Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The real reason for quirks to exist is known to no one, but people have made many, and I mean many, speculations. Some believe it was because of their chosen god, some believe it was from evolution, while others believe it was a gift from the stars themselves. It’s created many tall tales though the years as quirks became more and more common throughout the world. The most popular is the “Northern Lights Phenomenon” as people call it.

Ages ago, when quirks had only been around for a couple of years, a very popular theory rose; it eventually got publicised in the biggest of newspapers. It detailed the effect of people who were born during the northern lights. It stated that they were more likely to be born with powerful quirks than those who were born on a normal night. It was later disproved, of course, but superstitions stick. 

Not many even know of the fifty year old study disproving it; they just claim it to be an old wives tale and never think about it seriously. But the thought still remains, if only subconsciously. People still believe in it, just as they believe in the effect of knocking on wood to prevent a jinx from coming.

Izuku Midoriya was born the same night the lights electrocuted the sky with their powerful hues. Inko liked to believe that her son would be protected because of them, and Mitsuki Bakugo believed he would be a powerful hero because of them.

Midoriya grew up loved and praised by teachers, sometimes even more than Bakugo, but he could never understand why. Why do people like him for his date of birth? Even though it was confusing, he never thought about it much.

It didn’t really matter to the toddler, at least, not until his quirk assessment test anyway. Midoriya knew there were high expectations. Bakugo has got a powerful quirk, and people believe he’d be great from the moment he was born. He didn’t want to disappoint them all. 

Midoriya remembered being buckled into his seat before the drive to the doctor. He was nervous, but his mom wasn’t. She was always full of confidence regarding him. 

He doesn’t remember his actual time inside the clinic, but he does remember asking his mom about it once. She said that she didn’t know much either, because the doctor pulled him to a different room for the actual test. 

When the doctor returned with Midoriya, he said, “it was a miracle,” and that Midoriya “shouldn’t have had a quirk, but he did!” 

He explained how peculiar this was; he had the toe joint as proof he shouldn’t have a quirk, let alone a powerful one like Fire Attraction. It allows him to control where fire moves towards, or the “attraction of/to fire.”

Midoriya remembers his mom telling him that she was so happy, and that she started crying in joy.

She remembers thinking it was the Northern Stars that saved her son by bestowing him such a powerful quirk: the perfect combination of hers and her long gone husband’s was gifted to their gifted child.

He asked her about it after his final day at Alderia Junior High. His teacher had said something about how Bakugo and him were the only ones to shoot for UA, and that it makes sense because of their unnaturally powerful quirks.

“Unaturally.” That struck a nerve in him, it made him curious for all of a day before he decided he had other things to do than question his genetics– like train with Bakugo to get into UA.

They spent everyday training, pushing their quirks to their limits with preciseness rather than pure power. Don’t get me wrong, they definitely would have tried maxing their quirks out, but a small issue arose.

The fact that it was VERY illegal.

They would have to hide their quirk practice if they wanted to train at all, so Midoriya came up with the idea of using the forest. He chose it for the secludedness, as long as they were quiet, they would be unbothered and unnoticed. 

At first Bakugo was worried about the possibility for fires, but Midoriya concluded it didn't matter— he could just make sure the fire didn't spread. They practiced nearly everyday until the enterence exam.

Midoriya had started zoning out at the end of the exam, he managed to finish with minutes left on the clock, even after checking all his answers! Bakugo knocks him out of his thoughts, physically, as Present Mic walks on the stage to explain the rules of the upcoming practical exam.

Present Mic grabs the microphone and clicks the clicker to switch the screen, changing it from the test timer to the silhouette of the one-pointer, according to the pamphlet they were handed when they gave their tests back. “Alright everybody!! Are you excited?!” He shouts enthusiastically.

No response.

He starts looking a bit nervous, but he quickly changes the subject, “Anyways– lets get on with the instructions for the next test! This here is the one pointer, if you destroy it you get one point. Pretty complex stuff here,”he clicks to the next slide, ”This is the two-pointer, worth two points,” he clicks again, “this is the three pointer, surprisingly, it is worth 3 points! Wowza.”

He clears his throat from the dead audience, before marching on. Y'know what they say: the show must go on! “Now, I’m sure you might be wondering, ‘Where are we doing this?’ Well, you, my potential students, will be taking this exam in UA's practice cities!” 

