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' Shinsou Hitoshi '
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"Bakugou."
"Yeah?"
"You got the highest score on the entrance exam. What was the farthest you managed to throw a softball in junior high?" Aizawa asked, and that heavy something settled a little lower.
....
Bakugou frowned, considering. He seemed… weirdly uncomfortable with this whole situation. Hitoshi would have thought he was the type to enjoy the spotlight. "Sixty-seven meters, I think."
"Right. Try it with your quirk," their teacher continued, offering him a softball that probably had some sort of tracking device in it. "Anything goes, just stay in the circle to pitch it."
Bakugou grunted in aquiecense as he stepped forward. "Right man, you asked for it," he muttered, then took a deep breath and readied his stance. Uraraka perked up with interest, but when Hitoshi glanced at her, all she did was smile knowingly.
A moment later, he found out why.
"DIE!" Bakugou roared as a massive explosion burst from the palm of his hand, smoke streaming like a comet tail behind the ball as it flew into the distance. While his classmates gaped (Hitoshi did nothing of the sort), Aizawa continued his explanation.
"All of you need to figure out your maximum capabilities as they now stand. It's the most rational way to determine your potential." To emphasize his point, he held up his phone, open to an app synchronized with whatever device was wired to the ball.
"Over seven hundred meters?! Dude, that's amazing!" Lightning Blonde gaped.
"I wanna go! Looks like fun!" Pinky squealed.
"This is what I'm talking about: getting to use our quirks as much as we want!" Weird Elbows added, grinning eagerly. All three of their excited expressions vanished with their teacher's next words.
"So this looks fun, huh? You have three years here to become a hero. You think it's all gonna be games and play time? Idiots," he grinned, and the expression was absolutely terrifying.
"Today you'll be competing in eight physical exams to determine your potential. Whoever comes in last has none and will be expelled immediately."
"Expelled?!"
"No way; you can't do that on the first day!"
"It isn't fair!"
"Like I said, I get to control how this class runs," Aizawa cut in, still smiling coldly. "If that's a problem, then you can pack up and go home right now."
Yeah, Hitoshi groaned internally, I'm royally screwed.
...
By the time they reached the halfway point of the tests, Hitoshi had concluded that he'd never felt so humiliated in all his life.
Even after all the work he'd put in, even after UA had changed policy to create a separate entrance exam for students like him with quirks unsuited to combat with robots, he was still essentially being told to give up.
He'd known from the moment Aizawa had announced the test that things would end up this way.
His quirk just wasn't suited for application to a physical exam! He couldn't brainwash the ball into flying further, nor could he brainwash his frickin' legs into jumping farther or running faster for the long jump or fifty meter dash. It just didn't work that way!
He grit his teeth as he walked at the back of the class, his hands balled into fists, in spite of his best efforts to maintain a calm, collected air. Get it together, Hitoshi, he scolded himself. Do you want to be a hero or not?
"What's with that look?"
Hitoshi actually jumped, then whirled around, wide-eyed, towards a slight young man standing just to the side of the path, arms folded across his chest, one of his bright red high tops raised to balance himself against the wall, dressed in gray slacks and a black hoodie, pulled low over his eyes so that all he could see was a couple strands of curly green hair, a notebook tucked under one arm.
The new freshman blinked at the other boy, more than a little bit bewildered by his sudden appearance. Not to mention his somewhat… lax attention to it.
"What are you doing here?" he managed eventually, hoping he sounded a little more composed than he looked and biting back a wince when he realized he'd forgotten not to phrase his words as a question.
The boy chuckled softly, straightening and turning to face him, although Hitoshi still couldn't see his eyes. "Don't worry. My sensei knows I'm out here."
"That wasn't my question."
"True," came the faint smile. "I was just interested in seeing the results of Aizawa-sensei's Quirk Test this year."
"This year…" Hitoshi frowned. "So this is a regular occurrence."
"Yeah," came the huffed laugh. "Last year he expelled his entire class."
Hitoshi choked. "You've gotta be screwing with me."
"Not all at once, but over the course of the school year. It's kind of a legend among the upperclassmen. But honestly, I saw it coming-they put up a poor showing during their Quirk Assessment.
Half of them gave up before they'd even begun, resigning themselves to expulsion. The rest obviously had no strong handle on their quirks, or even much of a willingness to get creative using them. One was a bully, one was a pervert… On top of which, their top performer wanted to be a hero 'just because'."
The boy shook his head with a pitying air and Histoshi couldn't help but think that the boy was awfully well-informed. A Management student, maybe? Or Support? And maybe with an information oriented or otherwise analytical quirk? "Honestly, I don't blame Aizawa-sensei for expelling them.
I wouldn't worry about it too much, though. This class has a lot of potential. All the students I've seen so far have been incredible; they've really embraced the challenge of applying their quirks to the tests. Although… Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen you use yours yet."
"Yeah, well my quirk isn't exactly anything physical. There's not much I can do to apply it to a test like this."
The boy cocked his head slightly to one side, his slight frown indicating that he was surveying Hitoshi like a particularly fascinating math problem. Then, all at once, the confusion vanished. "Oh, are you one of the students that got in through the new test system?"
He nodded, and even without seeing his eyes the upperclassman(?)'s face instantly seemed to light up.
"Hey, that's amazing! So what is your quirk, exactly? If they let you take the secondary exam, then it's something that can't affect electronics, right? Is it biologically oriented, like Midnight-sensei's quirk, or quirk-manipulation oriented, like Aizawa-sensei's?"
Hitoshi hesitated. It wasn't that he minded talking about his quirk, but most people didn't exactly react… favorably towards him when they found out about it. But this boy seemed so open and earnest, it felt like a crime to just… brush him off. "It's more biological…" he said slowly.
"Awesome! Emitter type, I'm guessing? I mean of course; if it was transformation, they'd probably have sent you to the regular exam.
Well unless it's like Shishikura Seiji, where he has a transformation quirk with emitter-like properties that only affect biological matter, but that's a rare… uh… Sorry,"
the boy cut himself off, looking somewhat embarrassed as he raised a hand to rub the back of his neck. If that hood wasn't hiding his face, Hitoshi imagined he'd be blushing. "I get like that when I'm thinking too much. A-Anyway, what's your quirk called?"
"It's… Brainwashing," he admitted finally, casting a nervous glance towards the other boy. He'd gone still, and even though he couldn't see it, Hitoshi could imagine his eyes widening, imagine the fear and the caution leaking into th-
"That's so cool!"
Hitoshi blinked at him. "…What."