Following the blonde boy's directions I entered the school, pushing the door open and gazing inside. The hallways were half-filled with different students of all shapes and sizes. One of them had pink skin and fluffy pink hair, another appeared to have scales like a dragon and the bulkiness of an armadillo. I could easily tell in a few seconds that the quantity of quirked students here outnumbered my school fifty-to-one.
I looked down the hallway, turning towards the Hero Course wing. Lining the hallway were more students, all clad in the U.A uniform. Looking down at my own attire I began to feel a little self conscious. I was the only one here that wore outside attire, which I supposed would make me stick out in the crowd.
Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I took a long and shaky sigh as I began to walk down the hallway. All around me I continued to silently admire the different students I saw. It wasn't that I envied them, but having some sort of powerful or uncanny ability seemed fun, as long as it promised not to hurt the user.
I had originally questioned if spending a lot of time with quirkless students would be a bad thing, but looking at it now I supposed it couldn't be half bad. This wasn't a place that discriminated or alienated those based on how they looked or what their quirk was—or even if you didn't have a quirk.
One of the students, who had blue skin and fins on the side of her head, suddenly stopped me in my tracks, crossing her arms as she looked down at me, a serious expression on her face.
"Who are you?" She asked, her voice possessing a "no nonsense" demeanor.
"I...I'm here for the Quirkless Program." I replied, my body beginning to tremble as if the room had dropped below fifty.
At that moment she suddenly exploded into laughter, parting her blue hair and tucking a few stray locks behind her gills.
"I'm just joking, dummy. Name's Crisella, I'm a second year here at U.A." She extended her hand towards me. Her fingers were webbed together.
I hesitantly shook her hand, offering the girl a small smile. Looking back up at her, I couldn't help but admire her stature. "You're tall..."
Crisella chuckled, her eyes narrowing slightly as she played with her hair. "I know, it's in my family's genetics."
"Well, I'm 5'5 and my parents both tower over me." I chuckled self deprecatingly as I stepped aside the blue girl and kept walking.
"See you later, cutie." Crisella's voice had lowered to a whisper as I saw her blow me a kiss in my peripheral vision.
I felt my body tense as a heat quickly engulfed my face. I darted away, weaving past the students as I made my way towards the door the blonde boy had initially described as "creepy." My vision was mostly locked on behind myself, wanting to ensure I didn't offend her by darting off, so I didn't see the person who I was about to run into.
My body suddenly made contact with another, and I was sent onto my back. When I opened my eyes, beginning to recover from the collision, I saw another tall figure lurking over me. His hair was long and black, and he was clad in an all black outfit. A pair of yellow goggles hung above his eyes like a crown.
He extended his arm towards me, and I reached out to grab it. The man's strength was surprising, as I felt my body being lifted to my feet in an instant.
"Watch where you're going." He said, his voice deep and authoritarian, yet containing no semblance of malice or anger.
I dusted myself off and met the man's gaze. His eyes were crimson red and slightly puffy around the insides. His black hair was slightly greasy and he kind of smelled, the cheap cologne which I easily recognized didn't do a good job at hiding his stench.
"Who are you?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
I swallowed my spit and quickly answered his question. "Names Isaac...I'm here for the Quirkless Program..."
At that moment the man cocked an eyebrow as he stepped back. "You never submitted your slip, Mr. Isaac."
That slip was supposed to be submitted to a U.A official? It never said so on the pamphlet!
"I apologize!..." I quickly opened my backpack and took out the packet of papers, handing them to the gruff man. He looked down at the papers for a few silent seconds, his eyes cold and calculating as he reviewed the information I had submitted in the paper.
"Well, it seems like everything is in order." He looked back up at me and nodded his head. "My name is Shouta Aizawa, a Hero Course teacher."
Hero Course teacher?!
"You teach the Hero Course?" I felt a small rush of fear and admiration as my grip habitually tightened around my backpack straps.
"I do, but it's not like you think it is. The students I teach...I like them...but they're loud and riled up, and I feel like I'm babysitting the class half the damn time."
The man rubbed his glabella with his pointer and middle finger for a few moments, recalling with vivid detail the antics his Hero Course class would usually get themselves into.
"Just don't tell them I said any of that, they'd crucify me or feel immensely betrayed."
...
The man led me downstairs into the basement of the building, which was overall a somewhat dark space aside from the overhead fluorescent lights that flickered every blue moon. In the back of the basement I heard a generator rumbling, sending echoes across the space.
As if sensing I had concerns, Mr. Aizawa spoke up in an almost casual voice. "The generator powers the entire building. So they can afford high-tech training robots but not a more efficient and...less noisy mechanism to give this place power."
The classroom for the Quirkless Program was somewhat small. There was a single line of desks lined in front of an old chalkboard which had crude drawings all over it.
