Chapter 5. The Rational Quirk Usage Test
The main observation hall of UA Academy was so silent that the only sound was the low hum of the monitors. The screens, which had just been broadcasting the exam, now showed nothing but the smoking ruins of four different battlegrounds. The final standings were displayed on the central scoreboard, where the top four leaders had pushed all the canon applicants down by a massive margin.
Four photographs. One surname — Midoriya. And absolute triumph.
Eraser Head, Shota Aizawa, was the first to break the silence. He lazily crawled out of his sleeping bag, but his usually tired eyes were now dangerously narrowed, fixed on the very top of the scoreboard:
"I am looking at these records, and I cannot believe my own eyes. This Shade... first place in the overall standings. His Void literally erased a giant zero-pointer into absolute nothingness, making Tokoyami's quirk tremble with sheer terror. This is not just power; it is some kind of primal anomaly. He took the maximum possible villain points for that destruction."
Present Mic chimed in next. In his excitement, he nearly knocked off his signature headphones as he pointed aggressively at the screen just below the leader:
"Oh yeah, listen up! Second place — Grimm! The kid in Battle Center C put on a real theatrical performance! He blew everything up with crimson bats, and at the end, he vaporized a zero-point robot with a casual kick! His show was so spectacular that he almost caught up to first place! A true actor of the year!"
Midnight, Nemuri Kayama, spoke third, thoughtfully pressing a finger to her lips and looking at the third line with a slight smile:
"And in third place, we have the beautiful Myla. The girl in Battle Center B turned those iron monsters to ash with a single glance, as if they were nothing but filthy worms to her. Though, judging by the expression on her face on the cameras, she clearly expected to be first and is going to be very displeased with this result."
Principal Nezu summarized it all as the fourth speaker. He shifted his gaze to the fourth place, proudly occupied by a green-haired teenager, and gave a subtle, enigmatic smile:
"And finally, Izuku Midoriya — fourth place. Officially, he is Quirkless, but look at his tactics. He earned villain points by luring robots into traps he built himself, and added a colossal number of rescue points to that. While others were panicking, this boy was calculating trajectories, pulling people from under the rubble, and passed the exam purely due to his brilliant mind."
Nezu slowly lowered his porcelain teacup, his small black eyes gleaming:
"They have brought far too many changes into our world. A Quirkless tactician and three entities with powers that break all logic... and they all come from the same household. Enroll all four of them into Class 1-A. I am very curious to see how Aizawa handles this supernatural family."
The evening in the Midoriya apartment smelled of soothing chamomile tea and Inko's fresh pastries; she had been worried sick and acting unlike herself for the entire week following the exam. However, the silence in the room was broken not by a knock on the door, but by a single heavy, official envelope bearing the UA seal dropping into the mailbox. Written on it in a bold, sweeping hand was: "To the Midoriya Family."
Once the four of them gathered around the table, Izuku carefully tore open the thick paper. Inside, there was only a single small metallic disc. The moment he placed it in the center of the table, the device clicked softly, emitted a beam of light, and a large hologram unfurled above the tablecloth.
Yet, instead of All Might, whom Izuku had so desperately hoped to see, the serious, tired face of Shota Aizawa appeared before them. He looked through the screen as if he could see each of them in person.
"Greetings," Eraser Head said dryly from the hologram. "Since all four of you are registered at the same address, the academy decided not to waste extra discs. If you are watching this, it means the UA admissions committee has signed your enrollment orders. Though, to be honest, your results gave the entire faculty board quite a scare."
Myla, who sat in her chair with one leg regally crossed over the other, gave a dismissive scoff, but her golden pupils locked with keen interest onto the numbers that began to light up on the hologram beneath the hero's face.
"Let's start from the top of the board," Aizawa continued, and the first name flashed on the screen. "Shade Midoriya. First place in the overall standings. An absolute record for combat points. Your... 'Quirk' raised far too many questions at the ministry, but the result is locked in. You erased a zero-point titan in three seconds. Welcome to Class 1-A."
