Time seemed to slow as Alex stared at the trapped girl and the massive zero-pointer robot bearing down on her position. The mechanical giant's footsteps shook the ground, sending tremors through the replica city district that Alex could feel in their bones.
The girl—Alex could see now that she had short brown hair and was probably around their own age—was pinned beneath a concrete beam that had fallen from a damaged building. Her terror was a living thing, so intense that it cut through all the other emotional noise like a siren.
Move, Alex commanded themselves. Stop thinking and move.
But their legs felt like lead. The zero-pointer was impossibly huge, easily capable of crushing them without even noticing. Every survival instinct screamed at them to run, to save themselves while they still could.
That's when Alex felt it—a blazing determination cutting through the air like a comet. They turned to see Midoriya Izuku sprinting toward the same girl, his face set in lines of absolute resolve despite the obvious terror radiating from him. His emotional signature was a contradiction—paralyzing fear mixed with unshakeable heroic conviction.
But there was something else, something that made Alex's quirk sing with recognition. Hidden beneath Midoriya's surface emotions was a power signature unlike anything Alex had ever encountered. It felt ancient, vast, and barely contained—like touching the edge of an ocean that stretched beyond the horizon.
What kind of quirk is that? Alex wondered, but there was no time for analysis.
Alex opened their mind fully, reaching out to every source of courage and determination within their fifty-meter range. The sensation was overwhelming—dozens of emotional signatures flowing into them at once. Some students were fleeing in terror, but others were standing their ground, either too shocked to move or genuinely wanting to help.
From a student with a hardening quirk came rock-solid determination. From someone with a speed enhancement came the confidence of swift movement. From Midoriya came that blazing, self-destructive heroic resolve that burned brighter than the sun.
Alex absorbed it all, letting the collective courage of their fellow examinees flow through them like electricity. Their quirk had never handled this much emotional input before, but desperation was a powerful motivator.
Something fundamental shifted inside Alex as the borrowed emotions merged with their own protective instincts. For a moment, they felt as if they could do anything—and perhaps more importantly, they felt echoes of the quirks that went with those emotions.
The hardening student's defensive power tingled in Alex's skin. The speed enhancer's kinetic energy hummed in their muscles. And from Midoriya came something that made Alex's bones ache with potential—raw, devastating power held back only by lack of control.
Alex sprinted toward the trapped girl, moving faster than they'd ever moved before. The zero-pointer's massive foot was descending toward her position, and Midoriya was charging straight at the robot with his right arm already glowing with dangerous energy.
He's going to destroy himself, Alex realized, feeling the reckless determination that drove Midoriya to sacrifice his body for the sake of others. And even if he stops this thing, he won't be able to help her afterward.
Alex reached the girl just as Midoriya launched himself into the air. His emotional signature blazed even brighter as he prepared to unleash everything he had against the massive robot.
"I've got her!" Alex shouted, hoping Midoriya could hear them over the chaos.
Alex grabbed the concrete beam pinning the girl down. Under normal circumstances, they never could have lifted something so heavy, but their borrowed strength—somehow enhanced by their emotional resonance with multiple quirks—was enough to shift it just far enough.
"Can you move?" Alex asked urgently.
The girl—who Alex now recognized as Uraraka Ochako based on her distinctive features—tried to stand but immediately collapsed. "My ankle... I think it's broken."
Above them, Midoriya's attack connected with the zero-pointer in a explosion of force that Alex felt through their quirk as much as their physical senses. The massive robot's head crumpled under the impact, and it began to topple backward. But Midoriya was falling too, his right arm and leg clearly shattered by the recoil of his own power.
Alex made a split-second decision. They reached out with their quirk toward Uraraka, sensing her gravity-manipulation ability alongside her gratitude and determination. The emotional resonance was immediate and startling—suddenly Alex felt as if they understood the fundamental forces that governed weight and movement.
"Trust me," Alex said, scooping Uraraka into their arms. She immediately activated her quirk on both of them, and Alex felt the strange sensation of weightlessness take hold.
But instead of simply floating, Alex used their borrowed understanding of gravity manipulation to propel them both upward and away from the falling robot. It wasn't perfect—they were obviously borrowing just an echo of Uraraka's true ability—but it was enough to get them to safety.
They landed hard on a nearby rooftop, Uraraka's quirk releasing just in time to prevent them from floating away entirely. Below them, the zero-pointer crashed to the ground with a sound like thunder, sending up a massive cloud of dust and debris.
"Midoriya!" Alex called out, but the boy was nowhere to be seen in the chaos below.
"There!" Uraraka pointed with her good arm. "Recovery Girl is already heading toward him."
Indeed, the elderly school nurse was making her way through the devastation with practiced efficiency, her medical bag in hand. Other U.A. staff members were appearing throughout the test site, quickly assessing injuries and ensuring student safety.
"Time's up!" Present Mic's voice echoed across the district. "The practical exam is now concluded!"
Alex helped Uraraka sit up against the rooftop's safety barrier, both of them breathing heavily. The emotional resonance effects were fading, leaving Alex feeling drained and slightly disoriented. They had managed to temporarily borrow aspects of at least four different quirks during the crisis—something that should have been impossible.
"What you did back there," Uraraka said quietly, "that was amazing. I've never seen anyone coordinate that many people's abilities before."
Alex blinked in surprise. "What do you mean?"
"The way you seemed to know exactly how to use everyone's strengths, like you could feel what we were all capable of. Is that your quirk?"
Before Alex could answer, a U.A. staff member with a stretcher arrived to help Uraraka down from the roof. As she was being carried away, she called back to Alex.
"I'm Uraraka Ochako, by the way! Thank you for saving me!"
"Alex Yamamoto," they replied, managing a tired smile. "And thank you for trusting me."
As the testing ground gradually cleared of students and staff, Alex remained on the rooftop for a few extra minutes, trying to process what had happened. They had always known their Emotional Resonance quirk was unusual, but today it had done things that seemed beyond its documented capabilities.
Dr. Sato had theorized that Alex's quirk might have hidden depths that would only reveal themselves under extreme stress. The ability to temporarily copy aspects of other people's quirks by resonating with their emotional states during power usage was far beyond anything they had demonstrated before.
Is this what I'm really capable of? Alex wondered, staring at their hands. Or was it just adrenaline and desperation?
Either way, they had definitely failed the practical exam in terms of raw points. While other students had been destroying robots efficiently, Alex had spent most of their time learning to adapt their quirk to combat situations. They had probably earned fewer than ten points total.
But as Alex watched Recovery Girl treating Midoriya's injuries in the distance, they felt a deep sense of satisfaction that had nothing to do with test scores. They had saved someone today. They had acted like a hero when it mattered most.
Walking down from the rooftop toward the exit, Alex caught sight of their reflection in a broken window. Their silver-blue hair was disheveled and their heterochromatic eyes were bright with exhaustion, but they looked... different. More confident, somehow. More certain of who they were meant to become.
The train ride home was a blur of exhausted students comparing their performances and speculating about results. Alex sat quietly in the corner, still processing the emotional echoes of the day's events.
They had no idea if they had passed or failed U.A.'s entrance exam. But for the first time in their life, Alex felt truly proud of how they had used their quirk.
Whatever happened next, they were ready for it.