Chapter 5: Class 1-A

I walked into the classroom and found a seat near the middle of the room. I sat down and deposited my stuff next to my seat. Seated beside me was a kid with spiky red hair, red, not orange like mine, and a wicked smile. He must have seen me looking at him out of the corner of his eye, because he turned towards me and spoke.

"So, you finally found your way inside?" Oh, I recognize his voice. He's the one who called to me and Tohsaka. "Unlike your lady friend over there," he continued. "I'm Eijiro Kirishima, nice to meet you!" He introduced, with the same smile from before. "By the way, is she okay?" He asked, looking mildly concerned. I looked over at the entrance to the room. Still standing there in the doorway was Tohsaka, looking as stunned as ever. She finally seemed to notice that she was making a scene and moved towards...oh shit. She was suddenly beside me, pushing Kirishima's head out of the way, and slammed her hand down on my desk.

"EMIYA," She yelled, "how the HELL did you make it into the hero course!" Yep, there it is. Considering I never told her which course I got into, I figured she'd assume I got into general studies or something. Definitely not the hero course.

"I took the test, and-"

"You passed, yeah, you already gave me the same spiel! I meant, how? With just swords? You?!" You know, I'm starting to get a bit offended. I stood up.

"Look, Tohsaka, I trained. A lot. Every day. Then I took the test, and I passed. That's all there is to it. I want to be a hero, and I'm going to be one. If you think I don't have it in me, then that's not my problem. If I'm lacking, then I'll fail, but until then...I'm here to stay. Okay?" I asked, calmly. She looked stunned, her eyes wide. I looked around and saw that most of the class had a similar reaction. Looks like I was the one who made a scene this time.

I looked back at Tohsaka, who had narrowed her eyes at me, and prepared to be yelled at again. That didn't happen, though. She just stared at me, her eyes slowly losing the edge they previously had, until she was smirking. Then she said, "Ok then, Emiya. Let's see if I truly underestimated you," and walked off to the other side of class and took a seat. As soon as she sat down, some commotion began going on over by the door. It was...cute girl? Iida? Smash kid? They seemed to be staring at something out of my view. Then, a man in a sleeping bag abruptly appeared out of nowhere. Apparently, he's our teacher. He handed out gym uniforms and ordered us to go change and meet him outside on the practice field.

As us boys headed off to our respective locker rooms, I found smash kid and caught up to him in the hallway. "Hey, uh, kid. It's me, Shirou Emiya," I said to smash kid as I grabbed on to his shoulder. He froze up immediately after I made contact with him, like he was expecting to be hit or something. As soon as he heard my voice, though, he visibly relaxed. He turned to face me, sporting a huge smile on his face.

"Hey, Emiya! Glad to see you made it in!" He said happily. We continued to walk towards the locker rooms, talking about random stuff like how our summers had been and how awesome it was to get into U.A. Then, I realized something. What's his name?

"Uh, this feels kind of awkward to ask now, but what's your name? I never got it back at the entrance exam," I explained. His face lit up with surprise, then shifted to embarrassment.

"Yeah, I guess I never told you at the exam," he said, smiling nervously and rubbing the back of his neck. "It's Izuku Midoriya," he said. Oh yeah, I think All Might mentioned that I helped an Izuku Midoriya in my entrance results. "I actually never got your name either," he continued. "You just introduced yourself now, though, so I used your name. What I mean is you didn't introduce yourself before, though..." He began to trail off into unintelligible mumbling. I raised an eyebrow and shook him by his arm a bit. That seemed to snap him out of it. He then repeatedly apologized for his little 'episode.'

As we made our way towards the field, I saw Tohsaka staring at me from the other side of our pack of students. The second we locked eyes, she jerked her head in the opposite direction so hard she almost snapped her own neck. Looking over the rest of my fellow classmates, I noticed a blond kid glaring at Midoriya so hard that it seemed like he was trying to kill him with his mind. Considering I have no idea what his quirk is, I should actually be prepared for that as a possibility. I wonder what his deal is, though.

