Koto's POV

I land hard on my side, brown rock seeming to block me in all directions. I just barely have time to split apart a rather large boulder before it crushes me from above. The announcer exclaims that a single person took down 120 people in one attack.

Wow, if only I could've managed to actually ace my first attack. Then, I would've been the first one to pass. But I guess it can't be that easy, not if these guys are trying to be pros too.

I put a hand to one of the rocks boxing me in and illuse into it, trying to see how thick the barriers are. I manage to find one rock that seems less bulky than most and illuse a tuba on my side to push it away.

To my relief, it shows a pathway, but my cheer is not long lasting. A couple students from Ketsubutsu run around the corner, surely upon hearing me, and begin using their quirks to attack. One girl turns her limbs to serpents, reaching out to tear at my clothes and try to get my targets with the rubber balls between their fangs.

If her hero name isn't Medusa, then I'll be so disappointed, I think as I illuse another blast of sound at them. They stumble, but I'm not able to throw a projectile before they all get back on their feet and keep pushing towards me. If I pretend to be helpless, they might use the opportunity to throw the balls. Once they're in the air, I can redirect them.

I fall back, eventually running into a wall. Breathing heavily, I pretend like using my quirk is taking a lot out of me.

"So this is one of UA's coveted students from Class 1-A, huh?" The boy with pristine platinum blonde hair taunts. "Maestro, was it? We all saw your performance. Such a shame you're all bark and no bite!"

Swifter than I could've expected, his hand comes detached and flies towards me, hitting one of my targets with the ball. Realizing I have to act now, I sign, "Sonic Boom!" I focus my energy down as I leap into the air. A shockwave knocks them back as I fly above the jagged rocks, eventually disappearing from their view. I let myself coast on white noise as I fall, eventually landing outside the destroyed area.

Nobody seems to be around, but I can hear as more people are announced to have passed, so I know I have to act fast. I run into the nearest area which seems to be an industrial zone.

It's not perfect, I think, but it'll do. At least I will be able to see projectiles, but they could come from anywhere.

I stick to narrow spaces as I make my way through. At one point, I come across another student, all by himself. Although I feel bad about it, I illuse sound through his body, immobilizing him in pain. I know I should've just done the same with the Shiketsu kids, but what if the snakes were sentient? What if the dude's hand was still flying around? What was the other girl's quirk? There were too many questions for me to trust my abilities at that moment.

After eliminating the boy, I apologize and help him up.

"Hey, it's alright," he says, though he looks incredibly upset. "There's always next year. Good luck out there."

"Th-thanks!"

"Oh, and hey," he says, grabbing my shoulder to get my attention as I begin walking away. "You're one of the students from UA, right? Well, there's a huge fight going on back that way. I think it was one of your classmates."

I look in alarm over his shoulder where he was pointing. Just one? In a huge fight? I should help them! "Thanks!" I say again, already sprinting around pipes and scaffolding in my way.

Sounds of metal clanking grow louder as I continue. The air around me continues to fluctuate in temperature as I sneak up on the battle, crawling under a pipe for cover.

Must be Todoroki, I think as a wave of ice shoots past me. I pull my black coat closer around me, shivering. Just my luck.

I pull my coat over my head to hide my light hair and poke my head out of the shadows. Todoroki seems to be facing off against ten or so people in colorful samurai costumes as they stand on buildings and smoke stacks. His quirk is well suited for long range, but it seems as though theirs are too. One person keeps throwing metal items at the boy and growing them just when they're about to impact. I can barely shuffle back before a giant bolt tumbles into my shelter, crushing the pipe I was under.

The sound of the metal scraping together doesn't sound quite right to me. As the area heats up, I hear somebody say something about tungsten.

But if it's tungsten, why does it sound so...hollow?

I shuffle up to the giant bolt and kick it, only to hear a metallic twang an octave higher than I would've expected.

If he's growing these things, he must be growing the atoms themselves, but he can't make more. That would put more space between the molecules and make them unstable. That means that even though they may be heavy, they won't be that strong and my sound can carry them.

I peek out once again to see the guy throwing more metal pieces at Todoroki. I keep my eye on a particular piece. Just as I see the screw begin to grow, I illuse sound in front of it, sending it straight back at the ninja like people.

Of course, they weren't expecting this, so a couple are knocked down and Todoroki takes the opportunity to freeze them in place.

"Nice try," the boy in the red says calmly, throwing a couple pieces into the ice. Before he can grow them to free his teammates, I illuse flute trills into his stomach, making him flinch and double over. I send a few loud bangs to the backs of all their knees, forcing them to fall.

"Get them!" I illuse into Todoroki's ear. He looks around for a few precious seconds, trying to figure out who said that.

Idiot! Just freeze them! I want to scream as I shrug my coat off my head so he can see my hair.

The moment he recognizes me, he must realize what I'm doing. He freezes all our opponents down, making sure the guy in the red with the growing quirk doesn't have anything in reach of his hands.

I illuse under my feet and Todoroki creates ice behind him so we both can get to the students quickly. We both pull a rubber ball from our packs and eliminate the students.

I can breathe a sigh of relief as my targets turn a bright blue. "So far, 56 people have passed," the announcer guy says. A voice from our targets tells us to proceed to the anteroom.

I walk behind Todoroki as we make our way back to the center of the arena. I choose not to talk to him. After all that happened, I'm not sure I can forgive him. Not only did he tell everyone about my scar, but he made it seem like I was making too big a deal about it. I know he hates his scar, he told me himself! So what gives him the right to be so insensitive about mine?!? He's not even sorry!

