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[indent][indent][indent][right][color=gray][sub]April 7th[/sub][/color][/right][hr]
New Horizons. New Beginnings. 

The words hung over the archway into Ishin Academy’s campus grounds, the giant torii standing overhead as students passed underneath with pamphlets in hand. It was a statement both explicitly and subliminally asserting Ishin’s Japanese pride above all else. 

“To Soar Skyward”, Ishin’s beloved mantra, was sometimes undercut by that of the academy’s less formal apophthegms. Those that rejected the practices of their Chinese, European, and American contemporaries. Ishin’s goal was to protect Japan, whatever Japan was, by any means necessary and in the mind of its School Board they would do their best to foster only the highest bar of Japanese excellence. Though, there were murmurs, as there were often, that perhaps Ishin was changing and changing forward. If it was true, it would certainly explain some of the first year students walking underneath Ishin’s torii on this splendid April morning in Hokkaido.

Of the hundreds of applicants to Ishin’s newest batch of students, only a small handful had gotten in. There were only twenty seats in Class 1A waiting to be filled, after all. To those lucky few, their acceptance letter and official school pamphlet and bullet pass had been in their mailbox by January, giving them a few anxious months to wait for the big day where they would be tested in the historic halls of Ishin Academy. In said pamphlet there would be all of the needed information about Ishin and Sapporo itself; directions how to get there, a set of school uniforms tailored to their metabiology and physical figure, and a printed guide and databook. Really, the pamphlet was more of a manual than a small pamphlet. It all led the way to preparing the students for the day that would change their lives forever. They had made it into one of the top three hero schools in Japan. Everything that came next was up to them.

If they failed to soar, well, Ishin had given them all the tools to succeed so who really would be at fault there? No matter what it took to reach it, Ishin students were expected to be hungry and dedicated to their dream to become a Pro-Hero. 

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As students flocked in, some students and faculty members talked amongst themselves in the courtyard. For the first years, this was their first time to really take it all in. The sight of Ishin, in the flesh. They had some time. Students had yet to move into the event hall for the big speech. That was still several minutes away.

For those who immediately went in to wait, they would find themselves and other students being directed into crowds organized by class year. 

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[color=gray][sub][center][color=2A9FCB][b]Location:[/b][/color] Event Hall, Ishin Academy[/center][/sub][/color]

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Mizuhana Yoshiba crossed her arms, the academy pamphlet loosely held by her right hand.  

[color=2A9FCB]“This is it, huh?”[/color] Yoshiba muttered, unamused by not only Ishin but herself.

It was no secret that Ishin was known for getting results from their students but it was still a school that was proud that made something out of people who weren’t worthy of UA. For any other student that may have been a breath of fresh air, but Yoshiba didn’t see herself as the worst of the worst by a long shot. Mizuhana Yoshiba was the daughter of [i]two[/i] acclaimed pro heroes. She had worked hard to be a cut above anyone else she had ever met. She pushed herself every single day. But this was where she ended up, all because she wasn’t good at the unimportant nonsense that was on the acceptance exams of every single hero academy in Japan: book smarts. 

Yoshiba sighed as she moved forward. Maybe if she had been better with books she would've been at UA instead.

As she moved through the hallway corridors she knew that this would be the beginning of her hero career whether she liked it or not. There was no going back in time and doing better; she didn’t have a time quirk, if such a thing even existed. Ishin would be remembered as the academy where the history books would note that the [i]legendary[/i] pro hero Mizuhana Yoshiba attended and graduated at the top of her class. The thought was a compromise Yoshiba made with herself to amend for her failure of not being able to attend UA in the first place. She would get her hero license and be remembered as the [i]best[/i]. There was no question in her mind about that fact.

[color=2A9FCB][i]Everyone here is second to me. Sidekicks, all of them.[/i][/color]

As everyone began filing into the hall, the blue-haired teenager knew it was time. She wasn’t one of those second-rate delinquents who valued herself so little that she would ever consider being late. It didn’t matter what the headmaster had to say about Ishin, Yoshiba had already made up her mind and figured out a set of goals, as unrealistic as they may have been. Still, she would sit down with the sidekicks in the section of the ceremony hall that had been designated to her “year group”. Mizuhana Yoshiba was [i]not[/i] a [i]slacker[/i]. She [i]hated[/i] slackers. 

Yoshiba was a [i]hero[/i], after all.

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