Once we were out on the field, our teacher, now introduced as Mr. Aizawa, went over how schools didn't handle quirks right. Apparently, he planned to fix that in our little corner of the world. We were to participate in a normal physical exam. The catch? You get to use your quirks. Simple enough. He then went on to call up that blond kid from before, Bakugo, to give a demonstration of how much farther he can throw a ball with his quirk than without it. Apparently, he can throw it about ten times further. He used explosions to propel the ball into the sky. Definitely an impressive quirk. However, his angry disposition and the fact that he screamed 'die' while throwing his ball don't exactly strike me as heroic traits. Well, I could be wrong. I'll figure him out with time.

"This is what I'm talking about!"

"We can really use our quirks now?! That's the Hero Course for you!"

"This looks like fun!"

"You think this looks fun, huh?" Aizawa said, looking over at us. "You have three years here to become a hero. You think it's all gonna be games and play time?" He asked. Then, he smiled at us sadisticly. "Idiots. Today you'll compete in eight physical tests to gauge your potential. Whoever comes in last has none, and will be expelled immediately."

Shit.

So, which one of us is going to be kicked off the island, huh? This is how Japan's greatest hero school operates? I glanced over at the other students, and the reactions varied from stoic to completely shocked. Tohsaka looked perfectly calm and serious, while Midoriya seemed to be freaking out. This left me surprised and angry. This shouldn't be how a hero school goes about things. As I was thinking over the situation, someone decided to speak up about it.

"You can't send one of us home! I mean, we just got here! Even if it wasn't the first day, it's not fair!" Cute girl exclaimed. Wait, no. I think back to what All Might said in my acceptance letter. Ochako Uraraka. That's her name, I think. Uraraka stood her ground, staring at Aizawa defiantly. Until he spoke, that is.

"Do you think that natural disasters are fair? Or power hungry villains, hmmm? Or catastrophic accidents? No, they're not fair. It's a hero's job to combat that unfairness. Go beyond. Plus Ultra style. Now then, let's move on to the actual assessment, first..." Ok, now expulsion is on the table. That's fine, I can deal with it. I just have to pass; I gotta make sure I actually stay here. I don't even have to score great, just not last. That last place person, though...no. I can't think about that now. I have to focus on me. After all, pitying the student who scores in last place won't make anything better. All I can do here, as much as I hate it, is focus on myself. Time to pass another test. No worries. I scored the highest on the entrance exam; this should be no problem.

Boy, was I wrong.

First up was the short distance run. Wait, this is a quirk test, right? How am I supposed to use Kanshou and Bakuya here? Oh shit. I can't. This is a physical test. Strength and endurance. This has nothing to do with fighting. My swords are practically useless in this kind of test! What if everyone else's quirks augment their physical abilities in some way except mine! I might fail here and get expelled, and my dream will end...

No! I won't let it end here, not after coming this far! I've got two swords, I just need to figure out how I can use them here.

"Emiya, Tohsaka, you're up first," Aizawa told us. Great, of all the people to get paired with, I get her. As I walk up to the starting line, I catch Tohsaka staring at me again. Not like last time, though. Now, it seems, she's intrigued. Like she's curious about what I'll do. Great. She finally decided to give me a chance to show her what I'm made of, and it's when I can't do anything. We both position ourselves on the line, and then...bam, the shot goes off. We both fly from our readied positions and onto the track. I glance over to her, curious about how she'll handle this. Turns out disappointment is all that awaited us both, as we both ran pretty normal sprints; with me finishing just ahead of her.

As we caught our breath, she glared at me and said, "I'm not impressed." I gave her an incredulous look.

"You didn't use your quirk either!" I protested. Now that I think about it, what did she expect me to do here? Use my swords as propellers and have the power of wind push me across the finish line? "Plus, I beat you," I pointed out. As soon as I did, her face heated up a bit.

