Returning from lunch, everyone changed into their gym uniforms after Kan-sensei led them to the changing rooms, and then outside.
It was time for a Quirk Apprehension Test, he'd announced. The test was styled after elementary and junior high fitness examinations, but while those were performed without Quirks, these were anything goes.
Well… Almost anything.
"You're not competing against each other, so stop thinking of it that way," Kan-sensei had declared. "When any group of people are measured against each other, there will always be a first and a last. It's inescapable. Instead, you all will be competing against yourselves—against your past best and your future growth. For that reason, any activity to sabotage a classmate's score is strictly prohibited! Am I clear?"
""Yes, sir!"" They had chorused their understanding before they set to work.
It had… Well, it had gone okay for Izuku.
He would have said it went poorly, but without any negative consequences there wasn't really any reason to label it 'bad' in any way.
The rest of the class didn't even know he placed 20th overall, since Kan had given each person a sheet of paper near the end of the day with their ranks in each event plus their overall placement.
Only.
Izuku's paper had a handwritten note next to the his 20th place declaration. See me after class to discuss your training regime for the future.
It left Izuku nervous.
Nothing horrible was probably going to happen, if he was lucky, since it'd just be improved training rather than transferring him out of the Hero Course (oh no. Could they do that? Izuku didn't know, but the thought made his anxiety kick up a notch or two,) or kicking him out of UA entirely, but the thought really made him wish All Might was around to reassure him or go over the training they'd done to date.
"Deku-kun," Ochako called from her desk as the classroom emptied after the last bell of the day, "do you want to walk to the station together?"
"A-Ah… Sorry, Uraraka-san, but Kan-sensei said he wants to talk to me after class."
"I'm happy to wait," she said with a questioning look at their teacher.
"It's mostly regarding a few irregularities with Midoriya-kun's paperwork," Vlad King said from his desk at the front of the room. "I might end up driving him home, depending on how long it takes."
"Okay. Tomorrow then, Deku-kun?"
"S-Sure thing!" Izuku smiled back at her as she waved and left the room.
With only Izuku and the silver-haired man remaining, the student's mood took a nosedive into 'anxious,' after only a few moments.
"Sensei?"
"You're not in any trouble, Midoriya. Mid-terms aren't for more than a month," Kan said as he pulled out a laptop. This was not reassuring. "I want to show you something."
"Yes!" Izuku walked over to see the screen.
Kan started the recording, and Izuku's anxiety ratcheted up again as he watched a video feed of his Entrance Exam Practical, in which he ran around randomly like a chicken with its head cut off up until his confrontation with the 0-point robot.
Izuku could think of several things Kan might want to talk about, (none of which were good,) but he didn't know which one was on the table right now, and that put him on edge.
"S-sensei?" He finally asked.
"Now here-," Kan rewound the video to Izuku punching the robot and the few seconds after as he fell. "-is one of the things that stood out to me. We discussed this several times in judging it, and in the end we needed Recovery Girl to confirm that you'd broken both legs as well, meaning you wouldn't have been able to land safely, which earned Uraraka-kun more points for 'saving' you instead of merely 'helping' you."
"Y-Yes, sensei. Both legs with the jump, and then my arm. I'm not really sure how I would've landed if my legs weren't broken, though," Izuku began mumbling, "I wasn't really thinking about it. There's probably a way to strengthen them, I know All Might can super-jump without issue-,"
"You aren't All Might," Kan interrupted. "Though he will be available as a teacher for your Heroics classes, so you can ask him some questions then. But your Quirk is bound to work differently from his since you're different people-,"
'If Kan-sensei only knew. But I haven't even told Kaa-chan about One For All, I need to keep it secret.'
"-and it's my job as your teacher to help you, Midoriya. I'm going to be having these types of discussions with each of your classmates over the next few days, but I decided to have you go first, since your performance in the fitness test was not what I'd expected of someone with a physical enhancement Quirk. Can you explain to me your Quirk and its abilities in your own words, as you understand them?"
"Like on my Quirk Registry paperwork?" Izuku tried hopefully.
"Yes, along with any small details regarding how you use it, how you've trained it, and why you didn't use it during the tests."
Izuku tensed at the faint note of Danger in Vlad King's voice. 'Crap… No getting out of it, I guess.'
"M-My Quirk is called Superpower, and it…" 'How did All Might describe it to me? "One person cultivates the power, then passes it onto another person, who cultivates it before passing it on again." But I can't reveal this is a Quirk that can be passed on! "The power to transfer power," that has the same problems!' "…Superpower gives me super-strength, but I think there's more to it than that." 'Back around last Christmas, All Might called it…!' "I think it's a stockpile Quirk, Kan-sensei! I'm still figuring some things out, but instead of buffing up my muscles like Satou-san's Quirk, it's like this big wellspring of power I can pull out and focus into my limbs for incredible effect! Except, eheheh… I sort of break my bones when I use it," he admitted, "and crippling myself halfway through the test wasn't going to be productive, so I decided to wait and not bother Recovery Girl-sensei on the first day."
