ATTENTION: for those of you who have been reading/following/keeping up with this story in any capacity- it has undergone a rewrite as of MONDAY JUNE 12TH. several things have been switched: the chapters are longer, it is now written in first person. after giving it some thought, I decided that I wanted to try first person, as well as flesh out Daichi's character in a slightly different direction. please let me know what you think! anyways, Heaven and Earth, take two...

DISCLAIMER: i don't own any part of My Hero Academia- the plot and characters all belong to Horikoshi Kohei

My mind had opened like a floodgate, the waves of memories long repressed washing into the forefront of my mind. I had always much preferred the safety of dry land, a vast array of minerals that I could easily, enjoyably understand; I had never done very well with water. The expansive sea of my subconscious, wild and tumultuous, beat me down until I felt as though I could not breathe. My desperate attempts to control my thoughts and memories, ones that I felt deep within me I had hidden from myself for good reason, I was powerless to stop memories long since past from fleeing the prison in which I'd kept them; the dam I had built was broken, just like me.

A foggy image of my father filled my mind. Though his image was cloudy, I could tell that he looked younger than as I knew him now, though he was wearing the same dark outfit and grey scarf with which I was all too familiar. The expression he wore was not one I had seen him wear often: a mixture of loss, despair, hopelessness, disappointment. Bright red flames materialized around him in my mind's eye as the memory manifested for me in greater clarity. It was a place I did not recognize, though admittedly there was not much left for me to look at. The parts of the house in which my father stood that were not ablaze were rotten- I could almost smell the stench, a mixture of mildew and gasoline.

"Oh, Shouta~"

The voice of a woman rang through my mind, bouncing around within the confines of my skull, and I winced. Were memories meant to be this painful? Perhaps this was the price I was to pay for my naive desire for a normal adolescence; a childhood free of being haunted by this memory which I was now being forced to relive. The eerie echo of the woman's voice continued, and I watched (or 'remembered'? I could no longer tell the difference…) as my father glanced around swiftly, frantically seeking out the source of the voice.

A sudden pressure drew me out of my panicked inaction- wait, a pressure? I froze, suddenly realizing that the memory had become even more vivid. Was this a dream? I glanced downward; ten small toes met my gaze, wriggling nervously, the tips scraping against the black ash that decorated the living room carpet. A living room, that was where I was… I peeked to my right, noticing that my hand was placed within my father's; his was much larger than mine.

When was this?

"Shouta- come out, come out, wherever you are!"

The grip of my father's hand on mine grew tighter, still, and I worked hard to keep the small 'eep!' of surprise and pain trapped behind my lips. My father took one step back, then another. I glanced behind us, noticing that the front door was still several feet away.

What were we running from?

Could we make it?

Why were we running away, again?

"A-ha!"

My head snapped back to face in front of me; I ignored the small snapping sounds from my hand clasped within my father's, and the shooting pains that traveled up and down my right hand and arm. My eyes, bright and blue, grew wide as they fell upon the woman in front of me. Hair the color of the room's charred walls swirled around her face, seeming to almost dance in sync with the flames, just barely grazing the woman's pale shoulders. Her eyes were dark, hollow, wrathful. She was like nothing I had ever seen before.

Was I in Hell?

"Look what you've made me do, Shouta…"

The woman seemed to almost be scolding my father as she gestured blandly at the destroyed house in which we stood. A wide sneer cracking her pale face; she looked like she had not eaten a bite of food in her whole life. My eyes traveled down the length of one bony arm, until they came to rest on yet another person. The muddled grey-purplish color of his hair matched the bruises that decorated his left arm, which the woman held tightly. I could see creases in the skin near her hand, which twisted in a painful-looking way each time she or the child moved. If he felt any pain at all, it was overshadowed by the fear in his eyes.

"Give her to me, Shouta," the woman commanded, reaching out to me with her free hand. The bruises on the grey haired boy's arm did not seem at all welcoming; I felt fear rise up and stick in my throat. Or was it bile? It was difficult to say.

"Stay away from us, Izanami." my father replied, to which the woman gave a barking laugh in retort. It did not sound like a laugh; the skin on the boy's arm pulled as her body shook with laughter, and he winced. "I won't fight you here."

