{}{}{}{}{}

Chapter 5: U.A. University

{}{}{}{}{}

"So you two have been friends for years?" Jiro asked from across the table. Fumikage and I nodded, smiling.

"I have been his only friend for years," Fumikage teased, making me scoff. "Neito has never been one to surround himself with his peers."

"Lies and slander," I declared, making them both chuckle. "I get along with Melissa and the people on I-Island. It's just that most of my peers, as you put it, didn't go to our high school."

Jiro and I exchanged contacts soon after the practical exam ended so we could keep in touch. As it turned out, we weren't that far from each other, and so decided to make a day out of by meeting halfway. That had us meet up in a café while waiting for the results to be sent out, which should be any day now. The three of us got along rather well, and were having a good time just chatting.

"Huh? What do you mean there was another point system?"

"I mean there was another point system," I answered Jiro. I shrugged when she and Fumikage looked at me questioningly. "I don't know all the specifics, but I noticed something back when Present Mic was talking about the zero point bot. He said something about it being useless to fight since it wouldn't affect our villain points, specifically."

"Indicating the existence of another form of points to gather, hidden in the shadows," Fumikage realised, nodding his head. "But what kind?"

"Well, given what we're going to school for, I'd guess some kind of point system for saving people, not that I realised that until after."

"But there wasn't anyone to save," Jiro frowned. "I mean, I helped out some other peeps a few times, but I wouldn't say I got anyone saved."

"Some of my fellows were at risk of the falling rubble caused by the zero pointer," Fumikage stated. "I had Dark Shadow grow and act as a shield."

"I acted as a human shield when someone's quirk put them in a bad position." I could still remember the ringing in my ears. That explosion was loud. "And you were freeing someone when I destroyed the zero pointer, Jiro."

"Like I said, I didn't save 'em," she countered, giving me a pointed look. "Once you were done with that thing, they were good."

I shrugged. I think we get our points in our letters from U.A. anyway, so we'd know soon enough.

"By the way, your quirk can intensify your heartbeat to truly dangerous levels, can't it?" I asked her rhetorically. "I blew apart one of the three pointers with a three second blast with your speakers. Plus the enhanced hearing helped me find most of the bots I fought."

Jiro grinned. "You put my quirk to good use then, huh? I'd have been pissed if you wasted it after saying you were the best." I snorted, remembering how that challenge ended. "Yeah, I can make it strong. I used to just plug my jack into stuff, make the vibrations do their damage, but the speakers are really great. I wanna ask about getting some for my hands as well."

"It would help with aiming," I nodded. The problem with the boots was the aiming aspect. You could only really aim forwards. "You'd have to be careful with the vibrations though, or you'll shatter your arms." The vibrations from the boots, I noticed, often dispersed into the ground before they shook my legs.

She nodded back and turned to Fumikage, who had been quietly enjoying his drink. "What about you? I've got my boots and Monoma's got his 'Dora' thing-"

"Anesidora."

"You got any gear?"

"Not in the way you do," he answered after putting down his cup. He raised his hand which was quickly covered by Dark Shadow. "Dark Shadow's Umbral Armament enough for my purposes, should I need to fight personally. The gear that I will be requesting for my hero costume will be for my quirk's power regulation."

"I saw what Monoma tear his way out of the zero pointer with your quirk. You're saying it can get stronger?"

"Stronger, maybe. But power comes at a cost," Fumikage started explaining. "Dark Shadow's power grows greatly in the darkness, but his arrogance and aggression grows equally. My gear should allow me to unleash light at will, keeping me in control of him when needed."

"Plus those smoke grenades we talked about," I added, making him nod. "Use them, and you can make the surroundings darker for an extra power boost."

"Indeed, though Dark Shadow's propensity to take control of my body when too strong means I must be careful with those until I actually have a method to remove the darkness from my quirk, as well as a way to use it should my control be ripped from me."

Jiro looked at us, a little concerned. "Does that happen a lot? And Monoma, yours do the same when you copy it?"

