Chapter 2: The Shock of the Written Exam
The afternoon sun was completely unforgiving. It beamed through the large glass windows of the third-year middle school classroom, creating a stifling, warm greenhouse effect. The air conditioner hummed a weak, struggling tune in the corner, failing miserably to cool the room. At the front of the class, the mathematics teacher, a tall man with a monotone voice, was writing incredibly long, complex algebraic equations on the chalkboard. The rhythmic tapping of his chalk was the only sound competing with the hum of the air conditioner.
Ryo was currently fighting the absolute hardest battle of his entire life. He was losing terribly.
He was sitting near the back row, his elbows planted firmly on his wooden desk, and his hands cupping his cheeks. To the untrained eye, he looked like a student in deep, profound concentration. However, his eyes were completely closed. His mouth was hanging slightly open, and a tiny, glistening drop of drool was forming at the corner of his lips. He was deeply asleep. His breathing was slow and steady, completely undisturbed by the numbers and letters multiplying on the board in front of him.
His brain had simply shut down thirty minutes ago. The moment the teacher had started mixing letters of the alphabet with numbers, Ryo's internal defense mechanism had activated, sending him into a peaceful slumber to protect him from the sheer boredom of the lecture.
Suddenly, a sharp, incredibly loud bell rang throughout the school hallways, signaling the end of the period and the beginning of the afternoon break.
Ryo's eyes snapped open instantly. He sat up completely straight, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. He blinked a few times, looking around the room as his classmates began to stand up and stretch. The complex math problem on the board looked like ancient, undecipherable hieroglyphs to him. He did not care. It was finally time for the afternoon break, which meant it was time for his second favorite activity of the day: eating a massive snack.
He quickly grabbed his bag, pulled out a large, heavily wrapped beef sandwich, and dragged his chair over to his best friend's desk. Kenji was already sitting there, adjusting his glasses. Unlike Ryo, Kenji did not have food on his desk. Instead, he had a thick, incredibly heavy-looking textbook open in front of him. The cover read: Comprehensive High School Entrance Exam Preparations.
"What are you looking at?" Ryo asked, taking a massive bite of his sandwich. He chewed happily, completely oblivious to the serious expression on his friend's face. "The test for this class is not until next week. You are worrying too much, Kenji."
Kenji sighed, slowly turning a page of the massive book. "This is not for our normal classes, Ryo. This is prep material. I am reviewing past exam questions for high school admissions. We only have a few months left before the application deadlines."
Ryo swallowed his food, tilting his head to the side like a confused puppy. "Prep material? Why do you need a book for that? Don't you just go to the school, show them your Quirk, maybe lift something heavy or run really fast, and then they let you in? That is my plan."
Kenji stopped turning the page. He froze completely. He slowly lifted his head, his eyes widening behind his glasses as he stared at his best friend. He looked at Ryo to see if he was joking. Ryo was not joking. Ryo was simply taking another enormous bite of his beef sandwich, looking entirely peaceful.
"Ryo," Kenji said, his voice dropping to a very serious, flat tone. "Please tell me you are joking."
"About what?" Ryo mumbled through a mouthful of bread and meat.
"About the entrance exams," Kenji said, closing the thick book and pushing it toward the center of the desk. "You want to apply to U.A. High School, right? The most prestigious, elite hero academy in the entire country?"
"Yeah," Ryo nodded enthusiastically. "I am going to punch so many robots. I heard they have giant target practices. I am going to show them my Second Gear and run right through the finish line. It is going to be amazing."
Kenji rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling a massive headache forming behind his eyes. "Ryo... U.A. is a high school. An academic institution. They do not just test your Quirk. They test your brain."
Ryo stopped chewing.
"Before you are even allowed to step foot on the training grounds for the practical exam," Kenji explained slowly, making sure every single word landed clearly, "you have to pass a mandatory, highly competitive written exam. It covers advanced mathematics, modern history, national literature, and foreign languages. If you fail the written exam, they reject your application immediately. You do not get to punch a single robot."