He clicks the remote to show images of the city. The students actually applaud! A response! He's never been happier. 

“You will all be monitored to see which robots you destroy, and the staff members will choose who gets into the hero course depending on your score and other actions you do while participating. Now, does anyone have any questions?” 

One student confidently raises his hand, he has blue hair and a pair of glasses on. Present Mic points at him and asks, ”What is your question?”

“The pamphlet says that there are four robots, not three. If this is a mistake, then this is very unprofessional for the highest rated hero school in all of Japan. That is all.” The blue haired boy sits down, making the already quiet room even more silent.

“Ah– the zero pointer. It’s just an obstacle for ya’ll to dodge, it doesn’t help nor hurt your score if you defeat it or not, so it's better to just ignore it if you're gunning for points. Any other questions?” he waits a second, ”Alrighty then! If everyone is ready, then head to your practice cities! Your testing pass that let you into the building will have the name of your next location; it will only allow you to go into your set practice field. Remember, this is UA, so go make sure to Go Beyond-” he raises his microphone towards the crowd. 

Midoriya takes a breath and yells “Plus Ultra!” with a few other people– one of them being Bakugo and the others he can’t even see. 

“Well, at least I got someone to speak,” he mumbles to himself, but it’s still heard.

Midoriya chuckles and pulls out his pass– a credit card shaped item with a photo of him and a couple of facts, like height, hair and eye color. It also has an ‘allowed list’ which are the only rooms he’s allowed. He sees the name ‘City Two’ and turns to Bakugo, ‘What city did you get?’

Bakugo reads his pass before saying, ”I got City One. Well, I guess it makes sense…”

“Hm? How would it make sense, it says it’s random on their website,” Midoriya asks.

“It makes sense because that’s probably a lie. I bet the truth is that they sort everyone by power level and put the strongest,” he gestures to himself before continuing," in City One, the weaklings,” he gestures to Midoriya,” in city two, and the ones with absolutely no chance in City Three. Y’know, just to give everyone a fair fight. Skill-based matchmaking and all that,” he stares at Midoriya smugly. 

Midoriya just laughs, ”You’re an asshole.”

“Hah!" he smirks, "Whatever— let's beat up some robots!” Bakugo stands up and heads down the stairs with Midorya walking down the other set of stairs to their respective cities. 

Midoriya looks at the signs reading “City Two,” and he follows the crowd inside. He starts analyzing the students subconsciously– she has a mutation quirk, aquatic by the looks of her closed off gills– he has a mutation, but his quirk is probably an emitter– she has hair made of fire, perfect.

He starts walking over, but he gets stopped by an arm. He looks up to see it belonging to the blue haired boy who asked a question. “Hi, nice to meet you, if you don’t mind, I was heading over to talk to that girl–” Midoriya points at her. 

The blue haired boy makes an incredulous face as he locks eyes with Midoriya, “Are you here just to seduce potential classmates? I had thought a potential student would know better, but now I am uncertain.”

Midoriya flushes at the accusation, “Eh?! No, no– I was trying to talk to her because of her fire hair– my quirk works with fire– that’s all– I swear I wasn’t trying to flirt with anyone here!”

The blue haired boy has red dusting his cheeks, presumably from being corrected, but before he can even respond, the sound system was brought to life by Present Mic, “Hello everyone! Are you ready to face some robots?!” He waits a second, before shouting, “GO!!!”

Midoriya is still in shock from the blue haired boy’s accusation, and he was too busy at being proven wrong to even register the fact they should probably be moving by now. Midoriya realizes he should move just as Present Mic started the sound system once more, “Well, what are you waiting for? A real fight doesn’t have a countdown.”

Everyone started scrambling forwards at the same time, rushing past each other and some even pushed others over! Midoriya was nearly knocked down, but he was luckily knocked into someone who caught him, rather than just rushing ahead like most others were. 

Midoriya looked at him, noticing his spiky teeth and jagged skin, it looks and feels like his quirk makes his skin into a rock-like texture. Midoriya mumbles out a small, “Thank you,” as the other boy smiles at him and rushes ahead.

Midoriya starts rushing ahead as well, and once the bulk of people have left the starting area, he is allowed to breathe and recollect himself a bit. He looks around and notices the city– it looks just like a normal city, with the exception of a bunch of people rushing to kill robots. 

