"I'm your homeroom teacher, Aizawa Shota. Yoroshiku onegai."
The male scanned the room, looking at the students with the same bored expression, his eyes stopping at last on the girl behind the tall boy with dark hair and glasses. She had short (h/c) hair and a fringe which at the moment covered her eyes since she was looking down.
Aizawa knew she could feel his gaze but the girl didn't meet his eyes, not even once. He stared at her for a few seconds, squinting as something on her behaviour made him uneasy.
Maybe she was afraid of him?
Well... It wouldn't be a surprise.
Shrugging it off, he decided to forget her and took the gym clothe out of his bag showing it to everyone.
"I know it's sudden... " he said in his monotone voice. "But change into your gym clothes and head out to the grounds."
He didn't notice but the girl sighed in relief after his eyes left her.
Y/n couldn't believe the luck she had.
Shota could have recognized her at the class and put her in a really awkward situation. Thanks to her new visual he didn't. She never thought cutting her hair short and growing out a fringe would make so much difference. The old man even told her to add glasses but she thought it would be too much. Thankfully, changing her hair was enough.
However, she still needed to think of a way to approach him when nobody was around. Y/n wasn't a idiot, she knew her cover wouldn't last much specially now that Aizawa Shota was her teacher. What, by the way, was something totally unexpected. She never thought he would become a teacher. It never suited his personality. Now she regretted not having informed herself before hand about the U.A. staff.
Anyway, she had to think of something before he find out about her true identity. And fast.
"A TEST OF OUR QUIRKS?!" the yell of her classmates brought Y/n back to reality. The girl blinked and looked around seeing only surprised faces.
Crap... she had zoned out.
"But... What about the entrance ceremony? Or guidance lessons?!" Uraraka asked a little disappointed.
So... we won't celebrate?
"If you are becoming heroes, you don't have time to waste on that stuff." Aizawa answered with his back to them. Y/n made a face.
A little too rough, don't you think, Shota? But you were always like that...
A small and melancholic smile escaped her lips.
"U.A. is known for its "freestyle" educational system. That applies to us teachers as well." he continued looking over his shoulder at them. "So, you've been doing this since elementary school, right? Standard physical tests in which quirks weren't allowed."
He turned to everybody while showing a list of these tests on his phone.
Softball throwing
The Standing Long Jump
5o Meters Dash
Endurance Running...
Y/n was reading finding nothing far from the ordinary. She had done some of those when she was little, though she happened to be scolded a lot by her teachers for using her quirk.
"This country still insists on using the averages calculated with quirkless students records." Aizawa carried on. "It is not logical. Well... The Department of Education is sure procrastinating."
He then turned to the ash-blonde boy who minutes before was being reprimanded by Iida at the classroom. He was currently at the front, a bit far from Y/n who was at the back, behind a boy with spiky red hair, in order to maintain herself unnoticed.
She observed the boy.
"Bakugou, you finished first on the Entrance Exam. How far could you throw a softball in middle school?"
So his name is Bakugou... Well, it fits his personality. He does seem the type of explosive guy.
"67 meters." Bakugou answered. Shota then told him to stay inside a circle in front of them and gave him the ball.
"So... Try it now using your quirk." he ordered. "You can do whatever you wish, just don't leave the circle. Hayo, (quick) give it everything you have."
Bakugou stretched his arm and prepared himself to launch the ball.
"Jaa...(Then...)" he said, followed by a loud scream that startled Y/n and a few other classmates. "SHINEEEEEEEE!!! (DIIIIIIEEEE!!)"
Shi...ne?
She blinked shocked.
He really said that?!
Amazed by the boy boldness and strength, she watched the ball being launched with an explosion, creating rings of fire and smoke and a gust of wind that shoved her hair on her face. Y/n quickly put her strands back into place in time to follow the ball's trajectory on the sky until it landed on the ground some nice meters away from where they were.
So, his quirk is something related to explosions?
It caught her attention since it was similar to hers. Well, kind of... She also could make explosions but it wasn't her primary skill.
"It is important to know our limits. That is the first rational step to figure out what kind of heroes you'll be." Shota showed them Bakugou's result.
Maji... 705.2 meters?! (Seriously... 705.2 meters?!)
Y/n read taken aback. That was far as hell!!
"Woah! Maji ka yo?! (Seriously?!)" a boy with blonde hair with a black lightning-shaped streak on his fringe exclaimed next to her.
