ochaco’s father studies her, eyes searching, and then comes to a decision. Suddenly, he steps forward to envelop her in a hug.
“You are going to do so well on the entrance exams,” he says. “I hope you get everything you want.”
At once, Ochaco remembers this exact conversation. Her father had given her a pep talk just like this a few months before the UA entrance exam, and he had said. . .
“You’re the smartest kid I know.”
And Ochaco had said. . . “I’m the only kid you know.”
And her father had laughed— just like he is doing now! And ruffled her hair— just like he is doing now. Ochaco stands shock-still in his arms, the past and the present overlapping into one surreal waking dream.
I’m a time-traveler, she thinks. “I’m good. You should go to sleep,” she says. When it looks like her father might hesitate, she makes herself add, “I’d like to be alone right now. I’ll be fine.”
Mr. Uraraka smiles and raises his hands. “Loud and clear. I know how I was when I was your age— though I had much less to worry about! I’m proud of you, Ochaco.”
“Thanks,” Ochaco breathes.
She doesn’t relax when he leaves, but stumbles over to the cheap rectangular mirror leaning against the wall. She grips the sides and leans into her reflection.
The round face of a 15-year old girl stares back at Ochaco. Ochaco sinks her fingers into her short brown hair, grabs at the root, and pulls hard as she clenches her teeth on a scream.
Here is the last thing Ochaco remembers before waking up:
The hero Uravity was called in for an explosive villain attack in the middle of a downtown mall. The villain, who called himself Time-Wind, was an unknown variable with no recorded sightings or mentions before the attack on that day. Though he positioned himself in the middle of the chaos and was clearly dressed as the main attraction, he appeared to take no action himself. The actual destruction was left to twelve cloaked, faceless henchmen who attacked people and property indiscriminately. A wide array of dangerous quirks were spread out between them.
“We don’t know what the big boss’s quirk might be yet!” said the dispatcher in Uravity’s ear-wire. “Proceed with caution!”
(Ochaco, with the power of hindsight, clenches her teeth so hard they creak. “He said his name was Time-Wind,” she seethes with a crystal-clear and too-late understanding.)
Time-Wind had a white, flat face bordered with metallic embellishments like an antique brass clock. His weapons were two wands stylized like clock hands, one long and one short. A brown trench coat with shiny buttons was tightly belted around his middle. He allowed Uravity to approach and get her bargaining attempts out of the way, and then said, “Do you have any regrets?”
“Call off your men,” said Uravity, “and I’ll tell you.”
Time-Wind waved a gloved hand. The twelve henchmen halted in place, paused for half a second, and then spun into a fan around their master. A faceless wall of puppet servants blocked Uravity and Time-Wind in together.
“Do you have any regrets?” asked Time-Wind again.
There was nothing else Uravity could say but, “Yes.”
“You must. A pro hero like you.” Time-Wind took a step forward. “I’m sorry. You’re so young.”
“What is your goal here?”
“I want to give someone a gift. A do-over. I can’t give it to myself.” Time-Wind’s voice was soft and reverent. Sad, for someone responsible for at least fifteen casualties so far.
The dispatcher in Uravity’s ear announced reinforcements en route: Pinky from the north and Red Riot from the east. Uravity could stall for just a little longer and then, on signal, attack with Pinky and Red Riot in tandem to crush the villains between them.
“What is the gift?” Uravity asked softly.
A mistake. Time-Wind opted for a practical demonstration: he crossed his two wands to blast a whirlwind beam of energy that knocked Uravity through a glass store window. . . and into her childhood bedroom.
So what now?
Ochaco yanks a pink jacket out of the closet— an old favorite, ripped down the middle and mended again when she was 17 and a half. She toes her sneakers on and sweeps out the door as fast as she can.
Time-Wind’s quirk can’t be actual time travel, Ochaco reasons as she leaves the apartment complex. It would be a clever misdirection to paint it as such, to inspire fear and stand out as an up-and-coming villain. Even in a world of superhuman possibilities, time travel has not been proven feasible. The quirk must be some type of hallucination or mind-prison. . . so with Ochaco’s consciousness locked in this very vivid dream of the past, her real body must be in a hospital bed somewhere in the real world. In that case, the finest doctors and quirk analysts in Japan will be at her bedside. The only thing Ochaco needs to do for now is keep calm and wait for outside help to break through.
It is unsettling, Ochaco’s wandering exploration of the streets outside. The dream is so real. She squints at a beetle marching across a crack in the sidewalk and watches the streetlights flicker as they click on. Cars honk in the distance. Sidewalk traffic weaves around her. She grew up here— but even Ochaco’s memory could not reconstruct such a complete scene.
Five blocks away, she gets a text from her father. Did you go outside? Come back right now. It’s too dark.
Ochaco stands baking on the sidewalk with the pink jacket around her shoulders; the sun has barely set and the pavement beneath holds onto the day’s heat. Her feet point home.
Waiting for help to arrive has not sat well with Ochaco for a long time. She’s a pro hero! She is the help!
The next night, Ochaco sneaks out when she is sure her parents are in bed. Her mother is home from work early, but early is still 9 o’clock at night and her mother is always tired.
Ochaco stands on a bridge overlooking a busy highway. She watches the flood of cars pass by underneath, an uneasy frown furrowing her brow, and considers jumping. It is a seductive idea that freeing herself might take action. She is used to action. Expects risk.
In the end, though, she walks away— Stupid way to die, she thinks. She goes home.
A roiling, helpless anger begins to build and build in Ochaco over the course of the next few days. Her parents notice and remark on it, worried. Her mother smooths her rough fingers over the furrow in Ochaco’s brow and asks, “Where is my sweet daughter?” Things happen around Ochaco that are not only from her memories.
A do-over, Time-Wind had said. A do-over. The thought boils Ochaco’s blood because she never would have been so ungrateful as to ask for one. The ending that they got was one fought for. Died for. And who was to say it was an ending at all? She was 18 years old. Uravity’s debut was fresh in the public’s eye and she had plans! Plans to rebuild, plans to help everyone and use her image for good! To make everything that had happened to her worth it!
Doubt begins to creep in, when she gets a text from her middle school friends asking about plans now that school is out. Her father surprises her with a cake in an attempt to cheer her up. Ochaco spends hours people-watching at a mall and can’t quite convince herself that she is the only real person around.
