Similar to when they had the entrance exam, Himiko met Atsuko at the train station that morning, so they could walk to class together. "Morning Atsuko!" Himiko called out to her friend when she saw her.

"Morning Himiko! You cut your hair?" She asked in confusion.

Himiko looked almost embarrassed as her usual long braids or buns were gone, replaced with a short pixie cut. "When we submitted our hero costume designs I also had to ship them as much hair as I could. They are going to hopefully include a bodysuit that will survive me using my quirk to transform my clothing, but to do that they need to weave my hair into the outfit?"

Atsuko made a face. "Sounds gross."

Himiko felt her cheeks heat up. "But it's embarrassing when I come out of my transformation otherwise! Sacrifices had to be made, and my hair will grow back."

The two began walking towards the school. "So who do you think passed the exam?"

Himiko thought about her training group. "There was a girl with pink hair who was calling out an impressive point total, but I'm not sure about the rest. Hopefully the polar bear guy I borrowed a tiny bit of blood from didn't make it in, he was a jerk."

"I guess my group was a little better. People seemed friendlier about the competition?"

The two descended into idle chatter as they made their way to the school and began looking for their classroom - they were fortunate enough to both be part of class 1-B, which made Himiko happy. She knew Vlad King was going to ensure she was in his homeroom, but it was nice that her friend was also assigned to the same class, instead of being split off into 1-A. When they arrived they were surprised by the size of the sliding doors into the classroom, and opened them to meet their fellow classmates. A few students were standing in groups talking to each other, but what drew Himiko's attention was the tall blonde girl in the front of the room talking loudly to another girl.

"-m just saying, since we're both recommendation students we should totally team up!"

The other girl, an otherwise unassuming looking girl with short black hair turned to Himiko and Atsuko as they walked towards them, as if looking for a distraction. "Oh, hello there!"

The first girl gave the second girl a look. "We'll have to finish this conversation later."

Himiko looked between the two as she and Atsuko walked up to them, "Did we interrupt something?"

"Oh it was nothing, we were just introducing ourselves to each other. I am Tomoe Sakura, nice to meet you."

"And I am Emily Song!" the taller girl almost shouted.

"I am Atsuko Hotoko. Nice to meet you."

"I am Himiko Midoriya. Did we hear right that you two are the recommendation students for our class?"

"Yep! My parents both came from overseas to work at a pretty big support company. They know a lot of heroes personally, and let's just say that when my parents introduced me to them, they liked what they saw." Emily proudly announced.

Tomoe looked almost guilty. "Since my quirk isn't particularly suited for combat I almost feel like I cheated by getting the recommendation. My parents are well connected and introduced me to a number of heroes over the past year."

"Another non flashy quirk user, huh?" Himiko said, smiling. "There has to be something there that people saw in you, otherwise you wouldn't be here, right?"

"I guess so. The recommendation exams just had a lot of amazing quirks and they went with a quirk as simple as mine."

"See, she's so humble about it!"

Himiko rolled her eyes. "Meanwhile I think you're loud enough for both of you!" She turned back to Tomoe. "You don't have a combat quirk?"

Tomoe looked at Himiko. "No I don't. I have super-enhanced senses, as well as the unique ability to let someone else 'borrow' my enhanced senses."

"That sounds super useful!."

"That's what I was saying! We just need to get her some good support gear and who knows what crazy things she can do!"

Himiko rolled her eyes at that and continued. "So what kind of hero do you want to be?"

Tomoe smiled at her. "I was hoping to focus on investigations and coordination - like Sir Nighteye in Tokyo. His agency operates more like a detective agency, and depending on what he discovers either he and his sidekicks take care of it, or he passes on the information to a group of heroes more suited to the task."

"That does sound pretty nice." Himiko admitted, smiling at her. "I plan on going underground, but it does sound like you're the kind of person I'd want to team up with."

"Hey, no fair! I proposed a team-up first!"

"I swear Song, you make me want to stab you." An exasperated Himiko responded.

Emily laughed at that. "You're pretty funny, you know that?"

"Himi, how many knives do you have on you right now?" Atsuko innocently asked.

Himiko grinned at her friend. "Three." They heard a strangled cry from Emily and turned to look at her, and broke out into laughter at the mix of confusion and horror on her face.

"How!? Is that even allowed?"

Himiko just rolled her eyes as she kept smiling. "Of course the school knows I have them. I even filled out a support item request and everything! You see, I don't have a super special quirk like some people here, so a girl's gotta know how to defend herself."

