I do not own My Hero Academia or JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
Sorry about the month or so long hiatus. I've just been so exceedingly tired as of late. I also had to restart this chapter at one point since the first draft was awful, but that really wasn't the reason this took so long. Hopefully, I'll be able to resume updating at a regular pace.
The door opened again, and Katsuki glanced towards it to see who had just entered. Upon seeing that it wasn't the teacher or... anyone else, he promptly ignored their presence. The brief look he got at their appearance, a boy of average height with yellow hair with zig-zagging black streak through it, was immediately forgotten. Katsuki couldn't wait until all his other classmates arrived so he could confirm they were all just a bunch of extras and could go back to his default state of ignoring their existences.
Leaning back in his chair in an attempt to relax slightly, Katsuki propped his feet on his desk and stared at the ceiling in thought. Realistically, he knew that the extras in his class had to have some merit, otherwise they wouldn't have made it to U.A., but considering how much of gap there was between his entrance exam score and theirs, he couldn't help but doubt any of them would prove a serious challenge to him. The only two unknowns were the recommended students, they could be anywhere from genius prodigies with amazing quirks and professional training to spoiled brats who only got in because of their family's influence.
Katsuki was aware of someone approaching his desk, but he didn't pay them any mind. In all likely-hood, whatever they wanted was less important than his own thoughts.
"Excuse me! I must request that you remove your feet from the desk. Such behavior isn't proper." The extra spoke way too loudly and with far too much enthusiasm.
Seriously? What kind of uptight asshole gets up to bug someone over something like that? He could already tell he was going to hate this guy. It would probably be best to avoid interacting with the extra as much as possible, otherwise he might snap and attack the hard-ass.
So, for right now, Katsuki was just going to completely ignore him. He didn't so much as glance in the guy's direction.
"Did you hear what I said?" The extra said. Unfortunately, Katsuki did. He wasn't deaf, despite how much his mom yelled. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the extra doing some kind of weird chopping motion with his hand as he spoke, "It is incredibly rude to ignore people who are speaking to you!"
'And barging up to someone to bitch about how they're sitting isn't!?' Katsuki thought but gave no outward indication that he heard a word the extra said. He didn't make any noise, look in the guy's direction, or even move at all. He just kept staring at the ceiling. The dumb-ass might as well have been talking to an empty chair.
"...Can you hear me?" The extra said hesitantly, as though he was now actually fucking wondering if Katsuki was deaf. Great, so he was a complete moron in addition to being an ass.
Katsuki would have been content to just continue ignoring the guy's existence until he gave up and left, but then he tried to reached out to touch him. Maybe he was trying to tap Katsuki's shoulder to get his attention or something, but the explosive blonde didn't know or give a damn what the hell could have possibly been going on in the dipshit's empty skull. All he knew was that several alarm bells went off in his head the second his personal space was invaded.
Time seemed to slow as it often did when Katsuki was training, when adrenaline was coursing through his veins causing his perception to work ten times as hard as it usually did. The second the guy's hand crossed Katsuki's invisible threshold, his own shot out faster than a bullet from a gun and clamped down on his wrist.
"What the hell is your goddamn problem!?" Katsuki spat, venom in his words and venom in his eyes as he turned to glare at the object of his wrath. The extra, some tall fuck with glasses, recoiled back in surprise, but he couldn't move very far since Katsuki still had a death grip around his wrist, "You can't just go around fucking touching people without their goddamn permission. I obviously want nothing to fucking do with you, so leave me the hell alone!"
Katsuki let go of Four Eyes' hand, and the taller teen stumbled backwards, knocking into the desk behind him. The extra sitting at it, the same yellow haired boy who entered earlier, gave a startled squawk at having his desk bumped. Distantly, Katsuki realised that everyone in the class was watching them with rapt attention thanks to his outburst, but he quickly decided he didn't give a fuck.
He turned away from Four Eyes, opting to go back to ignoring his existence. By now, both of Katsuki's feet were off his desk and planted firmly on the ground. He had done so when he grabbed Four Eyes' wrist, he just didn't have enough stability with his feet propped up on his desk. Katsuki began to contemplate putting them back on the desk, purely out of spite, but Four Eyes started talking again before he could go through with it.
"...Did I do it again?" Four Eyes said, seemingly to himself, sounding confused and slightly frustrated. Katsuki cocked an eyebrow in response, wondering what the hell that meant. Then he realised he didn't care.
Suddenly, Four Eyes bowed, "My apologies. My actions might not have been appropriate. Please, allow me to introduce myself properly. My name is Iida Tenya, I'm from Somei Private Academy." He placed a hand over his chest and raised his other one towards Katsuki. He wasn't offering a handshake or anything, his hand was open flat. It looked awkward and stupid.