Ochaco is left with restless energy in abundance. The way she sees it, there are two options: she can jump from that bridge or she can take her chances with finding Himiko Toga.
She spends one feverish night stalking Toga’s digital footprint (not much, since Toga hasn’t committed any crimes yet) and in the morning, goes out to find her.
“I’m at a friend’s house,” Ochaco tells her parents, when she is in fact wandering entirely unfamiliar streets two hours away from home in a general area that Himiko Toga only might live in. Ochaco has two hours before the last train back home departs and the ruse becomes unmanageable.
So— Ochaco does have regrets. And as the day wanes and her search for Toga yields nothing, she realizes two things at the same time: that she very, very desperately wants to find Toga alive, and that she has enough faith in the reality around her that she could even hope to find Toga in the first place.
As the small shops begin to close, Ochaco ducks into a few and asks around for a girl her age with pale blonde hair. Slitted eyes. Sharp teeth. Cute smile.
People shake their heads no (and look at Ochaco strangely, because that last trait on the list seems to contradict the ones previous).
Time is running out. Before she can resign herself to another night of scouring the internet for more hints at Toga’s whereabouts, Ochaco starts searching alleyways and side streets. It’s still too hot for a jacket, but Ochaco shrugs it on so she can keep a fist in her pocket, the point of a housekey jutting out from between her first two knuckles.
She finds Toga in a dead-end alley, half an hour before the last train home departs. The other girl is crouched beside a dumpster in a short skirt and button-up shirt— not a school uniform— and holding the limp body of a rat up to her sharp mouth. Toga’s pale hair is down. Her black shoes are shiny.
Ochaco’s shoes crunch on a candy wrapper. Toga freezes. Her yellow eyes flash, but her face pales and the corner of her mouth trembles. She drops the rat and it scurries away, squeaking, lost under the dumpster.
“What?” Toga’s voice is a petulant whine as she stumbles to her feet, wiping sweaty palms on her skirt. “What are you doing here?”
Ochaco barely registers, through her own tears, that Toga is afraid. She gives a shuddering breath. “I’m so glad I found you!” Ochaco says to a girl she was never supposed to have met.
Toga twists the bottom of her white shirt in her dirty hands. “Who are you?”
“I’m Uraraka. Ochaco.” Sensing how precarious the situation is— a cornered Toga, even now, is tensed to lash out—Ochaco fumbles to shrug off her jacket and offer her forearm. “You want blood, right? It’s okay. Um. Your teeth are sharp, I notice. It’s a quirk, thing, right? You can have some of my blood.”
Flatly, Toga says, “What.”
“I’m sorry I scared the rat away.” Ochaco waves her forearm out, palm up. Her veins are healthy, even if this body is underfed. “You can have some of my blood if you need it. Just— not all of it, yeah?”
Toga’s slitted eyes go wide, scanning the alley behind Ochaco and making her seem ever more like a spooked cat. “This isn’t cute.”
“Please.”
“Why?”
“Well, you’re the prettiest girl in the world.”
Toga’s mouth opens. Her fangs gleam in points.
“See? I like your smile.”
Those are magic words. Toga latches onto Ochaco like glue. Ochaco takes Toga home like a stray cat. They run together to catch the train, a small trickle of blood running down Ochaco’s arm. Ochaco lets Toga lick it off before they duck into the station.
When Toga finds out that Ochaco wants to be a hero, she claims that it’s what she wants for herself, too.
“Really? Are you sure?” asks Ochaco, so many times that Toga starts to get snappish.
“I can be a hero,” says Toga. “Why not?”
“Of course you can be a hero. It’s just— most of my friends from middle school say it’s impossible for anyone. They tell me not to get my hopes up.”
Toga scoffs. “Those meanies. We are going to get into UA, Ochaco.”
Then, Ochaco doesn’t doubt Toga’s conviction. It is the same vitriol that must have carried Toga to Stain, the League of Villains, and beyond. Once Toga sets her mind to something, it takes a monumental effort to shift course. . . but Ochaco still asks, “Have you thought about being a hero before?”
“No,” Toga admits. “But it’s a good idea. If I’m a hero, no one will be able to tell me I can’t use my quirk.”
Ochaco mulls it over later— and comes to the conclusion that if Toga manages to get into UA at all, let alone a hero course, then it might be enough to stray her away from the dark path of another lifetime. At a hero school, Toga would be able to freely use her quirk. She could study it, hone it, and hopefully never be pushed to a breaking point.
Ochaco is not surprised at the intensity in which Toga goes about inserting herself into Ochaco’s life— but she is surprised at how much she doesn’t mind it. Ochaco herself was the one who invited Toga in, anyway.
“What are you thinking of?” asks Toga, sitting beside Ochaco on a park bench.
Toga has a way of eroding Ochaco’s defenses, but this time she brushes Toga off. This isn’t something that can be shared— because Ochaco is debating on whether or not she should ruin Mineta’s life.
Minoru Mineta’s spot in class 1-A could. . . go to someone else.
Toga is still staring at her expectantly, so Ochaco says, “I can’t tell you.”
“Well, whatever you’re thinking about, I think you should just do it.”
“Yeah?” Ochaco asks wryly.
“Yeah. It’s making you moody, moody, moody.”
Ochaco groans and flops back, resting her head against the back of the bench with a thunk. “People used to tell me I was so cheerful. So nice.”
Toga’s eyes sharpen. “Me, too.”
With the UA entrance exams on the horizon, Ochaco finds one sensible and efficient outlet for most of her restless energy: working out. She starts trying to bulk up again with mad intensity and single-minded focus. She can’t afford a gym membership (or a lot of protein for that matter), but she starts doing push-ups in her room and goes for long jogs all over the city.
Toga is eager to include herself in almost anything Ochaco does, but she has no desire to match the grueling pace Ochaco sets. Toga does, however, start showing up to their hangouts with a bulging backpack and a wide assortment of calorie-dense and easily-pocketed food.
“Where are you getting all this?” Ochaco asks when Toga pushes a gallon of milk into her hands.
“The store,” says Toga cryptically, beaming wide.
“I’m asking if you stole this, Toga.”
“Ohhhh, well, it’s already here now! I lugged it allll the way from home and I looked so not-cute doing it, so be grateful!”
Ochaco has never been able to refuse food. In no time flat, Toga realizes this, so any future grumbling Ochaco makes about petty theft goes through one ear and out the other. Or, worse, Toga coos at her like it’s cute.
