Izuku watched as the sea of confident faces surrounded him while he walked, but his brain was already working on a different frequency.
Maybe... I just made a mistake. Uraraka is strong, even if she doesn't believe it. Her quirk is versatile and she's someone I can get along with... But would this be like taking advantage of her?
He took three steps forward, stopped, and made a decision. To hell with it.
"Uraraka-san!"
He pushed through the crowd, ignoring the annoyed looks. He spotted her brown hair near the entrance to the testing zone.
"Uraraka-san, wait!"
She turned around with surprise reflected on her face.
"Midoriya-kun? What's wrong?"
He reached her, slightly out of breath.
"I have a proposal."
"A proposal?"
"Let's team up for the exam."
Uraraka blinked several times, processing the words.
"A team? But... isn't this an individual exam?"
"They never said we couldn't work together," Izuku replied. "Present Mic explained the rules: destroy robots and earn points. He didn't say anything about doing it alone."
"That's true, but..."
"Look," he interrupted her, lowering his voice. "You have an amazing quirk, but you told me yourself that people think it's not useful for combat. I have physical training, but no destructive power. Separately, we'll struggle. Together, we can cover each other's weaknesses."
Uraraka studied him for a moment.
"Do you really think we can do it?"
"I think we'd be idiots if we didn't try."
A smile slowly formed on her face.
"You know what? You're right. Let's do it, Midoriya-kun!"
"Call me Izuku."
"Then Izuku-kun it is!"
They shook hands again, and this time it felt like sealing a pact.
"What's the plan?" Uraraka asked as they walked.
"You make them float, I hit them while they're defenseless," Izuku said. "Your quirk takes away their stability. My training gives me the strength to break them when they can't dodge."
"That's simple. I like it."
"We'll focus on the two and three pointers. It's better than wasting time with the one pointers."
"You've thought of everything."
"I've had ten months to think of nothing else."
They arrived in front of the massive gates of the Battle Center. The other examinees were scattering, looking at each other as competition.
"Ready?" Uraraka asked.
"Ready."
Present Mic's voice exploded through the speakers.
"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! THERE'S NO COUNTDOWN IN REAL COMBAT! GOOOOOO!"
For a fraction of a second, no one moved. Then came the chaos. Izuku grabbed Uraraka's wrist.
"Stay close!"
They ran together into the fake city. The first robot appeared after fifteen seconds: a three pointer turning the corner on tank treads.
"Now!" Izuku shouted.
Uraraka slapped the chassis with both hands. The robot immediately lifted off the ground, its treads spinning uselessly in the air.
"It's floating!"
Izuku didn't hesitate. He jumped, grabbed a lamppost to boost himself, and threw his leg against the robot's head with every ounce of strength his ten months of training had accumulated. The robot's optical sensor shattered. It sparked and went limp.
"Release it!"
BOOM!
The robot slammed into the ground with a heavy thud. Three points. It's a good start.
"It worked!" Uraraka smiled. "Again?"
"Again!"
They moved deeper into the testing grounds. Two one pointer robots came out of an alley.
"Both of them!" Izuku exclaimed.
Uraraka touched them in quick succession. Both robots floated. Izuku grabbed a loose piece of construction rebar from the ground and swung it like a bat. The first robot's chassis dented; the second took a hit to its joint and released sparks.
"It's not enough!"
"I'll let them fall! Release them!"
BOOM!
The robots fell and Izuku stomped on the damaged joints until they stopped moving. Five points total. We need more.
An explosion echoed three streets away. Someone else was racking up points fast.
"We're going too slow!" Uraraka said, breathing heavily. "Other people are destroying these things with one hit!"
"Then we'll be smarter," Izuku replied. "Look for weak spots: joints, sensors... anything that looks vulnerable."
They turned a corner and found their answer: three two pointer robots grouped near the facade of a collapsed building.
"Six points right there," Uraraka said.
"Can you make all three float?"
"I can try!"
She ran forward and touched the three robots in rapid succession. They rose, but Uraraka's face turned pale immediately.
"Heavy... so heavy..."
"Hold them for five seconds!"
Izuku scanned the area. The collapsed facade had rebar sticking out at angles. He grabbed the longest piece and ripped it out.
"Drop the first one!"
"Release!"
The robot fell. Izuku drove the rebar into its optical sensor and twisted it.
"The second!"
"Release!"
Same strategy: rebar through the sensor and death.
"The third!"
"Release!"
