"I'm scared," Eri mumbled, squeezing Aizawa's hand tighter as they stood in front of the large elementary school in front of them.

Aizawa crouched down beside her to face her, and gave her a reassuring smile. "There's nothing to be afraid of, Eri."

"I know," she looked down.

She did know. She was almost nine years old now. Sure she'd been homeschooled her whole life, but she'd played with other kids at the playground before. And Aizawa had told her time and time again that she had gotten remarkable control of her quirk. And it would only be for a few hours, she could handle a few hours alone. She had no reason to be scared.

But she was.

"Look at me," Aizawa whispered, pushing her chin up lightly with his hand and forcing her teary eyes to meet his. "I just want you to try, just one day. If you hate it, you don't have to come back, you can go back to homeschooling at UA. But you want to make friends, don't you?"

Eri nodded.

"Well this is where you can do that."

"B-But what if they don't like me? What if I mess up?" She looked back down.

"You won't." Aizawa didn't miss a beat. "I trust you to handle yourself, your plenty old enough and your so much better at your quirk then when we found you."

She looked back up at him as he pushed a piece of her hair behind her ear gently and put a hand on her shoulder. "You can do it, just a few hours."

Eri took a deep breath, the way Yamada had always shown her to calm down when she got scared or nervous. Then she gave him her best smile and nodded.

He smiled back. "Alright. Have fun."

"Ok," she turned back towards the school and took another deep breath looking up at it as she listened to Aizawa's footsteps start to walk back to the street where the car was parked.

She turned back to him one last time, and with a smile, called out, "Bye, Dad!"

He stopped and hesitated before looking back at her, eyes soft with a small smile. "Bye, Eri," he waved.

Then, with new found determination, Eri spun on her heels and marched forwards toward the steps leading up to the front doors of the school.

She could do this.

She couldn't do this.

Her mouth hung open, prepared to speak but caught at a loss of words and breath, as her eyes darted between the curious faces looking up at her.

She stood in front of the class, the male teacher at her left who'd just introduced her, his name tag reading Mr. Yaomara. In front of her were several unfamiliar faces, each one sitting at a desk and watching her, waiting for her to speak, to introduce herself like she'd been asked to. Some looked curious, others confused, several bored, but all eyes were on her.

All. Of. Them.

Her mouth clamped shut with an audible clack as her teeth bit down hard, and she gulped.

"Eri?" Mr. Yaomara asked, smiling down at her kindly. His gaze reminded her a bit of Mr. Deku's when he could tell she was nervous or scared. It made her shoulders relax a bit, and she quickly stumbled around her words.

"I-I'm E-Eri," with another hard swallow she realized she couldn't remember anything she'd practiced saying with Aizawa and Mr. Lemillion, so, wanting this to be over, she just quickly stumbled into a bow and spat out her words louder and faster then she'd meant. "It's nice to meet you and I hope we can all be friends!"

She kept her eyes down as she straightened back up, her face flushing red at the chuckles from some of the students.

"Thank you, Eri," Mr. Yaomara rested a hand on her shoulder. "Why don't you go take a seat in the back next to Kota. Kota, can you raise your hand?"

With a groan and very obvious displeasure, a boy in the back with black hair and a red hat with yellow horns sticking out raised his hand.

Eri kept her head down as she hurried through the seats and over to the empty desk next to him, quickly setting down her bag and taking her seat as the teacher began.

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw the boy next to her, Kota, glance at her. But when she glanced back at him, his eyes were trained ahead on the teacher. So she just ignored it and tried to pay attention.

A couple hours later, the bell for lunch rang. All the kids were immediately up and out of their seat, grabbing their lunch boxes and chattering loudly as they made their way into the hall and down towards the cafeteria.

Eri quickly got up to try and follow, but accidentally knocked against her desk and pushed her books and pencil to the ground. With a moan, she bent down to gather up her books and put them back in her bag, ignoring the looks she got from some of the nearby students. She turned to grab the pencil that had rolled near Kota's desk when she realized it was gone.

She looked up to see Kota, standing and holding the pencil out to her, looking mildly annoyed.

Taking a moment to get over her initial surprise, she grabbed the pencil from him. "Th-Thank you," she mumbled, trying for a smile.

He huffed and looked away, reaching to grab something from his bag. "Whatever."

