"I may have gotten first, Ina-nii, but you're still making us even with having to get more than me, huh?" I smirk at my twin as he walks to my side in the arena, his targets lit up blue the same as mine as he grins confidently at me.
"No, you got first, this victory is yours." Inasa says, opening the door to the anteroom waiting area. "Don't expect that to be the case in the next round."
We get our targets off, excitedly telling each other about our attacks. He was downright giddy when he learned who I took down, and begged me to recreate the scene for him at least five times before finally more people who passed the exam trickled in. We split ways once we each had a few of our classmates trickle in, the first one for me was Todoroki.
"Hey Todoroki." I say to my almost-a-friend as he gets his targets off. "Good job on passing, I knew you could do it."
"Thank you, you as well." He says calmly, a focused look in his eyes but also a bit of relief. "It was difficult with them knowing my quirk because of the festival. Did you have any troubles with that?"
"Nah." I wave the concern off. "I destroyed my opponents so fast they didn't even see it coming. I was first." I grin proudly at him, and he oddly reaches up and pats the top of my head like I'm a dog.
"Good job." He says as he pets me. I giggle lightly at his awkward physical contact, but let him continue until he's done.
We had to wait together for a long time until more of our class passed. I was kind of shocked that Eijiro's group wasn't back by now. I find it hard to believe there's anyone out there that could challenge that trio at all, especially with a powerhouse like Bakugo in it. Shoji's group was the first to join us, and I hung out with my friend who told me about him getting trapped in a building with the girls, and I nudged him and teased him for complaining about that.
The next group to pass was Midoriya's with Ochaco and Sero, and closely following them was Eijiro's. Those groups all looked a bit roughed up, but otherwise looked proud. I high fived my friends before I gave my boyfriend a hug.
"Knew you could do it." I smile at Eijiro as he slung his arm around my waist. "Sorry I 100% ditched you, I had tunnel vision. But it was so badass, I took down my bullies and utterly destroyed them in seconds and then said a totally badass line before walking away." I grin at him, then spin in his arms to grin at Bakugo. "I told them they were stepping stones to my victory and that I already won!" I tell my friend proudly, and he grows to have one of his rare but wonderful grins light up his face.
"That's fucking right you did, to hell with those damn extras!" Bakugo reaches his fist towards me, and I slam my knuckles against his.
"So, how much did Eiji have to save your back out there?" I slyly smirk at him, and he instantly glares at me.
"Actually, it was me who saved both of them." Kaminari sweeps in dramatically, flipping his hair and striking a pose. "You almost lost your boyfriend out there if it weren't for me. In fact, if you had seen him, you'd never be able to lay a kiss on him again. So whatdya say, a kiss for your hero?" He puckers his lips at me, but I just turn and raise a disbelieving eyebrow to Eijiro.
"Seriously?" I ask if it's true, and Eijiro reluctantly nods.
"Yeah, he was super manly and saved both me and Bakugo." Eijiro admits and my eyes widen at the electric boy before returning to my boyfriend. "We got turned into lumps of meat."
"You're already a lump of meat..." I say in confusion, eyeing him up and down. "Sexy meat, but still meat."
"No, it was super gross, Irisa." Kaminari drops his suave act and goes into detail on the battle they had. At the description of the hunks of meat they turned into, I gagged just a little bit.
"Thanks for saving my boyfriend, Denki." I thank the electric boy sincerely, then give my boyfriend a tight hug. "Please don't turn into a giant meatball again. I already think that's what's going to happen to you when you meet my family, you don't need to do that before hand."
"Ah, don't worry, I'm sure they'll like me... won't they?" Eijiro starts off confidently, but then grows worried. Once again, he doesn't notice the looming presence behind him.
"I'm sure they will." I reassure him, my eye going up to my brother's. "Won't you?" Eijiro instantly spins around to face my twin, letting me go in the process as he tries to stand as tall as he can in the shadow of my brother. Unfortunately, Inasa is seriously tall, well on his way to matching or even beating our dad in height and muscle. Also unfortunately for Eijiro, Inasa makes for a very imposing looking person when he has the sharp glare he's sporting right now and when he's puffing out his already broad chest to make himself look bigger.
"So this is Eijiro Kirishima." Inasa says, his eyes looking down at my boyfriend, taking in the sight of him. "No." He looks at me and gives his denial right away.
"Ina-nii, you promised." I scold my brother. He promised that if we ended up in the same testing sight today he wouldn't start anything with Eijiro. He also promised not to instantly reject him before having a proper conversation. He's zero for two on his promises so far. I wonder if he'll even keep his third one where he promised not to fight Todoroki today.
