Thorny Path of a Pro-Hero

What's it like to punch, with bare—or almost bare—hands, two-meter-tall humanoid machines?

Well… it's like hitting a hard but thin piece of particle board that breaks on impact.

That's for the “Light” villains, at least. Seriously, I could dent their “metal” frames without even activating my quirk!

As expected, the drones at the entrance exam were deliberately and significantly weakened—they weren't just harmless; they were little more than punching bags.

But everything is relative.

… Anyway, let's start from the beginning.

To be clear: when I said, “The signal sounded,” it’s just a figure of speech. In reality, there was no signal—there was Midnight. A professional heroine and the sex symbol of U.A.

Yes, lucky me.

Next to the massive entrance gates stood a kind of watchtower, or simply a tower to avoid redundancy, where the curvaceous superheroine with a stripper's image stepped out into the sunlight. She barely said, “Okay, start!”—not too loudly, at that—which caught the attention of some applicants, the male half immediately glued to her like flies to honey.

The heroine, arching even more seductively, started explaining, “What? In a real battle, there’s no countdown, and besides…”

I didn’t hear the rest, having bolted among the first through the giant gates while the boys were drooling and the girls were fuming. Interestingly, while the students were busy ogling and getting outraged, the gates opened without a sound.

Ahead stretched a deserted road, at the end of which two robots lay in “ambush.” I immediately earned two points by pouncing on the poor, lonely, metal losers.

I could swear one of them buzzed, “Oh, mama…”

Changing my running direction sharply, I delivered a right-footed kick to the first one from a spin —a standard middle roundhouse strike, or mawashi-geri chudan in karate terms. Classic, in other words. With the quirk activated, at about sixty to seventy percent of my maximum enhancement.

And…

It became clear I overdid it when the robot literally exploded like a steel piñata full of bolts. I was lucky the explosion was directional, with all the nuts flying out like shrapnel from a shotgun in the opposite direction—and right into… the other robot.

As a result, the second one got pretty mangled and punctured in various places.

Stopping in the middle of a second attack, which was no longer needed, I straightened my shoulders, made sure no one noticed my blunder, and decided to pretend it was all part of the plan.

And this time, deciding not to overdo it, I simply booted the mechanical foe in the metaphorical groin—without using my quirk.

Robot: *crashed*.

Thus, by experimental groin-kicking, I concluded that I had earned only two points, and these opponents were lightweights. Literally—“Light Villains,” one-pointers… Oh, enough puns already!

So, after a couple of seconds, I sprinted on—already looking for bigger game.

For the sake of a fair experiment, I should have found an undamaged, intact robot and tried to beat it without my quirk. But, firstly, I never forgot for a second that we were constantly being watched by dozens of professionals who might start suspecting something was off with my quirk in that case. Secondly, there was no time.

My soul was singing and craving a fight; I was literally thirsting to test the results of my years of training. So I ran—or rather, “hopped” forward on my quirk, like a super-strong saiga, overtaking other applicants in tracksuits—nervously flailing at anything that remotely resembled a robot.

After earning a couple more points—I don't know how many, one or two—I used about twenty to thirty percent of my quirk's power output (I have no idea how All Might and the future Midoriya manage to so accurately gauge the percentage of their strength. Some sort of built-in counter, perhaps?), so the robots didn't crumble like Legos but reliably broke down and looked sad.

No particular combat tactics were required against them—they were really weak and slow, so targeting weak spots like necks or joints was pointless. Sometimes, though, the robots made a dramatic entrance right out of building walls, scattering chunks of concrete around (for fun, I picked one up and, without much effort, crumbled it in my hand without using my quirk—it was sandstone or limestone, something soft), but their attempts at surprise couldn’t compare to Setsuna's pranks, so I remained calm as an elephant.

It was more challenging not to hit the frenzied students around me, who, for the most part, had no idea about combat stances or the tactics of small groups. Some even deliberately sabotaged each other, stealing points. Nobody dared mess with me, though—apparently, my showcase right at the entrance made it clear I was a dangerous guy.

