Frostbite

Chapter 2: The First Week

(Huge thanks to everyone reading and commenting so far! Love seeing that people are enjoying what I'm doing so much that I got ranked! Prepare for a full chapter, with a little action, a little unintended romance, some slice of life, and a whole lot of setup!)

--- The First Day ---

I wasn't used to wearing a uniform for school. It seemed to be a universal thing in Japan, but 99% of American schools barely even had a dress code. I felt uncomfortable having to get so formally dressed this early in the morning. Not to mention I hadn't done my homework to figure out travel time to and from school. And this school was also enormous, with hallways and staircases seeming to expand in every direction. That, combined with the fact that I was nearly always late, made for a bit of added stress.

But, I found the classroom: "1-A". A huge entry door framing the bland gray walls, probably built to allow for large heteromorphic quirks. Gigantism was far more common now, but it was still rare to see people give any extra thought to the matter when designing buildings.

Opening the door I found that there was already a commotion in the room. A blonde, fairly athletic looking boy looming over a smaller boy. It took a moment, but I recognized the latter as the one who had been talking to himself through the orientation. He seemed very passive, submitting like a puppy to the blonde. Was this a fight before class even began? Or did they have some kind of beef that extended beyond the classroom?

"Find your seats!" A voice spoke sharply, from behind me. I just about came out of my skin and scrambled to an open seat. I had not heard anyone approaching, which was unusual.

"Welcome to your first day of class. By the end of it, one of you will be expelled." The teacher said dully. "Whoever performs the worst is cut from the program and free to go home forever."

The panicked voices of the class were not hard to hear. This was pretty shocking information to receive before a syllabus or even an introduction. Did UA expel a student from every class on day one just to set a precedent?

We had nervously followed this man, Mr. Aizawa (a pro hero), out to a track and field area. He had an almost exaggerated slowness to his walk, like someone who couldn't be bothered to burn the energy it took to travel across even part of the campus.

"Today will be an evaluation of your skills, but this time you will be free to use your quirks to your advantage."

Finally a chance to see what the others were made of! But what are the tests?

"First up, Katsuki Bakugo." He called. The blonde from earlier stepped forward and Aizawa handed him a baseball with a sensor on it.

Well fuck... If these are all physical evaluations, I'm totally boned. My quirk doesn't give me any physical advantages, that's part of why I was trained for hand to hand.

My thoughts came crashing down as this Bakugo fired the ball into the atmosphere, propelled by an explosion from his hand. Very useful quirk, powerful too. Could be used offensively, defensively, and as movement. But aside from propelling, did it have any range?

I began to recede back into my own head. I heard Mr. Aizawa say something about how we couldn't hurt ourselves, but it seemed unlikely to happen. I picked up on a couple more throws, the most impressive of them was from a petite girl who can control gravity to some extent, her name was Uraraka if I recall. The ball just sailed up and away at an unwavering angle until the handset simply read an infinity symbol. Wow, that could have a lot of applications too.

There were some other good throws. A frog girl and... Squirrel guy? Both used heteromorphic quirks to apply momentum. A guy with engines in his legs used centrifugal force to heave the ball. This was a tall boy with glasses that I also recognized from orientation, Iida.