Toga visits Ochaco’s apartment with such frequency she may as well live there. The two girls do not inform anyone’s parents of any possible blood donations, so Mr. and Mrs. Uraraka always welcome the extra guest. Ochaco visits Toga’s home only once. Reading the names of Toga’s parents in the background of a criminal file is one thing, but meeting them is another.
Toga’s parents are tall and groomed, pale and sandy blonde like their daughter. Their house is clean, beige, and so orderly it looks like a showroom. Ochaco introduces herself with a measured politeness and studies them while they study her. At first, Mr. and Mrs. Toga seem disbelieving of Himiko’s new, normal friend, but Ochaco watches their expressions shift as soon as Toga mentions bulking up and UA.
As soon as it becomes clear that Ochaco is Toga’s poor, masculine friend, they level their daughter with a look like she brought home a rat. Ochaco shakes in rage and not only for her own sake.
Toga begins to sleep over more and more at the Uraraka apartment until, one day, she forgets to leave in the morning.
Ochaco has been pinching herself hard every night for weeks— not to mention the pricks Toga’s needle teeth make in the veins of her forearm— and she still hasn’t woken up in a hospital bed.
It looks like I might have to re-take the entrance exams after all, she thinks numbly.
And maybe she hasn’t been doing a stellar job of acting like her 15-year old self. Her parents worry, but they attribute the sudden shift in Ochaco’s personality, company, and routine to the stress of UA prep. They worry that the weight of her dreams are crushing her. Ochaco can’t possibly tell them that she doesn’t have long-term plans, not here, because she already achieved her dreams, she’s only just started living them—
Even if Ochaco can’t tell Toga this, either, she can’t help but lean on the other girl as her only confidant. The middle school friends are snubbed. Somehow, without Ochaco realizing it, Toga becomes her best friend. They do things together like girls from the movies. They brush each other’s hair. They paint each other’s nails. When Ochaco does push-ups in her room, Toga sits cross-legged on her back and cackles.
With break freeing her of responsibilities until the entrance exams, Ochaco takes to jogging in the wee hours of the morning. It is then, on a tall staircase lowering down into a city park, that Ochaco almost runs straight into Izuku Midoriya.
It’s him. Green hair. Big eyes. Plain face, except for the freckles and the bright smile. Midoriya notices Ochaco because there is no way he cannot— she is staring at him like she’s seen a ghost, mouth open, eyes huge. Her sneakers have new scuffs from how hard she skidded to a stop. She has to grab the railing to stop herself from tipping forward and kissing the concrete steps.
Midoriya looks around first, like Ochaco could have been gaping so rudely at anyone else. Then he says, “Hi! Sorry. Am I in your way?”
“No,” Ochaco creaks.
Midoriya is caked in sweat. He’s out of breath from his own morning jog. Ochaco is out of breath because it is painful, suddenly, to be faced with Midoriya as he was.
It was not that long ago, Ochaco thinks, but she can’t make herself believe it.
Midoriya is friendly and polite, if rendered a little nervous by Ochaco’s shock-still staring. He correctly deduces that Ochaco is out on her own morning jog, but asks confirmation just to be polite. He compliments her worn-out running shoes. Out of desperation, he starts talking about the weather.
Ochaco can’t properly respond to any of it. “Great,” she says. “Lovely weather. Bye!”
The speed at which she makes her exit is less of a jog and more of a sprint. . . but afterwards, Ochaco’s mind can’t help but return to that encounter with Midoriya again and again. It puts the idea in her head to pay a circumspect visit to the beach Midoriya mentioned a time or two in Ochaco’s real life: Takoba Municipal Beach Park.
Toga sneaks up and catches Ochaco hiding behind a bench with a scenic view.
“What are we looking at?” she asks.
Leftover pro-hero reflexes keep Ochaco from jumping, but it’s a close thing. Hurriedly, she motions for Toga to crouch down beside her so Midoriya can’t look up and spot either of them on the boardwalk. “Get down!”
Toga obliges with good humor. Says, “You’re watching that green boy, aren’t you? That broccoli boy? Why? Do you like him?”
Ochaco’s mouth flattens into a line. “I’m just worried about him.”
Toga observes Midoriya for a moment. He is shouldering a rope and struggling hard to try and tow a busted refrigerator across the sand, his red sneakers slipping. She says, “I guess he doesn’t train anything like you do. It looks like he’s going to fall and bust open his cute little head!”
Warily, Ochaco asks, “Do you like him?”
Toga laughs. “I wouldn’t mind another crush. I love collecting cute things. What about you? Hm? You still haven’t answered my question!”
Actually, yes, Ochaco thinks. We both had a crush on him. And then you died and I started having very vivid dreams about you and I thought for a while that I might have preferred you instead. Out loud, she says, “He’s my friend.”
“I love friends! Let’s go say hi!”
Before Ochaco can stop her, Toga grabs her hand, laces their fingers together, and tows Ochaco towards the beach. However thin or delicate she may seem, Toga has a deceptive strength that seems to be sourced from willpower alone; she moves them both along, humming, though Ochaco tries to make a desperate dive for the bench.
Midoriya sees them approach. Though Ochaco averts her eyes, Toga perks up and wakes unmistakably in his direction.
The traction of Midoriya’s red sneakers finally gives way— he slips face-first onto the sand, leaving the refrigerator teetering precariously behind him. Ochaco stops dragging her feet to rush towards the boy in panic, her quirk surging at the fingertips of her free hand.
“Yes!” Toga giggles, swinging their joined hands and jogging close behind. “We’ll save you, green boy!”
In the end, Midoriya doesn’t need saving— at least, not from Toga or Ochaco. A shadow flits across the beach. A tan, muscled forearm stills the wobbly fridge. All Might leans against it in a striped bathing suit and he needs no introduction.
“Hello, young ladies!” All Might booms. “No need to fear, we’ve got this under control! This beach is undergoing a clean-up effort and I’m afraid I must ask you to leave!”
Even now, Ochaco is star-struck at the sight of the iconic hero— and gut-wrenchingly sad, for the same reason she was so shaken by Midoriya earlier.
Toga goes strangely subdued, looking flatly up at All Might. Her hand in Ochaco’s tightens its grip.
“You better get used to the sight of us,” Ochaco says weakly. “We’re going to be heroes.”
