Just before I collapsed, I quietly invoked a small [Truth Extraction].
After that, I put everything I had into acting, even making soft breathing sounds.
The voices around me began to panic and grow more heated.
"Are you even listening to me?
I’m not exactly safe on points either!!
Instead of wasting time on this, I was trying to give you advice as a Hero—"
The noisy voice cut off in an instant.
Even the students who were frightened by the bizarre situation had closed their eyes, but they could still "see."
The floating eye could keep its own line of sight even if I closed the other one.
The other side couldn’t tell whether I was acting or whether I had really collapsed from a Quirk side effect or exhaustion.
Even while they were trying to pin me down, the time they could spend earning points was slipping away.
All I had to do was lie there in silence, pretending to be too exhausted to move, until only the customers remained.
If they cared about points, they’d have no choice but to either leave or turn their attention to the "bait products" I’d prepared.
That would naturally filter them out, leaving only the ones desperate for points.
"Ugh! I just wanted to become a Hero and get lots of attention from girls, so what is this!?"
Ugly. The grape-headed thing looked ridiculous.
And his real thoughts were even worse.
So even someone like that got into the U.A. entrance exam. U.A. must care less about character checks than I thought.
The mutated grape-like hair on that guy’s head looked like something I wouldn’t want to swallow, no matter what Quirk it was.
"What do I do!? The only thing I can do is turn invisible, and my strength is just a little better than an ordinary girl’s!"
I turned toward the whining girl’s voice.
Invisible. So that was it.
A jackpot.
This was exactly what I’d been waiting for.
People who lowered their own worth by insisting they didn’t have a combat-type Quirk.
Being able to turn invisible wasn’t just a jackpot.
It was a huge catch—perfect for espionage, assassination, infiltration, and slipping into traps as if they were their own home.
I secretly aimed one of [Strong Wings]’ feathers at the girl and waited for my chance. Even if she was invisible, the feather’s sense let me tell where her hair was, and that it was long.
"Ah! I don’t care! I don’t care! I don’t care! I worked so hard to get into U.A., and I’m just going to do it!"
The grape head was the first to rationalize it, grabbing a nearby pipe and smashing the villains apart.
As soon as the notification announcing a successful restraint appeared, the remaining students all rushed in at once.
They competed furiously for points, even shoving each other in their desperation.
Now it was completely their "choice."
All I had done was pretend I’d exhausted myself while trying to "restrain" them, and the villains had gathered around me.
I quietly sent the feathers over to the invisible girl.
Even if U.A. accused me of acting, I hadn’t broken any rules.
Taking a short rest wasn’t interfering with the exam, was it?
And if they asked why I’d lured people in with points and taken their Quirks, I had a shield: I’d done it for the exam, to eliminate the variable of a zero-point villain.
Without hesitation, I carefully cut a little of the invisible girl’s hair, as delicately as a scalpel, and took it remotely.
"Um... are you okay? Did you collapse from exhaustion?"
I heard a worried girl’s voice.
In front of me stood a girl with puffed-up cheeks, round as a steamed bun.
Now, in this situation?
She was definitely strange, acting so relaxed in the middle of a competition against exhausted rivals.
I closed my eyes, didn’t move a muscle, and ignored her completely.
"What should I do... Should I slap his cheek to wake him up?"
If I kept pretending to sleep, my blood pressure might rise and expose me.
I coughed a few times and put on a strained expression.
"...I’m fine. I just pushed myself a little too hard. Worry about your own score."
After hearing me cough, the girl’s eyes drooped with even more concern and she fidgeted anxiously.
"...No, I can’t do that. I can’t just leave you collapsed where villains are running around!"
"I’ll go get someone right away! Wait here!"
A vein bulged on my forehead.
I grabbed the arm of the girl who was about to leave and said flatly, "I said I’m fine. Go."
The girl jumped in surprise, pulled her arm back, and gave an awkward laugh.
