Ah. Examinee no. 1541 sure was an interesting one. The dimly lit room with screens plastered on the walls hummed. Nedzu had such a delight helping All Might come up with a coverup for his little protégé.

The boy was so sharp too! He had a wonderful time grading Midoriya's essay on the quirk war history. So detailed, so insightful. It's almost as if the boy was there himself.

Back to the coverup, Nedzu admitted to himself, the absentee father figure did wonders to the believability of the story.

Midoriya Izuku, previously quirkless. But newly found to have a passive energy stockpile quirk after his father asked him for a full checkup back in America from the panic of watching Izuku in the Sludge villain attack.

Simple.

Straight forward.

Effective.

"Here, I assure you; this one's quite interesting." He handed out papers to the other figures in the room, humming with satisfaction while they passed it around.

"Examinee no. 1541..." a scraggly man with black hair read out.

"Midoriya Izuku, Aldera." A few other teachers murmured, conversing amongst themselves. Nedzu spared Toshinori a glance, that goofy smile on his face whenever he saw his disciple smells like trouble, he definitely needed to teach that man to be subtle.

"Quirk: Reserve..." Another teacher spoke out, silver hair and fangs on his lower jaw. "Continuously stockpiles energy, allows the user to expel fractions of the pool of energy by reinforcing his own body, granting super human feats of strength and durability."

The red-clad teacher grunted. "Just updated a week ago..."

"I looked into this one personally, his history is on the back" a curt reply from the principal. "Midnight, if you would?" the little mouse-bear thing asked.

"Uhh- well..." She began. "A previously thought of recessive quirk. Through further inspection, Midoriya Izuku is a rare case wherein a non mutation quirk holder was born with the quirk factor fully developed..." there was a pause, no doubt the woman reading on ahead before doing so aloud.

"His body counter-acted its quirk effect by a safeguard of denying Midoriya Izuku access to the pool of stored energy until he reached the ideal muscle mass of his age group. Theorized repercussions: Violent energy eruption on activated limb upon unprepared quirk use." She blinked, reading the other lines ahead.

"Class A volatile enhancer quirk... how did he even discover this?" Midnight asked to the continuously curious crowd.

"Whoops, looks like the practical is starting." Nedzu clapped his hands together to bring back the attention to the screens, thousands of examinees flooding the area while the mechanized exam robots started filing into position.

"Hmm. Look at that one." A yawn. The black haired teacher pointed to one of the screens. Ah. Examine no. 2233, Bakugo Katsuki. The only other graduate from Aldera to sign up for examination. Great quirk control from what Nedzu can see, zipping through the robots, unleashing explosions left and right, the point counter going up and up.

"Speakers, Powerloader. Please." A button was pressed, instantly, the rumble of echoing booms and metal hitting asphalt filled the room.

"-Fuck outta the way!" the teachers watched the examinee launch himself towards a three pointer drone, shoving another U.A hopeful aside. He cackled, standing on the ruins on what used to be a perfectly working robot. A dreaded sigh cut through the room, Nedzu noted that Bakugo was already up 45 points. Well within the passing mark, but it didn't look like he was stopping anytime soon.

"Colorful little brat, isn't he?" Nedzu shrugged back, not like Midnight was wrong. They'd have to work extra to iron out this one's... vernacular, it seemed. The teachers started shuffling the papers, Nedzu too shifted to looking at the ash-blonde's application.

"Top marks, hmm. No comment from Aldera about his attitude. Strong quirk too, but dangerous." If the collateral damage and crying applicants were anything to go by, Nedzu just smiled back already hearing a groan from 1A's homeroom teacher.

"Safe to say he's in Shoutas' class?" Ah yes, what better way to stamp out hubris then to toss him to U.A's Serial Expeller.

"Moving on." The principal began, his eyes twinkling as he scanned through the screen, looking for another interesting applicant.

He took a quick glance back at Examinee 1541, taking note of the 32 points the boy already had. Strange, it seemed that Midoriya took out a parking meter and used it as an improvised blunt weapon. Creative, at least. He didn't even need to look back at Toshinori to see that the man was smiling like crazy again.

"This one" he pointed to another screen.