Toga’s thumb brushes Ochaco’s hand. Ochaco can see the blonde girl’s still face out of the corner of her eye, staring out from under blunt bangs.
“Heroes?” All Might repeats. His permanent grin doesn’t waver. “I wish you luck! Wanting to make the world a better place is a noble thing.”
Ochaco knew from experience that All Might’s optimism was real, but now he was laying it on thick, the persona he used for the cameras and the public. “Thanks,” she tells him anyway. She points to Midoriya, who is standing to the side and sheepishly brushing sand off of his clothes. “Don’t forget him.”
All Might’s smile does something strange. It flickers— like he has to fight a laugh, just for a second. “Of course! I’d welcome such a fine young lad among the ranks of Japan’s best.”
Midoriya turns red and squeaks, “Thank you!”
“Are these your friends, young Midoriya?”
“Yes,” says Toga. She seems to rally herself in the absence of All Might’s rejection. “Yes, any friend of Ochaco’s is a friend of mine!”
“We met at the park,” says Ochaco, feeling only a little guilty as Midoriya sputters his confusion (the statement is true in technicality, if not in spirit, and the boy is hard-pressed to refute it on the spot). “I’m Ochaco Uraraka. This is Himiko Toga.”
All Might booms his signature laugh. “Well-met indeed! Are you two going to try out for UA?”
Ochaco nods, at all once feeling so tired, but Toga at her side is a steadying constant.
“I hope you make it.” All Might glances at the sun’s low position in the sky. “And it really is pleasant to meet two friends of young Midoriya, but we must get on with our clean-up effort. Today, the beach must be saved! Say goodbye, Midoriya!”
“Goodbye?”
Toga squints at All Might skeptically. “It didn’t look like you were doing any work.”
All Might chuckles sheepishly and flings out some excuses. All the while, Midoriya stands there nervously, waiting for the girls to leave. Ochaco can’t bring herself to snub him for the sake of preserving past events, not with Midoriya directly in front of her. It’s easy to make a decision.
Any time someone— Ochaco, Toga, or All Might— gives Midoriya even the slightest bit of acknowledgment, he jumps like he’s surprised. The boy blinks hard when Ochaco turns to him and says, “Can I get your number? We can jog together.”
“Ochaco is bulking up,” Toga adds helpfully, breaking off from her increasingly suspicious questioning of All Might.
“But we can’t skip leg day,” Ochaco can’t help but laugh.
“Sure? Sure!” Midoriya says.
Toga makes sure to involve herself in the number exchange, too, and Ochaco is saved from having to say anything else under All Might’s watchful gaze because the other girl talks up a storm in her excitement at having gained another friend.
Midoriya seems just as pleased, if shell-shocked. “Oh!” he says as the two girls turn to leave. “By the way, my name’s Izuku Midoriya!”
Izuku Midoriya is pathetically grateful to have friends that don’t light him on fire, though he tries not to say as much out loud. He becomes a regular presence at Toga and Ochaco’s hangout spots because Toga invites him every time Ochaco does not.
But we still can’t convince her to work out with us, Ochaco thinks in amusement, watching Toga convince Midoriya to let her paint his nails.
Midoriya is not put off by Toga’s quirk or Ochaco’s strange listlessness at times. It is exactly what Ochaco expects of him, but she still can’t help but feel grateful all the same. Like Ochaco, Midoriya is desperate to reach the place he wants to be. Ochaco only envies him for the fact that he knows how to get there.
If Ochaco’s foresight is good for one thing, it’s reassuring Midoriya with sure certainty that he is good enough for UA. She can tell that the words don’t stick, but she keeps repeating them anyways.
As for Toga’s quirk, Midoriya is fascinated. He agrees to donate his blood to her cause, though he goes on a two-night research bender studying the anatomy of the cardiovascular system to figure out the ideal blood balance that he and Ochaco can regularly donate without weakening themselves. Toga becomes an entry in one of Midoriya’s analysis notebooks and the girl is so elated she offers to kill Bakugo for him.
Katsuki Bakugo, Midoriya’s only other ‘friend’, quickly becomes a tricky subject between the three. Midoriya and Ochaco look over their shoulders in public, careful to avoid him— Midoriya, Ochaco realizes, has started to do a lot of hiding out at her apartment— because even though the chance of a run-in with Bakugo is low, it is never zero.
Toga offers time and time again to give Bakugo a piece of her displeasure, but Midoriya insists that Bakugo is his friend and that he doesn’t want anybody fighting anybody at all.
Ochaco stays silent during these not-arguments. She knows what Bakugo will be, but she was never truly faced with what he was, at his worst. What she does know, and what Toga sees as well, is that Midoriya’s run-ins with Bakugo can be marked every time the green-haired boy shows up with a new burn on his arms, chest, neck, or face. And those are just the places the girls can see.
Ochaco, Toga, and Midoriya form a three-person study group to grind for the written exam. Toga and Midoriya get along like a house on fire, generating enough chatter between them to out-sing a forest of birds. When Midoriya realizes that the girls don’t mind hearing his hero analysis— encourage it, even— it’s like a dam breaks. Most of his initial nervousness washes away.
If Toga can’t always match the depth Midoriya’s researched analysis, she can always match his enthusiasm.
“People usually tend to judge quirks based on how much damage they can do, but rescue heroes are really under-appreciated in the media.”
Toga scratches her ear. “It’s way easier to think of ways you can harm someone sometimes.”
“You’re right! It really makes me wonder about the way we think about the usefulness of quirks overall? I mean, last night I saw a video of Mt. Lady lifting a train and it got me thinking— usually her villain fights are broad-casted the most, but she does a lot of rescue stuff because her quirk makes it so she can pick through building rubble like sand.”
“It must be sooooo nice being her,” sighs Toga. “There’s lots of her to love.”
“Yeah, she’s been doing really well at the popularity polls lately because every time she uses her quirk, it’s like one big announcement she’s there. I think people must be able to see her from a mile around.”
“And she can—” Togs claps her hands together. “— people like a bug. She could eat someone alive.”
Ochaco lays flopped back onto her bedspread, knees hanging off of the side and face towards the ceiling. Toga and Midoriya are perched on either side of her, talking and gesturing animatedly overhead. When All Might is brought up, Midoriya leaps to his feet and paces tight circles around the room as he breaks down the possible physics behind the Detroit Smash. If Ochaco is silent, if her eyes are closed, it’s only because she needs every bit of focus she can muster to keep up with the fast track of their conversation.
