Chapter 4. An Entrance Ticket to the New Theater.
Following the alley incident, Mustafu was buzzing like a disturbed beehive. The press had gone utterly wild: newspaper headlines flashed with frantic questions about the "three-headed unknown threat" and the "teenagers who put pro-heroes to shame." The police and baffled rescue workers tried to gather statements, but the trio of gods, along with Izuku, had simply vanished into the crowd before the smoke could even clear. Shade had merely slipped them all into the darkest corner of the alley, and a second later, they were standing on a quiet street near their home.
Katsuki Bakugo was left sitting on the asphalt, surrounded by reporters. His pride wasn't just wounded—it was smeared in a thin layer across the concrete. He had seen Maila's light swords, which could have incinerated him in an instant. He had seen Shade's spears, radiating pure nothingness. And he finally understood that all those years in kindergarten and Aldera Junior High, those three weren't just "hiding" behind Deku. They were protecting him. Like a higher circle of disciples guarding their main prophet.
The next few months leading up to the UA High entrance exam passed in a strange, almost cozy training routine. Izuku never met All Might on Dagobah Beach. The canon had shattered completely here: the Symbol of Peace, morally crushed by Maila and Grimm's roof speech, never found the courage to approach the Quirkless boy. Toshinori Yagi simply watched the strange group in secret through city surveillance cameras, trying to comprehend what kind of entities the world was now dealing with.
Izuku trained on his own. Or rather, under the strict supervision of his divine escort.
"Your mortal body is far too frail, Izuku," Maila remarked lazily, perched atop an old, rusty truck on that very same trash-strewn Dagobah Beach. She was spinning a small paper airplane in her fingers, which repeatedly burst into pure white flame only to restore itself a moment later. "If you're going to run around among these losers in metal suits, you need a proper frame. Shade, toss him a few more pieces of iron."
Shade, standing nearby as a silent, towering figure, merely flicked his finger. With a subtle movement, his anthracite shadows lifted massive chunks of scrap metal from the sand, neatly stacking them in front of Izuku. To the Shadow Lord, the weight of these earthly objects meant absolutely nothing.
"Our little brother is making significant progress," Grimm added softly. He was sitting on a folded red tent that he had materialized right in the middle of the beach for his own comfort. His crimson eyes followed Izuku with an ironic glint as the boy, shielding his face from the sea wind, dragged a heavy rope behind him. "The most important things in our theater are endurance and posture. When you step onto the UA stage, you must look like someone who leads the crowd, not someone who hides in the corner."
Izuku breathed heavily, wiping sweat from his forehead, but a happy smile played on his lips. He didn't have All Might's Quirk, "One For All." But he had something else—the faith of three higher beings who had decided that this Quirkless boy was worthy of becoming the first in the mortal world.
And finally, the day arrived. The day of the UA High entrance exam.
The massive, majestic gates of Japan's most prestigious hero academy welcomed thousands of applicants. Teenagers from all over the country crowded near the entrance, whispering nervously and repeating the rules to themselves.
Izuku Midoriya walked confidently toward the gates, dressed in his clean gym uniform. His green curls no longer seemed like a sign of weakness—there was a newfound, monolithic confidence in his posture, one he had unconsciously mirrored from Shade.
Walking on his left was Maila. Her tall, statuesque figure caught the eye of absolutely every boy around. Her golden-white ponytail swayed gently, and the top buttons of her uniform were casually undone as usual. The crowd of applicants instinctively parted before her, sensing the heavy, almost royal aura of Light.
Striding on his right was Grimm. His flawless black blazer, crimson eyes, and slight, theatrical smile made the girls around them blush, yet his elegant movements exuded such danger that no one dared to come within two meters of him.
And directly behind Izuku, moving like a massive living shadow, was Shade. His towering height, the deep black hood of his hoodie, and his long arms tucked into his sleeves gave the impression that the green-haired boy was being followed by a literal personal bodyguard from the underworld. The shadows beneath his feet crept lazily across the UA asphalt, as if scouting out new territory.
