Izuku Midoriya stood frozen just past the threshold, one hand still raised from where the nice girl—Uraraka, she'd said—had steadied him before darting off with a cheerful wave.

He was still running the statistics. One in three hundred applicants. Less than one percent acceptance rate. And he'd made it. Him. Quirkless-turned-late-bloomer, the boy who used to hide his notebooks under his bed.

A flash of ash-blond hair and an explosion of curses cut through the crowd.

And that's when he saw them.

Someone else was walking toward the entrance. Calm. Unhurried. Completely at ease under the giant U.A. arch.

Izuku's mouth went dry. He'd never seen them before—not at the entrance exam, not in the crowd, not anywhere. But something about the way they moved made him forget, for one long second, that he was supposed to be walking inside.

They didn't look nervous. Not even a little.