Izuku awoke to nothing but pain. For a scant few seconds, he assumed he was back training with his mom since waking up in pain was a familiar occurrence afterward. However, the white walls and ceiling he woke up to told him that he wasn't in his room.
"Ah, you're awake," an old, familiar voice came from beside him. He looked over to see the short frame of Recovery Girl next to his bed giving him a kind smile. That smile vanished and a stern frown took its place.
"I should be scolding you for overdoing it again, but I can't fault you entirely since Nezu intentionally put you in position to do so, and from what I saw when I watched the footage back, you did prioritize rescue and tried to avoid fighting until you simply couldn't."
Izuku sighed in relief at narrowly avoiding a whack on the head from Recovery Girl's syringe cane.
"With that said," Recovery Girl continued before lightly whacking him on the head with her cane; he had spoken too soon, "You were on the brink of tearing your muscles apart, young man!"
And she was right, Izuku could definitely feel it. His entire body was sore, and his right arm in particular felt like it went through a meat grinder. He knew that pushing his green flames as far as they could go for that punch was incredibly risky, but he didn't have a lot of options, and he figured that he could reset whatever damage there was with his pink flames.
"You overused your quirk in that last bid against the 0-pointer. You're not supposed to fly like that regardless of how little gravity you have," Recovery Girl said while fighting back a chuckle at the thought. "And pooling your green fire on your arm could've done severe damage that you wouldn't have been able to immediately heal from. Your body may be immune to overheating, but you were completely drained of stamina, so neither my quirk nor your own pink fire could've done much for you without killing you."
"Oh…" Izuku mumbled in embarrassed realization.
"'Oh' is right," she said with a shake of her head, and she reached over and kissed his arm. He felt her quirk at work, zapping some of the energy he had and greatly easing the pain he felt throughout his body. "You're not likely to be in a manufactured situation like this again, but there will be times where you will push yourself much further than your limits will safely allow for one reason or another. You did well to do no lasting damage this time around, but please be careful in the future. It was your muscles this time, but overdoing your yellow flames could stop your heart or your white flames could give you a brain aneurysm, both of which are exponentially more severe, especially out on the field."
Izuku was silent in thought at her words, missing the doctor's muttering about "reckless damn rodents" and "Inko would burn this school to the ground if anything happened to her boy." He hadn't considered what would actually happen if he really went overboard with his quirk. The migraines from his white flames were usually enough of a deterrent, but the fight against the 0-pointer was the first time he truly went beyond Plus Ultra, and he supposed that there were consequences for that.
"Since you're awake and in relatively good health, I can let your mother in," Recovery Girl stated, snapping Izuku out of his thoughts.
She didn't get the chance to, however, and the door slammed open with his mother rushing into the room and practically diving into his bed to hug him to death.
"I'm so glad you're okay!" she practically cried. "I can't believe my son is so cool!"
Izuku was expecting an emotional reaction along these lines when his mother showed up, but he figured she'd be fretting more over his health and safety than anything else.
"I honestly thought you'd be a lot more worried," Izuku remarked while returning the hug.
"I was at first, but Recovery Girl was able to assure me that there was no real, lasting damage. I watched the whole thing; I'm so proud that you were able to pick your battles and focus on the important things before Principal Nezu forced your hand," she explained with a watery smile.
"I knew he had something to do with that," Izuku lowly muttered.
"Of course, he did. It's Nezu," she sighed, before something came to her, and a sly smile formed onto her face. "You also have a visitor. She's been waiting outside for two hours worried sick about her hero."
"W-wait a minute, I wasn't- it hasn't even been that long!" a familiar, high-pitched voice frantically cried out from the hallway.
"Don't try to be coy, little miss," Inko responded with a grin, and she quickly left the room to retrieve the girl in question, revealing a beet red Ochako in her grasp. "You've been fretting over him for as long as I have."
"Uraraka?" Izuku asked in confusion.
"Uh… hi…" she barely managed with the amused gazes of Inko and Recovery Girl on her.
