บท 1984: 3
Summary:
A time skip as Izuku gets ready for the entrance exam.
Chapter Text
The final ten months before the entrance exam flew by almost too quickly. One of the first things Izuku had done after finding his new dream was research everything he could find about analytics and intelligence gathering. He couldn't find that much, which he supposed shouldn't be very surprising, considering that he hadn't even known it was a career option, but the things that he could find emphasized computer skills and making sure that his analysis was understandable to other people.
Izuku had worked nonstop to make sure he was ready for the entrance exam today. It was difficult, since UA's website didn't say what exactly he'd be asked to do, but he wasn't about to let that stop him! He threw himself into support with a passion, spending hours researching everything that heroes needed to know going into a situation and thinking about what he could do from behind the scenes to make them more effective.
His hero analysis notebooks had improved as well. He still labelled them for the future, but he was now trying to focus on suggestions for improvement and on increasing the speed of his analysis. Izuku had shifted the focus of the notebooks from just heroes to everything to do with quirks and even battle strategy. He filled an entire notebook just with analyses of villains he'd seen on the news, and another with random quirks that he found on the street. He'd also stopped taking them out at school so that his bullies wouldn't be tempted to destroy these ones like they had all the others.
School had surprisingly gotten a lot better for Izuku over the past few months. His bullies hadn't stopped after the word spread that he wasn't trying for the hero course anymore, but now everyone was at a loss for how to actually hurt him. He hadn't told anyone at school about the support course, since the high school application plans simply listed the school, not the emphasis. The teachers assumed he'd switched his goal to general studies and from what Izuku could gather, the other students thought he was going for the nearest high school with a high acceptance rate. As a result, no one could target his new dream and all their insults fell flat. Even Kacchan had switched to mostly ignoring him, or just calling him useless, which was a huge improvement!
One of the best things that had come from his new dream, though, was actually his relationship with his mother. He hadn't realized just how much his old dream had come between them, but now that it was no longer in the way, they'd grown so much closer. Her worry seemed less like she was trying to suffocate him, and more like it was just how she showed that she cared.
When he'd sat her down to talk about his new dream, she had immediately started crying. Izuku had understandably started panicking, wondering what he had said wrong, but as soon as she had calmed down enough to be coherent, Mom had assured him that she was just so happy and proud of him. He hadn't been quite sure how to feel about the fact that her first reaction to him giving up on his lifelong dream was to be so happy that she cried, but there wasn't much he could do about it. Maybe if she had just believed in him earlier…
Izuku shook his head as he finished getting ready to leave. It wouldn't do any good to worry about what-if's right now. Mom was just trying to keep him safe, so it made perfect sense that she would be happy that he'd picked a safer option. She had been a little nervous about him still working in the heroics industry, but after he'd assured her that he wouldn't actually be fighting anyone, she'd calmed down and had actually been surprisingly supportive.
He carefully placed his laptop in his bag and smiled. Mom had gotten it for him as a celebration gift after he'd explained what intelligence and analytics was and it had actually been her idea to sign him up for computer programming lessons at their local community center. He'd taken to them like a duck to water and it hadn't been long at all before he'd started learning to hack. Mom didn't necessarily like when he called it hacking, since she thought that sounded dangerous or like something a villain would do, but Izuku had pointed out that it would be a really useful way to gather information. He'd be protected behind a screen and the only people he'd be hacking were villains, to make sure they couldn't hide anything from the heroes. She'd come around pretty quickly after that.
The last thing he packed was the portfolio he'd created to demonstrate his quirk analysis. UA's website had said that in addition to the same written exam that all the other courses took, the support course exam consisted of a portfolio and a practical. Izuku had spent months debating what to put in his portfolio before Mom had suggested simply turning in one of his hero analysis notebooks. He didn't feel like those were quite good enough to turn into UA, though, so he'd decided to turn in a new analysis notebook that was actually properly formatted.
He'd picked five heroes and five villains to highlight, since the website had said he'd be analyzing both as part of UA, and he'd had Mom read through all of them to make sure they didn't just sound like his normal muttering. When he'd first started asking her to read his analyses to make sure other people could understand them, she'd pointed out that he wrote almost completely in run-on sentences and sometimes dropped words completely because his brain was moving faster than his hands could.
He'd focused since then on editing his analyses into a coherent whole and making them easy to understand. The heroes he would eventually be working with needed to be able to read though and find what they needed, afterall, so there needed to be some sort of formatting and he couldn't use a lot of technical jargon, not that he ever really had. He'd experimented quite a bit and had even looked up how professional analysts formatted their essays for inspiration. Overall, Izuku was actually extremely proud of how professional his portfolio looked once he was finished, and Mom hadn't had any trouble understanding it, so that was a huge plus.
Mom scooped him into a hug almost as soon as he made it to the kitchen, "Oh baby! Do you have everything? Do you have your laptop? Will you even need your laptop? It's best to just bring it, right, even if you don't need it? Or will that be weird? They won't see it as cheating, will they? Oh if only…"
"Mom, take a deep breath." He pulled away from her and smiled, "I'll be fine. I already checked the website, and support course applicants are allowed to bring any technology they think they'll need. I don't know if I'll need my laptop, but I want to be able to demonstrate my hacking if they ask me to."
Mom sighed in relief, "Oh, that's good. I'm just so worried! I know you'll be fine and safe, but a mother worries, you know?"
Izuku laughed, "I know. Don't worry, the support course exam isn't like the hero course one, so I'm not going to get hurt. Just be glad you're not Auntie Mitsuki today. No matter what the hero course practical is, there's bound to be some aspect of combat included."
Mom wrung her hands nervously, "Oh, I don't think I'd be able to handle it. I know Katsuki can handle himself in a fight, but I'm just so glad you're not trying for the hero course. I'm not sure I'd even be able to let you leave the house without having a heart attack."
Izuku smiled sadly. His grief had long since faded to a dull ache and he hardly even noticed it anymore most days, but his nervousness about the entrance exam was bringing everything to the surface again. What if he'd made the wrong choice? What if he was meant to be a hero? What if he'd never really be satisfied with the support course? What if Kacchan was right and he really was useless and he failed the entrance exam and ended up living under a bridge and…
"Stop that, Izuku." Mom hit him gently on the arm and smiled to pull him from his spiral. "I'm the one who's supposed to be worrying so just leave that to me, and you focus on doing your best. Ok, baby?"
Izuku smiled and nodded in determination, "Thanks, Mom. I should get going, wish me luck!"
"Good luck!" Mom started sniffling as he put on his shoes, then started full-on crying as he waved to her when he got down to the street. Izuku gripped the straps of his backpack and took a deep breath as he headed toward the train station. He could do this.
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