"Well, kid," Maila cast a quick glance at the grand, H-shaped academy buildings. "So this is your main circus for the extras. Let's see what their metal toys can do in the practical test."
"Please, let's avoid any radical destruction," Izuku whispered softly, offering a nervous smile. "We're just here to take the exam."
"Oh, don't worry, Izuku," Grimm elegantly adjusted his bangs, the first crimson sparks of anticipation flashing in his eyes. "We are going to put on a show that this board of executives will never forget. Our entrance onto the stage must be... flawless."
The written exam at UA High turned out to be nothing more than a tedious warm-up for the quartet. Izuku, whose analytical mind had spent years absorbing information regarding quirk laws, physics, and the geometry of combat engagements, aced the questions like clockwork, barely keeping up with turning the pages of his test booklet.
For Maila and Grimm, who had once ruled entire dimensions and commanded the minds of thousands of subordinate beings, human history, mathematics, and languages felt like trivial child's play. They finished filling out their tests within the first twenty minutes. Afterward, Maila simply leaned back in her chair out of sheer boredom, her amber eyes burning a metaphorical hole through the chalkboard, while Grimm meticulously sketched elegant crimson silhouettes of bats along the margins of his scratch paper. Shade, buried deep inside his permanent dark hood, filled out the forms completely mechanically, holding the pen with his long fingers and leaving behind perfectly crisp, almost printed handwriting.
The UA faculty members watching them through the security cameras could only exchange bewildered glances. These four had scored maximum points without making a single mistake.
Shortly after, all the applicants were gathered in a massive lecture hall with an amphitheater setup for the practical exam briefing. The pro-hero Present Mic bounded onto the stage under the bright spotlight, waving his arms energetically.
"WELCOME TO MY LIVE SHOW, EVERYBODY! EVERYONE SAY HEY!" his voice boomed through the powerful speakers, forcing the teenagers to cover their ears. "TODAY, A TEN-MINUTE COMBAT TEST IN OUR MOCK CITIES AWAITS YOU!"
On the massive screen behind him, diagrams appeared detailing four types of villain bots valued at 1, 2, and 3 points, alongside a gargantuan 0-point gimmick robot.
Izuku carefully examined his examinee card, which read in bold letters: "BATTLE CENTER B."
"Oh, they split us up," Maila remarked quietly, peering over her brother's shoulder. She had been assigned to Battle Center C, Grimm to D, and Shade to E. "Those mortal rats in the UA administration were clearly terrified that if we stayed in one place, not even dust would remain of their fake city."
"A perfectly logical move on their part, dear sister," Grimm whispered smoothly, adjusting his black blazer. An expectant smile played on his lips. "They want to evaluate each of us individually. Well then... that only makes the finale of this act all the more entertaining."
"Excuse me, you there in the back rows!" a stern, loud voice suddenly rang out from the middle of the hall.
A tall boy wearing glasses, with neatly combed hair—Tenya Iida—stood up abruptly and pointed an accusatory finger at the quartet. His movements were sharp and rigid, like a robot's.
"Your constant whispering is distracting the other applicants! If you came here to play games and treat the exam of Japan's most prestigious academy as a joke, then you should leave this hall immediately! It is highly disrespectful to UA!"
Izuku flinched in alarm and began waving his hands frantically, about to apologize, but Maila beat him to it. She slowly turned her head toward Iida, her amber eyes flashing for a brief moment with such cold, regal contempt that the boy in glasses froze instantly, his hand still raised in the air.
"Sit down, you tedious mortal extra, and do not dare raise your voice in our presence," she spoke lazily, yet her words carried a killing weight. For a split second, the air around her seat shimmered with the dry heat of Light. "Your shouting irritates me far more than that loud man on the stage."
Iida gasped in shock and slowly sank back into his seat, feeling a shiver run down his spine. His instincts immediately locked in a crucial realization: these were people it was best not to cross.