Whenever you join a new group, always slap your di… quirk on the table first thing!

But not everyone was clueless. Early on, I spotted a fair-haired girl on the flank who, upon reaching a crowd of robots, leapt high into the air and ran over them—right over their heads and clumsy limbs. Grace and flexibility were mesmerizing. I would have stared if I had more time.

Or, for instance, right out of the crowd—as I saw out of the corner of my eye when I was standing over a bot caught in “friendly fire”—a girl with actual wings took off! Leathery, spiky ones, like a succubus.

Or, for example… that short guy with gray hair who stood next to me at the gates. Apparently, he had brains—otherwise, I can't explain why he tailed me. Somehow, managing not to lag behind—how exactly, I didn't understand—and keeping right behind me like a shadow, about five meters away, he followed me with some sliding movements, already managing to take down a couple of stragglers. Not mine, though. How he finished them off, I didn't get it either.

I only saw small clouds of some purple mist that quickly dissipated, but what he was doing in there—who knows. The cloud looked pretty dangerous; I didn't want to go in.

And it's no coincidence he wore a fabric mask on his face, right?

Besides, there was no time to look closely. Let him follow and finish off the Transformers; I don't mind. As long as they're not mine. He'll fall behind eventually…

I didn’t notice much difference between the one-point and two-point bots—except that the one-pointers had wheels instead of legs, making them unstable, while the “Medium Villains” had four legs and a tail, so you couldn't knock them over. But they were armored the same (poorly), so I didn't care. I moved forward like a steamroller.

“Ten points.”

Too bad I don’t have a real superpower—then I could tear off that “quasi-scorpion's” tail and use it as a club. Pointless, but how dramatic!

I wasn’t sure exactly how points for defeated villains were calculated, so I followed the Native American wisdom and finished off each of my robots (essentially every one that crossed my path, to be honest. Sorry, competitors), already lying on the ground, with another precise micro-enhanced kick to the head—to shatter it, just in case.

And besides… you shouldn't leave a defeated enemy behind you; you’ll read that in any “How to Be a Successful Dark Lord for Dummies” guide.

“Fourteen points.”

I smashed a few more bots, surged ahead, and looked around.

Rushed forward.

Another robot. It looks different. Larger, on two tracks, with something on its shoulders… whoa, are those missile launchers? Huge claws. Got it—that’s the first “Heavy Villain” I've encountered.

Missiles were flying at me.

Believe me, few things in life get your blood pumping like missiles flying at you.

Accelerating instantly, literally shooting myself forward and flying almost horizontally, parallel to the ground, much lower, under the missiles, I found myself directly beneath the treacherous machine that had declared war on humans. Yes, not all of humanity, but school kids are people too! Even if it doesn’t always seem that way.

Meanwhile, the gray-haired guy trailing me instantly swelled into a thick purple cloud; all the missiles went in there, and, interestingly, I didn’t hear an explosion—just a muffled “thud.” The fog muffles sound?

And I noticed a random girl who accidentally got caught in this cloud almost immediately collapsed. Paralytic gas? Sleep-inducing? Well, it was good I kept my distance, Niren-dono.

I wanted to help her—help both of them, actually—but then the robot finally figured out where I had gone.

An awkward, overly wide swing with a huge claw, more like an excavator bucket. But the bot had reacted—clearly, they are programmed differently. Duck under it. Strike with a left short jab where a living opponent would have a liver. Enhance by about… fifteen percent?

Remember when I talked about “comparison”?

The robot buckled, smoke billowed, but it was still functional and tried to swipe me away with a backhanded swing of its manipulator.

Okay, so the three-pointer is better armored.

But does it matter?

Jumping right onto the bucket, I pushed off again and delivered a solid kick to the bot's chin, enhancing to about thirty percent, then followed up by landing both feet on its body, at the neck joint.

The robot grew sad and gave me three more points.