Shade, sitting nearby in a deep hood, did not even flinch. Only the shadows beneath his chair vibrated with momentary satisfaction, as if nodding in agreement with their Lord.
"Second place — Grimm Midoriya," Aizawa shifted his gaze to the next line. "Your scarlet fire disabled a record amount of machinery in Battle Center D. Your style rating is at the absolute maximum, though the committee considers your theatrical pauses during combat to be unnecessary. You are also in Class 1-A."
Grimm elegantly pressed a hand to his chest and bowed his head slightly toward the hologram, flashing his flawless, aristocratic smile:
"A style rating should always be at the absolute maximum. Ignoramuses."
"And in third place — Myla Midoriya," Aizawa announced.
"What?!" Myla suddenly bolted from her chair, her golden hair flaring with faint indignation. "Third place?! Those tin cans were melting from a single glance of mine! Who dared to put me below these two?!"
Grimm merely let out a quiet, refined chuckle into his fist, which enraged the Goddess of Light even more, while Shade tactfully pretended to be deeply engrossed in studying the patterns on the linoleum.
"Calm down, Myla, just listen!" Izuku tried to pacify her, waving his hands frantically, though he himself was anxiously awaiting his own result.
Meanwhile, Aizawa's hologram indifferently flipped to the last page of the list:
"And closing out our four is Izuku Midoriya. Fourth place. You are the first Quirkless applicant in the history of the academy to make it into the top five. Your robot traps and phenomenal situational analysis during the rescue of other examinees proved that brains sometimes work better than muscles."
Aizawa sighed heavily on screen, looking as if he already regretted the fact that he would have to work with them:
"All four of you are assigned to my Class 1-A. The first-day orientation assembly is canceled; report straight to the sports field in your gym uniforms. Get ready. It is going to be a long year."
The hologram faded, shrinking into a tiny spark, and the disc on the table fell silent once more. Myla was still breathing heavily, slighted by her third place, Grimm was contentedly adjusting his cuffs, Shade remained silent, and Izuku... Izuku looked down at his hands and smiled warmly. The next act of their theater was about to take place within the walls of UA.
"Third place... Some mortal instructors rated my divine presence lower than this tomato and eggplant!" Myla had been pacing the living room for five minutes, and with each of her steps, the parquet floor beneath her feet crackled faintly.
She aggressively poked a well-groomed finger first toward Grimm and then at the silent Shade. Golden sparks of pure, angry Light energy snapped and flared around her clenched fists. Conceding the lead to her own foster brothers was a true blow to the proud goddess's ego.
"You ought to learn humility and respect for true art, my dear carrot sister," Grimm smiled with mock sweetness yet absolute flawlessness. He sat in the armchair, maintaining a perfect posture, as he poured a bit more hot tea into his porcelain cup with an elegant gesture. Scarlet Nightmare sparks danced playfully along the edges of his saucer. "Second place is the position of a true director. I maintained suspense; I commanded the stage during the exam! But first place..." Grimm turned his head slightly toward the windowsill where a dark figure sat frozen, "first place usually goes to those who simply disrupt everyone else's performance and swallow all the props into the void."
Shade, whom Myla had so dramatically dubbed an eggplant, sat on the windowsill with his knees pulled up to his chest, hugging them with his long arms. He merely pulled the deep black hood of his hoodie further down over his face. The shadows around him lazily coiled into a mass in the corner of the room. He was completely indifferent to his sister's vegetable metaphors and insults; the first place in the rankings did not concern him in the slightest, as long as he was left alone.
"Alright, everyone, calm down! Enough mocking colors, we already have one broccoli in this house anyway," Izuku closed his thick notebook with a smile, realizing that none of his tactical plans were needed by this trio. "Aizawa-sensei made it clear in the hologram: there won't be an opening ceremony. We are going straight to the sports field in our uniforms."
The boy nodded toward the table where four identical sets of the blue-and-white UA gym uniform lay in neat stacks, sent along with the disc.