"ALRIGHT, LISTENERS! HOP ON YOUR BUSES AND GET GOING!" Present Mic shouted, wrapping up the briefing. "SHOW 'EM WHAT YOU'VE GOT! PLUS ULTRA!"
The four rose from their seats and exchanged glances. Shade silently bumped Izuku's shoulder with his fist, offering his quiet support, Grimm nodded, and Maila merely scoffed, turning toward the exit.
The time for their separate exams had come. Each of them was heading to their own battle center, ready to rewrite the history of UA in their own way.
The massive metal gates of Battle Center B towered over the crowd of examinees like the entrance to an actual war zone. Fourteen-year-old Izuku Midoriya stood in the front lines, vigorously loosening his shoulders. A palpable wave of nervousness hung in the air around him; teenagers were checking their support gear, sparking test sparks from their fingertips, or simply breathing heavily.
Standing slightly apart from the rest was Tenya Iida, strictly monitoring every movement of those present. Not far from him, a sweet girl with short auburn hair—Ochaco Uraraka—was shifting nervously from foot to foot. Izuku recognized her instantly: she was the one who had saved him from taking a nasty spill at the academy entrance by using her Zero Gravity Quirk. The boy wanted to approach her and offer his thanks, but Iida shot him such a warning glare from behind his glasses—clearly remembering Maila's fierce retort during the briefing—that Izuku decided it was best to stay put.
"ALRIGHT, LISTENERS! ON YOUR MARK!" Present Mic's voice boomed from the tower speakers. "THERE ARE NO COUNTDOWNS IN REAL COMBAT! RUN-RUN-RUN!"
The gates began to slowly grind open, but Izuku didn't wait for them to part completely. Years of rigorous training under the supervision of three gods had made his body incredibly fast and his reflexes lightning-sharp. He was the first to slip through the gap, tearing forward down the empty street of the mock city and leaving the crowd of stunned teenagers far behind.
"Hey! He ran without a signal!" someone yelled, but Iida had already activated the engine Quirks in his calves, kicking into high gear to give chase.
Izuku sprinted between the concrete high-rises, his eyes feverishly scanning his surroundings. He didn't possess "One For All," nor did he have any destructive Quirks, but what he did have was flawless strategic thinking and immaculate physical conditioning.
Crash!
A 2-point military drone rolled out from around the corner of a building, moving on caterpillar tracks with a large machine gun replacing its right arm. It locked onto its target instantly.
"Villain sighted! Terminate!" its mechanical voice grated.
Instead of fleeing or panicking, Izuku burst into a sudden sprint. He calculated the rotation trajectory of the robot's turret in a fraction of a second. By the time the drone unleashed its first volley of blank rounds, Izuku had already executed a low slide right beneath its tracks. Grabbing a piece of exposed grounding wire—a design flaw he had noticed in the schematics during Present Mic's presentation—the boy pulled it toward himself with all his might. The robot short-circuited, spewing a cloud of sparks before going completely dead.
"Two points!" Izuku smiled, breathing heavily as he logged the score in his head.
The next eight minutes turned into an engineering nightmare for UA's metal toys. Izuku operated like a professional saboteur. Since he couldn't shatter armor with his bare fists, he weaponized the environment and the machines' own weak spots. He lured 3-point robots beneath falling concrete beams, which he brought down by shorting out exposed high-voltage cables. He rammed the lighter 1-point drones into one another using a heavy iron crowbar he discovered at a "construction site" inside the battle center.
Iida, who was sprinting nearby and shattering robots with powerful engine-boosted kicks, found himself freezing in sheer disbelief. This green-haired boy, without a single visible Quirk, had already amassed around forty-five points simply by outsmarting cold steel with pure logic and speed.
Suddenly, the ground beneath their feet shook with such violence that Izuku could barely keep his balance. A massive shockwave rippled through the dust-choked streets.