“That’s seventeen…”

Turning to the injured girl, I saw that the gray-haired skinny guy (seriously, he's skinny, no offense) was completely unharmed—probably dodged, disrupting the targeting with his mist. And was already bringing the girl back to consciousness. Apparently, by waving a cotton ball soaked in ammonia under her nose.

“Well then…,” I shrugged, “the job's done; the moor can go.”

I surveyed the battlefield.

Only a couple of minutes had passed in the exam, but there were almost no intact bots left here, and only occasionally did “scorpions” leap onto the students from rooftops, like in a bad horror movie.

Logically, there must be more of them somewhere else.

This is probably another way to test the applicants—assessing their ability to search and analyze information. The student “sensors” should be able to quickly determine where to go and where to find many “points on legs.”

… But that’s not my path.

First, if you slow down—you lose.

I bolted deeper into the city.

I want to score the maximum points on the exam. I won’t achieve that or get first place if I waste time on something as trivial as climbing a building.

Second, I have excellent spatial orientation.

Focusing, I matched the positions of all markers within my perception radius and clearly envisioned where I was concerning the other markers.

My bag with my things and watch is here, so the changing room is there, and the edge of the wall surrounding the Arena is over here. Got it.

And third, I have a marked friend who is great at finding information and enemy clusters because she can fly.

I figured out where Setsuna was now, matched it with the approximate boundaries of the Training Ground rectangle I was in, and realized that, most likely, the robot cluster wasn’t in the center (too simple, right?) but rather near the walls of this “city model.”

So—that way.

I ran toward the hypothetical “there.”

Passed by a pharmacy, a streetlamp, a tree. No one around …

Interestingly, the Training Ground had several new buildings with neat rows of intact windows—almost as if after a renovation, not a war between students and robots. Here and there were even trees—real, sprawling, green ones.

“Oaks, probably,” I thought.

I'm a complete blockhead in botany, so an oak is all I can recognize. One oak spots another from afar, as they say.

I was bored and irritated. I wanted to get in more fights, but there weren't any.

Dived into an alley.

Came out into a small square. Empty, no one there. The students hadn't reached it; no robots.

Keep going.

Another alley. Turn.

Gaining speed on the straight stretch, now moving in long zigzag jumps, I took a wide turn around the corner (always, always check around the corner before turning there—or your life will take a wrong turn when they break your neck).

Clapped my hands and braced against a wall, extinguishing the remaining momentum with braking impulses from both hands.

Ahead was the exit to a large square. Full of robots, like sardines in a can.

Hmm. I don’t think my attempts to “bypass gathering information” helped much; rather, there are quite a few such points.

Ahead of me, frozen for a moment while planning my next actions, I noticed on other streets, “flowing” into the square, a few more students who had broken ahead. Those who were smarter and, like me, immediately sprinted forward without wasting time, looking for a bigger piece of the pie.

I even recognized two of them.

Apparently, having outrun most of them again, I reached a kind of “premium points bank” that should put the strongest, fastest, and smartest at the top of the ranking. Having such a bonus makes sense, too. Everything in this U.A. makes sense. They’re already getting on my nerves.

Diagonally across from me, a guy in a plaid bandana, slowly retreating into the alley, was doing something unimaginable: moving his hands so fast that even I could barely keep up, he was literally sealing one-point robots into the surrounding walls and the asphalt underfoot. He didn't care what he was fusing with what—when he caught two bots at once, he just fused them together.

Interesting. Some kind of “atomic-level welding”?

But he moves like an amateur; look, he stumbled and almost fell. Given the speed of his hand movements… oh, what a talent wasted in martial arts. Such a shame.

On the opposite side from us, in the “corridor” between two high-rises, cluttered with some boxes, two unfortunate “Heavy” three-point robots were being fervently beaten up by a bouncy, flexible, and clearly superhumanly strong pink—by which I mean brightly, strikingly, neon pink—pretty alien girl with horns and impressive, uh, airbags. Her equally striking suit only emphasized that. And she was moving great—agile with well-placed strikes.

