"We go agane!" - xQcOW

V. From Mettle to Metal

The training he and Katsuki received from All Might over the previous ten months had been pretty strenuous. In truth, they didn't actually need it, per se, but neither of them were about to turn down training from All Might of all people. Each week had been divided up with days that were spent clearing the beach of all of the discarded junk, and days that were spent sparring with each other to improve their Quirk usage.

While Gold Experience would never have the raw power Explosion did, it made up for it in sheer versatility. When it came to its ability to give living things extra life, it almost always guaranteed a win when sparring Katsuki, but Toshinori advised that he not rely on it as a crutch, as there was always a possibility that it would actually have the opposite effect on someone or something (and also Katsuki was getting tired of being stunned every time he tried to get in close for a hit).

'Oh hey, it's that girl who kept me from tripping!' Izuku suddenly thought as he spotted her in the crowd, breaking him away from his previous musing. Before he could make his way towards the girl and thank her for helping him out, a hand was placed on his shoulder, firmly keeping him planted where he stood.

"You again..." muttered a voice behind him. Izuku turned around to see who was accosting him, but slightly froze at the sight of the boy who had attempted to call him out on his loud muttering during the orientation. "What are you trying to do?" Before Izuku could answer his question, he looked at the direction towards the girl he was looking at. "It's bad enough that you were being distracting during the orientation," he began. "But now you're looking to disrupt other students' chances of getting in? Shame on you. There is no place here for such a delinquent like you."

"W-wait," Izuku said, trying to diffuse the misunderstanding. "I wasn't trying to-"

"Okay, start!" a voice yelled out, causing the two boys to slightly jump. Looking up, they could see Present Mic looking down at the entire crowd with his arms stretched out in a grandiose expression. "WELL?!" he yelled out again. "What are you waiting for?! You're not getting into U.A. by just standing around, so GET. MOVING! Heroes don't wait for countdowns, you know!"

It was when he finished, that everyone had realized that the practical exam had already begun, so now the entire crowd was making a mad dash for the large doorway to the Battle Center, with Izuku getting caught up in the very back, having no way to try and get ahead of the large congregation of students.

Until he remembered what his Quirk was.

Imbuing his legs with Gold Experience's, Izuku gained a tremendous burst in speed, getting ahead of many of the other students, and was now right in front of the large doorway. Running through it without hesitation, he began looking around for the point-marked robots, before one suddenly appeared in front of him. Reacting quickly, he slid under the robot's legs in order to avoid colliding with it head-on. Briefly noting the large number two printed on one of its arms, he commanded Gold Experience to jump out in front of him and start attacking the robot.

"MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDA!" the golden being cried out, as it pummeled the two-pointer in a barrage of fists. However, he saw that it was taking too long for the robot to start caving in, due to the limited range it could stand in front of him. Changing his attack, Izuku then commanded that it use 'Life Giver' on the robot. Almost immediately, large vines began sprouting from its torso in all directions, until its head burst open, causing it to topple over.

"Two points," he quietly said to himself. Taking a moment to regain his composure, Izuku moved to look for more robots to gain points from. Almost immediately, however, he heard a loud, artificial voice boom behind him, causing him to stop in his tracks.

"Target spotted." Izuku whipped around in surprise, and recognizing the large number one painted on its arm, clenched his fist and yelled out a war cry as he rushed towards it.

"GOLD EXPERIENCE!"

Elsewhere, the various teachers and faculty of U.A. High School all sat in their respective chairs, watching the examinees with careful eyes. Some of them showed visible excitement at seeing the students' performances, while others mostly watched with indifference.

"It looks like we'll be having quite the number of talented students coming in this year," began Sekijiro - the pro hero Vlad King and the homeroom teacher of Class 1-B - who looked to his side towards a man wearing a bored and tired expression on his face. "Do you have any guesses as to who you'll be getting, Aizawa-san?"

Eraserhead shrugged. "I don't really care who gets who, so long as I don't get another problem class this time around."

"Well we know that he'll get somewhere pretty high," interjected the voice beside him, and Shota turned to look at a woman who was pointing at the large screen in front of her. "I mean just look at that Quirk. And those delicious abs of his, too~."

"Kayama, no," Shōta reprimanded.

