Summary: Todoroki Shoto will be a hero... But not just yet. Right now, Todoroki Shoto is a bitter, pessimistic, hurt teenager who doesn't want help, friends or hinderances of any kind getting in the way of his misguided goals. Thankfully, there will soon be people in his life who will be more than happy to drag him into a place of happiness, safety, and acceptance - kicking and screaming the whole way, if they have to. All he has to do is survive his first meeting with them and all the incredible changes that will come after. This is Todoroki Shoto's Hero Academia.

A/N: And here we have the start to my longest multi-chaptered fic and my debut into this fandom. If you're here for the first time, welcome! The first fic in this series is That Was Then, which will become relevant later on. This fic is basically the definition of 'it gets worse before it gets better'; it's gonna be all hurt and no comfort for quite a bit. It DOES get better, though, and will have a heap-ton of Dadzawa and class 1-A being awesome people. This is a semi-canon compliant canon re-write with Shoto as the main character; it is also entirely Gen, and will AT MOST hint at slash/het relationships. This fic will also contain (blanket WARNING): child abuse, spousal abuse, swearing, an unreliable narrator, suicidal ideation, dissociation, an unspecified eating disorder, PTSD, self-harm, and depression. Please mind the warnings and backspace if these are things you don't want to read about. If you find anything I'm writing offensive for legitimate reasons, please be respectful when you inform me, because I am thin-skinned and have low self-esteem.

This chapter has self-harm, though it isn't explicit. Please take care of yourself, and backspace if this is too much for you!

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Mom reaches out a hand and gestures at the window.

"It's a beautiful day outside, Shoto. How do you feel about a picnic?"

Shoto turns; looks outside. Cumulonimbus clouds shift and make way for Nimbostratus, swollen, dark clouds rolling over and into each other like someone has pressed a finger against the sky and put it all on fast-forward.

He looks back, and Mom smiles.

"Come, Shoto. Don't you want to see?"

Thunder crashes. Grey skies are briefly illuminated by trailing fingers of lightning.

No, he mouthes at her, the shape of the words lost in a crash of thunder. She takes his hand in hers, tugs him. They move down the hall on silent feet, past the white shoji doors with their golden flowers and elegant cranes in flight. Where there were walls, there are now windows, floor to ceiling; the lightning stretches their shadows long and dark across the ground as they walk past them, slow and silent.

They reach the door. Mom holds a picnic basket in her arm, he sees. She has on her favorite summer dress, with its vibrant floral print and delicate pastels. Her straw hat won't protect her from the harshness of the storm, but when Shoto tries to tell her, she smiles down at him from under the brim of her hat—warm, like the real, full strength of the summer sun—and the words die in his throat.

"It'll be just like old times, sweetie! Just you, me and all the creepy crawlies!" she says cheerfully. They slip into sandals—little golden slips for her, geta for him—and they open the door.

Outside in the garden, the red emperor maple by the koi pond (the one that gains a thick crimson coat of leaves every autumn) is on fire.

"What a lovely day," Mom says. She pulls him again, and he goes, but he only goes because he has no choice.

Mom, don't, he says, but branches crackle and creak, leaves burning and scattering ashes over his words, and the sounds are lost in the wind.

Mom pulls them closer, closer.

"It was a bit too hard to pack zaru-soba, so you'll have to make do with sandwiches for now! I'll ask Saito-san about making some for dinner, shall I?"

With a great crackling bang, a large branch breaks off under the unrelenting heat; Shoto looks up and realizes that, somehow, they are directly below it.

Mom, he says with his frozen mouth. She looks up at the stormy sky, smiling beatifically, blind to the danger.

The branch breaks completely... and falls.

MOM!

Shoto jolted awake, to the sound of loud banging on his door and the strident trill of his snooze alarm.

"Shoto, if you're not up in the next five minutes, you can forget about breakfast!" a most unwelcome voice called, pulling at the foggy hand clinging to his mind.

The scowl that slipped onto his face felt like it was made to be there, which didn't do much for his burgeoning bad mood. Shoto scrubbed at his face, hoping to brush off the last dregs of sleep, and took the deep breath he needed to drag himself out of bed.

Next: trudge to the shower; five minutes under cold water, a quick toweling off; teeth-toilet-clothes; one-two-three second reflection check, to ensure the bruises are all hidden.

Another day had begun.

