A little disclaimer: My Hero Academia belongs to Kohei Horikoshi.
Chapter 1
Dull. Boring. Predictable. Monotonous.
Those four simple words are what describes how life is most of the time. For someone like Keisuke Tanaka, they tend to ring true since that's how he finds it.
Speaking of, he hears the loud screeching of the alarm clock next to his bed. This causes him to groan a bit, before he reaches a tired hand out to turn it off. Once that's done, the 14-year-old brunette gets up out of bed. After that, he goes downstairs to have a short breakfast.
Next, he gets to changing into his school uniform. Then he grabs his backpack so that he could get to school.
"I'm going out!" he calls from behind, putting on behind him, putting on his shoes while doing so.
"Be sure to be back by dinner Keisuke," was the reply.
"I will Aunt Natsumi, thanks," he responded. And with that, Tanaka walks out the door and heads on his way to the school.
As the train he's on rolls all across the streets of Lotal City, Tanaka gets into the book he's reading. He does this not only because he's an avid reader, but also has a way to pass the time in every single ride he takes. There are times in which the trains take long which is one of the reasons he always takes a book along.
It is after he finishes getting halfway through the book that Tanaka notices that he's about to reach his destination. As soon as the train comes to a stop, the brunette grabs his things and walks out.
He does a small jog for about a minute, being sure to avoid anyone that might be in his way. Slowing down, he reaches the front gates of Perago Junior High.
Perago Junior High School is a large three-story building with the colors of red and teal painted on the roof and outside walls. It seated right across from the series of apartment complexes on the other side of the streets if anyone living there were to get to the school, they'd have to walk across the street to do so some of the kids that live in them tend to do that quite often.
As he walks inside, Tanaka's third and final year in junior high is about to start off with some… rather interesting news for everyone.
- Inside the classroom
"Alright class, is everyone ready for third year here?" the teacher, Ms. Akako Chisei, asks the class.
"Yes Ms. Chisei," was the unified reply. "Good. Now before we start things off, I'd like to tell you all about our top student," Ms. Chisei says, looking at her clipboard in her hands. "And it looks like it's Mr. Tanaka, with perfect scores again. Let's all give him a round of applause, everyone."
"Wow really?" "It makes sense since he is one of the smartest." "He must really take it seriously, then."
Those were what the brunette managed to hear among all the murmuring and clapping coming from his classmates. He didn't mind, though. He was far too busy writing in his notebook to even try.
"Hey Tanaka," he hears one of his classmates call.
"Hmm?" He looks up from what he was doing, pushed his glasses back a bit, and turned his head to where the classmate who called him just now.
"How are you able to get so smart like that? I've had difficulty with some of the homework I got, and it's been driving me crazy. How do you even do it?"
"I just do the homework and get it done and over with. Simple as that," Tanaka replies, calmly. "If everybody else did that, maybe their grades would go up a letter or two."
Seeing the point their glasses wearing classmate made, the others just shrug and wait for their teacher to go on with the announcements.
"Well I think you did the smart thing by doing so, Mr. Tanaka. Especially since you did apply for U.A. High," Ms. Chisei says in a happy tone.
"Wait really?!" was the collective response from that titbit.
"That's the best hero school in the country with a really low acceptance rate. When did you even do that?" one female classmate asked, incredulously.
"I applied about a week before the school year even began," Tanaka answers as he continues writing. "Just figured I'd try giving the school a try."
"Well, it sure is nice that you get to be one of two students in this class to go into U.A.." Ms. Chisei brings up."
This catches everybody's attention, including Tanaka, who looks up with a confused look on his face. "One of two? Who's the second?" he asks.
"I believe that would be Mr. Kaeda," Ms. Chisei answers.
"Kaeda?"
"You surprised?" he hears.
The owner of the voice was a 14-year-old boy with short black hair and dark blue eyes brimming with intelligence behind a pair of brown rectangular-framed glasses. Alongside Tanaka, Kaeda is one of the smartest students in the classroom if not the whole school. He's also Quirkless, in case people were wondering. But he makes up for the lack of a quirk with both his high IQ and his knack for inventions.
"Well, a bit," Tanaka says. "You applied for U.A. also?"
"Yep." Kaeda replied. "While you applied for the Hero Course, I applied for the Support Course. Oh, I can already imagine the many inventions I can make in the near future. Just the thought of it makes me feel like on Cloud 9."
'Oh no. Not this again,' everyone thought, groaning a bit.
Another thing about Kaeda is that he tends to be... a bit crazy when it comes to inventing things. Once he gets into his ramblings, like what he's doing right now, there's no telling how long he'll go on until somebody snaps him out of it.