The woman known as Nemuri Kayama - hero name Midnight - dramatically pouted. "Well you're no fun," she said. "But you can't exactly blame me, can you? And besides..." She leaned in close to him, until her face was just inches away from his ear.

Shōta's left eye twitched at the movement. 'No...'

"I prefer older males."

"Goddamn it, Kayama," Shōta sighed, rubbing his eyes. His colleague, however, just quietly cackled in response. He hated her constant attempts at flirting, but he respected her too much as a hero and as a friend to actually do something about it.

Even if it did annoy him every time she did it.

Sekijiro looked at the two in amusement at their antics, well used to the dynamic their friendship functioned on.

"YES! That's how you do it, my boy!" shouted another voice, and the teachers turned to see the skeletal form of All Might pointing to a screen that displayed a boy charging towards a one-pointer, and then...just standing there.

While the lower half of the robot caved in. Repeatedly.

"Whoa, Is that telekinesis?" Nemuri began, slightly amazed at what she was seeing, before she realized what the man had said. "And what do you mean 'my boy'?"

"Oh! It's, uh, it's nothing, Kayama-san," Toshinori replied, quickly realizing the consequence of his outburst. "Forget I said anything."

Nemuri was unconvinced. "What, is he your secret kid or something?" she asked, wiggling her eyebrows.

"W-what?" Toshinori sputtered out in shock. "Of course not! How would I have the time to have any children and raise them, when I was too busy being a hero?"

Before the two could continue, they were interrupted by someone clearing their throat. "Interesting as your conversation may be," began Ken Ishiyama, better known as Cementoss. "I suggest that you focus on evaluating the student-examinees," he continued sternly. "That's why we're here, after all.

Toshinori stayed silent for a moment before responding. "You're right. My apologies, Ishiyama-san." The matter settled, the teachers went back to spectating the students, with some maintaining their attention on the young boy casually defeating the robots while simply standing there.

Nemuri whistled as she saw him rip the head off of a one-pointer, before doing a double take as she saw vines begin to sprout out of a three-pointer. "Wait, what's that?" she asked rather loudly. "I thought his Quirk was just telekinesis! Yagi-kun, what's his Quirk?" Toshinori remained tight-lipped, oddly enough.

Meanwhile, Principal Nezu stared at the screen in deep thought, as he searched his mind for the answer. "Could it be?" he muttered. He had a fleeting suspicion on what the green-haired boy's Quirk actually was, but he wasn't entirely sure.

It seemed that he would need to make a phone call after the exam.

'But first,' he thought, a slight smile tugging at his lips. 'It's time to see how they'll handle the real challenge.'

Throughout the next seven minutes, Izuku had managed to rack up quite a substantial amount of points, as he ran around trying to find and destroy as many robots as he could (which about forty, if he could recall correctly). He had a good feeling that forty points would have been enough for him to pass, but training with Toshinori and Katsuki for ten months had instilled the importance of always striving to go beyond (and a memory of Toshinori flexing and yelling PLUS ULTRA!).

Or in Katsuki's words: 'Half-assing will never get you anywhere.'

The ground began to rumble violently, causing him and all of the other participants to stop what they were doing and look around for the source of the quake. However, a large shadow soon covered the ground, and they all turned towards the direction it came from. They could only stare at the sight of a gargantuan robot ominously wheeling towards them.

It looks like the zero-pointer had arrived.

Overcome with fear, the participants started scrambling in the opposite direction, desperate to get away from the monstrous beast. Izuku stared at the zero-pointer for a moment to ponder whether or not Gold Experience could stop it, before turning around and breaking out into a run.

'Nope.'

"H-help! Please!"

Izuku immediately stopped in his tracks when he heard the cry, and turned back around to see someone pinned underneath some large debris. Upon having a closer look, he then realized that it was the girl who had kept him from falling, back at U.A.'s entrance.

'Oh.'

Without thinking, Izuku imbued his legs with Gold Experience's, and broke out into a full sprint towards the girl. Once reaching her, he wasted no time and commanded it to lift the debris up, completely overturning it, before lifting the girl up and carrying her in his arms. With a brief glance towards the titan-sized robot, he quickly summoned the golden being back within him, before running as fast as he could in the other direction. After gaining a good distance away from the robot, he began to slow down to make a turn and gain even more distance away, when he heard a loud voice.

