As the students still outside, including the two girls Akeno had spoken to, walked into the school Akeno split off to park her bike and lock it to the provided racks. By the time she was done the number of people walking down the path had shrunk considerably and she jogged into the building to change her shoes and hurried down the hallways to make it to her classroom on time. She made it in time for the first bell but was still one of the last students to arrive and the low number of empty seats meant she didn’t have much choice in where to sit.

Sitting down in the first seat she found, second row in the column nearest the door, she barely had any time to take a look at who her classmates were before the teacher arrived. She spotted the dragon boy from earlier almost immediately of course, along with Lizzy and Kisa from earlier, before the door opened and their homeroom teacher walked in.

As Suika-sensei introduced himself, Akeno idly wondered if they’d placed the dragon student in this class because it was easier to accommodate both in one room than to have them in two.

The speech itself evoked a number of complicated emotions within Akeno; insecurity, self-pity, stubbornness and determination along with a few others she couldn’t identify. ‘Heroism is founded upon strength’; it was a sentiment that she herself had thought many times before but even so, hearing it stated so plainly now, by one of the people who were to teach them to be heroes, brought her mood low for a moment before she could recover.

Not everyone could acquire the kind of strength Suika-sensei was talking about, even if they worked at it every day as diligently as they could. Even if they worked hard every moment they could for every day of their lives they would still fall short of someone born with an even greater strength. ‘Some of you may feel as if you’ve started too late’, but even if you started early, and Akeno was willing to bet she had started earlier than most, the starting positions weren’t equal. That was just the way this world worked.

But like Suika-sensei said, it didn’t matter. She’d made it this far and she intended to make the most of it and see this through to the end. Akeno wasn’t aiming to be Number 1 after all and she wasn’t in this for fame or glory; she didn’t need to be the best, she just wanted to be a hero.

[quote=@ERode]
[b]“Now, who wants to declare their goals first?”[/b]
[/quote]

Akeno raised her had to bring the teacher’s and the class’s attention to herself, a determined look on her face and the hand on her desk clenched into a fist. [color=f7941d]“I do sensei.”[/color] Standing up, Akeno bowed to Suika-sensei before speaking. [color=f7941d]“My name is Akeno Kudo and I want to be a hero.”[/color]