"Well, there were no quirks involved in that one, so let's just call it a draw, okay?" I just stared at her with an unbelieving look. As I didn't seem to be buying the crap that she was selling, she just huffed, turned, and left. As she settled back into where she was standing before, she noticed something to her left and turned to the side to find someone next to her. Me.

"Wha-what? What are you doing, Emiya?" She asked, appearing slightly flustered and confused. I smiled. It seems I have the upper hand for once. I was just going to ask her a few things about herself since we never talked much in middle school. Figured it would be a good idea to know about my classmates, no matter how irritating to be around they are. That's when I had a more appealing idea.

"Just standing next to a friend," I said innocently, all the while moving closer to her. This seemed to push her over the edge. She backed away quickly with a worried and shocked look on her face; so quickly, in fact, she fell right on her ass. As soon as she hit the ground, everyone looked over due to noticing the movement from the corner of their eyes, or they were already enjoying the show we were putting on. It was unprofessional and unbecoming of a future hero to be doing something like this, but I was enjoying myself too much.

"Having fun?"

"Yeah, I actually am-oh no," I cut myself off.

"Yeah," said Aizawa from directly behind me, "oh no." He walked over to Tohsaka and helped her up. "And what was it, exactly, that you were enjoying doing?" He asked.

"Ummm, I was, uh, messing with her?" I say, as it's all I can come up with that's not, 'I was teasing her by getting up close and saying we were friends because she has always teased me whenever we came into contact in the past.' Aizawa looked unconvinced.

"Well, I would appreciate it if you kept the teasing of your female classmates to a minimum from now on and focused on your school work, instead. I don't care that you scored first on the practical exam; you'll get no special treatment from me." That part caught peoples attention. I heard a few gasps and could feel the stares from behind me. "If you think you're 'hot stuff' and can get away with doing what you want because you're good at what you do, you can leave now," Aizawa lectured. The entire time he was speaking, he moved closer to me, and by the time he was finished, he was six inches away from my face. "Clear?" He asked.

Aizawa wasn't just saying this in public for no reason. He was trying to ridicule me in front of the rest of the class, to get me to back down because he probably thinks I'm some kind of person that I'm not. Yeah, that little out of character scene I made by messing with Tohsaka was definitely not a good first impression for a student; or anyone, really. I have to show him who I really am if I don't want him to hate me, because I feel like he is the kind of guy who would make my life a living hell if I acted out of term enough. So I stood up straight, looked him dead in the eye, and said, "Yes sir, I'm sorry I acted out of term. It won't happen again." That seemed to confuse him. For anyone who didn't know me that was watching me today, I probably looked like I made a heel face turn so hard it should've given me whiplash. He probably expected sass or a joke, not this.

"Ok, Emiya. We'll see," he told me. Then, he shifted his gaze back to the rest of the class. "Everyone, we're going to move inside for the grip test. Follow me." As we followed, I found someone walking right next to me. Hey, that's...

"Iida! I knew I saw you earlier! Congratulations on getting in!" I congratulated him, excited that my friend got in.

"Thank you, Emiya, but I must ask you something," he said, looking serious. I wonder what's wrong.

"Sure, Iida. What is it?"

"Were you harassing that girl a moment a go?" He aaked, gesturing at me with his left arm repeatedly. Oh boy.

"Iida, I know her. I was just messing with her. She's always teasing me, so when she showed a moment of weakness, I thought...I'd get back at her," I say, a guilty smile on my face. Iida showed a look of sympathy for a moment but then went back into full on lecture mode.

"Still, those kinds of actions are inappropriate and improper for someone aspiring to be a hero!" He lectured. "However...your actions in the past have shown me what kind of person you truly seem to be, so I'll let it slide this time. Don't expect me to be so lenient on rules all the time, though!" Iida said, moving his arms all over the place.

Although intended to seem like stern and serious judgment over my actions, I just smiled at Iida's antics.

Ok, I performed decently enough on one test. Now for the rest. I just have to figure out how to use my quirk to help me pass.