He starts to look for any robots, or any people with fire abilities he can team up with, when he notices  a robot staring at him, about to attack with its scorpion tail. Midoriya rushes to the side out of pure instinct, barely dodging the tail as it slams into the concrete, leaving a small crater behind.

‘Oh my god. That’s terrifying,’ Midoriya thinks before looking around for any weaknesses on the scorpion-bot.

He can see the large number labeling this robot worth 2 points; he also sees the scorpion tail is controlled by a base that is able to spin in a full 360. He also notices the scorpion tail is now out of the concrete and aiming at him again.

‘Oh shit,’ he fears that will be his final thought, but then, he is suddenly wrapped in a large pink thing that he realizes is a tongue when he is pulled to the girl who owns it. She has a frog mutation. “Thanks!” he yells, still in the air.

“No problem,” she makes a ‘kero’ sound before hopping on top of the robot, which has its tail stuck in the ground again.

She kicks it in the large sensor used to target people, shattering the glass. She sets him down as she does so. He can now see her heavy combat boots. He runs off to fight robots— she can easily take care of herself and won't be helpful to him, so it makes sense to split up.

He runs until he sees a robot with the label of 3 shooting its flamethrower at another contestant with green hair. He notices the flamethrower is about to hit her, her arms in a defensive position, but her stance sloppy from the heat. She has cold-typed quirk, telling from the melting frost beneath her feet, so he attracts it back into the robot, giving her the time to run off while he starts fighting the robot.

He is about to just wait until the flamethrower overheats, until his mind creates a beautiful idea. He focusses the fire onto the sensor, melting it slightly, as he jumps on top of it, landing on top of the flamethrower’s base.

It’s times like these he’s glad his quirk came with heat resistance. The metal is super heated from the flamethrower.

He stops controlling the flames, and they shut off because there’s no more targets in sight. Midoriya has made a bunch of assumptions about its controls, and if any of them are right, then he now owns this Three Pointer robot. He reaches his hand in front of the sensor on its left, and the flame thrower points to the left.

Midoriya smiles as he realizes he has just unlocked motion controls on the most powerful villain-bot he's seen. He just needs to make it move, so he can start hunting.

Written by a human in Ellipsus.

Chapter Text

Midorya sees something useful– a metal pole with some gray tape stuck to it, likely from someone’s failed attempt at something similar, and it was thrown away for them not succeding. He hopes he'll have better luck.

His hypothesis is that the robot will see a target, and if it’s far enough away, it will move its legs, if it’s close, it will just shoot fire. With the stick, can dangle a ‘target’ in front of it, and with its bad sensor it might think it's far enough away to work.

He takes off his grey hoodie and places it onto the sensor, keeping it still. He waits a bit, just to make sure, before he jumps off and grabs the pole. He grabs it and jumps back on the robot quickly so another fighter doesn’t destroy it while he’s away. 

The tape is stronger than normal duct tape, that’s good, and it hangs off the pole about 3 feet, which is also good because the pole is five feet long already. Midoriya takes his hoodie back and dangles the tape in front of the sensor. Nothing. 

He hears a voice call out, ”They only detect humanoid shapes, put your hoodie on the tape!”

“Oh! Thanks! I’ll try that!” He yells to her, before pulling the pole back to him. He attaches the hoodie to the end of the tape before trying again. 

It works, the robot starts moving forwards. He quickly pulls it back as he realizes he’s about to walk near a group of students— he fears he's close enough for the robot to notice them, and that’s just a bad idea. He turns back to the girl, noticing her lax posture and comfy clothing before calling out to her, ”Fire-hair girl!” 

“Fire-hair girl? Really?” She laughs, “Call me Hinoka.” 

“I-I’m Midoriya. I was looking for you earlier, I was wondering if you wanna team up for the rest of the exam? My quirk works well with fire quirks,” he explained as he finished leaving the area the group was at, the girl walking with him casually.

She smirks and yells back, “I noticed, I saw you messing with his fire to save that other girl. But, nah, I don’t want points. I’m only here ‘cause my mom wants me in UA– but as I told her when she made me take the recommendation exam, “I’ll fail this one, and I’ll fail the next one!” I wanna go to Ketsubutsu, so I’m not tryin’. Good luck to you though!” 

“You don’t want to go to UA?! Why!?” He yells back.

