Chapter 1: First Impressions

"You'll have a blast," they said. "You'll be able to make friends and stay away from the bullies," they said. What a load of crud. As soon as Izuku transferred to Kiniguigouka, he knew it wouldn't be easy, but the last thing he expected was to be turned into an incentive for good grades. 3E was a unique "feature" of the hoity-toity private middle school. It was comprised nearly entirely of quirkless kids. There was one exception, but the kid was so timid it was almost impossible to talk to him.

The first day was… awkward, to say the least. What the hell was the government thinking when they put a bunch of quirkless kids in charge of killing a world-class villain? Assassins? Really? As if the government agents and pro heroes crawling over the remote part of the campus wasn't enough, a giant, cartoonish, humanoid, yellow octopus thing was their teacher. That was one intriguing mutation quirk.

The most notable person on the scene was the professional hero, Hawks. He was in his hero costume. Yellow goggles covered his golden eyes, and his fur-lined jacket was layered over a black, skin-tight long-sleeve shirt with golden highlights. He wore a grim expression, starkly contrasting with the warm smile that usually plastered his face.

The Hero Public Safety Commission agents were bustling about the mountainscape, talking into their earpieces. A few of them began ushering the shocked and confused students into the rundown building that housed their classroom. The students sat in their assigned seats and glanced anxiously at their strange teacher.

"Soooo… I'm the one that blew up the moon…" the octopus began the conversation. What kind of icebreaker was that!?

Hawks walked into the classroom and sighed. "Hello, I'm the pro hero, Hawks, here to explain." He suddenly ran at the teacher with a bb-gun and a rubber knife, but the teacher effortlessly dodged his attacks. "As you can see, he's unimaginably fast!" the hero shouted as he attempted to attack. "That makes him a difficult target! He is a ticking timebomb set to vaporize the majority of the planet at the end of the school year, which leads to why we're here." The hero pouted and stopped attacking. "So… We want YOU!… to kill him for us!" Hawks pointed dramatically at the students like one of the old army recruitment ads from the States.

"WHAT!?" the class yelled in unison.

"Uhhh…" Hawks dropped his smile. "To be honest. You aren't actually expected to be able to kill him. Letting him teach you makes him more predictable and lets us watch him most of the day. However, if you do manage to kill him, you'll be rewarded generously. He's marked with an eighty million yen bounty." One of the agents holds up a briefcase filled with cold, hard cash.

"This will be your assassination classroom!" the octopus declared.

-x-x-x-x-x-

The money was incredibly tempting. Quirkless people had little to no chance of making an easy living. They were doomed to fail, so this was a golden opportunity. Most of the students took to murder plans in an instant. Izuku wanted to be a hero, so he was hesitant but eventually came to terms with the importance of the assassination. His classmates shunned him after he refused to participate in someone's suicidal assassination plot. The shunning pushed him closer to the other outcast, Hitoshi Shinsou.

Hitoshi had purple hair, which defied gravity, and piercing lavender eyes. He rarely talked and never asked questions. The boy was almost like an abused cat, so that's how Izuku approached him. The first interaction between the two took place one week into the school year, shortly after Izuku's shunning. Izuku approached Hitoshi slowly and tried his best to look non-threatening. He held out an extra bento box his mom had made. Hesitantly Hitoshi reached out to grab the box.

Izuku smiled brightly and sat beside Hitoshi, who flinched but didn't complain. The two sat silently as they ate their lunches. Softly, Izuku began a conversation with the purple-haired boy. "H-hi… I'm Izuku Midoriya. Sorry if I'm bothering you, but I think we could both use a friend. Everyone is avoiding us. I don't know why you're being avoided, but we outcasts need to stick together."

"I'm Hitoshi Shinsou," whispered the purple-haired boy. "You are not scared of me." For some reason, he phrased it as a statement rather than a question.

"I am not scared of you. Why would I be? You haven't done anything to me."

"You must not have heard of my quirk. It is villainous."

"You have a quirk!?" Izuku lit up at the prospect because everyone else in the class was quirkless. "That's so cool! Does it have something to do with the weird way you ask questions?"

Hitoshi sat in shock at the boy's excitement.

"Oh, I'm sorry if I frightened you," Izuku mumbled. "I really like analyzing quirks, but that's hard to do with a class full of quirkless students. Is your quirk question-based? That would explain the way you speak. Was that rude? I'm sorry if that was rude. Ah! And I don't think quirks can be villainous. They can only be as evil as the ones that use them. Umm… the rescue hero 13 has a quirk that can vaporize anything. That quirk is deadly and destructive, but 13 is a hero anyway. It all depends on the wielder. So, If you don't mind… What is your quirk?" Izuku asked.

Hitoshi hesitated to answer, but something in him told him it would be okay. "My quirk is brainwashing," he mumbled.

Izuku beamed. "That's so cool! It could be perfect for underground heroics!" That was the first time someone said his quirk was good, let alone perfect, for heroics. Hitoshi smiled, marking the begging of a great friendship. A friendship that would strike fear into the hearts of anyone unlucky enough to cross them.