The roar of the faux city was deafening. Not from the sounds of battle, but from the sheer silence of his own panic ringing in his ears.
Kaito Sōma dove behind a crumbling concrete wall as a two-pointer's laser seared the air where his head had been. Dust and acrid smoke filled his lungs.
'Think, Kaito, think!' he chastised himself, pressing his back against the rough surface.
This was the UA Entrance Exam. The chance of a lifetime. And his Quirk was utterly, completely useless.
Adaptive Archive. A powerful-sounding name for an ability that was currently as helpful as a screen door on a submarine.
He needed to touch people, to record their Quirks. The giant robots rampaging through the city didn't have Quirks. They had armor plating and goddamn lasers.
"Yahoo! Take that!" a voice yelled from a nearby street.
A flash of green light, the shriek of tearing metal, and another robot exploded into scrap.
Kaito risked a peek. Another examinee, one with what looked like engines in his legs, blurred past, delivering a devastating kick to a one-pointer.
'They all have such direct, powerful Quirks,' he thought, a familiar, bitter envy curling in his gut. 'And what do I have? An empty archive and a plan that's falling apart before it even began.'
His original strategy was simple: find other examinees, make contact under the guise of teamwork, archive their Quirks, and use them to fight.
But the exam was chaos. Everyone was scattered, fighting their own battles. No one had time for a handshake.
A sudden explosion to his left sent him stumbling. A three-pointer, massive and hulking, had rounded the corner, its mono-eyed gaze scanning for targets. It locked onto him.
'No time. No Quirks. Run.'
He pushed off the wall, legs pumping. The robot's treads ground the asphalt to dust as it gave chase.
He was fast, his training had seen to that, but he wasn't engine-in-his-legs fast.
A targeting laser painted a red dot on his back.
This was it. He was going to fail. He'd—
"Look out!"
A body slammed into him, not with malice, but with force, tackling him into an alleyway just as the laser blast cratered the spot where he'd been standing.
They landed in a heap, Kaito's shoulder taking the brunt of the impact.
"Sorry! Are you okay?" the voice was frantic, apologetic.
Kaito looked up. A girl with messy brown hair and rosy cheeks was scrambling off him, her wide eyes full of concern. She offered a hand to help him up.
This was it. His chance.
He grabbed her hand, his grip firm.
"Thank you," he said, his mind already working, focusing on the point of contact.
His Quirk activated, a faint, almost electric tingle running up his arm.
A new "file" opened in his mind's eye, a slot that had been empty now filling with strange, new genetic data. It felt… weightless.
Zero Gravity.
"Uh, you're welcome!" she said, pulling her hand back after a moment, a little flustered. "We have to keep moving! Good luck!"
And with that, she was gone, leaping out of the alley to rejoin the fray.
Kaito didn't waste a second. He focused on the new data, on the sensation of nullifying mass. He pulled on it.
A familiar, dizzying nausea washed over him, his stomach lurching as if he'd missed a step on a staircase.
The strain of using a foreign Quirk. He gritted his teeth, pushing through it.
He raised his hand and slapped it against the chunk of rubble next to him.
"Release!"
The weight vanished from the concrete chunk.
He grunted, heaving the now-weightless debris over his head with ease just as the three-pointer trundled into the alley entrance, blocking his exit.
"Sorry," Kaito muttered, not to the robot, but to the girl whose power he'd borrowed without asking. "I need this."
With a roar of effort, he spun and hurled the weightless concrete slab like a discus.
The robot, unprepared for a projectile of that size moving at that speed, couldn't evade.
The slab smashed into its main body, not destroying it, but staggering it back, its treads lifting off the ground for a crucial second.
It was off-balance. Vulnerable.
Kaito didn't stop. He sprinted forward, using the alley walls to kick off and gain height.
He landed on the robot's slanted front plate, his boots scrambling for purchase.
His Quirk's timer was ticking down in the back of his mind.
He had minutes, maybe less.