Not every student bothered to say something and not all the ones that did stayed standing as she had, which made her wish she had sat back down when she’d had the chance; it hadn’t been a conscious decision to remain on her feet but as soon as the second student stood up with her, the robot-like girl Lizzy, it felt too awkward to sit down by herself again.

Of those who had chosen to speak, most gave the expected response of wanting to be a hero so it was the ones who said something different that stood out. The dragon, Kaze, barely seemed to want to be here, barely interested in what was going on and barely awake; it was a surprise that he had even bothered to say anything at all. His demeanour bothered Akeno for reasons she didn’t want to dwell on right now. The male student with white hair and the face mask, a mask that was apparently covering up a mutation that gave him large crooked fangs and a wide mouth, wanted to become a hero because he wanted to change perceptions about people with unsightly mutations; Akeno could respect a motivation like that and she felt a little kinship with someone who felt limited or marginalised because of their Quirk. The last person to speak also gave a unique answer, a short male who looked plain compared to some of the others who simply wanted to place first in the sports festival; it felt… underwhelming for someone to set their sights on something that would take place a few weeks or months from now and no further, but maybe he just didn’t feel the need to say anything else for now? Either way, he had a feel to him that made Akeno pay some attention to words.

Since no one else seemed forthcoming the teacher moved on to the next task of the day and of course he was making fun of her for starting the trend of staying standing. Resisting the urge to sigh, Akeno followed Suika-sensei out of the classroom; things were already off to a bad start if this was the kind of first impression she was making. The physical exam might be a way for her to turn things around; if they were anything like what she had to do in middle school then she was confident that she wouldn’t completely embarrass herself a second time.

The class was taken to a field outside of the school and since there was only one thing out there it was plain to see where they were heading. Akeno was a little confused at the lack of equipment at first and as Suika-sensei explained everything it only made her frown more, confusion turning to concern as it became clear that this exam consisted of only one test. All they had to do was hit the plate as hard as they could with whatever they wanted to use; it was a simple test, so simple in fact that Akeno wasn’t sure how their teacher was going to use the results to form their curriculum.

It wasn’t a great test for Akeno, for example, whose Quirk would fail to make much of an impact on the plate at all and although she could probably get a better result from just hitting it, that wasn’t a great showcase of her abilities.

Before she could think on it much longer, Lizzy stepped forward to be the first to demonstrate her Quirk. Akeno probably shouldn’t have been that surprised to see that the robot-like girl had a laser cannon in her arm, but it was still shocking to see the powerful beam the girl fired at the plate, setting a standard that would no doubt be hard to meet for the rest of them.

Not bothering to suppress her sigh this time, Akeno resigned herself to giving a thoroughly unimpressive performance as she prepared herself to step forward. She removed her uniform jacket and neatly folded up before dropping it at her feet, telling herself it was better to get things over with rather than delay them; if she was going to be outshone by all the other student’s then at least she wouldn’t be the last thing people remembered about this exam. There was only so much to make the restrictive school uniform easier to move around in but she undid the bow at her neck and loosened her collar before stepping out in front of the class. [color=f7941d]“I’ll go next.”[/color]

Standing in front of the plate Akeno took up a basic karate stance, her left leg leading and her body turned away from the device. She inhaled, pushing away all distractions as she focused on the feel of her body and on her movements; she should probably have stretched first, but it wouldn’t make much of a difference now. As quick as a flash Akeno turned the heel of her leading foot forward and spun on the ball of her left foot, raising her right foot off of the ground and turning to look over her shoulder as she brought her leg around and extended it; her foot slammed into the plate with a dull thud as she completed the spinning back kick, the sound it produced decidedly less impressive than an explosion but still not something you’d want to be hit with.

Lowering her leg Akeno dropped out of the stance and walked back to the rest of the class without further comment, picking up her jacket and she began to fix her uniform.