Once More (My Hero Academia)

5: The Entrance Exam

Izuku couldn't help but feel nervous, even though he knew exactly what to expect.

"Ok, calm down. As long as I make sure I get the exact same points as last time, nothing will change," he muttered, quiet enough that no one knew what he was saying, but loud enough that earned him a few weird glances. "If I don't compete against the people that will get accepted, their futures won't be altered..."

Izuku peeked at Iida, Uraraka and Aoyama. They looked a lot younger as well, not yet weary from the terrible events about to happen.

"Dude," someone with hair that looked like a traffic cone whispered to his friend, "that's the weird dude who cried at the front gate, right?"

"He looks so nervous, man," the friend whispered back.

"Ha!" the traffic-cone-guy snickered, "at least we have one less rival to worry about."

Izuku just rolled his eyes.

Then Present Mic screeched from a watchtower: "OK START!"

The students standing in front of the mock city all looked towards Mic with confused faces, but Izuku didn't waste another second.

He rushed inside the mock city, the other candidates following a split second later.

The other candidates immediately started searching for robot villains, but Izuku did something else first: he felt inside his body and searched for One For All.

His body technically never used it yet, but Izuku laughed out loud almost hysterically when he felt the familiar, yet non-familiar presence of his quirk inside his body.

"YES!!" He yelled, tendrils of green lightning flashing around his body. He was so happy he could cry now.

Then an explosion erupted in the wall next to him and a 1-point robot came into view. The metal head whirred towards him, its red eye glinting.

Oh yeah, let's do this.

Way too eager to use his quirk again, Izuku jumped up into the air and sent a forceful roundhouse kick towards the robot. The metal crumpled on impact and the robot splintered to pieces, smoke rising from the remains.

1 point down, 59 more to go.

Izuku landed on the ground and suddenly a piercing pain shot through his leg.

"Oh crap," Izuku gritted his teeth, "this stupid body can't take anything more than 5%... Shoot."

He decided to ignore the pain just like he always did -- a skill he picked up after surviving countless splintering bones.

But he knew his training in the past 10 months had taken effect, getting 1 point was already a lot better than last time.

"Well, guess I'll just have to trust the process," Izuku muttered, then activated his quirk again and leaped away, looking for his next target.

For the next few minutes, Izuku destroyed one robot after the other, careful not to affect the scores of the people he recognized and staying out of their ways. Izuku tried out different techniques and tested out the limits of his body and quirk. He realized he couldn't use any of the other quirks of One For All, though, as they were probably still dormant.

"46!" Izuku kicked off a wall and propelled himself directly towards a 3-point robot, then destroyed it instantly with a punch.

Then someone cursed behind him, and Izuku looked back to see the person with the hair that looked like a traffic cone. This was the guy who snickered at Izuku behind his back at the gate of the mock city.