Three Months Before U.A. Acceptance
Location: U.A. High, Off-Limits Evaluation Sector
"Be exceptional, Momo. That's what it means to carry the Yaoyorozu name."
The words echoed inside her skull like an old, immovable chime. It wasn't scolding—it never was. Her parents rarely raised their voices. But that made the pressure worse. The expectation wrapped around her spine, pulling her shoulders taut as she stood at the edge of the enclosed testing field.
This wasn't the standard entrance exam. No zero-point bots. No crowd. No timer displayed in neon.
Only silence.
Principal Nezu sat far above in a glass-enclosed viewing room. She caught the glint of his teacup even at this distance. Watching.
Waiting.
Assessing.
Momo took a single breath and stepped forward.
Phase One: Environment Shift – Urban Nightscape
The moment her foot crossed the line, the entire arena transformed. Metal walls expanded outward, reshaping into a simulated city at night. Broken glass glittered along alleyways. Neon signs flickered half-alive. The air buzzed with the distant sound of electricity and something subtler—a mechanical whirr she didn't trust.
A robotic voice crackled through the PA system:
"Scenario One: Extraction and Escape. You have five minutes to retrieve the target. Surveillance and hostile bots active."
She crouched low, fingers brushing against the thigh-pouch she'd created mid-stride—a portable smoke screen capsule. She wasn't Izuku. She couldn't throw fire or levitate. But she didn't need to. Her strategy came from precision, not flash.
Her body melted into the shadows.
Two minutes in, a surveillance drone swept overhead. Without hesitation, she ducked behind a flickering vending machine, held her breath, and slid a small circular disc underneath the machine. A quiet magnetic ping confirmed the signal jammer attached.
Thirty seconds later, the drone's red eye dimmed and dropped from the sky like a stone.
Momo moved.
She mapped the layout like chess. Each alley became a diagonal line. Each rooftop a knight's leap. She spotted the "target"—a dummy rigged with a heartbeat sensor—strapped inside a crumbling parking structure. Guard bots circled like wolves.
She created a grappling cable and launched it upward silently, ascending with controlled breath and clenched teeth. At the top, she constructed a rubberized EMP grenade—low-range, non-lethal. One deep breath.
Pop.
A burst of static.
The bots short-circuited in synchronized twitches.
She descended, scooped the dummy over her shoulder, and vanished into the night.
By the fourth minute, she'd made it to the extraction zone.
No fanfare. No applause.
Just silence and another shifting floor beneath her boots.
Phase Two: Dense Forest Arena
The world blinked again—this time into a labyrinthine forest. Her boots sank slightly into soil. Cicadas screeched overhead.
"Scenario Two: Track, Survive, Eliminate. Enemy unknown. Use of lethal force forbidden."
A different kind of enemy, then.
Branches snapped somewhere to her left. Too calculated for an animal. She crouched, generating a compact smoke bomb in her hand and placing it gently in her palm like a trust fall.
Suddenly, movement—a humanoid bot in camouflage, rushing her at full speed.
She rolled left, cracked the bomb, and disappeared into the swirl of smoke.
She'd studied Black Widow's old SHIELD files endlessly, thanks to Izuku's annotated notes. Espionage. Stealth. Subtlety. Takedown.
Her next weapon: a collapsible stun baton, created mid-run.
In the haze, she tripped the bot with a sweep to the knees and jabbed the baton between its shoulder blades. It convulsed, twitching once before dropping.
Another approached. Two this time. One on each flank.
Think.
She launched two flash charges—non-lethal, designed to blind. When they hit, she sprinted up the trunk of a thick oak, using momentum to twist mid-air and land behind the blinded unit. One stun to the neck, one to the back.
The test didn't care about flair. It cared about survival. Evasion. Control.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty.
When the challenge finally ended, she stood in the clearing, panting, bruised, and still upright.
Interlude: The Watcher's Perspective (Nezu)
In his quiet room, Principal Nezu sipped his tea.
"Interesting," he murmured.
Behind him, a faculty proctor stepped forward. "She's decisive. Creative. Didn't hesitate."
Nezu's eyes narrowed slightly.
"And," he added, "there's something… subtly irregular. Not in the data. In the energy."
"Magic?" the proctor asked.
"Hard to say." Nezu's smile was pleasant, almost serene. "But I'll be watching her closely."
Phase Three: Strategic Simulation — Rescue & Defense
Momo was thrown without warning into the next environment: an office building on fire. Sirens. Screams. The floor rumbled beneath her.
A voice shouted through the speaker system:
"Three civilians are trapped on floor 14. Hostile unit approaching. Fire spreading. Rescue them and defend until support arrives."
Her mind reeled—this was no longer just about combat. This was about being a hero.
Her boots pounded the stairs. She crafted a rebreather mask, handed two spares to coughing dummy victims, and used her body to support the third.
When the floor caved behind them, she hurled a makeshift rope across the stairwell shaft and secured it to a pipe. The first dummy "civilian" swung across with its simulated weight dragging on her arm. The second—her muscles strained. For the third, she slipped, dangling for a moment over fire, teeth clenched, before pulling herself up with a guttural yell.
Then came the bot—full-sized, armored, programmed to attack anything that moved. A child's cry sounded from behind her. Not a dummy. Real.
Her eyes widened.
Was this part of the exam?
It didn't matter.
She created a barrier shield from carbon polymer—one she'd designed months ago in training with Izuku. It absorbed the blast. Her arm went numb. She didn't care.
She ran, scooped up the child—now confirmed real by the heat of tiny tears on her shoulder—and leapt through a second-floor window she'd reinforced with gelatin mesh.
They hit a crash pad below.
The scenario ended.
Aftermath
Momo sat in the medical bay, panting, hands trembling from adrenaline.
The child—revealed to be a U.A. staff member's relative—had clung to her even after the simulation ended. That part hadn't been in the script.
Principal Nezu entered, clipboard in paw, but no fanfare.
"You passed."
Momo blinked. "Is that all?"
Nezu chuckled. "No. That's the beginning."
He turned to leave, but paused.
"You're very protective, Miss Yaoyorozu. It's rare. And perhaps dangerous. Let's hope it stays pointed in the right direction."
His words chilled her more than they comforted her.
Closing Scene: Rooftop — That Evening
Momo sat alone on the Yaoyorozu estate rooftop, a thermos of herbal tea balanced between her palms. Below, the lights of Mustafu flickered gently.
She thought about the exam. The fire. The child.
She thought about Izuku—his chaos magic, his quiet voice, his runes drawn in alleyways.
She smiled faintly.
They were both preparing for U.A., but in very different ways. Tomorrow, he'd take his own trial.
She had no doubt he'd pass.
She exhaled deeply and looked up at the stars.
I am not perfect, she thought. But I am not alone.