"Not since I developed my Umbral Armament," Fumikage explained. "Though the risk of falling to the dark remains, I have gotten a lot more practice remaining in control when Dark Shadow envelopes me."

"It's not the same risk for me," I admitted. "Kuro, my Dark Shadow, can't copy quirks and I can make the conscious decision to not copy one. Even if Kuro manipulated my body to come in contact with my Quirk Case, he couldn't refresh his fifteen minute countdown."

"Quirk Case?"

I pulled out the wallet that I was using as a basic case for genetic samples. Basic, because I planned to talk to someone, probably Melissa, and organise it into a proper piece of gear. I already had a few ideas.

"I don't have to touch a living person to copy their quirk," I explained. "Just something that holds their genetic data, including hair. There's a teacher at U.A. that has a quirk that can negate other quirks. Something like that's too useful not to try asking for. Plus, if I fight someone with a useful quirk, I could just grab a few hairs and presto! New weapon in the arsenal."

My two friends shared a look that made me roll my eyes and prepare myself. As I thought, they couldn't keep the amusement off their faces.

"... That's a bit weird, dude," Jiro snickered. "That's something I'd expect to hear on a serial killer documentary. You shave the corpses bald as a calling card."

My eyes rolled again, and the conversations moved on.

[-]

"HEY, LISTENER!" I flinched back from the projector tech - MY projector tech, which has been available to buy for over a year now - when it nearly burst my eardrums. Even when not physically present, Present Mic was loud. I saw him flinch on the hologram screen and apologise to someone off screen. "Anyway, congrats, kid! I've got your result from the entrance exam, and you passed!

"You passed the written exam easily! It's not quite the top marks of the year, but you hit the chart's top five without much fuss. It's the practical exam where you blew the competition away!" The screen shifted to my first rush against the robots, and then onto me climbing the building to hit the one inside. Finally, a wide angle camera displayed me jumping into the head of the zero pointer and it blowing up not fifteen seconds later. "I was keeping an eye on the two listeners that actually answered my call back in the hall, so I got a front row seat to what you and that bird kid managed! With all of the robots you beat, you scored thirty three villain points!

"But we're not a fight club! U.A. is a university to teach you how to be heroes, so there was a second part of the exam that you listeners weren't told about." The screen changed again, showing the bomb kid stuck under the sparking three pointer. Frame by frame, I was shown my entrance onto the screen and the slide I did to put myself under the bot. Then it exploded, and the two of us were shown unharmed. "And I gotta say, OH MY GOD!" The last part was said in English, and at volume. "I don't think I've seen anything like that since I started teaching at U.A.! You were so cool! Even my really grumpy friend looked interested in that!" The screen changed again, displaying my name and the points earned. "Monoma Neito, you earned the full sixty rescue points with that stunt alone, never mind when you saved people from the bots."

Villain points: 33

Rescue points: 60

Total: 93

Considering that the boy below me had 82 villain points and 0 rescue points, my eyes widened as I figured out where I sat. I didn't even need the camera to shift right by a bit to display the rankings.

"You topped the chart, man! A lot of us are looking forward to see what you can do in your classes! Welcome to U.A.!"

The projection cut off, leaving me with a smile even as I transferred the program from the chip sized projector to my laptop. It was clear that someone had worked on my design, refining it even more to get it to that size, and I wanted to see what they did.

First though, I had a few messages to send and a call to make. I-Island is a few hours over, time zone-wise, but it should still be daytime.

[-]

U.A. has its own dorms that were on campus for every class in every department that they had. It was a line of buildings, the bottom floor of which was given as a communal area, and looked a hell of a lot better than I expected, admittedly. I didn't have high hopes given the memories from my previous life where the dorms were absolute garbage, so this was a pleasant surprise. I suppose U.A. has the money for comfort.

I stepped inside the building with a large '1-A' on the front, looking around to see what was going on. There were a few students already, stood a little ways off from a pile of luggage which I could only assume was theirs, who I went over to greet.

