The Start of Something Truly Tragic

Minoru Mineta looked at the results of the hero test on the screen. He was thirty sixth, and he should be admitted! His dreams of being a hero and finally getting laid should be on track!

…But why did the holographic disc say that he had failed?

He looked up UA's website, before going through the several tabs, skipping the great brochures about what the programs at UA offered, and the various good things they had done for society, and headed straight for the admissions page.

On top of the scores on the Hero Test, there was a rather moderately sized orange box. Mineta's eyes narrowed as he read, hands tightening around his Mt. Lady figurine.

"Due to a modified recommended exam, this year, UA will be taking five reccomended students instead of four."

Mineta's knuckles grew white. The figure in his hands bent ominously.

"My spot was stolen by a fucking elitist!" he shouted, slamming a fist down. The pedestal of the figurine impacted his desk and snapped off, ricocheting off the artificial wood and making a dent in the drywall.

After gently putting down what remained of Mt. Lady, Mineta staggered to his bed and collapsed, face down on his pillow.

Now he could never be a cool hero! He was stuck in general education! He couldn't show his stuff at the Sports Festival and maybe get a hot babe to go out with him!

"Wait a minute… The Sports Festival…" He sat up, eyes narrowed. Turning back to his computer, he looked up the rules for General Education promotion. If he managed to beat out that elitist bastard admitted on special conditions… Then he would be able to replace them!

"I'm coming for you, whoever you are!" Mineta shouted, turning his attention back to the website. He went to the tab that showcased the resume of the Recommended students.

"Todoroki Shoto… Son of Endeavor… Probably not him."

"Hans Christian Anderson… Saved pro hero Iceblade's life…"

"Setsuna Tokage… Splitting quirk? Weird."

"Juzo Honenuki… Looks intimidating…"

"Yaoyorozu Momo… "

"Wait… that Yaoyorozu?" Mineta said, thinking back to the various products his mother used with that name on it. Typing up yet another name on his search bar, the name of a fortune 500 company came up.

He had spotted the elitist who took his spot. The tall girl whose smile was frozen within the picture of her profile on the UA website.

"Normally, since you look pretty hot, I'll give you a pass…" Mintea growled, his right hand now tightening over his Midnight figure. "However, you've blocked my path to my master plan! And for that…"

His eyes gleamed, filled with a foreign passion previously unknown to him. Despite being envious of several people and their riajuu status, he had never truly felt… spiteful.

"I'm going to surpass you!"

…

"While it is unknown why this has occurred, in the past four months, the Hero killer has gotten progressively more active. Instead of targeting heroes, it has become more of an indiscriminate assault, along with much less of a showy aspect or his usual rhetoric of fake and real heroes. And as the Hero Killer Stain murders yet another hero, Suzuki, I think that we've entered another era of his M.O."

"Thank you for your time. We have been speaking Ito Sanazuki, crime analyst, thank you for your time."

"Thank you for having me."

Hans munched into his bowl of cereal. Beside him, the little match girl waved her spirit hands through the colorful marshmallows and the dull, slightly crusty corn flakes, unable to pick it up.

"Give it up already." the snow queen said, watching the exchange with a look of abject boredom. "You try to do this everyday. We're cursed by the things that killed us. I can't hold a conversation with any toddlers, because somehow crying kids made me disappear. You can't pick up food because you, well…"

"And what of me?" Hans said, looking up at the figure. "I died of liver-"

"You're different from us."

"I am and was a real person, yes."

"Stop having philosophical debates with your summons and eat your breakfast, Hans." his mother snapped, before her tone softened. "Do you have your uniform on yet?"

"Regretfully, yes." Hans said, looking down at the weirdly elaborate UA school uniforms. What were the green collars supposed to do, establish them as part of the main cast? It was, if anything, lazy storytelling.

"Anyways, you'll be going to a hero course. You have to watch out. Don't stress your quirk too much. If you need to leave your summons at home to stop your headache, then do it. I'll take Hestia to work if she bothers you too much." Anne said, picking up the spirit that was desperately trying to get at the marshmallows.

"She doesn't have a name, mom." Hans said. "Your supposed 'Hestia' was a girl that-"

"I don't want to hear her gloomy backstory ever again." she said, sighing and tustling the little girl's hair. "I swear, why did your namesake write such gloomy stories?"

"Yeah…" Hans said, looking at the unopened envelopes of unpaid bills. "I wonder why."

Rent, treatment for his grandfather's liver cancer (which did not bode well for Hans's own future due to genetic inheritance), electricity, water, food, and the hefty tuition to UA, albeit supplemented by a scholarship due to his healing quirk.

"I could drop out of UA, you know, mom." Hans said, looking back at his mother, who was already in the middle of a work-related email. "If it really costs too much, we can-"

"Du kan gøre meget godt i denne verden, Hans." his mother said, suddenly blurting out the sentence in Danish. ("You can do a lot of good in this world, Hans.")