The classroom around them seemed to go completely silent. Ryo stared blankly at Kenji. The remaining half of his sandwich slowly slipped from his fingers and landed softly on the desk wrapper. His mind, which usually operated on a very simple track of food, sleep, and physical training, was desperately trying to process this devastating new information.
"A... written exam?" Ryo whispered, his voice trembling slightly.
"Yes," Kenji confirmed, tapping the heavy textbook. "A very difficult one."
"Math?" Ryo asked, his eyes growing wide with genuine horror.
"Lots of math," Kenji nodded.
"Reading long paragraphs?"
"Incredibly long."
Ryo slumped forward, planting his face directly onto the wooden surface of the desk. He let out a long, miserable groan that sounded like a dying whale. The very foundation of his entire life plan had just been shattered into a million pieces. He had spent years training his body, mastering his Quirk, and preparing his muscles for the physical toll of being a hero. He had absolutely neglected his textbooks, assuming that heroes only needed to be strong and fast. The realization that he needed to know algebra to save people was a cruel, unfair twist of fate.
Later that afternoon, the situation went from bad to worse.
School had ended, but Ryo had refused to go home immediately. Instead, he had forced Kenji to stay behind in the empty classroom to help him look at the prep materials. The sun was beginning to set, casting long, orange shadows across the desks.
Ryo was staring intensely at an open history book. He had been staring at the exact same paragraph for twenty solid minutes. He was gripping his pencil so tightly that his knuckles were turning completely white. He was trying, with every single ounce of willpower in his body, to memorize the dates of a historical political treaty.
"Okay," Ryo muttered to himself, his teeth gritted. "The treaty was signed in... in..."
He stared at the numbers. They refused to stay in his brain. The stress was building up rapidly. Ryo was a physical creature. Whenever he faced a massive obstacle, his body naturally responded by preparing for combat. His brain, feeling attacked by the history textbook, sent a panic signal to his heart.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
His heart rate began to climb. Blood rushed through his veins at an accelerated pace.
"Ryo?" Kenji asked, looking up from his own notes.
Ryo did not answer. His face was turning slightly pink. The friction of his blood flow, reacting to his extreme mental distress, was generating internal heat. A faint, hissing sound began to echo in the quiet classroom. Thin wisps of white steam began to slowly rise from the collar of Ryo's school uniform and the top of his messy hair.
"Ryo, your Quirk is leaking," Kenji pointed out calmly, used to his friend's strange bodily reactions. "You are literally overheating from reading."
"I can't do it!" Ryo shouted, slamming the book shut and jumping out of his chair. The sudden movement sent a large puff of steam swirling into the air. "My brain is completely rejecting the information! The numbers are bouncing off my eyes! If I read another paragraph, my head is going to explode!"
"Calm down," Kenji sighed, packing his bag. "You just need a tutor and a proper schedule. We will figure it out. But right now, you need to cool off before you set off the fire alarms."
Ryo nodded rapidly, grabbing his backpack. He needed to move. He needed to feel the wind against his face. He needed to remind himself of what he was actually good at, because right now, he felt completely useless.
Ten minutes later, Ryo was standing in the center of the local public park. The sky had turned a deep, dusky purple, and the park was mostly empty save for a few distant dog walkers. The crisp evening air was exactly what he needed. He dropped his heavy backpack onto the grass, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.
He pushed the thoughts of mathematics and history completely out of his mind. He focused entirely on his body. He felt the firm ground beneath his sneakers. He felt the slight breeze brushing against his skin.
He widened his stance and activated his Quirk properly. He mentally tightened his blood vessels, forcing his heart to pump with explosive force.
Thump! Thump!
His skin instantly flushed a deep, vibrant pinkish-red. Thick, heavy white steam erupted from his body, hissing loudly in the quiet park. The power flooded his muscles, sharp and aggressive. But unlike his clumsy, foolish demeanor in the classroom, his posture here was perfectly balanced.
Without a word, Ryo launched himself forward.
He moved like a phantom. He sprinted toward a large oak tree, his feet barely touching the grass. Just before colliding with the thick trunk, he planted his foot on the bark, ran horizontally up the side of the tree for three steps, and pushed off backward into the air.