I was beat to it by a girl with a spiky black ponytail. She smiled as I approached. "Hello," she greeted. "I'm Yaoyorozu Momo. You can add you luggage to the pile, I think." She looked a bit apologetic, mixed with some confusion. "I'm not actually sure what's going on, but all the doors on the upper floors are locked, so we can't access the dorms."

I nodded in understanding. "Monoma Neito," I returned, offering a hand which she shook. "A pleasure to meet you, Yaoyorozu." I mulled over what I could feel from her quirk as I deposited my stuff.

I don't actually remember all the quirks of my classmates, but I could feel that this one used some sort of exchange as a main part of it. I shrugged a bit and returned to where Yaoyorozu spoke with someone else.

"Monoma, this is Iida Tenya." The blue haired boy with glasses bowed in greeting as we were introduced. The engine exhausts I could see on his legs gave me a good idea as of his quirk. "Iida, this is Monoma Neito."

"Good to meet you, Iida. Do you have any relation to Ingenium?" I asked. "Engine enhanced limbs can't be too common of a quirk."

Iida smiled a bit sheepishly, though he looked proud. "Ah, yes. Ingenium is my brother." Yaoyorozu looked a bit surprised at the admission. "You must be very sharp, Monoma. I didn't expect that to be known so soon."

I shrugged a bit. "Quirk analysis is very useful for me," I explained. "It's become a hobby to study the quirks of pro heroes and any villains that enter the news' spotlight." Plus David had me helping with several quirks that he was studying over the years. I've had a lot of practice. "Besides, I've got a bit of a cheat."

They both looked at me curiously as I tapped Iida on the forehead and pulled up the legs of my pants. There was a slight uncomfortable sensation on the back of my calves as I grew engines in them, but both of my new classmates looked very interested.

"I still have my engines, so a copying quirk?" I nodded. "That is a very versatile quirk, Monoma."

"Yes, You will no doubt be an excellent hero with a quirk like that," Yaoyorozu agreed. "When we shook hands, did you copy mine?"

"I did, though I don't know how to use it properly. Something to do with exchanging something in the body for some other kind of matter?"

"It's called Creation," she explained, causing both of us boys to look to her in interest. "I can use the fat in my body as fuel to create any non-living matter I can imagine, though it takes a lot of focus." I blinked, now making a note to try to get her hair. "I, or we now, I suppose, can't create anything that could be considered alive, like animals or even bacteria, but aside from that, the only limit is fuel and focus."

To sate my curiosity, I focused on Creation and raised my hand to look at my palm. Starting simple, I pictured a small bit of copper, completely pure to remove any issues of complexity as I imagined the structure. A small glow lit up my hand and I felt something be pushed from my skin, before the light disappeared and revealed the metal on my palm.

"It's slightly strange to see that from the outside," Yaoyorozu mused, before looking excited. "I wonder how it would be to teach someone how to use my own quirk?"

"It would be interesting to go running with someone," Iida agreed. "My family has engines in different body parts. Arms, heart, head... I'm the only one with them in my legs. Monoma could now join me on my runs, should he wish."

"That would be good, I think," I said, smiling at the ready acceptance of my quirk from the two. "I've got a friend who's in this class as well. We've been working on different ways he could use his quirk for years, with me acting as a second perspective. We've made a few breakthroughs already."

"Oh, is Monoma showing off his quirk? It'd be more impressive if he wasn't showing of your own quirks at the same time." a somewhat familiar voice called from the door. Jiro walked over to us with a grin, dropping her bags on the couch before sitting on the back of it. Then she tapped me on the head, ruffling my hair as I grew her earphone jacks. "Has the potential serial killer asked for your hair yet? He apparently needs to replace the stuff that he chopped off." I rolled my eyes as she smirked. I knew she'd make a comment about my haircut, but U.A. was why I grew it out so long. Now it goes down to the back of my neck, at the longest, and is a bit messy, but not in a bad way.