This continued on for a few minutes, both the teachers and Nedzu himself peppering the room with comments about particularly interesting applicants. He took a moment to savour the smell of his tea. Ah. This test has been a bit boring, all hash and bash, bah.

He toyed with the idea for a bit, his paw tapping gingerly on a button as he observed the applicants. He hummed. It was the halfway point of the practical examination anyways, he silently agreed to himself as he announced.

"I'll be releasing the Zero Pointer." The other teachers just stared back at him, Nedzu just gave them a cheeky knowing grin before pressing the button.

A behemoth of a robot crashed through the mock sky scrapers, the camera shook with every step of the mech. The room filled with whispers, conversing about how all the applicants ran off, tails tucked between their legs. A satisfied grin graced Nedzu's face, ah too bad. Too bad.

The Zero Pointer sure was an interesting idea. Heroes need to work under dire and stressful situations, what better way to do so by adding a massive roadblock while they were attempting to collect points.

"Looks like someone's trapped, is Recovery Girl on standby yet?" a man who appeared to be made of concrete pointed out, Examinee no. 1102 Uraraka Ochaco had her left leg trapped between a large chunk of metal and concrete. Ah, shame. Nedzu looked back up to the main screen, looks like the Zero Pointer was still rampaging. Uh oh.

"The uh- white haired one's doing something" Toshinori added, though Nedzu could imagine the emaciated hero struggling to not call his disciple "My boy" in front of the other teachers. Nedzu took a glance, indeed. The boy was zipping through his side of the test area, his figure moving through multiple cameras.

Strange. He was gathering parking meters again. Ah, wonderful! Nedzu understood, Izuku was twisting all the parking meters' shafts into one coil. More mass, greater impact. Looks like he needed something... bulkier to do the job.

"Powerloader..." again, the room lit up with the sound of inhuman mechanized whirrs and rumbles. The footage shook whenever the giant robot took it's step.

The white-haired boy used his improvised hammer as a fulcrum for the giant metal chunk on top of the female applicant, he slung her over his shoulder before taking a look back at the robot. Its giant mechanized hand reaching out for the two, he let go of the girl.

He leapt.

The room burst with whispers once more, surely he wasn't trying to...?

The mech's large limb was shot off kilter, the robot faltering before going off balance and crashing into the other buildings, the camera showing a cloud of dust from the shockwaves.

It took a second.

It was over in a second.

The robot was absolutely demolished, its mechanized corpse lying by its side as it struggled to reboot.

The only movement on screen was Midoriya Izuku, Examinee Uraraka slung on his shoulder as he ran for medical help.

"So!" Nedzu cut off the rather boisterous conversations from the teachers. "He's interesting, yes?" he asked them. Ah crisis averted, thank God too. He managed to catch their attention just in time as All Might let out a loud "My Boy!"

Yes.

Please.

He'd much rather the teachers see that he had biases on the boy, rather than """All Might's Secretary""" Yagi Toshinori. They wouldn't question him, he'd prefer if the rumors were localized to him rather than All Might.

"Bullheaded, but creative." Eraserhead, the black-haired scraggly man commented. The other teachers agreed too. "How many points for the save?" he added.

A discussion was made, they noted that he helped a few other applicants along the way. The soft sound of debate and conversation was a nice one, Nedzu mused.

They agreed to give him 67 rescue points, in addition to his combat points.

112 points in total.

The second highest recorded in U.A history, second to All Might, of course.

"Where'd you even find the little tyke?" Nedzu shook his head with a satisfied grin. He was first informed, of course, when Toshinori contacted him on devising a coverup story for his disciple's late quirk manifestation. Then of course, Nedzu had the pleasure of conversing with the boy. A delight really, average across the board on general education subjects. Nothing too special.

But strategy, specifically combat strategy. When Nedzu debated and discussed combat strategy with the boy, he didn't talk down to Izuku like he commonly did with those around his age group. It was... inspiring, to say the least. The boy talked quietly, concisely, he conversed as if he was a veteran general. A captain, reminiscing on old wars and old war tactics. It really was a delight.

"It wasn't anything particularly special..." Nedzu replied, taking a satisfied sip of his tea. Several teachers merely raised their eyebrow, undoubtedly questioning and noting that the two had met beforehand.

"Just a simple meeting of the minds." Nedzu just smiled.