No one knew what U.A. would even look like since it was hidden behind a tall fence that wrapped around all sides of the building. Sure, the building might have poked out from above those walls, but no one knew exactly what the building looked like. Even though I was forced here by a single acceptance letter, I couldn't deny the beauty of the building.

If only people would put their time in building stuff like this for an entire community rather than just one school, maybe things would be a bit better for everyone. Unfortunately, equality and equity could barely happen when people were as selfish as they were. Heroes were selfish in a way. I mean, did they really want to help people, or were they just doing it for the money, the spotlight, the fame, or even the thrill of it all? Villains weren't much different, even though their selfish needs were a bit more apparent compared to heroes.

This building just had to remind me of that as I looked up at it. Walls of glass shimmered in the sunlight as they stood high with four pillars connected by four bridges—that also had glass walls around it to prevent anyone from falling out, finished with a roof on top of each bridge—to get from one building to the next. The construction workers must've worked really hard on this as everything looked perfect. Everything about the building was shiny, and knowing how much money was probably put into this, it would probably stay like that for the many years to come.

"Wow," I heard Sakura breathed. "It's so beautiful!"

"To think it only took them less than a week to build it too," Katio added. "At least, that's what I heard on the news this morning."

"And it's always going to be standing right there," another voice said from behind, causing my hairs to stand. "Best if we stop gawking and get inside."

We all turned around and looked up to see Raiden Yamamoto standing right behind us. He looked like a gigantic shadow with the sun hitting him from behind, making him look much taller than he actually was. I couldn't help but to take a couple steps back at the sight of him either. It wasn't long since we had last seen each other since it was about a week ago the mall incident happened. Still, in that short amount of time, he seemed to have changed.

Well, it wasn't like me changing into someone else kind of change. That would've been ridiculous. Still, something about him seemed different. Maybe it was the fact that he was in the U.A. uniform like the rest of us. Or maybe it was the fact that he refused to wear the coat of the uniform as his...

That was it! Somehow, in the past few days, Yamamoto seemed to have gotten more muscular. I wasn't the only one to take notice either.

"Yo, Raiden, hitting the gym without me?" Kaito exclaimed. "Man, you're going to be having all the girls drooling over you before—"

Raiden Yamamoto shot Kaito a death look. Not just any death look, but one that could've killed someone in an instance. I squealed in fear as I stepped behind Sakura, afraid this guy wanted some sort of revenge from the practical exam.

Instead of saying a word, the tall guy just let out a sigh and shook his head in disbelief. When he caught a glimpse of me, I could see a bit of disappointment flashing in his eyes. I wasn't sure what I did to already deserve that, but I just shrunk behind Sakura in attempts to hide.

"Like anyone would actually be dating already," Sakura commented.

Kaito snapped his head towards her and clenched his hands in front of his chest, readying himself in a boxing-like position. "Oh yeah," he challenged. "Bet!"

Oh no. I thought to myself as my hands clenched the straps of my backpack. Kaito was going to learn the hard way that you don't underestimate Sakura. Despite looking as delicate as a ballerina, she wasn't the kind of person to be underestimated. The second someone did that, they would get conned. Big time.

"Next week," Sakura proposed, mimicking his pose, "I bet you...five dorayaki, that by next week, there won't even be one couple in 1-A."

My nose scrunched at the Japanese treat she had brought up. Despite growing up a majority of my life here in Japan, I absolutely hated Japanese treats. Dorayaki was the worst! It consisted of two dry pancakes with grainy, red bean paste between them. That's what made it so disgusting as the red bean paste has a weird texture that was thick, yet sweet. It was kind of like jelly, but the difference was that it wasn't as smooth and lumpy as jelly.

Plus, jelly had a better flavor to it.

Of course, Sakura loved dorayaki almost as much as she loved shopping for new clothes. If she was going to make a bet, it would be easier bet on food than it would be a shopping trip. Not only that, but I don't think Kaito would have the money to pay for one of Sakura's shopping trips.

Kaito smirked as he relaxed from his defensive position and swiped the imaginary sweat from his forehead. "That's it? No catch? Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Hope you have the money to buy those treats, cuz you're going to lose."

I turned to look at Sakura, whose eye twitched in response. She slowly shifted into a different position, crossing her arms over her chest and looked away. Her nose was stuck in the air.

"We'll see about that, Orangie," Sakura said before she turned around and walked into the school building.

As Sakura walked away, I looked back at Kaito and Raiden Yamamoto. Both of them were looking at each other with very different expressions. For Raiden Yamamoto, he seemed to be questioning Kaito. Kaito, on the other hand, smirked and elbowed his friend on the arm.

"So, wanna go to a movie on Saturday or something? I'll pay," Kaito asked.