Over breakfast, Todoroki Enji tutted and complained about current events as he shoveled down bowls of rice and fish and soup and natto like the fire of his quirk was burning every morsel the second they hit his stomach. Todoroki Fuyumi nodded occasionally to give the illusion of a listening ear, while her eyes never left the mackerel she was carefully dissecting with her chopsticks.

Todoroki Shoto, ignoring his father's grimace of disgust, crunched obnoxiously on milk-less cereal and drank green tea. The petty joy of being able to get under Father's skin so early in the morning did wonders for his mood (and also helped him ignore the fact that bran cereal, eaten without milk and with only unsweetened green tea to wash it down, was disgusting).

Mrs. Saito (their housekeeper, half-deaf and completely ignorant of anything that went on outside the boundaries of her job) took his empty bowl with an equally empty smile, and toddled off to the kitchen as he scooted out from under the low table, making sure to knock his knees against the table-top as noisily as he could manage.

"Shoto," Father began, a hint of fire in his voice.

"School," Shoto cut him off sharply, already turning his back. It was always safer to have one foot out the door, these days. "I'll be late."

"Be safe," Fuyumi said, her voice as fragile and soft as a light snowfall in spring. Shoto lifted a half-hearted hand to wave and closed the door behind him.

Bag, check; tie, check; uniform and shoes, check.

The driver opened the door and bowed as he stepped inside. The stone boundary separating the Todoroki family home from the rest of the world also served to block out the rising sun, and Shoto stared out the windows as the gates slowly opened and let the light in.

"We'll be arriving at the school gates in approximately one hour and twenty minutes, young master. Would you like me to put on music for you? Jazz, perhaps?"

"No," Shoto said curtly. The seatbelt dug into his stomach, making him regret the time he'd spent in that suffocating room, shoveling down food he hadn't wanted, and which he'd kept down only by a large helping of spite.

"Just get us there in time."

"As you wish."

U.A.'s gleaming glass panels reflected the sun in swaths of warm gold. Shoto looked away the moment it came into view, blinking at the overwhelming brilliance of it.

"We're here," the driver said. "If you would wait for just a moment, I'll get the door for you."

"No, that's alright—" Shoto started to say, but as the doors automatically slid open and the driver left this seat, finished half-heartedly under his breath: "…I can get it myself."

"Have a wonderful day, young master Todoroki," the man (what was his name again?) said, his body bent at the perfect seventy-five-degree angle as he saw Shoto on his way. "I will be by to pick you up after school ends."

Shoto stepped onto the sidewalk, ignoring but not oblivious to the many looks being cast his way, and waved the driver off.

"Later."

Even when walking at what should have been an even, slow pace, Shoto made it a habit to stalk at a speed just below a trot: it had the double effect of being both intimidating and guaranteed to have anyone in front of him scattering at first glance.

He walked down the halls this way, up three flights of stairs and through another hall (and through a group of girls who gave him half-frightened, half-excited looks as he brushed between two of them, purposely oblivious to anything but his goal), past classrooms 1J-1B, until he reached his soon-to-be-classroom.

The door was large; obviously, they had taken into consideration the possibility that one day (Shoto imagined they hoped it would be someday, very far away) they would get a student tall enough to necessitate it. Perhaps they had created it in All Might's day. Shoto could imagine someone watching the budding hero in action, then getting the inexplicable urge to create an entrance big enough to warrant someone whose reputation would be almost too big to fit through it, one day.

Then he shook off his wandering thoughts, aware enough to realize and acknowledge that he was stalling. Then he pulled open the massive door.

It was surprisingly light. Shoto rolled the door shut behind him with an absent thought for its make and materials.

"And heeeeeeeere's our number five! Told you we'd get a boy next!"

(Tired, mismatching eyes tracked movement outside the window. Pink petals flew and fluttered about, ecstatic in their rise and languid in their fall. A few fell gently to rest on the window still, adding to the pile slowly building up to create Spring's idea of piles of autumn leaves.

Through the glaring reflection of fluorescent lights on glass, the flying petals, and the occasional leaf, the track team tensed on their running blocks. At the low crack of the starting gun—still audible even on the third story—the runners took off. Shoto followed them around their course with tired eyes, distantly noting that blue 4 would be overtaken by yellow 16 at the next turn.

"—Due to extenuating circumstances, Todoroki-kun will only be joining the class on Wednesdays and Thursdays, but please do your best to make him feel welcome! Todoroki-kun, would you like to introduce yourself?"

