Standing once again in front of the gate to the prestigious hero school, Chiyoko let out a sigh.
She couldn't recall how many times she had stood before this building, just thinking about the potential heroes walking around inside. It was a high school, just like any other. Built with the intention of educating the nation's youth. But UA had the direct intention of molding those ordinary citizens into the nation's future heroes. Here it was where the current heroes were raised, were shaped, were encouraged to do their duty and protect those who could not help themselves in crisis. This was where the likes of pro and underground heroes were nurtured until they graduated and left to become the best they could.
And currently, this was where her first day of high school was to begin in roughly ten minutes.
It baffled her as to how she actually managed to get into the school in the first place. In her personal opinion, there were many other people who could have passed her in the exam. Not to say she was weak (because she would never admit that fact to a single soul), just that there were plenty of aspiring heroes all over Japan that had applied. And lady luck apparently tipped her hand in Chiyoko's favor and allowed her admittance. That or life was planning an elaborate ruse just to push her down.
Another sigh escaped her as she threw these thoughts away. It didn't matter in the end. What mattered was that she was here, and expected to be in her homeroom, in her seat, in approximately nine minutes.
With that in mind, she entered the building and began exploring the never-ending hallways. She thought it would be nice if this place had a directory or map of some kind, but she figured most students knew where everything was and all the teachers definitely knew their way around. Unfortunately for her, Chiyoko was bad at navigating new places. Once she knew the place decently enough she could figure out paths and exits in an instant, but actually learning about the place took her a long time.
Perhaps she should make a map of the school as she walked around, it would definitely help in the long run. With seven minutes remaining until the start of class, she decided to do just that. She pulled out her cell phone and opened a drawing app, quickly starting to sketch the entrance and first floor of the school that she had already walked. Before long, she noticed some giant writing on an equally giant door. Very conveniently for her, it happened to be the classroom she was searching for, 1A.
Putting her phone away, she pulled open the door and was surprised by the number of students already seated in the room. Sure, there was still four minutes before class started, but she was used to students coming in up to five minutes after the bell. For most people to be here early was a shock. Though to be fair she was now in the prestigious UA High and should probably expect its students to be a little more caring about their studies.
The glance of students her way also threw her off, as most people generally tend to not care who came in the classroom. Either all these kids were observing another of their new classmates, or they were eyeing up the competition. It seemed to be mostly the former, but the one punk looking kid leaning in his chair seemed to stick closer to the latter. In a bold force of what Chiyoko could only describe as "her stupid coming out", she narrowed her eyes and let out a scoff at the obvious display of poor sportsmanship from this new person. Obviously, this seemed to be the wrong move as their other classmates seemed to become nervous at the threat of altercation, while the punk himself seemed to be moved by the gesture.
"Got something to say, you shitty extra?" The blond seemed to perk up slightly in his chair at the thought of a fight. Seems he was one not shy to start and finish a fight, whether it was necessary or not.
Chiyoko, still tired from a night of restless sleep, let out a poorly timed yawn that stood only to anger the blond. Coincidence or not, it proved to show her disinterest in the matter. "No, not personally. It's just, you have a very odd way of greeting your fellow classmates on the first day of school. Nobody will like you if you treat everyone as if they're lower than you."
Apparently this was a poor choice of words for his attitude, but a good choice in being able to figure out his character. "I don't have to act as if you're lower than me, you ARE lower than me. All just a bunch of damn extras!" He had leaned forward in his seat just barely, legs still laying on his desk.
Whether to calm down the impending one-sided fight about to happen, or simply due to caring that much about it (Chiyoko had no clue, but it could honestly be either one), one tall glasses-wearing kid started badgering the punk about his feet being on the desk being disrespectful.
Taking the distraction as on opportunity to sit down, Chiyoko chose a seat towards the back corner. There were very few seats remaining, and this one seemed the best choice. Her other choices were either backed into a corner surrounded by three decently buff guys, or directly behind the loud blond. So she chose the seat in front of the kind looking girl, nearby the bird looking guy and peppermint guy. It was unfortunately two seats behind the loud one, but there was a buffer still between them and she honestly felt a little sorry for whoever got stuck sitting there.
Those two argued while two new students entered the fray. Not that she didn't care about first day fighting and small talk, but she didn't care and that was that. She was more of a "get to know you as we experience each other" rather than the whole introduction/hobbies/ambitions shtick. She did however pay attention to names. If she were to interact with all these people on a daily basis, the least she could do was remember their names. Tenya Iida, Ochaco Uraraka, Izuku Midoriya (who apparently had the nickname Deku that got thrown around often), and last but not least Katsuki Bakugou, the loud-mouthed wild child of the group.