"And time is up!"

The loud voice of Present Mic, along with the blares of a siren, caused the intense rumbling from the zero-pointer to cease at it came to a halt. Momentarily freezing in place, its arm was left outstretched, before retracting back to its side. Ochako sighed in relief, before looking back to the boy who had carried her away. She briefly noted how safe she felt in his arms, before speaking up. "Um, you can let me down now."

The boy quickly looked back to her. "Oh! S-sorry about that," he said, before letting her down on her feet. However, when her feet made contact with the ground, she suddenly felt a sharp pain shoot up her leg. "Ow!" she hissed, quickly grabbing on to the boy's shoulder for support.

"Are you hurt?" he asked in alarm, putting his arm around her waist to also help support her weight. Ochako would have blushed at the physical contact, but the pain overshadowed any current that thought.

"I think my ankle's sprained," she told him. He silently nodded as they continued to hold onto each other, before she felt a feeling of warmth travel throughout her leg. Ochako blinked from the sudden sensation, before noting how the throbbing pain had immediately ceased, Tentatively, she rotated her once-injured foot around, before fully placing it on the ground.

'It's...not hurt anymore...' she thought in surprise.

"Is your ankle alright now?" the boy eventually spoke up, and Ochako realized that he still had an arm around her waist. With a small blush, she pulled away from him.

(Why a part of her regretted this, she didn't know.)

"Did-did you heal me?" she asked, taking a few steps in place as she marveled at the thought of her foot suddenly being healed.

The boy smiled. "Yup!"

"Wow," Ochako began, her eyebrows raised. "I...thank you!" She quickly enveloped him in a hug.

The boy froze at the sudden movement, before awkwardly patting her back "Y-you're welcome..." Ochako then realized what exactly she was doing, and immediately pulled back, a large blush overtaking her face.

'Oh my gosh, I just hugged a boy.'

She briefly noticed how said boy was also blushing, but his was much larger. The two teenagers continued awkwardly staring at each other for a few more moments, before the boy cleared his throat and held out his hand. "I'm Midoriya Izuku. It's nice to meet you."

Ochako smiled and shook it with her own. "Uraraka Ochako. Nice to meet you, too!" She wanted to ask how it was he healed her, but before she could say anything further, the soft voice of a woman broke through the mass of students.

"Good job, everyone." Ochako turned to see a short, elderly woman walking around and handing something to the other students. "Is anyone hurt?" When the people around her kept shaking their hands and telling her no, she continued to walk around, until turning to Ochako's general direction. Lighting up, she walked over to where she was standing.

"Oh, hello, dears," she greeted. Before Ochako could reply, however, the woman turned to Midoriya and continued to speak. "You must be that young man Toshi never shuts up about."

Midoriya smiled sheepishly as he gave her a deep bow. "I'm Midoriya Izuku. It's an honor to meet you, Recovery Girl!"

The woman chuckled. "Oh hush, you." She reached into the bag she was carrying, and pulled out what looked to be gummy bears. "Have some gummies, you two." Ochako obligingly took some of the offered candies and popped them in her mouth, slightly enjoying the sweet taste. After a moment, she turned to Midoriya and motioned for him to follow her. "Well, I could certainly use your help patching up anyone who has any serious injuries."

"Of course!" the boy replied, quickly moving to stand beside her. Suddenly, he turned back around and waved to Ochako. "See you later, Uraraka-san! Hopefully we both passed!"

Ochako slowly waved back as she watched the two figures walk away. 'I hope so too...'

"Izuku? Is everything all right?"

Izuku blinked as he was brought back out of his thoughts by his mother. "Huh? Oh. Sorry about that, mom," he said, picking up a small bit of rice with his chopsticks. "I was just thinking about something."

"Is it the entrance exams?"

Izuku took a split second to consider his answer. "Yeah," he replied, partially lying. "I was just trying to think about whether or not I got enough points to pass." In the ten months that they had spent training, neither he nor Katsuki had thought to ask Toshinori what the minimum number of points required to get into the hero course actually were, since the two of them had promised each other to try their absolute hardest to pass.