"Can't fight, is what you mean." Izanami retorted. She released the boy's arm roughly, pushing him away from her as she stepped towards us. I heard a smack as his head banged against the doorframe, and he fell limply to the ground. I let out a choking sound, trying to call out to him, but I was unable to even get a word out.

Who was that?

What was his name again?

"What can you do, Shouta? You're so small and so weak! I'd squash you like a bug."

Izanami continued as she stepped towards us. Someone I did not recognize emerged briefly from the shadows behind the woman, his hands wrapping greedily around the boy's limp body. I tugged at my father's arm with my hand clutched within his; he had not noticed that the boy had been taken.

"Give her to me."

"I can't do that, Izanami." my father repeated. "Don't take another step closer-"

"You've already failed to keep one of them safe- can't you just give up already?" she hissed. My skin crawled as her long fingers reached for me hungrily.

"Papa!" I screeched. Finally, I seemed to have regained my ability to talk.

"I warned you, Izanami!"

In an instant the dark apparition had vanished, and I knew somehow that my father had used his Quirk. In her place was a woman more serene and beautiful than I could have imagined. Her eyes- blue, just like mine- gazed up at my father and I innocently from where she had crumpled onto the floor. Her hair was a creamy blonde, like the cream top of the yogurt I had eaten every morning for breakfast; it was the same length as the woman who had destroyed our home. The glistening of her eyes, the overall radiance of her appearance, I wondered briefly how it was that she could not be an angel. She was like nothing I had ever seen before.

Was I in Heaven?

"Shouta…" she whispered, her voice shaky. She glanced around, seeming startled by the disarray that surrounded us. "Shouta, what's happened?"

"Izanami…" My father's voice was shaking, just like hers. "Izanami, I'm so sorry…"

"Shouta! You're crushing Daichi's fingers!" Izanami cried out. She attempted to get up to help me, but failed, landing back on the floor exactly where she had started almost immediately.

"Shouta, please tell me what's going on! Where's Tomu-?"

"Can you remember now, my child?"

Reality came crashing back to me, pulling me out of the memories in which I'd previously been drowning. I felt an iron grip on my skull, two hands, one on either side of my head. For a moment I was confused; I had heard this voice before, in my nightmares, and now in my memories.

"What do you have to say, now that you know the truth?"

'You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me.'

That is what God declares in the book of Exodus. Knowing what I knew now, I could not help but wonder what God would have said about the sins of the mother. Did those, too, return to the children?

Heaven and Earth

PART I: Starting Line

"Nowadays, the 'extraordinary' is that 'ordinary' when something 'ordinary' can sublimate into another 'extraordinary'."

U.A. high school: the number one high school for heroics, and the top hero academy in the world. Every year, hundreds of aspiring heroes take the entrance exam; only one in every three hundred will make it through. Such a prestigious academy breeds only the best of the best- the cream of the crop, if you will. The goal of such an academy is to turn out the best and brightest next generation of "Pro Heroes". And today, a brisk and sunny spring day, was the start of a new semester: a brand new class of first years who may one day become the future of the hero profession.

That is the speech that my father had given me countless times before. For a man who almost never smiled, I had always found it to be surprisingly full of optimism. Optimistic, however, was quite the opposite of how I felt on this particular day. In my hands I held two bowls of rice, freshly made, steam rising from the fluffy scoops of grain; my fingertips burned slightly from holding them.

"Papa…"

I pursed my lips in frustration as I stared into my father's empty room. The curtains were drawn, making it difficult to see, but I could already tell that he was long gone. I took a deep breath, trying hard to keep my cool as I felt the china bowls in my hands shake. A small noise met my ears, and I glanced downward; a tiny fissure had appeared on the side of each bowl, a hairline fracture cutting through the white and blue design. I sighed heavily.

"Not again…"

I walked back downstairs to the kitchen, dumping both bowls gingerly into the sink, ignoring the mess as the still steaming rice spilled out into the bottom of the sink. Glancing at the clock, I ran my fingers through my short creamy hair, sighing yet again- I was going to be late. Grabbing my school bag, I made sure that it held my uniform as I made my way out of the front door of the house, carefully locking it behind me. Some people would likely find it silly to bother locking one's door if your house happened to reside on the campus of UA High School; I was one of them, but despite my best efforts I just couldn't shake the habit.