Jiro's arrival seemed to be the cue for everyone else to arrive as well, as the remaining sixteen students assigned to 1-A seemed to arrive within half an hour. There was a bit of confusion that matched Yaoyorozu earlier, about the locked dorms, but for the most part people seemed to be going through introductions.

That ended when the door opened once more, revealing a scruffy looking man that just stood there, looking over everyone. He didn't say anything, so not many people noticed him at first, but that was quickly fixed when I whistled sharply for everyone's attention and pointed at the door.

The man, our supervisor, most likely, focused on me before speaking. "Your awareness is terrible," he declared. "Only a few of you noticed I was here, waiting on you. You need to work on that." He seemed to meet specific people's eyes as he said that, mine included. "My name is Aizawa Shota. I'll lead you to the locker rooms. Your gym uniforms will be in the locker with your student ID number. You'll change into them and meet me on the field."

As he turned away, a brown haired girl spoke up, confused. "Is there no orientation?"

"U.A. allows great freedom to those within it. That extends to the staff," Aizawa told us. "You're under my supervision for as long as you remain at U.A. and I say you don't have time for such leisure. You're not going to orientation. You're being tested."

[-]

The uniforms provided where simple things, but from the differences I noted between the guys, they were all tailored for us individually. Shoji Mezo, for example, had more than enough space for his six arms, and Iida's pants cut off just above the calves to expose his engines. My own uniform was very stretchy, likely made to be as adaptable as possible to account for any copied mutations.

Once we were all wearing them, we stepped outside onto a large open dirt field that had white lines painted on it to display the areas for different physical tests. Aizawa was waiting for us, likely timing us on the device he was holding. He seemed the type.

"I'll be putting you all through physical tests today," he declared, his voice sounding ridiculously tired. "You should've been doing these since junior high, right? Though they didn't allow you to use your quirks. That's where these tests differ." He looked among the group before meeting my eyes. "Monoma, you scored the highest in the practical exam. Get up here and throw."

I raised an eyebrow and looked to my classmates. When they were doing introductions earlier (many of which I heard perfectly because of Jiro's quirk), several of them included their quirks. Add that to the few that I knew already and the ones I could observe during these tests, and I was feeling confident about this.

I tapped a brown haired girl on the arm as I passed by, feeling my fingers change to gain pink pads on them. Aizawa tossed me the ball as I entered the circle and I applied my new quirk immediately. The sensation was strange, like there was a new weight in my head. I was glad that I was only throwing a ball, or I could see myself getting sick if the weight got larger.

I wound up to throw the ball. "For all that you called on the top scorer, this isn't going to be very exciting!" On the last word I threw the ball, watching as it moved... perfectly. My eyes narrowed. Uraraka Ochako had said earlier that her quirk helped her carry her luggage to U.A., so I figured it was some kind of lightening quirk. It seems my assumption was in error, if only in terms of scale.

"INFINITY?!"

I chuckled at the group's incredulous response, noticing a confused frown on Uraraka's face. "Hey, Aizawa!" I called. "Let's do one more ball throw before we get started with everything else." The man raised an eyebrow before glancing over at Uraraka. Then he shrugged and tossed me another ball, which I then tossed to someone else.

Uraraka caught the ball and, still a little confused, stepped up to the throwing circle.

"INFINITY AGAIN?!"

"Would you all shut up!" the loud blonde with spiky hair shouted. "The girl got infinity! That guy just copied her!"

"Correct," I applauded his perception, bowing to the class in greeting. "Monoma Neito. My quirk is called Copy. I'd enjoy learning how all your quirks work." I grabbed Uraraka's hand and then showed it and my own to the class, dismissing and the activating the pads that came with her quirk. Then I released her hand and turned to Uraraka. "Now, how do you get rid of that weight in our heads?"

Teaching someone else your quirk seemed to be a novel enough experience that quite a few people were interested in it. She showed me how to release her quirk from objects that she'd removed the weight of (for her quirk was Zero Gravity, the peak of weight lightening quirks) before Aizawa spoke again.