"Desuden betaler Helte mere i Japan end I Danmark. Jeg er dog ked af at vi flyttede herover i det hele taget." Anne said, sighing. ("Besides, Heroes pay more in Japan than in Denmark. I'm sorry about moving us here in the first place, though." )

"Jeg skriver bare nogle flere bøger." Hans said, ("I can just write more books.")

His mind flashed back to the mother of his previous life, who had been impoverished for all of her life.

"Jeg setter tilskrivningsfrister for migselv. Jeg sælger bøger så at dig og far kan leve et godt liv." ("I'll set deadlines for myself. I'll sell enough books to make sure you and dad can live a nice life.")

"You're still in school. Don't think about work just yet." Anne said, returning to slightly awkward Japanese, rustling Hans's blue hair. She then turned, tone now slightly hesitant.

"But if you could, well… Your grandfather isn't doing very well. If we could just get enough for…"

"Yeah, yeah." Hans said dully. "I'll look into it. But I suppose that with the workload of the Hero course, that wouldn't really be an option, would it?"

One by one, his spirits returned to his head. The little match girl made one last grab at the cereal. The ice queen dissolved with a quiet sigh. The elder tree mother shrank back into her pot, before the pot itself disappeared. His mind filled up with the cacophony of the fairytales interacting with each other in boredom, along with several attempts at backseat driving.

"Let's take the train this time." the snow queen grumbled.

"No, no! Let's walk! I really want to stretch my legs" the tree said.

"You have no legs to stretch! Did you forget about the admissions test already?"

Hans sighed and headed for the bus.

…

Surprisingly, Hans was the earliest to arrive at the classroom. After slipping under the main flow of the crowd with his relatively short stature, his creations managed to scout out the classroom relatively quickly.

Hans looked at the door handle. The door handle stared back.

"Am I really going to be studying to be a hero?" he muttered, outstretched hand now paused in midair. It honestly felt a little redundant. Even if he hadn't done much other than write and drink coffee at Chaldea, at least he sort of participated in the singularities.

"It's exciting, isn't it?" somebody shouted from right behind him. Hans nearly tripped into the door handle.

After narrowly avoiding losing an eye, he looked back to see a person smiling enthusiastically. The person then proceeded to slam two blocky fists together, making the sound of wood hitting wood.

"Is that supposed to intimidate me or something?" Hans thought, further appraising the figure.

They were taller than Hans, though that wasn't very hard to achieve. In fact, if there was one person that was shorter than him in the Hero course, Hans would be eating his shoes in disbelief. Their hair was also freshly dyed red, though to be perfectly honest, Hans wouldn't really know that it was hair dye if it wasn't for the splotches of red on the boy's fingers.

And in this shounen manga-like world, they probably were not the protagonist.

"After all of our hard work, we can finally work to become heroes!"

"Ah, yes." Hans said sarcastically. "We're working so we can work in a class of underpaid prestige, in which, once we become obsolete or crippled, will be replaced almost instantly."

There was a brief moment of silence, before Hans pushed open the doors to the classroom and reached upwards for the light switch with a low grunt of effort.

"Different tuition numbers. Still the same desks and chairs. Why did my parents even bother…" Hans muttered.

"That's… that's not very manly of you." the teenager stuttered, his confident personal clearly unsure as to how to act. "You're at UA! You get to be a hero like you've always dreamed you could be! Where's your sense of wonder?"

"I've already been one." Hans wanted to say. "And I got paid nothing."

"I'm not the one that's going to be a hero here." Hans said, gesturing to his twig-like arms. "I'm here to heal you guys so you can keep being my meat shields."

"A healing quirk, huh? That's pretty manly! My name's Kirishima, by the way. And you?"

"Hans Christian Anderson." Hans said, hoisting himself onto a chair and staring glumly at the whiteboard.

"You from Germany?"

"Denmark." Hans said, his expression souring a tad bit.

"My quirk is hardening, if you haven't noticed! And if you can just keep healing me as I go in and take the hits, man, we could make a pretty manly duo!" Kirishima pumped his fist up at the word 'manly' like it was some sort of mental trigger.

Hans looked at the overenthusiastic redhead and sighed inwardly. Then, he actually sighed because he had no obligations to keep Kirishima happy.

"What's wrong dude?" Kirishima asked, "Does that… not sound like a manly idea?"

"If you can find one person less 'manly' than me, then please go ahead and do so." Hans said, smiling sarcastically. "I would like to shake their hand."

Kirishima's frown deepened, and Mineta sneezed in the 1-C classrooms.

Hans, in the meanwhile, got the Elder Tree Mother out of his mind and manifested her as a potted plant, putting it in the corner closest to a window.