From behind a central skyscraper emerged a colossal metallic monstrosity, stretching as high as a nine-story building. It was the gargantuan 0-point gimmick robot. Its massive tracked platform crushed the asphalt beneath it, and a single swing of its metallic fist obliterated the corner of a residential building.
"Run for your lives! It's a trap! Get out of here!" the applicants screamed, and the entire battle center turned and fled toward the gates in a panic. Iida, too, spun around, revving his engines to escape.
Izuku was just about to follow suit, knowing full well that this robot yielded zero points, when he suddenly caught a faint, pain-filled groan.
In the middle of the ruined street, directly in the path of the robot's massive tracks, lay Ochaco Uraraka. Her leg was pinned fast beneath a heavy chunk of a concrete wall. She was desperately trying to reach the stone with her fingers to activate her gravity manipulation, but the sheer pain paralyzed her movements. The robot advanced relentlessly, raising its gigantic manipulator arm directly above her.
Maila's words instantly echoed in Izuku's mind: "When you step onto the stage, you must look like someone who leads the crowd." His gaze turned ice-cold and resolute. The fear vanished.
The boy didn't run at the robot. Instead, he bolted toward a massive construction crane left abandoned near an adjacent unfinished building. Within seconds, Izuku lunged into the control cabin. Thanks to his endless fan notebooks, he understood the mechanics of this heavy machinery down to the very last bolt.
"Come on, start up!" he shouted, throwing the levers forward and hotwiring the ignition cables.
The crane's engine roared to life with a powerful rumble. The massive metal boom, carrying a heavy steel hook and a counterweight weighing several tons, swung sharply through the air.
The giant gimmick robot had just lowered its metallic head, preparing to crush the girl, when Izuku slammed the brake release lever flat into the floor.
CRASH-BOOM!
Moving at a terrifying speed like a giant pendulum, the multi-ton steel counterweight smashed squarely into the central processor and sensory "eye" of the 0-pointer. The impact was so devastating that the titan's upper section disintegrated into a spray of scrap metal. The robot's head exploded in a ball of fire, and its colossal frame began to tilt backward with a deafening screech, collapsing in the opposite direction of Uraraka.
Izuku leaped from the crane's cabin, slid rapidly down the steel cable, and was by the girl's side within seconds. Utilizing a reinforced concrete beam he had spotted earlier as a lever, he pried the boulder up in one swift, precise motion, freeing her leg.
"Are you alright? Can you walk?" he asked, extending his hand with the genuine, calm smile his extraordinary family had taught him to maintain.
Uraraka stared at him, her eyes wide with absolute astonishment, as she took his hand.
"You... you just destroyed it... without a Quirk?.."
Tenya Iida, watching the scene unfold from a distance, stood rooted to the spot. His fists clenched out of a mixture of shame and profound respect. 'He calculated the structural integrity of the crane, the weight of the counterweight, and the trajectory of the fall in a matter of seconds... He rushed to save her while I simply ran away... This guy... he's a real hero.'
"TI-I-I-IME'S UP!" Present Mic's voice echoed through the loudspeakers.
Izuku exhaled deeply, wiping the dust from his face. The first act was complete. His exam had ended in triumph, but he knew that in the other three battle centers, his divine family had likely orchestrated something far more catastrophic.
An oppressive, scorching heat dominated Battle Center C. The sun, which until now had been shining peacefully over UA Academy, looked like a glowing white disk here. The examinees trapped inside this mock city could barely move their legs, dripping with sweat and struggling to catch their breath among the concrete boxes.
The cause of this living hell was Maila.
The Goddess of Radiance hadn't even bothered to chase after the robots. She stood dead center in the battle center's main square, hands casually shoved into the pockets of her school skirt, her golden-white ponytail swaying lazily. A blinding, burning halo of pure divine Light slowly unfurled around her head, causing the air to ripple with heavy heatwaves, while the asphalt beneath her sneakers had already turned into a viscous black liquid.
