Chapter Text
While he may have had multiple ideas on how each team could complete their exams, and he did have quite a few with Denki and Mina’s test; especially with the test taking place in such an industrial complex that Denki should have had a much bigger advantage then what many would think, although that would depend on how much control on his output that he would have for his electricity, and mina would have minimal resistance for her acid skating to where they could easily get through the maze…wait, he’s rambling again.
Izuku hates the fact that Kacchan had called it on how his classmates were going to fail this test, all they have been doing is running blindly through the maze as the Principal has been cornering them and leading them to a dead end the whole time.
Izuku almost feels bad for them with how hard Principal Nedzu is going after them on this exam. Maybe he should ask Aizawa about the……almost manical manner that Nedzu seems to be showing during this exam; Izuku has met the Principal a few times since the Hospital, but he’s never seen this side of the Principal before and it was a bit concerning…for both the students and the Principal.
Izuku can just imagine the cackles that Kacchan would let out from watching these two run blindly through the maze with no thought as they scream in terror. In fact, Izuku is actively ignoring the corner of the large room that he knows Kacchan is in because if he looks over there it will be like admitting to some kind of defeat….what kind, he’s not really sure, but he is not going to give Katsuki the satisfaction of it.
Izuku’s gaze is pulled away from the screen when Eri tugs on his sleeve, a question seeming to be sitting right at the tip of her tongue as she hesitantly looks to him and out into the crowd of students that was a mix of those who were trying to plan, watching their fellow classmates during their exams, and looking at the two of them. Izuku is definitely going to complain to Aizawa at the fact that he decided to put the two of them right in the spotlight with that ‘extra credit’ he decided to throw in at the last second.
“What would you like to ask? You can take your time Eri, there’s no rush.”
She perks up at Izuku’s words, ruminating on her question for a few more minutes before finally asking, “Can I go say hi to someone?” Izuku looks back out to the crowd, Surprised that Eri wants to say hi to someone at all. “Is it Iida?” he asks, looking for the tall metal clad boy in the crowd. But Eri shakes her head, she leans in closereaching up to try and whisper into his ear, Izuku glances up at the screen to make sure he hasn’t missed anything for a moment before leaning down to make it easier for her. “She is someone that helped when….on that night.” Izuku understands immediately which night she is speaking to; Eri still has a lot of trouble speaking to that night, and Izuku doesn’t blame her either, while he has been able to accept and be able to talk about his lost arm much more casually thanks to the therapy sessions he has had with Hound Dog, that night is still something that Izuku can barely speak about what happened that night, nightmares of it still haunting him from time to time.
“Do you want me to come with?” he asks, his curiosity getting the best of him; if he can, he would be happy to meet one of the people that helped Eri. however, even more surprising is that she shakes her head. “I want to do it on my own. I’ve been getting stronger too!” Izuku can’t help the smile that grows the more that he watches Eri grow more and more, being shy and strong and wanting to do these kinds of things on her own, its nearly impossuble to see that same scared girl that ran into him all of those months ago, shaking like a leaf, she’s left all of that fear behind her now and it warms his heart to see it. “Alright, just know that if you need me, I’m right here.” she lights up with that sweet smile and gives his hand a squeeze before taking a deep breath and heading into the crowd of teens in search of this mystery person.
He looks back to the screen as Mina and Denki scream in both some version of relief and defeat as their exam ends in failure and the principal finally stops his chase of the two poor kids. Izuku lets out a sign and turns to a new page in his notes, knowing that he’s going to have quite a lot of analysis on the two’s abysmal exam to write in such a short amount of time before the next exam starts.
From the screen it looks like the principal was leading them to a direct dead end, and it wouldn’t take long for the two of them to realize it.
~~~~
Eri thankfully doesn’t have to do much to make her way over to the nice girl she had met before, a small “Excuse me” and everyone makes way for her to slip through the crowd. She finally finds the ponytail girl near the door, seeming to try and focus on something and about to head through with a boy with both red and white hair. She is quite nervous speaking to her with someone else right there, but she’s stronger now, and this nice ponytail girl deserves to hear what she has to say.
“Um….” oh NO!!! She can’t remember the ponytail lady’s name?! How is she going to say what she needs to say if she can’t even remem-
“Oh! Eri!” thankfully, the girl noticed her first and immediately goes down to one knee, making it easier to speak with her face to face. “I’m not sure if you remember, my name is Yaoyurozu Momo, but you can just call me Momo. I am glad to see you again, its been quite awhile, hasn’t it?”
