Chapter 40: Provisional Hero Licensing Exam Beginning, Breakdown

(Daily Music: Say So- Japanese Version)

It was the day of the Provisional Hero Licensing Exam. We had travelled to the National Dagobah Arena, where the exams would take place.

Also, Aizawa told us that two other rival hero school students would also be taking this exam. They would be students who had more experience and time in their hero schools compared to us.

And here is one of them.

According to Aizawa, this was Shiketsu Highschool. There was a student of theirs who was very loud.

Soon after they arrived, the other one, Ketsubutsu Academy, arrived as well.

I don't see anything impressive about any of these students. All I hope is that they are more powerful than they look and act.

I didn't even bother pretending to be interested in socializing with the other students. I just waited for us all to be told where to go.

Eventually, we were. We were instructed to get ready by Aizawa, and were led to a large room, where a tired sounding man introduced himself, and began explaining.

(Canon speech)

We would be given six red spheres, and would also have three targets to put on. A person would score a point by lighting up all the targets on a person, and you would need two points to pass. However, only 100 people out of the 1540 currently gathered here would be able to pass.

This will be easy. I just have to score out two weaklings, and I pass this first round.

The room we were all gathered in folded outward, showing a large arena with lots of different simulated environments.

And so, with that, we were allowed to go.

The students of my class were all huddled together.

When the group from Ketsubutsu tried to get us all out with a volley of red spheres, we all retaliated in our own ways. I simply dodged the spheres. I saw no need to give any more effort than it was worth.

"Guys, let's stick together! That way, we'll be able to ensure each other's safety!", Midoriya said.

Bakugou disagreed, and went off on his own. However, Kirishima and Kaminari followed him. Todoroki also went off on his own, but his reasoning was because his Quirk was difficult to use in large groups of allies.

I was also going to go on my own.

"Why are you going off, Jokara?", Tsuyu asked me.

"I have no desire to be grouped with weaklings. It's as simple as that", I responded.

"Hey! Seriously, what's your problem!? You've always been so rude to all of us, except Kirishima and Mina! What's your problem with us?!", Jiro asked.

"Because, despite all the attacks that we've gone through, all the times we've come close to death, all the times you all say you're going to work harder to get better so that it never happens again, vowing to be stronger the next time, the day after, you're all fooling around as if everything is fine! Like the day before never happened! Like nothing like what has happened to us on several different occasions will happen again!", I yelled.

"If any of of you actually gave a shit, you would actually be patching your weaknesses! Making new techniques! Strategizing for if villains ever threaten our lives again! But all you ever do is laze around, slack off and complain whenever we are made to do physical activities during P.E. , complain about how hard tests are, and the list goes on! If you actually spent the time that you all waste doing all that on actually training, you'd probably already be Pro Hero material!"

A brief few seconds of silence. Broken by a response a few seconds later.

"We try our best. We spend a lot of time trying to make ourselves better, even if slightly. We really do take this seriously, even if it doesn't seem like it sometimes.", Momo responded.

I scoffed.

"Oh, you try your best, huh? I'm sure, especially after I've seen zero improvement in all of you except for Midoriya, and even that's not too substantial! Remember the forest!? When the villains attacked us there!? At my own house!!?", I yelled, each point being said at a louder volume.

Each point made their expressions gradually worsen. At the same time, each image brought back images of that night. The poisonous gas, the fire, the villains who fought my parents.

Until, the image of him appeared. The white shirt, the cap, the blue pants, the black shoes.

The head.

"REMEMBER KOTA?!", I yelled, tears breaking through.

That silenced everything. And with it, came the deafening silence.

I couldn't bare this any longer.

I ran in a different direction. I didn't look where I was running, I just ran.

I eventually found myself in an area made to simulate mountainous areas, with caves and other things typical of the environment.

I went into one of the caves. I needed time to regather myself.

I didn't do anything fancy to calm myself back down, like meditation or whatever. I just sat down and took deep breaths to try and calm myself down. It worked. Well, it worked well enough.

I had a breakdown back there.

I have noticed that one of my bad habits is that I don't express my emotions and grievances, and so, I bottle everything up, which makes it pretty much inevitable that, at some point, it will all release at once.

The thing is, that wasn't all of it. That wasn't even one twentieth of it.

Even though I know this was a bad thing, I needed to pass this exam. I could focus on this later.

I got up and ran out, looking for people to tag.

I eventually came across two people. One had webbed hands and feet, as well as gills. The other one had floating hair.

I would like to tell you that I had a worthy battle with them that ended in me triumphantly getting the victory over the both of them and tagging them, allowing me to pass, but I would be lying.

I just stabbed them with a Botulinum Toxin bone each and tagged their targets, making me pass.

I went to the building where the people who passed were supposed to go to.

Time to wait for whatever would be happening next.

(What do you guys think of Jokara as a character? Do you like how I've written him?)