He walked out of the room, and a few minutes later, Eri followed with her own lunch. But after walking out into the hall and realizing all the other kids were already gone, she quickly noticed her mistake.

She had no idea how to get to the cafeteria.

"The cafeteria is on the floor below this one, right by the stairs," Mr. Yaomara called from his desk back in the classroom, apparently having noticed Eri's hesitance. "The staircase is just down the hall behind you."

She smiled at him. "Ah, thank you."

He nodded and smiled back at her. "Enjoy your first day, Eri."

With a nod, she started towards the staircase, and following his instructions, reached the bustling cafeteria.

She found herself a bit overwhelmed by the amount of kids crowding the room, most of them lined up to get food from the lunch lady, and the rest sitting and chatting at the many tables.

Eri scanned the room until she spot a table in the back with no people. She didn't recognize her class enough yet to tell which table they were at, and she didn't know any of them well enough to ask to sit with them. So she figured the empty table was her best choice at the moment.

She made her way through the crowd, trying her hardest not to run into anyone, and apologizing a bit too much when she accidentally did once or twice. Finally, she plopped down in a seat at the table and set down her lunch box, breathing a sigh of relief when no one seemed to be paying her any attention.

This was a lot. A lot of kids, a lot of noise, a lot to get used to if she was going to be doing this every day.

With a groan, she flipped open her lunch box to see the lunch Aunt Nemuri had packed for her the day before, and smiled as she remembered the argument her and Yamada had gotten into over who got to make Eri's first school lunch.

Then, pulling out the bowl of rice and chicken, and the other snacks, she caught sight of the stickers she'd put in her lunchbox when she'd been given permission to decorate it. One of them was Yamada's talk show logo, the others were of different pro heroes. Her eyes were drawn to the one of Mr. Deku. He was still a pretty new hero, but he and the rest of the former Class 1-A were already pretty popular after everything that happened with the villains during their school years, and the war. So it wasn't exactly hard to find merch of them already.

As she started to eat, she thought of the day before. Mr. Deku and Lemillion had had a break and came over to the teachers dorms at UA for a visit before Eri started school.

Mr. Deku had told her about school and what it was like, though he did tend to avoid the topic of his own early school years for some reason. And Lemillion had helped her decide what she should do with her hair. It had gotten pretty long again after her haircut the year before, and she wanted to try a cool style. Eventually they'd decided on the fishtail braid that she had on now, and a small bow at the end.

Lost in her own thoughts, she didn't notice when someone walked over and sat down on the opposite end of the table with food from the lunch lady. It wasn't until that person spoke up that she realized.

"Is that a Deku sticker?"

Startled, she jumped and swallowed fast so she wouldn't choke on her food, then looked up to see Kota leaning to peer at her lunch box.

"U-um, yeah," she stuttered.

"Cool. Where'd you get it? I haven't been able to find any yet."

She glanced down at the sticker and back up at him, still a little surprised he was talking to her. "Um, my dad got it for me. I think he ordered it off a website."

"Hm," Kota looked back down at his food and took a bite. When he didn't say anything else, Eri did the same. They were both quiet for a moment as they ate in somewhat awkward silence.

"You like him?" Kota finally asked, not looking up.

"Hm? Oh, yeah, he's one of my favorites."

"One of them?" He looked doubtful. "Who's better?"

Eri's mouth curled into a small smile as the thought. "Well, there's Yamada, and Aunt Nemuri, and Lemillion, and my dad, of course, and-."

"Wait," Kota interrupted, looking up, sounding surprised. "Are those all heroes? That you know the first names of? And who's your dad?"

Eri's smile grew at a chance to talk about the heroes that had become family to her. "Well, yeah. Yamada, that's Present Mic. He has the talk show." She held her lunchbox up to point at the sticker of the logo. Then she pointed to the one of Lemillion. "That's Lemillion, he's a friend of mine. And this is my Aunt Nemuri. Or Midnight." She lowered the lunchbox again. "My dads an underground hero, and they don't have any merch because they avoid popularity. You wouldn't know who he was."

Kota blinked at her in surprise for a second before frowning. "Try me."

"Uh, alright," Eri said, a bit confused. "His name's Eraserhead."

In a flash, he stood up and slammed his hands against the table in shock, gathering the attention of a few nearby kids. "Eraserhead is your dad!?"