“Momo! I do remember!” She says Excitedly, bouncing on the tips of her toes, glad that she didn’t have to ask the girl for her name after she so clearly remembered hers. “I’m happy that I was able to catch you before your test! I wanted to tell you something super important!” Eri leans in close, her hands cupped and held up to make sure no one else could hear her. Momo leans in, and Eri whispers “Thank you for helping me that time, you were really cool and nice. I hope your test is great!” Eri leans back and and takes hold of the teen’s hand, giving it a good shake before saying “When you’re done with your test, you should say hi to my bro- I mean, to Izu! Good Luck Momo! Good Luck Mr. Peppermint!” she wishes to them both before turning back and heading back to Izuku’s side, a skip in her step as she goes.
Momo watches as she goes, holding the hand that Eri held close to her chest.
Somehow, all of the nerves that she had before was gone now, because she knew that she had someone rooting for her. Now she couldn’t disappoint Eri and lose, she will definitely succeed. She stands back up and joins Todoroki again, feeling a bit flustered that she and Eri had a bit of an audience; as they start to walk through the doors and back through the halls to the bus that will be taking them to their exam sight, Todoroki mumbles out “Mr.Peppermint?” and Momo can’t help the giggles that tumble out of her at his pure confusion at the nickname.
Somehow, the nervous butterflies she was feeling before have eased, she knows that together, she and Todoroki will do just fine, no matter what Mr. Aizawa throws their way.
~~~~~~
The next few fights seem to pass by in a furious daze for Izuku, Shouto and Yaoyorozu had a successful final, the beginning of their test being a bit rocky at first as Shouto seemed to have a bit of difficulty letting someone else take the lead, but once he realized that Yaoyorozu had a much more thought out plan than running in and trying to over power their opponent, he didn’t hesitate to fall into a follower roll and let his partner shine in the exam. Izuku made sure to make note that Shouto did seem to instinctively think he has to be the leader of a group or team, and that may be due to others taking note of his parentage and letting him take control of a situation, Izuku isn’t sure if that is still happening in their current class (he knows that Kacchan is not the kind of person to let that happen if they were in the same group) and to have him possibly go through some scenarios that may help him learn both what to do when he may have to be the leader in a situation, as well as work through the ingrained sense of responsibility that others have shoved on to him, and helping him know when it would be best both for a mission, a situation, or for himself to take a step back and let someone else lead instead. ( Izuku may have also put that down pre-eptively into Kacchan’s notes as well; he loves his best friend, but he also knows his best friend.)
The next few don’t go too far astray, they honestly go pretty close to what he expected, with some smaller differences, some taking more time to come to a plan, others running into hiccups along the way, but eventually coming together to succeed and passing the exam. Besides two of the teams, no one else has failed their exam yet, so Izuku is hopefully that they’ll be the only ones who will have to go through the hellish after hour remedial classes that Aizawa had told him about during the summer camp.
It was hard to focus on it as many of the students seemed to finally be brave enough, or had enough time now that they had some semblance of a plan, to come up and talk to him and Eri. Thankfully, most of them seemed to back off once Eri started to hide behind his back, mostly talking to Izuku for a bit to try and get some information about the two of them for that ‘extra credit’ Aizawa tempted them with, but one or two stuck around to actually talk to him. Kaminari, the one who had failed miserably in his test with Mina, plopped down next to him and was carrying on a conversation with him, although Izuku wasn’t exactly adding much to the conversation. Izuku was surprised that he hadn’t even asked any kind of prying questions, mostly talking about tv shows, how he felt about his exam and complaining about missing the camp, then back to what kind of music Izuku listened to and if heard of certain bands before. He’s pretty sure that Kaminari completely forgot about the ‘extra credit’ that Aizawa had placed on Izuku’s head from the beginning of the exams; and he did feel kind of bad about how poorly their exam went…..maybe he could help the guy out a bit.
Leaning over to his unlikely buddy on the floor, making sure not to move too much as Eri was currently leaning into his other side asleep, he whispers “ by the way, my name is Izuku, Sorry about introducing myself so late. Just don’t tell the others yet, I’m……a bit shy….” Izuku wasn’t sure how to try and make sure Kaminari didn’t blab his name to the others; he at least wanted to make this as fair as possible, and it wouldn’t really prove Aizawa’s point, or make Aizawa regret, making Izuku be the sudden ‘extra credit’ if everyone learned his name….or maybe it would… Izuku doesn’t really want to think about it too much, he still has a whole boatload of things on his plate already, he doesn’t want to think too hard on how to make Aizawa pay for this.