Midoriya runs to meet Ochaco and Toga at the train station because this time, the study session is taking place at his mom’s apartment. Ochaco and Toga greet him at the station with due enthusiasm, but the walk back is less like Midoriya escorting them and more like they are escorting Midoriya.
For good reason. Bakugo lives in the same neighborhood.
When the group spots Bakugo up ahead on the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, a jolt of hair-raising energy jumps between them like chain lightning. Toga takes a step forward, but Midoriya and Ochaco’s instinct is to flee. They each grip onto one of Toga’s sharp shoulders and pull her back. One of the nearby houses is walled off by a tall wooden fence, the steps leading up to the gate providing a small alcove for the three to duck in and hide behind.
“Maybe,” hisses Ochaco, “He’s thinks you’re someone else, Midoriya. Because you’re with us.”
Midoriya shakes his head.
Toga reaches into her jeans pocket for a small red vial, uncaps it, and downs it like a shot. Her form shimmers at the edges, gooey and malleable, before morphing and settling into an exact likeness of Izuku Midoriya— except for the clothing and except for the smile, which is sharp around the edges even without the presence of fangs. That smile is still Toga’s.
Midoriya mutters, “Don’t do anything,” but Toga pays him no mind.
Ever-smiling, she links one arm with Midoriya’s and the other arm with Ochaco’s. “Oh, Izuku. I wish I could make you look like me so we could trade places. Give someone a nasty surprise.”
“Toga,” says Ochaco. “Midoriya. We’re just going to run, okay?”
Toga— with Midoriya’s face— puffs her cheeks out.
Midoriya nods quickly. “Yeah, that’s better!”
“Hey, nerd!” calls Bakugo from up ahead. “I saw you!” He is close but out of sight, lurking like a dinosaur or a killer from a movie. Ochaco bites down on a hysterical laugh.
“Run! Run, run, run!” cries Ochaco, and the three leap out of the alcove and book it up the street, arms separating to pump with proper desperation.
With Ochaco’s friends by her side, the mad dash could almost be fun or thrilling, like a roller coaster or a haunted house. It isn’t. Her stomach churns.
They blow past Bakugo on the sidewalk. Ochaco sees him in a flash as she passes by: his fists curled for an explosion at the fingertips, a sneer scrunching his face. But any plan of attack in Bakugo’s mind is quickly erased by shock, at the sight of two separate Midoriyas barreling past him.
Toga sticks her tongue out at Bakugo. Midoriya doesn’t look back. His tense shoulders are locked forward like a fleeing deer, eyes only for the salvation of his mother’s apartment complex up ahead.
Ochaco lasts up until three days before the UA entrance exams before she caves on her obvious secret. It isn’t intentional. It goes like this:
Stupidly, Ochaco says, “I’m going to miss you guys.”
Toga raises an eyebrow. “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. It means nothing, forget it.”
Midoriya looks up from his spread of flashcards and does a double-take when he sees Ochaco’s gray face. “Uraraka, you haven’t been sleeping, have you? All— someone I know— got on my case about that the other day. It really is important that we follow our workout plans—”
Truthfully, it has been three days since Ochaco has had any real sleep. Midoriya can tell because of the bags under her eyes and the way she lists to one side as she sits on his bed. Suddenly, Ochaco bursts, “This isn’t even my real life!”
“Things are going to change for us, soon,” soothes Midoriya. “As soon as we get into UA!”
“I’ve already done all this! I’ve gone back in time— I’m either a time traveler or this is all one really weird dream!”
Toga’s grin goes fixed at the corners. Her eyes dart, searching for the joke.
Midoriya can’t find the punchline, either. He exchanges a harried look with Toga. “It’s okay. I know how you feel, trust me. We just need to do our best.”
“I’m not being metaphorical! It’s literal!” Ochaco hides her face in her hands, shaking her head no. The tears come as a symptom of exhaustion as much as frustration.
It is silent.
Then Toga reaches out and pinches Ochaco’s arm. She makes a tsssss! sound with her tongue as she does it, like she’s miming the extinguishing of a candle.
Abruptly, Ochaco looks up from the cradle of her hands and stops crying in bafflement.
“Tsssss!” Toga pinches Ochaco’s calf. “Well, I’m pinching you, but it doesn’t look like you’re waking up.”
“I tried the pinching thing!” Ochaco says miserably.
Midoriya leans forward and asks, “You think our reality is just a fabrication of your mind? That it’ll collapse when you wake up from this dream?”
“I feel pretty real,” says Toga. “Sorry, but nobody gets to tell me that I’m not real.”
Ochaco sighs. “I was hit with a quirk. This,” she waves her hands, gesturing widely, “this world we’re sitting in right now? This is the past. I’ve gone back in time three years.”
“I’m confused,” says Toga. “Are you a dreamer or a time traveler?”
“I don’t even know!”
Midoriya asks, “How old are you?”
Ochaco sighs. “Eighteen. I’m a pro hero. They call me Uravity.”
Toga squints and says, “You don’t look eighteen to me.”
“This is my fifteen year old body.”
“You don’t act eighteen to me.”
“Well! Sometimes, lately. . . it really does feel like I’m fifteen again.” The half-remembered routine is no longer just a memory, not when Ochaco has been living it once more. She does her chores. She eats dinner with her parents. She walks all the routes she used to walk when she was a kid, because unfortunately she is a kid again. “But I know I already lived all this! I don’t want to do it again!”
Gently, Midoriya says, “I think we should get you help, Uraraka.”
“I’ll prove it,” she says firmly. “Toga, being from the future is how I knew to find you. Because we already met before, in my real life— I mean, my other life. And Midoriya, I know about One For All.”
Midoriya goes as pale as a corpse. He stutters and then stops, like a dying lawnmower.
“It’s okay. You haven’t betrayed anyone. You don’t have to say anything, either. You told me about it yourself in the other life.”
“Oh.”
“That’s not enough!” says Toga. “Tell me! What are we talking about?”
“One For All is. . .” Midoriya can barely bring himself to say the words. “A quirk that someone’s going to give me. I’m training so I can be strong enough to handle it.”
Ochaco adds, “All Might’s the one who has it now,” and Midoriya’s squeal all but confirms her words.