Not reading the situation, Izuku proceeded on as normal. "I'm glad you're okay. Your ankle looked pretty gnarly back there, and I didn't get a chance to check on you again before passing out mid-flight."
"I should be the one worrying about you!" she exclaimed at his concern for her and not himself. "You were awesome out there! You lit up into this flaming rainbow and went POW right into the 0-pointer and practically blew it up! Everyone is calling you the Rainbow Comet!"
"Rainbow Comet?" Izuku asked, quirking an eyebrow in amusement.
"Can you come up with something better, Small Might?" Inko asked, sharing her son's mirth.
"You're never gonna let me live that down, are you?"
"Absolutely not."
Ochako watched the two banter in wonder, and then it clicked. "Oh, is she your mother that you mentioned earlier?"
Inko looked at the girl in surprise, and then her eyes returned to her son in a silent question of how much he told her.
"Yeah, this is her. She works here," Izuku confirmed while meeting his mother's stare to confirm that he didn't tell her any more than that. She nodded and smiled.
"It's great to meet you, Mrs. Midoriya!" Ochako beamed and extended her hand.
"Likewise, and you can just call me Inko," she replied and took the offered hand. "Do you live in the area? I'd love to have one of Izuku's friends over for dinner."
Ochako was taken completely off guard by the offer, and she quickly put her hands up. "I wouldn't want to impose," she wobbly attempted to decline.
"It's no trouble at all," Inko replied, completely undeterred. "It would be nice to have someone else around, and Izuku certainly needs more friends."
Recovery Girl, knowing exactly what Inko was doing, turned around at her desk to stave off the laughter. Izuku, meanwhile, kept a close, calculating eye on his mother. She was up to something, and the fact that he didn't know what put him on edge.
"Well, I guess I could, just this once," Ochako bashfully accepted over the rumbling of her stomach. She yelped as Inko snatched her and Izuku's arms and yanked him out of the bed before throwing a quick goodbye to Recovery Girl and leaving with the two teens in her tight grasp.
Recovery Girl couldn't hold back her laugher any longer.
"She's just like her mother. I wonder if Toshi has figured it out, yet."
"So, Ochako, do you live in the area?" Inko asked while she and the two teens were eating the katsudon she cooked to keep Izuku quiet about his suspicions.
"Hm? Oh, sorry," she quickly apologized as she was completely lost in the meal. "I'm actually from Mie. My parents rented me an apartment out here so that I could take the entrance exam and not have to ride two hours on the train."
Her expression became slightly downcast. "I don't know how long I'll have it, though. I don't even know if I'll be accepted into UA."
"Stop that, you'll be accepted for sure," Inko chided. "I was watching the entire thing, there's no way a team like you two don't make it in."
"Wait, aren't you grading the exams? Should you even be telling us any of this?" Izuku questioned.
"Who's gonna stop me?" She replied with a raised eyebrow.
"Fair enough," he accepted with a nod.
"Worst case scenario," she continued, turning back to Ochako, "I can just take you on as an apprentice and force them to admit you."
"WHAT?!" both teens choked out.
"Did I not say that was an option?" she asked her son.
"…No, you never mentioned anything of the sort," he answered while trying to regain his bearings.
"Wait, apprenticeship? How would you be able to do that?" Ochako coughed.
"I'm a retired pro," Inko explained to the girl who now had stars in her eyes. "Since I still have my license, I reserve that right. Principal Nezu also owes me quite a few favors, now. I doubt it'll come to that, though."
Izuku took a moment to gather himself completely before refocusing on his mother. "I'm surprised you just came right out and said it. You never used to be this comfortable with talking about it in the past."
"It would've come out at some point," Inko shrugged. "Being the Underground Heroics teacher kinda puts you back into that world whether you like it or not, so there's no use hiding it."
