"Well, we are fucked."

Saiko groaned, making Momo huff as both women looked at the gigantic metal doors of the test area. Saiko's usually valiant and proud posture slumped, even the capture weapon around her neck seeming to lose its volume.

The Creation Hero slumped too, taking in the sheer impossibility of the task at hand. "Have you already given up?"

"Just about," Saiko mumbled back, before puffing her chest out and starting to stretch.

Momo slowly noticed that she had never truly taken in Saiko's hero costume.

A modified white trench coat hugged her body tightly, showing off her womanly curves and muscles at the same time, but the fabric stretched with her every move unlike any Momo had seen used in such a garment before. Tight black pants with tall white combat boots that ended just under her knees, a monocle that glinted unnaturally even in the shade, and a white beret completed the look.

And then Momo noticed the slight glint of a thermos, tucked in a harness in the small of her back, hidden by her long slate-blue hair.

She winced slightly, noticing how the taller woman's hair and scarf seemed to go around each other, almost like the slightest tug would yank her hair more than anything else. "Doesn't your hair get in the way of the capture weapon?"

"It certainly looks like that, true. But it actually doesn't particularly get in the way," she replied, smiling cryptically. "If anything, it tends to confuse my opponents."

For a moment Momo was reminded of Aizawa, looking at that smile."Huh. Good to know."

"Aren't you cold in your suit?"

Momo blinked, remembering she was wearing what amounted to a swimsuit with massive holes cut into it, then blushed slightly. "Not particularly, which might be due to my quirk. My fat stores are altered compared to other people, making them more insulated. At least, that's my current hypothesis."

"Interesting…"

Momo shook off what little anxiety and shyness had built up in her, looking back at the tall doors in front of them. "Also…"

Saiko looked at her from the corner of her eye, thinking something similar. "You have a plan?"

"Oh, most definitely."

"So, you fight her and I sneak by?"

Izuku chuckled heartily at the simple plan, barely taking in the exaggerated pouting pose Tooru gave in return. Her fists were balled tightly, arms seemingly crossed over her chest as she made just the quietest little whine, the kind people only ever make while their lips are forced into a pout.

"D̖id ̫y̦o-͇"

Hush, you had your line. He felt Nana grumble in the back of his head as he cut her off, his smile not yet leaving his lips.

With a sigh, he ruffled Tooru's hair, the woman cooing at the affectionate gesture before she could help herself.

"As confidence-boosting as your belief that I could take the number five pro hero is, I doubt I could pull that off yet ."

"I find that hard to believe," Tooru hummed, leaning into the contact some more. "But then… how do we do this? You said you had a plan…"

"It's more of a… gamble, than anything else." Izuku admitted, making the invisible girl gulp audibly. "We can't sneak by, Miruko's ears aren't just for show, after all."

"And I doubt I could help you out in a head-on battle..."

Tooru shivered as the look in Izuku's eyes shifted, cold and calculating for a moment. The next, that look had slipped away, warmth and determination replacing it and filling those green eyes she'd grown to be attached to. "You're selling yourself too short, little Specter."

Tooru felt lost. On one hand, that was an adorable nickname, on the other, why did he call her that?

"Uh… Specter?"

He blinked, looking confused for a second before realizing what he had said, a small blush forming on his cheeks. "I- uh, sorry, guess that name just slipped out."

Feeling extremely curious about it, Tooru decided to push the man juuuuust a little bit more. "Where is it from?"

"Oh god," he mumbled, looking away and blushing more. "I- uh… back when I was a baby, my mom didn't introduce me to her quirk right away," he scratched his cheek, as if that was going to rub the blush off of his skin. "She has this minor telekinesis quirk, and whenever she 'floated' something to her, she told me that her little invisible helper did it."

He chuckled lightly with anxiety "and- Iiiiii might've started calling it 'specter' before I realized what was going on."

Tooru blinked, starting to blush violently at the prospect. Izuku had called her a childhood nickname.

He had given her a pet name!

For a moment, Tooru felt like she could take on All Might herself.

"Call me that from now on!"

"Eh-" Izuku blinked before blushing even more. "but it's-"

"Call me that!" she insisted, getting closer to his face. Maybe that was a bad idea, he had great senses, what if he could feel my blush from this distance?

"I-" he shook his head, leaning a bit back and raising his hands defensively. "Alright, if you want me to..."

She couldn't help but wiggle with happiness.

