Summary: The Provisional Exams are here!

Warning: Chapters 55-58 were all published back-to-back! Make sure you don't miss any of them!

Chapter 56: Provisional Exams

There was a half-disturbing and half-depressing level of JSDF presence around the testing site. In a way, given that the Hero Schools had been so directly targeted by the League of Villains, Izumi supposed the military vehicles and careful identity checks were a near-inevitable result. Now that the government beyond the HPSC was involved at all, they were being just as ham-fisted and indelicate about that involvement as every government the world over tended to be in such situations.

It was hard to really blame them for that. The whole reason that specific departments like the HPSC existed, was to put the right experts in the right places to make the gears keep turning at least semi-efficiently. When those 'right experts' failed, the 'wrong experts' were forced to brute force solutions that were less than ideal. She supposed, frankly considered, that the fact the military was sticking to a purely defensive intervention was a good sign that someone, somewhere, high up the military chain of command at least understood that much. Hopefully, that meant the situation could still be wrangled back under control before everything completely broke down.

Izumi shook off those dark thoughts as they finally made it through the last checkpoint. That one had at least been interesting, in a way. They'd set up a QE scanner to check Quirk Signatures against ID files provided by the school. That sort of tech wasn't far enough along yet, outside Izumi's own Quirk-Provided scanners, to provide something like a viable 'fingerprint' for a person's QE field. But it could tell you the general composition of a QE field. Enough to, say, clue you in that someone had a fire-based Quirk instead of a transformation Quirk. Using it to make sure that each student matched their recorded Quirk type was an admittedly fairly clever way to weed out possible shapeshifters.

But that was that, and this was now, and Izumi put the idea aside in favor of examining the rest of the attendees, all clustered in their own school groups. Because of the checkpoints, they hadn't had a chance to interact with any of said groups before being funneled onto the arena floor, giving her plenty to analyze as she ran her eyes and a few discrete sensors over the crowd. Profiles of older students taking the exam, who had appeared in internships with heroes or events prominent enough to be spotted, flitted through her mind as they were identified. There were very few other First Years here, even giving the crisis…and there were also far fewer attendees in general, which was a little alarming.

She knew several schools had been hit hard. Not just by the attacks, but by dropouts from students who were suddenly a lot less certain that Heroics was the right career for them. She had not, however, thought it was this bad. There were less than 700 hero students present, in an exam she knew usually boasted well over a thousand participants per testing site. Part of her figured it was for the best. If those students hadn't had the fortitude to stick things out when the going got rough, then it was probably better to weed them out now.

The rest of her, however, knew that was a bit unfair. Not to mention a dangerous thought process. After all, the most likely students to have pulled out were Rescue and Support oriented heroes, of which there was always a shortage in the first place. Healers, sensors, scouts, and similar were always needed. And if what she was seeing was accurate, Japan was going to be hurting for them if this trend continued. Still, there was nothing she could do about that, and it was time to pay attention as an official from the HPSC had stood and was addressing the crowd.

"I'm sure all of you here have noticed your reduced numbers. Not to mention, of course, having experienced the checkpoints on the way in. These things are signs of the recent dangerous times in the Heroics field. Events such as the attacks on the various Hero Academies have caused us to revaluate these exams. Previously, the passing rate was nearly fifty percent, on average. Despite you representing some of the best and brightest, with the increased difficulty and new focuses we have introduced today…we expect less than thirty percent of you to pass."

The man paused to let that sink in, many of the students from lesser schools beginning to murmur in alarm among themselves. Then he cut across them to continue.

"This is as it should be. Now, more than ever, we need to make sure that the quality of Heroes our country produces is up to the more dangerous mission they take on. In light of that, and because of the unprecedented and repeated mass attacks, the structure of the tests had also been changed."

At that, the man reached out to press a button on his podium…and the entire stadium rumbled. The floor withdrew, everywhere but where the students were standing in the tape marked participant zone at the center. Revealed below as the floor withdrew, was a mock cityscape that would have done UA proud. The pillar of concrete the students were on was now level with the fourth floor of many buildings…and several building rose on their own elevators to lock into place at up to twelve stories in height. A clear line of sight was, of course, left to the podium where the speaker was standing. Once the noise and shifting had settled down, he spoke again.

"Your first task is simple. Survive. Capture or knock out means you fail. Good luck."