Now Toga looks between Ochaco and Midoriya like they’re both crazy. “That’s not how quirks work. Is All Might scamming you, Izuku? Are you sure it’s him?”
“Okay, okay,” whines Midoriya. “I know how you feel now, Uraraka. I believe you.”
“Both of you are serious?” asks Toga. “Really, really, really serious? Izuku is going to get All Might’s quirk and Ochaco is a time traveler? Because if you aren’t serious, this is so not cute.”
“Mine is the truth,” says Midoriya.
“So is mine,” says Ochaco. “I guess I must be a time traveler. . . The dream thing doesn’t make sense to me anymore.”
There is a long beat of silence.
“Okay,” Toga says. “If that’s it, then.”
Ochaco drags her hands across her face. “I’m sorry I said you guys weren’t real.”
“Sorry you have to be fifteen again,” says Midoriya awkwardly.
“We can still be friends,” says Toga benevolently. “I still like you both very much. And maybe I had it easy, getting the blood thing out of the way real fast at the beginning. If you think about, all these big secrets are making us closer!”
After the secret is out, most of the last-minute study sessions get derailed halfway through. It always happens the same way: one of them goes off on a tangent, the subject loops inevitably back around to Ochaco’s original future timeline, and then the whole group has no choice but to get out the sticky notes, the push pins, and the red thread to draw out dizzyingly complicated diagrams on Ochaco’s bedroom wall.
“We’re doing hero analysis,” Ochaco tells her mother the one time she walks in on them. “For the written entrance exam.”
Mrs. Uraraka doesn’t recognize the long list of villain names included on the diagram. She laughs softly and waves the kids on to continue. “I can’t argue with that. Just remember to take breaks, you hear? You three have been at this since . . . since I left for work this morning! Finish it up now, I want you to take a break!”
Ochaco bites her nails about changing events for the worse, but Midoriya is inspired to go into full investigation mode on any names she can possibly give him. He combs through news reports and blog posts from the last ten years to gather profiles and draw up exhaustive analysis.
Toga researches Stain. Ochaco can’t tell her not to.
They all debate endlessly on what must happen and what could be changed.
“We know things can be changed!” says Midoriya eagerly. “The three of us sitting here, talking about it, is proof enough!”
“Yes,” says Ochaco. “But we have to be careful not to change things too much.”
“Hmmm,” says Toga. “I don’t like being told how to live my life. I mean, the me that was then is already not the me that is now, so. . . why should we worry about following Ochaco’s old life exactly?”
“So I don’t lose All for One!” says Midoriya.
“So people don’t die, Toga,” says Ochaco. “That includes you.”
“Oh, okay,” Toga huffs.
Midoriya gestures to the newest wall diagram. “Besides, there’s nothing wrong with preparation. You know, All Might once said that, ‘To fail to prepare is to prepare to fail!’”
Ochaco chuckles weakly. “I don’t think he came up with that one. But I do think a plan is definitely going to help us for now, while everything is nice and neat and things haven’t changed that much yet. Life is messy, so. . . later, we might get to a point where things are so different we won’t be able to rely on my memory to decide what to do anymore.”
“We’ll still make plans then,” says Midoriya, “based on what we know. Like normal people do all the time.”
Toga uses the sharp edge of a canine to pick out some blood crusted underneath a thumbnail. “I think we should just do what feels right. Sorry, but I’m not feeling the two-hundred step plan, Izuku.”
“I’ll cut down the steps,” he says.
“I’m not feeling a one-hundred step plan, either.”
“You’re making it really hard for me! I’ll try. . . fifty. With wiggle room. Yeah?”
Ochaco adds, “The plan will be adaptable, so we can change it. Is that good, Toga?”
“Hmmmmmm, okay. How can I say no to such a cute face?” The blonde girl reaches out and pinches Ochaco’s cheeks together with a thumb and forefinger. Ochaco laughs and bats her away.
Ochaco continues to be uneasy, because she’s always uneasy these days, but she can’t fully register telling Midoriya and Toga as a mistake in her mind. Part of it is the fact that Midoriya and Toga are so eager to help. Part of it is the fact that Ochaco can’t shake the feeling that she chose two of the best secret-keepers around.
During the UA written exam, Midoriya splits off to sit with Bakugo and Ochaco takes Toga to sit on the opposite side of the huge lecture hall. Every student is nervous entering the written exam and nervous leaving it— but the real worry is the practical exam, even for the girl who already did it once.
Ochaco racks up points saving other contestants during the practical exam, abusing the secret rescue point system to her own advantage. She tries to think of it as a veteran’s discount instead of outright cheating.
Toga shamelessly benefits from Ochaco’s shared foreknowledge. She goes out of her way to save a tired, purple-haired boy from being crushed by a chunk of falling rubble the size of a car.
“I’ve saved you!” she informs him happily. “No need to thank me, it’s what cuties like me do. Heroism.”
“What?” sputters Hitoshi Shinso, hair wild around his face. Toga has him lowered in a dip.
Toga doesn’t answer. Through her bangs, she glances up and spots another potential damsel in distress: a student fleeing from a horde of approaching robots in the distance. It is time to move on.
Abruptly, Toga lowers Shinso to the concrete ground by dropping him legs-first. The back of Shinso’s head is saved from the concrete, but his tailbone smarts.
Shinso sputters, calls, “Hey!” after Toga’s retreating back, but Toga takes off down the fake street and is gone. In the end, Shinso has his own points to earn. He picks himself off the ground, rubs his bruised back, and does not give chase.
Toga prances through the battlefield in high spirits until a close explosion shakes the ground and halts her dancing feet in their tracks. Bakugo emerges from the smoke pouring out from between two buildings.
All thoughts of rescuing (or heroism) leave Toga’s mind. “THERE YOU ARE!” she shrieks.
Bakugo squints, taken aback. The smoke makes him cough. “I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
“I’VE HEARD.” Toga’s fists curl. Her teeth bare. “THAT YOU’VE BEEN A BIG MEANIE.”
Midoriya should benefit from Ochaco’s shared foreknowledge, but somehow he still ends up breaking both arms, both legs, and everything in between fighting the huge 0-point mecha monster.
“I was following the plan!” Midoriya insists later, stuck in a hospital bed to face Ochaco’s ire wrapped in bandages and laying on his back. “I was saving people! The zero-pointer was going to crush someone!”
