It's not really considered news when U.A. decides to lift the restriction requiring all applicants to the Hero course to have a quirk. It might be a human interest story at most, except hardly anyone is interested. The most exciting thing to happen around it is when a reporter manages to shout a question at All Might asking for his opinion on the matter, and All Might, who stands for justice, not soundbites, actually stops to answer.

All Might smiles – but he always smiles, so there are only a few people and one small mammal who might think to read anything into this particular smile – and flashes a thumbs up at the reporter and her cameraman. "I think it's a great idea. Any hero can tell you that a quirk is only as useful and powerful as what you make of it. The same is true for not having a quirk at all! So for anyone quirkless out there, know that as long as you have a strong heart and the drive to succeed, you too can become a hero."

The clip gets a lot of play because it's All Might, but only because it's All Might. Then it's another week, another villain fight, another smile accompanied by words of encouragement, and most everyone forgets about it.

Most everyone.

"Wait, you're leaving?! Already?! Wait, no! I still have to thank you!"

Toshinori pauses. He doesn't have time for this, he really does not have time for this, but he can't just walk away either. He's still a hero – he's still All Might – and he can't ignore such earnest gratitude either. He can keep it together for ten more seconds.

"Of course; happy to be of service! Saving lives is what I do."

"Not for that," the boy says, only for his eyes to immediately go wide with shock and alarm. "Not that I'm not grateful for that too! Of course I am; that villain would have killed me if you hadn't come and I'm really, really glad to not be dead, so obviously thank you for that too. It's just that there's this other thing I want to thank you for too, and maybe compared to saving my life it's a little thing, but-"

"Kid," Toshinori interrupts, because he does not have time for this.

"Midoriya Izuku," the kid blurts out. His face is flaming red now, but he collects himself enough to give Toshinori a deep bow. "My name is Midoriya Izuku, and I wanted to thank you for saying someone without a quirk can be a hero too."

That throws Toshinori off because the kid – Midoriya – is so earnest and so grateful, and Toshinori is pretty sure he never said anything like that.

"Oh, you might not remember; it was a long time ago," Midoriya explains quickly. "Back when U.A. first removed the requirement of having a quirk for the Hero course, a reporter asked you what you thought about it and that's what you said."

Ah. Well, Toshinori still doesn't remember specifically saying that, but he remembers thinking it. He remembers being whole and healthy and naively optimistic and thinking that even though he was fortunate enough to receive One for All, there were a lot of quirkless kids out there who won't be so lucky and they still deserved a shot. They deserved a chance to be heroes, if they wanted to be. He knows better now.

He stands here, a skeletal man missing a lung, his stomach, and an indomitable sense that with enough drive and resolve, anything is possible, and he knows better. He nearly died in a villain fight and he has what is arguably the strongest quirk in existence. Second strongest. Young Midoriya, with no quirk to protect him, would get himself killed. Toshinori ought to let the boy know that. Let him down gently now, before he gets in over his head. He ought to, and yet…

The thing of it is, standing there, grinning, lightly flushed, and possibly a bit teary-eyed, Midoriya looks a lot more like a hero than Toshinori does himself most of the time these days. It's not just that Midoriya is young and fit compared to Toshinori's gaunt frame. Midoriya is just so… bright. He's bright and hopeful and full of ambition and Toshinori can't bring himself to crush the boy's dreams. Reality will do that all on its own soon enough.

All Might pastes on a grin – If it's faked, so are a lot of them these days, and Midoriya won't be able to tell the difference – and says, "You're welcome! And now I really must be off." He stretches his legs out a little and then leaps off into the sky. As he's soaring through the air he calls back, "Best of luck to you!" He means it. Not luck in becoming a hero, because that won't happen, but luck with life in general. Toshinori hopes that wherever it ends up taking him, young Midoriya won't lose that bright smile of his.