"You've never managed to use your Quirk without breaking your bones?" Vlad King sounded only a little skeptical. "If it's a stockpiling Quirk for kinetic energy… what about when you were younger, before as much energy would've been built up?"
"I…" 'No other way around it,' Izuku resolved. "…didn't have my Quirk when I was younger, Kan-sensei. When I was 4 years old, the doctor told me I was Quirkless, since it hadn't shown up yet." Izuku grit his teeth, braced, and prayed his sensei would focus on him having this Quirk now. It was All Might's Quirk, after all, so it couldn't be considered inferior even if it was in an only barely suitable vessel. "The day of the Entrance Exam was the first time I used it, even if I'd been feeling a bit… odd, up to then. Nothing I could've put my finger on," Izuku hedged, hoping to make the lie more believable, "but I'd been working out a lot every day to get ready for the Entrance Exam, and… Someone I talked to said it was like preparing a vessel? Until my body was ready for the strain Superpower put it on it-,"
"Midoriya, stop for a moment," Kan interrupted.
Izuku's mouth audibly clicked shut. He froze and did not move.
After another moment, Kan sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"Okay, this actually clears up a lot of my questions," the man admitted. "You're not the first Quirkless applicant to the Heroics Course—I'd wager money you weren't even the only one this year, it's pretty common that a few kids try their luck—but developing a Quirk the day of the exam is an insane stroke of fortune.
"Not that fortune is a bad thing, Midoriya," he amended when he saw the fear on his student's face. "Luck is just as much a part of things as skill. We just need to make sure you benefit from the luck of the prepared and forethoughtful in the future, rather than random chance, and that's what training is for.
"So." He sat up to look Izuku straight on. "Your Quirk came in on the day of the entrance exam, and using it broke all the bones in three limbs. Since you aren't wearing any casts and you haven't had access to Recovery Girl, I assume you've not practiced with your Quirk since then, which is why you opted out of using it in today's test."
"Yes, sensei."
"Right." He took another look at Izuku and forced something like a smile onto his face before reaching out a hand to Izuku's shoulder. "On the bright side, Midoriya-kun, I know exactly what it's like to have a Quirk that damages your own body."
Izuku reeled as though struck by lightning. "Oh! That's right, your blood control still requires some wounds from your gauntlets-,"
"And if I use too much, I'll suffer the effects of blood loss despite my natural resistance," Kan finished. "Your Quirk is different from mine, just like it's different from all Might's, but there are similarities as well." He glanced at the time. "Before we trouble Recovery Girl, let's start with the hypotheticals: how did it feel when you used your Quirk?"
"That… Um… Well, I didn't do anything with it," Izuku clarified, "but I activated my Quirk a few times over the break between the exam and starting school here. I just… didn't… smash or punch anything. Can I try again and then describe it?"
"If you think it's safe," Kan-sensei allowed.
"I didn't break anything before," Izuku assured him. He stepped back to a clear spot in the room, took what wasn't quite a martial arts stance, (All Might had focused on physical conditioning, not combat techniques,) and reached inside himself for that feeling.
That feeling.
He hadn't felt it until he heard the girl—'Uraraka-san. Her name is Ochako Uraraka.'—call for help that first time, but once he recovered from pulverizing his own limbs…
Once he'd gone home and hopelessly waited, knowing he hadn't scored a single Villain Point…
He'd finally felt it.
Inactive, One For All sat like a wellspring of florescent light in his solar plexus, glowing without heat or force with only the potential to illuminate.
When Izuku stirred it up a bit, however, like a turtle head poking out of its shell followed by everything else…
First came the heat that sat in only one place. Then the force that spread out around and behind him, like a cloak floating over his skin or All Might's titanic shadow.
Izuku wasn't enhancing anything yet, hadn't forced it into his limbs, but the raw potential remained, simmering, crackling across his skin.
Vlad King could see little sparks of errant green energy play across his student's body. He could feel the shifting air currents being moved as though by some sleeping giant's faint breathing.
It occurred briefly to Vlad King that he couldn't take a punch nearly so well as an Executor-class robot, but he dismissed it as unworthy. This was a kid, not an enemy.
"I-It's usually… in my body. Sleeping beneath my ribcage," Izuku panted as he held the energy at bay without reinforcing anything. "Now it's… spread out, filling the air around me. Have you ever seen… when there's a light on the floor used to make really big shadows on the wall, sensei?"