Eri glanced around nervously before giving a hesitant smile.

He stared at her, eyes wide for a moment, before slowly lowering back into his seat and taking another bite, eyes never leaving her.

Suddenly nervous under the boys stare, she cleared her throat. "You know him?"

"Yeah, I've met him before, a few years ago," he finally looked away and took another bite.

Eri perked up a bit at this. "Really? How'd you meet him?"

He hesitated before answering. "My Aunt is Mandalay."

Eri thought for a second, then remembered the name from when Mr. Deku was once telling her about their trip to the training camp during UA. "From the Wild Wild Pussycats?"

He nodded. "He brought his class out to their training camp one summer."

"Ah," Eri said, taking another bite before continuing. "Then that was definitely before I got to UA."

Kota looked up at her again, surprise and confusion on his face. "What do you mean, 'before you got to UA'? Why would you have been there?"

She stiffened a bit as she realized she didn't know how much she should be telling him.

"Umm, well, Eraserhead lives in the teachers dorms there, so I live there with him."

He jumped up again, yelling louder this time and gathering more attention. "You live at UA!?"

"Yes, yes, now shh!" Eri pleaded, pulling him back down with more nervous glances. "People are starting to stare!"

"You- you seriously live at UA high? The hero school?" He was stunned.

Embarrassed, she looked down and nodded.

"Wow. That's... just wow." He took another bite, eyes still wide before continuing. "Do you know all the heroes there? And what about the students?"

"Well," Eri started, more nervous now. "I know my dad's class, so Class 1-A. And I know most of the staff pretty well."

"You knew Class 1-A? The last one? The one with Deku in it?"

She nodded.

"Wow," he smiled. "You know a whole bunch of heroes personally, don't you?"

She felt her cheeks flush a bright red. "I-its not that many, I just-."

"Relax, it's fine," he chuckled lightly. "I know heroes too, remember? I've lived with them since I was four."

She looked back down at her food and took another bite, chewing and considering her next words before speaking again.

"I've lived with them since I was six."

He looked back up at her, chewing his own food too. "Cool."

"Your not surprised he's not my real dad?"

He shrugged, taking another bite. "Not really. You look nothing like him."

She laughed before taking another bite.

She was surprised when he didn't ask what happened to her parents, but relieved. She wasn't sure why she'd been so open with her home life so fast, but she did know that the last thing she wanted to get into on her first day was her past and her quirk. Especially with someone she'd just met. Though the more she thought about it, the more she thought that he probably just didn't want her to ask him what happened to his parents either, since he apparently lives with his aunt.

They ate in silence for the next few minutes, but it wasn't quite so awkward anymore. It was more peaceful, understanding, and balanced out by the rest of the kids noise around them.

Then, Eri felt a tap on her shoulder, and was surprised when she turned to see a pink haired girl with glowing eyes. Literally, her pupils were glowing yellow. But she smiled warmly.

"Hi! Eri, right?"

Eri nodded a bit hesitantly.

"Nice to meet you, Eri," the girl bowed politely. "I'm Hiroko Takana."

"Um, hello," Eri was surprised that a girl so easily walked up and talked to her with no hesitation.

"I'm in your class. Would you like to come sit with me and my friends? You don't belong at this table," the girl, Hiroko, quickly glanced over at Kota but continued smiling at Eri.

Eri followed her glance to see Kota shoving food in his mouth and scowling at the girl. She glanced between him and Hiroko a few times before answering.

"Um, thanks, but I'm ok."

Hiroko looked shocked at the idea that anyone would prefer to sit back here with Kota than up front with her and some other girls. But if Eri was being perfectly honest, it was more because she didn't want to sit in the middle of the chaos of the cafeteria in between a bunch of loud girls she didn't know. She liked being back here where it was a bit quieter. But she also did like talking with Kota.

When she glanced back, Kota looked equally surprised. Eri just smiled at him.

"Are- are you sure?" Hiroko asked one more time, expression turning a bit more annoyed.

"Yes."

She huffed. "Fine then. Have it your way, newbie. But you won't be getting this offer again. You'll be stuck back here with this jerk for the rest of your time here."

The girl stormed off back towards the table, leaving Eri confused as she turned back to Kota.

"That was weird," Eri said, opening one of her snacks and taking a bite.

"Your probably gonna regret that later," Kota muttered.

"Why?"