"This seems super fun!" a pink girl said getting excited.
"So we can use our quirks for real! Man, this hero course is great!!" another boy with black hair and a funny smile said.
"It seems fun, you say..." their teacher suddenly interrupted them and everybody's smiles and voices faded."... You have three years to become heroes and you'll continue with this attitude, thinking it's all fun and games?"
He slowly opened a creepy smile.
Oh god...
Y/n prepared herself knowing that when he smiled like that was because something bad (for them) would follow.
"Yosh... (Well...) The one with the lowest score across all eight events will be judged hopeless... And will be punished by being expelled."
"N-NANI?! (W-WHAT?!)" she yelled automatically, quickly covering her mouth with her hands. Thankfully, Aizawa didn't look in her direction.
He couldn't be serious! Expelled? Being judged hopeless was kinda ok... But expulsion?! It was too extreme!
"We teachers are free to do whatever we desire. Your fates now lie in our hands..." Aizawa lifted his hair from his face in order to show everyone his scary expression. "Youkoso, kore wa (Welcome, this is) U.A. High's Hero Course!"
She didn't have to pass on such a test the first time she entered Hero Course, though that time Shota wasn't her teacher. Knowing the male she knew that could be a total trap but she couldn't risk it.
"The last place will be expelled?!" Ochako said still not believing. "But it's only the first day! And... Even if it weren't that's still unfair!"
"Natural disasters... Highway pileups... Rampaging villains... Calamities which time and place cannot be predicted. They're always around the corner. Japan is full of unfair things." Aizawa looked at the girl with a blank expression.
Y/n's gaze lowered and she felt her chest weighting heavier with his words. Different from most of her classmates, she lived through those calamities and knew how the world could be cruel. She lost her parents to them when she was a child. She found a new family. Then she lost it again. And now she was a girl trying to live on a time she didn't belong. It was like being a living ghost.
"Heroes are the ones who can reverse that situation. If you planned to spend your evening hanging out with your friends at McDonald's, I'm sorry to tell you... That for the next three years U.A. is going to make you pass for difficulty after another..." Aizawa continued but Y/n stopped hearing him after that, her mind focused on her thoughts.
Heroes are those who can reverse that situation he said.
But how can heroes fight all those calamities?
She didn't need someone to answer because she already knew.
They couldn't.
It was beyond their power.
Disasters existed and always would. The same worked for evil. No matter how much heroes tried to eradicate it, no matter how many lives were lost... It always found a way to survive.
From the beginning it was a lost battle.
So...why fight it?
Why Kronos insisted even knowing it would be his fall?
Why All Might kept struggling to become the symbol of peace?
Why U.A. prepared new heroes just to send them to death like cattle to slaughter?
She couldn't understand.
Maybe one day she did understand... When her dream was to be a hero just like him.
Kronos.
Her hero. He was the one who inspired her to become a hero. But he was gone. Now, without him, her old dream, her ambitions seemed all frivolous, a child fantasy...
Her dreams died a long ago. And with them went her faith in everything.
She didn't feel the same excitement as before. Living was like being caged in an never ending loop of despair and sadness. The truth was Y/n didn't know what to do anymore, she only agreed to attend the course because that old man insisted and said it was what Kronos wished for her. She was only there to honor his memory and wish. Nothing more.
She felt that an emptiness was being carved within her. And every day the hole grew, more and more, making her afraid one day it would consume her whole.
Lost in her thoughts, she only woke up when she felt something wet running down her cheek. A tear which escaped. Startled by it Y/n quickly dried it before any of her classmates noticed.
She shouldn't have these thoughts, she reprimanded herself. Because every time she did, it ended up in tears.
Nervous the girl looked around to see if anyone had seen her crying but luckily everyone's attention was at Aizawa. She sighed relaxing a bit and decided it was better to pay attention to what he was saying.
However, in her nervous state, she did miss someone. Unbeknownst to Y/n, some meters ahead, a certain pair of cold unmatched eyes kept staring at her.
ヒーローファイル
(Heroes Files)
• Y/n thought she succeeded in not calling attention to herself, though she didn't know Aizawa kept an eye on her since the moment they left the classroom.
• More than becoming a paternal figure to Y/n, Kronos did save her life and gave her a purpose. That's why Y/n consider him her hero.
End of Files