My eyes widened seeing that he was already making a move on someone already. For all I knew, it could've just been a joke, but it still shocked me being that I was standing right there. Plus, Raiden Yamamoto didn't seem like the kind of person to joke around like Kaito.

Actually, the more I looked at the two boys, it made me wonder how they were even friends in the first place. While Kaito was so cheerful and energetic, Raiden Yamamoto seemed scary, intense even. Just looking at him as he wore a simple neutral expression was enough to send shivers down my spine. It shocked me that they could get along.

Or, at least I thought.

Raiden Yamamoto grabbed the arm Kaito used to elbow him, and flipped the orange-haired boy over his shoulder. He didn't even need to use his Quirk to flip Kaito, and yet, Kaito still landed on the ground pretty hard.

"Kaito!" I squealed as I knelt beside the boy, like he did when I was flipped off the robot during our entrance exam. The only difference between the two incidences was who was being flipped and why. Poor Kaito looked banged up from just a simple flip.

The orange haired boy winced in pain. "It's called a joke," he groaned. "Lighten up a bit."

I shook my head and grabbed his shoulders, so he'd sit up straight. Poor guy didn't look so good as his head tilted from one shoulder to the other like a seesaw. After being thrown down to the ground with that sort of force, it was a bit of a surprise Kaito didn't have his head split open or something.

Sighing, I helped Kaito up on his two feet and walked with him to class.

~*~*~*~

Kaito and I—with Raiden Yamamoto behind us—walked into the classroom to find nothing but utter chaos. I was lucky that by the time we got to 1-A, Kaito had regained his strength to walk by himself, but that didn't help us at all. The moment we walked into the classroom, a swarm of students crowded around us, asking us for all kinds of information.

My head started turning from left to right, trying to figure out who was asking a question, but I was too slow as the time I opened my mouth to say something, another two questions would burst from other people's mouths. I didn't know what to do. How was I supposed to answer questions when no one gave me a chance to speak? All I could do was keep turning my head, feeling the sweat dripping on my forehead.

Breathe, Tami, breathe, I tried telling myself. As long as I could breathe, everything would be fine. I just needed to relax. I just needed to calm down.

Unfortunately, that wasn't easy. People kept pushing up closer to me, almost getting so close to me that they were touching me. They might as well, as they kept asking questions and piling up on top of each other.

I needed a way out. There was no way I could answer their questions if I couldn't breathe. My head turned to see if I could find a way to slither away, but I couldn't. There was no way out of the crowd of classmates asking me a million questions.

It was times like this I felt my Quirk was utterly useless. I could change into people, but I couldn't use their Quirks. Because of that, my Quirk was useless. It wasn't like I was Sakura, who could've used her vines to shove people away. I also wasn't Raiden Yamamoto, who could've used his strength to push himself away from everyone.

All I could was stand there, feeling their questions ringing into my ears. What's your name? What kind of Quirk do you have? Do you know what your class rank is? Do you know who our homeroom teacher is going to be?

And then there was the dreaded question that was asked over and over like a broken record: why do you want to be a hero? It was a question a lot of people asked. Once someone found out you want to be a hero, someone was bound to ask that question. I thought I could avoid it since I was asked it a dozen times by teachers and other students in middle school. Only Sakura didn't ask because she thought she knew.

"Hey!" Kaito nearly yelled beside me, making me realize I wasn't the only person being bombarded with questions. "Give us some space. It's hard to breathe with you all crowding us like that."

Just like that, the people swarming us slowly walked away. My hand grabbed the red tie around my neck as I took a deep breath. I looked over at Kaito, who shoved his hands into his pant pockets.

"Thanks," I told him.

Kaito Oba glanced at me and smiled. "Anything for a friend." Kaito then looked at everyone else in the room and started rambling off about himself, answering all the questions he caught them asking him.

I didn't listen. While it was safe to call Kaito a friend, meaning I should listen to him, I could still feel my heart pounding. It would be a while to relax, but I had to. The last thing I wanted to do in front of everyone was make a fool of myself. That was easy to do. Just opening my mouth was enough for people to think poorly of me.

"Tami-tan! You made it! I saved you a seat," I heard someone say.

My head turned to see Sakura sitting in the back of the classroom, tapping the desk next to her. She was right when she said she saved it for me as there were students already sitting in the desks around it. My hands tightened around my neck tie a bit more as I tried to slip into the seat, forgetting my backpack was on until the moment I sat down. I quickly stood back up and slipped the bag off, sliding it under the chair of the desk before taking my seat.

The moment I was certain I had made it safely into my seat, I laid my head on my arms on the desk.

"Sorry you had to go through that," someone said in front of me. "The twins have made it their goal to know everyone as soon as possible. Kinda annoying if you ask me."

I looked up, seeing a girl with dark curly hair pulled back into two pigtails. Only, they looked more like puffballs due to how thick and curly her hair was. It looked nice though as the hairstyle suited her.

