U.A. was like a glass labyrinth; if not for Uraraka having a map of the place, I'm almost certain Midoriya and I would've gotten lost on our way to classroom 1-A. The door to the classroom was huge; Midoriya said something about it being a class for giants, but he wasn't too far off. I imagine some students whose Quirks caused psychological changes might need differently sized doors to accommodate them.
Before we could even open the door, we could hear that Bakugo was yelling at some kid. Midoriya and I glanced at each other before Uraraka swung the door. Of course, Bakugo was screaming some kid's ear off as this uptight, glasses-wearing student scolded him about respect and not putting your feet on the desk as if that'll stop him.
Bakugo's arrogance faded the moment he saw Midoriya and I enter the classroom; though I imagine it was more so the sight of Midoriya that pissed him off. The entire class was staring at us -- or more accurately -- at Midoriya. I heard some murmurs asking if he was the one who destroyed that kaiju robot.
"Good morning! My name is Tenya Iida!" said the glasses-wearing student.
"Hi, I'm Izuku Midoriya..."
"I'm Ochaco Uraraka!"
"I'm Miles Morales."
Though Uraraka and I introduced ourselves, Iida was too invested in whatever Midoriya had going on to pay us the fraction of a mind.
"You knew there was more to the practical exam, didn't you?"
Deku raised his hands to his chest, denying Iida's claims. "Oh, no, I-"
As Deku chattered with Iida, I looked over his shoulder to see Bakugo seething more than usual. I remember he said something about wanting to be the only student from our school to ever get into U.A.; unfortunately for him, we shattered that dream.
"If you're here just to make friends..." a dull, exhausted voice said behind us. The trio of us turned to find a black-haired man with dry, baggy eyes lying down in a sleeping bag behind us. "...You'd be better off packing your bags and leaving."
He unzipped his sleeping bag and clawed his way out like a bug leaving its cocoon before squeezing past us. "Time is precious. Rational students would understand that. My name is Shota Aizawa, your teacher. Here's your gym uniforms."
Aizawa threw a bag of clothes on the ground. Since we all had our own unique body types, the uniforms were labeled with our names. The boys and girls went to their respective changing rooms until all twenty of us found ourselves beneath the scorching hot sun and clear skies.
"Today we are doing a Quirk Assessment Test," said Aizawa.
"Sir, aren't we going to miss the orientation?" Uraraka asked him.
Aizawa faced away from us, staring at the infinitely spanning field in front of us. "If you want to be a hero, there isn't any time for pointless ceremonies. I run my class how I see fit. That is why I believe the Quirk Assessment Test is important. Normal schools don't allow those of you with power to excel, am I correct?"
He was right. The reason why I didn't know my own strength was that my old school never let me use it. Outside of class, I only ever studied, and I would sometimes hang out with my uncle whenever he came to visit. I never told my dad this, but Uncle Aaron would use my powers to tag the craziest places. Other than that, I lived like any normal kid would.
"Bakugo. What was your furthest distance thrown with a softball?"
"I don't know. Sixty-seven meters," Bakugo answered.
"Now, try throwing this ball as hard as you can using your Quirk."
Bakugo approached a marked area in the dirt with the ball, looking forward with a crooked smile and eyes gleaming, ready to show off. With a resounding explosion and a shockwave that nearly toppled this short kid over, Bakugo launched the ball. "Die!" he screamed as the ball left his fingertips.
Aizawa held up a device that calculated the distance that the ball was thrown. Bakugo threw the ball exactly 705.2 meters. I wasn't sure how far I could throw mine, but I can't say that I wasn't impressed.
Bakugo's throw riled me up, I can't lie, and I was excited to go next. Reading our body language, Aizawa scolded us. "What? Are you excited? Do you think this is all gonna be fun games and play time? Well, you're wrong. Idiots."
A grin that rivaled Bakugo's was smeared on his face; his eyes even opened a little more than usual, but it was hard to see past his long, black hair. "There's going to be eight tests, each gauging your potential. Whoever gets last place will be expelled from this class."