He flipped gracefully, spotting a metal jungle gym below him. He did not panic. His mind, useless at remembering dates, was a supercomputer when it came to spatial awareness and combat geometry. He calculated his trajectory, his speed, and the distance in a fraction of a second.
He reached out, catching a metal bar with one hand. The sheer momentum should have ripped his arm out of its socket, but he fluidly swung his body weight around the bar, absorbing the kinetic energy and transferring it into a forward launch. He flew through the air, landing softly on the top of a wooden bench without making a single sound.
He breathed out a cloud of steam, his eyes sharp and focused. When he was moving, when he was using Second Gear, he was a genius. His body instinctively knew how to adapt, how to strike, and how to maneuver. Every chaotic movement was chained together with flawless, terrifying precision. He was a natural-born fighter. If the U.A. entrance exam was purely a physical brawl, he would have undoubtedly taken the absolute highest score.
But it was not. And that harsh reality brought him back down to earth.
He deactivated his Quirk. The steam faded, and his skin returned to its normal color. His shoulders slumped forward in defeat. He picked up his backpack, feeling significantly heavier than before. He could run as fast as the wind, but he could not run away from his own ignorance.
By the time Ryo finally arrived back at his house, the neighborhood was completely dark, illuminated only by the warm glow of streetlamps. He pushed the front door open, pulling his shoes off slowly in the entryway.
"I am home," he called out, his voice lacking its usual loud, booming energy.
He walked into the dining room, expecting to see his mother at the stove and his father reading the evening paper. Instead, he froze in his tracks.
The dining table was entirely cleared of its usual decorative cloth. In the center of the table was a massive platter of roasted chicken, flanked by large bowls of steamed white rice and fresh vegetables. But that was not what caught Ryo's attention. Surrounding the food, forming a terrifying, impenetrable wall, were stacks of textbooks, notebooks, flashcards, and highlighter pens.
His mother and father were sitting on opposite sides of the table, their arms crossed over their chests. They both wore identical, incredibly serious expressions.
"Sit down, Ryo," his father said, pointing to the empty chair facing the mountain of books.
Ryo gulped, slowly walking over and taking his seat. He felt like he was walking into an interrogation room. "What... what is all this?"
His mother leaned forward, placing a thick stack of blank flashcards firmly onto the table. "Your friend Kenji called us on the home phone an hour ago. He informed us of your... alarming discovery regarding the U.A. entrance exams."
Ryo flinched, betraying a look of utter guilt. "Kenji is a traitor."
"Kenji is a good friend who does not want to see you fail," his father corrected him strictly. "You have spent the last three years destroying your shoes running around the city, entirely neglecting your studies. You thought you could just smile and punch your way into the most elite academy in the country."
"I... I am very good at punching," Ryo offered weakly.
"Punching does not solve algebraic equations," his mother sighed, rubbing her temples. "Listen to me, Ryo. We know how much this dream means to you. We know you have the heart of a hero. But a hero must also be smart. You need to be able to read situations, understand laws, and communicate properly."
She reached out and placed a large piece of roasted chicken onto Ryo's plate. "Therefore, as of tonight, this household is entering a state of absolute academic emergency. We have exactly four months until the exam."
His father picked up a red marker, uncapping it with a dramatic click. "I will be tutoring you in mathematics and science every evening after dinner. Your mother will handle literature and history. Kenji has agreed to help you during school breaks. You will not watch television. You will not play video games. You will study."
Ryo looked at the mountain of books. He looked at the chicken. He looked at the determined faces of his parents. The road ahead looked infinitely more terrifying than any villain he could possibly imagine.
But as he looked at his family, he felt a warm, undeniable surge of gratitude in his chest. They were not angry at him. They were rallying behind him. They were willing to spend their free time forcing knowledge into his thick skull because they believed in his dream just as much as he did.
Ryo picked up his fork, a determined, goofy smile slowly returning to his face. "Alright. But if my head explodes and steam ruins the wallpaper, you cannot blame me."
"Eat your chicken, Ryo," his father said, unable to hide a small, fond smile. "We start with fractions in ten minutes."