Breath escaped from my mouth in small, sustained puffs as I jogged towards UA's main school building, hoping to get to class with enough time to change into my school clothes. Campus was surprisingly mellow for the first day of school, though to be fair I had never experienced a first day of school before. For reasons that had yet to become apparent, my father had until now insisted that I be home schooled; Mr. Principal said that he was just overprotective.

A small sign that read 1A at last caught my eye, and I paused briefly in the middle of the hallway. Nervousness began to rise within me; it felt like a mixture of needing to throw up, and being tickled too much. What was I supposed to say? How was I supposed to act? What did kids my age even talk about? I hadn't the slightest inkling what the answer to any of these questions were. Ignoring the confused stares of other students who I did not know as they passed me in the hallway, I glowered at the tile floor in annoyance.

"Go to UA for high school, he said… It'll be fun, he said…" I whispered to myself.

"Uh…" I jumped, realizing too late that there was, indeed, someone else waiting outside of the door with me. "Sorry, were you talking to me?"

The boy in front of me looked puzzled, but in the most polite way possible. His green hair framed his face like a Christmas wreath, and I felt my nervousness and embarrassment wither away as our eyes met; he was about a foot shorter than I was, and his puppy dog eyes made it almost impossible to feel nervous.

"Ah… sorry, no…" I mumbled. Alright, so maybe not all of my embarrassment was gone. "Just psyching myself out, or giving myself a pep-talk… both, maybe, I don't know… sorry, I'm rambling."

"It's fine!" he replied swiftly. "Nervous. Trust me, I get it."

His smile was big despite his own nervousness, so I tried to smile back. From within the hood of my sweatshirt, I attempted a smile. I wasn't sure if the way I smiled was the right way to smile- a nice way to smile- and my cheeks spasmed if I held the smile for too long. The boy made a small noise that maybe was a laugh; my smile probably looked weird.

"I'm Midoriya Izuku," he said, breaking the awkward pause. "Are you here for class? You aren't wearing a uniform…"

"Yeah," I replied, nodding simultaneously. "Daichi." I said, pointing to myself as if he needed further clarification. His smile was still in place.

"Cool, gotcha, nice to meet you! Maybe it'll be better if we go in together?" he said brightly. His smile faltered slightly, his lips quivering nervously. I tried smiling again; it felt more natural this time.

"Sure," I replied softly as I reached for the door. "Y'know, I've never been to an actual school before, so…" I trailed off, losing my train of thought as muffled yells met my ears through the door.

"It'll be fine!" Izuku assured me. "I'm a little nervous too, but it'll be fine, just so long as-"

"Don't put your legs on the table!"

I had slid open the door, the loud voices within the classroom cutting Izuku off mid-sentence. His face blanched, and I felt that same ticklish feeling of nervousness churn in my stomach yet again. A dark haired boy stood beside a desk near the door, his dark eyes glowering sternly as he addressed a blonde boy who was sitting at said desk. The dark haired boy stood with a rigidity like nothing I had ever seen before. The blonde, on the other hand, sat with his feet draped carelessly across his desktop, hands behind his head lazily. The two could not have been more opposite.

"Don't you think that's disrespectful towards your classmates?"

"No! As a matter of fact, I don't think so!" the blonde replied. A demonic expression marred his features, and by my side Izuku gulped audibly. "What middle school did you go to, you two-bit extra?" I frowned- what did that even mean?

"A private sch-" The dark haired boy paused mid answer, cleared his throat, and started again. "I went to Soumei Junior High. The name's Iida Tenya!" Despite myself, I rolled my eyes; at least he didn't want to sound pompous.

"Ooo, Soumei~" The blonde's expression was no longer angry, though it was just as annoying, and somehow more sickening than his previous expression. A gloating sneer cut across his face, and I felt the tension in the room increase. Was this what a first day of school was always like? "Well aren't you an elite! Seems like I've got a reason to end you after all!"

"Hey."

I spoke reflexively, my regret immediately compiling onto the nervousness quietly churning in the pit of my stomach. I felt hot prickles all over my body, though I kept my face passive as the blonde and the boy named Iida Tenya turned to look at me. I clenched my fists in the pockets of my sweatshirt, silently thanking myself for not having changed into my uniform beforehand. With my face hidden deep in the confines of my sweatshirt hood, I met the gaze of the bickering boys in front of me.

"It's early, and it's the first day," I began again. "Can you please try and keep it down... what is it you said… you 'two-bit extra'?"