"That's not fair!" I heard Uraraka say.
"Are natural disasters fair? Are villains destroying the city fair? No. Life isn't fair. You'll experience one hardship after another, so go beyond. Plus Ultra."
It's funny. The old me would've been okay with getting second-to-last place in this scenario. Not this time. I wanted to win this contest; I wanted to show Bakugo that when we don't hold back, I'm better than he is. I also couldn't let myself lose to Midoriya.
The first test was the fifty-meter dash. People like Iida, who had speed Quirks, were able to finish in just a couple of seconds. However, we, without speed Quirks, had to get creative. Despite having a speed that's multitudes faster than any normal human, I wouldn't set records running on foot. When it was my turn to go, I fired webs at the ground in front of me and took a few steps backward. Once Aizawa said go, I flung myself fifty meters in 2.89 seconds, beating even Iida's score.
He tried to accuse me of cheating since I webbed the ground before the clock started, but Aizawa didn't care, so neither did I.
Surprisingly, when Midoriya went, he didn't even use his Quirk at all... When he fought that kaiju robot, he nearly reached speeds rivaling teleportation. Now he was running like some wimp. Bakugo was his running mate, and he annihilated him, finishing in four seconds flat.
The second challenge was a piece of cake; all we had to do was test our grip strength using this little machine. The machine capped out at one ton, which is what I was able to achieve pretty easily. In terms of my classmates, the only one close to reaching my score was this kid with six arms and these huge muscles, scoring five hundred and forty kilograms. However, Midoriya could barely do fifty-six kilograms.
Next was the long jump. Thanks to my powerful legs, I was able to easily jump one hundred and eighty meters with a running start. However, without any buildings around to web wing on, I couldn't extend my range the the flying types. Bakugo was able to boost himself forward with his explosive palms, and Uraraka just turned her body's gravity to zero to send herself flying.
After the long jump was the side hop test. My skills barely gave me much of an advantage here. In thirty seconds, I was able to perform about seventy hops, a few more than the other heavy hitters like Bakugo and this half-ice, half-fire kid. Unfortunately, this little pervert named Mineta was able to hop side to side way faster than everyone else by using the detachable purple balls that were growing out of his head.
After that was the distance run, but this time, we we required to keep our feet on the ground at all times, which was fine by me. Of course, Iida smoked us all. I was able to do one lap every twenty seconds, so I finished my mile in about one minute and twenty seconds. After that, it wasn't even close for most people. I made sure to rub this one in Bakugo's face, but he acted as if he didn't hear me.
The seated toe touch was pretty easy for me as well. Since I have all the abilities of a spider, I'm pretty nimble. Though I scored higher than my classmates, the gap in scores wasn't very significant since you can be flexible without having a quirk.
Nearing the end of the exam, we had to do sit-ups. Most people quit once they reached a couple of hundred, but Bakugo and I both wanted to get first place more than anything. And so, he and I kept going until we hit one thousand. I would've kept going, but Aizawa got so bored that he stopped us...
Finally, we returned to the softball toss, which I was pretty excited for. Any strength-related feat was in my bag, so I knew I'd get a good score. What I wasn't expecting was Uraraka to throw the ball so far that after ten minutes, the sensor would read infinity. No one else was able to pass Bukugo's score, and the only people left were I and Midoriya.
I stepped up to the marked area, ball in hand. Aizawa never said that we had to do a traditional throw, so I instead decided to throw the ball in the style of the hammer throw event from the Olympics. I attached a web to the ball; my webs were so strong that there was no way they would snap. I then spun in a circle, gathering momentum before reading my web, sending the ball flying.
I walked toward the pack with my hands in my pockets, glaring at Bakugo as Aizawa read off my score.
"One thousand and three meters."
I saw Bakugo fail to hide his flaring emotions, but he was able to hold in most of it. He never liked me, but I was no Deku to him. So long as the wimp didn't beat him, he wouldn't crash out.
Midoriya was next, standing in the marked zone with the ball resting in his hands.