"Tch, Somei, eh? So, you're a stuck-up elitist? That explains a lot." Katsuki sneered. Four Eyes sputtered at Katsuki's words, "Just stay the hell out of my way, or I'll destroy you."
"Destroy me!? Th-those are not words that should be used by someone who wishes to become a hero!" Four Eyes sounded absolutely scandalised.
Katsuki knew that he had a highly expressive face. Much his like mom, he could often talk solely through his expression. Usually, he did so in the form of one of his many glares, but right know he opted for his 'Bitch, are you fucking serious right now' face. Did this dumb-ass seriously not understand figures of speech? Maybe Katsuki had been giving his classmates way to much fucking credit, because at current they didn't seem any better than all the other extras he had known. The only way that he could possibly justify Four Eyes' insane reaction in a way that let him keep his sanity was that the extra simply wasn't used to Katsuki's rather unique attitude.
Mercifully, the classroom door opened again at that moment, providing a distraction from the sheer idiocy happening in front of him. A girl with a round face and pink cheeks entered and looked around nervously. Four Eyes seemed far more interested in the new girl than Katsuki was, as he immediately walked over to talk to her. Good, that meant he'd leave Katsuki alone.
By now, the class was only missing one student. Although there was the possibility that not enough people passed the exam to make a full class of twenty for both hero courses, U.A. was well known being very strict with its acceptance. Katsuki's eyes slid back over to Round Face, who was talking to Four Eyes and seemed to embarrassed by the conversation, judging by how her cheeks changed from pink to bright red.
Was she the last student of 1-A?
The distant yet rapidly approaching sound of sneakers slapping against the floor seemed to sink that idea. Looks like they did have a twentieth student, and they were apparently fucking abysmal about actually getting to class on time. Great, just about the last kind of person Katsuki wanted to be around at U.A. was a dumb-ass slacker. How was he suppose to get stronger if he didn't have any decent competition?
The footsteps reached the class room and the door burst open. There, on the other side of the door, panting heavily from running and looking like he was about drop dead, was the actual last person Katsuki wanted to be around at U.A.
He could already feel massive fucking headache coming on.
-000-
As soon as Izuku opened the door, he grabbed on to the door frame to keep himself from collapsing to the floor while he caught his breath. His lungs felt like they were about to pop. He had kind of hoped that he'd stop feeling like this after running when he had finished cleaning the beach. Then again, he had also run at full sprint all the way here due to being held up, which was something he would have never been able to do before.
After what felt like a full five minutes of gasping for air, his lungs finally stopped burning and Izuku looked up. The first thing that he saw was Uraraka, who he was glad to see was in his class, the second thing he saw was the mean guy with the glasses from the entrance exam, who Izuku was significantly less happy to see. The soft buzz of his quirk prompted him to look further into the classroom, where he saw Kacchan, who had just crushed a pencil in his hand.
So, Izuku already knew three of his classmates, one who he was friends with, one who he was enemies with (Though, that might be too strong a word), and... Kacchan. All three of them were staring at him (Actually, at least a third of the class seemed to be staring at him.), each with a different expression, but none of them said anything. Unfortunately, that meant it fell to Izuku to break the silence.
He tried to think of something to say to them. Ultimately, what he came up with was, "I'm not late am I?"
To his surprise, none of them answered. Instead, the answer came from behind him.
"You are. But since you still arrived before me, you'd probably think you're in the clear."
With a yelp of surprise, Izuku promptly turned around to see... A large yellow caterpillar with the face of a homeless man lying in the hall.
What the frick?!
"But, with your record, taking risks like being late isn't very logical." The caterpillar's tired eyes hardened slightly as he stared at Izuku. Izuku went rigid at the implication. However, the caterpillar's sharp gaze quickly faded back into exhaustion as he pushed a juice pouch into his mouth (And Izuku was more than a little ashamed to admit that it was only then that he realised it was a man in a yellow sleeping bag).
"I-I'm sorry." Izuku bowed the strange man in a sleeping bag, "I would've have been here earlier, but my quirk told me about a cat that got stuck in a storm drain-"
"Don't make excuses." He cut Izuku off, "It doesn't change what happened. And you could be lying for all I know."
Shuffling into a standing position, the man shed the sleeping bag as he stepped into the room. Everyone nearby stepped back from him. Now that he was out of the sleeping bag, he looked even more haggard, like he had never heard of shaving, or shampoo, or sleeping for eight hours. At least his clothes looked clean, though the black jumpsuit he wore made it hard to tell.
