(SYOC) Pro Hero, Teacher, and Villains will be accepted until an undetermined date.

Student spots have been filled! Thank you to everyone who sent a submission!

UA isn't the only school cranking out new heroes. On an island south of Nagasaki is HIA, Heroes International Academy, a school for heroes-to-be from around the world. Kyouya Akiyama is in his first year with an unconventional quirk, and as much as he hates it, he's going to need it. Especially when pros are dying left and right.

I thought this would be a fun project during the quarantine. My semester in Japan was cancelled, so I have some free time when I'm low on motivation for my other My Hero fic. Here's the prologue.

Her mentor didn't have to teach her that life was cruel. She knew that all on her own.

She kept her head down in the corridor, walking like a pro in those dumb high-heels. They were dumb, but they made her more feminine, which made her less likely to fuck someone up. You couldn't start a brawl in heels. You couldn't get away in heels.

Well, most couldn't.

Two doctors—or were they scientists, as she was pretending she was? Too many white lab coats—passed through the door behind her. They didn't give her a second glance.

Better for them.

She hummed a song.

"Room Thirteen, let's see…" She tapped her chin, a white flash engulfing her pupils under the fake glasses, spinning and scrolling. Her quirk, Perfect Recollection, read back the map she'd seen weeks earlier. "Ah, there it is."

She followed the path, humming that song that was stuck in her head.

No one taught her that the world was cruel except the world itself.

She came up upon the room, the room that he was in, and waved her macgyvered key over the sensor. It beeped, and she heard a click, so she pulled down the handle. The door opened.

Inside was another room, an anti-quirk incubator, where a figure snored softly inside. He looked older, his hair more gray, his wrinkles more eroded into his handsome face.

She smiled. "Good morning, Sensei." She knocked on the glass softly, then obnoxiously. "It's time to wake up."

"What are you doing in here?"

She whirled around at the accusation, at the scientist who'd been unlucky enough to notice the door to a classified room was open.

The man frowned. "No one's allowed in this room—this subject is a dangerous criminal!"

She hummed. "He looks pretty harmless to me."

The figure on the bed broke into a haggard cough behind the bulletproof glass.

"See? Couldn't hurt a fly." For the first time, her mirthful eyes hardened. "Poor little guinea pig, trapped like that. His dream stolen, stepped on, crushed."

The scientist stepped closer, farther into the room. "I don't know what you're going on about, but no one is allowed in here."

Within seconds, the smile was back on. "I'll be right out."

She reached inside her borrowed lab coat and pulled out a handgun. The scientist didn't even have time to register what he was staring at when she pulled the trigger, pointing at his head.

The world was cruel. So you had to be cruel to survive. It was nothing personal.

"Time to go home, Sensei."

"You wanted to see me?"

His sensei looked up from his desk, a paper in his lap. He almost looked startled, even though he hadn't been trying to sneak up on him. It was just, if he wanted to be unnoticed, he would be.

"Yes, Akiyama-kun. Thanks for stopping by before you went home."

Kyouya read his name at the top of the sheet, recognizing it as the future worksheet his grade had filled out the week before. He sighed.

"I've been meaning to talk to you about the school you choose—Uh, go ahead and take a seat."

Kyouya awkwardly lowered himself onto the flimsy chair. He had been hoping he wouldn't have to stay long enough to sit. "You don't think I should go to HIA." It wasn't a question. He knew he should have just lied about which high school he had his eye on.

His sensei cleared his throat. "It's not that I don't think you should go. It's just—"

It's just Heroes' International was, as its name suggested, a Hero school.

"Are you sure that's the profession you're dead set on?"

Kyouya didn't respond. He'd already had this conversation with three different people. Including his older brother, before he'd died. Except Ichiro had actually listened to his answer.

"Akiyama-kun, please understand that I'm—worried. I work with all my students on their aptitude tests, and it would be irresponsible for me not to speak to you. Your score for the hero profession…"

It was terrible. Not even a chance he could be a hero.

"I've been working out since then." He rubbed the back of his neck. "My brother was helping me."

His sensei sighed. "I'm more so talking about your quirk. As unconventional as it is… I just don't want you to get your hopes up."

"Thanks, I guess." Kyouya looked away. "There's an entrance exam coming up. If I fail, I fail. I figured I'd try, though."

"Sure, Akiyama-kun. It can't hurt." He gave him a weaned smile. "Anyway, I've compiled a list of back-up schools. You know. Just in case."

Kyouya eyed the manila folder. "Thanks."

He left the office as soon as he could, even though it was probably at a rude time. He wasn't in a club, but that didn't mean he didn't have things to do or places to be.

He was Kyouya Akiyama, former loser. Now a hero in training. He thought back to what Ichiro had told him, before the accident.

"The heart wants what it wants. If you want to be a hero, you've got to work for it."

Ichiro would have been the better hero. As a construction worker, he already had the strength and stamina. Kyouya's arms couldn't possibly get that big. He had a lanky, long-limbed body that was the opposite.