That will definitely come up later, maybe during the summer camp.
The other person that has been trying on and off to gleam some kind of information from him was the smallest of the class, purple balls making up his hair and sitting on the top of his head. He constantly tried to start up conversation with him; but unlike Kaminari, who talks about more common things like comics, games, and tv shows, this kid-Mineta, if Izuku is recalling correctly from the few pages of information that Aizawa gave him about the class- was trying to start up a conversation by talking about how the girls in the class looked, trying to get him to agree on his views, or asking him about any hidden tricks to pass the test.
It gave him a weird feeling everytime he would try to come over and start a conversation, Kaminari sometimes would join in and tone the line of conversation down, but even Izuku could tell that even Kaminari, who for how little he has known him he could tell that he was a chatty person and always hoped into conversations, was uncomfortable and would call Mineta out on some of the things he said or asked Izuku.
“Come on, what’s the point of the final if you try and cheat your way through, it would make the entire thing pointless man. Besides you’re almost up dude, you better go find Tsu and get ready.” Kaminari rebuffed Mineta’s attempt again at getting Izuku to spill about the tests in some way. It didn’t take much to have the ballhead mumbling under his breath and stomping away, which Izuku was thankful for. He was not sure what to expect from Mineta’s Exam, but he didn’t have high hopes, he just hoped that it wouldn’t drag Tsu down into failing the exam, from the little information he has been able to gleam off of the sparse information that Aizawa gave him and from what he has seen so far, Tsu seems like a great and versatile student with a calm and welcoming attitude; Izuku knows that she will make a great hero, so maybe she’ll be able to pull through her exam just fine.
Izuku can only hope.
~~~~
Hope was always something that we strive to find.
To hold on to.
To grow and fan into a roaring flame.
It’s hope that lights the way when the world becomes too dark to see where the next step will take us.
It’s hope…….that he will be able to find among these first year students a worthy successor for his quirk. Through out this school year, Toshinori has watched over these classes, keeping his eyes open for the right student that would make that spark in him; the spark of One for All, the spark of hope, reignite from its embers that he can slowly feel burning out within him. So far, the only person that has shown promise is not even within the first year students, but rather the third year that Nighteye had trained. While Toshinori did not approve of Nighteye doing this behind his back and then expecting for everything to go his way; he did have to hand it to him, he picked an excellent young man burning with passion and compassion. But All Might was never a man who would just ‘go with the flow’. He wanted to make sure that young Togata was truly the best match, and that meant that he would look elsewhere, into the newest class of heroes in training, to see the young and bright burning desire to help their fellow man.
So far there have been quite a few contenders that All Might has had to give thought to; some from class 1-B seemed to be quite level headed, but the innate desire to help, that moment to reach out, to run to help without even realizing they were moving….Yagi hasn’t seen that level of a hero from their class, he is sure that they will be astounding Heroes once they have graduated, but none of them were what he was looking for in his successor.
Currently he is looking at one student within the 1-A class that seems to have that level of heroism that he is looking for, who is willing to put his life on the line without even realizing it and is ready to always back up his sporadic attacks with power and gusto that no other has been able to match. He is an unparalleled existence to his class, even without being a class representative, his classmates seem to look towards him, try to compete with, match him, and pass him as they throw themselves into their training. The only thing that All Might has truly seen from this student that concerns him is……his personality is quite harsh to others, and he struggles with relying on others or connecting with them.
That's why he had asked Nedzu to allow All Might to be assigned to Bakugou Katsuki’s Final Exam.
This wasn’t just his final exam.
This is to see if young Bakugou has what it takes to be the next holder.
All Might can only hope if this is the right call, as he knows that his time as the Number 1 Hero is coming to an end sooner than he would like.
Sooner than the world is ready for.
~~~~~
Tsuyu is never one to judge people.
She knows that there is so much more to a person than one can see on the surface.
She has been judged based on her appearance before; and has had friends be judged just because of their mutations.
So she always likes to give people the benefit of the doubt, to always try and reach out as you may never know just who a person can be until given the chance. And they will always show that the effort is never wasted, that they too are people who want to see the best in others as they always want to show the best of themselves.