With no more warning than that, two dozen hidden gates and irising portals opened up all over the walls and roof of the stadium. Out of them poured thousands of drones, in a dozen different configurations. Missile drones, gun drones, tentacle-whip drones, and even sound-based area denial drones. All of them were flight capable, and all of them zeroed in on the students at high speed. Many of those students, utterly unprepared and caught flat footed…panicked. Quirks fired off at random, some effective and others causing friendly fire incidents. Individual students or small groups scattered, diving off the platform that the drones were obviously aiming for. Chaos reigned.

Mostly.

Two groups of students did not do what all the others did. The first group, as expected from the incidents that had already befallen them, were the UA first years. The other group, perhaps just as expected in some ways, was a solid block of a dozen Shiketsu students. That black-clad group instantly fell into a clearly practiced-but-flexible formation, with four of their emitter students slicing out with powerful Quirks that broke up the incoming horde, with two additional squads of four taking the leakers. Unlike the other students, they largely stood their ground until the chaos gave them space, then they moved in sync to another building and forted up against the smaller wave that shifted target to them.

Meanwhile, the UA First Years were by far the largest group aside from Shiketsu. More importantly, they had Izumi. Izumi had, the instant she realized what was going on, fallen into hyper-cognition mode to analyze the situation and react. With everything around her slowed to a crawl, she rapidly worked out deployment orders and shot them across Group A's private combat channel. She split them into three units, one of twelve which she gave a waypoint to a building and instructions to fort up, unknowingly giving them very similar suggestions to what Shiketsu would be doing. She didn't break them up in the same way, UA not focusing as much on squad tactics and formations. Instead, she suggested pairings that were known to have good synergy or combo attacks and set the waypoint as a perimeter, with suggested fire/defense zones for each pair.

The other seven students remaining were going to do something completely different.

Instead of suggesting a defense, Izumi grouped those students into two offensive wedges. One, consisting of her, Momo and Kaminari, was headed airborne. The other four, with Sato in his power armor as a forward spear, and Tokoyami, Iida, and Bakugo acting as set of flankers and backup, were sent to lance out on the ground. Both teams had a single goal…shut the doors. Izumi had realized immediately that the flow of drones wasn't stopping. And she'd never for even an instant considered the idea of just 'surviving' as the HPSC minion had stated. No, as always, the goal was to end the threat. Which meant cutting off the drone reinforcements before sweeping the city and destroying every single one that had gotten through.

That meant forcing those gates and portals closed again or sealing them by some other means. The fact that the attacking teams would, by virtue of their hopefully unanticipated action, only be facing those portions of the swarm coming from each gate or portal at once? That, along with how powerful each of the offensive groups was, should let them get away with this. Still, there was only one way to find out. An instant after sending out the suggested plan of action, she began summoning up her Flight Form. A much improved and tweaked version of the crude and rushed effort she'd created for the Kaiju-Nomu fight. The accompanying Flight Unit, this time armed with gatling lasers instead of missiles, finished forming around her just as the rest of her Group started reacting to her 'suggestions.'

To her total lack of surprise, they began immediately acting on them. Even Bakugo, who was resistant to being ordered around, knew that Izumi would have had what amounted to several minutes of relative time to create the plan she'd sent them all. And he was smart enough to know she would have used that time to good effect and come up with a way to win. The fact that he was being sent to do exactly what he preferred, attack, certainly didn't hurt. He formed up with the other three, opening an initial hole in the oncoming swarm with one of his gauntlets set to maximum blast. Izumi let Momo handle doing the same thing for their group, her girlfriend's recent training showing as she hammered out fifty percent One for All air-punches that hammered an entire column of the assault wave into scrap.

Moments later she, Momo and Kaminari were airborne. She hammered out with two attacks of her own, one an ECM measure that knocked 10% of the total number of drones out of the air. It should have been far more. As in all of them. But, as she'd half-expected, she felt an opposing cyberpath stop the attack before it could get farther. It's not like they hadn't known she'd be here, after all. Letting her get an instant win against the entire attacking force wouldn't have been in the cards. Given a minute or two, she could have likely overcome the other cyberpath. But they didn't have a minute or two. Instead, she shifted focus to sustaining her other attack, her gatling-lasers draining an uncomfortable amount of QE but ripping through the swarm like a scythe.

