Izuku started his first real day at UA normally, by arriving ten minutes before classes were due to start, feeling okay about what his time at UA would look like after his interactions with Aizawa the day before. He'd panicked and had to run away with All Might, but he was unlikely to see him again if he just put his head down and focused on his lessons. Izuku was perfectly fine with that, having to do that anyway to ignore the not-so-subtle looks that Bakugo was sending his way every time he got the chance.

The glances he did pay attention to, however, belonged to Uraraka. Izuku only noticed them during their second lesson of the day, which was just a boring old math class, but she definitely was shooting him looks across the classroom, which made Izuku's cheeks warm when he realised it. He gathered his courage for the next few minutes afterward, trying to hype himself up to look back, and when he did, he got a small wave and a big smile from Uraraka, which sent Izuku into a state of flustered anxiety. His heart hammered in his chest, both from the shock of having the nerve to meet her eyes, and at the looks themselves, which made Izuku feel slightly dizzy every time he thought about the bright, wide smile that Uraraka almost always wore, but that grew, somehow, for some reason, every time the two spoke. Sure, she'd said they were friends, but she probably said that to be nice, right? She was nice. Uraraka probably thought his green hair, which somehow wasn't a product of any Quirk at any point on Izuku's family line, looked funny. She couldn't be that happy to see him after, what, a month of knowing each other? Izuku could count the occasions on which they'd seen each other in person on one hand, and yet it seemed to be that Uraraka perked up whenever their gazes met. That was probably nothing.

He managed to make himself focus on the lessons. For the most part, they were ordinary classes, just like any other day of any normal life. Izuku, and the others in 1A, didn't lead normal lives, though. Not anymore. They were at UA. They were training to be heroes. That meant that, after lunch, they had extra training. That wasn't until the afternoon, though, so they had to sit through classes like other, non-hero course students. There were regular classes like math, modern literature, art history and English. Izuku was actually shocked at how normal the lessons were, even if the teachers were all professional heroes.

That was another thing that Izuku did often get tripped up on as well. Heroes were all around him! He was less interested in them as he had been when he was younger, but Izuku still appreciated heroes and what they did. He'd be mad not to. They provided an invaluable service in the times of criminals with the power to kill with a touch. Shaking that thought from his mind, he subtly began to analyse and calculate the strengths and weaknesses of his teachers as they came and went. This took up only about five minutes towards the beginning and end of each class, and this may or may not have been an offshoot of his habit of keeping tabs on his middle school classmates for if they wanted to try anything when they had the chance.

Nonetheless, that thought didn't occur to Izuku. What did was that Aizawa's Erasure was so perfectly suited to his fighting style, it was crazy in action. Erasure had the ability to 'erase' Quirks. Izuku doubted it was true erasure, and not simply the suppression of the expression of Quirks in people that he could see. It was impossible to truly erase someone's Quirk, because they were biological functions ingrained in peoples' DNA, but Izuku theorised that Erasure connected Aizawa's subconscious mind to the subconscious mind of the person he was using his Quirk on, and altering the pathways of that person's brain to force it into blocking Quirk activation. It was like he was hypnotising them into believing they couldn't use their Quirks, and not actually stopping them outright. That was just Izuku's theory, though, and he had no way to prove that unless he could get into an MRI machine and try to activate his Quirk while under the effects of Erasure.

Then there was Present Mic, who taught them English. Izuku's thoughts on him were straightforward, because he talked about his Quirk fairly openly on his radio show, Present Tense, where he gave his opinion on current events, heroes in the area and other things with guests. Izuku used to listen to it like it was religious speech, but he'd relaxed on it as he'd grown and now just listened to it when he had nothing else to do, like most kids his age. Present Mic's Quirk wasn't very complex or interesting to Izuku anyway, it was just a simple voice amplification power that was unusually strong, strong enough to warp steel at its most powerful. They say he made his parents and the doctors in the room bleed from the ears with his first cry, just seconds after he'd been born, which itself was notable as well. Most Quirks were not active from birth. Mutant Quirks were most often present and active from the moment a child is born, but those were the rarest kinds of Quirks, as Emitters were by far the most common. That was interesting, to see why his Quirk specifically was that powerful that young, but everything else about him, other than his intentionally crafted eccentric persona as a hero, was ordinary and not of importance to Izuku's absent-minded note-taking.