A loud scrape met my ears as the blonde pushed his seat back, standing up in one swift motion. Izuku squirmed uncomfortably next to me, but didn't move. The blonde's features were once again clouded with anger, though now that I looked at the expression more carefully it was more outrageous than frightening; I briefly wondered if it hurt his face to scowl so deeply.

"Oy, Deku, who's this freak?" the boy growled. I arched an eyebrow.

"Who's Deku?" I asked, looking to my right- at Izuku- for answers. The green haired boy by my side gestured to himself, and I frowned. "Why?"

"Cause he's a Quirkless loser who can't do anything!" the boy spat. Next to him I saw Tenya take a few steps back, probably both to avoid his wrath as well as his spit.

"You're kind of a jerk, huh?" I replied calmly, though inside my sweatshirt my body told a different story. I was sweating like crazy, I itched everywhere- how did people interact with others so easily? All it seemed to bring me was discomfort. "Either you're very talented, or you're compensating for something." The blonde boy prickled aggressively, and I heard several pops emit from his palms, indicating his Quirk was manifesting. "Or both." I added, taunting him.

"Say that one more time, man- I friggin' dare ya!" Noting the small sparks and pops coming from his hands, I chuckled softly.

"Sparklers?" I retorted, gesturing towards his outstretched arms. "Cute." The boy flinched as a few giggles from the rest of the class broke out over the tense atmosphere. His eyes fixated on me, a low snarl escaped his lips as he took several steps forward, closing the distance between us.

"Why you-"

"Well, well, well,"

Within my sweatshirt my body tensed as a new voice broke through the tenseness. I turned to my right, towards the door, glancing over Izuku's head as I searched for the voice's owner; I knew that voice.

"Doesn't really seem like you all are playing nice." the voice continued calmly. "This is the department of heroics. Act like it."

My lips pressed into a firm line as I realized it was coming from a puffy orange sleeping bag, which was laying on the floor just beyond the door frame. Dry red eyes stared at Izuku and I from the floor, dark hair spilling out of the sleeping bag and onto the floor of the hall. An empty pouch of applesauce- his breakfast- lay on the floor beside of him, and my thoughts briefly turned bitter as I remembered the forgotten rice back at home. If anyone here should have been acting more like the department of heroics, it was probably this guy.

"Hmm…" he drawled, stepping out of the sleeping bag and into the classroom. "It took you all about eight seconds to quiet down. Life is short, you're all lacking common sense. I am Aizawa Shouta, your homeroom teacher." The class seemed to blink in unison, awestruck by our new teacher's fantastical entrance. I scoffed without thinking, drawing his attention to me. "Daichi." he said blandly, his red eyes coming to rest on me; I blanched. "Was it you causing all the commotion? I should've guessed…"

"Me?" I blurted back, a sound that expressed the offense I felt escaping my throat. It was the sort of noise a spoiled teen would use when being told off by a parent. "It was these two idiots-"

The aforementioned 'two idiots' were now standing quietly in the crowd of students, as though they had been minding their business the whole time. I felt my body deflate in a mixture of frustration, guilt, and embarrassment; some first day this was turning into.

"Where is your uniform?" My attention snapped back to Aizawa Shouta, whose deadpan gaze was directed solely at myself. My lips twitched, half out of nervousness, half from annoyance.

"What the hell is this?" he continued, gesturing to my outfit; it was a simple ensemble, black sweatpants and a black sweatshirt. They swallowed my slender frame in their depths, as they were meant for someone who was both slightly taller, older, and more masculine: my father.

"I ran outta time-" I began sheepishly. I could feel my brave facade beginning to wear off; clearly, my false bravado had a limit.

"Go and change." Aizawa Shouta commanded. "Now."

As he spoke, he thrust a blue and white outfit in my direction. My body subtly jolted as he shoved the getup against my chest, my hands coming up to hold the clothes to stop them from falling to the floor; I could feel my cheeks prickle with anxiousness, and no doubt my face was now a rosy pink.

"That goes for all of you, actually." he continued, staring out into the gaggle of first year students, who were clearly all still bemused by his entrance and appearance. "Put these on immediately, and then shove off to the P.E. grounds!"

The class dispersed swiftly, Aizawa Shouta sauntering off on his own, no doubt heading to the P.E. grounds on his own while we changed. I scowled, considering briefly the list of insults I could mutter under my breath as he made his exit; many of them were not very good, and absolutely none of them made me feel any better at all.