Their fire rate was high enough that she virtually cleared their remaining path to the closest roof portal in the seconds it took them to cover the distance, aided and abetted by a focused cone of EMP from Denki. Then Momo had closed with that gate, sending air punches within that stopped the flow for a few moments, before creating a thick metal plug with her original Quirk, inside the lip of the circular portal. With the edges of the portal itself keeping the plug in place, that was one place the drones weren't going to be coming from any longer. With determined focus, they set their sights on the next such portal…

... ...

Izumi was fairly certain she could detect a certain amount of chagrin on the faces of the HPSC panel. While it was true that just over 200 of the students from the initial batch had been eliminated in some form, she was pretty darn certain that the panel had not expected every single drone that had made it into the false city to be mission-killed before the half-hour clock ran down. It was something that had only been made possible by Izumi's plan to go on the offense, as well as Shiketsu and one other ad-hoc group realizing what they were doing and sending out raiding parties of their own to do the same. The fact that, by dint of 2B's efforts, she'd been able to link virtually everyone in the stadium up via HSN by the end had also added to the level of organization. Doing so had let them create some level of order out of the chaos and slowed eliminations drastically after the initial burst.

The ambush had not gone to the HPSC panel's planning, and she was fairly certain that the longer-than-expected break they'd gotten between the first and second rounds was the result of some rushed emergency discussions. Still, whether that was the case or not, they were back on the pillar in the main area again as the HPSC took the podium. To his credit, the man didn't show any sign of the result having been unexpected as he spoke up again.

"Congratulations to all of you who have made it this far. I am pleased to say that you have exceeded our expectations. Yet, despite recent events, combat ability alone does not make a Hero! First, let us set the stage…"

With a flourish, the man once again pressed a button on his podium. This time, a series of detonations rang out around the facility, even as buildings shifted and some outright fell. It was a cacophony of noise that made many of those with enhanced hearing wince. Yet it was obvious from the systematic way the entire thing went off that this was a carefully controlled demolition. There were places where Drones had caused damage where things clearly weren't quite as controlled. But even there, the foundations of the buildings had obviously been built for durability, so nothing went majorly off the figurative or literal rails. It took a full minute for it to all settle, and once it did the speaker drew their attention again.

"Another major part of Heroic operations is Disaster Relief! And to help make your exam more realistic, we've brought in help."

Another button, but this one only opened a single massive gate. From it, several hundred people who already looked battered and bloody appeared and began fanning out into the 'ruins.'

"These fine people are from the 'Help Us' corporation. Each of them will place themselves around the ruins of the cityscape, and your job is to rescue them. Safely. Treat them as if they are real victims, for they are experts in their field and will be watching you for mistakes. Any mistakes will cause point deductions. Against what points, might you ask? Well…these points!"

Four holographic screens writ large appeared floating around their pillar at the center of the stadium. Each contained the same list. A list of participants sorted by university, with differing point values beside each student.

"One of the primary reasons for the pause between stages was for us to calculate your point values! For every Drone you disabled in the initial stage, you receive contribution points, up to a maximum of 100. Those of you who accounted for fewer drones will start with a disadvantage. Those of you who disabled the maximum will, in recognition of your potential for combat heroics, be given the most leeway on mistakes at rescue operations. But anyone that has made it this far can pass…or fail. Depending on what your other skills are like. Take the time while the victims are getting in place to find your points listing and plan your strategy. We will begin in twenty minutes."

Izumi had already found their scores, of course, and quickly pointed the UA block out to the others. There wasn't a single member of the 'assault' groups that didn't have the maximum of 100. And even among the defense group, who had switched to clean up once enough gates were closed, no UA student had less than 90 points. That wasn't remotely true elsewhere, as even a glance showed that only Shiketsu was in similarly good shape. Many of the other students had less than fifty points, and quite a few had less than thirty, giving them far less of a margin for error than the UA and Shiketsu students.

It made sense, in a way Izumi hadn't expected. So long as a Rescue oriented hero could survive through the initial attacks, gathering even a small number of points, they would be relatively fine in the second stage, as such students would be the most skilled here. Conversely, overly combat focused students might wrack up the highest safety margin, only to prove they couldn't handle rescue and blow that lead on mistakes in the rescue stage. She turned to make that comment to Momo…only to find everyone from their Group looking at her and Momo. Even a lot of the surrounding groups were doing the same thing! What? Mina seemed to think her expression was funny, giggling and pointing out the obvious.