Mineta……..isn’t one of those people.
While he may score well on their written exams, his personality on the inside is somehow even worse than what he shows to people. But Tsuyu won’t let this stop her from trying her best in her final exam, no matter if Mineta hasn’t tried to actually work with her on figuring out a plan before they were called to head out to their designated exam area, or listen to her ideas on the bus ride over. All he says is that it will be easy since they are going up against a Rescue Hero, so Thirteen will be at a disadvantage against them in a fight automatically. And maybe that is true to a degree, but Tsuyu knows that this doesn’t mean they should take this lightly either; Thirteen was there, defending their classmates from the villain who had separated everyone during the USJ attack. While Thirteen may be a Rescue Hero first, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know how to fight, she chooses not to. And after the USJ, Tsuyu is sure that Thirteen has also taken what happened seriously and put the effort into being able to protect and rescue.
This exam will prove who has grown from there first days at the school, and who hasn’t.
As the timer ticked down for them to entire their exam area, a building that looked very much like the USJ only a bit smaller in size, she tried one last time to get Mineta to try and work with her and make anything close to a plan.
“ Kero Mineta, before we go in, we should talk about-”
“Tsuyu, I don’t know why you are freaking out so much. This will be easy! All I have to do is gum up her finger hatches so that her quirk can’t work, then bam! We get an easy pass.” he said, pulling off one of his hair balls as if to prove his theory.
While the idea itself wasn’t a bad plan, timing would be essential to it. He would have to hit his mark, which was already a small point on the bulking suit that the hero wears, and hit it when the cap has opened but before their quirk is activated; any sooner and it would get stuck on the top of the cap and not stop her from using her quirk, or it would get sucked into the black hole and be useless. And while Mineta has been working on being able to pull more of his sticky hair balls before his scalp became raw, he has not been working as much on his aim and has repeatedly gotten many of their classmates stuck in his attempts during hero training ( although she is sure that many of the…unfortuntate places both he and his sticky hair has ended up on many of their female classmates were very much intentional from the look he would get on his face when he thought no one was watching.)
Before Tsuyu even had the chance to bring up her thoughts, the buzzer blared through the air, signalling that they time starts now. Mineta looks over his shoulder at her, giving her what she can only guess was supposed to be a confident smirk, but almost looks like a knowing sneer, before running into the building, not even taking the time to check the doors for any kind of trap or trigger that would signal where they were entering from. Tsuyu sighs before regathering herself, determined to make sure she did her best on this test no matter what, and enters the building as well.
Tsuyu sees that sporadically thrown purple balls sticking all over the ground and walls; none of it showing any kind of thought or path of where their teacher may be…..or if she was even there when Mineta started throwing. She carefully tracks the way the spray of purple hair balls drifts to and fro, trying to track where Mineta went, and if there was any sign of where Thirteen is in the dome building. Taking precaution, Tsuyu crawls up the wall and sticks to the shadows as much as she can while trying to get a better view of the layout and see where both the exit is and where their teacher may be. Once she had a clear view of where their teacher was, she could see if attack or running for the exit would be the best strategy; the most important part of this is to make sure that she isn’t spotted first before she can come up with the best plan.
Or at least that was the plan.
“TSUYU! WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP THERE?IF YOU WANTED ME TO CHECK YOU OUT, ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS ASK!” Mineta yells out from behind her; startling her into loosing her grip on the wall, making her fall back down to the walkway that loops around the front half of the dome. Mineta walks over, with that same easy smile on his face. “C’mon Tsuyu, we can’t be messing around, lets go finish this up already.” Tsuyu had to bite her tongue to keep from saying something she would regret to say in a middle of a battle. She always considered herself to be blunt and to the point, it helped clear misunderstanding easier, but starting an argument in the middle of a fight is only going to make things harder and distract them.
Tsuyu picks herself up from the floor and quietly calls out to Mineta as he moves further into the building, following the walk ways that lead into the center, surrounded by the small samples of different terrains and disasters that they would train further in for rescue classes. Tsuyu keeps her eyes and ears open for any movement, anything to tell them where their teacher is waiting for them to get close enough, with terrain like this, knowing blind spots, sharp corners and turns that would be unseen until you were right on top of it, that would be the best way to get the advantage in such a quick draw situation like what Mineta is planning.
Although with how he’s holding himself, she doesn’t think he is taking that into consideration.