There were a few snickers as a few more students came over to join them. Emily still looked extremely uncomfortable, much to Himiko's satisfaction. Before she was able to recover the growing group was joined by another familiar voice.

"Hey, looks like we all made it after all!" The group turned to see Habiki had joined them. "You are Hotoko and Midoriya, right?"

"Yes, that's right." Atsuko replied. "And these two are the class recommendation students."

"So cool. I'm Habiki Hideo, nice to meet you!"

Emily and Tomoe both introduced themselves.

"Man, this class sounds like it has some real powerhouses in it."

"Well obviously, this is UA. We're only the best of the best!"

Any further conversation was interrupted by their homeroom teacher, Vlad King, walking into the room. "Settle down students! Take your seats so I can go over a few things before the opening ceremony."

They all found their seats and sat down. For being a homeroom for students on the Hero track, it was surprisingly conventional. The biggest change from middle school, as far as Himiko could tell, was the reminder about how Vigilante laws work, and a warning that while the school has provisions to allow for quirk usage on school grounds, if a student abuses that privilege there would be consequences. Once the formalities were done, they were all dismissed to attend the school's opening ceremonies.

As Himiko was preparing to leave, however, Kan called out to her. "Little Midoriya?"

As Himiko approached the door, she stopped and turned around, a huge smile on her face. "Yes, Kan-sensei?"

"Congratulations on making it in. I knew you could do it."

"It was in no small part thanks to all your training in those 4 months. I am not sure I would have been able to pass the practical exam without the extra lessons!"

"Yes, Aizawa frequently mentions how unfair he feels the entrance exam is. But a word of caution - while we are given leeway on how we teach, I am not going to be giving you any extra special treatment in the classroom. It would be unfair to you and to the others if I showed you favoritism now that you are one of many students."

"I would feel bad if I did." Himiko admitted. "What about our weekend lessons?"

"We can continue those for now. But I don't want you to limit yourself to just what I can teach you - over the next 3 years you will be given many opportunities to learn under a wide variety of heroes and even gain actual experience in the field. They will be able to teach you far more than I could."

"Thanks," Himiko felt herself smiling. "But I still feel like I have more to learn from you first."

Kan laughed at that. "For now, perhaps! We will see if you feel the same way at the end of the year! But we should get going, we don't want to miss the ceremonies."

Himiko ran out and caught up with her class in the auditorium; they were easy to find since the various courses were seated separately, and class 1-A was suspiciously absent. Similar to homeroom, the whole thing felt almost like they were going to a normal high school, instead of being on the hero course. Once the ceremonies and course introductions were done, back in their homeroom Kan introduced them to the school's quirk counselor and the Higari Majima, who went over the resources available as students in terms of developing support tools and quirk development.

The next day morning classes passed by uneventfully. The afternoon, however, was dedicated to their heroics class, and there was excitement in the air for their first class. After lunch they all changed into their gym uniforms and went out to the training field.

"Today, we are going to perform a quirk assessment exam!" Kan proudly proclaimed.

"What's that?"

"Hideo, can you come here?" Hideo walked over to the mound where Kan was standing.

"Now take this ball and throw it."

With a nod Hideo gave the ball his best toss, and Kan held up an evaluation device, showing that it travelled about 70 meters.

"These are the standard assessments you had been doing in middle school. However this time," Kan hands another ball to Hideo. "Do it again, but now you can use your quirk to assist you."

Hideo thought for a second and nodded. Putting the ball down for a moment, he clapped his hands together a few times, and then picked up the ball. Instead of tossing it in a line he tossed it straight up, and when it was coming down he punched the ball, and it flew off like a rocket. Kan held up the evaluation device and it showed 500 meters.

"The goal here is twofold - we want to establish a baseline strength for your quirk, and it will force you to begin thinking about more creative uses for your quirk, which many of you may not have had the chance to do previously."

There were excited murmurs among the students, but Himiko's eyes drifted over to Sakura as she spoke up. "Kan-sensei, what about those of us without quirks suited for this?"

"Oho, are you saying you can't find a way to use your transform quirk to give you an advantage here?"

"Oh I can think of several, it's just that - some of us are effectively capped by what a human body is capable of."

"It is easy to forget that not every quirk is suited to every task, little Midoriya." Kan replied, his eyes also drifting over the class. "But it is still important to recognize what you are capable of doing with the tools at your disposal. And while there is a competitive aspect to this, there are no penalties for failure. However -" Kan suddenly became very serious. "If any of you are caught slacking, there will be consequences."

