Sofia opened her eyes blearily and blinked them a few times before she woke up fully.
Her eyes taking in the simple room around her, she considered was finally settling down now in the dormitory.
It was a nice enough place and she wasn't surprised that Japan had buildings for international students, they weren't that uncommon in countries with good education systems, and U.A. being one of the top hero schools in the world meant international students like her weren't uncommon, but it being so, nice for lack of a better word.
She even got to stay in a room all on her own and most of the machines in the landery room worked to boot!
U.A. was probably one of the backers given it was so close to the school, a half hour walk wasn't that bad compared to her middle school one, and that was probably why it was in such good shape.
Sofia rose from her bed and stretched herself out, a couple pops from her back as she did then moved to grab her uniform, making sure to have everything before marching out of her room to the community bathrooms.
Passing a few girls on her way, most of them talking in their own language with each other, the group being a bunch of older girls from France here for university.
She tried not to let her ears waiver during that time, or look directly at them as she went.
She didn't know a word of French but it wasn't hard to understand the cooing they did... or the petting.
Sofia was used to being found cute.
Came with the territory of looking like a cat girl, and she didn't mind it most of the time, especially since she had a way to make the real bold ones back off, but god did it get tiring being the 'cute' one.
Of course being cute was better than other things she could be in their eyes, but not by much and only if she kept her mouth shut, there was a reason she waited for the bathroom's to be completely empty before brushing her teeth.
Sofia's fur was thick enough to cover the seams of her mouth but she doubted that a language barrier would keep people from being scared by what her mouth really looked like, you just needed a working pair of eyes to see all of the overlapping rows of teeth within her maw.
Something entirely unique to her as neither of her parents had anything like it, mom with a cat quirk and sure her dad had the teeth of a shark, and they both grow their teeth back when lost but her dad only had one row of teeth like any other human.
Her mom wasn't even a half-half mutant so her being a full mutation with a mouth like her's and sound factor to boot, yeah she was quite the curve ball when she was born.
Thank god her parents were the kind that rolled with the punches, and were willing to send her to U.A. to train to be a hero. Japan was a more quirk-friendly place to get a license and schools that were better suited for her training.
Sure Russia had some nice schools but the ones that would fit her needs would lead her to living with a very specific career path that wouldn't be easy to walk away from, one she never wanted and her parents had worked very hard to get her this chance.
U.A. had some nice scholarships and she was given one but her parents were still helping to pay for some of her things and so she could get better food for herself than just the basics.
Which was nice though she wished that she could find something that would work as shoes for her feet, unfortunately the mutation shops didn't have anything that would fit her feet here in Japan either, at least she didn't have to deal with nearly as much snow like from where she lived in the mountains then in this part of Japan.
Leaving the building she moved to start walking towards U.A. her tail swaying behind her.
She was incredibly lucky that there were older girls also going to U.A. or she would've never found the building. She had tried to learn some Japanese but she hadn't had a hope to read it and the signs were so hard to figure out without context.
And it wasn't like she could ask anyone for directions, opening her mouth like that in public? Yeah, no she did not need that kind of attention while trying to find her way to the school.
Mentally Sofia sighed and let her ears fold back at the thought.
She wished she had such a luxury with her classmates, but that QAT test thing meant any hope of just being the 'cute' quiet cat girl in the back of the class was all but squashed.
The only saving grace was that she wasn't called to answer questions and be forced to remind everyone just what her mouth looked like.
Not that she could blame them for being afraid of it, the only time she had seen anything that looked close to her mouth was from horror movie clips kids from her middle school often shared with everyone.
Hearing the familiar voices of some of her year mates Sofia slowed down and shook her head to focus on where she was, she was at a disadvantage enough not understanding what almost everyone else was saying and didn't need to be lost in her own head on top of it.
Walking through the gates Sofia made sure to keep away from anyone that looks like her classmates to keep from seeing them look at her, they weren't saying anything about her as far as she knew and she didn't think they were against her.
But she saw how they looked at her, most of them couldn't look at her without staring at where her mouth was, again she couldn't blame them with her mouth being what it was but she'd still like to avoid it for both parties sake.
Sofia moved through the halls she couldn't help thinking that she was still quite lucky to have been able to attend such a nice school. It was an incredible building and she had never been in a place so fancy as this one.
There were even plenty of outdoor areas for her to eat at so she didn't have to eat with everyone else in the cafeteria and she didn't have to run into anyone either since there were a lot of courts to eat at.