But I doubt many would want to get to know the alien girl better after seeing what happened next: how this girl, from every part of her body—including hair that looked like a tuft of pink cotton candy—oozed a greasy gray substance that dissolved fairly strong third-level robots within seconds.

A few more drones in dissolved form were quietly chilling nearby in the form of grayish mercury puddles.

Well, not really my type… an exotic lady for lovers of pineapples (because they’re acidic!), the tropics, and all sorts of tropical parasites.

Oh, yes, she might also be my potential future classmate.

And she’s not the only one.

The second metaphysical classmate was right a few steps away from me, hiding behind a wall and concentrating on doing something with a pair of the closest robots in the crowd, who hadn’t noticed her yet. A brunette of quite an ordinary appearance, except for the long cords with plugs coming out of her ears.

To be honest, it looked like worms from the ears.

But, surprisingly, it didn’t evoke any revulsion, and the girl herself seemed quite nice to me.

Anyway, these cords, which she controlled as freely as Mashirao did with his tail, were plugged into these two robots, and the future heroine was trying to do something with them… she succeeded in about five seconds, resulting in the speakers on the bots’ faces (and they can talk, remember?) exploding, leaving them headless. Cool! Slow, though. But cool.

What wasn’t cool was that the rest of the robots noticed her because of this, and about twenty simultaneously turned on their wheels toward her and rushed to avenge.

“Not good!” I thought. “You can’t hit girls!”

And shot myself forward.

I flew past the player-girl, who recoiled in fear from the robots… fleetingly managed to see her wide eyes and even smiled back… some hero-lover I am…

And I literally drilled into the crowd, relishing the opportunity to hit almost full force without risking getting a knee in my face or a huge tail with a tassel in return.

Luckily, robots aren’t girls, and hitting them is allowed.

And Setsuna is definitely not a girl! She’s a Battle Comrade! And hitting one like that is even necessary to make them stronger, you see.

By the way, I continued to hit mostly with my legs. Saving my hands.

Why?

Well, don’t believe people who solemnly tell you with honest eyes about “conditioning their bare knuckles right against concrete walls.” Especially starting from childhood, huh. I’m still biologically fifteen years old, after all.

No, with such “conditioning,” the poor “martial arts adept from the cradle” would only cause himself a serious injury, possibly even becoming disabled. When colliding with a hard rough surface, the quite delicate and thin skin on the knuckles, or even the soft tissues of an inexperienced fist, will earn a laceration. When your hands are sticky with blood, and every punch leaves a mark on the wall, you won't get much practice.

And even for an experienced fighter, in most cases, too.

But to hell with the skin—it will harden over time and become tougher with scars, right? Except, how will it toughen up if those “adepts” are pounding away at the wall without pause? The skin won’t have time to heal, for crying out loud. But fine, what's more important here is that the knuckles in a human hand are not some natural bone brass knuckles, as many think.

They're actually quite fragile joints between the two epiphyses of the thin metacarpal bones and the phalanges, also surrounded by a delicate synovial capsule. So the best you can get from mindlessly smashing boards without understanding and preparation is osteoarthritis.

Yes, the phenomenon of “conditioning” hands does exist, and a master karateka, who has spent half his life practicing his art, can indeed break a few boards, or even bricks, with his bare hands without any significant harm to himself. But he learned this for half his life, come on!

... And yes, I fell for that once too and tried it. Admittedly, back in my past life, in the cold, hungry days of student life, I used old socks as makeshift bandages (so I mostly avoided injuries) and pounded on a concrete wall in the rain. Romantic...

So, what's the moral here? Our body, even when enhanced by a quirk factor, is a fragile and complex tool that requires careful and considerate handling.

…Because of this, I aimed my strikes at the robots primarily with my legs, well-protected by thick-soled motorcycle boots, with their hard toes and high tops that also provided good support for the entire ankle joint. Sure, in such footwear, I couldn’t perform grabs or throws, and my mobility was compromised. But, nevertheless, I don't have unlimited access to healing abilities… yet. The U.A. students do.