The next teacher they had was Cementoss, who was also fairly simple but powerful in terms of Quirks. He could manipulate cement in all its forms. That was a normal enough Quirk, but with the training Cementoss had gone through and the environment of a city, he was almost unstoppable. He used the precise control he had over his Quirk to quickly and effectively put criminals and villains down for the count, and Izuku couldn't help but admire that. It was the kind of hero he wanted to be someday, if he ever got into villain fights. Since Izuku's Quirk was so deadly if used on people, he hoped to be the kind that never really fought much and just helped civilians, or cleaned up after disasters, but he knew it came with the territory to get into fights, so he needed to be prepared for a battle, and he knew that it would bring the least pain to everybody if he trained himself to do the least to get the best result, like Cementoss. He carried out minute manipulations every second of combat he was in, and Izuku knew he needed to be like that to not kill anybody by complete accidental lack of focus.

Then, there was Midnight. Izuku felt that hiring someone who sold themselves based on their sex appeal, who marketed themselves as 'the 18+ Hero', to teach at a high school was a calculated risk, but she must have been qualified if she taught at UA. Doing his best to ignore her state of dress, Izuku considered her Quirk. Somnambulist allowed Midnight to emit a gaseous substance from her skin that put whoever inhaled it to sleep. It worked better on men than on women, for some reason, but it usually put most people down in one breath. Izuku thought it was a very good Quirk for hero work, as it allowed Midnight to end fights almost instantly by flooding the area with one of the strongest sedatives in Japan. It was a testament to her skill, though not entirely because of that, that she was in the top hundred ranked heroes in Japan.

After a few hours, it was time for lunch. While walking down the hallway toward the cafeteria, Izuku took some time to gather his thoughts on his day so far. It was extraordinarily normal. It almost would have weirded Izuku out, how normal it was, if he didn't know that they had their heroics class in just an hour. That was far more … Izuku couldn't find the word. Exciting? Nerve wracking? Kind of intimidating? He thought it could've been any of those things, or all of them. He'd been in an environment that had been at least a little familiar so far, but Izuku had no clue what to expect from the heroics class, meaning he'd probably panic and drown instead of floating, like Aizawa's test was supposed to do. Would they jump right to combat? Would they give them any training beforehand? He didn't know, and he doubted anybody with experience would tell him if he asked, to preserve the surprise.

It really did feel like any other regular day up to that point, though, and that was what tripped Izuku up. He didn't know what kind of culture clash, if that was the right term to use, would be the result of transitioning from such regular classes into something so fundamentally different. Izuku guessed that it was what they wanted them to feel going into it, that uncertainty, and resigned himself to it.

Izuku's thoughts were cut short when he heard a few footsteps next to him. He looked over to see Uraraka, immediately feeling his face flush. He stammered for a few seconds, trying to find the words as she so casually strode alongside him, not seeming to have a care in the world, but she looked over at him and smiled at his shock.

"Do you mind if we eat together?" she asked, as if it was that simple.

"Uh …" Izuku trailed off, not knowing what to say. He'd never really had anyone hang out with him at school, where everyone … where Bakugou could see. He'd always been Deku, the loner loser who didn't have any friends. He was different now, though. Uraraka was his friend, and they could hang out in public. "Sure. I mean, no, I don't mind."

"Great!" Uraraka cheered, smiling again in that way that made Izuku feel a little bit off-balance.

Izuku walked with Uraraka down the hall, his mind racing. What would there be to talk about? Izuku hoped they weren't just going to sit there in silence, eating. He'd only spoken with her a handful of times, and so he didn't really know what she liked and didn't like, what her hobbies were if she had any, and a hundred other things that Izuku suddenly felt weighing on him as they got into line in the cafeteria. Uraraka sighed, and spun around to face him again while inserting herself into the line ahead of him.

"I could really go for some curry right now. Do you like curry? I do, but only the midler versions, since according to mom, I've got a sweet tooth, and the milder curries are kinda sweet if you get the right ones, y'know?" Uraraka rambled in an incredible impression of Izuku's own habit to simply talk without a thought.

"Uh, sure," Izuku said, even though he didn't really get what Uraraka was talking about. He was still kind of in shock at the fact that this was actually happening. He thought he should've at least said something, so he continued, "I like katsudon."

"Ah, that's good, too. I wonder if they take custom orders," Uraraka thought out loud.

"They should," Izuku said, already knowing that it was possible.

"Why's that?" Uraraka asked, clearly not having seen who was working behind the glass barrier in behind the few people left in line ahead of them.

"Because Lunch Rush provides lunch at UA," Izuku laughed. He knew all about Lunch Rush from the commercials they'd air for his restaurant when Izuku was younger. That place had shut down due to villains attacking the place because Lunch Rush technically was a hero. He'd only gotten his licence to use his Quirk in his business, but it had eventually become too much, and he'd taken up the position at UA.