"Everyone here knows you organized the efforts in the first stage, Izumi. And those of us from UA also know that you and Momo have literally years of experience with Disaster Relief, having been fully licensed and active First Responders long before you came to UA."

Mina's comment made her want to facepalm, particularly when it had been loud enough to carry. Now even more of those surrounding them were looking to her. Time to commit to plan A for large groups of people…Sacrificial Momo Deployment! She clapped her hands for attention…then pointed them all at her girlfriend.

"Momo is the better of us at this sort of mass organization! So, listen up as she outlines our plan!"

Momo rolled her eyes at Izumi's choice to throw her to the masses…but her lips were twitching. It's not like what Izumi had said wasn't completely true, after all. She was by far the better of them with crowds, and was better at organizing large groups than Izumi would ever be. Creating a small platform for herself, she stepped up.

"Alright, everyone! No offense is meant here, but I know the UA people best. So we will divide up into smaller groups based on a nucleus of UA students as leaders. First, those of you willing to work with us who have strength Quirks, group up to the left. Those with healing to the right. Those with…"

Izumi nodded in satisfaction as nearly half of the remaining students began gathering to Momo's instructions. Plan A works, as usual! She'll make sure to do something nice for her girlfriend later, to make up for deploying the Sacrificial Momo Maneuver…

... ...

The second half of the Provisional License Exam had been both far simpler and far more complex. There hadn't been any surprise combat, but a fair number of other surprises had popped up instead. Fires sprung up which caused a need to shift priorities. Secondary detonations collapsed additional buildings to cut off groups of students from the easiest paths forward. And most brutally of all, many of the downed drones proved to be booby-trapped, making for a number of eliminations as attempts to move them resulted in knock outs or captures.

The result was that more people were lost to elimination in the second stage than the first, with roughly an additional 250 failing out by point loss, capture, or knock out. Even so, do in large part to the degree of coordination the students managed even between strangers, just over sixty percent of the initial group passed. Izumi had kept half an eye on the HPSC panel whenever she wasn't busy, and could see that they were a mix of pleased and disgruntled that they'd been proven wrong about how many students would get through the exam. She was both pleased and disgruntled herself that her directional mics had picked up mentions of both her a Momo as their reasons for their projections being off. It was obvious they hadn't anticipated anyone managing to corral so many students into an organized effort. Nor had they expected the tactic Izumi had employed that allowed so many students through to Stage 2.

Still, the panel of judges didn't seem particularly annoyed. Izumi just wasn't all that big a fan of appearing so obviously on their radar, given certain plans going forward. She and Momo had already been there for multiple reasons, and neither of them exactly had a high opinion of the HPSC. Something to do with employing an ex-assassin that had been used for extra-legal murders on the organization's behalf. At the top of the HPSC's 'most interesting' list wasn't always the safest or most comfortable place to find oneself.

Yet, while all of that was certainly present in the back of her mind, as she read the final tally board and discovered that every single member of UA's Group A had passed the exam, she found that her smile couldn't be dimmed even by those thoughts. Though she could, perhaps, have done without the swarm pressing in around her, thanking her for her help in stage one. She couldn't even redeploy Plan A, since Momo was the center of her own similar swarm!

Well, she would survive the extroverts! Probably! And now she was a provisionally licensed hero! Even if she was consumed by this ravenous crowd of social people, she'd at least go to her grave knowing she'd made it that far…

... ... ...

(A/N): So, the primary comment here is to address why the Exams actually changed LESS then I imagine some of you expected, giving my overhauls to the Tournament and Training Camp Arcs. Simply put...the Provisional Exams were actually well done in canon, in my opinion. The changes I DID make here are reflecting two things. 1) All Might hasn't been forced to publicly retire and his Era hasn't collapsed yet as a result. The HPSC is worried about different things here. Which is why the first part of the exams changed into an Anti-Swarm tactics test. They are primarily spooked about that sort of thing happening. Given that, you know, it's already happened. 2) The UA students in particular are much better prepared than they were in canon. They've gotten actual training by competent instructors and seen multiple serious engagements. The poor HPSC was really not really for them.