But the heart wants what the heart wants.

He saw Ganta Higurashi jogging across the courtyard to the gym. He was in the basketball club, where he couldn't use his monstrosity quirk. He could transform into a giant, muscular monster within seconds. He would also be a better hero.

If Kyouya said he didn't wish he had a different quirk, he would be lying. His life would be so much easier if he had a transformation quirk, or maybe an augmentation quirk.

But the heart wants what the heart wants, and the boy was born with the quirk he was born with, and there were a hell of a lot of things he couldn't change.

And some things that he could.

He was Kyouya Akiyama, and his quirk was luck. And he was going to be a hero.

Here are the new rules for Hero/Teacher/Villain submissions: (Edited as of April 6th)

1. I reserve the right to decline submissions or assign them to lesser roles. Also, while it's not impossible in-world to have similar quirks, I do plan to stay away from canon quirks, so no ice or fire powers. No mind control quirks (Because I have a character who uses one).

2. They can be from any part of the world, but have to have a reason to speak Japanese (if most of them are just they took it in middle-school, that's fine). Language level can vary, but I need characters who can communicate.

3. I'll only read submissions from my PM box (this is so we can communicate). You MUST label it: SYOC - First name Last name - Nationality - Occupation (The occupation will be replaced with Hero, Teacher, or Villain). I shouldn't even accept characters who aren't sent with this message title. It makes things so messy and confusing in my Inbox when they aren't labeled correctly. It also tells me that whether you actually read the rules and story or not.

4. I'll probably be accepting pro-heroes and villains throughout the whole fic (there will not be a shortage, trust me.) Teacher spots are a little more limited, but I won't put a cap on it.

5. Please go wild, though please try your best to keep characters realistic. If I feel something is out of place in the world (which wouldn't be your guys' fault, it would probably have more to do with what's to come with the story) I may request permission to change aspects of the submissions. But I also want to be clear that this may also apply to creative choices and creative choices alone. I would like to avoid Mary/Gary sues. I know that no one creates them intentionally, so I'll provide an example: A character who spent their childhood in prison for murdering people is suddenly allowed to attend a normal high school. Or other cheesy things, like tragic pasts, or like an unrealistically emo personality (Not saying emo people don't exist or that you can't submit them, but I'm not writing 'My Immortal'). No vigilantes, and we have enough orphans. :)

This also includes submitting characters from existing anime. That last time I did an SYOC, someone submitted a character from an OVA and thought I wouldn't notice. References are fine, but no plagiarism please. And along with this, I want to add that even if it goes unchanged in the profile, I may not end up using all of the information you gave me. That doesn't mean this info is wasted, as it let me know what makes each character tic. But I cannot possibly go super deep into each background. I'm sure you all already know this, though.

6. Finally, if you have a character in the works, I do ask that you stay involved in the reading/feedback aspect. That would help me out more than anything. This could be review or a PM, if you don't want others to see it. Following is the bare minimum, because otherwise you won't even know when I update and your character is in a chapter. This applies to students (especially) and all other submissions. Thank you to those who already do this.

Here's the submission form (I will also put it on my profile):

Name:

Age:

Gender/Pronouns:

Nationality:

Birthday: Month/Day

Personality (Please be detailed):

Sexuality:

Background:

Japanese level (How well do they speak/understand):

Likes:

Dislikes:

Appearance:

Physique:

Other:

Accessories:

Costume (Please be extra descriptive):

Quirk-

Quirk Name:

Hero Name/Alias:

Quirk Description:

Quirk Weakness/what they need to work on:

Special Moves/Applications:

Stats

Power: /5

Speed: /5

Technique: /5

Intelligence: /5

Teamwork: /5

Theme Songs/or music they like:

Romantic interests (As in, do you want them, what would they likely be, etc):

Scene Ideas (If you have any):

Type of person they would befriend:

Type of person they would not get along with:

Class List:

1. Kyouya Akiyama (Japanese) - Luck

2. Maria Petrenko (Russian) - Human Nuclear Reactor

3. Austin Colt (American) - Hand Cannon

4. Theodore "Theo" Taylor (American) - Self Warp

5. Abbigail Mecuro (American) - Stretch Gen

6. Akatsuki Komura (Japanese) - Frost Touch

7. Nicole "Nell" Zhongxin (Hong Kongese) - Floortilit

8. Lin Lei (Chinese) - Third Eye

9. Nadeshiko Fumino (Japanese) - Solar Power

10. Matthias Crow (Canadian) - Sink

11. Amir Tembo (Kenyan) - Just Add Water

12. Erdem Barbaros (Japanese/Turkish) - Bug Body

13. Franz "Gemma" Germaine (French) - Cell Activation

14. Eabha McLain-Bracken (Irish) - Doppelganger

15. Luca Seong (Korean/Italian) - Assembly Not Included