He didn't miss that, even when she was only wearing her gloves and shoes, his previous anxious expression melting into one of content happiness.

"As ͕muc̙h͖ as̬ ͕I̫ e̗n͜jo͎y̹ ̺you͟ f̖ḷir̻t̝ing w͢i̙th͈ ̬t͚ha̹t̙ litt̪le ͍i̖nvisibl̫e̥ r͉ay ̙of ̩şu̗ns͇hiṋe͎,̞ you̺ ̥hav̙e ą ̨ra̟b̯bi̖t ̣to ̟fi̝ght," Nana hummed, strong-arming her connection to Izuku open again. "We̙ll͖,͎ more l̖ike̠ s̬u̮rvi̧v̻e͢."

Right-

"But, going back to the battle ahead, I guess you're right," He added, pulling her back to reality, the smile on his face slowly melting away. "Both of us have no way of winning against Miruko."

He hummed softly, before his face broke out in a smirk. "Not in a fair fight, at least."

The concept of Izuku fighting dirty had never occurred to Tooru. Then she remembered the first combat training.

"How tightly can you hold onto my back?"

"Tell me everything you know."

Shoko blinked, looking back at Katsumi. She had forgotten during the simple training sessions and the hero classes with no real challenge, that the blonde next to her was a strategist too.

That first combat training had shown her as much. But back then, she wasn't quite ready to listen. Now, though...

"She's powerful, and her quirk is extremely versatile, from short bursts of fire to massive jets longer than a street, and every other variation in between. The only thing stopping her from turning the surface of this whole testing zone into an inferno is the kickback of her quirk."

Katsumi gave her a weird look, taken aback by how much she had talked. It was unnatural to hear the dichromatic girl say more than one full sentence at a time, to say the least..

Then again... Katsumi took note of the look in Shoko's eyes. She knew why she was suddenly so talkative.

So, she mused over the new information, cracked her knuckles and stretched her legs, not pushing the issue. "I'mma guess she overheats internally if she overuses her quirk?"

"Badly. If she burns hot enough, she could liquefy her own organs."

The blonde paused at the gruesome mental image Shoko had painted. And people say Ihave issues... "Alright. You got a plan?"

Shoko blinked again, then breathed out slowly, some mist pouring from her mouth as she did so. "Not particularly, or not a good one. I've never won a spar against her."

"...How hard was she going during these 'spars'?"

Shoko flinched, grabbing her elbow and looking away. No other response was given to the question.

None were needed.

Katsumi's hands crackled with impotent sparks that did little more than heat up her gloves to the smallest degree, threatening to burst into higher grade explosions if she didn't rein it in. "Oh."

" Why did it have to be her…" Shoko mumbled under her breath, not even realizing she had, if Katsumi had read her expression right.

The blonde's eyes sharpened, glaring holes into the still-closed gate. I'm going to fucking kill her.

Hawks lounged on one of the pillars of the exit door, fiddling with the cuffs UA had provided.

Annoyingly, it hadn't rendered half of her feathers useless. It had made all of them sluggish- harder to control.

It was annoying to the highest degree, like she had weights tied to each limb. If that were the case, at least then she would've been able to use her quirk to its fullest extent.

She grumbled a bit more before flopping to her back, looking up at the sky.

Part of her remembered the briefing, recalling what Eraser said about the pair she was to fight.

Iida Tomoyo and Sero Hana. One was an incredibly stiff by-the-rules caricature of a person come to life, the other a laid back and relaxed hero-in-training.

Maybe she was just a tad biased, but hey. She wasn't the one that broke her ideals the moment something devastating happened and flipped to an angsty wannabe villain-killer.

She groaned, letting go of the thought. Getting mad at a mistake an untrained student made in the heat of trauma wasn't like her. She was just annoyed at getting her quirk suppressed.

"Maybe I should rock the boat like Miruko did next time..." With that, she huffed and jumped down, almost spraining an ankle as she overestimated the lift her newly sluggish wings offered.

"...How do we fight Fat Gum anyway?" Mina mumbled, looking at the gates.

Both of them shuddered at the realization that neither had come up with a plan. Nor did they have any idea about their opponent's quirk.

The bell rang and the doors began to open.

Both looked at each other, eyes wide and scared.

"FUCK."

Gang Orca scrunched her face, not quite happy with the turn of events. Even her echolocation had been nerfed by the cuffs on her wrists. The usually pristine mental image she got was muddled, unrefined.

