Suited up, backpack in hand, I was ready for my first day at UA high. When I arrived in our classroom, the place was filled with noise and shouting. Lots of boys, only a few girls. I noticed a boy from the entrance exam was in the seat next to me - my fellow recommendation student, I assumed - and took my place next to him. He, at least, seemed quiet and calm. Everyone else, though, seemed incapable of staying quiet for more than a few seconds. I couldn't help but disapprove.

Suddenly, from outside the front door, a gravelly adult's voice was speaking, cutting through the noise.

"If you're gonna be hunting for buddies, do it elsewhere."

I couldn't quite see him through the door, but the tone was that of an instructor. Everyone instantly quited down.

"This is the hero department," he continued. "Hm, it took you lot 8 seconds to quiet down. Life is short, kids. You're all lacking in common sense."

At last, he came through the door, and I was in for quite the shock. He wasn't anything like I'd expected our teacher to be - tall, gaunt, hunchbacked, long haired and unshaven, dressed all in black except for a white scarf around his neck. "I'm your homeroom teacher, Shota Aizawa. Pleasure meeting you." He then held up the iconic UA gym uniform for all of us to see. "Wear this immediately, and meet up at the PE grounds."

"A quirk apprehension test?!"

One of the louder girls from earlier was asking him, "What about the ceremony, and the guidance counseling?"

"If you want to be heroes, you don't have time for that," said Mr. Aizawa. "You all understand the school's reputation for freedom on campus. That freedom goes for us teachers too. The softball pitch, the standing long jump, the 50 meter dash, endurance running, grip strength, sustained sideways jumps, upper body exercise, seated to touch. These are all activities you know from middl school, naturally. Physical tests where you were barred from using your quirks. The country still hasn't gotten around to standardizing those sorts of records, or keeping track of average performance levels. Well, that's negicence on the part of MEXT. Bakugo," he said, turning to a boy who sat a few places in front of me, "How far could you pitch a softball in middle school?"

"6-7 meters," the boy answered.

"Try using your quirk this time around. As long as you don't exit the circle, anything is fine. Don't hold back."

"Got it," he said, winding up to pitch - the n screaming "DIE!" as the ball blasted out of his hand with a giant explosion and flying out of sight. Bakugo, I recalled, was the name of the highest ranked student to get in via the usual test. Perhaps that was why Sensei had chosen him.

"Before anything else, one must know what they're capable of," said Sensei, holding up a measuring calculator for all of us to see, showing a distance of 705.2 meters. "This is a rational metric that will form the basis of your 'hero foundation'.

"Awesome!" cheered a girl with pink hair and skin, "That looks so fun!"

I rather disapproved of this; the teacher, it seemed, agreed with me, for he turned to her with a frown. "It looks like fun, you say? So you were planning to spend your three years here having a good old time? What happened to becoming heroes? All right, then. In that case, the student who ranks last in total points will be judged hopeless and instantly expelled. Our freedom means we dispense with students as we please." He gave a strange grin. "Welcome to the Hero Department."

The noisy girl was protesting again. "This is our first day! Even if it wasn't, that's just unfair!"

"Natural disasters, massive accidents, ego-mad villains…all kinds of calamities can happen when we least expect them. The world is full of unfairness. It's our jobs as heroes to reverse it all, and restore reason. If you were counting on a friendly chat at the local McDonald's after school, that's too bad. From now on, for the next three years, all you can expect from life at UA is one hardship after the next. This is 'plus ultra'. I expect you to overcome these trials and climb to the top. Now then, that was the demonstration. Time to step up to the plate."

I found myself smiling a little. The other students looked frightened, but the whole thing seemed clear to me. This statement, in all likelihood, was just a lie designed to bring out their maximum performances. Not that I had intended to bring anything less to the plate.

Ten perfect scores later, each accomplished with a special invention - a scooter to speed through the 50 meter dash, a cannon for a ball toss, an automatic gear for a grip strength test - and I watched as the teacher confirmed exactly what I had said before. "The whole expulsion thing was a lie. It was a logical ruse to pull out your best performances."

My classmates all shrieked in astonishment and I shook my head. "C'mon, guys. Use your brains! Of course it was just a ruse!"

Our results were then displayed, and much as I'd expected, I had first place marks. Second to me was the boy from the entrance exam, Shoto Todoroki, then the blond boy who had thrown the baseball, Katsuki Bakugo. It seemed I had a definite set of competitors for the top spot in UA, but so far, nobody had really given me much of a challenge.