Toshinori leans back in his chair as his gaze flickers back and forth across the screens in front of him. At the moment they're all displaying shots of the students milling about in front of the mock city arenas, but once the practical portion of the entrance exam starts they're going to switch to feeds from the security cameras inside the cities. At that point there's going to be far too much going on at once for any of them to follow everything, but that isn't the objective at the moment anyway. Later the recordings of the exam will be exhaustively analyzed, making sure each point is properly accounted for and rewarded, but for right now the teachers are only trying to get a general feel for the applicants.

All Might wonders if that person is somewhere in the crowd of students, the one who will inherit One for All from him. It's more than likely they are; he likes the idea of choosing an incoming first year. They'll have more time to train with One for All before they're expected to use it, and they aren't as well-known as U.A.'s older students are; that means people are less likely to notice or question when they suddenly develop a new quirk. On the other hand, there is still Nighteye's candidate to consider. Ultimately Toshinori supposes he'll just have to go with whoever feels right, regardless of things like grade level or fame.

As he's looking over the students one in particular catches Toshinori's eye. There's something about him that seems so familiar, but he can't quite place it. Then the boy turns, giving the camera a full view of his expression - some odd combination of excited and nervous and about to puke - and suddenly Toshinori remembers. It's that kid he saved from the slime villain way back when he first came to town, the quirkless one who wanted to be a hero. What was his name? Mi-something. Midori, maybe? It would explain the hair.

The exam starts, and Toshinori finds himself watching the boy. He thinks he might feel a little responsible. If he would have let him down gently about his chances of being a hero, maybe Midori wouldn't be here today. Meaning if Midori gets injured it will be Toshinori's fault.

But as the test progresses injury at least seems like less and less of a concern. Midori hasn't taken out any robots, but he's maintaining good awareness of his surroundings and is quick on his feet. He's keeps moving, dodging robots and debris, only pausing on occasion to… is he giving advice to the other students?

Midori stops and watches another boy with tape dispensers in his arms takes down a two-pointer. Midori calls out to the boy and starts speaking to him. Toshinori can't hear what he's saying – the cameras might be close enough to the two to be picking it up, but the sound is turned off for all the videos at the moment – but whatever it is Midori is quite emphatic about it. Tape-boy looks confused, but then Midori points out another robot coming around the corner. Tape-boy takes this one out as well, much more quickly and effectively than he had the last one. He grins at Midori and flashes him a thumbs up, and Midori grins back before running off again.

Toshinori smiles a little. He doesn't have a quirk, and he's sabotaging himself on this exam, but Midori obviously has a good heart. That's always nice to see.

The zero-pointers are released. The degree of shock and pure incredulousness on the faces of all the examinees is frankly rather amusing, and Toshinori allows his gaze to sweep over all their expressions before his eyes inevitably make their way back to Midori. Young Midori is facing in the general direction of the robot as well, but his head is angled downward. Toshinori follows his line of sight, and while things are somewhat obscured by the cloud of dust in the air, there appears to be another applicant lying prone on the ground. Midori looks at the other for a beat longer, then turns and runs with the other examinees.

Toshinori feels a certain resigned satisfaction at the sight. It seems the boy has finally learned his lesson about some aspects of hero work being too dangerous for someone without a quirk to handle. Still, the boy had done well in the physical exam all things considered; he's shown good judgement, quick thinking, and a good ability to work well in a team – setting aside for the moment that he is supposed to be competing with the other applicants, not collaborating. Toshinori will have to remember to put a bug in Nezu's ear about making sure Midori was accepted into the General Education course.

That leaves only the student lying in the path of the zero-pointer's rampage, possibly unconscious or trapped by debris. Toshinori turns to his right, but Nezu is already on the com with Present Mic, letting him know to stand-by for a rescue. The U.A. entrance exam is difficult, and it's understood that examinees might get hurt, even badly, but they're still just middle school students taking an entrance exam; the staff isn't going to let anyone die.