Todoroki tore his eyes away from the window long enough to give a terse introduction, a short bow and to take one-two-three-four steps to his new desk. Then his gaze was once again outside, through the glass and past the petals, to watch the little people on the ground go round and round and round. He watched, and did his best to ignore the sudden rise in whispers around him.

He wasn't entirely successful.

"Ooh, it's a boy! Told you we'd get a boy."

"Aw man, that's so unlucky. 3F got a cute girl last month—"

"I hear he got in on a recommendation, like, his family must be really loaded—"

"Loaded? Dude, don't you know who that IS?"

"What, you mean that Endeavor's—"

"Did you see his scar? Phew, nasty. Wonder how he got it-"

"—If I had something like that on my face, you bet I would be covering that shit up—"

"—Did you hear him? What a douche. 'It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.' Like, who even talks like that, you know?"

"But he can't really be THAT endeavor's son, can he?"

"—Endeavor's son—"

"—Todoroki—"

The little figures went round and round and round, and Shoto closed his eyes and pretended the words entering his ears weren't doing the same in endless, dizzying circles.)

The hand still touching the door—his right side—briefly frosted the surface as a jolt of surprise shuddered through his body. He had his hand at his side in the next instant, any sign of surprise hidden behind a blank mask.

The loud pronouncement had come from a girl with a fluffy head of riotous pink curls. Her yellow eyes (made all the brighter by her black sclera) looked him over curiously, her pink-skinned arms raised over her head from where she had thrown them up at his entrance.

She and another student (hair blond, a streak of black through it but no other defining features) sat on top of opposing desks, one row down from the door. As Shoto slowly navigated his way to the back of the classroom, his eyes went to the three other students sitting at random desks about the room.

A student with an avian, crow-like head (sleek black feathers, reflecting blue in the neon light, and a sharp yellow beak to go with striking yellow eyes) glanced up from what looked like quiet introspection as Shoto headed towards his seat. They (he?) gave a nod in greeting as he stepped past him, a greeting that Shoto returned coolly with a bare tilt of his head. Shoto's seat was just behind him.

(It had been included in the rule book, hadn't it? That the uniforms were not cisgender specific, owing to the many diverse genders that had arisen along with the new generation of quirk users; but that, due to tradition, the inclusion of skirts in the uniform for those identifying as 'female' had been made mandatory. Shoto wondered at the necessity or even purpose of it… then asked himself why he cared, and pushed the thought away.)

"Aw man, where are the girls? Don't tell me this is how it's gonna be for the next three years! No offense, Ashido, Yao-ah, Yaoyorozu, was it?"

"None taken."

Yaoyorozu.

Shoto looked up from his bag as the name rang a bell in his head. He eyed the girl who had spoken. She sat across from his desk on his left-hand side, her posture perfect, body language uncomfortable and subdued. Her black hair was tied up in a neat ponytail, and she had a serious, if polite, look on her face. Her name sounded familiar, but he couldn't place—

Ah. That was it. She was the other recommendation student in his class.

("Tch, another recommendation?" Father flipped through the folder in his lap and grunted with displeasure. Shoto pressed his chin further into his hand and glared hard at the window, his lips in a tight line. He didn't respond.

"The Yaoyorozu Family has done plenty of good work for society as a whole, it cannot be denied; but who's to say their child will amount to anything? What Heroes need to succeed in this day and age-"

The test would be a simple written test, according to the introduction packet. The word of Endeavor, the pro-hero, was enough to set his third—and youngest—son a step above the rest. Shoto stared hard at the cars, people and buildings whizzing past them, in an attempt to erase the sight of his father's mouth moving in the glass's reflection, spitting out useless words and wasting the oxygen in the vehicle.

"—you will, of course, stand above them all. As a Todoroki, you have a duty to your family—"

If only it were possible to drown out sound the way one could close their eyes. Shoto shut his eyes then, imagining it: his eardrums shuttering closed at the slightest hint of that man's voice; inner-ear-lids to keep out all the words and empty noise that tried to drill themselves into his brain; better yet, a kill switch, to burst his eardrums on command. Perforated eardrums healed easily enough, if you were careful about it—Shoto knew that one from experience.

If there were such a thing as that kill switch, Shoto would have happily flipped it right that second. Then he could close his eyes, his ears and his brain, and dream of somewhere different. Better.

The car rumbled, passing objects blurred with motion, and their destination and the start of Shoto's new life drew closer. Shoto let the rhythm of the car and the gentle movement pull him into a quiet place in his mind where there was nothing at all.)