Ochako, meanwhile, was positively starstruck. Her new friend was the son of a retired pro who had just offered to take her on as an apprentice if she didn't make it into UA. Now the two of them were bantering again like she didn't just casually drop a bomb on her entire world. She refused to believe that what was happening was real, but a few pinches to her arm confirmed that it was indeed real life.
"Um, why?" she finally asked, getting the attention of both Midoriyas. Her cheeks immediately flushed at the newfound attention, and she quickly elaborated. "Not that I'm not super grateful at the offer, but it's so sudden. Why me, of all people…"
"Stop that."
"Huh?"
"Stop selling yourself short. Just because you didn't take down as many robots as Izuku or some of the others in the exam doesn't make you any less competent or heroic. Potential is potential, honey, and you have it in spades."
"I…"
"Your quirk is fascinating, and while not purely offensive, you already know how to use it in creative ways to get the job done. Removing this little gremlin's gravity so that he could fly around like a comic book hero clearly showed that. My quirk isn't purely offensive either," she continued before pulling a fork into her hand from across the table to illustrate her point, "but it's about how you use it in tandem with the skills you have. Your quirk already makes you a potentially deadly hand-to-hand fighter, the next step is to improve your hand-to-hand capabilities to properly utilize that potential."
Ochako was speechless. No one she had ever met had even once given her any sort of advice like that. Sure, her parents encouraged her to follow her dreams and be the best hero she could possibly be, but they weren't heroes or combatants themselves. They wanted her to succeed, but they couldn't give her any advice like what she had just received. This woman that she met literally earlier that day had revealed herself to be a retired pro and told her precisely what she could do to improve as a hero and fighter, and that was after telling her that she already had potential to be a great hero in the first place to assuage the girl's doubts.
What the hell was it about this family that made her want to cry tears of joy and protect them with everything she had?
Inko could see the tears building in the girl's eyes, and she knew exactly what to do. "Like I said, dear, you'll be just fine. How about I bring out the scrapbook so you and I can look at Izuku's embarrassing baby pictures?"
"MOM!"
Ochako wiped her eyes and sniffled, doing nothing to fight the joyful smile that plastered itself onto her face. "I'd love to!"
She'd hang onto Izuku and Inko for dear life, she'd make damn sure of it.
Izuku was sprawled on his couch, TV remote in hand, and channel surfing. Nezu had given him the two weeks between the entrance exam and admittance/rejection letters going out off to do as he pleased, and it was primarily spent texting Yui and Ochako (she told him to call her Ochako right after she ate dinner with them the first time). Apparently, Yui had even more luck than him and made a few friends during the exam herself, and he also learned that she had a repertoire of memes rivaling his own collection of hero memorabilia.
She also had a notable collection of Super Sentai and Transformers merch in the few pictures of her room that she sent him, and that sparked a discussion about the two franchises in which Izuku learned that Yui was rather passionate about mechs, kaijus, and Megazords.
It instigated an on-going debate about whether or not All Might could take Godzilla that had dominated the last week and a half for him, so he was taking a break with mind numbing television.
"Omae wa mou shindeiru-"
click
"Can we get much higher?"
click
"Sludge Villain has continued to evade capture-"
click
"Izuku, your letter is here!" he heard his mother call from the front door. Shooting up, he looked over the couch to see her hurrying toward him with the letter in hand. She handed it to him, and he felt a hard disk inside the envelope. Taking a moment to stare down at the determining factor of his future, he opened the envelope and pulled out the small disk in front of the formal letter. Confused at what it was, he looked over to his mother to find that she had conveniently left the room.
Putting the disk and letter down on the coffee table in front of him, he was taken by surprise when a holographic projection of none other than All Might appeared from the disk.
"I AM HERE! As a projection!"
Izuku quickly clamped down on his excitement before he could attempt to have a conversation with a prerecorded video of his idol.
"Young Midoriya, you received a perfect score on the written exam! That alone would guarantee you admittance to the school in the general studies department, but your story does not end here! In the practical exam, you racked up a total of 57 Villain Points!"
"Geez, was it really that much?" he asked himself.
