"A quirk apprehension test?!"

Aizawa sighed.

So far, he wasn't very impressed.

After waiting for nearly fifteen minutes, everyone had finally arrived at the PE grounds with their uniforms changed. Honestly, his new class seemed to hold no sense of urgency and seemed to be under the impression that they were there simply to socialize. It was rather irritating, but it wasn't something that he hadn't dealt with before.

"What about orientation?" A girl with brown hair and a rosy face asked nervously.

"If you really want to be heroes, we don't have the time for such frivolous niceties," Aizawa told them simply. "UA has a reputation for its freedom on campus. That 'freedom' applies to us teachers as well.

Softball pitch. Standing long jump. Fifty meter dash. Endurance running. Grip strength test. Sustained side-to-side jumps. Upper body exercises. Seated toe touch. These are all activities you know from junior high, physical tests where you were barred from using your quirks. This country still hasn't gotten around to standardizing those sorts of records or keeping track of average performance levels while prohibiting quirk usage. It's irrational. The department of education is just procrastinating."

Aizawa turned to the hot headed blonde that had been arguing with Iida and insulted by Eiko.

"Bakugo," he called the boy's attention. "How far could you throw a softball in junior high?"

"Sixty-seven meters."

The teacher tossed a softball to the newly dubbed Bakugo. "Try using your quirk this time around. As long as you don't exit the circle, anything is fine. Don't hold back."

"Got it," Bakugo muttered, doing a couple stretches before reeling his arm back and throwing it with a massive explosion. "Diiiieeee!!!"

Die?

Many of his classmates looked at him, unsure of how to respond to that, but almost all of them were impressed at how far the ball seemed to be blasted.

"Before anything else, one must know what they're capable of." Aizawa held up the measuring device he had been holding. '705.2 m' was displayed clearly on the screen for the entire class to see. "This is a rational metric that will form the basis of your 'hero foundation.'"

*****

Eiko wasn't sure what to think of their homeroom teacher.

He was certainly eccentric in both terms of looks and personality, and he was admittedly a bit harsh. However, to Eiko, he didn't seem like a bad person. She had met plenty of horrible and cruel people over the years, and the man known as Aizawa Shouta didn't give off any of those vibes. He just happened to take his job seriously, which Eiko could respect.

Even with that respect, though, she couldn't help but feel a tad nervous at his expression towards the class' reaction to Bakugo's softball pitch.

"Awesome!" One of her classmates cheered. "This actually looks fun!"

"705 meters?! Unreal!"

"We can really use our quirks?" Another classmate questioned cheerily. "That's the Heroes Course for you!"

From Eiko's spot, it appeared that the only ones not getting excited were her more stoic classmates along with the green haired boy from the doorway, who, quite frankly, looked like he was going to have a panic attack. Which, I mean, mood.

Eiko couldn't really blame him either after what Aizawa said next.

"It looks fun...you say..." he muttered darkly. "So you were planning to spend your three years here having a good ol' time? What happened to becoming heroes? All right, then. In that case, new rule: the student that ranks last will be judged as hopeless and instantly expelled." As students were recoiling and shouting in shock, Aizawa gave an amused yet almost sadistic grin "Your fate is in our hands. Welcome, to the UA High Heroes Course!"

"The person with the lowest score will be expelled!" The same brown haired girl from before fretted. "This is just our first day here! And even if it wasn't, isn't that too unfair?!"

"Natural disasters, massive accidents, rampaging villains," Aizawa started. "Calamity is always right around the corner. I'd say Japan's completely drenched in 'unfair.' And it's our job as heroes to correct that unfairness." Was this something that Eiko should be taking notes on? It felt like something she'd need to take notes on. "If you were planning and hoping to spend your evenings at McDonalds after school, that's too bad. From now on, for the next three years, all you can expect from life at UA is one hardship after the next. This is 'Plus Ultra.' I expect you to overcome these trials and climb to the top."

At Aizawa's words (encouragement?), the class finally looked to actually be determined for once, but Eiko's mind was anywhere but the training exercises.

McDonalds actually sounds pretty good...I wonder if Kurogiri will buy me some again the next time I visit...

Yeah, she knew her priorities

"Now then," Aizawa continued. "That was the demonstration. Time to step up to the plate for real."

Trial 1: The 50-meter dash

Eiko didn't really find anything all that interesting about this event. Though, she did use it to take note of and analyze everyone's quirks.

Iida's quirk 'Engine' seemed to do the best with this particular test, reaching the goal in 3.04 seconds.

Eiko managed to get across in 5.36 seconds.

