Chapter Text
“The Commission wants to change it so you have to have at least one rescue point?” Principal Nedzu asks, giving Yokumiru what he thinks is a curious look. It’s hard to tell with the Principal’s face.
“It’s due to the mess six months ago with Star Heart,” he explains.
“Oh, the one where several pro heroes decided to focus on attacking her for the glory of taking down one of Europe's most infamous villains, which resulted in a number of civilian casualties, and Legacy , who’d been sent by Europol to handle Star Heart, almost getting killed?” Eraserhead snarks. “Because she’d been busy trying to protect civilians and handle Star Heart, which was complicated by those idiots getting in her way?”
“There is a reason the Commission revoked their licenses,” Yokumiru says, dryer than a desert. “And it’s also why the Commission wants the change. A genuine fear of future heroes doing something similar, and that mindset needs to be dealt with now.” It was enough of a concern that they were actually approaching the hero schools, and normally they didn’t get involved in discussing acceptance standards.
As is, there was a push within the Commission to get rid of the ranking system after that mess, and a few of the heroes involved admitting part of why they focused on Star Heart over civilian safety is because they wanted to move up the ranks. Capturing a villain of her stature would have caused them to make rapid rises. However, Star Heart was also considered one of Europe’s most infamous villains for a reason , and there was a reason Europol had sent Legacy after her, rather than request a Japanese hero arrest Star Heart.
The simple fact there’d been no request to Endeavor or All Might should have said everything.
“The rescue points aren’t a publicized part of the exam,” Eraserhead points out. “We make no announcement of them at any point during the exam.”
“And students don’t normally get told how many specific villain points they got unless they’ve done something truly remarkable; there’s no real point. Only if they scored enough to be accepted, or if they’re the top scorer,” Yokumiru says. “On top of that, in a sense the rescue points have always served the purpose of proving that you will be willing to rescue people rather than focus on showboating. Has anyone ever gotten into UA without getting at least one rescue point?”
“Endeavor maybe,” Eraserhead says with a snort.
“No, he had fifteen,” Nedzu says. “There’s a reason the man is Number Two, and it’s because he’s good at being a hero. Not a very pleasant person, but a good hero. I was curious a few years ago and read how his exam went,” he explains, obviously noticing the very confused look on Eraserhead’s face. Yokumiru had already been aware of Endeavor’s test scores, having planned on bringing it up. “All Might at present holds the record for most rescue points at fifty eight and the record for overall score at seventy six.”
“And in terms of anyone getting in without at least one point?”
“No one,” Nedzu says. “In no small part because it is hard to avoid getting at least one. The first point is traditionally the easiest to get, just offering a hand to a classmate or giving them forewarning of an attack.”
“If that’s the case, then I don’t see why it would be an issue for UA to add in the requirement that a student must have at least one.”
“What about the reverse?” Eraserhead asks. “What about students who get only rescue points?”
“ Has anyone actually succeeded in doing that?” Yokumiru asks. He hadn’t looked that up.
“No,” Nedzu says. “In most cases you are only given a single point for a ‘rescue’. It simply comes down to the fact it’s easier to get villain points than rescue points. As I recall, All Might is the closest example we have, and even then he still did get some villain points.”
In most cases…? Ah, right; the so-called ‘Zero Pointer’. It’s probably worth ten points if you save someone from that.
“Then I’d argue that’s irrelevant. Also one could argue based on Commission concerns, a good sign if a student is so dedicated to helping others that they got nothing but rescue points,” Yokumiru says. Someone overly self-sacrificial also made for an excellent martyr as needed. “But a very bad sign if they get nothing but villain points.”
After all, the last thing heroics really needs is another fight happy idiot…
“ Sixty points for a single rescue?” Shouta demands incredulously. “To a student who didn’t succeed in destroying a single regular ‘villain’ robot? And he broke his arm while doing so?!”
“He also rapidly responded to another person who was seemingly in lethal danger when everyone else around him ran away, and did so against a machine he wouldn’t get any points from,” Nedzu says. “On top of which, the Zero Pointer is by far the sturdiest and hardest to damage robot.” And most expensive, which would make it an absolute pain in the ass to replace. “Meaning that he probably could have very easily dealt with the other robots. We have had students attempt to tangle with the robot in the past to prove they could and fail to destroy it.”