"Haha... y-you must be really tired! Sorry! Rest well..."
Once she was gone, I let out a sigh.
Heroes never seem to learn, not back then and not now, that useless meddling is one of their worst habits.
*
Maybe because these were the ones who couldn’t even score points.
There weren’t many worth marking.
That didn’t matter much.
Even one invisible girl was a massive gain.
Then Present Mic’s voice rang out.
"All right! All right! Rule change!"
"A zero-point villain is appearing now! And a sudden situation is the real test! Everyone, RUN!"
So this was different from the exams last year.
It didn’t matter what kind of variable showed up.
The problem was Midoriya.
"What, a zero-point villain? We haven’t even finished earning points yet, and now this? That’s too much!"
Despite the students’ protests, the zero-point villain kept advancing steadily, shaking the ground with every step.
The students hurriedly grabbed points from the remaining villains and ran, leaving me behind.
Once everyone had disappeared, I slowly stirred as if I were truly exhausted and got to my feet.
"Maybe I should go watch the others."
I sent the floating eye toward the zero-point villain, and the girl who had been meddling earlier tripped nearby while running away.
She was already struggling for points, and if she was making mistakes like that, then her Quirk was probably nothing special.
It didn’t look worth the trouble of jumping in and collecting it myself.
Since this was an entrance exam, I was also curious whether U.A. would really crush a student for it.
Unless someone tried to save that girl.
"Look out!!"
The one trying to save her was a boy who wasn’t worth collecting at all.
Of course it was Midoriya. In situations like this, he always threw himself in first.
Had he already gathered enough points to pass?
I moved to "test" Midoriya.
*
"Thank goodness."
Midoriya caught the brown-haired girl in an instant.
He tied the [Black Whip] wire from the gear Tenma had given him to a building, then used [Gearshift] and [Float] together to launch himself in like a spider.
It was higher than his training had ever taken him, and sweat gathered between his gauntlets.
Still, he thought it was best to reassure the girl who had probably been startled first.
He smiled at her, still awkward, and said, "It’s okay. I’ll help you. I’m Midoriya."
The girl opened her mouth to speak, but the zero-point villain drew closer.
Even so, the girl could tell this was an emergency despite her awkwardness.
"For now, hold on tight!!"
"Got it!"
Midoriya increased the speed of [Gearshift], connected the wire to another building, and landed on the rooftop.
With some of the tension gone, he wiped the sweat from his brow.
Then he screamed in embarrassment when he realized he had hugged the girl without saying a word.
He backed up until he was nearly at the railing.
"Aah! I’m sorry! I was just trying to save you! If that bothered you, I apologize!"
The girl doubled over laughing at that. Midoriya, mortified, looked ready to throw himself off the railing and fly away again.
When she saw him about to leave, the girl hurried over.
"Sorry! You really looked like a Hero just now, but then I suddenly remembered you’re a boy my age."
"I’m Uraraka. I saw you on the news. You’re that Quirkless aspiring Hero, right? That was amazing!"
"Ah, th-thank you! I’ll work even harder!"
Uraraka smiled, but when she saw the zero-point villain, the smile faded. Her expression turned apologetic.
"Did I waste too much of your time? Sorry..."
"Thank you for saving me. I’m fine. You should worry about your score now."
As soon as Midoriya heard that, the embarrassed look from before vanished in an instant.
His eyes were fixed only on the zero-point villain.
"...Right. Thank you for reminding me! I’m going back in. Good luck on the exam, Uraraka!"
With that, Midoriya hooked his wire to the building again and flew off.
Watching him go, Uraraka wore a faint smile.
"He’s the kind of kid you just want to cheer for really hard.
He looked so cool on TV, but he somehow gives off this feeling like you have to look after him too."
*
As Midoriya flew, he calculated the points he had earned.
Eighty points.
Considering the other students around him, that was a guaranteed passing score.
