All Might's Class 1A

Competing with Fire

"Toshinori, what is wrong?"

Toshinori looked up from the eggs he had absently been picking at.

On the other side of the table sat a woman with dark hair and a concerned expression on her kind face.

"I am just nervous, Master. You have given me so much. What if I can't do it?" he said.

"Do you trust me?" his master, Shimura Nana asked.

"Of course," Toshinori said.

"Then trust that I made the right choice when I picked you to be my successor," she said. "Now finish those eggs. What kind of a hero will you make if you stay so scrawny?"

Toshinori did as his master said, though, he hardly tasted the eggs. He wasn't fooled by her comment about him being a scrawny hero, however. They both knew that he could use a bit of his power to puff his form up and fill it with muscle. He did it because his master had prepared them for him and he never refused anything his master gave him.

"No matter how it goes, remember," Shimura said. "Keep your game face on."

Toshinori, who had finished his eggs and was headed out the door, stopped. He turned around to show his master the huge grin on his face.

"I will," he said.

Now he stood on the sidewalk just outside U.A. high school.

The main building towered above him, bigger then he had ever imagined. The sun reflecting off all the glass windows made it shine in the early morning light.

This was it. The best hero school in Japan, in the world even. Here he was, about to take the exam to get into it.

Suddenly, Toshinori felt so small. The butterflies in his stomach were fluttering so hard that he had to focus to keep from throwing up the breakfast his kind master had cooked for him.

"If you are going to stand and stare then move to the side."

Toshinori turned to find a boy with red spiky hair coming up behind him. He was tall, about Toshinori's height, which was rare. Despite being the same height, however, the boy still managed to look down his nose at Toshinori as he passed by.

Toshinori wasn't sure if he was more surprised by the boy's rudeness or the confidence in his stride. How could anyone be confident on such an important day?
He looked at the faces around him. A few people had the boy's brash confidence. Most looked as nervous as he was. One boy with long dark hair looked bored as he passed by, as if attempting to gain entrance to the best hero school was something he did every day.

Toshinori found that more baffling then the red haired boy's confidence.

He took a breath then allowed himself to be sweep along by the sea of people. The wave of bodies surged forward until it broke into a huge auditorium and trickled onto the rows of benches.

Toshinori scanned the crowd. The red haired boy sat near the front. There was a space close to him, but Toshinori immediately looked for another. The bored looking boy with the black hair was sitting off to his right. Toshinori dropped onto the bench next to him.

"I wish they would get this show on the road already, you dig?" a boy blond hair that stuck straight up said.

He was seated on the other side of the bored boy from Toshinori and the words had been addressed to the bored boy who just looked at questioner without a word or change of expression.