Just as they were reaching the center, that’s when it happened, Thirteen rushed them, appearing from a section of one of the walking paths that were hidden completely from view, most likely jumping over the railing that separated two different paths, and aimed her gloved hand right at them, the cap of her index finger popping off and beginning to pull in everything around them, leaving only things that are bolted down in there place, but not without creaking from the strain of the black hole’s incessent pull. Mineta, caught off guard, stumbles and the hair ball that he had in his hand falls to the floor and losing their one shot of hitting the cap of the glove before their teacher's quirk started.
With barely any time, Tsuyu moves to one of the few item s that was still bolted down; a bench that while creaks and moans, held solid, she quickly grabs Mineta and shoots her tongue to wrap around the iron arm of the bench, doing her best to make sure that she doesn’t lose her grip on either her partner or the one thing keeping them from getting caught. They were caught in the middle of a tug-o-war, not being able to gain any distance from their teacher’s quirk, while their teacher wasn’t able to get them any closer as Tsuyu held on with all of her might onto the bench. minutes felt like hours as they were in this stalemate, all the while Mineta was screaming, begging not to be let go, desperately clinging onto her suit with two of his sticky balls. Tsuyu tries to tell him to make his way towards the bench, but its difficult to get any words out with her tongue being stretched out of her mouth and keeping them from getting pulled away. Finally after what felt like hours, Mineta finally gets the message, using his balls to attach to her suit and slowly climb up her body, he makes his way slowly to her tongue to which he slowly crawls up, complaining about the saliva. Its not exactly like she enjoys feeling someone practically claw their way up her tongue either. Once he finally is at the bench, Mineta scrambles to grab onto the iron frame, grinding his foot into where her tongue is wrapped around the arm rest as he climbs over the backrest and to where he could actually be protected from the constant suction of Thirteen’s quirk. However, from grinding his shoe into her tongue, he causes Tsuyu to lose her grip on the bench; her entire equilibrium thrown off as she began to tumble through the air like a bullet straight to Thirteen, who looked just as shocked as Tsuyu did at the speed at which she was flying straight towards her.
But this could be her chance.
Thirteen was immediately fumbling with her glove to close the cap and make sure that Tsuyu didn’t get pulled into the actual black hole, and it was this moment that Tsuyu used to her advantage.
Flinging herself around, she retracts her tongue only to immediately fire it at their teacher’s helmet, latching on and pulling Tsuyu out of the immediate range of the black hole and getting her closer to her teahcer’s body; from there, she used a move that Ochako had been kind enough to teach her after their intern studies. Grabbing hold of their teachers arm in the way Ochako showed her, she used the force of her tongue pulling towards their teacher and slid under their teacher’s arm and judo flipped her into the ground, coughing up the cuffs she had swallowed before the test began and quickly slapped them onto their teacher’s wrist.
The siren sounded once again, signalling that they did it.
no.
She did it. she passed the test.
~~~~~
Izuku looks at the screen frustrated.
Don’t let the frown fool you; he was so happy to see the frog girl, Tsuyu, ace that exam with such quick thinking and a wonderful execution. He had so many questions about her quirk, what she could do and couldn’t do that frogs are able to, if it pertained to a specific type of frog, or if there were certain characteristics that she has that spans across multiple types of frog species.
The reason for his foul mood is rather the other student who was her partner.
He was jumping around with excitement through the screen, obviously thinking that becuase Tsuyu had passed the exam, that he also passed as well. Izuku takes a glance to Aizawa, who had come in with Yaoyurozu and Todoroki just before the most recent test began and had watched the whole thing. The frown that Izuku had was nothing to the scowl that Aizawa was shooting to the screen. Izuku looked back down to his notes and took the time to write out everything that went right and wrong with Mineta’s and Tsuyu’s battle. He wasn’t going to let the abysmal teamwork due to one person’s actions not be swept under the rug and forgotten.
It wasn’t long before the scene switched to the next set of cameras; set up throughout what looked like a forested area with Present Mic set up further into the forest setting. Looking back to his files, it looks like Tokoyami, who looks to have a sentient quirk which is so incredibly rare and he had so many questions for both Tokoyami and Dark Shadow, and an Invisible Girl named Hagakure.