"You'll be using your quirks to get the best scores you can in these tests," he called out. "Push yourself to the limit and learn your current maximum output so you can find new ways to improve. That's the purpose of this test I'm putting you through."

"What's this? It looks like fun!" The pink girl was nearly hopping in place.

"We get to use our quirks as much as we want!" a black haired boy grinned. "The hero course is great!"

It's not like I couldn't understand his point. Quirk laws meant that any public quirk use was penalised, limiting our practice and training with them, but our supervisor didn't seem to share the opinion.

"'It looks like fun', huh?" he drawled, a different kind of light sparking in his eyes. "U.A. is giving you a three year course to learn how to be heroes. That's why you're here. Do you think natural disasters or mass murderers are fun as well, then?" There was silence after that. Aizawa then gave us all a dark grin. "Alright then. Do your best everyone, because once these tests are over, the person in last place will be judged to have no potential as a hero, and expelled."

Shock rippled through most of the class, and Aizawa shut down any complaints about his ruling. I was one of the few that weren't making a fuss, though not because I didn't believe he would do it. In fact, I had seen twenty people complaining on some forums about being expelled by him last year. Apparently that was the entire class, all of whom thought that they could protest and get the expulsions reversed.

They couldn't.

[-]

Iida and I became rivals for the first and last tests.

In the fifty meter run, we got very similar results, being over three seconds. Even then though, it was clear that I wasn't quite as fast as him. Where he barely missed out on the three second time, I took about half a second longer to cross that distance. That led to me explaining to Iida that I still had to learn to use the quirk myself, and didn't gain perfect proficiency with my copied quirks.

Interestingly enough, Velvet's Photographic Memory semblance was useful here. Iida's quirk makes his leg movements more explosive rather than speeding him up, so the way he runs is a little different. It's more like he repeatedly lunges, pushing him forwards rather than actually running. Photographic Memory let me replicate those movements with ease.

Still, the last test was long distance running, which was easy enough. Athletics talent meant that I'd long since learnt how to pace myself, and the engine quirk made running so much faster by turning each step into an explosive dash. Though I discovered that his engines do require a kind of fuel when Iida handed me a juice box part way through our run, saying that he didn't want me to collapse as he had when training.

[-]

The second test was grip strength, where Shoji allowed me the use of his Dupli-Arms.

I spent several minutes getting used to being able to grow new eyes and ears at will, while Shoji put his quirk and muscles to work for his 560kg score. Despite temporarily sharing his quirk, I only got 450kg. Apparently the quirk gave one far stronger versions of the duplicated body part, which Shoji has trained.

[-]

I met Asui Tsuyu as we were waiting for the standing long jump.

The difference in perspective from a human to a frog quirked human was larger than I thought, and so much changed. The changed most of my body, from my legs to my tongue (including some strange change in my stomach) that she described for me. My skin itched, which she described as a form of camouflage, and she warned me about the paralysing mucus she could secrete.

We, and several others jumped the pit entirely.

[-]

No one really had a quirk that helped them perform repeated side steps. Bakugo (angry, loud, blonde explosion boy) propelled himself back and forth a little faster, but even that didn't do much to help.

That didn't mean that I did badly. In fact, I got the highest score, with Athletic talent picking up the slack from the practice I had doing these tests from junior high and high school.

[-]

The ball throw wasn't something Uraraka and I needed to do, since we had done it before. We just stood to the side and watched everyone else take part, cheering for friends (much to Fumikage's embarrassment) and observing the different quirks used.

Midoriya Izuku, the protagonist of the series I watched in my last life, hadn't been doing well in these tests. I wasn't sure why, because I had brief memories of him zipping around surrounded by green lightning, but that may have been developed later. Still, Aizawa cancelled his quirk and threw a fit when he tried sacrificing his arm for the ball throw.

