Damn, I'm actually keeping to an update schedule. Let's see how long it lasts this time :')

Enjoy Kento being smart enough to play the system, not knowing how or wanting to ask where the front door is, and wallowing in his own guilt.

•❅────✧❅✦❅✧────❅•

Kento was at sixty-six points when the zero-pointer made its appearance. He'd just hit a two-pointer with a flurry of snow and his chest was heaving from the exertion. Hands resting on his knees, he was taking a moment to catch his breath when the ground began to shake.

The redhead stared in disbelief at the massive dust clouds that rose up from the center of the fake city, swiftly followed by the biggest fucking robot he'd ever seen.

"What the fuck," Kento breathed, a hand on his chest while he tried to steady his breathing. Once again, he was dumbfounded as to how the school had enough funding for that. Granted, they likely only had one for each arena and only a moron would attack one for no reason, but that was still seven robots.

Buildings shook as the metal behemoth began to move forward on treads, steady and unyielding to anything standing in its way. Two giant hands gripped the edges of buildings, causing the concrete to crumble and chunks begin to fall to the street below.

A street that Kento was at the other end of, and that had numerous people in between.

A sudden idea popped into his mind and he was already moving, fixing his boots of snow as he went.

That idea was the concept of rescue heroes. Destroying or immobilizing robots couldn't possibly be the only way to pass the exam. How the hell were the teachers expecting to get any rescue heroes that way?

They couldn't.

But if there was an unwritten part of the exam to appeal to the morality—damn Yūei and their idiotic morals—of the applicants... Kento couldn't not take that chance.

"Duck!" he found himself yelling, voice hoarse from the continued exertion.

He flung out his arms, and, with gritted teeth and a strangled grunt, released an area blast above the lowered heads of all the students running away. The snow collided head-on with every last chunk of falling debris and sent them flying into the giant robot.

It barely dented the metal plates.

Kento's knees buckled, slamming painfully into the street. His hands scraped themselves on the asphalt, while steam rose off his skin in waves from the sheer amount of cold he'd just released into the air.

But no one got their heads bashed in by falling debris like an actual hero would've wanted, so he counted that as a win. Hopefully it would be enough points to put him over the top. If it wasn't... Kento didn't know what he'd do. Everything would be ruined, and the plan would have to be heavily modified.

More than it already was, that is.

"Get up, idiot," Kento hissed to himself under his breath, the shadow of the robot's hand growing closer and larger by the second. His arms shook with the effort and his hands turned white with how tight he was clenching his fists. Sweat rolled down his forehead, not even making it halfway before evaporating to join the constant cloud of steam swirling away from him. "Don't be a fucking failure!"

A muffled yell tore itself from his throat and he shoved himself back to his feet just to dive to the side, barely in time to dodge a blow that shattered the asphalt. Kento stared with wide eyes at the new crater. The spot where he'd been not even a second before, now a hole of broken chunks of street.

That would've killed him.

The thought swirled through his mind like one of his own snowflakes, dancing along even as the metal monster retracted its limb and aimed it at him again. At him, in favor of the crowd fleeing in the direction of the gates to leave the city.

"A minute and a half left!" Nishikawa called over the speakers, not helping in the slightest. If preventing other students from getting injured—or dying—didn't get Kento additional points, then the entire system was full of crap and he was screwed. "This is common sense, but I'll throw it out there anyway: watch out for buildings collapsing. It's happened before, and history repeats itself."

Very reassuring.

He flung a hand in the direction of the zero-pointer and rolled away a meter or two rather pathetically, his limbs refusing to properly cooperate. The snowflakes did absolutely nothing to deter the beast, and it reached for him a second time.

Kento's face shifted into one of incredulity as he haphazardly and painfully blasted himself backwards with his snow. Seriously, why was it only going after him and no one else? Sure, pretty much everyone else had run away, but really?

Oh, screw this.

There was a minute at most left of the exam. If Kento was going to pass out like a weakling, then he'd at least go out with a bang.

With one final surge of strength, the son of Endeavor forced his legs to cooperate and stood up tall to face the villain. "Even if there's no more people here, I can at least protect the imaginary citizens' assets," Kento muttered, gathering snow to swirl around his body. Rent was already astronomical in cities as it was, and even with insurance protections against villain attacks, most people still couldn't afford to have their apartment destroyed.