"Can we please have a class in which Kaeda doesn't do this every so often?" somebody whispers exasperatedly.
"Kaeda. Will you stop?" Tanaka says to the Quirkless genius, who was in the middle of his aforementioned rambling before he was stopped. "You really need to control yourself, man. Seriously."
"...Oops. Sorry about that," Kaeda apologizes sheepishly. "I just couldn't help myself right now."
"Okay. Now that that's taken cared of,"Ms. Chisei says. "Why don't we get into our class work, shall we?"
With that said, the school day starts right away.
- Later, at the end of the school day
As the school bell rings, people start packing up their things and heading home. And while everyone else is busy doing just that, Tanaka and Kaeda have other plans.
"You wanna head over to the local gym?" Kaeda asks.
"Well yes, obviously," responds Tanaka sarcastically.
They walk through the school's hallways when they hear someone call out to them.
"Hey guys, wait up!"
Tanaka and Kaeda turn around to see another 14-year-old boy walk over to them. He has red hair with streaks of black in a horizontal fashion, which is also short and spiky. He also has scarlet red eyes to match the hair. His name is Asahi Tora, and is one of Tanaka's oldest friends.
"Hey Tora. What's up?" Tanaka then asks. "Heading over to the gym?"
"Yeah. Sure am," Tora answers. "I want to find a way to let off some steam after all of those boring classes. I almost fell asleep a few times during some of the lectures, you know."
"Same with us, too," Kaeda replies.
"Really?"
"Yeah. We were just about to head over there when you called. Figured we could use the workouts, though. Gonna need the training for the U.A. entrance exam," Tanaka says.
"You applied for U.A. too, Tora?" Kaeda asks.
"Heck yeah! It's one of the best schools in Japan, and being a hero is what I wanted to be when I was a kid. I need to get the needed strength so that I could pass the entrance exam with flying colors," Tora says confidently.
"You should also need the smarts for the written portion too, you know," quips Tanaka. "Wouldn't want to be labeled stupid by the others now, would you?"
This causes the redhead to turn bright red from embarrassment, before he hangs his head down for a few moments.
"Good point." He mutters.
"We should go. We don't want to be late," Kaeda points out.
The three boys walk out of the school, and head over to the gym.
When it comes to local gyms that can provide results for both members and casual visitors alike, Koriban Gym is one of the best examples of this. Now the gym is a large rectangular building, with the name inscribed on the front in large, bronze characters. Large windows about a foot in length and height let people see what is going on inside the gym from the outside. One would see a whole variety of weights and exercise equipment that are used by the gym members, as well as a few of them doing some stretches in one corner of the room.
It's also one of those gyms that has outfits for all of its members to wear that comes in various shapes and sizes. Some have extra holes for those with extra appendages such as a tail and so on. The color schemes for all of them are grey and green, if people were curious about that. (Which is highly doubtful.)
The hours that the gym opens is 8:30 in the morning to 6:30 in the afternoon. Pretty much a normal workday for people that constantly workout every single day when they're not too busy doing anything else.
- Koriban Gym locker rooms
"Hey, did you boys see the latest Hero news?" someone asks.
Tanaka, Tora, and Kaeda were in the middle of changing into their gym uniforms-which mainly consisted of knee-length shorts and a short-sleeved shirt-when another member came up to the boys and asked him that question just now.
"No. Not really," Kaeda answers.
This causes all three boys to check their phones for whatever news the guy was talking about. Which they managed to do.
A villain with a gigantification quirk, it turns out, has been rampaging through the train tracks in Musutafu just this morning. The Pro Hero known as Kamui Woods was about to unleash his finishing move, when another hero that also has a gigantification quirk named Mount Lady showed up from seemingly out of nowhere and straight up kicked the villain in the face. After the villain was bound and taken away by the police, Mount Lady started showing off her... assets to the crowd that watched the battle.
'Great. Another attention seeker,' Tanaka thinks to himself, with a deadpan expression on his face.
Resuming the task of putting on his gym uniform, the brunette then comes out of the locker room to do some stretching for a little bit. Tora and Kaeda come and join him shortly soon after.
Once the stretching is finished, the boys each get to different weights and exercise equipment. Tanaka goes over to the treadmills, while Tora and Kaeda each grab a couple of dumbbells.
"So... how are we gonna deal with the time until the entrance exam Tanaka?" Tora asks, while in the middle of a set.
"Honestly Tora, you really need to be patient. It's only ten months away, alright," Tanaka replies.
"But ten months is too long!" Tora shouts back. "What's a guy gonna do during that large amount of time, huh?!"
