Chapter 10: Deception and Cheating

The students started clamoring as the doors shut with a heavy thud. Dust was picked up slightly as audible shattering could be heard throughout the room.

"STUDENTS!"

The loud voice once again quieted the audience. All eyes were drawn to the slim, yellow-haired man with his long yellow hair curled up unnaturally. His outfit consisted of a biker jacket, fingerless gloves, and headphones, or a "punk" outfit.

The most striking feature about him would be the voicebox that he has for a throat. With his loud tone, this is naturally his quirk, but he's already causing the students to cover their ears without breaking a sweat.

"TH-"

"Your voice is too loud." A disheveled, messy-looking person walked into the room.

His looks didn't fit in with the atmosphere at U.A. but there was something about his presence that made all the students pay close attention to him.

"Hizashi, Nezu sent me to explain this part."

"ALRIGHT, STUDENTS, PLEASE LISTEN TO AIZAWA."

Sigh

Holding the bridge of his nose, Hizashi walked off to the side of the podium, and Aizawa looked towards the students in front of him. With thousands of eyes staring at him, he wasn't nervous. 

Instead, he was thinking to himself, 'I need my coffee.'

"Alright, I'm sure you noticed that we had 30 minutes until the time for the start of the exam." Nodding faces and light chatter ensued.

"We'll that's simple, the others have been cut!"

'What!' - x300

"U.A. is a hero school. We want those who have the motivation, desire, and willingness to put in the effort to become pro heroes. And being punctual is one of the most important qualities of a hero."

Some students started complaining about how this wasn't fair, and how they could do this but the Pro's response to this?

"HOW MANY TIMES HAS A HERO FAILED TO SHOW UP!" For the first time today, Aizawa shouted.

"How common is it for some villain to escape that wouldn't've if the heroes arrived even a minute earlier? How many lives could have been saved?" Aizawa turned around walking towards Hizashi.

"We're not here to mess around and babysit you; we're here to train heroes. If you can't even arrive 30 minutes early to one of the most important events of your life, then I doubt that any of you can become a successful hero." With that he handed the mic to Hizashi and walked off into the darkness. 

"ALRIGHTY THEN, YOU HEARD IT FROM HIM. NOW-" As Hizashi took over directing the students, Aizawa arrived in the monitor room.

Inside was a conference table, and multiple chairs facing towards screens each displaying different scenes. Normally in each chair would be a different Pro Hero and member of the U.A. staff, though at this moment with each having a testing location assigned the room remained empty besides Aizawa and somebody else.

The auditorium with Suijin's group could be seen on one monitor. And, besides that was another auditorium with a similarly large group.

"Shota." A rat-bear-mouse spun around in the chair that dwarfed his size.

He spoke while sitting upright, holding a tiny coffee mug in his hand, Aizawa sat at the coffee table and was sitting opposite the principal of U.A. High School, Nezu. 

"That was a great performance, truly, you did strike quite an impression on those students."

"An impression, huh, I wasn't kidding about part of that." Aizawa became silent after that.

'Oboro,' Nezu thought of his former student.

He decided to lighten the mood by looking at the screen, which showed a different auditorium than Suijin's. "Besides that, they're doing well."

Looking at the screen being shown, many students were sitting in chairs while listening to the Pro Hero Cementoss. Worried, distraught, and annoyed faces could be seen as they listened to Cementoss's speech.

'Separating the students who arrived before 10, and telling them that those who failed to arrive earlier have been cut. Instilling a sense of fear and cautiousness into them. Telling those who arrived later in the other room that they're getting a harder test may curb some of their tardiness.'

 Aizawa stared at his 'boss's' back. 'A scary man.'

Back in the Auditorium that Suijin was at, "-GRAB YOUR PAPERS AND CHECK YOUR NUMBER."

The flapping of sheets could be seen all around.

