The UA Entrance Exam was, in your considered opinion, a beautifully organized circus of chaos.
You stood among hundreds of other hopefuls in the sprawling testing grounds, a cityscape of concrete canyons and false buildings. The air thrummed with adolescent anxiety, sweat, and the ozone-tang of countless Quirks. You kept your tail wrapped tightly around your waist under your specially modified tracksuit, your horns smoothed to mere bumps by your mother's most potent, persistent illusion. You felt exposed, a secret weapon on a public firing range.
"Remember," Lyra had said this morning, her silver eyes holding yours with an intensity that belied her calm tone. "Control. Not fury. Finesse, not storm. Show them a hero, not a monster. And Ryuu…" She'd touched your cheek, the silver markings on her own hand glowing faintly in sympathy with yours. "No Echo. Not here. Keep that door closed."
You'd nodded. The memory of the Granite Villain incident, of your father's grieving voice in the static, was a cold ember in your gut. You hadn't heard it since, but the fear of it—and the yearning—never left.
Present Mic's booming commentary echoed across the arena. "START!"
The chaos erupted. Robots—One, Two, and Three-Pointers—crawled out of mock buildings. Candidates shouted, charged, unleashed beams of energy, tendrils of tape, explosions.
You took a breath, tasting the electric fear in the air. Control. Finesse.
You didn't launch into the sky. You flowed. Your enhanced speed wasn't superhuman blurs, but the effortless, powerful grace of a predator. You became a blue-and-silver streak through the carnage.
A Two-Pointer lunged. You didn't smash it. You planted a foot, spun, and your tail—still wrapped but solid as steel—swept its legs out from under it. Before it hit the ground, a palm-heel strike, charged with a concentrated, precise burst of kinetic wind pressure, caved in its core. Two Points.
You moved on. A trio of One-Pointers had a girl with a creation Quirk cornered. You didn't roar. You exhaled—a focused Gale Breath that hit like a cannonball, sending them crashing into a wall in a tangled heap of metal. Three Points.
You were efficient, devastating, but oddly quiet. No flashy lightning, no grand displays. You used wind as a scalpel, your strength as a precise tool, your draconic agility to move where others couldn't. You scaled walls with claws you kept sheathed in your gloves, using minute gusts to correct your leaps. You were a ghost in the machine of the exam, amassing points with a calm, terrifying economy.
Then, the ground shook.
The Zero-Pointer. A monolithic robot, a moving skyscraper of doom, rose at the arena's end, its shadow swallowing blocks. Panic renewed, candidates scattering.
Your instinct was to take to the air, to meet it with a storm. You bit it back. Control.
But then you saw her. The nice brown-haired girl from the orientation, the one with the gravity Quirk. She was trapped under rubble, directly in the behemoth's path, her ankle pinned, her face pale with pain and terror.
The other fleeing examinees were a blur. The robot's foot, the size of a bus, began its descent.
Something in you, deeper than rules or fear of exposure, clicked.
You didn't transform. You didn't unleash the full storm. But you stopped holding back.
Your wings didn't erupt, but you jumped with the full power of your draconic legs, a gust of wind amplifying your leap. You landed in a crouch beside the girl, the concrete cracking under your feet.
"It's okay," you said, your voice calmer than you felt. You slid your hands—your claws tearing through the fabric of your gloves now—under the slab of debris. The scales on your forearms gleamed. With a sound of grinding stone, you heaved it aside as if it were styrofoam.
Her eyes went wide, not at your strength, but at the brief, brilliant flash of storm-light in your own eyes.
The shadow engulfed you both. The foot was coming down.
You looked up. Not in fear. In assessment. You brought your hands together, palms facing the colossal metal sole. You didn't summon a hurricane. You created a Pressure Dome.
The air between your hands and the descending foot compressed, solidified, became a near-invisible, concave shield of hyper-dense atmosphere. It wasn't about brute force stopping brute force. It was about distribution, deflection.
The Zero-Pointer's foot slammed down.
The sound was a deafening GONG of stressed metal. Your Pressure Dome bowed but didn't break. The force wasn't stopped; it was spread outwards in a shockwave that rippled through the surrounding streets, shattering windows on mock buildings but creating a safe, stable pocket underneath. The robot staggered, thrown off-balance by the unexpected resistance.
In that moment of its imbalance, you didn't attack it. You turned, swept the stunned girl into your arms— "Hold on!" —and with another powerful, wind-assisted leap, carried her to safety three blocks away, setting her down gently as the giant robot crashed to its knees behind you, deactivating.
