Eraser Head was... a strange teacher, to put it lightly, even before he'd introduced himself as Aizawa Shōta.

Meaning, obviously, that he was likely to be either Kazue's favorite or least favorite teacher by the end of the day. First off, he'd pretty much called their entire class irrational during the first ten seconds of appearing in a yellow sleeping bag outside the door, something the teen could agree on—they were so enthusiastic about wanting to be heroes; reason enough in his book. Secondly, he'd skipped the pointless entrance ceremony and orientation, also known as a snoozefest that just told people what they would've known if they'd just looked at the website and done their research.

Also... that green haired Quirkless kid from around ten months ago? The one who'd rushed in to attack the sludge villain to try and save the angry blond that also happened to be in the same class?

Yeah, he apparently had a Quirk now, but that wasn't even the best part.

Kazue could only stare when the shorter boy had entered the room awkwardly, and even more so the more he dug into the Quirk known as One For All. All Might's Quirk, and this random kid had it. Well, more of it had been transferred through the Number One hero's DNA entering the freckled boy's body and the man being willing to complete the transfer.

If the brunet was being honest, One For All was probably the most interesting Quirk he'd ever done a reading on, and he'd come into contact with all the current top heroes at least once.

Anyway.

Unfortunately, with Eraser Head making the class skip the entrance ceremony and orientation, they now had to put on gym uniforms, go outside to the marked-up field, and do-

"A Quirk assessment test?!" pretty much the entire class exclaimed, cutting off Kazue's train of thought yet completing it at the same time.

"What about the entrance ceremony?" a rather round-faced brunette girl questioned, eyes wide. "The orientation?"

Eraser Head answered without looking back. "If you're going to become a hero, you don't have time for such leisurely events. Yūei's selling point is how unrestricted its school traditions are." He glanced back over his scarf-encased shoulder. "That's also how the teachers run their classes."

The hero turned further around until he was halfway facing the class, hands in the pockets of his costume. "You kids have been doing these since junior high, too, right?" Eraser asked rhetorically, holding up a phone with different tests listed across its screen. "Physical fitness tests where you weren't allowed to use your Quirks. The country still uses averages taken from results from students not using their Quirks. It's not rational. Well, the Ministry of Education is procrastinating."

True enough, Kazue would admit. Why measure only part of someone's potential instead of its entirety? That was just idiotic on the end of the Ministry, a group of old people who hated change. Oh, wait, that also applied to the Hero Public Safety Commission... More pains in Kazue's ass when all he was doing was writing and filing reports as an unlicensed minor and they got on his father's case about it. Seriously, who cared if it was illegal if the job was done well and on time?

"Bakugō, you finished at the top of the practical exam, right?"

The angry blond, who had a rather powerful Quirk known as Explosion, looked up.

"In junior high, what was your best result for the softball throw?"

Based on his stature and obvious strength... somewhere in the range of sixty-five to seventy meters, Kazue mused mentally, shoulders hunched as he stood at the back of the class. Oh, how he wished he could just sit down and read, but he doubted the pro hero in charge would particularly like that.

"Sixty-seven meters," Bakugō replied flatly.

Damn. He was getting better at predictions when it came to random physical abilities, if he was able to guesstimate within such a small range.

"Then, try doing it with your Quirk," Eraser Head instructed, passing over a specialized ball to the teenager and motioning him into a white circle painted on the dirt. Lines were progressively painted off to the distance, with widening sides to indicate where to throw. "You can do whatever you want as long as you stay in the circle. Hurry up. Give it all you've got."

"Then, well..." the blond replied, stretching out his arms. Kazue watched with his hands already over his ears, only slightly interested as Bakugō cranked back his arm. The sparks inside his body that only Kazue could 'see' flared to life and he whipped his arm forward, a deafening explosion bursting from the boy's hand. "DIE!"

The ball flew through the air at a blinding speed, and Kazue could only sweatdrop. Seriously? This was the hero course, wasn't it? Shouldn't their Quirks all be more developed than that, where they'd know their own maximum and how to best utilize it? Or was that something that only happened by their third year?