Left alone in the classroom, I scowled slightly at the fabric clutched in my fingers. For some reason, I had expected my first day of "real school" to be much different; but, perhaps that had been my own conceited assumption. I had hoped to make a nice impression, get along easily with others- the truth of it all was that I did not know who I was when it came to other people. Who was Daichi, and what kind of person was she to other people? I did not yet know the answer. Another heavy sigh escaped my lips, making it five gigantic sighs of resignation before ten in the morning.

"I guess I'd better change…"

The sun was shining brightly as I stepped out of UA's main building and onto the dirt that covered the P.E. training grounds. It had warmed slightly since the time I'd made my trek to class, and I felt my body relax at my shoes crunched across the sun-warmed sand. A small smile tugged at my lips; I felt much better now that I was dressed appropriately in my training uniform, my creamy orange hair spiked ever so slightly into a fohawk. At least now I could pretend to have my life somewhat together.

"Oy!"

The sudden exclamation caused me to freeze in my tracks, glancing up from the sparkling grains of sand, my gaze coming to rest on the group of students several feet in front of me. Our homeroom teacher stood in front of them, although the gaze of each student now fell on me. Aizawa Shouta looked displeased; Izuku looked mildly worried, as did the brown haired girl by his side; the blonde boy from this morning wore an expression that was a mixture of shock and displeasure.

"How nice of you to finally join us, Daichi," Aizawa Shouta drawled. Regaining control of my feet, I took a few steps closer to the class, a low hiss escaping through the blonde's clenched teeth as I approached.

"What the hell!" he yelled, clearly outraged over something I was not yet privy to. "You're a friggin' girl?" The boy sounded offended; I crossed my arms across my chest, the culprit of my gender identification, finally stopping next to Izuku, Tenya, and the brown haired girl. "You sure talk big for a chick!"

"Is my gender supposed to affect my manner of speaking?" I replied curtly, ignoring our teacher as his expression turned increasingly more sour. "You were making a lot of noise. And being rude. I didn't like it," At this the boy scoffed, clearly unwilling to let my transgressions toward him slide now that he knew I was female.

"I don't give a shit what gender you are, if you ever talk to me that way again I'll-"

"Hey!"

Aizawa Shouta's barking voice cut through our quarreling. Izuku jumped slightly, though I kept my eyes fixed on the blonde, arching a single eyebrow incredulously. I will admit, I was more on the offensive than usual when it came to this boy; I wasn't sure what it was about him, but part of me was curious to see how much it would take to make him snap. Judging by his expression, I could guess that it didn't take very much.

"Bakugo Katsuki, quiet down." The blonde, Bakugo Katsuki, let out a soft harrumph!, though he obeyed and turned away from me. "Today we will be doing a Quirk Apprehension test." he stated firmly.

Nervous chatter erupted from the group of first years surrounding me, and I glanced around incredulously. Why were they so shocked? It seemed fitting enough that our homeroom teacher would want to get a grasp on what level we were all at with our Quirks…

"But what about the entrance ceremony?" the girl next to Izuku piped up. She was very cute, her large brown eyes staring up at our homeroom teacher expectantly from beneath her soft brown bangs. A bubbly personality like hers was one I had desired for my "first day debut", but seemed to lack the charm and feminine finesse to master. "Or, what about the guidance counselor meetings?" I frowned, confused. Were those typical activities for a first day of school?

"If you all truly want to be heroes, Uraraka, we don't have the time for frilly niceties." The girl, Uraraka (her full name still remained a mystery to me), looked befuddled, but did not protest. "You all know, I'm sure, of our school's reputation for freedom on campus… Well, that freedom extends to us teachers, as well." The class was silent; I wasn't sure they understood what he was going on about. To be honest, I wasn't too sure, either.

"Softball pitch. Standing long jump. Fifty meter dash. Endurance running. Grip strength test. Sustained sideways jumps. Seated toe-touch... These are all activities you know from middle school, naturally."

The other students hung on every word, waiting apprehensively for him to get to the real point. I felt myself pouting despite my best efforts, vaguely wondering what it was like to participate in a group fitness test. Although I had not gotten the traditional middle school education for others my age, my father had still forced each of these tests onto me during those years. I had many not-so-fond memories of embarrassing myself on the U.A. campus in front of second and third year students on these very PE grounds: a little nine-year-old girl desperately trying to control her quirk in front of older, cooler, more experienced future-heroes. I caught myself frowning deeply at the memories.