"That entrance exam definitely wasn't rational enough if they let you in here," he muttered, heard by me thanks to my enhanced hearing from Velvet's template. He spoke up a bit, talking directly to Midoriya. "You belong in quirk counselling, not the hero course. It's easy to see you barely have any control over your quirk. It's a miracle you've only hurt yourself with it so far, but that's not nearly good enough. Do you intend to incapacitate yourself every time you try to save someone with your quirk? And that's a best case scenario. You're capable of mass destruction with a few movements; how many people will you injure or kill while you try to save one?"

Midoriya flinched hard, but tried to build a defence. "Th-That's not my intention-"

"Intention or not, that's what will happen," Aizawa cut off. "The zero point robot from the exam. You destroyed it to save Uraraka, but your strength sent it toppling backwards. It was a miracle that no one got crushed." Another flinch, this time worse since the supervisor wasn't speaking in hypotheticals. "If that wasn't bad enough, you launched yourself into the air with no way to land. If Uraraka hadn't caught you with her quirk, you'd be paste on the road right now." The man sighed and closed his eyes, returning the green haired boy's quirk. "Whatever. With your power, you have the least potential for being a hero that I've seen. Try your throw again. The sooner this is done with, the sooner I can expel you, for your own sake."

Midoriya stood still for a bit before picking up the ball Aizawa left at his feet and standing in the circle again. Everyone watched as he reared back his arm and threw, generating a shockwave that we all had to brace ourselves for to prevent being knocked on our asses. The ball went soaring upwards almost too fast to track, but I didn't bother. I watched Aizawa focus on Midoriya's throwing arm, his gaze zeroing in on the broken finger.

"Mr. Aizawa..." Midoriya started, bringing his hand up to clench his fist. "I can still move!"

There were gasps of surprise and cheers from the rest of the group watching the test as people spoke about the pure physical power that was just demonstrated. Our supervisor had his own comment as well.

"A limited amount of power regulation," he called it. "Restraining your quirk to your finger buys you a little more time, I suppose. Ten fingers, two arms, and maybe your legs as well. That's fourteen actions." Midoriya seemed to deflate at those words. "Figure out how to use your quirk by the time the sports festival arrives, or I'll expel you."

[-]

I didn't borrow any quirks for the sit ups section of the test. There wasn't much point, and I could treat it like training. And after that was the flexibility test that had us touching our toes, which also didn't need a quirk. I was already plenty flexible.

"Alright, I've put in your results," Aizawa announced after the last tests were done. "In a dorm of twenty, you each got points for the position of each test you did. 1 point for twentieth place, 20 points for first. I'm not going to waste time going through them one by one. These are your final rankings."

Everyone was a little tense, even those who didn't believe that anyone would be expelled. The man held up a device that projected a screen in the air containing the rankings in a list. People either tried to find their own name or looked at the name in last place, making sure it wasn't them. A few glances in Midoriya's direction was enough to tell who did which.

"By the way, I was lying about the expulsion," Aizawa lied, a grin coming to the man's near constant tired expression. "It was a rational deception to draw out the upper limits of your quirks."

I snorted as a few people flipped out over the 'reveal'.

"Of course it was a lie. It should have been obvious if you just thought it through," Yaoyorozu said, making me snort again.

"Wrong on both accounts," I smiled, getting her attention. I just shook my head. "Later," I told her, making her nod, a little confused.

"We're done here," Aizawa decreed starting to walk off. "Dorm keys should be in the table in the main room. Yours will have your student ID number on it. The timetables for your chosen classes should be there by now as well, so you can pick them up when you want. Normal classes start tomorrow. You can do what you want until then."

[-]

"Here."

"What's thi-" Stuff. Gulp. "That's really good!"

"Here."

"Fuck off, copycat-" Stuff. Gulp. "I hate you. Fine."

"Here."

"Oh, thank-" Stuff. Gulp. "Mmmm!"

"Now that you've all conceded defeat to me, does anyone have any requests for dinner?" I asked, smirking smugly at the many dazed faces of my dormmates, as well as the vindicated Fumikage who had been told that I couldn't be that good of a cook. While not addictive, like the WC version, Faerie Feast is still a hell of a perk.