Shoto hadn't actually spoken to his fellow recommendation students during their entrance test. He had passed her (or someone that looked quite a bit like her) in the halls, but had been ushered into a separate examination room and hadn't given it a second's thought.

Now he avoided eye-contact as Yaoyorozu Momo glanced in his direction, because what would be the point of speaking to her? In the end, what they had in common would amount to the same thing as his neighbor's pet Pomeranian having a matching accessory as him on its collar. How she had gotten here, to Hero class 1-A, would not have any say in her success as an actual hero—and was, more importantly, irrelevant: because Shoto didn't actually care.

"Man, no way! There's gotta be more girls joining than that! I mean, wouldn't that be, like, discrimination? Sexism? Being confused, because this is supposed to be a coed school?"

"Dunno if it's sexism… I mean, it's got to do with how you scored right? They can't just choose some random girl over a guy who scored higher than her, even if the class ends up uneven. That'd be some real discrimination there."

The fourth student in the room had also kept quiet up until this point, though he had half-turned in his chair, and appeared to be listening rather intently to the conversation. Shoto gave him his own intent look in return. This person's quirk had some very interesting physical characteristics.

Large eyes in a face that, in comparison to his body, was rather small, this student had three arms—each attached to the other by what looked like webbing, almost like bat wings—on each side of his large torso. He wore a large mask over his face, and one of his three hands on the left side was in the shape of an… ear?

Shoto found himself curious, in a detached sort of way. Hands had a tendency to find themselves in the oddest of places: a careless gesture could knock over a jar, for instance, shattering it and creating a lot of noise; a victory high-five could miss, and end up smacking someone in the mouth; a ringed hand, raised in anger, might catch on skin, tearing it open and leaving a gaping wound. Hands were difficult things to control; what would happen if he were to, say (though the thought was rather crass), use the restroom? That 'ear' at the end of his arm could end up being very problematic.

"Good morning! I am Iida Tenya, and I will be training with you all from now on, in the hopes of becoming the best hero I can be! I am very excited to see what we can accomplish!"

The words crashed straight through his deliberations with all the subtlety of a train wreck. With deliberate slowness, Shoto dragged his eyes up to the outstretched hand in front of him, already feeling tired. His eyes swiftly categorized what they saw: short-cropped black hair, glasses, a stern face in squared lines that practically screamed 'earnestness'—the quintessential try-hard. He appeared to have made his rounds already, if the half-stunned looks on the other student's faces were any indication, and now it was apparently Shoto's turn.

No, thank you.

"...same to you," he said dismissively after a moment, without introducing himself or bothering to shake the outstretched hand. Shoto had better things to do than cater to overachievers, particularly ones like this, who practically oozed sincerity. A few other greetings echoed through the classroom, some sounding more confused than others: apparently, Shoto had been one of the few to even notice the guy entering the room.

(Although Shoto had only noticed him entering the room peripherally, 'Iida' hadn't exactly been subtle about his entrance, which didn't say much at all for his classmates' collective intelligence or situational awareness.)

Thankfully, Iida retracted his hand without further fanfare and immediately launched himself into the conversation Shoto had been deliberately distancing himself from.

"Discrimination… I do not believe it would be considered discrimination, as such. From what I have heard, the teachers at UA are given much leeway with the curriculum and what is and isn't allowed in regard to the students. Apparently expelling students is a common punishment? With that knowledge, it seems reasonable to assume that picking and choosing prospective students would be within their power, irrespective of those students' genders! This is, of course, under the assumption that the teachers themselves have any say in the selection process."

("What a snob. 'It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.' Like, who even talks like that, you know?")

Everyone nodded along like this made sense, and Shoto found his already waning interest fade entirely. Giving up bothering to appear engaged altogether, Shoto looked away and back to his opened bag.

Pencil case; lined notebooks; textbooks; electronic dictionary; thermos; lunch box; phone. Shoto mechanically sorted through his belongings and put each where they belonged. Every movement ached and burned at overused muscles, and bruises layered on top of bruises.

Endeavor had not gone easy on him over the weekend. Apparently, being a Hero was, 'hard, painful, under-appreciated work', and he should be, 'glad for the free experience'.

Shoto nearly snorted at the thought, but held it in (barely) when he recalled both where he was, and also that he had either badly bruised or cracked a rib on his right side, and laughing would be a very unpleasant experience.

"What about you, number five?"