She easily found her way to class 1-A and settled in her seat glad to be there first like always, pulling out her books to continue her studies, very glad she didn't need to translate everything into Japanese since they had a couple of translators.
As time went on the rest of class arrived and she went through the motions while trying her best to follow along with her limited Japanese until English, she had a much easier time with that one since her mother was a translator for a company and she grew up around it.
However, she was greatly thankful for Bullet-Sensei's T.A. Deku since he had been slipping her what the class topics were for each period during home room so she could at least look at her books to somewhat follow along with everyone else when Deku wasn't around to translate directly for her.
And the teachers never said anything about it so she assumed it was an accepted learning aid for her, just like how her homework was in Russian and given to her at the end of the day with a more in-depth explanation on what her homework was.
Then once lunch rolled around she packed up to go to her spot outside and quickly looked around before she took out her lunch and began to eat the mice she chose to have today, only to freeze when she heard the snap of a twig not too far from her and whipped her head around.
Deku was standing there and raised his hands in nervous surrender. "Ah, sorry for surprising you Gromova-Volkova, one of your classmates noticed you left this behind." Deku told her, showing one of her books.
Sofia's ears immediately folded back and she shut her mouth and signed *It's fine D-E-K-U, thank you for going out of your way to bring it for me.*
Deku smiled at her "It's no problem Gromova-Volkova. I've been meaning to ask you something but didn't want to bother you." Deku informed her as he set the book down on the table.
Sofia was hesitant, unsure what he could want to ask her but ultimately signed that it would be okay.
"Thank you, you don't have to answer but I was wondering why you weren't listed as having a Flerken mutation?" Deku inquired and Sofia blinked taken aback.
A... Flerken? Did she hear him right? Or was Deku not translating correctly and there wasn't a Russian word for what he wanted to say? Because she had never heard the word before and certainly had no clue whatever a 'Flerken' was.
Before she could ask Deku spoke up, likely having noticed her confusion.
"Sorry, a Flerken is from an old Pre-Quirk comic in the US. It's an alien that looks exactly like a cat but its mouth opens wider than the dimensions of the jaw like your mouth can. I mean you don't have the tentacles or nested mouths but it's mostly the same." Deku explained.
Sofia couldn't help being surprised having never even heard of something like that, while she was still shocked Deku pulled out his phone and showed her a picture on it of a cat with a mouth that, admittedly, looked kind of like her's.
The big difference (barring the tentacle-mouth things) being that her mouth split away in four directions compared to how everyone else's lower jaw went up and down.
"It doesn't have any sound power either but there's another alien from a PQ show that's wolf-like that does, here's a clip of it." Deku commented before bringing up a cartoonish wolf person and Sofia audibly gasped when their mouth really did open like her's to 'howl'.
The inside didn't have the rows of teeth but she had never seen anything that looked like her mouth that wasn't depicted purely from a horror perspective.
"Want me to forward some clips to you, Gromova-Volkova?" Deku asked and she nodded rapidly.
"No problem, I can write down the archive site for you and the search term so you can find it." Deku said quickly jotting down a note for her and she greedily took it while grinning.
"Also, if you consider changing your quirk's name I can help you with the process as a licensed counselor." Deku added with a simple smile.
I'll think about it.* Sofia signed in reply to him after a few moments and Deku gave a nod "Of course, you wouldn't be the first person who'd want to keep the 'friendlier' version of their quirk." Deku assured calmly before giving her a bow and a wave before leaving.
Given she still had another ten minutes she searched up the site and saved it before continuing to eat her lunch feeling much more excited for the end of the school day so that she could search up the show.
Sofia had a spring in her step as she returned to the dormitory and rushed up to her room, she didn't bother to change before bringing up the site and searched up the show by name to watch it, Deku had written the wolf alien wouldn't show up until later in the show and that she could skip to the appearance episode of the wolf alien if she wanted.
Sofia had to mull over it for a bit, part of her wanted to skip straight to the character or to watch up to it so that she had proper context for the show.
She saw in the summary it was an American kid's cartoon based on a kid turning into aliens and the shenanigans that would ensue from such a thing, she could also watch the show in Russian if she wanted but she was tempted to watch it in English as it was because she knew enough to follow along.
Eventually she made her choice and decided that she wanted to understand everything that was going on and selected the first episode before flipping a coin for the language she'd watch it in, then she settled in for a series binge planning to skip to the wolf alien if she couldn't stand the characters once she started watching.
Izuku *Existing*
A student appears and is scared of intreaction because they've only had their quirk seen in a horror movie context
Izuku *frowns and crosses his arms*
Izuku: Well this just won't do