"Physical tests where you were barred from using your Quirks. The country still hasn't gotten around to standardizing those sorts of records, or keeping track of average performance levels. Well... That's negligence on the part of MEXT.*"

The class remained silent as our teacher finished his speech, his expression unchanging for its entirety. Aizawa Shouta had never been known for his enthusiasm, or his personability. I glanced around sheepishly, unsure of whether one of us should speak. Were we supposed to volunteer, now? Nothing was very clear.

"So we're taking a standard middle school physical fitness test?" Tenya asked from the crowd of onlooking students. "Except this time, we're allowed to use our quirks…"

"That's the idea." he answered calmly. I pursed my lips anxiously. "Daichi… Since you had the audacity to be the last to show up, tell me, how far could you pitch a softball in middle school?"

"I didn't go to middle school." I mumbled, slightly annoyed at him for having singled me out. I was a slow walker, not a truant. I hardly deserved this. "You know that I was homeschooled, Aizawa-sensei." I could feel the confusion emanating from the other students around me, but I forced myself to keep my eyes locked on the teacher, black meeting blue.

"You know what I meant." he replied sternly. I let out a puff of air tiredly.

"About seventy meters." I answered, finally giving him the answer he was looking for.

He gestured to me, motioning for me to come up to the front. Abandoning the safety of my classmates, where I had been nestled nicely within the group, I walked around the outskirts of the gaggle of students until I was standing on the teacher's other side. I know stood within a spray painted ring, indicating a pitching mound; Aizawa Shouta tossed a ball to me, which I caught easily in my palm. I met his eyes again.

"Try using your Quirk with these tests." he explained. The rest of the class watched me, while I watched the teacher. "You know the drill. As long as you don't exit that circle, anything you do is fine."

I frowned; I couldn't throw the ball in his face out of frustration, so clearly not anything I did was fine. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of Bakugo Katsuki, who was sneering at me crudely from the crowd of students. He was quickly becoming my least favorite person I had ever had the misfortune of meeting, and I was sure he was getting a kick out of my public embarrassment.

Slowly, nervously, I stretched out my arm, ball in hand. Abruptly and with little flourish, I promptly flipped my palm over and dropped the ball into the sand on which I stood. Katsuki let out a whooping laugh from where he stood with the other students. Izuku and Uraraka looked rather shocked; Tenya pushed his glasses disapprovingly up the bridge of his nose.

"You've gotta be kidding!" he cried; immediately, Shouta shushed him.

"Shut up!"

Aizawa Shouta's voice was loud and overbearing, he class returning to its previous awkward silence immediately. The teacher whipped out a calculating device with which I was all too familiar, holding it steadily in front of him and keeping his eyes carefully trained on me all the while. The class looked on, eyes wide. Some anxiously awaited their turn in the spotlight, while others fretted over their inevitable performances; I was sure I could guess which ones were the former, and which were the latter.

"I said you could use your Quirks. Some of you won't need your hands."

Inside the circle, I allowed my eyes to slide shut, focussing on the sand beneath my feet. I could feel the warmth of it radiating in my mind, as if the minerals in the sand and I were connected on a psychic level. It was mostly quartz, just as it always had been, with trace amounts of various feldspars with which I was less familiar*. I took a deep, slow breath, flexing my fingers as my mind focussed on the granules that surrounded the softball on the ground.

Slowly, the ball began to rise, and I could hear with perfect clarity the sounds of the grains of sand scraping against one another as they danced beneath the softball. It was a sound that others could not hear, but to me it was one of the more soothing noises in existence. The class watched as the white softball floated to my shoulder on a fluffy bed of sand; I felt my body shudder from the tenseness I felt from being watched so carefully.

Before long, the ball was surrounded by swirling sand grains. I squeezed my eyes shut in concentration, red and orange splotches dancing against the backs of my eyelids as I focussed more of my mental energy on moving the sand; this specific sort of task that required small, tedious manipulations was something I found to be the most difficult. Before long the sand was swirling swiftly, orbiting the ball at breakneck pace before swallowing it in an impenetrable wall of sand as I shaped it into what resembled a tiny sand tornado.

