Chapter 7 – Welcome to UA

The apartment arrangement had been… tense. Josuke wasn't sure why, but Joshu still didn't like him, and made every effort to let him know. At least Yasuho would be next door. But they would need to work something out in order to make hanging out with one another an easier process. As it stood, going to her apartment would cause them to risk the cold awkward silence that Kyo brought with her, and hanging out in Josuke's apartment meant that Joshu would be around, doing... Joshu things.

They hadn't had to spend too much time bringing in the furniture- Josuke's shrinking Quirk and Joshu's Stand were super useful at that task- but afterwards they'd had to be around each other. It had only been a couple of days, and Josuke had no idea how they were going to make it through years of this. The day before he'd ended up spending the entire afternoon in his room, staring at his phone so that he wouldn't have to be out in the living room with his new roommate.

But they were finally going to school. Maybe it wasn't normal for four kids to be excited for school, but when the alternative was arguing with each other all day? Class would be a total godsend.

It was a pretty big surprise to find out they were all going to be in the same class, but Kyo seemed to think it was because the school wanted all the Stand users to be together. They didn't know if any of the other students had Stands yet, but Joshu and Kyo seemed to think it was weird there were even four Stand users in the same year.

They walked to school together, though Kyo had to be reminded her motorcycle would freeze pedestrians and thus she couldn't use that. Or, actually, she had to be reminded she would get in trouble with the school for that, she didn't seem to care about the pedestrians. Once inside the building, it was a quick trip to Classroom 1-A. Josuke had to gulp, after looking at the massive door. Was this school meant for giants? It seemed quite intimidating to him.

He couldn't stop himself from looking around the room as they entered. There was a guy with entirely too many arms, a pink girl with horns, and some… rocky looking guy. He wasn't totally sure what was going on there, but whatever, it looked cool.

"Ah, I see there was merit to your flailing after all." Kyo crossed her arms and scowled at the guy who'd addressed her, and- wait, did he have a bird head? What on earth?

"Enough merit to get me fourth place. Though I can't compare to you of course, your talent for sitting and staring at giant robots propelled you to the top of the rankings, no doubt."

Josuke turned away and left them alone. It was nice to see her making friends, she always seemed so grumpy.

He saw the guy with the cool hair from the entrance exam, and the girl with the spiky hair too. He had to admit he was a little disappointed, though. The very nice tall guy with the wind Quirk must be in another class.

Yasuho sidled up next to him, and bumped his shoulder with her own. "See anyone you recognise?"

"Two people. But I think one of them isn't very friendly. You?"

"Nah, just the bird guy, and he's talking to Kira. I'm gonna... I'm gonna pass on that conversation." Josuke understood. Kyo could be charitably described as prickly. "You said one of them doesn't seem friendly. What about the other?"

"Worth a shot." So they walked over to the spiky haired girl.

"Hey, we were both at the recommendations exam. I'm Kujo Josuke, this is my friend Hirose Yasuho."

"It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Yaoyorozu Momo. How do you know each other? Did the two of you go to the same middle school?"

"Oh, no. We actually only met a couple of months ago. We uh… met by chance and hit it off." Yasuho said. "It's a long story."

"I see. That's quite nice, that it worked out so well for the two of you. I must admit, I was worried about whether or not I'd be able to make friends with anyone here. I've not experienced all of the social interactions that most others take for granted."

"Yeah, I get that. I think everyone's a little nervous right now. And hey, if you aren't used to social interaction, Josuke's in the same boat. You'll get along swimmingly."

"It's good to hear I'm not the only-" Yaoyorozu cut herself off, and was looking at some… strange scruffy man. Was that the teacher?

"It's taken you all four seconds to quiet down. You aren't very logical, are you?"

The teacher immediately made them all change into their gym clothes and head out to a field for some sort of test.

"Bakugou. What was your highest score in the ball toss back in middle school?"