Myla slowly approached the table, lifted the edge of the blue gym jacket with two fingers in utter disdain, and grimaced as if she had been handed a dirty rag.
"What is this hideous, featureless, official piece of cheap cloth?" the Goddess of Light exclaimed. "Do you expect me, the embodiment of pure grandeur, to walk around in the exact same sack as the rest of the mortals in this class? Where is my individual style?"
"For the first time this evening, I must agree with our carrot," Grimm sighed heavily, examining the plain blue track pants with white stripes with deep sorrow. "This cut completely fails to accentuate a noble posture. Not a single hint of a theatrical jacket, no gold embroidery, or at least some scarlet elements. Tasteless. We shall have to endure this nightmare during the fitness tests."
From the windowsill, Shade merely let out a quiet, muffled grunt from beneath his hood. He didn't care about the design, but the Shadow Lord clearly didn't care for the blue color replacing his preferred black.
At that exact second, the living room door creaked open with an effort. Inko walked into the room, humming cheerfully to herself. In her hands, she carried a large plate of fresh, hot pastries.
"Children, I baked some cabbage pirozhki for you!" Inko smiled gently, placing the plate in the center of the table right on top of the gym uniforms. She looked from one to another with concern. "Are you all brooding over the ranking positions again? Myla, sweetheart, third place in such a prestigious academy is simply incredible! I am so proud of you! You are all my most special children."
Grimm sighed heavily, regaining his aristocratic self-control, and elegantly picked up a pastry with two fingers:
"Well, in the face of Mother's care, even the official UA uniform loses its bleakness. Thank you, Mother."
Myla also subdued her temper, snatching up a hot pastry, though her golden eyes still flashed with lingering displeasure. Shade slipped down from the windowsill smoothly, as if woven from mist, approached the table, and silently took the largest pastry, hiding it inside the deep sleeves of his hoodie in a sign of total agreement with Mother.
Izuku smiled warmly, looking at his strange yet deeply cherished family. The next morning, they would all have to pass Aizawa's identical physical trials. And even if they didn't have any clear plan, Izuku knew one thing for certain: once this trio simply started using their teleportation on the ordinary running tracks of the stadium, the UA faculty would deeply regret ever deciding to hold that test.
The morning greeted the majestic UA Academy with a cool, sharp wind that chased small dust particles across the perfectly leveled concrete and green grass of the massive sports grounds. The sun was slowly rising above the horizon, its first rays reflecting brightly off the massive glass structures of the main building, which towered over the teenagers like an unshakeable titan of the modern hero era. However, the atmosphere on the sports field itself was far from the festive or ceremonial one that first-year students usually expect on their very first day.
Standing in the middle of the green field, his feet shoulder-width apart and his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his crumpled black trousers, was Shota Aizawa. His tired, almost lifeless gaze beneath thick, black strands of hair slowly and indifferently scanned the teenagers dressed in the official blue-and-white gym uniforms. The students themselves whispered among each other with trepidation, trembling, and clear anxiety, trying to keep to small groups. Class 1-A was assembled. More precisely, almost fully assembled, as the main culprits of the week-long commotion within the faculty board had not yet appeared on the assembly line.
Katsuki Bakugo stood slightly apart from the rest of the teenagers, loudly popping his knuckles with deep dissatisfaction. His wild, red eyes fiercely scanned the crowd, a furious vein throbbing on his forehead. After the official exam results had arrived at his house, the blonde had nearly incinerated his own bedroom in a fit of rage. Some utterly cursed, loathsome surname "Midoriya" had not merely topped the list; these upstarts had claimed the top FOUR spots in the overall standings, pushing him, an acknowledged genius, down to a humiliating fifth position. Bakugo ground his teeth with such collective malice that the scraping of his enamel could be heard. He was waiting for only one thing: the appearance of that damn family.