And then, in a heartbeat, I released the tension in my mind keeping the granules in check, allowing my mind to relax ever so slightly; it was a similar sensation to when you unbutton your pants after eating too much. In an instant, I reversed the direction in which the sand was spinning. The airflow switched, and the softball was spat unceremoniously from the depths of the tiny cyclone I'd built. With a loud but dull thup! the ball exploded from the front end of the miniscule sandstorm, flying through the air at a speed almost to swift for the naked eye to follow.

The angle at which I had tilted the sand funnel sent the ball soaring high into the air in an arch. The ball disappeared briefly into the clouds, landing a moment later clear on the other end of the field. Aizawa Shouta flipped the device in his hand around to face me, and I glanced at it with an expression I hoped conveyed a vague disinterest, although deep down my stomach fluttered with an anxious hope that I had perhaps done something impressive.

"Seven hundred and twelve meters," Aizawa Shouta stated blandly, turning around to face the rest of the class.

With his back turned, and the class focussed on the measuring device in his hand, I allowed a smile to tug on my lips, a proud blush decorating my cheeks briefly. I'd like to see Bakugo Katsuki beat that record.

"Before anything else, you all need to know what you're capable of. The results of these tests will be a rational metric off of which you can form your Hero Foundation." he explained.

I shuffled out of the circle, regaining my composure and rearranging my features back into an expression that was free of any trace of excitement, stopping by Aizawa Shouta's side while he continued to address the class. Somehow, I could not help but feel embarrassed in front of my new classmates. Bakugo Katsuki was quietly seething from his place on the left side of the group, but Midoriya Izuku shot an enthusiastic thumbs up in my direction. Despite myself, I smiled, and for the first time that day I felt like maybe my smile was real.

"Even though Daichi doesn't have a Quirk that necessarily lends itself to help her throw a ball far distances, she was still able to use to beat her last record."

"What was her last record?" Uraraka peeped from the crowd of students.

I opened my mouth to reply, but was quickly interrupted; Bakugo Katsuki had shaken himself away from the other students, and was now marching straight towards me. I could almost see steam spilling from his ears.

"Pfft- an Elemental Quirk, huh?" he scoffed, bumping into my shoulder intentionally as he brushed past me roughly. I went limp, simply letting my body return lazily to its former position, though I felt my smile falter, my blue eyes following Katsuki's path to the pitcher's circle.

"Earth… Big deal! An earth element Quirk is just a glorified version of playing in the sandbox!" he jeered.

My smile vanished, replaced by a squirmy frown that showed my internal combination of frustration and self-consciousness for the insult to my precious Quirk. Aizawa Shouta met my gaze briefly, shaking his head, as if to tell me to pay him no mind; he tossed another softball in Katsuki's direction. He caught it, a wide sneer cracking across his face; my eyes met his, and his expression conveyed to me just how far above everyone else he placed himself. I wondered vaguely if it was possible for Katsuki to ever not sound angry… I very much doubted it.

"You were probably one of those friggin' weird kids who ate worms, huh?"

My hands balled into fists despite my desire to keep my composure, and several small popping sounds met my ears as my knuckles cracked. Aizawa Shouta reoriented his measuring device and he nodded, giving Katsuki the go-ahead. From his place in the circle, Katsuki wound up, ball in hand, an enraged expression contorting his features. Within the comfort of my own mind, I made a mental bet with myself: if everyone in class 1-A wasn't completely outraged with Bakugo Katsuki by the time we became second years, I'd drink a gallon of sand.

"You play with friggin' dirt," Katsuki seethed.

A faint smoky scent met my nostrils, and I crinkled my nose in response. Before I could even register what was going on Katsuki had thrown the ball with all of his might, a loud pop! cutting through the tense atmosphere surrounding the rest of the class.

"But I play with fire!"

*Izanami: In Japanese mythology, Izanami-no-Mikoto (Japanese: 伊弉冉尊 or 伊邪那美命,meaning "she who invites") is a goddess of both creation and death, as well as the former wife of the god Izanagi-no-Mikoto. She is also referred to as Izanami-no-kami.

*MEXT: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

*typically sand is made up of mostly quartz; feldspars are just a mineral group, and different kinds of feldspars can also be found in sand.

this story is slightly AU because Daichi has taken Momo's place in class 1A! Please review and let me know what you think!