"I have. You said it's behind you? Around you? On top of you?"
"A-All three." Izuku took a deep, slow breath. Then another. "It's like a blanket draped on top of me, and a shadow spreading out b-behind me, and… no, it's not like light emitting from a lightbulb…"
"Midoriya, you can dismiss your Quirk," Kan informed him.
"R-Right." The pressure faded, leaving Izuku tired, but not exhausted. "If… Have you ever seen dry ice, sensei?"
"I have."
"It's a little like that, maybe? The power is coming from all parts of me just like mist off dry ice, but then it's streaming out around and behind me l-like… like the shadow of what I can become," Izuku compromised instead of likening it to All Might's shadow.
"I see." Truthfully, this had given Sekijiro Kan more questions than answers, but at least it was somewhere to start. "Well," he harrumphed, "this is a solid beginning, Midoriya. I have some ideas from where to go from here. For now, I have three instructions for you."
"Okay, sensei," Izuku agreed.
"First, don't practice with your Quirk at home, only use it here, where I can supervise you, preferably with Recovery Girl on hand. You probably will continue to break a few bones, just like I passed out from blood loss until I learned better control, but pain is a part of being a hero and Recovery Girl should be able to fix you up."
"I-I understand, sir!"
"Second, I'm giving you an extra credit assignment, something I did when I was starting out. Your Quirk seems to have an adverse effect on your body, especially your bones and muscles, so I want you to go home and look up information about the bones and muscles of the human body. You don't need to make an essay, just bring me a list of facts along with ideas about how they may apply to your Quirk. If a fact doesn't have an application, don't worry about it, but be creative; there will be times you can't rely on your body's power as a hero, when you'll need to use your head."
"Yes!" Izuku yelped, nodded wildly.
"That's enough." Izuku froze stock still. "Third, and this is connected to using your head… I ordinarily wouldn't be so easygoing on a student with your issues, but you've already shown me you have promise. During the introductions, you were the only student taking notes on all your classmates, and flipping to a new page with each student suggests you're planning on filling out their bios with more information instead of just using it to remember everyone's names."
Izuku remained very carefully still, as several people had reacted badly to his notebooks in the past, even though it seemed like Kan-sensei was complimenting him.
"Do you have any analysis training, Midoriya?"
"A-Ah, no! No real training, sensei," he admitted, "just stuff from online forums and writing notes after watching recordings of heroes in action."
"Well, it's a good habit to get into," Kan complimented gruffly. "Only recently developing a Quirk that supercharges your body explains why you're in the habit of using your head. Make sure you keep that habit, don't let it go to waste in favor of brute force even once you get your Quirk under control."
"R-Right! Yes sensei," Izuku agreed quickly.
"I don't want to take your notes on your classmates, but if you have other notebooks, I'd be interested in reading your work."
"I only brought my newest one with me, sensei." 'I didn't want to lose pages and pages of work if anyone thought I was creepy for making notes about them.' "I-I have more notebooks at my house?"
Sekijiro Kan smiled faintly and stood. "Well, I did promise you a ride home. Maybe you could loan me a notebook or two, and I could speak with your mother about your training regimen to date. You never placed last in any of the fitness tests today, it's just that other students all had one or two very high scores to make up for their lowest scores, while you didn't. You have a solid base to work from."
"Th-Thank you," Izuku said happily as he followed his teacher into the now-abandoned hallway.
"Speaking of which, Midoriya, I don't believe I've heard exactly what type of workout regime you've been using up to now," the Blood Hero noted as he led Izuku toward where he was parked. "What have you been doing for exercise up to now?"
"W-Well, I had to change up my regime after I finished cleaning Takoba Beach," Izuku admitted, worrying he hadn't been pushing to his full potential since he got through the Entrance Exam, "but usually…"
His recitation of how he usually worked out, along with explaining exactly what he meant by 'cleaning Takoba Beach,' (and holy cow, Sekijiro had read newspaper articles about the junk getting cleaned up in the past year, but he hadn't known his student was responsible for it; the kid's ability to haul around refrigerators and abandoned cars made him really wish the fitness tests included a bit more weightlifting to let the kid show off a bit,) lasted easily until Kan had arrived near Izuku's home, whereupon he spoke briefly with Mrs. Midoriya to introduce himself and accepted two old notebooks to review in his spare time.
Driving home, Sekijiro Kan considered that he'd made pretty good headway with his most obviously problematic student in just one day. Of course, he still needed to speak with the others—Minoru Mineta, Tohru Hagakure, Kyoka Jirou, and then on up the list to the top—but if today was an indicator of things to come, he figured he was in for a pretty good year with these kids.
(Oh, if only he knew...)