"It certainly was!" All Might responded with his giant smile, and the video continued before Izuku could question any further. "That alone would've gotten you ranked 8th in total points scored, but what kind of hero school would we be if your ability to destroy robots was the only thing we graded on? We were also looking at the content of your character when placed in a situation to help another, even at the cost of yourself. Your many instances of helping and rescuing your fellow examinees, especially when you didn't have to, truly displayed that you have the heart of a hero, and as such, you were rewarded 75 Rescue Points."
"75?" Izuku incredulously shouted.
"Yes, 75! That adds up to 132 total points scored! That comfortably puts you in 1st place. It is my pleasure to say welcome to YOUR hero academia, Young Midoriya!"
The projection faded, and Izuku sat on the couch with only the low sounds of the TV in the background. It was all starting to catch up to him, and a giant smile crept onto his face.
"I FUCKING DID IT!" he shouted in pure elation.
"Language, young man!" came the stern response of his mother from the other room, but the effect was muted when she poked her head into the living room bearing a kind, proud smile.
Izuku felt like he was walking on air, and he immediately went to text his two newest friends to ask them if they got their letters. He saw that they had apparently gotten theirs a little before him, as they both sent him texts declaring that they were accepted and asked him what class he was in. Figuring that the formal acceptance letter had that information, he checked to find out that he was in Class 1-A. He was happy that Ochako appeared to be with him, but he was a little bummed that Yui was in 1-B.
Suddenly, one particular detail occurred to him. During the projection, a list of the rankings from the entrance exam appeared on screen. Turning on the device and fast forwarding to the end, he stopped the recording on the results. He was in 1st with his 57 villain points and 75 rescue points, and he noticed that Ochako was in 4th with 28 villain points and 45 rescue points, likely from her helping him take down the 0-pointer and then catching him afterward.
But a single name stood out to him.
Katsuki Bakugo, 2nd place with 77 villain points and 0 rescue points.
"Bakugo was there…" Izuku quietly said to himself. And, if he was being honest with himself, of course Bakugo was. It was his dream to be the best hero ever and become even better than All Might, and there was no better way to accomplish that than by attending the best hero school in the nation and All Might's own alma mater. It came as no surprise to the green-haired boy that Bakugo trained exceptionally hard for it, as his score of 77 villain points made clear.
But that brought a specific event back to his memory:
"Fuck outta my way, extra!"
There was something familiar about that voice and hair to Izuku at the time, but meeting Ochako pushed it from his mind. Now, with nothing distracting him, it became all too clear to him.
"Holy shit, that was Bakugo…" he said to himself, subconsciously making sure to keep his voice low to prevent his mother from hearing him. "Did he not recognize me? Did I not recognize him?"
Then, another thought occurred to him that could make his time at UA complicated. "I hope he isn't still upset about what happened all those years ago…"
Looking back at the rankings, he winced. "He'll definitely be upset about getting 2nd place, especially to me."
Katsuki Bakugo was having a good day. He had dominated the entrance exam two weeks prior like he knew he would, and all that was left was to wait for his inevitable acceptance. Passing the time at his shitty school with useless extras was tedious, however, especially with the annoying pink-skinned girl with horns that was always on his case about being mean to people and kept trying to be his friend.
He didn't need friends. He was a winner. He would be the best damn hero ever.
So, when the letter from UA finally came in the mail, he knew it was simply a formality. He destroyed the most robots in his zone, and the written test was a piece of cake. The envelope contained a disk and a formal letter, so he pressed play on the disk, and a holographic projection of All Might appeared. Now, he was stoked. All Might himself was telling him how well he did. It was clearly the first step on his path to surpassing All Might, and no one would stop him.
"That is why it is my pleasure to inform you that you scored 77 Villain Points!"
'Hell yeah, 77 points!'
"That earned you 2nd place in the total rankings!"
Bakugo's brain stalled at that declaration. He didn't hear a word of All Might welcoming him to UA and the projection finally shutting off. His mind was stuck on the simple, almost alien detail of him getting 2nd place.