Ochaco flails. “I wasn’t there to catch you this time! We agreed to avoid it!”
“I think it was cool, Izuku,” says Toga with a grin. “Don’t worry your little head. Ochaco cares so much it’s just making her a meanie right now.”
Ochaco whips around to point a finger between Toga’s feline eyes. “Don’t even get me started on you!”
Ochaco knew a little about Toga and Bakugo’s explosive, rule-breaking fight before Toga personally informed her of it. It is because, as Ochaco left the practical exam, weaving through a flood of exhausted and battered students, hushed whispers spoke of a crazy blonde girl and a crazy blonde boy breaking the no-fight rule in another battle center.
Wait, Ochaco thought abruptly. I hope that’s not who I think it is.
“It was me!” confirms Toga when the three friends meet again at Midoriya’s hospital bedside.
Toga tells Ochaco and Midoriya, proudly, that during the exam she used a triangular shard of metal robot casing to slash lines across Bakugo’s collarbones. The sharp edges of the improvised weapon cut into Toga’s palm, but otherwise she came out of the scuffle relatively unscathed and totally unrepentant.
“He did get close,” Toga says cheerfully. Her hair is blown wildly out of its buns, fly-aways sticking out every direction. “But then I went stab, stab, stab!”
“Oh no,” Ochaco groans. “Oh, no, they’re never going to let you in now!”
Midoriya assumes he is included under that umbrella. “You think?” he says nervously. His entire arms are bruised so black and blue under the bandages that Ochaco can’t believe it’s his real skin. He is on the verge of tears, but not from pain. “How many points do you think we earned, Uraraka? I can’t say how many I got— I wasn’t really able to fight any of the robots, except, uh, that last one. . .”
“Did you save anyone?”
“Maybe?” Midoriya pales. “I tried to. In the end. There was a girl with a long tongue— some kind of frog-related quirk maybe?— but her tongue got stuck in some of the rubble and the zero-pointer was going to step on her. . . Oh, All Might never should have given me this power! Uraraka, Toga, I really let you guys down—”
“They’ll let you in, Midoriya,” Ochaco says wearily. “You fought the wrong robot, maybe, but you didn’t do anything wrong.”
Toga whines, “Ohhhhh, but Ochaco! I saved plenty of people! And I only got one or two thank-yous!”
“That’s good! That’s good, then!” says Ochaco, grasping onto a thin thread of hope. “Your fight with Bakugo wasn’t that long, right? Maybe the exam graders won’t weigh it as much as all the rescue points you earned! Did many people see you guys fight?”
Toga scratches her neck. Looks away. “I wasn’t really paying attention. . .”
There must have been many, many witnesses, then.
Midoriya offers, “Maybe people were too busy looking at the explosion I made to pay attention to any of the explosions you and Kacchan made, Toga.”
Ochaco squeezes her own face between both hands. “Ohhhhhhhh no,” she breathes.
“They have to let us in,” insists Toga. “We did soooo good.”
Midoriya is considerably less confident, especially in the face of Ochaco’s despair. He curls his fingers and says nothing.
“Whatever happens,” says Ochaco grimly. “I am going to stick by you guys, okay? I’ll be here. We’ll get through it. We could— even be heroes somewhere else. If UA doesn’t let us in.”
Toga looks at Ochaco. For a girl who swore to wear her heart on her sleeve always, Ochaco can’t make out the expression on Toga’s face. “Yes!” Toga says, but her eyes do not quite match the enthusiasm. “But they will.”
Toga excuses herself to go to the bathroom and does not return, ignoring texts and missed calls for the rest of the day.
“Hey! Mister Eraserhead!” calls a girlish voice from up the sidewalk. Sneakers scuff against the sidewalk, footsteps slapping as the wearer breaks out into a run.
Shota Aizawa does not move or open his eyes. It does not even cross his mind to unzip his sleeping bag.
“Mister Eraserhead!” Toga says, much closer. “Wake up, I need to talk to you!”
The recognition is unlucky. It would be unlikely, too, except the bench Aizawa is napping on happens to be directly outside the entrance of UA high school. “I’m off the clock, kid,” Aizawa creaks. “If you were one of the brats at the entrance exam today, your letter will come in the mail a week from now. Every second you spend talking to me actively hurts your chances.”
“I already hurt my chances plenty.”
Aizawa cracks open a dry eye. Just a sliver.
“I know who you are,” Toga says, unnecessarily. “I’ve been doing lots of hero research lately. You’re underground. I had to go to, like, cryptid forums to find anything about you.”
“I know who you are, too. The instigator. You attacked another student during the exam today.”
“Yeah.” Whenever Toga meets someone, she can usually guess what type of act they would like best from her. But Aizawa looks at her, cutting, and Toga knows that any act at all would be fruitless. It is a relief. She beams wide with her teeth instead, the way Ochaco has been encouraging her to. “I wanna talk about something else, though.”
“Whatever you have to say is not going to help your case.”
“There’s this boy I like.”
“Oh my god.”
“And he might’ve messed up on the practical exam.”
“It can’t be that explosive blonde brat, could it?”
“No, no, no. His name is Izuku Midoriya. He’s green. He broke his whole body fighting the big robot. That’s so heroic, right? He did it to save someone! So if you please wouldn’t be too harsh on him, that would be great. I got a few hero points, and if I’m not getting in, you can go ahead and give them to Izuku if it helps.”
Aizawa cracks his neck and accepts that the girl is not going to go away. “Why did you get into a fight?”
Toga’s eyes flash. “Oh, that was with Bakugo. Bakugo really isn’t good for saving anyone, you know. He hurts people too much.”
“You’re not worried about Midoriya’s chances at all. You just came here to tell me not to let Bakugo in.”
Toga swings her arms and smiles. “Well. . . you can do whatever you’d like! Bye, Mister Eraserhead! It was nice talking to you!” Waving, she turns on her heel and runs away, steps light.
It was not a nice talk. It cut into what little rest time Aizawa has. It leaves him with no choice but to groan under his breath, get up, and start looking into more thorough background checks for Himiko Toga, Katsuki Bakugo, and Izuku Midoriya.
Recovery Girl’s single kiss cut months of healing from Midoriya’s future. He is released from the hospital overnight and into the arms of his crying mother. Through the tearful reunion with her son, Inko Midoriya manages to extend a sleepover invitation to Ochaco, but she respectfully declines.