"I don't care!" Bakugo shouted as he made his way to the elevator. "Just make sure it's spicy!" With that, the doors closed.

"Um... I'm not that good with spicy food," Uraraka said, raising her hand sheepishly. "I like sweets."

"That's fine," I assured her. "I can make a few different meals." She looked relieved at that and gave a request.

Her taking the lead seemed to kick everyone else into gear and I got to play waiter by noting down everyone's orders. I had the little notebook and everything. I soon got to work on the food, idly listening to a bunch of conversations that were going on in the room.

After the physical tests were done, everyone came back here to set up their dorm rooms. Alongside the dorm keys and class schedules, there was also a floor map of each of the five floors in the 1-A dorm building, showing everyone's rooms. Each floor after the first was split in two, the girls on the right and boys on the left, leaving me, Midoriya Izuku, Aoyama Yuga (a French boy who shoots lasers from his stomach), and Fumikage on the second floor.

I didn't actually realise how few girls there were in this class compared to the guys. There was only six to our fourteen, which surprised me a bit.

Anyway, we all grabbed lunch from U.A.'s cafeteria, run by pro hero Lunch Rush, before moving back to our dorm and near unilaterally deciding to spend the afternoon unpacking and decorating our rooms. I nearly choked on my laughter when I caught a glance of the other rooms on my floor.

Midoriya was THE All Might Fanboy, deserving of being the definitive article. There were All Might posters, curtains, figurines, and other merchandise, including two All Might heads on his desk. Why he had just the man's head, I don't want to know. Why he had TWO of them will always be a mystery, even if I wanted to know... which I don't.

Fumikage's room was almost pitch black, looking like our high school's occult club decided to be the designers. The only real lights were fake candles that had fake, glowing purple flames, a crystal ball that was also lit up with purple light, and fake skulls whose eyes lit up with a purple glow. It actually looked better than the high school occult club, more refined, which made me wonder if he was the one to decorate their clubroom rather than them designing his room, as I first assumed.

Aoyama, on the other hand, didn't seem to know what darkness was. I don't think there was so much as a shadow under his bed. His light had been replaced with a disco ball, there were mirrors on every wall, the ceiling, carpet, bedsheets, curtain, walls, and pretty much everything else all seemed to sparkle with the smallest light source... And he had a fully plated suit of western knight armour in the corner, for some reason. Possibly because he's French, and the fleur de lis on the shield is his reminder to anyone who doesn't get blinded when they look into his room.

Next to all of that, I was happy to call myself normal. My room shared many similarities with my room back home, with a bed, small desk for schoolwork, a table at the foot of my bed and a wardrobe for clothes. The only thing I wouldn't call normal was my suitcase, which was unfolded into a engineering workspace that took up the entire left wall. It was what Melissa and I had come up with for when I wanted to work on Anesidora myself, and it had a computer capable of accessing Anesidora's programs, as well as the tools needed to work with the projectors, control module, and sensors.

And if I discovered that Melissa snuck some extra tech in that she thought I could use... well, I wasn't going to complain.

Anyway, about an hour later, I was stood near the elevators and found the right panel on the wall. The rooms we were given were soundproof, but there was a speaking installed near the wall that someone (usually the supervisor, even if I was using it now) could use to send a message from the first floor to the dorm rooms

I found the button for Bakugo's dorm and pressed it. "Food's ready. Get your ass down here." I chuckled at the thought that he was likely cursing me out right now.

I repeated the message to everyone else, bar the swearing, who were all hanging around the first floor and relaxing. Very soon, we had all of 1-A sat around having dinner, and I nodded in satisfaction.

"You seem proud of yourself," Fumikage noted as he ate.

"I got Bakugo of all people to sit down for dinner as part of the dorm," I drawled, the boy in question looking over at me as soon as I said his name. "I'm pretty proud, yeah."

"Don't expect this to be a regular thing, you damn copycat!" he yelled from the next table over. "And don't think you're hot shit for cooking for these extras. Your trashy meals have got nothing on me!"