...It was official, he was taking this far too seriously, but it was too late to back out now.

Kento spread his arms, calling every last bit of energy flowing through his veins to create as much snow as possible. His vision whited out with the sheer amount of snowflakes zipping through the air to the point where the farthest he could see was a centimeter in front of his face.

"I'm going to pass out after this," the redhead stated calmly, knowing his words would be picked up by the cameras and microphones that were most definitely everywhere.

He swept his arms forward in one swift thrust. The snowflakes obeyed, condensing and slamming directly into the metal monster. They dove into any crack they could find in its plates and coated the electronics within.

Sparks flew. Something exploded. Metal screeched.

If Kento had stayed awake long enough before collapsing in a heap, he would've been able to see the zero-pointer laying in a pile of its own scrap, defeated.

•❅────✧❅✦❅✧────❅•

Kento jolted awake, his eyes snapping open as he sat bolt upright on... a bed? Where the hell was he? The blanket that had been draped over him fell to his lap, and the lights of the small room were dimmed.

He blinked once, twice to clear the drowsiness, and scanned his surroundings. It looked like a nurse's office, with the addition of three hospital-type beds and two robots charging in the corner. Kento himself was in the bed closest to the outside wall, beside the window. The next bed over was empty, but the last was occupied by a heavily-bandaged freckled guy with wavy green hair.

Seeing as he was asleep, Kento elected to ignore him and get the hell out of there before word spread in the Todoroki house that he wasn't responding to texts. The last thing he needed was Endeavor breathing down his neck as to where he'd been the past... hour? How long had it been since the redhead had passed out?

Whatever. It didn't matter, as long as he could come up with a good enough excuse to explain where he'd gone and why.

Kento slipped out of the hospital bed, swaying on his feet for a long, disorienting second before his balance was more or less restored. He was still in his tracksuit, but someone had gone into the locker room and brought his backpack and put it by the side of the bed. Narrowing his eyes for a moment, Kento decided on a plan.

He was quick to change out of his tracksuit and back into his school uniform, minus the jacket and tie. Just the pants and shirt would do, plus the boots and belt. It was the exact getup Kento almost always wore to the library when he went to study, and that was going to be his excuse. Not like it was the first time he'd left to the library without telling anyone, anyway, so it wouldn't sound all that out of the ordinary for him.

Kento shouldered his backpack and headed for the door without pausing to think that maybe he should tell someone he was going home. He passed the green-haired guy's bed and cracked open the door, slipping out into the hallway.

It was at that moment when he realized that, seeing as his mind was running sluggishly, memorizing the layout of the school was pretty much useless in his current predicament. The redhead had absolutely no idea which way led back to the main entrance, nor was he about to ask for help.

So, Kento took the next most-reasonable course of action and returned to the nurse's office, pried open the window, and jumped out. It was only on the first floor, so he barely fell a meter before landing unsteadily on the grass outside. After that, it was just a matter of skirting around the massive building and finding the entry path that led to the gate.

He didn't have to go far, a flash of a hazy memory informing him that it was because the nurse's office was near the entrance. Kento stepped onto the concrete from the grass and continued to walk, now heading for the gate.

Kento made it halfway there before a voice behind him called out.

"Hey, Todoroki-kun! Stop for a sec!"

The teen closed his eyes in exasperation for a long second, but did as requested and half-turned to raise his eyebrows at Nishikawa. What was with that man and showing up wherever Kento happened to be? First the written exam, then the practical, and now this?

Nishikawa stopped a couple meters away, concern evident on his face. "You know, when most people wake up in the nurse's office, their first thought isn't to jump out a window," he commented breezily, no edge whatsoever to his tone. It was unnerving. Nearly every teacher Kento had ever had always had one when speaking to him.

Kento shrugged, not particularly caring about what other people may or may not perceive as 'normal'. "It was the fastest way to leave," he replied blandly, his fingers drumming out patterns on his thighs. How long was this going to take? He had to get home. "This isn't a hospital; I don't have to check out to leave."

"True enough, but we still have to make sure you're well enough to get home on your own," the teacher agreed easily, far too relaxed for one of his profession. "Because if you pass out again, or get injured, that's on us."