He took a second to scan the rest of his classmates, noticing that most of their Quirks were extremely underdeveloped. The green-haired boy with All Might's Quirk literally only had the ability to activate the Quirk at one-hundred percent of its power. The guy with red hair on his left and white on his right—whom Kazue had seen at the recommendation exams—could create fire and ice with the corresponding sides, but his fire half looked like it'd barely been used.

Then again, Kazue was one to talk. His boosting ability still could improve past what it was at now, and he hadn't even been able to use the other half. Rather, it seemed to be using him.

In short, the whole situation was a pain in the ass. The brunet was in the hero course, when he didn't even want to be one in the first place. Thanks, Otou-san.

"Know your own maximum first," Eraser Head stated, only reinforcing Kazue's thoughts on the teen's abrasive attitude. The hero turned to face the class as soon as his phone beeped. "That is the most rational way to form the foundation of a hero." He held up the device to reveal the new distance.

Seven-hundred and five-point-two meters.

Kazue grimaced in his mind as the class chattered amongst themselves in shock, already trying to make an estimate on how well he'd have to score on all the exams to be in the exact middle. With a score like that already, it was already going to be a real pain to stay average on the first day of school. He knew he already had an advantage, as he'd been training with his father and his sidekicks for years, but still.

That didn't mean that the brunet wanted to actually try for once in school activities.

"'It looks fun', huh?"

Kazue cleared his mind, narrowing his eyes slightly at his new sensei's response to a few of his classmates' exclamations. An almost ominous feeling filled the air as the hero continued, "You have three years to become a hero. Will you have an attitude like that the whole time?" The man smiled, the usually kind gesture looking rather... unsettling instead. "All right. Whoever comes in last place in all eight tests will be judged to have no potential and will be punished with expulsion."

The class exploded in an uproar, Kazue wincing at the noise and clapping his hands over his ears. Fuck, he really did need to design a automatic volume control for the devices, otherwise he was going to damage his ears more than they already had been when he was born.

"Stop whining," he muttered under his breath, rolling his eyes at how offended most of the class seemed. "Such a pain in the ass..."

"We're free to do what we want about the circumstances of our students," Eraser Head carried on, unphased by the shouts of 'HUH?!' He lifted the dark locks of hair away from his eyes, grin growing even more unsettling than before. "Welcome to Yūei's hero course!"

The brunette girl with the Zero Gravity Quirk looked terrified. "Last place will be expelled?" she exclaimed, eyes wide. "But it's the first day of school! No, even if it wasn't the first day of school, this is too unfair!"

Eraser Head didn't even hesitate to give a 'motivational' speech. "Natural disasters, big accidents, and selfish villains. Calamities whose time or place can't be predicted. Japan is covered with unfairness. Heroes are the ones who reverse those situations. If you wanted to go talk with your friends at Mickey D's after school, too bad. For the next three years, Yūei will do all it can to give you one hardship after another. Go beyond. Plus Ultra. Overcome it with all you've got."

The tall guy in rectangular glasses randomly pulled out a water bottle from the pocket on his thigh, sucking intently through the straw while appearing to be deep in thought.

Kazue sweatdropped at the expressions on everyone's faces. They all looked so... determined. What motivated them to want to be the best and stand out so much? What was the big deal? Being the center of attention was a pain in the ass to deal with.

"All right, demonstration's over," the hero stated flatly. "The real thing starts now."

~-~-~-~

Test One - 50-Meter Dash

"Woah, that's the kind of stretching pros do, right?"

Kazue huffed out a sigh at Kirishima's question, feeling the strain in his thighs as he pushed farther down on his leg. "Not really," the brunet muttered, finally standing up and crouching into the ready position. It was just a matter of knowing where the most common running injuries occurred, then taking the proper precautions against them.

"On your mark!" the robot in charge of timing chirped cheerfully. "Get set!"