As the kid in question demonstrated his Quirk's abilities, all of the other students began whispering amongst themselves. Josuke could already feel the excitement. He was looking forward to some excercise himself- it would give him the chance to blow off some of the stress that had begun to accumulate recently, what with the move and all. This was looking to be pretty fun.

Which was apparently the wrong way to view it, since the teacher (Mister Aizawa, Josuke reminded himself) decided to threaten the lowest scorer with expulsion.

"Oh, and one more thing: those of you with Stands." An audible gasp went through a few of the students. "You're allowed to use them just as much as your Quirks."

"What?! Wait, which one of you guys has a Stand? That's crazy!" The pink girl looked around, as though she could discern the Stand users from appearance.

"We're supposed to compete with people who can use Stands and Quirks? How can we keep up with that?" This came from a very short boy, with purple balls on his head.

"Hah! Bring it on! I'll crush anyone, Stand or no!" Bakugou, this time.

"Yeah! That just makes the challenge even better!" Some red haired guy that Josuke hadn't even noticed until now.

Well. That was a lot of pressure. A quick glance indicated Yasuho was feeling it even more than him, if the thumbnail she was worrying with her teeth was anything to go by. He guessed that makes sense- her Stand wasn't very suited to tests like these. He sidled over to her, and gave her a gentle nudge with his elbow, before leaning in to speak.

"Don't worry too much. You'll do great. Your Quirk will work quite well with the dash and the ball throw."

"Thanks. But, will you be okay? Your Quirks and Stand are great, but..."

"Yeah, not really suited for this, huh? I won't fail here, though. I need to become a hero."

Aizawa called them up in partnerships for the fifty metre dash to start them off. The fastest was a boy with engines in his legs, at least until Kyo came up.

"Two seconds?!"

"She looked super weird though, flying around in a crouch! What kind of Quirk is that?"

"Maybe she's the one with the Stand."

The teacher paid them no attention, and called Josuke and Joshu up to the dash.

"Before you begin, I want to make something clear. Injuring yourself is pointless in this test. It would only set you back for the rest, as you will not be given any form of healing until after the tests have concluded. Just because something worked during your exam, doesn't mean it was logical. What if you were in a combat situation? You would only end up putting yourself out of commission, thereby dragging the other heroes down."

Next to him, Joshu, was staring at the teacher with suddenly wide eyes, sweat beading on his brow.

"But, then how am I supposed to win this?"

"That's for you to figure out, isn't it?" And with that, Aizawa fired the start pistol.

Josuke's bubbles took the friction away from his own side of the track, and he managed a time of four seconds. Joshu came in with seven.

That part of test went well for Yasuho- she was able to blast herself towards the finish line with her water, and got four seconds as well.

After that one, they took a grip test. Honestly, the only stand outs from that appeared to be the multi-armed guy and Yasuho, who used her water to exert pressure on the device. Bakugou ended up doing something similar, causing small explosions along his palm as he gripped the device. The bird headed guy who'd been talking to Kyo gripped the it with a black bird that came out of his torso. After he'd finished, Josuke went up to him.

"Hey, it's cool to see another Stand user! I thought my friends and I would be the only ones."

"Ah, you must be acquainted with Kira, and the pink haired girl with the water Quirk. I believe the teacher called her Hirose?"

"You're right, we're all... uh, acquainted. And Joshu- Higashikata, that is- as well."

Josuke thought the boy might've raised an eyebrow at that, but it was hard to tell.

"Interesting. That certainly is an abnormal amount of Stand users. But I hate to disappoint you- Dark Shadow is my Quirk, not my Stand."

"Whaaaat? But I was sure it was a Stand. That's odd."

"I must concur. Taking that and the number of Stand users into account, it would appear our class as a whole is unusual. But perhaps that adds a certain charm."

The bird guy might've talked funny, but Josuke was pretty sure he was an alright guy.

The standing long jump was far easier for the Stand users, all of whom just used their Stands to carry them across the sandbox, much to the displeasure of the other students.