Their homeroom teacher arriving quieted everyone in an instant. Shota Aizawa was an intimidating man on first glance, but to be honest if Chiyoko had to deal with 21 kids who think they're all that first thing in the morning instead of being off doing hero work (or sleeping as this man seemed to like), she would also be a little crabby and have a short fuse. He put a stop to the nonsense and got to business, telling everyone to change into their gym clothes and head to the school grounds.
What a great way to start the early morning after just barely waking up. Exercise.
Everyone had gathered onto the field, whispering and chatting with one another, wondering what exactly it was they had come out here to do. Typical first day activities included introductions, syllabus reading, all the sorts of junk nobody liked to do but it filled a day with useless stuff so no student would complain that much. This was UA though, so it was no surprise that with its eccentric reputation they would be doing absolutely none of that, especially with Aizawa being their homeroom teacher.
"Tell me we're not exercising this early in the morning…" Chiyoko spoke quietly, but still garnered the attention of the peppermint man and quiet girl from earlier.
"Exactly right Hayashi." Apparently Aizawa had heard her. His sudden words silenced the chattering class. "You'll all be undergoing a series of tests you've previously taken in school. However, this time around you're allowed to use your quirks in whichever way you choose."
Using quirks in a test? In every aspect of their lives up to this point it's always been quirks are prohibited and you're not allowed to use them for anything. Of course not a soul listens to that, but for the most part it was only ever showing off for friends and family. To use them in an actual test seemed...interesting, to say the least.
"I expect you all to put out maximum effort. Whoever ranks last after all the tests are completed will be expelled."
Oh.
"What!"
The entire class was shocked beyond belief. Expelled simply for performing the worst comparatively? It was unheard of, yet here it was. Aizawa had a mischievous smirk on his face, a look that did not suit him and was forever ingrained in Chiyoko's mind as horrible.
"Didn't you know? This is the hero course at UA. We expect nothing but the best from our students and teachers alike." Aizawa swept his hair back with a shit eating grin. Not the look Chiyoko would go for after just crushing the dreams of some poor kid in the class, but to each their own. "If you expected to spend the next three years chatting away and messing around then I'm sorry to tell you, UA will put you through the ringer all in the name of heroism. Now get to it!"
The slightly concerned students all bustled their way further into the grounds area to compete in the first competition: the 50 meter dash.
Unfortunately for Chiyoko she wasn't sure how her quirk could assist her in this so it came down to just sprinting. Watching those before her threw her game off a little. Of course Iida finished quickly with his engine, Aoyama and Bakugou blasted their way through in two different fashions but all the same fast. A couple others assisted themselves slightly by getting better times but it was clear their quirks weren't specialized to propel. Chiyoko managed to finish with a 7.09, which wasn't the worst but showed room for improvement.
The group quickly moved onto the grip strength and long jump portions. Chiyoko came to the conclusion that she wasn't suited for these tests in the slightest. Obviously she needed to actually train her body physically, which she had failed to do up to this point aside from the occasional run around the neighborhood (not to mention running away from people chasing her). The side to side step she did fairly decent at, which she attributed to her many years of dodging whatever came her way.
The throwing event gave her a little excitement watching the others. Ochako managed to get infinity which came as a surprise. Chiyoko supposed being able to control something's gravity helped get a big score if you could manage to keep it going forever. Bakugou got far with his explosive pitch which was not shocking to say the least. The peppermint boy who's name she discovered was Todoroki did just as impressive by propelling his ball with a wave of ice. To see her classmates' quirks in action was fun to Chiyoko, informative as well. To see how they acted themselves and with their quirk in use explained a lot about their characters.
Chiyoko grabbed the ball when it was her turn and held it firmly. She had piss poor aim but the power behind her throws was always on point without her quirk. She held the ball firmly and focused on the air around her. With a shift in her surroundings, she threw the ball and watched as if in a funnel it swirled around and rocketed into the sky, albeit at a slight angle due to the terrible aim. A little after 500 feet she lost grasp of the air far away and had to let the ball go. It quickly plummeted to the ground.
Waiting off to the side after her turn, Chiyoko got questioned by the quiet girl she had been staying around all day.
"Pardon me." Chiyoko looked over towards the girl, Yaoyorozu, to see what she wanted. "I was wondering if you could explain what just happened. It was kind of confusing watching the ball go back and forth all rickety like that."
Chiyoko rubbed under her nose like a little punk if just to act indifferent. In reality she loved boasting her quirk skills. She wasn't hotheaded about it like some, but she still believed her quirk to be grand. "Oh that. Just a little manipulation going on."
Yaoyorozu tilted her head as if not understanding, which wasn't odd given Chiyoko loved half-explaining stuff. However she looked too innocent waiting for an explanation, Chiyoko had no choice but to indulge.