Suddenly, the loud hum of conversation died down instantly, and the crowd of future heroes instinctively parted, obeying some strange animal instinct, to clear a wide path. Walking onto the field with an absolutely calm, measured stride came the quartet of teenagers, instantly drawing every single eye present.
Leading the way was Izuku Midoriya. An ordinary-looking, freckled, green-haired boy at first glance, who nevertheless held himself with surprising calmness and confidence, gripping his invariable notebook tightly against his side. But marching right behind his back were three genuine natural disasters, who managed to look as though they had just bought this entire academy along with the land for their own theatrical show, even while wearing plain, identical blue-and-white tracksuits.
Myla walked regally, her chin held high and every step striking the ground with her white sneakers as if they were crystal heels. Her standard UA track jacket was neatly unzipped at the chest, and her long, luxurious golden hair subtly fluttered and sparkled in the sun from the excess of her inner divine Light energy. She looked at her classmates as if they were mere background extras who had accidentally wandered into her throne room.
Beside her, Grimm moved with an elegant, almost weightless, and fluid gait. Even in ordinary sweatpants, he managed to keep his back so perfectly straight, as if he were wearing the most expensive aristocratic tailcoat, while his deep crimson eyes scanned his future rivals with an ironic, somewhat predatory interest. He subtly adjusted the cuffs of his track jacket as if they were silk gloves.
Bringing up the rear was Shade. The deep hood of his gym jacket completely shielded his face from the sunlight, leaving only two white, unblinking pinpricks of pupils visible in the absolute darkness. His long sleeves entirely concealed his hands, and the black shadows beneath his soles shifted, coiled, and crawled slightly faster than those of ordinary people.
At the sight of that familiar black hood, Bakugo literally flinched from a wild, tangled wave of anger and hidden fear. The memories of how Shade's majestic Void had swallowed the entire classroom back at Aldera Junior High still stood before his eyes as a grim reminder. Around the blonde's palms, the first sparks began to snap and explode with a loud, dry crackle, scorching the air with a sulfurous scent.
"Deku..." Katsuki snarled, taking a heavy step forward and fixing a maniacal glare first on the green-haired boy before shifting his fury-filled eyes to his shadow brother. "You... Shade! What the hell are you all even doing at my academy?! Do you think just because you took first place again and pushed me down, I'm gonna be scared of your shadow tricks?! I'll blow you all sky-high right here, you damn upstarts!"
Shade didn't even flinch under his deep hood. His white pupils remained fixed on the blonde with the absolute, cold grandeur of the Abyssal Void, completely ignoring the hysterical teenager's shouting as if a tiny insect were buzzing in front of him. Grimm merely gave a thin, mocking smirk at the corners of his lips and elegantly placed an index finger to his mouth, as if urging the noisy boy not to disrupt the silence in his theater before the play began. Myla, meanwhile, dismissively measured Bakugo from head to toe, mentally filing him under the category of "mortals who scream too much for no reason."
"Cut out this pointless circus," Aizawa's icy voice instantly wiped away all of Bakugo's bravado and rage. The teacher's eyes flared with a bright, blood-red light for a fraction of a second, and the long, gray scarf around his neck subtly rose into the air, unfurling like a live serpent. His Quirk erased Katsuki's explosions in the blink of an eye. "If you came here to make friends, show off your heritage, or settle teenage grudges, you can pack your bags right now. UA Academy is no place for games or family outings. Today, every single one of you without exception will undergo a rigorous physical fitness test and a rational assessment of your powers. And whoever ranks at the absolute bottom of the final standings after all the trials... will be expelled from the academy immediately, with no right to return."
A heavy, terrified gasp rippled through the crowd of students. A round-faced girl with rosy cheeks pressed her hands to her face in fear, a tall boy wearing glasses chopped the air with his hands in indignation, yet none dared to talk back to the instructor. Izuku merely tightened his fists, feeling his heart begin to race. The boy clearly understood: his Quirkless body was under the greatest threat in this class of monsters. But he also felt the absolute, unyielding strength of the three gods standing right behind his back.