In other words, Yūei could easily get sued should a student leave in a state that would result in injury later on. Kento didn't really see how that was his problem, considering that he was perfectly fine. A little more sleep was all he needed to stave off the last of the tiredness clouding his mind.

"I'm going home now, because I want to take a nap," the redhead enunciated the words carefully to convey that he didn't need concern for his well-being, nor did he want any. It was pointless. Everyone stopped caring eventually. "Okay?"

Nishikawa nodded, still completely at ease. "Stay safe, Todoroki-kun," he said with an oddly... kind smile. Something Kento wasn't used to seeing directed at him by anyone other than his older siblings, which was unnerving. "I look forward to seeing you join our heroics department this year."

Kento blinked. He knew he'd gotten enough points in comparison to everyone else to make it into Yūei, but for a teacher to just tell him that right after the exam? Was that even allowed? As far as the teen knew, results were all mailed or emailed exactly a week later.

"Okay," he found himself saying before turning around and walking toward the gate. His mind raced at the implications of what Nishikawa had just said as he began the trek down the hill. How many points, if any, did Kento get from protecting the other applicants from falling debris? The giant robot in itself wasn't worth any points, and his fight against it was more out of being too stubborn to run away than anything else.

Hell, did he even get any more points other than the sixty-six he'd scored from destroying the smaller robots?

Kento let his head hang low and sighed, rubbing the back of his neck to ease the tension. He'd just have to wait for the results to see his final score, and hope that it was higher than anyone else's.

It had to be.

•❅────✧❅✦❅✧────❅•

"I'm home," Kento called out in a monotone after closing the front door behind him, removing his shoes and picking them up.

Fuyumi was home, and it took only a second before she was coming out of her room with a smile. "Where'd you go so early?" she asked curiously. No matter how bland his answers were, his sister never stopped asking questions like that whenever he came home.

"Went to the library to study," Kento answered, loosening his tie so it wasn't so constrictive around his throat. He hoped Yūei's dress code wasn't nearly as strict as his junior high's, because he'd very much like to not have to wear a tie. "I have a history test tomorrow."

His sister cringed. "Ooh, have fun with that," she said, knowing history was the subject he spent a lot of time on. Facts didn't seem to want to stick in his mind, so Kento usually ended up studying for a couple hours straight before a test.

Speaking of which, he actually did have a history test on Monday and needed to review... half of the material they'd learned? Something like that, considering a good portion of what he'd learned flew out the window the second he turned in the homework. Kento's short-term memory when it came to academics was good, but he had to really smack something into his head for it to make it into his long-term memory.

But first... his bed was calling. Kento was tired as hell and could get in a good two-hour nap or so before he had to do anything productive. Training for today was off the schedule because of the practical exam, and he'd already done the majority of his homework Saturday afternoon and evening.

"Okay, Kento?"

The redhead blinked, realizing he'd tuned out his sister that was literally standing a meter away. Damn it. He really needed to stop doing that, considering he hated when he actually talked to someone but they didn't listen. "Sorry, what?"

Fuyumi gestured towards the door with her thumb. Unlike Kento, she didn't seem bothered at having to repeat what she'd already told him once. "I'm going to go pick up some groceries, okay? I'll be back in a bit."

He nodded, mentally smacking himself regardless of whether his sister minded or not. Fuyumi and Natsuo were the only people he shouldn't accidentally tune out in the middle of a conversation. Anyone else was fine; Kento didn't care if they thought he was rude. "I'll be catching up on some sleep," he replied, figuring he might as well tell her before he did something unexpected like taking a nap.

"You look like you could use it," Fuyumi admitted wryly, reaching up to pull him in for a squeeze before he could protest. "Sweet dreams," she smiled, then slipped out the door.

Kento found himself watching the wood a good minute after his sister had left, dumbfounded for what felt like the millionth time. Something inside his chest snapped in two, the remembrance of lying about what high school he'd applied to burning to the forefront of his mind.

He didn't deserve to have an older sister like Fuyumi.

*Nishikawa actually caring about Kento and making sure he's okay*

Kento: Why does this guy keep showing up wherever I am and being nice?

This plot is going to murder me when we get to the juicy bits istg-

But hey, my boy destroyed a Zero Pointer. Anyone see that coming?