That had me raise an eyebrow. "You cook?" I asked surprised. "You don't seem the type."

"Of course I can cook. I don't get why people think it's hard!" Neither do I. Even cooking something simple should be something everyone knows, but so many people in both my lives didn't know how. Still, the way he's speaking says he actually knows how to cook, and hasn't just learned one meal. "I'll show you how weak your food is compared to mine!"

"Please no spicy food," I heard Uraraka say from the table behind me, where she was sat with Midoriya, Iida, and Asui, not quietly enough to avoid attention.

"I'll cook what I want, round face, and you'll fucking like it!"

I snorted and leaned back in my chair. "If he makes something too bad, I'll make you something instead," I promised, getting a quiet word of thanks as we went back to eating.

"Monoma, what did you mean this morning?" Yaoyorozu asked, getting my attention. I silently asked for elaboration with a raised eyebrow. "You said that I was wrong when I expressed my belief that Aizawa was lying about expelling anyone. You said you'd explain."

I hummed and pulled out my phone as I swallowed my food. "Right, I got this ready for you," I said, opening a forum page and sliding my phone across the table to the girl. "Aizawa, or Eraser Head, is an underground hero, so he avoids the media as much as possible. When I tried researching him about half a year ago, I had to dive into some chat rooms and forum pages to get anything, and that showed up on my search engine."

Everyone who could clearly hear me had stopped talking and started listening, considering this was something they were concerned about earlier.

"A petition to have Aizawa Shota fired?" Yaoyorozu read incredulously. "Why?" She scrolled down the page. "'It was our first day', 'he didn't even give us a chance', what is this?"

"The petition was official, but got denied by the head of U.A.," I explained. "The rest of the comments are mostly complaints from former students and their parents, friends, family, and keyboard warriors."

Jiro snorted at the last one before speaking, having put the pieces together. "'Former students', huh? The ones that had recently been expelled?"

I pointed at her and gave her a thumbs up. "The hero course here isn't technically a full course, as you know, but a little add on you can take alongside your actual course." Because U.A. was a university here, meaning that we've already finished basic education, we could choose the fields we wanted to learn. I know Fumikage's taking literature and writing classes and Jiro is in the arts course, mainly music. I, myself, joined the engineering course, having found myself enjoying the work I did with Melissa on Anesidora. "There are forty students each year split into 1-A and 1-B, who do the hero training stuff as individual classes, and the number goes up depending which year you're in. Putting this as simply as I can... Well, there is no class 2-A."

Everyone was quiet as they digested that, a bit of the tension from this morning returning as people realised that the threat of expulsion was real after all. Behind me, Midoriya spoke up.

"'You have the least potential for being a hero that I've seen'," he quoted, getting people's attention as I got my phone back. "Mr. Aizawa said that to me before he let me try again. He didn't think I would be able to use my quirk without hurting myself... or other people." The boy wasn't meeting anyone's eyes, staring at the empty bowl that once held katsudon. I frowned at his expression, making him look like he stood alone against a whole world.

"Midoriya," I called back to him, twisting in my chair a bit to face him. "If you're still here, then Aizawa didn't just expel you outright, right?" He shook his head slowly. "He wasn't pleased with you though, I know that." The boy flinched a bit. "Did he give you a timeframe?"

He looked a bit confused, before his eyes lightened a bit and he nodded. "He said I had until the sports festival."

I smiled. "Then he sees some potential in you," I spelled out for him. "Aizawa's giving you until then to start realising it. If you can't put up a good showing by the time the sports festival comes around, and is televised around the country... If you can't say to everyone that 'I AM HERE', then he won't let you step into the stadium." A little fire was lit in him upon hearing the words of his idol, like I expected. I smiled and leant back in my seat, facing the ceiling. "And hell, I've made quirk study into a productive hobby. Even without my quirk, I noticed something during the test that I could help you with, if you want to train together sometime."

"That'd be great," he answered, a grin audible in his voice.

We ignored the scoffing Bakugo as he left towards the elevator.