The test went by quite quickly; the two of them struggled at first trying to make any progress as Present Mic would periodically scream out into the forest, pushing them back to where they were just out of range. Izuku could see the thoughts turning through the bird headed teen, trying to come up with a solution. It looks like the two of them came up with an idea after the third time of being pushed back from their teacher’s soundwaves, as Hagakure removes her gloves and shoes-wait, was she even…? That’s not something Izuku really wants to think about right now- and she is no longer able to be tracked by the cameras. Meanwhile Tokoyami ran off to the side, calling out Dark Shadow to crash through trees and foliage, drawing away their teacher’s attention from where he was doing a more wide spread attack to a smaller range, but stronger. It was fascinating watching Tokoyami and Dark Shadow working in tandem; Tokoyami jumping over broken tree limbs, Dark Shadow picking him up to help them move out of a way of a more concentrated sound blast. It was amazing to watch. The camera focused on Present Mic caught the slightest bit of movement, a few leaves of a shrub behind him shifted ever so slightly, catching Izuku’s attention. It was long after that Present Mic went deathly still, the camera was too far away but Izuku is sure that even from the far view that his skin went 3 shades whiter before he screamed shimming and jerking around, trying to reach for something in the back of his costume frantically before Dark Shadow slammed into him, knocking their teacher down and holding him down as Tokoyami rushes in, slapping the cuffs onto their teacher who was…crying? It looked like he was begging for something, but their cameras don’t have microphones and with how he was still crying, it was hard to even try to read his lips.
A resounding success for the hero students though, and Izuku was impressed with the quick thinking the team was able to accomplish while in the middle of battle that was timed based due to the attacks of their opponent then the timer on the actual test.
The next team was the only group of three ( or maybe it was the second since Dark Shadow is a sentient quirk, Izuku would have to ask more questions about the full autonomy of Dark Shadow and Tokoyami to make sure that he wouldn’t address the two of them incorrectly) was that of Iida, Koda and Ojiro; a much more physical group then some of the others, especially considering the limit on Koda’s quirk with the type of terrain the group was placed in, he would only be able to rely on his physical strength along with Ojiro. Iida would also be having a tough time as well, while the land is flat without much debre, its their opponent that has made it difficult for Iida to use the full expanse of his speed to finish the test quickly.
Izuku has never really seen Powerloader out in the field, like with Thirteen, he normally does more rescue situations then battle, and has been pretty much retired and working full time as a teacher for the support course students than in the field. from what Powerloader has told him, he took some pretty serious damage after helping with clearing survivors from a collapsed building, the place he had dug to not being as stable as what was reported, and he got caught up in the unstable space buckling under the weight. The scar he had from it looked pretty serious and pushed him into taking the teching job full time, although from how he’s explained it, he doesn’t hold any resentment, and he honestly seems happy teaching the next support techinicans into reaching their full potential, even if he has to deal with more explosions than he would like. But just because he isn’t in the field as much anymore, doesn’t mean that he’s lacking. During the time that the teacher had to prepare for the test, the teacher had made use of every second and dug into the earth, creating what Izuku could only assume a labyrinth of pitfalls, sinkholes and traps that one wrong move would catch any of them and trap them with only their heads above the ground.
This would be one of those battles that would be one of the most technically difficult.
That was until Iida spoke with Koda off to the side, Whispering something to the obviously nervous student, Izuku will make note that Koda could probably do well with some sessions with Inui to see if they could help him work through his anxiety; it was long though that Koda curled into himself, crouching so low that he was nearly sitting on the ground. Iida turns his attention back to Powerloader and seems to be yelling something. Izuku isn’t what he’s saying, but from how Ochako had told him how their first battle class had happened, Izuku could probably guess that Iida has started taking things a bit too seriously and was monologuing. Izuku wasn’t sure if this test would turn out well as he saw how un aligned the group seemed to be, Ojiro and Iida seeming to try and test the area without going too far from the “safe” section, and Koda still curled up in what he could only assu-wait. There was movement. Not from the three students, and the distance the camera had from the group made it difficult to see but…..there.
Oh this group looked to be more cohesive then they let on.
It wasn’t that Koda had curled up in fear, he and his teammates only made it look like that to draw Powerloader’s attention away from him, making it seem like Koda wouldn’t do anything to warrant keeping an eye on him. Meanwhile, he was putting his quirk to use and was speaking to something, maybe some worms and other bugs that were naturally in the ground. What they were telling him, Izuku could only hypothesis. Then, Koda gave Ojiro a subtle nod, and all three of them moved as a unit, Koda surprisingly taking the front as Iida and Ojiro took up the back, their movement looked erratic, but from the way the teacher’s posture changed, and how he was suddenly trying to catch up to the group, it looks as though Koda knew the way through the maze. The three of them were making steady progress as well, and the cheers from the students in the viewing room charged the enrgy up for what was probably a very tedious and slow process for the trio.