“Honestly, I don’t think the green bean is going to be the big problem here,” Nemuri says, cutting Shouta off. “His Quirk is still a strong Quirk and if he can handle the Zero Pointer he can handle the training here. I think the real problem is going to be the blond who broke All Might’s total record, Bakugou Katsuki.”
“How so?”
“He kind of didn’t get a single rescue point. Like one of the other kids literally got a bunch from protecting other examinees from blondie. He wasn’t being careful in the slightest about moderating his explosions,” Nemuri explains. “And since the Commission made the request about the accepted students needing at least one rescue point…”
And it’s probably not a good sign if he was being that careless , Shouta acknowledges silently. Strength is nice, but carelessness in the field can easily get someone killed…
“Well it’s not as if we need to tell him that. We just need to say he didn’t get enough points, which is true,” Kan points out. “Kids who don’t get accepted to the hero program don’t get told how many points they got anyway, just that they failed. Besides, if he can make a good showing at the Sports Festival he can…”
Kan trails off as Nemuri shakes her head.
“He didn’t apply to Gen Ed as a backup,” she says. “Only Heroics. I think he was so confident based on how strong his Quirk is it didn’t seem necessary to him. Besides we all know most students don't bother to put down Gen Ed on their applications.”
Ah . And that’s arguably the real issue here then. There was a fairly common, and incorrect, belief that if you failed the Hero exam practical but passed the paper exam you would be put in Gen Ed automatically. In reality, unless you specified on your application that you were applying to both programs, no matter if you technically passed the written exam but then failed the practical exam, you weren’t getting into UA. Gen Ed was a track in it’s own right, not just a place for ‘hero class rejects’ like Shouta had before heard it described by non-UA students.
“Then he’s just not going to be accepted,” Kan says with a shrug. “I assume he’s got the common sense to at least apply to other heroics programs and maybe he’ll do better there in terms of the exam.”
“Maybe,” Shouta says. After all, the Commission would have directed all the hero schools to add in a rescue point rule so if the kid fought the exact same at the other schools’ exams…
Well, hopefully the kid had the common sense to have applied to other schools, or at least other types of programs.
Katsuki stares blankly at the rejection letter.
Dear Bakugou Katsuki,
After carefully reviewing your exam results, we regret to inform you that we are not offering you admission to UA High School. We acknowledge the time and energy put into your exam and congratulate you on your academic accomplishments. This year’s pool of applicants was excellent and made for a very competitive application process. Although we’d like to extend admission to all our applicants, we have limited space in each admitted Heroics class. We wish you well on your applications elsewhere.
Sincerely,
Nedzu, UA Principal.
He...he had failed. He had somehow fucking failed the exam. He has no fucking clue how, he absolutely wrecked those robots, but it somehow wasn’t enough. Had he managed to fail the written exam somehow? It had been hard but…
Yeah, that had to be it. He failed the written exam somehow. It had been ridiculously hard. Definitely had to be that.
Well at least he knows if he failed Deku must have failed too. No way that Quirkless loser destroyed any robots.
But...but fuck.
Shit. Fuck. Goddamn.
He has no clue what to do next...it’s not as if he even thought this would be a possibility…He didn’t apply anywhere else…
This isn’t how his story is supposed to go. He’s supposed to get into UA, be the top student and immediately beat All Might when he graduated. He’s not supposed to be rejected.
He’s supposed to be the winner.
Akira gapes at the list for which students had been accepted to which high school. Midoriya had gotten into UA (and Heroics at that!), but Bakugou had not. Kai had already called UA and verified that no, that was correct and that somehow their Quirkless student had gotten into Japan’s top hero school, but not their student with the heroic Quirk.
Who hadn’t gotten in anywhere, since evidently he’d only applied to UA . Meaning most likely he’d have to use one of the open enrollment seats to Aldera High School. All of their investment in the kid, wasted.
Which. Fuck . Bakugou was not the type of student who’d handle that well, and he especially wouldn’t handle Midoriya of all kids getting in instead. And that’s now awkward, since, well…Well it’s not exactly like they’ve gone out of their way to be supportive or nice to Midoriya. Not much of a reason for the kid to look back at Aldera school district and say ‘hey, you should send your kids here, it’s great!’