Aizawa lowered his gaze to his digital tablet, swiped his finger across the screen, and called forward the first participant for a demonstration throw:
"Bakugo. Step into the circle for the softball throw. Your maximum result in junior high without using your ability was sixty-seven meters. Now, you will go out there and use your Quirk to its full capacity. Show us what fifth place can do."
Breathing heavily and frequently from the insult, and glaring venomously at the silent, unmoving Midoriya quartet, Katsuki savagely ripped the small digital ball from the teacher's hands. His steps were heavy, a dense aura of destruction following him. The blonde confidently stepped into the center of the drawn white circle, rolling his shoulders. He wasn't just planning to throw this miserable piece of rubber, he was planning to detonate it along with the air itself, to visually demonstrate to these four "upstarts" from the top of the board who the true, sole king of this field really was. His palms began to secrete sweat, ready to transform into a massive explosion.
Katsuki Bakugo swung his arm so furiously it felt as though he were channeling his entire hatred for the universe, a malice that had been compounding inside him since the practical exam results were announced. Around his right fist, a deafening, blinding wave of fire and smoke erupted, forcing many students to shield their faces from the sudden blast of scorching air.
"Die-e-e-e!" the blonde roared maniacally. Propelled by the jet-like explosive force, the digital ball screeched high into the sky, leaving a filthy trail of black soot in its wake.
Shota Aizawa didn't even flinch, calmly watching the screen of the measuring device in his hand. When the ball finally touched down at the far end of the training grounds, the device emitted a short beep. The teacher turned the screen toward the class, displaying the crisp numbers.
"Seven hundred and five meters," the underground hero stated indifferently. "This is your actual potential when you don't hold back your abilities. The Hero Academy is designed for you to surpass your limits."
A wave of genuine awe rippled through the crowd of teenagers. The round-faced Ochaco Uraraka marvelled, pressing her palms to her cheeks and gasping quietly in surprise, while the red-haired Eijiro Kirishima energetically pumped his fist, declaring the result "manly as hell." Bakugo, breathing heavily through his nose, lowered his smoking palm with a look of smug satisfaction and returned to the line. His predatory, challenging gaze locked onto the silent trio of gods once more. Yet, neither Myla, Grimm, nor Shade so much as shifted their stances; to them, these human explosions and mere hundreds of meters were not a display of grandeur, but just a noisy child playing with matches.
"Alright, demonstration over," Aizawa shoved the device into his pocket and adjusted his long capture scarf. "Now, onto the real trials. First test: the fifty-meter dash. Everyone to the starting line. Pairs will be assigned randomly. First pair, Shade Midoriya and Grimm Midoriya."
The class went dead silent as dozens of intrigued glances converged on the top two ranks of the scoreboard.
Grimm stepped forward smoothly, rolling his neck on the move while maintaining a flawless, aristocratic posture. Shade simply detached from the wall without a sound, fluidly shifting his body toward the white starting line. His hood still securely concealed his face, and his hands remained shoved deep into the pockets of his blue track jacket. As both teenagers took their marks, the digital timer-robot by the track blinked with green lights, preparing to signal the start.
The rest of the class held their breath. Bakugo clenched his fists so hard his nails dug into his skin; he was going to witness the Quirks of these monsters with his own eyes and find their weak points.
"On your marks... Get set... Go!" the robot's mechanical voice shattered the stadium's silence.
But instead of the sound of rushing footsteps or the whistle of wind from a sprint, something entirely different occurred. Within that exact millisecond, a dense, crimson-scarlet Nightmare mist flared around Grimm, dissolving into the air with a quiet, theatrical rustle. Meanwhile, beneath Shade's feet, an absolute black, anthracite puddle of Void expanded, and his silhouette plummeted into it within a fraction of a second, as if he had never been there at all.
Before the students could even blink, two figures materialized simultaneously at the finish line fifty meters away. Grimm coalesced from the crimson smoke, elegantly brushing a speck of dust from his shoulder, while Shade seamlessly grew out of a black shadow that flickered onto the concrete. Neither was sweating, and their garments remained immaculately clean.