"Well, manipulation in a sense. I'm not sure the full implications behind it, but I can mess with the air leading the ball forward. More specifically the oxygen in it. So I can't carry it as far as infinity like some since the air only has so much oxygen in it. Ya know?"
Yaoyorozu hit her fist to palm as if it made perfect sense now. "Oh yes that makes sense. Kind of." There was a bit of hesitancy as she didn't fully grasp it but Chiyoko didn't blame her. "You basically warped the oxygen around the ball after it was thrown into a sort of funnel, pushing it towards the end as if a gust of wind was pushing it from underneath. Up until you could no longer register the oxygen at that far of a distance."
Didn't fully grasp it my ass was all Chiyoko could reprimand herself with. "Yep." Chiyoko stretched out her arms, clasping her hands together and put them behind her head, the picture of cool and collected. "Just the old one two back and forth going on. Sometimes it becomes-"
Chiyoko and Yaoyorozu stopped talking once a commotion rose up. Apparently they had missed something happening with Midoriya and turned to see him standing there in a cold sweat as Bakugou reached out towards him in anger, unable to touch him as Aizawa had wrapped him in some kind of cloth. She didn't hear much of the conversation, but Chiyoko could only guess Bakugou was being an idiot and Aizawa was scolding him if his upset look had anything to say about it.
The rest of the events went off without any more aggression on anyone's part. By the end of it all Chiyoko could feel her body a little sore. It amazed her how lazy she had been up to this point that she felt sore after a little morning exercise in this school. Perhaps she should start working out in the afternoons when she got home.
The scoreboard got posted with the results and Chiyoko couldn't help but scoff. She wasn't dead last at least, but she did end up in 16th out of the 21 of them. Definitely room for improvement. She couldn't help but notice that her new found buddy ended up in first place (for which she gave an unrequited if not slightly awkward high five to Yaoyorozu for), and that the hothead wound up in second. So much for being equal with everyone, she just knew he would let this go to his head.
Unfortunately for the loveable little scamp Midoriya, he placed last. Chiyoko silently said her goodbyes in her head and wished him well in life and his future endeavors. So sad to see someone go, but at least it wasn't her!
"I lied about expelling the lowest person by the way." Aizawa spoke up, surprising the lot of them. "It was a rational deception meant to bring out the best in you."
"WHAT?!" Midoriya and his little gang of friends yelled out in shock. She would too if she had ended up dead last and had her hopes crushed for a whole 15 seconds.
"Of course it was a lie. It was fairly obvious if you just thought it through." Yaoyorozu spoke as if seemingly knowing this the whole time.
Chiyoko gave a mock frown towards the girl. "Why not say anything then?"
"It's as Aizawa-sensei said. A little pressure always brings out a person's top performance in most things."
Chiyoko couldn't help but feel like Aizawa had every intention to actually expel whoever got last from the very beginning. But for some reason now that they finished he decided not to. Perhaps he had a change of heart? Or maybe he was just waiting until later to have an even greater destructive effect on this poor kid's psyche.
To end the morning exercise Aizawa dismissed them all back to the classroom to go through the school's curriculum and reflect, she supposed. With a final warning of tomorrow's activities being harder than todays, he pretty much wandered off somewhere to do his own thing.
Chiyoko figured if this was how this school was gonna be, a full frontal approach to quirk usage and semi-caring teachers, she'd fit in just fine. To say how well this approach would work for all of the students was to be determined, but she hoped for their sakes not all of the teachers here were like Aizawa. She wasn't sure they'd get through if they were. At least not some of them.
They were here though. Prospective heroes with the ambition to do some good. Or at least use their quirk for something legally, as some people seemed to have questionable intentions. Todoroki for one was a blank book, not a word said to anyone throughout the day and a seemingly disinterested demeanor to him. Bakugou also seemed like he would tear anyone's face in two if they said the wrong word. She didn't know how those two personalities would fare in the hero world.
Bakugou was currently busy yelling at some red headed boy about being the best of the best (which he clearly wasn't as he placed in second). Chiyoko watched as he flailed his arms about and had small explosions come out of his hands. He may have sensed her watching as he turned to look at her and scowled.
"What are you looking at you bottom-tier loser?!"
Any optimism she had built up to this point for the school year was gone. She may need a therapist throughout these next three years if she was going to be stuck with the likes of Katsuki Bakugou.
Room, darkly lit. Water drip dripping from tap. Two meals, one half eaten, the second covered with an umbrella. A sigh. Shuffling of the chair, dishes left on table for tomorrow. Light turned off. Door closed for the night. A quiet house, again.
May tomorrow bring some noise.
AN: oh wow look at that im alive woooooow. i swear i didnt forget about this, i just didnt feel like doing it and got slammed with work work and more work. ya know, being an adult and all. oh well, here be chapter 2. honestly couldnt say when c3 will exist but \_o_/ take this.