If anything, if Midoriya even ever talked about Aldera…
Akira barely resists the urge to slam his head into his desk.
Karma was indeed a bitch, and he just knows it’s going to bite him on the ass.
Izuku notices the weird look Aoki-sensei gives him the second Izuku steps into the classroom, and he has a suspicion why. After all, the Quirkless kid getting into UA must have been a surprise, especially since it was for heroics rather than Gen Ed. But even so, the look on Aoki-sensei’s face…
It almost looked like he was afraid of something.
Izuku gets him getting into UA isn’t exactly something the teachers at Aldera probably wanted, but it’s nothing to be afraid of! He isn’t going to badmouth the school district! He plans on never thinking about the school district ever again once he graduates!
...Come to think of it, they may also view that as bad but that’s their problem.
Not treating a student like shit for being Quirkless shouldn’t be hard and if it’s going to come back and haunt them…
good
.
Kacchan stomps into the classroom, and Izuku can immediately tell that something is wrong, even if not exactly what is wrong. Maybe he hadn’t gotten enough sleep or something?
Aoki-sensei adjusts the papers on his desk, seeming to ignore all of them. Then he looks up as the bell rings.
“Congratulations to everyone! We’ve got a wide array of acceptances,” he says, something fake in his smile which is weird. Izuku would have imagined Aoki-sensei would be smug over Bakugou getting accepted to UA, just the way Aldera wanted. “Now let’s start with…”
Izuku zones out, not entirely caring. It may sound mean, but he has no plan on keeping in touch with anyone but Kacchan
and even there it will be more because they’ll be at the same…
“Midoriya Izuku is our only accepted student to UA’s Heroics Track.”
…What.
“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! THE QUIRKLESS LOSER GOT IN?!” Kacchan screeches, explosions coming from him. Izuku flinches, leaning away from the violent outburst.
“Bakugou Katsuki sit down right now!” Aoki-sensei snaps in a way Izuku’s never seen before, not directed toward Bakugou at least. “Yes, Midoriya is the only student to get into UA.” There’s something in his voice and…
Oh . Aoki-sensei is probably upset. Aldera was banking on Kacchan getting into UA, in being a ‘famous alumni’ and now that’s not going to be the case. But Kacchan probably got in elsewhere and…
“As I should remind you Bakugou, in light of you apparently not applying to anywhere but UA , your only acceptance is to the district high school,” Aoki-sensei says. “Now sit down and calm down.”
Kacchan does, but Izuku suspects that’s more due to shock than anything else.
He’s silent for the rest of the day, with Izuku only hearing the occasional ‘popping’ of minor explosions and Kacchan growling at anyone who tries to talk to him. Aoki-sensei keeps giving him odd looks, but Izuku doesn’t care. He just wants to be done with Aldera, and he has no interest in ever promoting the school district.
Izuku attempts get out of school as quickly as possible at the end of the day. It’s unusually tense with everything, and his acceptance to UA had obviously hit the rumor mill almost immediately, along with Kacchan’s failure to get in. All of the teachers seemed weird today, not just Aoki-sensei.
“DEKU!”
…Shit. Kacchan did not sound happy.
Izuku adjusts his grip on his bag, and wonders if it’s worth the possible broken legs to use One For All and flee. Then again, Kacchan knows where he lives, but he’s also never chased him all the way home…
None of Kacchan’s normal cronies are with him, with everyone seeming to instead ignore him. A person Izuku thinks is one of the lower years’ homeroom teachers is looking over at them with a frown on his face, but so far no other reaction. Just the frown.
“Hi Kacchan,” Izuku says, tensing up.
He ignores the next words from Kacchan, the too familiar spewed vitriol, only with additions of ranting about how Izuku couldn't have destroyed as many robots as he had. Instead he watches Kacchan’s hands, which are sparking and shit . Izuku knows exactly what’s going to happen next and…
“Bakugou! Principal’s office, now,” snarls the lower year homeroom teacher, yanking Kacchan away from Izuku. He’d moved closer without either of them noticing. “Midorya, head home, I can tell you weren’t the instigator,” he adds, giving Izuku a nod.