"These kids..." Aizawa grumbed, approaching the board and quickly erasing everything.
"Sometimes I wish I could erase their ability to draw and not just their quirks."
I felt my heartbeat speed up a little, an almost foreign excitement coursing through my body. "You can...erase quirks?"
"Only as long as they remain in my field of vision. Once they get away they can use their quirks again." The man explained, turning back to me and leaning against the chalkboard with a solemn yet casual expression on his stubbled face.
"By the way your desk is next to hers." Aizawa pointed to the corner of the room, where I saw Ayumi at her desk listening to music through her earbuds. The girl was sketching in a small, handheld notebook.
Approaching my desk I read the name tag which I had been given. Aizawa had written them down in messy handwriting, and he used two s's to spell my name and not two a's. It was a common mistake for people to misspell my name, but if I ever got famous and someone used Isaeik or something like that to spell my name I'd honestly kill myself.
After placing my backpack under my desk I turned towards Ayumi, waving my hand gently. The girl quickly looked up, stuffing her pencil back into her messy black bun as she smiled at me. "You came!"
I chuckled sheepishly, scratching the back of my neck. "I guess I did."
At the end of the hallway I suddenly heard the large door close, followed by Aizawa's footsteps. "Well, the rest are late so they don't get to attend." He said gruffly, stuffing his hands in his black pocket as the man made his way to the center of the room.
"My name is Shouta Aizawa, and I'll be your teacher for the Quirkless Program."
Aizawa began talking about how this class was meant to teach us the principles of being a hero without having a quirk, how our capabilities and powers didn't define who we were, but by how we wanted to use them. Intention is what mattered, not the ability.
He also explained how we could have our first assignment at the end of the class, but it wouldn't be too harrowing as what he'd give his Hero Course students.
"Now tell me..." Aizawa turned towards the chalkboard, picking up a small white stick of chalk and drawing a large circle.
"What do you think defines a hero?" His voice was expectant, but not rude. I saw Ayumi tense slightly in her chair. I guessed the suddenness of the question caught the poor girl off guard.
"Heroes aren't defined by their popularity or their ranking on the billboards. Heroes are those who would do anything for the greater good. Not their greater good, but the good of the world and its people."
I could tell this was a sort of hint he was giving us. After a brief period of contemplation I raised my hand and spoke up.
"Justice is what heroes symbolize."
"Justice..." Aizawa's voice suddenly lowered to almost a whisper as he turned around. "Justice is a complicated paradox to break down, Isaac."
Aizawa began to draw a picture on the board, although it wasn't very good. It showed a tall and menacing figure clad in a dark cloak carrying a dagger, sticking it inside of a police officer. The way Aizawa drew the officer's pained expression seemed to garner a humorous reaction from Ayumi, who had turned a slight shade of red in an attempt to stifle a chuckle.
Aside from the drawings' messy appearance, Aizawa began to break down its symbolism.
"This man wanted to help his family by stealing bread, but the law caught up with him. In retaliation, he stabbed the police officer to death in the name of Justice."
He looked back to the classroom of two people, cocking an eyebrow. "Is this a good thing to do, both stealing and murder?"
"No sir." I replied, sulking in my feet, feeling slightly defeated by the man's logic.
"You see...justice isn't something we can define as good or evil, it's personified through the person's actions and their intentions when doing them."
"Right..."
"So in a way you are correct, Isaac. But at the same time think twice about the meaning of what Justice means."
...
After the first session, Aizawa placed two sheets of paper on our desks, they had three lines, and three boxes.
"Your first task is to find three students to interview, and ask them what it means to be a hero. Come back at the end of the week with these sheets and you'll receive credit."
I took the sheet from Aizawa and looked it over. The assignment seemed simple enough, but at the same time it required approaching total strangers and asking them questions like some wannabe interviewer.
I always hated these kinds of assignments. I'd rather have some deep talk over monotonous and mundane small talk, not asking random people some stupid questions.
Before Aizawa turned around and returned to the front of the classroom he looked back at me and Ayumi. "I'd recommend starting today. The school dorms are currently undergoing a deep cleaning due to a mold infestation, so they'll be forced out for a few more hours until the sanitation workers can properly treat it."
"That's...ok." Ayumi turned back to me and gave me a somewhat comforting smile. Suddenly Aizawa's cell phone began to vibrate one of the desks in the room.
The man slowly walked over to it and picked it up, before showing it to us. "The first class of the program is over. I expect you to do well on this assignment."
Me and Ayumi grabbed both of our papers and put them in our backpacks before turning to leave the room. Before I could leave I heard the man's voice sound behind me again.
"I'd like to have a quick moment with you, Mr. Isaac."