"Looks like Midoriya is going home..." Iida whispered.
"Of course he is, he's just a Quirckless loser!" Bakugo shouted, making sure Midoriya could hear him.
"Did you not see what he did at the practical exam? He does have a Quirk."
"Huh?"
Midoriya took a pitcher's stance, looking forward with determined eyes. His arm began to emit that same light, and I could feel the hair on my body begin to stand up. If Midoriya were the main character of a show, his theme song would've been playing right about then, and I couldn't help but root for him.
You got this, Midoriya...
He dug his foot into the dirt, shifting his hips as his arm cocked back and fired the ball with all of his might. The ball soared through the air until it finally hit the ground, and the tracker read aloud his score.
Forty-five meters.
Everyone was stunned. After all of that, the ball barely went further than what some fifth-grade girl could do; however, when I looked at Aizawa, whose hair and bandages were flowing around him, I knew he had to have intervened somehow.
"I disabled your Quirk. Someone like you shouldn't even be allowed at this school," Aizawa told him, his crimson eyes shimmering.
It was then that we all came to the same realization. Our homeroom teacher was none other than the hero named Eraser Head. Most people didn't really know what he looked like since he liked to work solo and he avoided the media; however, now that we had it pointed out to us, it was obviously him.
"Were you planning on breaking your bones again? Relying on others to save your sorry, worthless ass? That's not going ot work here. You are a liability if you can only throw one punch before breaking down. Sorry, kid. With your power, you can never be a hero. I've returned your Quirk. Take your final throw."
Deku took the ball to the marked area and mumbled to himself for a minute before locking in, his determined eyes glaring at the infinite horizon. Again, he took a pitcher's stance before digging deep in the dirt and throwing the ball with all his might. There was a microscopic glint that emitted from his fingertips before he released the ball, releasing a shockwave the moment the ball rolled off his fingertips. As the ball soared, we heard him yell, "Smash!' so loudly, it echoed through the empty field. The class watched as the ball disappeared into the distance; our jaws unhinged.
The ball ended up going 705.3 meters, just barely further than Bakugo's ball by the tiniest of measurements. I couldn't hold back my laughter or my admiration for Midoriya. Somehow, he'd found a way to control his Quirk, even after getting chewed out by the teacher. Upon closer inspection, I could see that his finger was swollen, discolored, and dangling in an unnatural way; I realized then that he must've put everything into one finger, breaking that instead of his entire arm.
"You see that, Aizawa? I'm still standing!" Deku smiled through his tears as he held a closed fist.
He's incredible... I thought.
Seeing him continuously breaking his body just to keep up with the rest of us was awe-inspiring. If Deku and I were to have fought right then and there, I was certain that I could beat him in a fight; however, I was jealous -- not of his strength -- but of his unwavering determination. You could always become physically stronger if you train, but this kid's resolve was something he came out of the box with. Despite getting first place in most of the events, I still felt like I needed to be better.
"Hey, Deku, you bastard! Tell me how you did that, or you're dead!" Bakugo threw himself at Midoriya, but Eraser Head erased his Quirk before he could touch him. Midoriya walked away while Bakugo clenched his fists, trembling with what I assume was boiling rage.
Aizawa showed us the ranking. I was, of course first place while Midoriya was dead last. I saw tears welling up in his eyes, but Aizawa wouldn't let that go on for long.
"I lied, by the way. No one is going home. See you guys tomorrow. Don't forget to go over the syllabus."
We all changed back into our normal uniforms and headed home. It seemed as though Midoriya, Iida, Uraraka, and I all lived pretty close to each other, so we walked home as a group, discussing middle school and such. Uraraka heard Bakugo call me Africa and wondered which part of Africa I'm from... I had to burst her bubble and tell her I'm nothing more than a lowly American.
As we walked, I came to a realization. No one at this school cared that I was a foreigner. I guess since we all had these incredible powers, no one really cared that I wasn't Japanese, and I was thankful. Though we'd all just met, I was looking forward to seeing these guys every day for the next three years.