Like that’s ever matter before
.
Izuku still takes the chance and flees home.
Toshinori notices immediately that young Midoriya is unusually quiet (and slightly ruffled). The teen could be considered excitable, and had been ecstatic only the day before over getting into UA (Toshinori had been a bit bemused by the change to the rules involving rescue points, but it made sense. He didn’t even realize that it hadn’t been the rule before. Of course you should need to prove you would do more than just hit a robot!).
“Young Midoriya…?” he trails off, not entirely sure what exactly to ask but… “Is something wrong?”
Midoriya pauses, and then chews on his lower lip, looking contemplative. Then he nods, as if deciding something.
“Did you ask UA to let me in no matter what?” he asks. “Even if I failed the exam?”
What?
“No. I wasn’t even permitted to be part of the deciding committee for all I’ll be teaching heroics next year,” Toshinori says. “While Nedzu is aware that you are my successor, he also wouldn’t lower the exam’s quality, or manipulate matters to let you into the heroics course. If anything, he may have done the opposite, and tried to push you into Gen Ed so as to give time and keep you under cover for longer.”
In truth, he’s grateful Nedzu didn’t do that, the UA principle only commenting on the possibility after Toshinori had finished recording young Midoriya’s acceptance message.
“Why?” Toshinori asks, since the question was one that made him know there had to be a reason behind.
Midoriya chews on his lip further, pauses, and nods his head again, deciding something else.
“There’s been another kid I’ve known since I was a toddler who applied to UA. He had a super strong explosion Quirk, the type that would be a great Quirk for heroics, but he somehow didn’t get in and I wondered…”
Toshinori pauses. Because he had heard of a matter from Nedzu concerning a boy with an explosion Quirk in context of the rescue point rule change, and the principal’s admitted concern over the sheer violence the boy demonstrated during the practical. It had been worrisome enough that Nedzu had passed on the results to the HPSC, something Toshinori has never heard of him doing before. He agreed that it was concerning that the boy hadn’t managed to garner a single rescue point, and that upon close re-watching of his practical, the examinee hadn’t demonstrated any concern or care for his fellow examinees.
“If he didn’t get in, it meant he failed either the practical, the written, or both. UA doesn’t have a requirement that they can only accept one student at a time,” Toshinori says, making a guess as to a concern of young Midoirya’s. “In my year, we had four students from Mereer Junior High.” He thinks the last notable alumni of the Mereer School District was Lady Nagant, though they likely wished to forget she had any connection.
“It just…I guess it just didn’t make any sense to me? He mentioned he blew up a lot of robots, and I know that he’s smart and has good grades, and I know I only got in on rescue points so…” Midoriya sighs.
“I had nothing to do with your acceptance,” Toshinori repeats. “You were accepted on your own merits. If he failed, it was due to failing the entrance exam.”
And based on Nedzu’s concerns involving that unnamed applicant, Toshinori can guess how exactly young Midoriya’s classmate had failed.
After all, there was more to being a hero than power.
“Katsuki, what the hell?!” the hag demands, slamming her hand against the kitchen counter. “You attacked Midoriya in the middle of the schoolyard?! Are you insane ?!”
“It’s never been an issue before!” Katsuki says, realizing just after the words were out of his mouth that was the exact wrong thing to say.
“That doesn’t make fucking it better,” his Mom hisses. “Hell that just makes it fucking worse!” She groans. “Katsuki. You can’t do shit like this. Especially not when you’re going to be at Aldera High School next year, and needing to be in the school district’s good books so you can get into a post-high school program for heroics. If your record is shitty, no program is going to accept you unless it’s a rip off.”
Katsuki glares at the floor, clenching his hands. Transferring into a heroics high school is virtually impossible, and if you fail to pass an entrance exam your only option is to hope to get into a post-high school certification program, most of which are garbage and churn out bottom-tier heroes who are barely trusted to watch crosswalks. The only other way, which is even rarer than a non-shit program, is for a pro-hero to apprentice you, and be allowed to prove yourself that way. Except for very few heroes do it, because it’s tedious and most don’t see a point of offering an apprenticeship to some failure . Apprenticeships generally go to family members, family friends, or someone who’s done something remarkable and caught someone’s attention.