"What pathetic pieces of scrap metal," she muttered out of sheer boredom, not even turning her head toward the rumble of caterpillar tracks.
Emerging simultaneously from three different alleys, three heavy 3-point robots rolled into the square. Their sensors had jammed from the overwhelming luminescence, causing them to open fire erratically with their machine guns.
Maila merely narrowed her amber eyes.
"Vanish."
In a single millisecond, the sky above the battle center tore open with a blinding flash. Materializing straight out of thin air at her command was a fan of dozens of gargantuan, crystal-clear swords of pure Light. With a terrifying whistle that sounded like a clap of thunder, these divine blades rained down upon the square. They pierced right through the armored robots as if they were paper, pinning their metallic remnants firmly to the ground and instantly melting their circuits with white-hot flames.
"Ohhh! What an incredible, glittering radiance! It is almost as dazzling as my Navel Laser!" a delighted, somewhat theatrical voice echoed from somewhere behind her.
Maila slowly turned around. Leaning against the wall of a building, shielding his eyes from her halo with his hand, stood a blonde boy with perfectly styled hair—Yuga Aoyama. He tried to strike his signature pose, but his knees were trembling violently from the primal fear induced by the girl's heavy aura.
Maila measured him with a glance that instantly made Aoyama turn pale, stripping him of all his usual sparkle.
"The toy in your navel is a cheap flashlight, extra. Do not dare compare your filthy Quirk to my true Light."
Suddenly, the building beside them groaned, and the towering 0-point robot rolled out onto the square. Its iron shadow fell over Maila, blotting out the sun for a brief moment. The robot raised its massive fist, preparing to strike.
"You dared to block my light?" Maila's voice turned ice-cold, and the halo around her head exploded, sending a blinding beam straight into the sky.
She didn't even lift her hands. Instead, vertical walls of light blades materialized directly beneath the giant robot's tracks, shooting upward with ferocious speed and slicing the nine-story machine lengthwise like a hot knife through butter. The gimmick robot split into two perfectly even halves, which collapsed outward with a deafening crash, oozing molten metal.
Maila turned around and slowly walked toward the exit, leaving a traumatized Aoyama and the faculty in the monitoring room in a state of mute stupefaction. Her score exceeded well over a hundred combat points, and the entirety of Battle Center C now resembled a scorched wasteland.
Meanwhile, an entirely different, mystical atmosphere dominated Battle Center D. There was no scorching heat here—on the contrary, the sky was blanketed by a crimson, ominous twilight, and the air filled with the faint scent of expensive perfume and smoke.
Grimm had turned his exam into a literal, exquisite one-man theater. He moved fluidly through the streets of the mock city as if dancing across a stage. His flawless black blazer billowed, and a luxurious cloak of crimson Nightmare flame swirled around his shoulders. Every time robots approached him, Grimm would give an elegant snap of his fingers.
"Act One. The curtains rise," he purred with a theatrical smile.
Flocks of tiny, blazing bats erupted from his palms, swarming UA's metallic monsters and exploding in brilliant red fire. This fire didn't merely heat; it seeped beneath the armor, incinerating the robots' internal systems and forcing them to dance in wild convulsions before turning into piles of ash.
Watching this spectacle from behind a shattered wall, caught between fascination and blatant irritation, was a blonde boy—Neito Monoma. He was used to viewing himself as the main star and a refined esthete, but this strange guy in the blazer was outshining him by every conceivable metric.
"What cheap theatrics! What gaudy special effects!" Monoma exclaimed, dramatically pressing a hand to his forehead, though genuine astonishment mirrored in his eyes. "Hey, you! Who permitted..."
However, Monoma wasn't allowed to finish his monologue. A gigantic 0-point robot suddenly burst around the corner, demolishing buildings and interrupting the fiery performance. Its mechanical roar drowned out every sound in the city, causing Neito to fall instantly silent and take a step back.