"No way! I used to see his commercials all the time!" Uraraka all but shouted, drawing some eyes from around the two of them. Izuku felt a stab of fear go through him at that, but Uraraka didn't seem to care, and that eased his nerves a little. "I thought he retired."

"Nope, he caters to UA students now. I think you'll be able to order whatever you want," Izuku said with a wide smile on his face. Lunch Rush's Quirk wasn't completely known to the public, but when he had his restaurant, he'd been the best in Japan because of it. Something to do with the food he made, Izuku thought it was, but he couldn't be sure.

The two of them quickly got their lunch and found some space at one of the large tables dotted throughout the space. They sat and Izuku began to dig in, but a question from Uraraka drew him back out of his pork and made him look over the table at her once again, noticing that she'd never even touched her food before looking to him for conversation. Right, because that's what people did when they hung out. They talked. Fun.

"Sorry, what was that?" Izuku asked.

"I asked what you thought of our class so far," Uraraka chuckled.

"The people or the lessons?" he asked again.

"Either," Uraraka said.

"Well, the lessons are pretty normal so far, nothing to really write home about. Honestly, the only real difference I'm sensing from middle school is that all our teachers are pro heroes, and I'm not—" Izuku said. He cut himself off toward the end, because he'd been about to say 'bullied', but Uraraka didn't need to know about that.

"Right? It's totally awesome that we're taught by real heroes! Mie doesn't have a big hero course like UA, so I don't know if they're all taught by active heroes, but if they are, that's pretty cool," Uraraka said, finally taking a bite into her lunch.

"Yeah. I'm just wondering who's teaching the actual heroics class," Izuku thought out loud.

"Me too! It feels like it's someone big, since they're not telling us," Uraraka agreed.

"Hmm. Uh, anyway, how are you lately? I know we haven't really talked properly since that time we met up after the entrance exam," Izuku said, changing the subject as a strange form of dread began to form in his stomach the longer they talked about their heroics class.

"I'm great! It was pretty boring waiting for school to start back up again, but I'm looking forward to this year so much that I didn't really care how long I had to wait. How was your wait?" Uraraka said.

"It was fine. I guess I was mostly just caught up in the anticipation as well," Izuku answered, laughing at himself. In reality, Izuku had been stressed out of his mind that everything would go wrong and that it would all be his fault somehow. Maybe he'd Decimate everyone on his first day — he had to suppress awful memories at that reminder — or maybe everyone would agree with Bakugou, think he had a villain's Quirk and get him kicked out on the first day. He'd only calmed down when his mother had forced him to breathe and think rationally, but it almost hadn't been enough.

"Yeah. There was all this excitement about getting into UA, but it's kind of just been normal so far. Like, there's regular classes, regular lessons, regular timetables. It's kind of just like any other day at school, apart from the fact that our teachers are heroes," Uraraka said, taking another bite of her food.

"That's what I thought!" Izuku said, making Uraraka laugh. It was a nice, infectious laugh, and he wanted to hear more of it, so he made a note to make sure she laughed again.

After that totally normal and not weird at all thought, their conversation wound down. They began talking about the specifics of the lessons they'd gone through, and it seemed like Uraraka was interested enough in Izuku's insights, but he wasn't sure that he was totally welcome to just start talking and rambling about whatever came to mind. He did exactly that, but he couldn't tell if the smile on Uraraka's face, which again made his face feel much warmer than normal for some reason, was genuine or not. He was probably thinking about it too much, but then again, what if he wasn't thinking about it enough? What if he was annoying her, and she wanted him to leave? He'd never been popular, especially with girls, who most often thought he was too small and spoke too quickly for them to be interested in him. Why would that change now, especially when Uraraka was a hundred times better than those girls he'd gone to middle school with. She was braver, having been about to stand up to Aizawa the day before, just as Izuku had, she was better with people, as sheIzuku felt comfortable admitting that she had better options for friends. Why would his situation have changed at all?

After a while, when both Izuku and Uraraka were done eating and had relaxed into more casual conversation, the bell rang for afternoon classes to start. Izuku had gotten a little bit more comfortable talking to Uraraka over the course of that lunch period, but he was still a mess when it came to questions she asked that he hadn't expected, or surprise things, like how someone accidentally dropped a teabag in his bowl as they passed, saying something about flavour. Izuku had felt himself immediately flush with embarrassment, but Uraraka brought him back down by suggesting it was just older students hazing the new kids. Izuku had calmed down after that, but he still felt his heart beat a little faster when someone walked past.

When lunch period was over, Izuku and Uraraka began to make their way back to the classroom, mentally preparing themselves for what was to come. They'd gotten through their regular, normal classes, but this was about to be something completely different, on a whole other level. This was their first official step toward becoming heroes.

It was time for foundational heroics.