“Haa... what am I supposed to do with this, what am I supposed to do...”
Hakuji’s homeroom teacher shuffled through the paperwork with a troubled look on his face.
[1st Choice: U.A. Hero Course]
[2nd Choice: U.A. Hero Course]
...
[5th Choice: U.A. Hero Course]
If anyone else had written this, he would have flicked them on the forehead and told them to rewrite it.
“You’re not joking about this, are you?”
“No, I want to enter the U.A. Hero Course.”
...The problem was that this kid didn’t look like he was joking at all.
For a moment, the veins on the teacher’s forehead and the back of his hand bulged, then vanished as he let out a very, very deep breath.
“Haa... whether I should be relieved or not that I saw this at the end of first semester...”
With a string of sighs, the teacher glanced at Soyama.
It wasn’t written by some delinquent or some prankster. It was written by that boy, sitting perfectly straight right now and staring back at him with bright, alert eyes.
“Damn it, those eyes are so clear too!”
He could tell the boy truly, firmly believed he had to get into U.A.
“You’ve got a good Quirk, and your athletic ability is amazing too, right? Hm?”
So the teacher chose persuasion.
“Now now, I’ve seen kids like you more than once, you know~”
Rifling through the documents, he pulled out a thick list of high schools and forced a smile.
“I’m not saying you can’t get into a Hero Course with your grades! Hm? I’m saying you can’t get into U.A. That place is the very top of the nation’s top, you know.”
“Is it that far out of reach?”
The teacher, speaking as if there was no way he could possibly get in, made Hakuji look calm on the outside, but under his uniform his back was already soaked with sweat.
“I know you hate studying, but you have to work hard! Come to U.A.! Don’t forget it! U.A.!!”
“Koyuki...”
He hadn’t forgotten his promise.
But first, he intended to finish rebuilding his body and then throw himself into his studies.
However.
The problem was that Hakuji still had the Demon’s sense of time.
Having spent ten years on training and thinking of it as nothing more than “just” ten years, Hakuji was sweating coldly.
“Studying... how do you even study...?”
Watching Hakuji sweat internally, the teacher began trying to persuade him in earnest.
“You don’t really need to worry too much about academics in elementary school.
That’s basic education, after all!
But middle school is different.
With these grades, even a national school is going to be tough!
I’m not saying I don’t believe in you!
But you don’t even pay attention in class!!!
You think I don’t know you’re sleeping in there!!!!”
Right in front of him, the teacher was spraying spit as he explained just how dire Hakuji’s situation was, and how important it was to turn away from the wall called U.A. before he smashed his head against it and died.
If this were a kid with a brain for studying, maybe it would be different. But no matter how he thought about it, the teacher was going crazy over the fact that Hakuji, who didn’t seem all that bright, was like this.
“How about Kohaku here? Their Hero Course is pretty good too.”
“U.A.”
“This one’s a bit far since it’s in Hokkaido, but their Hero Course is strong! What do you think!”
“U.A. Hero Course.”
“...........”
For thirty minutes, the teacher tried everything—persuasion, threats, even pleading—but Hakuji was so obsessed with U.A. that none of it mattered.
More precisely, he was obsessed with the woman waiting there.
“I want to go to U.A. I’ll study...”
“...You’re saying you’ll study?”
“Yes. I will.”
“...........”
It was like a starving tiger he’d met on a mountain path suddenly stood up on two legs and said, “I-I’m going to become a vegetarian.”
“Haa... fine. Go on, then. I-I’ll be watching you! Study!!”
In the end, the teacher gave up on persuading him that day and sent Hakuji away.
“Yes. I’ll start today.”
“At least learn how to talk properly...”
After watching Hakuji bow politely and leave, the teacher immediately took some ice from the faculty room freezer and put it on his forehead.
“A kid who’s top-tier nationwide in Quirk and physical tests... but can’t study... ugh... ugh...!!”