And then Powerloader had caught up to them, and had clawed into the ground on either side of the Iida and Ojiro, apparently causing what was most likely a shallow sinkhole to start swallowing up the ground surrounding them, and started to catch Ojiro in the pit as well. The trio didn’t have the time to dig him out safely, not with Powerloader right there, and Izuku could see how that thought seemed to paralyze the group with indecision. But Iida seemed to have decided on the course of action he would take. Before Ojiro was too far from his grip, and too caught up in the quick sand, Iida grabs hold on Ojiros arm and using a blast of speed from his engines, spins Ojiro fast enough to pull him out of the mud and flings him right into Koda, the strength and momentum from the move causing the two of them to be thrown back, and closer to the exit of the maze and closer to the exit. Unfortuntely, that momentum also caused Iida to be caught up in the quick sand that Ojiro was caught in, but Iida yells out to his teammates when they try to get back to him. Whatever he said seemed to resonate with the other two as they quickly turn back to the exit gate and make the last few moves to the exit of the maze and running through the gate.
The completion of their test was truly a heroic one, to sacrifice yourself to ensure your team could complete the task, although Izuku would rather everyone make it through the gate then losing a team member. Izuku knows that while Iida didn’t cross the gate himself, he absolutely passed the exam just like the other two did.
The second to last test was one with Yuga and Shoji; and that was…….a near disastrous exam. The two of them were up against Snipe, and even though he was using what was effectively paint balls instead of rubber bullets, the amount of paint splattered about was disparaging. The two of them had ended up cornered behind a couple of boxes stacked on top of one another, the other side a smattering of vibrant colors layered on top of each other from the rounds Snipe had already sent their way, pinning them in with very little time to move to any other cover. Yuga was yelling about something, although it seemed like it wasn’t anything useful from how Shoji was trying to keep an eye on what snipe was doing with one of his appendages; the eyes he created had already been hit a few times, and from how Shoji would flinch, he’s sure he could feel the blatant stinging from the paint hitting one of his eyes. Thankfully that didn’t seem to count the student as out, most likely due to it being an extension of his quirk than it would be if it was one of the eyes on his face. At some point, Yuga kicked up into some kind of fit, what about he isn’t sure, it could have been that one of the paint balls clipped him when he was flailing about before and had many parts of his body outside of their protective cover, or it could have been something else, because Yuga took the next moment, much to Shoji’s surprise, that Snipe had apparently taken to refill, and began to send back fire from his stomach laser, catching Snipe off guard enough to give Shoji the chance to move from their cover without the teacher noticing. From there it was a back and forth fight between Yuga and Snipe, although no one could really call it an even fight, Yuga had multiple splotches of paint decorating his armor from when he would get cocky and clumsily took cover when Snipe would have reloaded, but the distraction was perfect for keeping Snipe’s attention and gave Shoji the openings he needed to work his way closer to where he was able to get behind where their teacher had set up shop.
All it took was waiting for when Snipe was shooting at where Yuga was taking cover for Shoji to capture him, catching the teacher off guard and incase their teacher within his arms, letting him go only once the cuffs were securely on their teacher’s wrists.
Izuku made sure to state how while the action did help the team in the end, Yuga’s abrasive and uncoordinated attack could have also easily put him out of the exam, especially with the limitation on how long he is able to use his laser. While it worked out this time, it was more due to the efforts of Shoji using the surprise that Yuga had caused that the exam was successful.
It wasn’t long after the end of the fight that the cameras switched once again. Almost everyone was now back in the viewing room besides Yuga and Shoji who were most likely on their way back now. No one wanted to miss this exam, and for many of them this was a type of moment of truth.
For All Might.
For Bakugou Katsuki.
For Izuku Midoriya.
For Jiro Kyoka.
This was the last battle for their class.
This was the one that would help determine who All for One would go to.
This was the battle that would show just how far he has come to being a Hero like they always wanted.
This was the fight that would show that they were stronger from everything that have gone through that year, and show just how much more they can grow.
It was time for the battle between All Might and Bakugou and Jiro.
It’s time to go plus Ultra.
They were going to need it.