Tokoyami and Shoji's words ring loud and true in my head, saying that only I get to choose who I present myself to be. I will not be ashamed of hiding the parts of me I don't want to share. Especially not with someone like him who broke my trust.

"You didn't have to do that back there," I hear him say. Looking up, I see him pausing, waiting for me to catch up. "I was perfectly capable on my own."

I stop as well, not about to walk with him as if we're friends. Call me petty, but I'm still mad at him. "I didn't d-do it for you. I needed to p-p-pass this round. That w-was just my b-best opportunity."

He nods as if what I said was perfectly normal. After another couple moments, he says, "we should get to the anteroom."

"After you," I reply, gesturing forward with an eyebrow raised.

He observes me for a short moment, his mismatched eyes seeming to contemplate something deeply, before turning around and continuing.

The worst part about being passive aggressive with him is that he doesn't even realize! I hold my hand to my forehead in annoyance. He doesn't try to talk with me the entire rest of the way to the building. When the giant automatic doors open, we stare out at the large group of students who have passed. I immediately go to the left side of the room where a large table of food is set up. I was so nervous this morning that I couldn't eat, but now that I've passed at least the first part, I'm feeling much better. I'm still anxious about what we have to do after this, but it makes me feel better to know I'm at least on my way to getting my license.

I grab a granola bar and head over to a bench along the far wall, noticing Todoroki follows me through all of it. It's incredibly infuriating when he sits down immediately next to me, but I try to keep my cool as I scoot away.

"Did I do something?" The boy asks calmly, looking over at me.

Okay, that's the last straw. "Yes, yes you d-did!" I exclaim, drawing the attention of a few people nearby.

"Well, I'm sorry. Though I'm not sure for what."

"How can you b-b-be sorry if you d-don't know what you did?!"

"You're upset," he replies softly. "I didn't mean to do that, whatever it was."

I put a hand up to my neck, pointing to the choker. "You told them ab-bout this. You t-t-told them not to check up on m-me. Yeah, I heard about that!"

Todoroki's eyebrows furrow as he gazes at me inquisitively. "I thought I was helping."

"Well, maybe next time you should think a bit harder about what the helpful thing is! Because as far as I know, you don't seem to notice why I keep this hidden. You don't get why I always hide. Maybe you should learn how to treat people before you try to make friends."

I get up and walk away, already too overwhelmed. That was underhanded, what I just said to him. I know it's not his fault that his father didn't socialize him as a child, but I was mad, okay? You'd think that at least by now he would have some grip on social conduct. I guess he still doesn't get that the information you have about people isn't yours to share.

I stand by the food table and take a couple deep breaths to try and calm down as I use the special pin to release the targets from my costume. By the time I feel my heartbeat slow down a little, I look over to the doors to see Bakugo, Eijiro, and Kaminari walking through. I smile for their sake, having not seen any of our other classmates around. I'm glad they're starting to trickle in.

"Hey guys!" I call out, running over to greet them. "Looks like I b-beat you here, huh?"

"Tch," Bakugo clicks his tongue and walks around me. "Whatever. We probably passed before you did, we were just further away."

"Mhm, whatever you need to t-t-tell yourself, Ducky."

He looks back over his shoulder at me, eyes narrowed to slits and teeth bared. "Don't fuckin' call me that, Curly!"

Kaminari goes off to talk to some of our other classmates that had apparently filed in when I wasn't looking. I give Ei a big hug as we're suddenly left alone. It's nice to have our friendship back to normal. So what if Todoroki is being a jerk? With Ei, I know I'll always have mutual support and respect!

"Good j-job!" I chirp, keeping an arm around him as we follow Bakugo to the area where targets can be dropped off.

"You too!" He exclaims, squeezing me so tight he nearly picks me off the ground. "How much did you beat us here by?"

"I d-don't know," I reply honestly, not having a watch on me. "Maybe t-t-ten, fifteen minutes."

"Geez, impressive!"

"I'm glad you g-guys showed up when you d-d-did though," I say, leaning up against the table as the two boys disable their shining blue targets. "Things were getting t-tense with j-j-just Todoroki."

Eijiro's hand stills as he looks over at me. "What happened?" His voice is full of concern.

I take my time explaining how I was cut off from everyone else, stumbled across the boy and sorta blew up on him after everything.

"IcyHot bastard had it coming," Bakugo growls, walking with us to a vacant couch where we can relax. "At least now I don't have to waste my time doing it for you."

"As if y-you need a reason t-to," I say, rolling my eyes.

"The hell?!" The boy sits up to get in my face. "I always have a reason when I'm angry!"

"Key word in there is 'when'," Ei interjects with a smile.

Bakugo juts out his lower lip in an angry pout as it's announced that the last students have passed. When the rest of our classmates walk through the door, Kirishima and I hop from our seats, fists raised in the air.

"Yeah!" We both cry out in happiness before going to huddle up with our peers, dragging our explosive friend with us.

------Author's Note------

Hey guys!

Thanks for being so understanding of my more spaced out upload schedule. It's really been helpful to take more time between chapters.

Anyways, there's some more fan art! Wooooo!!!!

First is some art from UwUchild321!! Thank you so much! These are so cool and really capture Koto's emotions vs outward appearance which is awesome. And the little chibi Koto is so adorable! Thank youuuu!

And here is an awesome action shot of Koto from Froggssss!! The look on her face is so intense. Everything about it is so badass and awesome! Not to mention the little Disney embroideries on her coat! Thank you so much!

I feel so bad, I checked in on my Twitter after a while and saw that I had missed this one by ichmagessen2020!! It's so awesome! That stance! The authority! Koto looks like an absolute boss!!

I'll see y'all in the next one! Toodles!