He didn't look up at the words, but it was a near thing. Shoto tried, in most of his interactions with people outside his own household, to exude an air of unapproachableness that might make an interested person stop, for a moment, from a sort of sixth sense that this person, you didn't want to approach.

(This, he had learned from him: that walk, of utter belief in one's own superiority; that look on his face, echoes of his inflated sense of self-worth easily visible at a glance; the sharp disinterest in his voice, an easy way to gauge where you fell in his expectations, if you even fell within them at all.)

Apparently, his fellow students either didn't have anything resembling sixth sense, or they were just terrible at reading body language. Or both. Probably both, Shoto thought. He shrugged one shoulder (his left) and dragged his chair forward with a foot as he went to sit down.

A beat, then: "Eh? Come on, shortcake, you've got to have more of a reaction than that!"

This, Shoto did respond to. His red and white hair, bisected neatly down the middle between the two colors, shifted smoothly back from his face as he looked up, tilted his head back slightly (the better to look down his nose at them all) and gave his coldest glare.

To the blond's credit, he may be completely lacking in self-preservation, but he at least had the guts to not visibly flinch back. Or the stupidity. (It was probably the stupidity.)

What an idiot.

"Are you an idiot?" he stated more than asked. The boy gave a nervous, high-pitched laugh, while the pink one blinked at him and coughed awkwardly.

"Uh... I don't think so?"

"I'll just go about arbitrarily assigning nicknames for all of you, then, shall I?" he asked softly, calm but with a sinister edge, the way Father would get when he was setting up a verbal noose for you to walk into. It didn't have quite the same punch as it did when Father did it, but the idiot did go a shade paler.

Not a total idiot, then.

"Before we have done more than exchanges greetings—which I don't recall even bothering with, in your case—should I decide what sort of person you are, based on first impressions or appearance? I don't think you would enjoy the epitaphs I come up with, then."

He could say more, and he wanted to. He could let the fraying edges of his temper snap, letting the lingering pain in his bones and the aggravation creeping into his brain overtake his common sense; common sense that was even now shouting at him that these were his future allies, and alienating them before anything had even started could have a bad effect on his future as a hero. He could ignore his good sense and tear them all apart with the sharp edge of his tongue, the way Endeavor had torn into him last night when Shoto had let him throw him about the training room rather than use the hateful left-side of his quirk—

"Perhaps an apology would be appropriate at this point, Kirishima-kun," Crow Head spoke up unexpectedly, adding a deep baritone to the proceedings and jarring Shoto out of his deepening spiral.

"Yeah, shit, okay. Sorry, short-uh, um. What's your name again?"

He blinked slowly up at the other boy, then absently moved his fingers to trace down the spine of a blue notebook on his desk: blank, except for a neatly penned 'Math 1' on the cover. Why did names have such power? He wondered. Why did the human race put such stalk in having categories and labels and appellations for everything? Would it be so terrible for everyone to just—wander about, to go about their lives as a blank canvas, with no title or name?

"Todoroki Shoto," he said eventually, eyes drifting down to the dark blue lines. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yaoyorozu jolt and half-turn towards him. No doubt her mouth would be opening on a question, that one question he had been hoping to avoid hearing for as long as possible. No doubt, if he looked up, the others would also be looking at him, surprise—shock, trepidation, maybe confusion—on their faces.

(This was the son of the Number Two Hero, Endeavor? They would say.

…This?)

"I'm Kaminari Denki! My quirk's called 'Electrification' which is basically exactly what it sounds like… but what I mean to say is—sorry. That wasn't cool."

This made him look up, the notebook forgotten.

The boy had hopped off the desk and turned his back on Pinky (who kept shooting him concerned looks, and Shoto uncertain ones) to slouch his body in Shoto's direction. With his hands in his pockets, his hair standing up riotously from his head and with earphones dangling down one shoulder, he should have come off as indolent and defiant, but the look in his eyes was anything but.

Shoto blinked once, twice, three times. His face felt as frozen as the ice always there, hiding under the surface of his skin, and his fingers twitched to release it.

"My sister says I'm always running my mouth and that's why people think my quirk's burning through all my brain cells—"

Pinky winced, and dryly cut in, "Wow, no offense Kaminari, but your sis is kind of a bitch—"

"—But like, I didn't mean anything by that, I just didn't know what to call you, and it slipped out before I could stop it. Start again?" 'Kaminari' finished apologetically. He dogged the tables separating them and offered his hand.