Inko smiled. "Don't worry about it, honey," she said in a comforting tone. "I think you got more than enough to get in the hero course, what with you and Katsuki training and all."

"Yeah, that's a good point," he admitted, before going back to eating his dinner. He hated lying to his mother, but as a teenage male, there were just some things that he wasn't willing to share, no matter how close he was with his mother. Like what he was previously thinking about, for example. He had become lost in thought as he stared at his chopsticks, or rather, the color of them. The brown wood of the utensil reminded him of brown hair and a particular hairstyle.

Brown hair. Kind eyes. Pretty face.

Izuku sighed. He had had crushes on pretty girls in the past, that was for sure, but he just couldn't seem to get the face of the girl he had rescued out of his head. It was actually starting to keep him up at night, if he had to be honest.

(And part of him was seriously hoping they would end up in the same class together. He really wanted to see Ochako Uraraka again.)

Once he had finished eating, Izuku placed his dishes in the sink, and flopped onto the couch to browse the internet for any recent hero news. Raising an eyebrow at reading the title of a rumored romance between Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods, he tapped the link that directed him to the online tabloid. Eyebrows furrowing at the information, he laid there wondering just how the press were still able to get paid writing up such slander, before the frantic sound of his mother's voice rang him out of his thoughts.

"I-Izuku!"

Sitting up, he turned around and looked towards the open front door of the apartment. "Yeah?" he called out.

Inko scrambled to get inside as she shakily held up an envelope that displayed a wax seal with the letters U and A combined to occupy a single space. "The letter! It came!"

Izuku carefully took the envelope from his mother's hands, and quietly retreated to his room. Once settling into his chair, he stared at the envelope for a few moments, before taking a deep breath. Hastily grabbing it with both hands, he pulled at both sides, and eventually tore it open. The small metal disc enclosed within fell to the table with a brief clatter. When it finally settled, a brief beep played, before a hologram emerged, and from it, the face of a familiar man took up the majority of the floating screen.

"I am here as a projection!"

"All Might..." Izuku muttered, eyes wide in surprise as he saw the man who had trained him answering his acceptance letter.

"Midoriya Izuku," the hero began. "Along with passing the written exam, you had also managed to gain a total of forty-eight villain points in the practical, which means that you've made it into the hero course!" Izuku was feeling elated at hearing the news, but before he could cry out in joy, he was interrupted by the man suddenly raising his hand. "But before you celebrate, I must continue." He paused for dramatic effect, before continuing. "You see, even though you were told to neutralize as many villains as you could, there was actually a hidden factor when it came to the practical. A factor only a select few realized." he motioned towards the screen beside him, and the camera in front of him moved to center the screen, which began playing the footage of a very familiar scene.

It was of him rescuing Uraraka from the rubble and the zero-pointer.

When the video played up to the part where he had run well enough away from the robot, it paused, before the camera filming it moved back to All Might. "It was thanks to you, that Uraraka Ochako was able to come out of the exam unscathed, and so you have received..." he gestured towards the screen again, but instead of camera footage, a scoreboard was instead displayed, with his own name having taken the spot of second place.

"Rescue points!"

Izuku saw that along with the number forty-eight that represented the amount of points he had gained from villain kills, he had also been given a whopping forty rescue points, which brought his total up to eighty-eight points, just behind Katsuki's own ninety-nine points (seventy-seven villain points and twenty-two rescue points).

"After all,"All Might continued. "What type of hero school would we be if we didn't reward one of the most important qualities of a hero?" The hero seemed to be grinning even wider than he already was, and was giving Izuku a thumbs up. "Stellar job, young Midoriya. I look forward to seeing you in the hero course, but for now, I bid you welcome, to your hero academia!" With that, the message came to a close, and the hologram disappeared back into the disc.

Izuku couldn't believe what had just happened. Letting out a sigh, he leaned back into his chair and began to slightly laugh, out of mild shock and overwhelming joy at the words his idol and trainer had told him.

He had done it. He was going to be a hero.

Did you catch that hidden pun?

To everyone who left reviews: I made sure to try to respond to all the registered users, but if the comment bug hasn't been resolved by the time I've uploaded this chapter, then idk what's happening, but just know that I try to respond to everyone's reviews.