It was very debilitating to her attempts at getting reconnaissance. The test had started already, but there was no signs of eithe-

A sound pinged off in the distance, a crunch of the forest detritus. Even hindered by the cuffs as she was, she could clearly hear that sound. The students had started their trek towards her.

Her eyes also noticed the small shapes, the birds swooping closer around her before turning and flying back towards the other gate.

Kanna was doing her own recon.

Can't have that.

She gently tugged at her tie, aimed up.

And let loose an earth-shaking wail.

"Oh for fucks sake," Ryukyu grumbled, her transformation halting halfway to her draconic form. She paused, taking in the feeling of the new half-shifted form.

Her tail had spouted, and so had her wings, but her skeleton hadn't fully morphed, letting her remain bipedal without any annoyance or urge to get on all fours to relax her stance.

"At least I'm taller, I suppose," she mused, checking her arms. They seemed thicker and covered in her white scales, if the impressions against her suit were anything to go by.

Well, at least that's a good sign .

She flapped her wings slowly, taking in the new sensation of not fully being draconic yet still having them. Could she fly like this?

Only one way to find out.

White wings spread wide, and with a practiced twitch of her back muscle groups, she was airborne.

"...I'll ask Nezu If I can keep these after this."

After slowly landing on solid ground again, she surveyed the arena. They were in a large cylindrical building with plenty of open space in the middle, layers of walkways with thick pillars supporting their mass, all crossing over the center of the arena she'd settled in. Lots of verticality for someone like Tsuyu, and lots of blindspots Mai could use.

She grinned, feeling her mouth separate wider than it probably would if she was fully human.

This was triggering the predator inside her.

"COME AND GET ME! FROPPY! TENTACOLE!"

Her only response was a glob of spit aimed right at her eyes, blocked by her forearm with ease.

The fight had started already.

Young Yaoyorozu and Young Intelli. All Might recalled, pulling her fist back, the slightly dimmed force of One for All brimming in her limb.

With the sheer magnitude of One for All, the 50% limiter didn't even feel like much, the wound she had received was causing greater discomfort.

The little things...

Aizawa had been clear on why she was chosen to battle the two brains of 1-A.

Momo had to be pushed to her limits and go 'plus ultra'. She needed to show that her versatile quirk wasn't wasted on her. More to herself than for anyone else, to bolster and 'heal' her issues with her self-confidence.

The best way of doing so? Beating the current number one.

And Saiko… Aizawa had mentioned something about how 'similar' the reasons were for her and left it at that.

But All Might knew she was just in this test more for an exam for Aizawa and Nozomi, to see if someone without that flashy of a quirk could stand up against one of the strongest. For her, this was about earning her new spot, alongside the rising stars in class A.

But that didn't matter. She had children to beat up.

Gran Torino had taught her how to teach teenagers, after all.

And that was to beat the snot out of them.

"SMASH!"

The buildings caved, the cityscape split and tremored, concrete rippled like water under the sheer pressure of the punch.

She could see the red of Momo's suit even from this massive distance, and bounded with a single leap to close the gap almost instantly.

Wait what is tha-

She choked on air when the brightest flash she'd ever encountered slammed against her retinas.

Endeavor's flames raged.

How dare that slob of a teacher look down on her? Didn't that bitch see that she needed to prove to Izuku that she was more powerful than he could ever imagine? That Hosu was just a fluke ?

To show her darling Izuku that being with her is the best thing that could happen to him?

She clenched her fists, the flames that raced along the channels in her suit growing brighter. This 50% limiter was nothing compared to the rage she felt building inside her.

The bell had rung already, and she was getting tired of waiting for her punching bags to arrive.

Time to egg them on. I need to blow off some steam.

"Karmic Raze," she hissed, body starting to shimmer as heat pooled within her, slowly leaking to her fist, temperature spiking as she concentrated all she could to her hand.

She breathed out before punching forward, pushing the air with her full weight behind it. "Hellfire Storm."

The heat and flame burst out from her fist, hitting the tarmac and superheating it, to the point of changing air currents themselves, the flash heated air rushing up as the cooler air around it got sucked in to fill the newly formed vacuum.

Rapidly forming a miniature fire tornado.

She wasn't going to lie, she was hooked on the sensation of being able to change the weather around her. It made her feel powerful , and was worth the massive spike in her internal temperature.

Besides, the brats were too far away, so she had time to cool down.