Not kids who failed to get into a regular hero program.
"You are going to leave Midoriya alone for the rest of the year, and continue to leave him alone after graduation," Dad says. "Don't talk to him unless he says 'hi' first, don't text him, don't email him, don't anything in terms of him. If I hear a repeat of today, or you doing something similar to anyone else, that's it. You're done and we aren't even going to look for post-high school programs. Am I understood? On top of that, you are grounded until the end of April. No going anywhere after school, no hanging out with your friends on the weekend. Just come straight back home."
"Fine." Katsuki scowls, and then stomps up to his room.
Fuck. .
Well at least it gives him an excuse to avoid the extras..
The most frustrating thing is Mitsuki can’t think of a single thing they can do to help Katsuki. He’d ignored her and Masaru about applying to other programs, so sure he’d get into UA’s hero program that he hadn’t come up with a ‘Plan B’ hero program at Ketsubutsu or something. Technically there were two ways of getting a heroics license if you didn’t attend a hero school, but the majority of the post-high school certification programs were garbage, and she and Masaru didn’t have the contacts to make an ‘apprenticeship’ possible. She wasn’t fucking Inko after all, and didn’t have an old connection to Endeavor she could leverage into something…
“What are we supposed to do ?” she demands with a groan, looking almost helplessly at Masaru. “He’s not going to be happy at Aldera, but it’s impossible to transfer into a hero school.” Unless you had like, government sponsorship and Masarau and she had both heard enough rants from drunk Inko about how you stayed the fuck away from the HPSC unless you wanted to go the route of Faust.
“He’s going to have to suck it up,” Masaru says, startlingly unsympathetic. “We told Katsuki he needed to apply to other programs, or to at least apply to Gen Ed as well as Heroics at UA. Instead he didn’t, and now he’s stuck.”
Mitsuki gapes at her husband since that honestly sounded more like something she’d say than him.
“I’m pissed,” he admits, aggressively cleaning his glasses. “It’s fair to guess Aldera was ignoring our requests that they help reign in Katsuki’s ego, and was letting him do whatever he wanted and now it’s backfired , because he became too arrogant and failed at getting into UA which kills any possibility of using him as some sort of outreach alumni,” which makes Mitsuki snort, because her shithead of a son wouldn’t have done that anyway, “so he’s going to be going to Aldera High next year, and we could at best maybe transfer him second year to another, better high school in terms of academics, but we don’t know that for sure. That’ll depend on him being willing to do so, and schools having spots.”
Masaru sighs. “I’m pissed because we missed all of this . If we’d noticed, maybe we could have deflated his ego enough that he’d at least have been willing to have a Plan B if UA didn’t work out, but now…”
“But now he’s up shit’s creek without a paddle, because Katsuki’s only dream has ever been to be a hero, and now we’re gonna have to do shit like keep him from harrying off to some shit like vigilantism and watch him get arrested for attempted murder,” Mitsuki says.
She loves her son, but you can only get away with screeching shit like ‘die’ at your opponents when you’re an infamous villain, or a grumpy hero with a reputation for being a bit of an edgelord. Not when you're, say, a teenage vigilante who’s trying to deal with their heartbreak from failing to achieve their dream.
“We’ll figure something out,” Mitsuki says.
Because they have to.
Katsuki’s avoided looking at any reflective surfaces since he woke up and had to put on the Aldera High uniform. It’s only marginally less terrible looking than the junior high uniform, and he wishes more than anything he was wearing something else,
like UA’s uniform which he’ll never get to wear and it’s not fucking fair,
it’s not fucking fair,
it’s not fucking fair
. He’s supposed to be the best, be at UA, become someone.
Not be just an extra looking in.
He scowls as he stalks towards the high school. It’s close enough that he doesn’t need to take the train
like Deku will to get to UA
. No one else from his block is heading the same way, and he’s kind of glad. He doesn’t want to see anyone else.
He doesn’t want to face anyone’s sneering responses to him failing, being a loser, a fucking useless loudmouth…
Katsuki just focuses on putting one foot in front of the other, and walks into his new reality.
(Izuku grins as he walks into 1-A, flush with excitement that he’s here and that he’s on his way…)