Later, I’ll get a suit from U.A. based on my sketches and technical “calculations,” if you can call a few blueprints that, and have one less thing to worry about.

About five minutes had passed since the start of the combat test: I have a knack for telling time—not very precisely, but with an error margin of no more than a minute, at a distance and without looking. Did I mention that?

The trick is quite simple: just open the cover and tap the dial of a mechanical clock with hands. Four times—once on the dot where twelve o’clock is to distinguish top from bottom, once on the minute hand, and twice on the hour hand—to differentiate between the hour and minute hands. That’s all! Then just keep them close by.

For instance, right now, they were lying about fifty meters away from me in my bag in the locker room (you can't bring any items to the exam except gadgets that improve quirk control; we were even searched and passed through a metal detector).

Of course, this trick doesn’t even sound simple—like, clocks are tiny, and far away, how could this work? But as I understand it, it's all about my quirk factor—I have a very good sense of space and the position of my markers in that space. So it took me only a month to learn to tell time this way, even approximately, and another six months to get it precise.

… I learned this back in elementary school when I was bored out of my mind, so now I don't even think about telling time.

Since I still had five minutes left, I could only speed up! More broken robots for the god of broken robots!... Hmm… Is there such a god?

“Twenty-five…”

“Twenty-eight…”

“Thirty…”

Another minute of my objective time later, I once again, with amused surprise, spotted the mist guy to my left, attacking in ninja style—emerging from the clouds of his mist, surprising the robots. Fortunately, the gray-haired shinobi wasn’t stalking me—otherwise, I’d have had to explain to him that I’m not that kind of guy and didn’t fixate on Midnight only because of a lack of time. Nevertheless, he was one of the few who made it this far, despite not having a fighter’s build or showing any combat quirk.

Hmm… an interesting ninja.

At least someone from this… flock of sheep is acting with technique and brains, using their potential to the fullest. Me, him, and the acid girl. The rest either don’t think about the consequences or have no plan. Kids, what else can you expect?

Although, to be honest, I doubt this guy will pass— it seems he is severely lacking in brute strength; he can confuse the bots but can't do much to them.

Having smashed about fifteen robots and catching a short break upon reaching the end of the square, I found that at the opposite end of the street, I could see a huge wall.

And behind it, I spotted a giant robot.

A truly giant one. Damn, it's big! Seriously, it’s gigantic!

What would I do if I came across one like that?

Interestingly, I can feel one of my markers in that direction…

I didn’t have time to finish the thought because three cheeky one-point bots tried to run me over on their wheels. I got distracted, dodging attacks from two of them. In the process, I noticed out of the corner of my eye the ever-present gray guy, the mist shinobi, who used me as a distraction and tried to attack the third one. Although, with little success.

As if that wasn’t enough, a two-point bot joined the fray, which very “conveniently” for itself jumped on me from the wall—it must have seen the whole horror show of warlike students from the side and decided to finish this quickly.

As a result, I sent this suicidal bot flying straight into the other robots with a powerful kick, breaking its legs and creating a pile of five points. Bon appétit, Niren!

About to finish off all four and start heading toward the next cluster of robots being pressed by the pink vitamin girl, I cast a final glance toward the wall—and froze.

There was a second giant robot. Another one.

For a moment, I didn’t even understand what caused my reaction.

The second moment… didn’t happen because, before I even realized anything, I was already sprinting there. My body moved on its own again.

Only one word escaped my lips:

“Yui.”

The thing was, the second robot… was growing.

It was growing in size.

Illustrations:

The watchtower from which Present Mic yelled at Midoriya in the original. But if he yelled at Midoriya, that’s a fact, and we know that several other arenas were used, that’s also a fact, it means someone else will be yelling at someone else on another arena.

I chose Midnight :)

The robot about to be DIVIDED by Niren. Ha-ha-ha.

The guy with gray hair :)

The “acid” pink girl.

The brunette with the unusual ears.