A sound that was supposed to resemble a starting pistol came, and Kazue took off. His eye twitched in annoyance as his feet pounded against the dirt, miffed that he already had to put in this much effort to stay average.

"Six-point-five seconds!" the robot chirped as he crossed the line. The brunet let out a breath at the sudden almost-sprint and jogged to a stop, wanting to go find a nice place to sit down and read. Or sleep. Either way, anything at this point would be better than actually having to try in gym activities.

"Bro, that was fast for not using a Quirk!" Kirishima grinned, crossing not even a second later at six-point-nine seconds. "Man, and I was sprinting, too."

Ah, shit, Kazue mentally cursed, having forgotten something important. In order to stay in the middle, he'd have to stand out by not using his Quirk.

That... could become a problem.

~-~-~-~

Test Two - Grip Strength

Kazue stared with dead eyes down at the device in his hand before glancing around at the rest of his classmates. Many of them had clear advantages due to their Quirks, like the one with the Dupli-Arms ability or the one with the mutation that somehow went along with his Anivoice. But several others, like the girl with the Invisibly Quirk or the Zero Gravity girl, had no advantage at all.

Taking those into account...

He clenched his fist. The device beeped.

~-~-~-~

Test Three - Standing Long Jump

Ugh. So many of the other students had cleared the sandbox completely, like Bakugō, the blond with the Naval Laser, the Zero Gravity girl, the Frog girl... yeah.

Which meant he actually had to try, again. Well... at least somewhat.

~-~-~-~

Test Four - Repeated Side Steps

Kazue wanted to die.

Enough said.

~-~-~-~

Test Five - Ball Throw

Why?

Why the hell had Kazue agreed to join the hero course?

Oh, wait, because his father wouldn't sign the parent permission form otherwise, and his signature was literally impossible to forge.

"Stop wasting time," Eraser Head stated flatly, hands in his pockets.

The brunet grimaced in his mind, experimentally tossing the ball in his hand up into the air and catching it to test its weight. Alright... Kazue drew back his arm, only to narrow his eyes slightly at his own error and adjust it slightly before snapping it forward.

Only for his limb to suddenly be held in place by the pro hero himself, the ball falling uselessly from the teen's grip onto the dirt. Kazue blinked slowly at the sight, then shot a glance over his shoulder at the dark-haired man. He looks pissed...

Well, obviously, considering he was using his Quirk as an intimidation factor after already using it once on the green-haired boy who'd broken his finger and the angry blond who'd tried to attack him. And possibly because... maybe he felt that his Quirk was having no effect, too?

"What?" Kazue sighed and pretended not to notice the other half of his Quirk finally fucking working, even if that wasn't even close to how it was supposed to with no training, using his foot to kick the ball back up to his left hand instead. Had Eraser Head noticed the subtle shift, unlike all the others watching? Or had he read his file, where the principal had written down that he didn't want to be a hero?

Both, probably.

"Quit playing around," the man muttered, closing his eyes in obvious annoyance as his hair floated back down to rest around his shoulders. "Grow up. This is the hero course, not your old junior high school where you could do everything halfway without getting caught."

Kazue clenched his jaw at how goddamn true the hero's statement was, his fists clenching in irritation. "Nothing I do is halfway, actually," he mumbled under his breath, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. It was all calculated down the smallest degree; planned to the finest detail. Sure, he tended not to end up actually trying...to win. More of doing everything in his power to end up in the middle. "Can I throw the ball or not, Sensei?"

The capture weapon loosened its hold on Kazue's arm, returning to encase Eraser Head's shoulders. "Do what you want," he replied, rubbing his closed eyes. "You have three tries left. This one doesn't count."

Whatever. None of this really matters, anyway. Why would knowing how far someone can throw a ball matter in a fight?

It didn't.

Well holy fuck this was a long chapter compared to my usual (just over 2.3k)

Kazue's kinda pissed that he has to work harder to score average kdkdjdidh

Questions/comments/things I should change?