The girl held out her hand. "The name's Michi."

As slowly as I could without offending her, I sat up in my chair and pulled my hands under the desk. "Tami." I whispered, realizing how rude it would be if I didn't shake her hand and introduce myself as well. My hand slowly reached out towards hers and shook it, noticing how pale my skin looked compared to hers.

I wouldn't be that pale if it wasn't for the amount of time I spent inside. I knew that, but I couldn't really help it either. Mom and Peter were out at work nearly every hour of the day. That left me to take care of Ollie when I needed to. It wasn't that I didn't mind, but shaking Michi's hand, I started to realize how much I really needed to get outside.

"I'm Daigo," a masculine voice said from beside me the moment Michi was done shaking my hand.

I turned to see a boy who had dark brown hair that matched most of his skin, but his ears were a cloudy white, like the spots around his skin. That wasn't the only abnormal thing about his ears. Daigo's ears flopped on top of his head.

My eyes widened at the sight. "Y-y-you're a dog?"

Daigo chuckled. "Half-dog, kinda. My Quirk is Dog. It makes my outer appearance kind of look a bit like a dog, but it also helps with my ability and everything. Kind of weird that you haven't seen anything like it though since this kind of phenomenon has been going on for a while."

I quickly raised my hands and waved them back and forth. "No! Please, I didn't mean any offense by it. I-I-I'm just surprised. I mean, I've never seen a Quirk like that, that, uh, you know. Though, I probably should have, but I just haven't. I'm sorry! I shouldn't have said anything."

The boy laughed. "It's alright. I'd rather people talk about my Quirk than anything else."

"Still, it was rude of me to say," I continued to apologize. "It was mean, I should've just not said a thing and kept my mouth shut and just said hi, but I had to open up my big mouth like I always do and—"

Someone grabbed my arm wrist and pulled it away. My eyes widened as I realized it was the boy, Daigo. I felt my body tense up as he led my hand to his curly locks of hair and placed it on his head, moving it back and forth until I felt as if I was petting him.

Oddly enough, his hair was soft. It didn't take long for me to feel the awkwardness fade away and for me to actually pet his head without Daigo's help. I mean, his hair felt like one of those fuzzy pillows that had strands all over it, but it was really comforting. My eyes started to close as I just concentrated on petting his head, feeling the soft hairs rub against my hand.

"Tami, what are you doing?"

My eyes shot open as I snapped my head up to see Kaito standing there. I looked at my hand, seeing that it was still on Daigo's head. He didn't seem to mind though. Instead, he was smiling as his tail wagged back and forth.

His tail. Oh my gosh, Daigo had more than just the ears of a dog, he had a tail of one too! If it wasn't for his face having a regular nose, eyes, and a mouth, I would've been fooled for a moment I was sitting next to a dog. Not that it mattered though. I mean, he seemed pretty happy that I was petting his head until my hand pulled away. It was then that he frowned and looked up at Kaito.

"She was petting my head. It calms people down when they get anxious. You wanna try?" Daigo asked.

Kaito shook his head. "Maybe another time. I was just checking to see how you were doing. I mean, you seemed kind of frightened when we were bombarded by Chiyo and Ichiro."

"There were only two of them?" I asked. "I thought there were at least ten surrounding us."

"That's because their Quirks work together. It's called Gemini. Chiyo can use it to multiply, while Ichiro can use it to take away things. Apparently, only twins can get it, and even then, it's super rare," Michi explained. "If you ask me, it makes them very annoying."

Kaito and Daigo nodded their heads in agreement. As they did, I looked to the front of the classroom, getting a better look at the twins. Surely enough, there were only two people in the front of the classroom surrounding Raiden Yamamoto. Only, while there were two different people, they were multiplying to keep him from moving.

My eyes widened as I watched them at work, noticing how Raiden Yamamoto could hardly even take one step. He was surrounded by at least a dozen copies of these twins. You could tell they were twins due to how similar they looked, but yet, watching them, I could tell who was who just by what they did.

Chiyo, the girl, had to touch her brother in order for him to multiply. Or, for herself, she had to touch the middle of her chest to do the same. She had long, green colored hair, and stood at the same height as her brother, which was about a foot shorter than Raiden Yamomoto was.

Like his sister, Ichiro had to touch his chest or at least some part of Chiyo's body (usually her shoulder) to erase whatever copy she created. His green hair was shorter than Chiyo's, but other than that, he looked like a spitting image of his twin.

Raiden Yamamoto didn't seem too thrilled as he looked down at them. Even though I was at the other end of the classroom and couldn't really hear what he was saying, I had a pretty good idea what was going on. His eyebrows furrowed together as he tried to push his way through without using his Quirk. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't very useful as Ichiro and Chiyo would disappear or reappear depending on who would tap who.