"Her moms the principal. She's always bragging about it and thinks she and her little group of friends are better then everyone," he rolled his eyes. "She can get you in big trouble if you annoy her. But as long as you stay away, she pretty much ignores your existence."

Eri gulped.

A mean, overpowered, popular girl? This was exactly like all those school tv shows Yamada showed her to show her what school was like. And usually, the mean popular girl ruins the main characters life.

Oh no.

Surprisingly, that didn't happen.

The rest of the day went by without a hitch.

Kota helped lead Eri back to the classroom after lunch ended, and they sat together in class for the next few hours. Eri even raised her hand to answer a question once.

In between classes a few students came and introduced themselves. They were all much nicer then Hiroko had been, and a few asked questions about her, but she didn't answer much. She still didn't feel comfortable saying much about herself to anyone. Except Kota, for some strange reason. But she didn't tell him anything else after lunch either.

She also realized why Hiroko had called Kota a jerk. She couldn't deny he came across cold and kind of rude, but only to the other kids. He was a little bit nicer to her. Only a little bit, though.

But she didn't think of him that way, because she'd seen how his eyes had lit up at lunch while talking about heroes, especially Deku. Maybe someday she could introduce him to Deku. She was certain they'd both love it.

After school had ended, they were both sitting on the steps outside the doors, talking about who the best hero was. They'd settled on agreeing to disagree by the time Aizawa pulled up in his car and honked the horn when Eri didn't notice him.

She jumped and turned to see him rolling down his window and giving her a look that said hurry up before I drive away without you.

Then his expression faltered in surprise when he noticed Kota. Realizing he'd been spotted, Kota raised a hesitant hand, and Aizawa raised one back as Eri jumped up and swung her bag over her shoulder.

"It was nice meeting you, Kota! I'll see you tomorrow!"

Kota's eyes went a little wider as she turned and started down the steps.

"Does that mean your coming back?" He called.

Eri just tossed a smile over her shoulder and ran through the gates to the street, and climbing in the back seat of the car.

"Well?" Aizawa asked, starting to drive off after she'd buckled up.

Practically giddy with excitement, she leaned forward in her seat to peer at him in the front with a grin. "You were right, Dad! School is amazing!"

His eyebrows raised in surprise. "That great, huh?"

"Yeah! Everyone was super nice! Well, except for this one girl, who was a little rude. But everyone else was super friendly and wanted to be my friend! And the teacher was so kind!"

A small smile crawled on his face. "Glad to hear it."

"Oh, and that boy I was sitting with? His name's Kota, and he's super nice! Well, he doesn't seem super nice at first, but he really is, he just doesn't act like it! And he likes heroes, especially Mr. Deku!"

Aizawa raises an eyebrow. "Kota Izumi?"

Eri nodded excitedly.

"Yeah, I thought I recognized him."

"Oh yeah, he did say he's met you once," she smiled.

He frowned. "Did he tell you anything about how we met?"

"Just that you took your class to his aunts training camp one summer. I'm assuming the same one Deku told me about."

He nodded approvingly. "Ok."

She tilted her head curiously, but after a moment he just snorted a bit.

"He likes Deku too, huh?"

She chuckled. "Yeah. It reminded me of how Mr. Deku sometimes fanboys about All Might, but he was much less obvious about it. Like he wanted to talk about him, but was trying to hide it."

"Hm," Aizawa smirked. "Figures."

"Why?"

The smirk vanished. "He'll tell you if he wants. Or Midoriya will. Honestly, I'm surprised he didn't when he told you about the camp."

Eri frowned. "Did something bad happen that Mr. Deku left out?"

"Sorry kid, not my tale to tell."

Eri groans and falls back in her seat. "Fine."

Aizawa smirks at her through the rear view mirror. "If it makes you feel any better, I doubt it will be long before Midoriya's back, probably Mirio too. They'll want to know how school is."

She perked up again.

"By the way, I take this means you want to keep going to school?"

"Yes! I wanna go back to see Kota again!"

I have more ideas featuring Kota and Eri's relationship in the future, and their journey to becoming heroes together. As well as the concept of their friendship going to the next level, perhaps? If people like this idea and this gets enough attention to satisfy me, I'll make a multi-chapter fic about it. So if you like this, let me know, or just heart it or something. Idc lol. Hope you enjoyed is though!