As the teacher’s sigh echoed through the faculty room, another teacher sitting across from him lifted his head.
“Um, Teacher Hanzo.”
“Ah, s-sorry. I was being too loud, wasn’t I?”
“No, no. That’s not it... We’ve got a similar kid in our class too, so could we talk for a moment?”
“Pardon?”
So the two of them went over to the school vending machines and started a small meeting.
“What, there’s another kid in your class making a fuss about getting into U.A.?”
“There is... but that kid is the complete opposite of Soyama.
No... well... I know I shouldn’t say this, but...”
He hesitated for a moment, wondering if it was really okay for him, as a teacher, to say something like this, then finally blurted it out in frustration.
“No.
That Midoriya kid!
He’s Quirkless, but he’s making a huge fuss about getting into the U.A. Hero Course!!”
“Ah... Midoriya’s pretty famous too...”
Midoriya Izuku.
He was famous in a different way from Soyama.
First, he was the only [Quirkless] student out of the 600 students at Orudera Middle School.
Second, he was a crybaby and a coward, yet stubbornly insisting on entering U.A.’s Hero Course in a completely absurd way.
A few days earlier, during a counseling session, he had burst into tears at the teacher’s words but still stubbornly insisted that he absolutely wanted to go to U.A., where All Might had graduated from, and into the Hero Course at that.
In modern society, Quirkless people were treated almost like the disabled. Especially in the world of Heroes, even more so.
For a kid like that to insist on becoming a Hero like a madman, Midoriya’s homeroom teacher was having a miserable time.
“......Wow, this is insane. One kid’s got the body but not the brains, and the other’s got the brains but not the body...”
Just as both teachers were holding their foreheads with expressions that said they were truly losing it, a lightbulb seemed to pop over one of their heads.
“......Ah!”
Then Hakuji’s teacher slapped one palm lightly with his fist as if he’d thought of something good.
“Why don’t we tie the two together?”
“Pardon?”
“We can tempt Midoriya by telling him it’ll count as volunteer hours that help his grades, and use that to raise Soyama’s scores even a little.
As for Midoriya... well, if he’s next to Soyama, he’ll realize it on his own.”
“...Well, if he’s next to Soyama-kun, he’ll realize it even if he doesn’t want to.”
“Teacher!! The machine broke!!”
“Why the hell did it break?!”
Hakuji’s teacher shook his head, remembering the incident earlier that semester when a first-year who had just enrolled destroyed a Quirk-detection punching machine with a single blow.
And then, at the same time, both teachers let out a sigh.
“Ehh...”
“...Haa...”
As people who had chosen to work in education, they felt pathetic for gathering their heads together just to tell the future sprouts, “You can’t do it,” “Look at that talent,” and “You don’t have that, do you?”
“Nothing for it, I suppose... everyone has their own place in the world...”
“Soyama’s only a first-year, so at least he still has some possibility. Midoriya, on the other hand...”
The two of them comforted themselves as best they could, telling themselves this was for the students’ own good, and before long the two students were brought together in the faculty room.
“All right, introduce yourselves to each other. You understand the explanation, right?”
Hakuji, called back in at once, looked at the green-haired classmate standing in front of him.
A shorter frame than Soyama, who wasn’t very tall to begin with.
A frail build with no visible muscle.
An expression that showed no confidence at all.
Eyes cast downward in a pathetic way.
...
“A weakling.”
And not just any weakling.
The lowest of the low.
As Hakuji looked at Midoriya and thought, This lowest-of-the-low weakling is supposed to help me?
“Hii, hiiii...!!”
Midoriya Izuku was already terrified out of his wits by the classmate staring at him.
And so, the strange meeting between the weakest of the weak and the strong man who looked down on him was arranged.
For one of them, it would bring despair. For the other, hope.
But neither the teachers, nor Hakuji, nor Midoriya could have predicted what consequences this strange encounter would bring.
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