"Calm down Tora," Kaeda then says in a reassuring tone. "I'm pretty sure he knows what he's talking about."
"Yeah I know that, it's just... Oh... Uggh... S—t!" As soon as he yells that last word, flames start to spout out of his body. One of the larger streams ends up heading in Tanaka's direction.
The brunette is about to go through the settings on the treadmill when he gets pelted by the fire from behind. "GAH!" he shouts as it did.
It only takes about a few seconds before the flames die down quickly. What they leave behind is quite a sight to behold.
Growling in anger, Tanaka turns his head around to look at Tora, who happens to have a nervous expression on his face. His eyes are red with black sclera, which normally happens when he's angry. He has a good reason to be, considering what just happened.
"Watch where you're aiming those flames of yours, will you Tora?" he growled out.
The fire stream somehow managed to burn off his gym uniform, which then leaves him in his underwear. Only a dozen small flames are still burning all over the wall and parts of the treadmill.
"...Oop. Sorry. My bad," Tora whimpered out, before perking up. "Hold up though. Your uniform may have burned off, but not your underwear or your skin. You see! That proved that my accuracy is getting better."
"But it seems that your emotional control needs a little more tweaking," was what he got.
"Yeah I guess you're right. Eheheheh," the redhead sheepishly replies.
This causes everyone that witnesses it to sweat drop.
'Those kids sure are going to make things interesting for U.A. no doubt,' they all think at the same time.
- Later
"You should consider yourself lucky that the gym had spare uniforms in case something like that happened," Tanaka says.
"Look man, I'm sorry. It just slipped, that's all," Tora pleads out. "You know how my quirk can get like that."
"Well not everybody has a pyrokinetic quirk like you Tora. It doesn't end work that way," Kaeda brings up.
The three boys are walking back home, having just finished their workout for the day. They're currently walking down Bridger Avenue right now, which is one of the oldest streets in the city. It could take about 15 to 20 minutes before they all reach their houses, provided the traffic is decent.
"I guess you're right about that Kaeda," Tora replies. "And it's not every day that somebody with your smarts can also be Quirkless, Kaeda."
"Good point." The genius responds. "I just can't wait to show off my inventing skills to the teachers in the Support Course. The anticipation is filling me with pure joy."
"Just make sure that what you showcase doesn't explode. We don't want a repeat of what happened at last year's science fair," Tanaka says to Kaeda.
"I know that alright," the Quirkless genius responds. "After that little fiasco, it was a wonder how we all survived that."
"You should consider yourself lucky the science fair took place outside the school gymnasium when it happened. If it took place inside, you would've blown us all to smithereens."
Kaeda was about to retort to that, before noticing something in the distance. It isn't long before the others notice it too. From the looks of it, a large crowd of people are gathered around something. What exactly it is, the boys couldn't see from this distance.
They head over to the crowd, wanting to know what is going on.
"Hey, what is going on here?" Tanaka asks someone in the crowd.
"Police found another dead villain," the guy answered.
"Seriously? Must be another bank robber that got away before getting caught."
"Not a bank robber this time. Rapist."
"Rapist?" Tanaka says. "Those guys suffer the worst deaths at VKX's hands alongside murderers."
"Tell me about it. I get how people like them are scumbags, but taking them out like that is just too much."
"Agreed. What did VKX do to the guy anyway?"
"From what I heard from whoever called homicide, he cut him into pieces."
"Jeez."
As soon as the talk is finished, they hear the cops carry the body out of the alleyway the crowd was gathering near. Or rather, parts of the body. Apparently, the villain was cut into a dozen or so pieces in a rather vicious manner.
Those aforementioned pieces are all in black plastic bags, so as to avoid scaring any passersby that might catch sight of them.
"Any idea how long it'll be before this stops?"
"Who knows."
Having seen enough, the boys go back to heading home.
"I'm back," Tanaka calls out, taking his shoes off while doing it.
"I'm in the kitchen," he hears his Aunt Natsumi calls in response.
"Is Uncle Chiaki back yet?"
"He's taking a shower right now."
Walking up the stairs to his room to change out of his school uniform, Tanaka thinks about what he'll do for the time between now and the U.A. entrance exam.
- Later that night
As he contemplates on the question still lingering through his head, the young brunette gets ready for the night. It's not that he's being pessimistic about it or anything, he just doesn't know what to do before the entrance exam comes around.
'Guess I'll have to train as much as I could while focusing on my studies then,' he concludes in his head.
With that little mental discussion done and over with, Tanaka gets into bed and falls asleep.
A/n: This story has been in my head for quite a while now. I never got the chance to write it down until now. Hopefully, you all enjoy it. Thanks.