"Ah, what a rude, uncultured spectator. Interrupting an actor's monologue is the pinnacle of ignorance," Grimm sighed, his smile twisting into a sinister grin.
A massive pillar of crimson fire instantly erupted around the Nightmare King, shaping itself into colossal bat wings that cloaked half the street. Grimm soared into the air, executed a beautiful pirouette, and descended directly onto the head of the gimmick robot. At the mere touch of his foot, the entire nine-story machine was instantly covered in glowing crimson fractures, from which Nightmare flames burst forth. A second later, the giant simply vaporized, leaving behind nothing but a beautiful vortex of red sparks that drifted slowly down to the asphalt.
Grimm touched down on the ground, adjusted his blazer, and smiled his flawless smile once more, thoroughly satisfied that the act's finale had turned out truly spectacular. Behind him, Monoma stood frozen with his mouth wide open, completely forgetting his aristocratic speech.
Battle Center E welcomed the applicants with an absolute, deathly silence. No explosions or roaring engines could be heard here. The entire mock city was submerged in a thick, impenetrable fog made of pure, black pitch.
The entire surface of the asphalt, walls, and roofs within a radius of several hundred meters had turned into a bottomless ocean of the Void. From this black mass, gargantuan anthracite tentacles and sharp spears erupted at every turn. They silently seized the villain bots, dragging them down into complete, absolute Nothingness.
Standing slightly apart, pressed flat against the wall of a building, a bird-headed teenager—Fumikage Tokoyami—froze in complete isolation. His hardened nature and familiarity with the dark utterly failed him in the face of this spectacle.
Yet, it was Tokoyami's sentient Quirk—Dark Shadow—that exhibited the strangest behavior. Usually aggressive and prideful, it had now completely lost its combat drive. It literally cowered against the ground, trembling violently and trying to burrow beneath its host's jacket, burying its head entirely in its claws and whimpering softly in sheer terror.
"Dark Shadow... is afraid?!" Tokoyami whispered in shock, vainly attempting to soothe his usually uncontrollable power. "Who are you? Your shadows... they aren't just an absence of light. This is something far more ancient and terrifying."
Shade, walking slowly past him beneath his deep black hood, didn't even turn his head. His long arms remained tucked inside the sleeves of his hoodie, but the Shadow Lord's mere presence forced Dark Shadow to cringe even tighter, sensing the primordial ruler of all darkness.
At that moment, the final adversary emerged from the depths of the fog—the 0-point titan robot. It attempted to launch an attack, but its massive iron legs instantly bogged down in the puddle of Void that had spilled across the entire street.
Shade stopped. He slowly lifted his head. From the depths of his pitch-black hood, two pale white dots ignited like pupils. The sounds of the world vanished entirely, giving way to the deep, vibrating hum of the Abyss.
The Shadow Lord slightly twitched his long fingers. Directly beneath the gimmick robot, a colossal black maw of pure oblivion ripped open. Enormous anthracite spears as tall as skyscrapers lunged from below, skewering the titan through and through, instantly crushing it into a tiny, compacted lump of scrap metal that sank into the shadow with a faint splash.
Shade tucked his hands back into his sleeves. The fog began to slowly dissipate, restoring normal light to the city, and Present Mic's final buzzer signaling the end of the exam finally echoed through the loudspeakers. Dark Shadow finally exhaled in relief, retreating back into the body of Tokoyami, who still stood as if anchored to the spot by what he had witnessed.
In the UA monitoring room, the faculty sat in utter shock. Principal Nezu slowly lowered his teacup, staring at the screens displaying all four battle centers. The quartet of teenagers hadn't just passed the exam—they had utterly demolished it, setting absolute records in the entire history of the academy.
If you spot any spelling or grammatical errors, I'd be happy if you let me know! My English isn't quite at the level to catch them all myself. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, but now I've got to run! [You hear the sound of a wild horde of tangerines stampeding toward the author]