"Hello, I'm Eijiro Kirishima, Risa has told me so much about you." Eijiro says confidently, sticking his hand out to my brother with a friendly smile that's warm and comforting. "You're her favorite person and her hero, I've waited a long time to get to meet the most supportive and influential person in her life. Thank you for helping her all her life to become the great hero and woman that she is, because without you I may never have gotten the pleasure of getting to meet one of the most passionate and driven people I've ever known. I look forward to getting to know you better in the future, and I wish you luck with the rest of the exam. Though as Risa always sings your praise, I doubt you'll need the luck."
And just like that, my brother was won over. "That was so...PASSIONATE!!" Inasa yells out happily. "So manly and chivalrous, I can't wait to get to know you better as well, Kirishima! I have to go now, but please keep treating my twin sister with all the care and support in the world." He shakes Eijiro's hand vigorously in happiness, but then once again drops to a deadly glare as he tightens his grip on him. "Because if you don't, I'll destroy you so completely not even the most skilled healer in the world will be able to save you from the brink of death I'll leave you at." And with that lovely notion, he walks away.
"Aww, he likes you." I say happily to my shaking boyfriend, his face covered in fresh sweat as his skin paled several shades. I take his shaking and clammy hand in mine, and slowly he calms down from my brother's threat.
"He... He was joking, right?" He asks weakly, everyone watching my brother's retreating back in varying levels of fear.
"Nope, not in the least." I confirm with a smile. "Better not hurt me, Eijiro Kirishima." I wink at him, and then grimace once again. "I winked. I... I'm just gonna go stand over there." I point to wall and prepare to place my forehead against it in shame. I don't make it more than a step before he hauls me back and wraps his arm around me.
"You know? I could actually tell you were winking." He says sincerely to me, and I look at him hopefully.
"Really?!" I ask like a small hopeful child. "Good cause I miss winking so much!!" I cry out, making everyone laugh and effectively lightening the mood.
Not long after that, everyone in our class passed the first round of the exam. They were the very last of the hundred, and I was getting absolutely terrified for my best friend by the final countdown moment, but they all passed. Once Mashirao walked into the room I proceeded to hit his arm repeatedly and yell at him for making me worry, then pull him into a tight hug and congratulated him.
After the 100 finalists were all gathered in the waiting room, the students who failed were all asked to leave. I smiled happily to myself with the mental image of my bullies trudging out of the arena with shame at having lost to a 'weak cyclops', it entertained me greatly.
The room once again opened up as Mera was describing the next task, and we saw people with blood all over them crawling around the now destroyed arena. Mera told us they were actors from the Help Us Company, or HUC for short, and were all going to be playing innocent bystanders in the aftermath of an attack. The scene around us looked a lot like Kamino Ward after the Nomus and All For One struck, and it was making me frown and my heart rate pick up a bit.
"It looks like Kamino Ward, doesn't it?" Midoriya asked Iida, both of whom were standing near me.
"Yes, I wonder if they modeled it after that incident." Iida responded, and I stepped up to their side.
"This time, I won't be a useless bystander in need of rescue." I say confidently as I pump my fist in the air. "This time I'm gonna save others!"
"Ah, Yoarashi!" Midoriya yelps in surprise, I guess he didn't know I was near him. I grin down at him softly though, so he relaxes. "Sorry, I hope that didn't bring up any-"
"Not a worry, Midoriya." I cut off his unnecessary apology. "I have you both to thank for me standing here today, so never apologize to me. Let's, well I would normally say kick some ass, so I guess... let's save some ass?" I ponder how to excitedly phrase it, but it doesn't sound right. "Um, you get the idea. Gosh I hope they don't test us on how we phrase things today, I'd lose in an instant." I grimace, thinking of how often I put my own foot in my mouth when I talk.
"I have every confidence you will do fine, Yoarashi." Iida says stoically, then rethinks his response. "Maybe stay within earshot of a classmate though." I chuckle at his honesty, clapping a hand on his armored shoulder as I walk away.
"I'll keep that in mind, class rep." I smirk at him as I join the next classmate I found, which happened to be Koda. We have a quiet sign language conversation until the exam began, each of us giving the other tips and ideas on how our quirks will be helpful during this exercise.
After Mera gives us a super lame generic backstory for the scenario, we got told to start. I know most the class will stick together, but since I have the speed and the ability to travel easily, I target the outskirts. In situations like this while everyone is scattering out from a single point on the edge of the scene, it makes more sense for me to hurry to the opposite end of the field. That area will have the least amount of heroes being able to access it since they have to work their way through the destroyed city and fields, and they will be finding victims along the way.
I'm at least not the only one with this thought. Inasa also takes off into the air and flies above the initial ruins. He signals to me that he's going to take a different direction so we can cover more ground, and I nod in response. There's another guy who has a flight ability due to his bat-like wings, and he catches on to what we're doing and signals he's going to take a separate direction from us as well. At least we're all working together, that will make rescues easier if all the other students are doing that too. We were all just opponents a few minutes ago, and now we're allies, so I hope everyone catches on to that.