"Time is a precious resource, for hero's especially. Running around, being late to class or even getting there just as it's about to start, just isn't rational." The tired man said.
'Is this man a teacher? If he is, then he must be a Pro Hero, but I don't recognise him.' Try as Izuku might, he couldn't put any sort of name to this man who looked more like a homeless person than a hero.
"I'm Aizawa Shouta, your homeroom teacher. We've met now." Aizawa-sensei said, sounding like he'd rather be anywhere else (Probably in bed). Still, that confirmed he was a hero. Aizawa reached into his sleeping bag and pulled out a stack of sloppily folded gym outfits, "Put these on and head to the grounds. Do it quickly."
Dumping clothing onto the teacher's desk, he promptly turned around and shuffled back out of the classroom. It took a solid couple of seconds for his words register with the class. When they finally did, the general reaction was confusion or surprise. Eventually though, after a chaotic few seconds, everyone managed to grab a gym uniform.
"Wait." A black haired teen with strange-looking elbows said, "Where are the changing rooms?"
-000-
Eventually, they all made it down to the field where Aizawa-sensei was waiting. He didn't really acknowledge their presence when they arrived, instead his head was drooping and he looked like he was about to fall asleep. In all likelihood, they weren't going to start... whatever it was they were called down here to do right away.
Which meant that Tenya might have a chance to talk to Midoriya before they began.
The green-haired teen was standing next to Uraraka. She had saved him during the exam, so it made sense that the two would be on good terms. As Tenya made his way over, Midoriya noticed him, and perked up like a frightened rabbit before quickly scurrying away to the far end of the group.
Tenya's shoulders sagged in disappointment. He couldn't exactly blame Midoriya for avoiding him, on account of how their previous interactions had gone. However, Tenya had hoped to least be able to talk to him.
"What was that about?" Uraraka mussed to herself as Tenya approached.
"I believe he left because of me." Tenya answered her. She turned to him, having seemingly not noticed him approach.
"Oh, Iida, right? Why would he be avoiding you?" Uraraka asked.
Tenya chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment before replying, "...We got off on the wrong foot. However, I plan to apologise to him for how I behaved during the exam!"
"Huh, what do you- Oh, right!" A light bulb seemed to go off above Uraraka's head, "You were with him when the Zero-Pointer attacked! So, you want to apologise for leaving him behind?"
It was probably easy for Uraraka to piece that together. After all, Tenya had already approached her and thanked her for helping him to realise what the point of the exam had actually been. She had seemed embarrassed at the time, and hastily explained that she had no idea that Rescue Points even existed when she saved Midoriya. To him, that only proved that she had true heroic character, and he told her as much. She had seemed even more flustered after at.
"Yes, among other things. Looking back, I realise I probably offended him." Tenya said solemnly. While he still didn't approve of what Midoriya had done, he couldn't help but wonder if he had been too harsh on the green-haired teen, and said things to him that were unwarranted. Tenya had also done something similar earlier today with the blonde-haired teen in his class. Clearly, it was something he needed to work on.
Uraraka opened her mouth to say something, but Aizawa-sensei started speaking before she could get any words out.
"You all found your way here. Good." He said lazily, "To start your time at U.A., we're going to conduct a test of your quirks."
Most of the class was taken aback by his words.
"W-Wait! What about the entrance ceremony?! The orientation!? Or guidance sessions?!" Uraraka spoke up.
"All just a waste of time. So, we're skipping it." Aizawa-sensei said. His words only prompted more shock and confusion, so he continued to explain, "Here at U.A., we employ 'Freestyle' education, which basically means I can teach you however I please. It's one of the things that makes this school so great."
Tenya was shocked to hear something like that from a teacher. How could completely going off the rails and ignoring established school conventions make U.A. great?
No. This man was a professional. And U.A. was widely known as the best hero school in the country, there had to be some merit to what he was saying. Tenya would trust him.
"Ball Throw. Standing Long Jump. Fifty Meter Dash. Endurance Running. Grip Strength. Repeated Side Steps. Sit Ups. Seated Toe Touch." Aizawa-sensei read aloud from a list on his phone, "These are the standard fitness tests you all did in middle school. For some ungodly reason, Japan insists prohibiting the use of quirks for these tests. Maybe it's out of some warped and misplaced sense of fairness, or maybe they're just too lazy to come up with a new way of doing things." He suddenly looked up from his phone and stared at the group, "Bakugou, you placed first in the entrance exam. What was your record for how far you could throw in middle school?"