Toshinori looks back to the monitor, wanting to be sure Midori has cleared himself on the danger zone. "Uh..." he says slowly as he blinks at the action on the screen. "You may want to hold off on that rescue."

It appears Midori hadn't been running away with the other applicants, he had been running after one applicant in particular. Now Midori has grabbed onto the sleeve of the boy with the engines in his legs – a member of the Iida family, if Toshinori's not mistaken – and is dragging him back toward the robot. To Iida's credit it takes only a few insistent words from Midori before he's heading back of his own volition, toward the robot and toward the downed applicant.

The dust has sufficiently cleared for the teachers to see the girl on the ground with a large piece of rubble trapping her lower half. The girl sees Midori and Iida running toward her, then bizarrely turns and reaches behind her. Her hand stretches toward the rubble on top of her, but it's at an awkward angle and she doesn't quite reach it before Midori is there, slamming her hand down the last half a centimeter.

As soon as her hand makes contact the rubble floats up in the air, and Toshinori now recognizes her as the girl with the Zero Gravity quirk. Iida is crouched down in front of her, and Midori quickly helps her climb onto his back. The girl grabs one hand around Midori's wrist, making him float, and slaps the other hand on Iida's collarbone, presumably making him weightless as well. At that point it's easy for Iida and his motorized legs to run all three of them back to safety. As soon as they're back among their fellow applicants, the alarm sounds, marking the end of the exam.

"And that's why I keep saying we need to award points for ingenuity," Aizawa remarks dryly.

"Not to worry," Nezu says. "When deciding the amount of rescue points to award for his actions, we'll be sure to factor in his ingenuity, teamwork, and leadership skills. Taken in conjunction with all the combat points he received, Midoriya Izuku's chances are very good, I should think."

Midoriya, that was his name! ...Wait, what? "Combat points? But I didn't think young Midoriya defeated any robots?" Toshinori asks.

"Not directly, no. However there were a number of other examinees that only took down as many robots as they did due to Midoriya direct advice and instructions. While every examinee will still get full credit for any robots they defeated by their actions, Midoriya will get credit for any robots defeated this way as well," Nezu explains. "After all, he still defeated the villains. The only difference being instead of direct physical attacks he instead… let's call it made creative use of his surroundings." He folds his paws in his lap, looking completely calm, as though he hadn't just totally undermined the scoring system of the entire exam.

Except… had he? Well, yeah, probably, but he still has a good point. If this hadn't been a test and the robots were actual villains, then a true hero wouldn't be concerned with who had done the physical act of defeating them, only that it was done as quickly and efficiently as possible. In the same way Midoriya recognized the usefulness of Iida's quirk in saving the Zero Gravity-girl, he must have recognized the other applicants were better suited to defeating the robots than him. He doesn't have a quirk, so he had, in a way, taken the quirks of the people around him and used them as his own.

Toshinori laughs, a full-body, genuine laugh. The other teachers shoot him confused and somewhat concerned looks, but Toshinori can't stop. This kid is just too perfect.

"You know, Midoriya has obviously worked very hard to become the first quirkless student accepted into the Hero course here," Nezu says to him sometime later. "Under those circumstances, it's possible he'll turn your offer down."

Toshinori glances at the computer screen, still paused on the veritable mob of students that had tracked Present Mic down after the exam to ask if they could share some of their points with Midoriya. The kid really is too perfect, and even if Toshinori hasn't known him long, doesn't really know him at all in all honesty, he can't think of anyone better suited to inheriting One for All. Not a single one, and yet…

All Might grins, optimistic and deeply and truly excited in a way he hasn't been in a long time. "I almost hope he does."

AN: *quirks lips thoughtfully* I'm still not totally happy with this, but I think we've hit the point where I can either post it or leave to languish forever. So posting it is.

Also, in case anyone missed the joke(? I guess it's a joke...) midori, in addition to being a shortened version of Izuku's family name, is also the Japanese word for green. You know, 'cause Izuku has green hair. I'm super clever you guys.