"Wait, there are four of them?"

"Come on, isn't that cheating?"

"Of course not. This test is to assess your powers, so there's no such thing as cheating. Such restrictions would be pointless."

As the next person went, Yaoyorozu came back over to Yasuho and him.

"I have to say, when the teacher mentioned there were Stand users, I hadn't expected the two of you to be amongst them."

"My Quirks aren't particularly useful for these tests we've been taking. I've actually only used my Stand around you, even back during the recommendation exams. I've been using it to remove friction from my surroundings."

"Did you say Quirks? As in plural?"

"Oh yeah, I've got two. Shrinking stuff and healing. It's complicated."

"I... see. Well, I don't, but perhaps I'll come to understand. And what about you, Hirose? What does your Stand do?"

"Mine is more of a support-type, I suppose. I'm sort of the opposite of Josuke: my Stand isn't particularly helpful in these tests, but my Quirk is."

The repeated sidesteps didn't go particularly well for anyone but the short kid with the purple ball hair, but the ball throw ended up being far more interesting. Whether it was the short-haired girl throwing a ball for 'infinity' metres (and the tracker actually showed an infinity symbol) or Yasuho blasting it off with her water, this was a round which allowed for much more showing off.

Josuke would be feeling every bit as worried as Joshu looked, if not for one thing. It was easier to throw things that had been shrunk, and even easier to carry them far into the distance with bubbles. His score ended up being on the higher end.

The distance run was topped by the same students who'd gotten high scores in the dash, whereas the toe-touches didn't have much standouts whatsoever.

It finally ended after the pull ups, where once again, all the Stand users (apart from Kyo) were easily able to simply push themselves back up over the bar with their Stands, letting them do the workout without actually working out.

"Alright. I'm not going to waste time explaining how you were scored, I'll just show you the scores."

Josuke wasn't too surprised to see Yaoyorozu, cool haired boy (Todoroki, apparently), and Bakugou at the top of the list. Their Quirks were versatile, and had helped them lead in nearly every test apart from the toe touches and the sidesteps.

He noticed Yasuho and Kyo had both placed in the top ten- seventh and ninth, respectively. He himself had placed in twelfth, above the gravity girl and below the acid one, and Joshu… oof, seventeenth.

But the one with lowest score was the short boy with the purple hair balls.

"Does… does this mean I'm expelled?" The boy gulped, breath coming out in quick puffs.

"No. No one's getting expelled. Yet. That was just a deception to get you all to try your hardest."

The class was, as one would expect, riled up at the ruse. Josuke overheard a girl with headphone jacks on her ears talking to a blond boy about how afraid she'd been the whole test.

"It's just, my Quirk isn't too useful under the circumstances… I'm just surprised I didn't come in dead last."

"Yeah! It's same with my lightning. It's super strong, but it won't help me touch my toes or run fast. This was so nerve-racking..."

Josuke followed the rest of them back to class. This was certainly a interesting way to start off the new school year.

AN

If you're curious, I put together the list of scores. Based it off the original, but it's altered for the character additions and removals, ofc. The students removed to make way for the Morioh squad (as the class is limited to 20 students) are Hagakure, Sato, Aoyama and (as already mentioned) Midoriya. I removed Hagakure, Sato and Aoyama, because, let's face it, they're boring. Koda only edged out Sato because his Quirk is more interesting.

1. Yaoyorozu Momo

2. Todoroki Shouto

3. Bakugou Katsuki

4. Iida Tenya

5. Tokoyami Fumikage

6. Shoji Mezo

7. Hirose Yasuho

8. Ojiro Mashirao

9. Kira Kyo

10. Kirishima Eijiro

11. Ashido Mina

12. Kujo Josuke

13. Uraraka Ochako

14. Koda Koji

15. Asui Tsuyu

16. Sero Hanta

17. Higashikata Joshu

18. Kaminari Denki

19. Jiro Kyouka

20. Mineta Minoru