This time, though he again took a moment to think it through, Shoto took the hand, as briefly as he could manage. Then he pulled it back swiftly, resisting the urge to rub through the sudden tingling feeling running over his skin. The thought of looking up was very difficult, suddenly, and making eye contact was even harder.

"I… accept your apology," Shoto said. The words felt as awkward in his mouth as they did leaving it, but the smile that he got in reply was nearly blinding.

"Great! I'm glad we, ah, worked that out."

Shoto nodded blankly into the space the boy had left as Kaminari skipped back to his seat and threw himself on top of his desk.

Iida, whose general attitude Shoto thought he already had a pretty good handle on, objected quite fiercely to this move, shouting: "Kaminari-kun! That is an inappropriate way to be treating school furniture! As a future hero, even something as seemingly insignificant as treatment of property—"

"You're one of the other recommendation students," Yaoyorozu said to him in an undertone. She had turned in her seat to face him and was lightly wringing her hands in her lap. She seemed rather timid, but the uncertain-but-determined look on her face told Shoto he wouldn't be able to get away with ignoring this one.

His skin still tingled where Kaminari had shaken it. Shoto hid his hands under his desk and gave in to the urge to rub at them.

"Yes," he replied shortly. He looked up at the clock situated above the blackboard: 8:15.

It had only been fifteen minutes; fifteen more to go.

The restless energy caused by the stress of talking (coupled with yesterday's terrible training and compounded by being unexpectedly forced to socialize) threatened to be too much. The rubbing turned to scratching, and Shoto quickly found himself catching the words coming out of Yaoyorozu's mouth in brief snatches:

"—Missed you at written exam. My... mentioned another applicant... accepted, but I wasn't aware...the son of... great things... incredible act of heroic..."

The clock tick-tick-tick-tick-ticked.

BANG.

The sound of the door slamming open brought reality flickering back into full color. Yaoyorozu, who had been in the middle of saying something, jerked her head to the door in shock.

Shoto had marked each student as they came into the door, because even while preoccupied or drifting, his father's—the Number Two Hero, Endeavor's—training had taught him the importance of always being aware of your surroundings. The room was nearly full, and out of the eighteen students in the room, all but Shoto had flinched back at the sound.

(Situational awareness, honestly…)

The boy who entered the room—no, that wasn't right: the boy who stalked to the front of the room, smug aggression in every swagger and every line of his smirk, screamed of someone who was used to being the center of attention and was quite happy to be there. Sharp, blond spikes matched a sharp jawline, and rounding it all up were glaring red eyes that took in everything around them in an instant.

This was someone who could potentially be a problem, and most definitely an annoyance. Shoto scratched at his arm and felt a moment of relief when, upon turning to him and opening her mouth, Yaoyorozu apparently reconsidered striking up the conversation for a second time.

The new boy plopped himself down in one of the few remaining desks (three rows from the door, one table down from the front) and immediately put his feet up.

"You! You shouldn't be putting your feet there-"

Tick-tock, tick-tock. 8:26 turned, excruciatingly slowly, to 8:27. Shoto pulled out his phone and began reading Hero Daily.

'Up and coming Pro-Hero Break-a-Leg has a bad run-in with Villain: Commercial-Schism'

'Where Is All Might and What Is He Up To?'

'The disappearance of Villain: Buffalo Jill'

He scrolled down restlessly, looking for something interesting enough that would work as a fully-immersive distraction.

'Emergence of a new Villain: the Hero-Killer—

"It took you all eight seconds to shut up. If I had been a villain, you'd all be dead by now. You aren't here to make friends, so stop chattering and sit down."

8:30. Shoto thought that their teacher was punctual, if nothing else. He appeared to be in a bright yellow sleeping bag, of all things, though he was quick to step out of it and start pulling out gym clothes (somehow, there was enough for everyone. Was his quirk a pocket dimension, perhaps?). They weren't going to the Entrance Ceremony, apparently; their teacher had something else in mind.

School was not turning out to be quite how he had imagined it would go, based on his limited experiences in private school education.

Shoto scratched his hand one last time before turning his phone on silent and slipping it into the side-pocket of his bag. He then tried to push aside the drowsiness and the discomfort, and focus.

He was here to become the greatest, and to prove his father—and Endeavor—unequivocally wrong in all the ways that mattered. These people, with their physical gestures and flapping mouths, were nothing more than unfortunate obstacles in his path, and he would not allow them to make him stray from his.