Bakugou, evidently the blonde teen from before, spoke, "Seventy-two meters."
"Great. Do it again with your quirk. I don't care what exactly you do as long as you don't leave the circle." Aizawa-sensei tossed a softball to Bakugou.
With the ball in hand, Bakugou walked into the ring on the field Aizawa had mentioned. He did some stretches before winding up his pitch, and...
"DIE!"
BOOM!
Tenya jumped slightly at the massive explosion the other teen created. The shock wave blew past them, ruffling their hair and clothes, and kicking up a lot of dust. He looked up to see the ball, easily visible by the shock waves it created, fly into the sky before disappearing from his view.
After a few seconds, Aizawa-sensei's phone beeped.
"Knowing what your limits are is important. It tells you what kind of heroes you can be." As he held out his phone to show the number printed on the screen.
747 m.
"Woah! Holy crap, this is awesome!" Someone yelled.
"Seven hundred and fifty meters?! How did you even do that!?" Another person yelled at Bakugou.
"We really get to use our quirks freely! This is going to be so much fun!"
Tenya tried to recall the list of activities that Aizawa-sensei had read aloud. There were several that his quirk would aid him greatly in, but there were also many that it would be useless for. Fortunately, Tenya was in quite good shape from regularly exercise, so he wouldn't have to worry about performing poorly in those either.
"You think this is going to be fun?" Aizawa-sensei said coldly, grabbing everyone's attention. Their teacher's face had shifted slightly from exhaustion to a disapproving glare as an ominous aura extruded from him, "You only have three years to become heroes. You don't have time to joke around and play games. To drive that home, how about this? The person with the lowest combined score of all eight events will be judged as having no potential for hero work. And will be expelled."
His words were a punch to gut for the entire class. Everyone just froze. Tenya carefully steeled his expression, but it was obvious the effect it had on everyone else. Looks of shock and fear were present on almost all of their faces. The only ones that didn't seem affected were a boy with red and white hair who's expression was unreadable, and blonde-haired student with a twinkle in their eye.
"WHAT!" Uraraka seemed to be the first person to recover, or at least the first person to say anything, "Bu- but it's our first day! We haven't- I mean- You can- That's just not fair!" She seemed to stumble over her words in her shock.
"Villains, natural disaster, accidents, and calamities of all kinds. None of them care about what's fair. Heroes are the ones who're expected to deal with these things, to help civilians caught in these unfair circumstances and get them out safely. If you can't deal with unfairness, you can't be a hero." Aizawa-sensei said calmly, his previous demeanor gone completely, though he did seem less exhausted than before, "U.A. will be nothing like your schools before, there won't be any time to slack off and hang out with friends and have fun. The next three years will consist of putting you through the wringer. So if you can't handle it, we might as well find out now. If you don't want to get kicked out, then go beyond. Plus Ultra." He said the last words with a lazy, almost mocking grin.
So, this was a trial by fire. It made sense in a way, heroes who couldn't keep up fell behind in the charts and faded into obscurity. Or, a far worse fate could befall them...
Tenya could easily see where their teacher was coming from. Trying to shield them from such harshness would only serve to hurt them later on. After all, it was a hero's job to confront the harsh realities of the world.
Looking around, he saw that most of his class had settled down slightly, either because they had seen the logic in Aizawa-sensei's words or they had simply had time to calm down. One girl in particular, with long black hair pulled back into a ponytail, looked completely calm, as though Aizawa-sensei hadn't even made his declaration. Though there were still plenty who didn't look at ease. Uraraka was shaking and Bakugou's lips were split into either a fierce grin or fierce grimace (It was shockingly hard to tell). Looking over to the edge of the group, he saw Midoriya also appeared apprehensive.
Tenya quickly looked away. He didn't have time to worry about Midoriya or anything else right now. He had no choice but to focus on this test and give it everything he had. Everything else would have to wait until later.
Iida: *Exists*
Izuku & Katsuki: I've had enough of this dude.
I'm currently on the fence as to whether I should Aizawa actually expel anyone. Mineta is the person who scored the lowest besides Izuku, so he'd the be the one to get kicked if I did. To be honest, Mineta getting expelled isn't that big of a loss, but I'm still not sure if I'll actually do it.
Izuku being the last one to class was a hold over from the previous draft of this chapter where he encountered a problem thanks to his Stand on his way to school and was late because of it. I scrapped that draft because it was just terrible, but I still kept some of the ideas (Though the actual problem that made him late got downgraded to a cat in trouble). The main reason for this was it made the chapter slightly different from the events in canon, as just straight up copying the events of canon isn't very interesting to read or write.