“My parents will want to see me,” says Ochaco tiredly. “I have to get home.”
“Such a good girl,” Inko sniffles. “You should be very proud of yourself, you and Izuku both.” She wraps Ochaco into a firm hug and some of the girl’s tension melts away. Ochaco hugs back, burying her face in Inko’s shoulder for a long moment.
“I hope Toga is okay,” Midoriya frets.
“Me, too,” says Ochaco. “But worry about yourself first, huh?”
It’s one in the morning when a sheepish knock comes at the apartment door of the Uraraka home. Ochaco, lightly dozing with her phone laying on her collarbone, is able to leap up and answer the front door as soon as a text comes through from Toga asking to be let in.
“Have you eaten?” Ochaco demands quietly, so her parents don’t wake.
“I got some rats,” says Toga. “I was thinking, Ochaco, that if the hero school thing doesn’t work out, I can totally be a vigilante.”
“Oh my god.” Ochaco rubs her groggy eyes with two fists. “I hope not. Let’s just see what the letter says, okay? There have got to be some other hero schools with later exam dates, maybe we can squeeze in a couple applications . . .”
Toga yawns so wide her jaw cracks, the color of her sandy hair making her look every bit a lion. “I’m going where you’re going. Let’s go to sleep.”
A week later, the mail carrier delivering to the Toga residence is stopped short of the mailbox by a teenage girl with grabby hands and a vibrating enthusiasm so intense he takes a step back.
“I live here,” the girl says, though she hasn’t stepped foot on this property in two weeks. The girl’s smile does not waver. Her outstretched hands do not retreat, though they tremble with coiled desperation. “Give me the mail, please.”
The mailman relents hastily, if only to get her to go away. So Toga is able to save her UA letter from the grasp of her parents, whisking it away in the safety of her own possession as she walks and then runs for the train station.
Mr. and Mrs. Toga have already written off their daughter’s acceptance into UA. The last time she spoke with them was a screaming argument.
“Do you really see me doing anything else? Getting an office job? I’m always trying to be good so you’ll like me, and being a hero is the most good I could ever do!”
“Be realistic, Himiko! We thought letting you take the entrance exam would make you learn on your own. You’re not going to be a hero.”
“We never should have entertained it. A quirk like yours— if people knew about it, they would be disgusted. We have tried our best to give you a life. You just never listen!”
“I tried so hard! I don’t care anymore! I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care!”
Himiko Toga discards the last vestiges of her old demure act. By now, she wears her hair up every day. Her shoes are scuffed from crouching in alleys and the polish on her fingernails is red so the blood caked underneath isn’t as obvious. She eats rats at night and birds in the early morning. Most of all and even better, she enjoys a veritable wealth of blood donations from her friends. She will never starve or be silent or smile with her mouth closed ever again.
When Inko hands her son a letter from UA, the first thing Midoriya does is retreat into his bedroom to call his friends.
“I got mine, too!” says Ochaco. The envelope is wrinkled from how hard she crushed it in her fist. “Have you opened yours yet?”
“No!”
“Don’t open them!” says Toga. “I’m on my way, I’m on my way. Let’s go to Ochaco’s place and open them together!”
With her head-start, Toga arrives first. She and Ochaco place their letters on the kitchen table and eye them like they’re live snakes before Midoriya bursts through the door.
Midoriya doesn’t bother with a greeting. “Should we open them all together?”
Ochaco shakes her head. “They’re hologram videos. You go first, Midoriya!”
All Might’s presence is so grand, even over video, that the kids jump back when Midoriya’s hologram coin flickers to life. All Might meanders around the verdict, keeping them on the edge of their seats, but then he says—
“You’re in, young Midoriya! Class 1-A!”
“Holy shit!” shrills Midoriya. His voice sounds like air escaping from a balloon. “Holy shit!”
Toga cackles and slaps his back.
“I never doubted you for a second,” Ochaco says, and they all know it’s a lie so the only thing she can do is let a giggle burst out of her chest, dizzy from nerves.
Toga points at her. “You now, Ochaco!”
Another coin flips onto the kitchen table. All Might greets her, congratulates her, and then—
“Welcome to UA’s hero course, Miss Ochaco! You have a spot in class 1-A!”
“Oh, good.” A weight lifts off of Ochaco’s lungs, the release of tension leaving her boneless. “Toga, open yours.”
For the third time, All Might beams down at them. He is still larger than life, though slightly less lively— Toga’s letter must have been at the end of a long list. “Himiko Toga!” he says. “Sometimes life doesn’t always go the way we want it to, but that is the beauty of it. That is to say— you were penalized during the practical exam. . .” All Might coughs into a fist. “For good reason— but we are still interested in having you at UA. If you want it, we welcome you to a spot in UA’s general education course!”
“General education.” Toga tilts her head.
Ochaco grabs a fistful of Toga’s sleeve and shakes it. “That’s good! It’s UA! It’s not the hero course— but you can still transfer in later!”
Midoriya grabs fistfuls of his own messy hair. “You made it in! We all made it!”
“Ha!” Toga’s perplexion splits into a wide smile. “I knew it!”
Midoriya bursts into tears. Shaking, he sobs so hard that when Ochaco’s mother walks into the room, she tries softly to comfort him with words about how rejection is never the end, not really, and besides, Midoriya could always be a police officer. . .
“Mom!” laughs Ochaco. “It’s okay, he made it in!”
If Aizawa had his way, Toga, Bakugo, and Midoriya would have never set foot into a UA heroics classroom. Only one-third of his wish is granted; Toga the instigator is tossed, but troublemakers Bakugo and Midoriya wind up in Aizawa’s very own homeroom class.
Minoru Mineta does not make it into UA at all. Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time during the practical exam, he was taken down by a chunk of flying explosion rubble from a fight between two certain students. In the aftermath of the exam he is found on the ground by Recovery Girl, laying slumped and unconscious and having amassed exactly 0 points.
Mineta does not become a pro hero. He goes to a regular high school and then a fine arts college. He graduates and becomes a manga artist. He makes his living drawing big, busty women in bikini fantasy armor. He falls in love with a lady who draws men with washboard abs, big hands, and even bigger dicks. He is happy.
Hitoshi Shinso, on the other hand, slots neatly into the place Mineta would have taken in class 1-A. After being so heroically rescued during the practical exam, he found it in himself to help a few people off the ground.