…

The conversation continued on for several minutes, during which new members of the class entered the room, looked at the two, and sat around the two currently in an "intense" debate. At the later stages, it had just turned into a psychoanalysis.

"Your cheerful persona is a positive outlook to have." Hans said, staring into Kirishima's dark eyes. "However, you still do not truly believe that you can live up to your own standards. You regretted something in the past, and now you're trying to atone for a self perceived fault."

"Hey, I don't know what you're talking about!" Kirishima tried to deflect the statement, looking to the side and rubbing the back of his neck.

"You're vehemently trying to deny it, because that period of self doubt must have had a huge impact on you. Because you found your role model or something." Hans said, noticing the dye on Kirishima's hands once more. "Thus, you dyed your hair to emulate your role model and-"

"H-how do you know this?"

"I notice things." Hans said, turning to look at the clock. "It's what I do."

As Kirishima contemplated his existence, somebody else walked into the room.

"Hello there, everybody! I hope we can get along this y-"

Yaoyorozu noticed Hans, and went silent.

"Well?" Hans said, raising an eyebrow. "You look like you haven't changed at all."

"It's even harder to change a community." Yaoyorozu said. "Pro Heroes usually stop two thousand five hundred and eighty one crime cases a year on average, and even if I sold my whole mansion, the impact that it would have on the part of the population that is desperate enough to commit crimes would be negligible."

"To be perfectly honest, I don't know the first thing about helping a community." Hans said, smiling. "I was just annoyed when you said that those giant robots wouldn't cost much. Also… UA can literally make empty cities. If that isn't a significant difference, then I don't know what is."

"Those robots create much more benefits than they cost!" Yaoyorozu argued. "They are used for training the next generation of heroes, who stop two thousand and-"

"Yeah, yeah. We get it. They stop crimes. But UA has multiple fake cities and buildings on site with working electricity. I'd think that these resources could be better utilized elsewhere. But, of course, they have to take away taxpayer money in order to create a market for heroes, and to create a market for heroes…"

The room went silent.

"Truly. A mad banquet of darkness." a bird headed student said. "Perhaps the true shadow of humanity lies not in its villains, but in its leaders."

"Exactly." Hans said, looking at said student with a hint of amusement on his face. "Do I get a raven as a classmate? What's next, an ugly duckling? Was this class going to turn into a gathering of his fairytales?"

"You understand the world as I do." the bird-headed student said, without a hint of surprise in his voice.

"I do, but I'm not so over dramatic about everything." Hans said, looking back at Yaoyorozu, whose brain still hadn't rebooted. "Nice to meet you, by the way."

"I'm Tokoyami. Fumikage. Nice to meet y-."

"Oh, my god! Will you people just shut the fuck up!"

Everybody turned to see a spiky haired blonde teenager slam their palm onto the desk and scream like there was no tomorrow. Hans nearly fell from his chair, before looking up to see…

It was…

"What the fuck are you looking at, extra?" Bakugo Katsuki said, gritting his teeth and narrowing his eyes at Hans. "Stop bitching about what Heroes should be and be quiet like an extra should be."

This person was so…

"You keep talking about giving villains shit, by the way. That isn't going to work. As long as you crush them, they won't do their shit again. Which means that we should just do our fucking jobs as UA students!"

Filled with so many character defects!

The aggression, the mean-spiritedness, the superiority complex, along with the very obvious surface level issues of 'main character syndrome'.

There were so many targets. So many potential insults. It was like finding a document filled with thousands of words the hour before a deadline was to ask for said manuscripts.

"Hey… Hey!" the teenager said, slowly walking up to Hans, who finally focused his eyes back on the angry teenager.

"What were you looking at… you extra?" Several menacing explosions were set off right in front of Hans's face, making the unremovable burns all over his body pulse. Hans, however, just stared back into his eyes.

"I was looking at your various complexes."

"What did you say you little shit?"

"How dare you speak to a classmate like that?" a tall boy said, finally intervening in the various loud arguments. As the two introduced themselves and proceeded to argue about school conduct, Hans settled back and began to ruminate over what issue to address first when talking to the now named Bakugo Katsuki.

That wonderful train of thought was interrupted by yet another new arrival. A green-haired boy wearing red shoes.

Red… shoes.

Hans could already see the footless, crawling ghost out of a horror movie that was the manifestation of the girl that was the main character of The Red Shoes enacting her vengeance on the piece of attire. Mentally repressing the normally dormant spirit, Hans settled in to watch yet… another shouting tournament.

"This really is a shounen world." Hans muttered. "Terrible worldbuilding and weak character interaction."

A certain student with two-toned hair, and another one with earphone jacks definitely heard that.