The machine is really loud, and so are the sounds of other contestants.

“Not my type of school. I don’t want the spotlight– they have to be all civil with their villains, and they deal with way more annoying reporters. Ketsubutsu is so much more chill,” she says.

“Huh. Alright, as long as you’re happy, I guess. I should go get some points, I’m pretty sure over half of the time is gone–” he is cut off by Present Mic over the speakers,”Halfway point, I repeat: halfway point! Five minutes left on the clock people, five minutes!”

“Good luck out there; when we’re both pro’s, I might consider workin’ with you if you can be discreet. You gotta sharp mind. Now, go kick some robot ass!” She yells, and he starts walking down the street. 

He can finally take a better look around, and he notices two robots on the block he’s on with more farther down the street. He’s really glad no one messed with him when he was testing with the robot. He aims the robot to walk towards a Two Pointer, walking until he moves the hoodie closer to the sensor, activating its flamethrower.

“Oh, hell yeah!!” Midoriya shouts as he torches the two pointer, melting its spinning tail base before moving the fire to its joints.

‘Only the Three Pointers must be flame resistant, because it’s melting so quickly, that’ll be useful,’ He continues scorching the bot until it stops moving, the lights showing activation slowly flickering out as it dies.

“Oh my god! This is amazing!” Midoriya hollars, filled with pure glee, as he marches towards another robot. 

It goes by in a blur after that– the robot’s fall beneath him faster and faster as he finds weak points to target. He’s decimated all the One and Two Pointers he could see, running between streets in completely sporadic directions, just following the trail of living robots.

He leaves the Three Pointers he sees for the other competitors; they’re harder to defeat, and he’s already spent half the time getting this robot. Defeating two Two Pointers takes less time than it would to defeat a Three Pointer– they are the strongest for a reason. 

The ground begins to shake, the One Pointer he just fried has it's metal screaming as it scrapes together, the buildings are moving, the sky is falling— wait, that's just another examinee with a possible strength quirk throwing robots in the air.

He looks around for the cause of the rumbling, and he finds a giant robot on the street to his left, completely destroying the top two floors of the building Midoriya is next to as it pulls itself up. Its height towers over the buildings around it, revealing the top half of the number 0 on its side.

This monster is the Zero Pointer Midoriya had forgotten about. 

“One minute left of the clock, people! One minute!” Present Mic’s excited yells are nearly blocked out from the screams of other examinees as they run away. 

Midoriya sees the people running away, most already farther away from the robot than he is. He’s about to start moving his robot forwards, away from the big scary death machine and towards the entrance of the exam, when he hears a sound. He hears a strained voice yell out a quiet, “H-help,” from the other street. 

He peeks through the alleyway to see a girl trapped beneath a rock, directly in the path of the Zero Pointer. He points his robot through the alley, until he’s next to her in the street. Then, he leaves his hoodie on the sensor and hops off to go check on her:

The rock is pinning her leg down, and he sees a pile of vomit to her side. She does not look well at all.

Looking around, he sees no one who could help him raise the boulder as he can’t and she definitely can’t. He looks at her, “It’s gonna be alright, I’ll help you miss!” 

She finally notices him and looks up. “Help me– I can’t lift this boulder… It’s past my weight limit,” her raspy voice is painful just to hear.

“Yeah, I can tell. I can’t lift the boulder either– I could…” he drifts off mid sentence, looking at his robot.

“What are you planning?” she asks, glancing back to the Zero Pointer.

“Gimme a sec, this might not even work, but my idea is to try and burn through the metal. The One and Two pointers were weaker to fire than the Three. My hope is that UA skimped out on the metal for the Big Boi as well, so I’m going to try and burn straight through it,” he explains as he hops on the Three Pointer and steers it around her to face the Zero Pointer.

“Wait– that is NOT A GOOD PLAN–!” she continues, but she’s blocked out by the sound of the larger robot’s tires becoming deafening as it gets closer. 

He pushes the hoodie out while activating his quirk to control the fire. He creates a fire stream so thin, it’s basically a faux laser to use as he tries to melt through the robot. He focuses the flames for five full seconds on one specific area, but it doesn’t even start to warp.

It seems his hypothesis was wrong: they used the best metal on the final obstacle.

Fuck him, I guess.