The last robot crashed. Izuku finished it off with a stomp to its already damaged chassis. Perfect, we're doing well. Uraraka leaned over, hands on her knees.
"I'm dizzy... using my quirk too much makes me nauseous..."
"Take thirty seconds. Just breathe."
"We don't have thirty seconds!"
"We do if I say we do. Everything will get worse if you pass out."
She nodded, still hunched over. Izuku stood guard while she recovered. This is the problem. Her quirk is powerful, but the nausea limits how much she can use it. We need a strategy that doesn't require her to float everything.
A three pointer robot rolled past their alley, oblivious to them.
"Can you float just part of a robot?" Izuku asked suddenly.
"What?"
"If you touch only one section, does the whole robot float or just the part you touched?"
"The whole thing. My quirk affects the entire object."
"What if we make the object smaller?"
Uraraka straightened up, realizing what he meant.
"You want to tear them apart first?"
"Exactly. The logic is simple: less weight, less nausea."
"That's... brilliant, Izuku-kun!"
They tested the theory with the next two pointer robot. Izuku kicked its treads until one came loose. Uraraka touched the loose tread and made it float. Izuku grabbed it in mid air and slammed it against the robot's sensor. The robot died.
"This works!" Uraraka was smiling despite the exhaustion. "We're actually doing it!"
The next four minutes were a whirlwind of calculated destruction. They refined their strategy with every encounter. Izuku damaged the robots enough to create loose pieces; Uraraka made those pieces float and they used the debris as weapons against other enemies.
A loose robotic arm became a battering ram. A broken tread became a projectile. A set of smashed sensors became shrapnel.
Forty one points.
"How much time is left?" Uraraka gasped.
Izuku looked at the digital timer projected in the sky.
"Three minutes!"
"We need more points!"
"There!"
A group of robots, two three pointers and three one pointers, were clustered near an intersection.
"That's nine points!" Uraraka said.
"Can you handle it?"
"Watch this!"
They charged. Uraraka touched every robot she could reach, her fingers flying over the metal chassis causing five machines to rise into the air.
"Izuku!"
Izuku was already moving. He grabbed a stop sign that had come loose and swung it like a sword. The metal edge caught the first three pointer's optical sensor. He kicked the exposed wiring of the second. The one pointers were easier; Uraraka released them one by one and Izuku finished them with stomps to their critical components.
Fifty points... It has to be enough, at least I hope so.
"Time?" Uraraka asked, leaning over again.
"Ninety seconds!"
"One last big haul?"
"One more."
They turned the corner and found it: a two pointer robot, isolated and damaged by someone else's attack. Easy prey.
"This is..."
The ground began to shake as a shadow fell over them, blocking out the sun. Izuku looked up and his blood ran cold. They had caught the attention of the zero pointer robot. It was massive, over fifty meters tall; a walking fortress of metal heading directly toward them.
"RUN!" Uraraka screamed.
BOOM!
The robot's footsteps made the ground sink. Debris fell from the buildings. Move! Don't think, just run!
Then, Uraraka tripped. Her foot caught on a piece of broken asphalt. She fell hard and her scream of panic cut through the chaos.
"My ankle!"
Izuku skidded to a halt. The zero pointer was three hundred meters away and it wasn't slowing down.
"Can you get up?"
"I don't know! I... ah!" She tried to put weight on her foot and collapsed.
It's about fifty seconds away. Izuku's mind was racing at a thousand miles per hour. You have enough points. You can pass. He looked at her face: terror mixed with shame.
"Go, Izuku! Leave me!"
Silly girl, his brain supplied uselessly. Even in this moment you're worrying about others.
"No way."
He crouched down and picked her up in his arms. One arm under her knees, the other around her back. Her weight was nothing compared to ten months of training.
"What are you doing?!"
"Saving us both!"
He started to run. The zero pointer's shadow swallowed them completely. There's not enough time. I can't leave her behind. Damn it! I need a plan.
And then it happened. While his hands held Uraraka's body, while panic and desperation flooded his system, something clicked. Information he hadn't known just a second ago began to flood his mind.
[Zero Gravity - Ochako Uraraka]
What the hell?
[Activation: Five finger contact]
[CURRENT LIMITS: Maximum mass per activation: ~3.1 tons. Prolonged overuse causes severe nausea]
Three tons? What the hell are you talking about?