"Speaking of which, why did I get put behind the tall girl?" Hans said, slightly irritated. "It's almost like they assigned these seats via random chance and didn't consider anything other than student number. Where does this school even put their budget?"

At the word budget, Yaoyorozu twitched.

"I swear." Yaoyorozu said, turning around. Her normally smiling face was strained into a neutral expression. "You were sent here by the gods just to torment me."

"We were all born with a purpose." Hans said, replying to a remark that was supposed to get him to stop talking. "Mine is to irritate as many people as possible."

Just then, his abysmal rank of territory creation informed him of something large and… yellow outside the door, right behind the boy wearing red shoes and a girl that was enthusiastically mimicking punches.

"Can you look outside the door, by the way?" Hans said, slightly nervously. "I think some sort of worm thing just slid outside our door. Normally, I'd assume that this is a villian, but since this is UA, the budget-"

"Oh, all right!" Yaoyorozu said, swerving around and leaning out to see the doorway. "See, there's noth- oh my god. There's actually a yellow caterpillar outside the doorway."

"It took you that long to notice me." a deep, tired voice said. There was the sound of a zipper, before out of the yellow cocoon emerged a tired and dark butterfly. The man slouched into the room, walking past the shell-shocked students that were standing in the doorway.

"This is the hero course. You all will have to be more alert." the hobo said, leaning on the teacher's desk and muttering out an extremely charismatic speech.

"You were only there for about ten seconds, and you were literally lying on the ground. How do you expect people to see you?" Hans thought. "Why must this school be filled with overdramatic edgelords?"

"Anyways, change into your gym uniform and head to the track fields. We're doing a quirk assessment test today."

Hans sighed. Why was it always tests with these schools? Dragging his feet behind his taller and more athletic classmates, he took one last look at the potted plant he had put in the corner of the room. Despite talking about attentiveness as a hero, their teacher did not live up to their own words and hadn't noticed the non-classroom standard potted plant.

"Hypocrites, hypocrites. Why can I spot you everywhere I look?" Hans took a last look back through the now-empty classroom. "Alle de kvajpander bliver min anden død." ("All these idiots will be the cause of my second death.")

…

"Director. The next set is ready."

"Alright." a sensual voice said, grinning at the peon. "Take me there…"

"Ye-yeah." The stage manager gulped, looking at the voluptuous woman wanting to act in the remake of The Little Mermaid herself as director. He had to say, she fit the role perfectly.

"Miss Sessyoin. I'm so glad to work with you." another actor said, walking up and shaking her hand. Kiara could tell, however, that his gaze was not on her eyes.

"Likewise." she said, her voice deep and mature. Several of the workers on set began to stare. Again, she didn't mind. She was an incarnation of humanity's lust, after all.

"Director. You must, once more, consider your costume choices." the costume designer said. "Again, this is a K-rated movie, and since it isn't in the animated medium…"

"Alright, alright." Kiara said, looking at the subordinate who dared to defy her. "I guess we'll put production on hold today. We'll run the costumes through the sewing machines again."

"Thank you for your understanding, ma'am." The young woman walked away, muttering about adjustments and modifications already.

"Bodhisattva, what should we do with her?" her drivers said, as they drove out of Disney's studios. They were wonderful servants, brainwashed and joining her cult.

"Get her fired." Kiara said. "Use whatever means necessary."

"I hope you enjoy what I'm doing to your fairytales… Hans…" Licking her lips, she imagined the infuriated look on the parents who would inevitably take their children to watch a new, more… salacious remake of The Little Mermaid.

For some reason, she had been reborn into this new and interesting world. Though the humans were different, their minds were still the same. So easily malleable.

And her plot… had just begun. Looking at a little soldier standing on the hood of her car as an ornament, she thought about her next target.

The Steadfast Tin Soldier… now how could such a stoic tale be corrupted?

Hans's fairtyales could only belong to her. Twisting the tales in the mind of the public wouldn't be enough to keep her as the sole reader, but changing their real meaning and keeping the core of the story to herself gave her some satisfaction.

She had wanted to become the little mermaid, the pinnacle of his masterpiece. It pained her heart to twist the childish yet pessimistic tale into something tainted by her impure desires.

Still, if Hans truly was in this world, then this would undoubtedly be the best way to get his attention.

"Now… About that statue of Hans…"

"We'll steal it." the driver said immediately, "My lady… We'll do anything for you. But, is there any reason we need to risk fellow believers to steal a statue?"

"That man is very, very important to me." Kiara sighed dreamily.

"Of course." the driver said, knuckles white against the driver's wheel. The jealousy in his body language was as obvious as could be, yet Kiara paid no attention.

…

On the way to UA's athletics field, Hans felt a wave of goosebumps pass over his body. It was almost like somebody walked on his grave, or was stabbing a doll of him with pins… or something.