The timer-robot at the finish line blinked its red lights erratically a few times, its internal gears emitting a strange, strained whirring before its speaker let out an utterly shocked electronic beep:
"Result... Zero point zero-zero-zero... Time measurement system error!"
A dead silence descended upon the stadium, so profound that only the gentle breeze rustling the grass could be heard. Dozens of teenagers stood frozen with their mouths agape. Tenya Iida, who possessed incredible speed himself due to the engines in his legs, adjusted his glasses in sheer shock as they nearly slid off his nose. They hadn't run. They had simply ignored the concept of distance entirely.
For the first time all morning, Shota Aizawa pulled his hands completely out of his pockets. His tired eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up as he looked back and forth between the electronic scoreboard and the two Midoriya brothers. As an experienced underground hero, he had witnessed many powerful Quirks, but the instantaneous, perfectly clean displacement of two individuals without any visible preparation or delay was beyond the realm of any rationality.
"Teleportation..." Aizawa rasped beneath his breath, making a swift note on his tablet, though his fingers hovered over the screen for a moment. "Both, zero seconds. Next pair, Myla Midoriya and Katsuki Bakugo."
Hearing his name called alongside the golden-haired girl, Bakugo practically exploded on the spot.
"I'll destroy you, you blonde extra!" he screamed, lunging onto the track. Micro-explosions were already sparking around his feet, ready to give him a frantic starting boost.
Myla approached the starting line slowly, moving with an indescribable, regal grace. She didn't even bother bending into a running stance, remaining perfectly upright in her white sneakers. Her golden eyes dived sideways with profound disdain toward the hysterical blonde next to her.
"Mortal, your noise is beginning to tire my grandeur," the Goddess of Light spat coldly, not even glancing toward the finish line.
"What did you say, you bitch?! Get into position!" Bakugo barked, dropping into a low start.
"Go!" the robot commanded.
Bakugo lunged forward with a wild roar, unleashing a series of powerful, directed explosions behind his back that propelled him down the track at immense speed. He pushed himself to his absolute limits, his face contorting into a savage grin of triumph. He was going to outrun her, he was going to prove...
A flash.
Right at the start, Myla simply dissolved into a beam of pure, blinding golden sunlight. A millisecond later, that beam struck the concrete pad far past the finish line, materializing the proud goddess once more. She stood with her back to the track, fluidly adjusting her luxurious hair, while Bakugo, stamping heavily and blasting the air, finally crossed the line a full four seconds after her.
"Result of the first participant, zero seconds! Result of the second participant, four point thirteen seconds!" the bewildered robot croaked.
Katsuki froze in his tracks, panting heavily as acrid smoke slowly drifted from his palms. He stared at Myla, who hadn't even deigned to look in his direction, and a true, manic frenzy began to boil in his eyes. All three of them. All three monsters that Deku had brought along possessed entirely different, yet equally flawless forms of instantaneous teleportation.
The subsequent tests transformed into a prolonged, elegant mockery of the physical laws of this world and the very essence of the academy's standard evaluations. The random pairing system continued to pit the divine Midoriya trio against various classmates, forcing the entirety of Class 1-A to endure one existential shock after another.
During the second trial, the grip strength test, the measuring devices practically begged for mercy. When it was Myla's turn, she delicately took the electronic handle with two fingers and allowed a bit of concentrated Light to flow into the metal. The device's screen instantly turned white, crackled, and displayed a reading of nine hundred and ninety-nine kilograms before melting right in her palm. Grimm approached the test differently; he didn't even squeeze the apparatus. The youth merely gazed at it with his crimson eyes, permitting a minuscule spark of the Nightmare to seep inside. The grip meter's speaker suddenly emitted a pitiful whine that sounded like a scream of terror, and the needle pinned so deep to the right that it snapped clean in half. Shade engulfed the device entirely within the deep sleeve of his track jacket, where the absolute Void reigned. When he pulled it back out, the sensor registered a flat zero, yet the structure itself had become so brittle and cold from the cosmic frost that it crumbled into fine icy shards right onto the ground.
