The UA gate looked like it could grade you at a glance. I stood there gripping my exam slip so hard it tried to fold into origami and told my legs to stop being noodles.
"Breathe," a familiar voice said. "Preferably air."
"Harry!" I nearly jumped out of my shoes. He slipped into place beside me like he belonged there—satchel across his chest, hair a mess, eyes steady. He didn't look terrified. He looked… ready.
"I—uh—yeah," I said, and realized I'd been muttering hero facts under my breath like a broken radio. "Sorry. You made it."
"We both did," he said. "That was the plan."
We fell in with the tide of examinees and moved under the gate. UA's buildings rose like a promise someone had engineered. Everywhere, kids with confidence poured off them like cologne: sparks fizzed, air frosted, a girl levitated her own backpack just because she could. My stomach did a slow flip.
"You've been training," Harry said—not a question.
"Y-yeah." My throat closed around the rest. I couldn't tell him who with. "Just a lot to think about."
"Thinking's good," he said. "Just don't let it tie your feet together."
We split for the written exam—different letters flashing on different screens—so I only saw him again when the first section break hit. By then, I'd already almost erased the date of the Third Quirk Regulation Accord from my own skull, rescued it at the last second, and muttered my way through a triage problem that made my palms sweat through the paper. He drifted past my row and dropped a folded napkin on my desk like a spy leaving a dead drop.
"You're fine," he said. "Drink water."
"Did you see the liability calculus?" I whispered.
He tilted his head, half-grin. "Numbers are numbers. Paper's not the point. Keep going."
By the time the proctor called time, the whole room exhaled hard enough to shift the air. We drained into the corridors and followed signs toward the auditorium like we were being poured.
Present Mic exploded onto the stage like someone had personified caffeine. "GOOD MORNING, U.A. CANDIDATES! HOW ARE WE FEELING?!" he roared, sunglasses catching the floodlights. I almost levitated out of my seat.
"It's him," I whispered to everything and no one. "I listen to his show every night—"
Harry cupped a hand to his ear. "What?"
I tried not to laugh and failed. Present Mic clapped his hands and the screen behind him flashed stylized robots.
"LET'S TALK PRACTICALS!" he boomed. "YOU'LL EACH ENTER A MOCK CITY ARENA! YOUR TARGETS: VILLAIN ROBOTS WORTH ONE, TWO, OR THREE POINTS! CRUSH 'EM, RACK 'EM, DON'T GET FLATTENED! EASY!"
Pens clicked all over the room. Mine included. He broke down heights, relative speed, vulnerable joints. My hand flew. Harry watched like he was already editing a blueprint in his head.
A chair scraped. A boy stood up so straight the air saluted. "Excuse me," he said crisply. "Iida Tenya, Soumei Junior High. Sir, your pamphlet lists four villain types, but only three have been explained. This discrepancy is unacceptable."
My pamphlet betrayed me by having, in fact, four silhouettes on it. I stared at it like it had grown teeth.
Harry leaned toward me. "If you turned that guy sideways you could use him as a ruler," he murmured.
I covered my mouth to strangle a laugh.
Present Mic pointed finger-guns. "GOOD EYE! THE FOURTH IS A ZERO-POINTER! BIG! SCARY! WORTH ZIP! IT'S AN OBSTACLE—TREAT IT LIKE ONE!"
A wave of nervous laughter went through the room. Zero points. A trap for glory-chasers. My heart thumped a little steadier; a certain gravelly voice in my head would've approved.
Orientation ended in applause that sounded mostly like people needing to use their hands for something. We spilled into the plaza outside, where proctors had set up boards with field assignments: Battle Center A, B, C, and so on. Examinees clustered around each board like flocks of very determined geese.
I found my name first: Midoriya Izuku — Battle Center B. My stomach did a flip and then a small, relieved flop: a letter, a place, something concrete.
"Where are you?" I asked, craning.
Harry scanned faster than I could. "E," he said. "Different field."
"Oh." It came out smaller than I meant. "Right."
He bumped my shoulder with his, easy. "That just means we both pass in stereo."
"R-right."
"Hey!" a voice snapped, bright as grinding metal. Bakugo shouldered through the crowd like he owned the building, exam slip fluttering in his fist. Sparks popped along his knuckles; people gave him space without meaning to.
He sneered at me first. "Don't trip over your own feet, Deku." His eyes slid to Harry. "And you—stay out of my line. I don't need a freak with paper tricks stealing my points."
I felt my spine try to fold. Harry didn't blink. He didn't reach for his satchel either—didn't even glance at it. He just looked at Bakugo like looking was a skill.
"Good luck, Katsuki," Harry said, tone so mild it squeaked. "You'll need less of it if you stop talking and start walking."
For a second I thought Bakugo would blow. Then he scoffed—loud, ugly—and jabbed a thumb at a different board. "I'm at A. Try not to cry when the zero-pointer steps on you." He stalked off, shouldering a kid hard on his way.
My lungs started working again. "You… didn't even bluff him."
"I'm saving every scroll and every breath for the thing that matters," Harry said. His mouth tilted. "Besides, he bluffs himself."
We didn't have time to say more. Proctors began herding examinees toward their staging gates. The fake city stretched behind each one: tidy streets, gleaming windows, corners that looked like they'd been designed to hide "surprise" with a capital S. Somewhere in another field, metal screamed and went quiet.
We walked until our paths forked—his sign pointing E, mine B. We stopped at the split the way people do at station platforms.
"You've got this," he said. No fanfare. No lecture. Four words that felt heavier than a speech.
"You too," I said, and meant thank you for the napkin, for the jokes, for being calm when I can't be. The words didn't need all that; they carried it anyway.
He tapped the satchel strap once like a pact and peeled off toward his gate.
At Battle Center B, the crowd bunched into a tense knot. Engines hummed somewhere beyond the barrier. Present Mic's voice blasted from the speakers mounted above the gate, joyous and merciless.
"LISTEN UP, EXAMINEES! THERE ARE NO STARTING SIGNALS IN REAL LIFE! SO—WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!"
The gate didn't so much open as evaporate sideways. The pack lurched. A boy with engines in his calves rocketed ahead in a straight, perfect line. A girl with round cheeks stumbled, giggled, and righted herself like gravity was her friend. Someone yelled something about "points," and half the group tried to sprint.
My legs wanted to be jelly again. I made them be springs.
All the training nights pressed into the moment like a hand in the middle of my back. Sand under my shoes. Salt in my lungs. A voice saying again. Another voice, dryer, saying don't let thinking tie your feet together.
"GO, GO, GO!" Present Mic howled.
I went.
The city rushed up to meet me. The first robot rolled into view, joints grinding, points practically stamped across its forehead.
I took a breath like I was about to jump off a roof into the deep end of a pool and sprinted straight at it. The rest of the world blurred.
Everything else—Harry's field, Bakugo's noise—fell away.
And the exam began.