He grabbed the disk and rewound it if for no other reason than to ensure he hadn't misheard. Surely, he did not annihilate the competition with gusto just to come in 2nd, right?
Sure enough, that was exactly what had happened, and the display of the rankings only confirmed it. The first thing he noticed was the 0 tied to his name under Rescue Points, which confused him. The hell were rescue points? He was the only one who didn't have them, but he still scored better than almost everyone else, so they clearly didn't matter.
Then, the real issue presented itself. Who had the gall to take 1st place away from him-
IZUKU MIDORIYA
Bakugo's brain stalled for a second time. Deku…
The nerd had shown off his quirk and then dropped off the face of the Earth. He still remembered that day, the look in the nerd's eyes when he looked down on him with contempt surrounded by flames of all colors…
Then, he was just gone. He never showed up to school again, and Bakugo hadn't seen him once in 5 years. In that time, the old hag pulled him out of his school and transferred him to one on the other side of the city with the excuse that their principal was a pedo, but he was dubious about that. The news that came out a short time later and continued over the years about entire school districts being dismantled for promoting quirk discrimination and terroristic ideologies only confirmed his suspicions that something bigger was going on.
That news, however, re-contextualized his last meeting with Deku. That day, he was so angry that the nerd had hidden his quirk from him and pretended to be weak just to laugh at him behind his back, and he let that useless teacher get into his head and fanned his anger, pointing him towards Deku to remind him of his place. However, with the knowledge that the principal was arrested and that teacher went on the run, as well as his own mother screaming at him about what he did to the nerd, it forced him to sit down and reevaluate exactly what was going on at that school.
Deku was quirkless, or, at least, he thought he was up until they were 10. Everyone else thought he was, too, so they treated him as such. Even the adults treated him differently, but that might've been due in part to Deku being freakishly smart since that made the adults uncomfortable. A few even walked on eggshells around him as if they had something to hide, but the students mostly just made him a pariah for being the weird kid without a quirk.
Was that… was that by design? Did the adults and teachers try to set Deku up? They never said or did anything when anyone messed with him, and Deku never really seemed to care much about it, which pissed people off even more and compelled them to mess with him even harder. Was the whole school in on trying to wipe the quirkless off the map?
Was that useless teacher riling him up that day for that sole purpose?
Was that teacher using HIM to hurt Deku?
Bakugo snarled, small explosions crackling in his palms as he seethed at the thought. Those teachers were using him and kissing up to him for their bullshit quirk supremacy. They used him to attack a kid for not having a quirk just to further their own warped agendas.
"Those fuckers…" he seethed. "No one uses me as their fucking patsy!"
Bakugo was certain that if the school hadn't already been knocked down with a wrecking ball driven by a talking rat, he'd march down there himself and blow them all to kingdom come. He didn't need the help of any stupid terrorists, damnit! He'd be the best without them trying to kiss his ass and give him shortcuts!
And Deku…
Deku wasn't safe, either. The nerd had a quirk, and it was powerful. Wherever the hell he was during the last five years, he had obviously been training and getting stronger. The 1st place result in the rankings proved that, and it meant that, for the moment, Deku was better than him.
That would not stand.
He hoped that Deku was strong; he hoped that Deku was really strong. He wanted Deku to be at his best when Katsuki fucking Bakugo finally reminded him and everyone else just who the hell he was. He would be the best, and no quirk terrorists or even Deku himself would stand in the way of that.
"You hear me, you fucking Deku?! I'm coming for you, and I'm gonna be THE GODDAMN BEST!"
"What the hell are ya screaming up there for, ya brat?!" the voice of his mother came from downstairs.
"NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, YOU OVER-THE-HILL HAG!"
"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU CALLING OVER-THE-HILL, YA SHITTY BRAT?! I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW THAT YOUR FATHER STILL LOVES THIS ASS!"
"Mitsuki, please!"