Tenma’s [Danger Sense] sensor was especially useful.
With his high mobility, he could move only where the villains were and take them down.
That let him focus on "saving" instead of points.
As he flew toward the zero-point villain, the villain’s head turned to follow his movement.
Midoriya quickly judged from those red eyes that the villain could secure its own field of vision.
The villain’s massive steel arm shot out and came flying at him.
Too slow.
Its size was intimidating enough that getting hit would definitely be dangerous.
But with Uraraka gone, it didn’t feel like something he’d be hit by.
Midoriya looped his wire around the villain’s body in reverse and climbed onto its shoulder.
He could see the joints hidden between the villain’s armor.
'I can do it there.'
He drew the blades from both gauntlets to prepare his attack.
Using [Float], Midoriya deliberately baited the villain into attacking.
Just then, the villain tried to shake him off like a bug.
The moment the villain looked up, Midoriya didn’t miss it.
"Smoke screen!"
As the villain’s vision was blocked, it flailed one arm wildly.
The wire fired out and anchored itself to the villain’s arm.
"That’s it... remember it."
Midoriya pictured the image of Bakugo’s Howitzer Impact, something he had studied over and over in his notebook after seeing it just once.
He activated [Full Cowl] to the limit, then spun through the air and charged with the propulsion of the booster blasting blue flames.
He added force through acceleration, bringing the razor-sharp twin blades together in one direction.
Sshhhk—
He cut it.
Only the joint.
The villain’s arm fell away heavily in a cloud of smoke.
The sound of its fall echoed all the way to the sky.
"I’m not shaking."
The zero-point villain was no longer something to fear.
It was an opponent weaker than Rappa, weaker than Bakugo—someone he could beat.
Midoriya pressed the attack, firing off [Gearshift] cutters to destroy the zero-point villain’s eyes.
Bzzzz!!
"The cutter melted!?"
The cutter Midoriya launched was suddenly melted away without a trace by a laser larger than Midoriya’s own body.
For a moment, the sight before him made his clenched hand almost loosen.
"The zero-point villain... there are two...?"
The intruding villain even had a massive laser cannon mounted on its shoulder.
In response to the sudden appearance, Present Mic shouted, "Surprise!! This year’s New Rule! There are two zero-point villains!"
Midoriya hurriedly dodged the laser beam.
One had been manageable, but two was a different story.
He dodged one beam, then another punch came flying in.
"...This isn’t fair. They’re not even the same size, and now they’re teaming up."
Just as he was barely keeping up by focusing only on evasion, the laser shifted from a straight beam into single photon shots fired in every direction.
There was no way to avoid it, so Midoriya reflexively squeezed his eyes shut.
"Overhaul."
At the familiar low voice, Midoriya opened his eyes.
In front of him stood a back bearing a red-winged clone.
The villain’s head had already twisted into a huge arched shield protecting them.
Even as the shield was seared red by the laser, it did not break.
"Tenma!? You came to help!?"
Midoriya couldn’t believe it. Tenma? Really?
"No."
"I came to balance things out."
Midoriya felt disappointed, but the word "balance" made him instinctively wary. Whenever Tenma said something like that, it never ended well—
Before he could finish the thought, the "five fingers" of the new clone Tenma had produced touched the headless villain.
The massive body suddenly began to split apart with sharp cracks.
"[Decay]."
"The zero-point villain... taken down in one hit!?"
Midoriya had seen Tenma fight All Might, but every time he saw him, it still felt beyond the limits of what should be possible.
"Whoa!!"
For a brief moment, Midoriya was startled, and then the section he had been standing on turned completely to powder. Forgetting even to use his gear, he fell.
Tenma flew leisurely alongside Midoriya as he dropped and said, "Get over 100 points, and take down the zero-point villain."
As Tenma seemed about to continue, Midoriya steadied himself.
But the next words were nothing like what he expected.
"Save all the other students too."
"Huh!?"
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register