The Zero Pointer is getting really, really close now. In a panic, he throws the hoodie back on the sensor and jumps off. He starts desperately pushing the rock, trying to make it budge at all.

He continues pushing, the Zero Pointer has now run over his Three Pointer and didn’t even slow down.

The Zero Pointer is a foot away from her, he’s throwing his body weight at the rock, and it starts to budge! 

…But it’s still not enough. He's scared for his life as he sits there watching it approach– getting closer and closer.

That’s when the Zero Pointer

slams into a wall?

He doesn’t move for an entire second, filled with confusion, but the sounds of heavy breathing draw his eyes to a light brown haired boy writhing on the ground. 

He has to be the one who stopped the Zero Pointer. 

“Are you ok–” Midoriya is interrupted by a loud buzzer and Present Mic on the intercom, “Potential students! Your time is up! Everyone who is not injured, you may leave. Everyone who is injured, stay put and Recovery Girl will get to you. Everyone will be mailed their results in the upcoming two weeks, good luck!”

Midoriya runs over to him, “Hey! Do you think you can help once you catch your breath? The rock’s trapping her leg–” The boy starts coughing like crazy for a couple of seconds.

“I’m– hah– ok– just gimme a sec–” he pants out as Midoriya helps him sit up. 

“It’s alright, thanks a lot for saving us both from getting crushed,” Midoriya says.

Midoriya comforts the girl while the boy catches his breath. The boy stands up and looks at Midoriya, “Yeah, don’t mention it. I was just doing what anybody would do. Let’s get that rock off her,” he starts walking over to her with Midoriya. 

“Push on three; one, two, three!” Midoriya yells.

They push the rock off her leg together with a lot more ease than Midoriya predicted, “Woah, you must be super strong, I could barely budge that boulder.”

He scratches the back of his head and chuckles, “Ah, I’ve just been training for a while, that’s all,” he turns to the girl, “Hey, are you ok?”

She looks up at him, “Y-yeah, I should be. I just need a minute– and maybe a doctor.”

“Recovery Girl’s should be here soon, so just rest for a bit,” Midoriya says.

“Y-yeah, I think I’ll just sit here then…”

They continue staring at her for a bit, the girl lays down and waves them off, "I'll be fine… Just need a doctor."

The brown haired boy shrugs and looks at Midoriya and asks, “So, what’s your name then?”

“I’m Midoriya Izuku! Nice to meet you!” he says.

“I’m Tsuburaba Kosei!”

Midoriya pushes post his nerves and stutters out, “Oh– by the way– your quirk is super cool– invisible walls! I’m assuming it has something to do with your breath, ‘cause you were winded afterwards.”

“Haha," he rubs that back of his head nervously, "Thanks, I call my quirk Solid Air. It lets me breathe out walls, although lately it’s been strangely strong, normally I’m not able to do such big walls– now that I think about it, my Air Walls were a lot weaker before this. That’s strange…” He mumbles off.

“It could be stress? A lot of quirks get stronger as a stress response– similar to parents being able to lift cars, even without strength quirks, if their kids are in trouble. You should talk to your parents about it, in case they have similar effects to stress,” Midoriya guessed.

“That makes sense, I’ll talk to him…” he looks off to the side before lifting his head and continuing, ”Changing the subject– How did you control that robo–” Tsuburaba is cut off by the sound of footsteps.

They turn to see Recovery Girl, cane in one hand, medical kit in the other, as she walks towards them.

“Recovery Girl! She needs medical attention– her leg’s been crushed by a boulder!” Tsuburaba calls out and scooches away so that Recovery Girl can get closer to the patient; Midoriya does as well. 

Recovery Girl places her hand on the girl's head and asks, “Hello girlly, what’s your name?”

“I’m Uraraka,” she answers.

“Ok, Uraraka, I’m going to use my quirk to heal you, okay?” 

“Yeah, that’s fine, thank you,” Uraraka says.

Recovery Girl places a kiss on her leg and the injury knits itself back together, “There, there, all better now.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Uraraka stands up and walks away to the entrance like Present Mic instructed earlier. 

Recovery Girl looks to the other two, “Are you injured?”

“Oh, no, we’re ok, thank you though,” Midoriya says.

“Then scram! I got other kids to attend to!” 

Midoriya and Tsuburaba leave UA. 

Written by a human in Ellipsus.