Nezu's Apprentice

Chapter 3: Testing

Midoriya looked around, amazed by the sight of the large school. He was finally here, at UA!! His hard work was about to pay off, he'd join the hero course, and he'd show everyone that he could become a hero, even without a quirk.

Although, he'd have to pass the entrance exams first... He didn't doubt that he could do it, though. After all the training he had undergone, there was no way he'd fail!!

.....Okay, maybe he could fail, and with the amount of people here for the exam, combined with his lack of a quirk, it was highly probable, but still!! He had worked so very hard for this, and he wasn't going to let it all go too waste now!

He grinned widely, entering the building with a newfound confidence.

He made a beeline for his seat once he'd entered the auditorium. Unfortunately, that seat happened to be right next to Bakugou... "Oi! Deku!! I thought I told you not to apply!! You're just a shitty, quirkless nerd!!" Midoriya groaned in annoyance. He really didn't want to deal with Bakugou, but he supposed he'd have to deal with it. "Well, Bakugou, you don't control what I choose to do, now do you?" Midoriya hissed in annoyance.

Bakugou seemed to be surprised that he didn't call him 'Kacchan', which shut him up pretty fast.

Once the auditorium had filled up, Ectoplasm began passing out the written tests, using his clones to do so. Midoriya couldn't help but be excited, after all, UA was taught by pro-heroes!! Even though he'd already known it, it was still exciting.

As soon as they were told to begin, Midoriya began scribbling down answers, scrawled and messy kanji filling the page. He was unaware of his incoherent mutterings, too focused on the work in front of him.

While the questions were definitely challanging, they weren't anything he couldn't handle. They were mainly academic questions, which didn't really surprise him. After all, this was still a high school, even if it was a hero school. There were also some questions that seemed to be more or less centered on the morals of being a hero, although he was pretty sure those were more to see what a student was like than for grading. You can't exactly put a grade on morals, after all.

But then there were the last couple of questions..

Analysis. More specifically, hero analysis. There was a list of pro heros, and he was supposed to pick one hero to do an analysis on. For extra credit, you could choose to do multiple.

Midoriya grinned from ear to ear. Analysis was fun! He glanced up at the clock on the wall, seeing that he had plenty of time left before the test ended. He had also been provided with extra papers, so he could use them for the analysis part, surely...

By the end of the test, he had written two seperate analysises, each being around 5 pages long. He would have written more, but he didn't have enough time (or paper).

He noticed that Ectoplasm looked pretty surprised by the amount of analysis papers, and part of Midoriya had to wonder if he wasn't supposed to write that much analysis.

He supposed it didn't matter, there was nothing he could do to change his analysis now, and even if he could, he'd probably just add more.

They had to wait for a little bit, before Present Mic walked onto the stage. "Hello, little listeners!!!! Welcome to UA's practical exam!! I'm here to explain the rules for ya!! Can I get a 'Yeah'?"

He was, sadly, met by silence, "Tough crowd.."

"Anyways, for this exam, you will be fighting three different villains!!! Well, they're actually robots, but still. Each type can give you a different amount of points, depending on it's difficulty!!! Also, there will be no playing anti-hero, so don't attack your fellow examinees!!" Present Mic continued.

He was inturpted, however, by a boy with dark blue hair, and rectangular glasses. "Excuse me sir, but you only mentioned three robots, while this packet shows four!! UA should be better than too make silly mistakes like this!! And you, the boy with the green hair!!!" He pointed at Midoriya, who tilted his head in confusion. "You've been muttering this whole time!! It's a distraction for everyone here!!! If you aren't going to take this seriously, I advise that you leave!!"

"Huh? Oh, sorry bout that, I have a habit of mumbling when I'm concentrating on something. I didn't mean to distract you or anything. Buuuut, I'm pretty sure you uhm, how do I put this, you interupted Present Mic. Let him finish explaining before you jump to conclusions like that, m'kay?" Midoriya responded, hiding his embarassment. Had he really been mumbling the whole time? He probably creeped out everyone there!!

A look of realization and guilt crossed the boy's face, as he bowed at a 90 degree angle, "My appoloizes! It was not my intentions to be so rude!!", before sitting back down.

Present Mic coughed loudly, bringing the attention back to him, "I was just about to explain that! There is a fourth robot in eachof the areas, called the zero-pointer!! Think of it as an obstacle! Attacking it is pointless, in more ways than one! Not many have been able to beat it!! Now, that I've explained everything, go take that exam!! Plus Ultra!!!"

Once again, he was met by silence, as the students filed out of the auditorium, to their examination centers.

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Midoriya had failed the entrance exam. He hadn't gotten the letter just yet, but he knew he had failed. Even if he got a good grade on the written exams, he hadn't destroyed any robots during the practicals.

So, when the overwhelming sense of failure crashed over him, he had ended up sobbing himself to sleep.