'893.' Suijin remembered his number from earlier, but rechecking, he chuckled at what the heavens gave him. Giving Shoji's paper a glance, he saw his friend also re-checking his paper.

'4649' Suijin said in his head.

'What's the difference in treatment?' As Suijin asked himself this, he followed the instructions and entered the examination room, which was reserved for the 600-900's.

A lecture hall entered his sight as everyone filled in their seats assigned by their numbers since he was practically last, Suijin sat in the back and had a view of the entire auditorium.

The blond-haired guy was in the front of the room, standing in front of the lecture stand. Six staff members were stationed throughout the room, three on each side.

'Tight Security.' Suijin waited and survived as the tests were passed around. He took a glance at the test and had his eyes open.

'It's easy?' The content on the paper wasn't anything like what he spent the past ten months studying for. 

It was basic questions from all the subjects, questions like 'From what period was Oda Nobunaga born' were even asked. Things you could pick up from when you were a kid.

Suijin wasn't the only person confused, dozens had the exact same reaction. But as if there hadn't been any change in the audience, President Mic continued talking.

"YOU HAVE 1 HOUR GOOD LUCK." He then walked out of the room, and everyone started the test.

As the Pro walked through the hall towards the surveillance room to meet his colleagues, he thought back to everyone's expression and let out his own musings to himself,

"U.A. is the best high school in Japan, the questions may seem easy or like basic knowledge, but they range across many topics. Rather than people who simply memorize a paper, those who actively go out and search for knowledge are who we desire. However…."

Back to the exam, Suijin looked up after completing his exam.

The sound of a pencil and the occasional flip of a paper were verbalized around, but what he saw made him even more surprised. 

'Cheating.'

Suijin wasn't sheltered and obviously knew what it was, but to see it in this fashion, dozens of quirks simultaneously activated, all with a center purpose.

As Suijin walked down the stairs to turn in his test, he grew more and more fascinated with the creativity of his fellow test takers.

Despite the lack of windows, a breeze could be felt flipping the paper of someone in the room. Someone shrank themselves and was running around looking at others' tests while trying to stay hidden.

Many used their natural ability to get ahead in this exam, and even when he got back to his seat, Suijin still didn't understand why people would take this risk.

Every cheater in the room understood the stakes they were playing with, whether they got into U.A. by their grades, personality, or a good word from someone high up.

They all had one common goal now.

'Pass The Test'! 

If they didn't make it into U.A then everything they did up until now would be pointless, U.A. had a unique system where they held their entrance exam after every other hero school.

Meaning, that if you fail the exam, unless you're that lucky person who did well in the practical exams and did so well that you passed despite horrible written exams, you're forced to go to a normal public school and miss a year of hero school.

That wasn't the reason why Suijin was confused though, U.A. as the #1 school had a lot of prestige, so minor actions from them heavily influenced what other institutions did.

Other schools would be able to learn why someone failed the entrance exam and decide if that person is a good fit for them.

So in addition to missing a year of Hero School, if you're marked and failed for cheating, then you're unofficially blacklisted from every 'good' high school in Japan.

So Suijin's bright eyes were justified since essentially every cheater here was staking their entire future on this test.

'It doesn't matter whether I really know what I'm doing; I'll figure it out when I get in.' Every cheater firmly believed that thought in the room.

There was only six staff and over one hundred people were cheating. So using their numbers and the odds, every cheater used all their tactics they had to successfully cheat into this school.

After the hour was finished, President Mic came back into the classroom. "THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING. "PLEASE STAND UP IF YOUR NAME IS CALLED."

"Suijin Shimizu"

'Was I suspected of cheating?'

With his heart beating, he stood up and was overcome by the countless eyes being placed on him.

(A/N: 893 can be read as "ya-ku-za" (やくざ) or "Yakuza" It is traditionally a bad omen for a student to receive this candidate number for an exam. And 4649 can be read as "yo-ro-shi-ku" (よろしく); referring to "best regards" in English.)