And then an explosion shook the test area.

Hawks grumbled, getting tired of waiting in front of the gates and started to walk a little deeper into the faux-city. She was careful not to roam so far that she couldn't rush back with a simple flick of her wings.

Even with the damn suppressors on. She was going to request these be burned in a fire after this exam.

She blinked, noticing something white all over the buildings just a bit further ahead . She unfolded her wings and rushed closer to get a better look, curiosity getting the best of her.

"What the hell is this…" Hawks muttered, witnessing the mayhem.

It looked like a spider's nest, thin strips of tape connecting the walls all around her, with gaps too small for a person to slip through.

The whirr of a jet engine got the pro's attention, turning around just in time to see some brand new lines of tape covering the path she had taken, trapping her in the intersection.

Hawks blinked. Just how fast was Hana going?

Was Tomoyo helping?

How?

Hana screamed in delight on the back of her taller classmate, taped securely in place, holding onto the decorative mufflers on the back of Tomoyo's suit for dear life. "I didn't know you could go this fast!"

Tomoyo laughed uncharacteristically, something clicking in her calves as she sped up further. "This is my sixth gear! I can only go this fast down straightaways!"

"Or when I'm helping you with the corners, eh?" her passenger added, grinning and shooting a strand of tape to one of the buildings, the connection tugging harshly and spinning the duo on the new axis. The speedster never missed a beat and ran against the wall of the opposing alleyway when the force thrust them sideways against the wall.

"EXACTLY!" she hollered, landing back on the ground without missing a step as their centripetal force waned, drifting off the wall. "We should have enough speed to start our aerial attack now!"

"Aye Aye Cap'n!"

"Wait-" Crust blinked as the dark spot in her vision grew, rapidly approaching her. "She can fly!?"

This won't do. This won't do at all!

Even with the cuff, she could shoot them down.

She got into her stance; arms extended and ready to take the kick-back of the technique. "Shield gun!"

"Tokoyami! Now!"

Suddenly the bird-headed student flipped in mid-air, flinging her smaller passenger off and towards the incoming shields.

"Just what in the heaven-"

"YOU CAN'T GENERATE THESE FOREVER, CAN YOU!?" The pint-sized hero hollered, shocking the pro to a brief standstill.

What?

"SAME AS ME! SO TAKE THIS!"

A downpour of balls rained down, Minerva unloading everything she had.

Crust could only watch in surprise as each ball hit one of her generated hexagonal shields.

...I can though?

"Well, this is less than ideal."

Fat Gum stared down the forms of Mina and Eiko. The pink one was starting to leak acid onto the floor. The hero couldn't match the pink one's mobility in her fat form, but she also knew she couldn't hurt the red one if she let go of it now.

Priorities.

She turned to Mina, and charged .

"Do you want me to slow down?" Izuku whispered, hoping Tooru could hear him over the wind his speed was creating.

Tooru tapped his chest twice, signifying that no, she was fine, as the two whizzed through the exam arena, concrete crumbling after every heavy footfall in Izuku's dash.

He knew Miruko would rush at them the moment the test started, but he needed to get as close to the actual escape gate as he could.

He saw the white and brown blur in the distance, slamming from building to building with titanic leaps, rapidly approaching them. With a binary signal from the nerves in his neck the feed inside his vizor zoomed in, showing him Miruko licking her lips.

Her thigh twitched.

F-from there?! Impossible, it won't-

No it is- Miruko knows her limits. I just need to play along till the moment is-

He watched, not slowing down his approach towards the now spinning form of Miruko.

Almost…

"Now͕!͚"

Izuku's hand reached out just as he was passing a fake street sign, gripping with all his might, the pivot point shooting him into an alleyway before the shockwave of the kick hit, the main road and a few nearby buildings crumbling under the pressure of Miruko's full-force Kaguya Crescent.

"Holy shit-" Tooru whispered, Izuku still running at full gallop to avoid any shockwaves that leaked into the side roads. "Did you know she could do that?"

"No! None of the reports covered this!"

Izuku blinked. Of course they didn't! When had Miruko fought against a villain in an area where she could fight with all she had?

His calculations were terribly off.

"Izuuuuku~"

Sweat formed on his forehead as he heard Miruko's voice bouncing from wall to wall behind him, followed by the sound of crumbling walls and shattering glass.

She had closed the gap already, this was corralling him away from the exit gate.

"Change of plans, Specter."