My Hero Academia: Unsaved

Chapter 11: A Fight for Something

I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, staring intently at the crumpled paper that held the directions to the school. I looked at the street signs. All of them were unfamiliar, none matching the notes on the page.

I looked down at the ground in defeat. Guess I shouldn't have been so confident after all. I probably wouldn't have gotten lost if I hadn't gone out of my way to avoid all those dark streets and alleys.

"Are you...okay?" I looked up, a girl with a round face and cute short brown hair stood in front of me.

I paused, wondering how I should put it before finally giving up with bluntness. "....I'm lost."

She paused, eying my outfit. "Oh! Are you trying to get to U.A?"

My eyes lit up. "Yes! Do you know where it is?"

She smiled. "I'm heading there too, so we can walk together!"

My eyes glistened with relief. "Yes, please!"

The walk wasn't too much farther, and it felt silly that I had almost given up when I was so close. The building was huge, and the glass reflected the sun brilliantly. Walking in through the big gates, the pure astonishment must have been all too visible on my face.

"Is this your first day?" She looked at me with a slight confusion.

I chuckled slightly. "Oh sorry, yes! I'm starting here today."

"Oh that's great!" She smiled and put her hands together. "What class number?"

I looked at my crumpled sheet of paper. "Uh.... 1-C!"

"Oh...general studies?"

Contemplation marked her face. Apparently transfers into the general studies program weren't all that common. She was pulled from her thoughts however as the first bell of the day sounded across the grounds. "Oh, well it was great to meet you..." she paused as she realized that she hadn't asked my name.

"Vaila Setter! And thank you again for helping me out uh..."

"Ochaco Ururaka! And no problem! We don't want to be late for class, so I'll see you later!" She rushed off to the entrance, turning around as she got farther away for a final wave.

Following suit, I rushed off into the building. I made it to the door right in time. The overall magnitude of the door shocked me, seemingly much bigger than it really needed to be, but to my surprise it wasn't that much harder to slide open.

As I stepped into the classroom, I felt a bunch of eyes turn to look at me. My whole body tensed in anxiety.

"Oh, good you're here!" The teacher walked into the room, placing their books on the lecture podium. "Class, this is your new peer Vaila Setter. She'll be joining us from now on. Would you like to say something Vaila?"

I felt my throat clamp up. Say something? What would I say? What was there to say?

The teacher prodded me with suggestions. "Favorite color? Game? Show?" I racked my brain, a blank slate. There wasn't anything... I couldn't...

"Food?" The teacher prodded again.

'Your favorite food idiot. What is it?'

His words rang in my head.

"Udon!" The exclamation came out a little louder than I had intended, a symptom of my overactive brain.

The teacher blinked. "Alrighty then. Well, everyone be sure to welcome Vaila. Now, if you would take your seat."

I nodded, quickly walking over to the empty seat in the middle row.

As the day wore on, I realized just how unfit for this I actually was. Before I could even begin to process one concept another one would suddenly be introduced. My utterly horrid attempt at taking notes was a frantic scrawling of undecipherable gibberish. With every passing period I grew more and more frustrated with myself.

Finally, the lunch bell rang. I slammed my head on my desk in despair as everyone rushed out of the classroom.

There was a deep sigh that echoed from behind me. "You're trying to write too much."

I looked up, my eyes blurry from almost bursting into to tears, but I could vaguely make out a mess of purple hair, and a set of tired purple eyes.

"huh?" I squeaked out my confusion.

"Your notes." The exhaustion in his voice was almost palpable. "You are trying to write too much, so that's why it feels like there's not enough time. Just try sticking to key words and phrases."

I straightened up at my desk, immediately going to wipe the wetness from my eyes. "Oh. Okay." I looked into his eyes once more. "But how do you know what's important?"

He rubbed his neck. "I don't know... just guess?"

I blinked. Guess? That worked for him?

Before I could follow up with anymore questions, he was already walking away and out of the classroom. I packed up my notebooks and went to follow him into the cafeteria.

Right as I left the classroom, the door closing softly behind me, I heard my name being called from a little farther down the hall.

"Ms. Setter!" I turned around to see our homeroom professor trotting up to catch me, his shoes clacking gently against the tile. "I'm glad I caught you." He paused in front of the doorway, instantly handing me a sheet of paper from his stack. "Here. This is your afterhours tutoring schedule. It shouldn't conflict with any of your other therapy appointments according to Priority, but if something does come up just let me know and we will try to adjust."

I looked at the paper, a series of brightly colored squares indicating blocked off chunks of time for each afternoon. It looked so full, and although I was grateful that so many people were willing to help me, I couldn't help but feel slightly cheated. Where most students would probably get to join clubs, or go have fun with friends, I would be stuck trying to learn or relearn everything that everyone else already understood.

"Hey, don't stress too much okay?" He flashed me a reassuring smile. "We all just want to see you succeed."

I nodded. "Thank you."

After offering me one more reassuring smile, he trotted off once again, leaving me alone in front of the classroom door.

My appetite suddenly gone, I sat alone in the classroom during the lunch period. The moment felt familiar. How many years had I spent by myself while others rushed off? I sighed. Maybe my life wasn't really going to be that different after all. Perhaps it was just my fate to be alone. The forgotten one.

"Thought I'd find you in here." I looked up to see a sluggish man with dark black hair standing in the doorway. He looked vaguely familiar, and I thought that perhaps he had come to visit me once in the hospital, but my brain forced a lack of confidence in that recollection.

"I just... wasn't hungry." I rested my head on my desk.

"Hmm" He sighed exasperatedly. "If you say so."

We lingered in silence for a moment.

"Just remember kid, it's hard to fight on an empty stomach."

I looked up at him. "Fight?"

He rested his head on the door frame, almost as if standing for this long was a strain on his energy level. "Every waking moment is a fight for something, even if it is just the fight to move forward."

His head tilted a little bit to glare at me.

"Well whatever." He moved away from the door frame as he started to head out. Before he completely left though, he looked back to me. "He's in class 1-A by the way. If you wanted to see him."

The door shut behind him as he left, leaving me once again in silence.