In the standing long jump, Class 1-A hoped to see at least some real human effort or a proper running start. However, Grimm, finding himself at the starting point next to a stunned Eijiro Kirishima, simply took a light step from a standstill, dissolved into crimson mist, and reappeared at the far end of the sandbox, elegantly brushing dust from his footwear. Myla shifted to the exact same spot in a brilliant flash of gold, forcing Mina Ashido, who was running alongside her, to cover her eyes. And Shade silently sank through his own shadow at the start and emerged on the other side of the grounds, well beyond all the boundary lines, without ever taking his hands out of his jacket pockets. The result for all three was the maximum distance of the training grounds, bounded only by the walls of UA Academy itself. Aizawa could only rub his tired eyes beneath his yellow goggles in silence, making identical entries in his tablet: Measurement limit exceeded.
The remaining exercises, including the shuttle run and repeated side steps, followed the exact same script. The Midoriya deities utterly ignored the concepts of fatigue, time, and physical space. They simply displaced themselves from point A to point B in zero seconds, causing UA's electronic sensor boards to blink frantically and spit out system errors. The entirety of Class 1-A had ceased to even be surprised; the teenagers stood with expressions of deep resignation to fate, watching the top three ranks turn the training session into their own private show.
(Meanwhile, Izuku Midoriya underwent all these previous tests exactly as he did in the original canon, drenched in sweat, squeezing out his last remnants of strength without a Quirk, fighting for every millimeter and every second through sheer human stubbornness and analytical muscle calculation, holding his ground firmly in the rankings to avoid falling to the last spot).
And then, finally, came the last, most important, and most spectacular test, the softball throw. Aizawa announced the start of the trial, and Myla was the first from the quartet to step regally toward the white circle.
She delicately took the digital ball with her fingertips, as if it were a round pearl, and tossed it disdainfully in her palm. Then the girl swung her arm, and a sudden, overpowering, and blinding solar Light flared around her figure, forcing half the class to shield their eyes with their hands to avoid going blind. With a loud, crisp ring resembling the strike of a cathedral bell, Myla launched the ball forward. The projectile transformed into a literal golden comet that scorched the air and soared far beyond the horizon, leaving a sparkling trail of light in its wake. Aizawa's device beeped, displaying an unbelievable distance of several kilometers, but the Goddess of Light merely let out a proud scoff, thoroughly displeased that this wretched human ball had to land at all.
Grimm stepped into the circle right after her. The King of the Nightmare gave a conspiratorial wink to the frozen class and smoothly tossed the ball into the air. Instead of a conventional throw, Grimm sharply snapped his hand forward, unleashing a whole swarm of fire bats forged from crimson flame. With a chorus of screeches, these mystical creatures caught the digital ball mid-flight and carried it forward through the stratosphere at breakneck speed, propelling the projectile further with every single beat of their burning wings. The ball vanished into the clouds, and the teacher's sensor spat out yet another record-breaking three-digit result in kilometers before the bats finally released it to the ground.
At last, the turn arrived for the number one rank on the scoreboard, Shade. The silent Shadow Lord walked slowly, fluidly, as if woven from night mist, into the center of the circle. Aizawa silently handed him the ball. Shade took it with his long fingers, which looked a fraction too pale in the sunlight. He didn't roll his shoulders, take a complex stance, or scream as Bakugo had. He merely tossed the small ball lightly in his palm, and then, with a casual, almost lazy flick of his wrist, lofted it upward, straight into the blue sky. The ball ascended only a few meters... and at that exact moment, the air violently tore open. Out of nothingness emerged a microscopic yet absolute black, circular puddle of pure Void, from which a cosmic, icy chill of the Abyss slowly emanated. The ball simply fell into it and vanished. The puddle snapped shut instantly with a quiet, dull thud, resembling the closing of a heavy iron door.