I get to the farthest edge away from the starting point and spot two HUC people standing and holding each other. They appear to be a middle aged husband and wife, both with cuts exposed on their skin as they give surprisingly fake sobs for professional actors. I land in front of them and approach them quickly.
"Hello, I'm Irisa! No wait, I'm Jet Stream." I correct myself, not used to giving my hero name yet. "Are you badly injured or do you know of anyone else who is?" I ask them as confidently as I can.
"You need to remember your own hero name, newbie." The man immediately drops character and scolds me. "Minus points." I gulp at that, and then realize these actors are the ones grading us. I now start to fear how badly my own mouth is going to ruin this for me, so I take steadying breaths as the woman, still in character, answers my questions.
"We have cuts and bruises, but my father is trapped under there!" She yells in hysterics, pointing to a slab of a building laying against its own ruins.
"Please start making your way around the edge of the damage sites until you find medics, I will get your father there once I free him from the building." I say confidently, pointing towards the edge of the arena where there isn't any damage. I would carry them myself, but if I did that for every person who can walk for themselves, I'd never be able to find the ones who are stuck or actually injured.
"Thank you, hero!" She says, and her husband says the same as they both move to where I told them to. I guess I did that right if they followed my orders.
"Sir? If you can hear me, I'm going to get this rubble off of you and take you to safety." I call towards the ruined building, but hear no response. I guess his role is to be unconscious. I locate the old man easily enough, he's laying down and has his leg 'stuck' in a spot. Actually, how he got himself in that position is beyond me, but I know I can get him out of there.
I look around the other side of the collapsed building, sending out slightly bigger pulses of air to make sure no one else is nearby before I return to the old man. I crawl easily in the gap between the slab and the building to be right next to him, and then make a dome of wind around us, pushing the rubble away. I use the wind to carry him out before anything else collapses around us, and then proceed to fly him back to the beginning area where I know there's no damage from the 'villain' attack, and where hopefully a medic area has been established. My dad's agency always sets up a designated emergency medical area on site for every natural disaster area, so I'm hoping that's standard protocol.
Sure enough, an area is already up and ready with several student heroes working it. I land and set the man down gently as one of them runs up to me.
"This man is unconscious and has been for at least 10 minutes." I tell the girl as she starts to access the man. "His leg was also trapped for almost as long, though he has no other visual wounds I could find."
"Which leg?" She asks me urgently.
"Um... the right one." I answer slowly, trying to remember. She nods and I take off back into the air, flying over several of my classmates as they start to work with other schools.
I start to think of a better way to find people than blindly searching and getting lucky like I just did, especially now the others have spread out more and are nearing the edges. I hover above the ruined city area and assume the lotus position, then close my eyes and concentrate on sending out pulses of waves. I want to make sure no one is left behind.
It's actually Miyoshi's tormented voice that's filling my head right now. 7 hours... that's how long his wife and child were bleeding in a destroyed building because no one could find them or get to them. I don't want to let that happen to anyone else, and not just because I don't want any more villains being made. It should be our job to make sure people do not become our collateral damage.
I found one person nearly hidden entirely at an apartment complex. I might not have found them without being in the air since they were surrounded on all sides, but had a gap above them. I took off in their direction, landing outside the collapsed apartment complex.
"Hello?" I call out into the rubble. "If you can hear me, can you respond?" I need to know if they're awake or injured before I go to rescue them.
"I'm awake, but I'm bleeding. My leg and arm! Please hurry!" The 'weak' voice of an otherwise very burly and deep-voiced man calls back to me. I assess the situation better now that I'm close, and spot him easier once I hover up over him. I can see 'blood' seeping from large looking wounds, and that he's stuck pretty good in his hiding spot.
"Please stay calm sir, I'm going to help you out. Hold on a moment while I get help for us." I tell him, realizing I can't get him out on my own. I spot a few students not too far away and fly quickly over to them, not recognizing any of them but hoping one can help. "Does anyone here have a strength quirk? There's a man stuck and bleeding and I need assistance getting him out."
"I do." One boy in a yellow hero suit says, and he follows me quickly to the site. "Do you need me to hold up the rubble?"
"No actually, I need you to pull him out once I lift it." I correct him, assessing the situation some more. "I can't use my wind on him since he's bleeding so much, I'll make his wounds worse. Grab him once I lift the walls."
"Alright, I'm ready!" He says confidently after eating something, his body growing slightly buffer as he does.
"On my mark!" I call out, then prepare the wind to only above the man. "Now!" I call out as my wind creates a half dome above the victim but leaves a clear path for the buff boy to get him out. Once they're both clear I drop the walls as I go to their side. "Thanks uh...?"
"Sugarman!" The boy says, lifting the injured man with ease, which is shocking since the injured man is huge. "I've got him from here..."
"Jet Stream. Sir, you're in good hands, Sugarman here will get you to the medics." I reassure the victim before taking to the air, waving at the two as they leave.