Himiko gave him a determined nod. "I will do my best!"

"Now then, let's begin!" As Kan led them to the first test Himiko felt Sakura fall into step alongside her.

"Nervous at all?"

"A little bit," Himiko admitted. "Aren't you?"

"More than I should be, perhaps."

"I just want to leave a good impression."

"I can understand that." Sakura smiled at her. "As long as we go all out and do our best, right?"

"Yeah, you're right."

As they followed their class to the first assessment spot, Himiko began mentally going over her classmates. Jun's chameleon mutation was the only obvious physical mutation in her class, and she wasn't sure that would help her out much - besides the fact that she's never used transform to grow an additional appendage, so she had no clue how his tail would interact with her quirk. WIth that option out, she looked around for other ideas. She would rather rely on her own speed and agility for most of these tests, and saw the tall, muscular Oda was probably her best bet for tests that rely on strength.

She walked over to him and tapped him on the shoulder. "This may sound weird, but can I borrow a few drops of your blood?"

Oda turned towards her and raised his eyebrow in a question. "You're right, that does sound weird. Kan mentioned your quirk - is this related to that?"

"Yeah. You see, I can transform into people, but to activate it I need a bit of their blood."

Oda just shrugged. "I don't see the problem then, as long as it's only a few drops. So uh, how do you…?"

Himiko produced a small medical syringe and a bandage from her pocket. "Don't worry, I have a lot of experience with this by now." Oda offered his arm and Himiko quickly found a vein, drawing a few drops of blood into the syringe - enough to last her through the exam - and applied the bandage. "Thanks!"

"No problem. I hope it helps."

Once the tests began in earnest people were having fun trying to figure out how to use their quirks in new ways, and everyone was taking turns cheering on their new classmates. Even Himiko found herself getting into it, tying her hardest, and using the extra muscle from Oda's body for the strength-related grip strength and ball toss tests.

After the tests were done, they gathered around and Kan showed the students the compiled results. Unsurprisingly, Hideo was at the top of the class, and Himiko continued to look down the list for her own name. When she got to the bottom half, she was surprised to see that Song came in 11th, and she was actually able to reach 16th place.

"It seems I still have some ways to go." Himiko heard Sakura say next to her.

"That's ok, not everyone had training regimens designed by UA teachers. Well, not yet." Himiko responded lightly.

"Still, I gave it my all, which is the important part." Sakura smiled at Himiko. "Thanks for the encouragement today."

"No problem." Himiko smiled back. "Our time will come and we'll show off our awesome quirks then!"

They all changed back into their uniforms and returned to the classroom to conclude the day. While Himiko went back to her desk to begin packing up, she saw Emily pull out a tablet and start furiously making notes on it. Emily then cornered Oda, asking him a number of questions that sounded worryingly familiar to Himiko. She stopped what she was doing and walked over to the two.

"What are you guys doing?"

"Taking notes, obviously!"

Oda looked a little embarrassed. "Emily had some ideas about support gear after the Quirk Assessments, but she has a bunch of questions about my quirk first."

Himiko felt a look of genuine horror spreading across her face, and she could hear Atsuko laughing from behind her.

Emily is a quirk enthusiast too!

AN: …and then Himiko went home and any discussion about quirks got derailed as Izuku comes running in declaring he is going to be a hero.

Me: "Oh cool, I finally got the plot going, here we go!"

My story: *coughs* "Hold on there, I've got another couple thousand words of groundwork to lay down."

And the roster of Class 2-B doubles:

Daichi Oda - Quirk: Stone Control. Able to manipulate stone & stone derivatives into a variety of shapes. Currently only has basic control, and mostly uses his quirk to make spikes, pillars, and walls out of stone, with the most complicated object he is able to make is a stone cage.

A tall, muscular man with short-cut black hair and chiseled features.

Tomoe Sakura - Quirk: Enhanced senses. She has the ability to enhance any of her basic senses up to superhuman level. In addition, she has the ability to share her enhancement and through contact can enhance a single sense for another person.

A fairly average, unassuming appearance, with shoulder-length black hair.

Emily Song - Quirk: Light arrows. Able to generate solid orbs of light of various size and intensity (dull orbs cause minimal heat and physical damage, while her upper limit currently can punch/burn through thick metal plating), and launch them at high speed towards their target.

A tall, blonde American girl with an athletic build, whose parents moved overseas to japan for work.