Trial 2: The grip strength test

This was one of the few tests that everyone could do at the same time, and she was honestly thankful. Everyone was either focused on their own or others who managed to get a high score, like the dude with multiple arms. This meant that nobody noticed as Eiko broke her hand into pieces as subtly as possible before letting it heal itself sturdier and stronger than before. (Like Zeno from Akatsuki no Yona)

She finally took a hold of the machine and was actually rather proud of herself for getting a whopping 101 kg. It wasn't as good as the multiarm boy's 540 kg, but she'd take it.

Trial 3: The standing long jump

Yeah, so, it was kind of impossible to subtly break her legs, so Eiko was forced to jump without a quirk.

On the brightside, she still did better than a few others who had also jumped without their quirk.

Trial 4: Sustained side-to-side jumps

This wasn't particularly difficult. All she had to do was imagine that Shigaraki was throwing another one of his fits and was using her for his knife-throwing practice.

Trial 5: The pitch

This was probably one of the more interesting tests with the brown haired girl from before getting an infinity while broccoli head managed to get just a bit above Bakugo, breaking a finger in the process after some drama thing about his quirk that Eiko didn't really pay attention to.

Yeah, I know, she was a horrible spy.

Her own turn went much similar to the grip strength test. She broke her hand subtly in her pocket as she walked up to the pitch and threw with as much power as she could.

The results weren't that bad, either.

She managed to get it a little over 192 meters.

With that, the rest of the tests went similarly with her scoring a little above average on each one. Her scores were certainly nothing to be awed about, but she was satisfied.

And so, when the time came to display the results, she actually wasn't that nervous. Though, she admittedly felt bad for Greenie, who looked like he had already resigned himself to his fate but was extremely upset about it.

"Moving along, time for the results," said their teacher. "The total is simply the aggregate sum of each of your scores. Explaining everything would be a waste of time, so all you get are final rankings." With that, he revealed the rankings and continued to speak as he did so. "Oh yeah, that whole 'expulsion' thing was a lie." A few of the students were shocked into silence, causing the man to grin. "It was a logical ruse to pull out your best performance."

"WHAAAAAAAAT?!

So that's how you encourage others to do their best.

Yeah, it was only day one, and Eiko already seemed to have multiple misunderstandings under her belt.

Once again, she didn't bother paying attention to her surroundings as she searched for her name on the board.

She was ranked 14.

She'd take it.

*****

"Oi, Shitty Face."

Eiko, who had just exited the changing rooms with a couple of the other girls, turned around to see Bakugo making his way towards her with a pissed off expression.

"Ah," Eiko tilted her head with her usual 'innocent' smile. "You're Baka-go, correct?"

The two girls, the brown haired, round faced one from before and a cheerful, invisible girl, had to slap a hand over their mouths to keep themselves from snickering at the blatant outrage on the boy's face. However, they made sure to stick close to the taller girl just in case the blonde was as violent as he appeared.

"It's Bakugo, you dumbass!"

"I see. You have my apologies," Eiko stated, seemingly unfazed as Bakugo's hands started to lightly spark with his anger. "Was there something you needed?"

Apparently, that wasn't the right thing to say as even more anger flashed in his eyes upon remembering why he had originally approached.

"Do you think this school is a fucking joke?" He growled.

All three girls looked at him in confusion. Well, Eiko simply tilted her head ever so slightly, not looking very fazed.

"A joke?" She repeated.

"You may not have scored last," Bakugo glared, "but don't think I noticed that you didn't use your damn quirk once." Ah, so nobody actually noticed. That was good. "Do you really think becoming a pro is that fucking easy? This school doesn't need some half-assing little girl trying to play hero for the fun of it!"

Eiko's expression didn't change as the two girls at her side glanced nervously between the two blondes.

"Playing hero... for fun, you say?" A shiver ran down Uraraka and Hagakure's, for those were the girl's names, spine at Eiko's words, and even Bakugo paused in his anger. Eiko's expression or tone hadn't changed even the slightest, but there was something about the aura around the girl that immediately caused others to be nervous. It was almost frightening how much it contrasted with her outer appearance. "Ara ara~ Is this what people believe to be fun these days...? How strange... and annoying."

The other three tensed at Eiko's words and the overall vibe she was giving, unsure of how to react. At first glance, the girl appeared to be a bit airheaded and unresolved and maybe a bit ditzy, but she was proving to be quite more than first meets the eye. She seemed almost... angry...

"Ah!" The three were startled as the angry aura seemed to disappear in a flash as Eiko sent them an even brighter smile than usual. "But you really don't need to worry about me doing anything half-baked! I just didn't use my quirk for the assessment test simply because it was ill-suited for such exercises!" Before any of them could even have the chance to ask her about her quirk, she continued. "Since we've resolved that, shall we be off to class? I don't believe Aizawa-sensei will be very forgiving of tardiness!"

There was no room for objection.

****

1909 words excluding A/N's

Finished - April 15, 2022

Bye~