[UNTAPPED POTENTIAL: Latent ability to "mark" multiple targets independently. Release can be sequential or simultaneous via a single mental command ("Release All"). Currently, user releases each object individually out of habit]
[SUGGESTED EVOLUTION ROUTE: 1. Conditioning through balance exercises (yoga, balance beam, ice skating) to mitigate or eliminate nausea. 2. Mental concentration exercises to increase mass capacity and number of "marked" objects.]
This isn't real. The stress broke my brain, Izuku thought, his eyes widening. What the hell is happening to me?
But there was no time to process it. The zero pointer's foot was coming down.
"Uraraka!"
"What?!"
"Touch everything around us! All the debris! As much as you can!"
"That won't work...!"
"DO IT!"
Maybe it was the absolute certainty in his voice. Uraraka reached out and started touching everything within her reach: broken concrete, glass, twisted metal.
"It's not going to work, Izuku! I can't lift the robot!"
"You don't need to lift it! Just trust me!" The metal foot was five meters above them. "When I say NOW, think the words 'Release All' as hard as you can!"
"What?!"
"JUST DO IT!"
Three meters. Two meters.
"NOW!"
"RELEASE ALL!"
Uraraka shouted it and thought it simultaneously. Every piece of debris she had marked dropped instantly. But Izuku had positioned them strategically: he had run in a circle while carrying her, making sure she touched the debris in a specific pattern.
The debris fell over the zero pointer's foot just as it was landing. The robot's weight combined with the sudden impact of the concrete created a jolt that traveled up its leg. The colossus stumbled. Not much, just enough for its foot to land three meters to the left of where they were standing.
The shockwave threw them to the ground, but they were alive. The siren sounded.
[EXAM FINISHED]
Izuku lay on his back with Uraraka on his chest, both breathing heavily.
"We're alive," Uraraka whispered.
"We're alive," Izuku confirmed.
Then his brain processed what had happened. I just saw her quirk. He looked at his hands. What the hell is my quirk?
"Izuku-kun..." He looked at Uraraka. She was watching him with wide eyes. "How did you know about the 'Release All' function? Even I didn't know I could do that."
Izuku's mouth went dry.
"I... I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"When I picked you up, I started seeing information about your quirk. Like I was reading a manual inside my head."
Uraraka's expression shifted from confusion to absolute realization.
"Your quirk! It works on people! What if your quirk analyzes other people's abilities?"
"That's..." Izuku's voice was barely a whisper. "That's actually useful."
"Useful? Izuku, that's incredible! Do you know how valuable that is?"
"No!" He sat up quickly, panicking. "We can't tell anyone!"
"What? Why not?"
"Because... what if it doesn't work again? What if it was a fluke? I can't... I can't go back to being the useless kid who made up a power to get attention."
Ten months of progress threatened to crumble under the weight of old fears. Uraraka reached out and squeezed his hand.
"Izuku-kun, listen to me. This worked and we both felt it. You knew things about my quirk that I didn't even know."
"But..."
"No buts. I believe in you. And I won't tell anyone until you're ready. Deal?"
He looked at her. This girl who had accepted his proposal without hesitation and who was now protecting his secret.
"Deal," he said softly.
"Good." She smiled. "Now, how about we make it official for the long term? Training partners. You help me unlock my potential with that information, and I help you figure out how yours works. We're a team, right?"
"Yes," he said, returning her smile. "We're a team."
Recovery Girl arrived moments later, fussing over Uraraka's ankle and lecturing them about recklessness. While she worked, Izuku felt his gaze drift involuntarily. He noticed Uraraka's torn uniform; the top of her tracksuit had ripped during the fall, revealing the curve of her chest.
The theory holds up, he thought with absolute certainty and a slight blush. She's definitely one of the good ones.
******
As a one-time launch special, if we hit 500 Power Stones by this Sunday, I'll release all the chapters I've already edited! Thanks for reading!
Hey everyone!
Getting an early start on things today! I know it might seem a bit "out there" that Izuku is able to damage robots with just his kicks and punches in this rewrite, but I actually put some thought into the logic behind it.
My theory—and I could be wrong—is based on the physics of the MHA world itself. We see characters whose Quirks have nothing to do with strength or durability survive hits that would definitely be lethal in the real world, yet they keep fighting like it's nothing. I've come to the conclusion that people in the MHA universe are just naturally tougher and stronger than us.
Also, to be totally honest, I didn't want to overcomplicate things by trying to write 4D-chess strategies for every single robot. Writing a "weak" Izuku trying to dent metal that should be indestructible was becoming a bit of a headache, so I decided to lean into that Shonen logic instead!
hitting that like button is the best way to let me know you want more.