"At least you got out of there in one piece," my friend, Sakura, commented softly. "The last thing we'd need you to do is pass out outside your Quirk."

I ducked my head when Sakura said that, obviously oblivious to her words. It wasn't that she meant harm by them, but I was really going to try and not bring something like that up. Sakura did. Her words caught both Michi and Daigo's attention.

"Pass out? Is it claustrophobia, asthma—" Daigo started to ask, leaning over towards me and tilting his head in my direction, almost as if offering to pet it more than curiosity.

"Oh shush! Don't make her self conscious about it," Michi shushed. "What matters is that it didn't happen. Though, if you open up about it, we could help. Quirk-wise or whatever it is you're comfortable with that is."

I lifted my head to look at her. Michi's brown eyes softened as she looked at me while she gave me a genuine smile. It was one I realized Sakura gave me when we first became friends. While she smiled, Michi brushed her fingers through one of her bushy pigtails.

Sakura didn't mean any harm by it. My eyes quickly scanned over towards my friend, who gave me a thumbs up, almost telling me I should say something. I turned to look over Kaito, who still stood beside Michi's desk, but decided to swing his bag to the desk beside it. Daigo was scratching his dog ear, almost as if he was trying to get a flea out.

There were so many people just looking at me, but unlike the green haired twins, Ichiro and Chiyo, they weren't pressuring me into doing anything I didn't want to. Instead, they were relaxed and willing to hear what I had to say, if I wanted to say anything.

"Biochange," I told them, looking down at my hands, and closing my eyes to calm my nerves. All I had to do was recite the same thing I've said a million times to people. Nothing that hard, right? "My Quirk allows me to change into anyone I want, but after I change back, I have to make sure I don't change into another person for another ten minutes."

"That's so cool!" Daigo exclaimed.

"It really is! It's no wonder you got in. With that Quirk, you could sneak into evil organizations and get information from them, even leading other heroes in to sniff them out," Michi explained. "Like a spy!"

My face started to heat up as she said that. Compliments were never really anything anyone has ever given me unless it was about my Quirk. It was nice to know why rather than a simple you'd make a good hero, and that's it.

I tried to open my mouth to disagree with it, but I realized the words that were about to leave my mouth before I could say them. To say I didn't want to be a hero would make everyone question me. If I told them I would die of a heart attack, they'd question it further or disagree. I mean, I couldn't be a spy. There was no way! I'd blow my cover before I could say a word.

"Good morning class," a familiar voice boomed from the front.

Everyone's heads snapped up to see a slender man with snow white hair combed to the side. My eyes widened at the sight, knowing my brother wouldn't believe this was my homeroom teacher when I got home. Ollie would want to hear everything about it.

After all, U.A. was filled with all kinds of interesting students. I had a guy with a dog Quirk sitting next to me, and there were a pair of twins who sat in the front who could multiply and reduce with each others help. It shouldn't have surprised me that the teacher would've been a well-known hero.

Or, should I say, the number 2 hero in all of Japan.

"My name is Mr. Elastic. Before any of you ask, yes, that is my hero name, but I expect you all to call me that rather than Mr. Mr. Elastic," he introduced himself as he stood behind the desk in the front of the classroom. He picked up a piece of paper off of his desk, but didn't glance at it once. "On this sheet, I have a list of names and rank. Your number is based off of the score you got on your entrance exam, but numbers only show so much."

I swallowed whatever saliva was left in my mouth as I felt my stomach sinking. My hands found their way to the red tie around my neck, gently pulling it in attempts to loosen it. It was my first day at U.A. High, and I had a very good feeling on what he was going to say next.

His next words scared me.

"I want to see your Quirks for myself, so after lunch, during your hero classes, you'll be taking another exam, one of which will determine your placement and give me a better idea on how to improve on your Quirks," Mr. Elastic explained.

My lips pressed together, worried about what this exam was going to be. I wasn't the only one as all my fellow classmates gave a groan in protest.

Just what kind of obstacles were we going to face this time?

Author's Note:

A quick thank you is in order for those who helped me a few months ago pick out the names to the twins. Many of you were willing to help, and gave out some really awesome name suggestions, but I have to give a special thanks to Last-Word for coming up with Chiyo and Ichiro's name.

Also, I apologize to those who listen to the music alongside the chapters. These past two chapters' songs don't loop like the others cuz I can't find them on youtube, but they fit so well with a majority of the chapter (this one, just with the amount of people that are introduce and how happy they are, last one was with how playful it sounded and seeing Kaito and Ollie's playfulness...that's the reason why I chose them). I can't guarantee that I'll find songs that play the entire chapter, but I'll keep trying.

Question of the week: who is your favorite 1-A student from the anime/manga?

Character Spotlight: Ichiro and Chiyo
Quirk: Gemini
Likes: Reading books/watching movies

Song: PLEEG-Hey!