The buzzers sounded. Exam over.
You were breathing heavily, your gloves ruined, your illusion strained but holding. The girl stared at you, tears of relief in her eyes. "Thank you… your… your eyes…"
You gave a quick, tight smile, the vertical pupils already receding. "Just a Quirk thing. You're welcome."
You walked away, feeling the stares, the whispers. You hadn't been the flashiest. You hadn't topped the points chart (you'd checked your mental tally: a very solid 47 Villain Points). But you knew, with a certainty that chilled you, that you hadn't been invisible.
---
In UA High's Observation Room, the silence was profound after the playback ended.
On the giant screen, frozen was the image of you, scaled forearms braced, holding up the unimaginable weight of the Zero-Pointer's foot with a dome of air, your eyes glowing with primal light.
"Well," said Present Mic, uncharacteristically quiet. "That's not something you see every day."
Vlad King grunted, arms crossed. "Inhuman strength, atmospheric manipulation, observed morphological changes—scales, claws, implied tail structure under the suit. The file says 'Storm-Attuned Metamorph' Quirk. That's under-selling it. He's a walking disaster zone. Or a secret weapon."
"A secret weapon who stopped to save a fellow examinee without a second thought," Thirteen chimed in softly, their helmet tilted. "His control is exceptional. He used the minimum necessary force for every robot until the end. That final act wasn't destruction; it was perfect, calibrated protection."
"The boy has spirit!" All Might boomed from the screen, his smile present but his eyes analytical. "And incredible power! But such wild, bestial aspects… we must ensure his heart is as stalwart as his hide!"
Aizawa Shota, wrapped in his capture scarf, hadn't taken his eyes off the frozen image. "He was holding back. The entire time." His voice was flat, tired, lethally perceptive. "His movements were efficient, not maximal. He avoided using the most obvious aspects of a 'storm' Quirk—no large-scale lightning, no torrential winds. He used focused kinetic blasts and pressure manipulation. He was trying not to show us what he really is. That level of conscious restraint in a stressful situation… it's either incredibly disciplined or deeply fearful."
Nezu, perched on his chair, steepled his paws. "Arashi, Ryūjin. Age 12. No prior school records. Homeschooled. Mother, Lyra Arashi, listed as a 'private consultant' with a minor light-bending Quirk." He took a sip of tea. "Curious, isn't it? The boy exhibits traits of at least three distinct Quirk classifications: Transformation, Emitter, and Mutant. And the energy signature from that 'Pressure Dome'… Recovery Girl's medical scanners picked up residual readings. They don't match any known Quirk energy matrix. It reads more like… a weather phenomenon given consciousness."
He turned his beady black eyes to the staff. "Then there are the unconfirmed reports from the Musutafu district incident six months ago. A draconic figure saving civilians from the Granite Villain. Descriptions were… vague. Suppressed by the Commission. But the timing is interesting."
Aizawa's gaze sharpened. "You think it was him."
"I think," Nezu said cheerfully, "we have a candidate who is far more than his paperwork suggests. A puzzle from talon to tail. The question is not simply if he passes the exam." He tapped the screen, where your determined, glowing face was frozen. "The question is, do we want to invite a potential storm into our halls? And if we do, how do we ensure it doesn't blow down everything we've built?"
He looked around. "Vlad King? Your thoughts on such a… volatile student?"
Vlad shook his head. "He needs too much specialized attention. My class focuses on control, but this is another level."
Aizawa let out a long, suffering sigh, as if accepting a terrible fate. "Put him in my class."
All eyes turned to him.
"He's holding back out of fear or obligation," Aizawa said. "That makes him a liability and a time bomb. His power is dangerous, to himself and others, if not understood. I'm best equipped to… discourage recklessness. And to find out what he's so afraid of showing us."
Nezu's smile widened. "Splendid! Then it's settled. He passes, with high marks for Rescue Points. Let's say… 60? A nice, round number to secure his placement. We shall welcome young Arashi to Class 1-A."
He looked back at your image, his expression one of boundless curiosity. "I do so look forward to seeing what kind of storm he truly is."
The next morning, a sleek UA hologram envelope was delivered to your apartment. You stared at the "ACCEPTED" stamp glowing above the image of All Might, a maelstrom of relief, terror, and excitement swirling in your gut.
You had passed. You were in.
The door to UA was open. And you were about to walk into the one place in Japan most likely to see through every one of your mother's careful illusions. The first step into the light was also the first step into the lion's—or rather, the dragon's—den.