Shade calmly turned around and walked back, burying his hands into the deep sleeves of his blue track jacket once more. The device in Aizawa's hands began to emit strange, panicked noises. The numbers on the screen fluctuated wildly: 100 meters... 5000 meters... 10 kilometers... UA's electronic sensor was frantically attempting to locate the signal, but the ball was traveling through the absolute, bottomless infinity of the Void, where neither time nor distance existed. Finally, the teacher's mini-computer couldn't withstand the load. The tablet's screen flickered a few times, became covered in solid static lines, let out a loud beep, and died completely, releasing a thin wisp of gray smoke. The distance sensor had simply burned out from the sheer impossibility of calculating infinity.
"Shade Midoriya's result... Infinity. Sensor destroyed," Aizawa rasped tiredly, pulling a backup device from his pocket. "And the last one... Izuku Midoriya."
Bakugo smirked predatorily, eagerly anticipating the humiliating failure of the Quirkless Deku. Izuku himself stepped confidently into the circle, gripping the ball tightly in his hand. His heart was pounding wildly. He knew he didn't possess supernatural forces like his brothers and sister, nor did he have a destructive Quirk like Katsuki's. But he had a team that had no intention of leaving him at the bottom of the scoreboard.
Izuku took a deep breath, spun around, and with all the strength he could muster from his trained muscles, launched the ball forward. The projectile soared along an ordinary, entirely human trajectory. However, at the exact moment the ball reached the highest point of its arc, Myla, standing behind the class, casually adjusted her hair as if by accident.
The next instant, the entire training ground was engulfed in a sudden, overpowering, and blinding flash of pure golden Light. It lasted for literally a fraction of a second, but it was enough to make the entirety of Class 1-A, along with Aizawa, frantically squeeze their eyes shut and shield their faces with their hands.
"Ouch! What the hell?!" Kaminari cried out, rubbing his eyes, which were still swimming with sunspots.
While everyone was completely blinded, Shade reacted instantaneously. His shadow surged rapidly across the ground, caught up with the falling ball mid-air, swallowed it, and within a microsecond, spat it back out much further ahead, right at the two-hundred-and-fifty-meter mark. It all happened so quickly and silently that no one managed to notice a thing.
By the time Aizawa's and the students' vision returned to normal, Izuku's ball was already rolling peacefully through the grass, far beyond the line of ordinary human capabilities.
The backup device in the teacher's hands gave a short beep. Aizawa narrowed his eyes suspiciously, shifting his gaze from Izuku to Myla, who was examining her fingernails with an innocent look, and then to the completely motionless Shade. The hero clearly suspected foul play, but catching the deities red-handed was simply impossible.
"Izuku Midoriya's result, two hundred and fifty meters," Aizawa announced, logging the data.
Class 1-A buzzed with shock regardless. For a Quirkless boy, this was a phenomenal, almost impossible result. Bakugo clenched his fists in a fury, breathing heavily; though Deku hadn't surpassed his personal record with a Quirk, he had absolutely shattered the record without one, leaving the blonde literally boiling with suspicion.
The surname Midoriya firmly secured its place on the board, protecting Izuku from expulsion on his very first day.
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About Izuku: Izuku actually has no idea what his brothers and sister are up to. All his thoughts and words about his divine family and so on are just Myla breaking the fourth wall, rewriting the chapters on the fly, and inserting those words herself.
About Myla's name: Yes, I borrowed the name Myla for the Radiance from another fanfic, specifically Absolute Radiance by The Abyssal Writer. If the author of that fic is reading this, please don't beat me up! I just couldn't come up with anything better.
About UA treating them differently: Regarding the comment saying UA can't just treat them like ordinary heroes—I didn't completely understand what you meant. If you meant that UA should give them harder tests and watch them more closely, then yes, the trials will definitely get much tougher. If you meant something else, please expand on your thought in the comments!