Chapter Text
Izuku was very thankful for his incessant stalking of UA and its staff's social media when it let him find out that an entirely new Quirk Studies class would be added to the heroics curriculum on Nedzu’s twitter.
Thankfully, it was Sunday, so he had time to prepare. He’d searched for as much scheduling and curriculum information on the school website and student portal as he could.
Unfortunately, the curriculum for the class was up to the teacher, whose information had not been added to the school website because they were an underground hero. It made sense for the Quirk Studies teacher to be an underground hero, since most daylight heroes didn’t seem to be very good at it, but Izuku was still annoyed.
More fortunately, the scheduling and classroom location were available easily. He’d printed off the new versions of his schedule at an internet cafe to replace his current ones, just to make sure that he wouldn’t forget about the new class, since it apparently started earlier than the heroics training it was replacing due to the lack of necessary preparation time and it would take a while to get there.
It would be weird arriving early on Mondays and Thursdays only, but Izuku absolutely did not want to make a terrible first impression on yet another teacher by arriving late.
The Quirk Studies teacher was already at their desk, typing away on their laptop, when Izuku arrived, even though Izuku made sure to leave homeroom three minutes early to make sure he was on time despite the Quirk Studies classroom being basically on the other side of campus from 1-A’s homeroom.
They were a man in his early forties, with short black hair, average features, no obvious mutations and a hero costume consisting of a dark gray business suit with a red tie, square wire-frame glasses, a suit jacket and black leather dress boots. If it wasn’t for the location and timing, Izuku would have thought he was no more than a random businessman.
The classroom is also perfectly ordinary, with no stand-out features from any other empty classroom. Izuku takes a seat at the front of the room, and the teacher doesn’t acknowledge his presence with anything more than a quiet and clipped “One point to Midoriya for arriving on time”.
Iida speedwalks into the room seconds later, and also receives a point once he takes a seat.
Kirishima, Kaminari, Ashido and Sero arrive as a group a minute later, making sure to walk inside despite being visibly out of breath.
“One demerit to each of you four for running in the hallways.” the teacher informs them as soon as they step through the door.
“What- how’d you know?!” Kaminari splutters. Ashido elbows him in the side.
“Aw, come on!” Sero moans.
“What’s a demerit?” Kirishima asks.
“I will explain once the entire class is present. Now sit down.”
More people start arriving several minutes later, but now they get demerits for being late. Izuku knew arriving early was a good idea.
Once everyone is seated(and demerited), the teacher looks up from their laptop. “Welcome to Quirk Studies. You may call me Tim, Merritt or Merritt-sensei, as you prefer.”
“Now, many of you will be wondering what a demerit is. Demerits and points are independent performance metrics that do not have any bearing on your grades. They will be awarded at my leisure, and cannot be taken away.”
“If you were also wondering how I knew you were running in the hallways, that’s because I know the fastest walking time between Class 1-A’s homeroom and this classroom is eleven minutes and twelve seconds.” Merritt-sensei’s mouth twitches into a momentary smile. “Since I know you were informed of the existence of this class precisely ten minutes before the start of the period, anyone who arrived on time had to have started running in the hallways to do so. I believe your homeroom teacher calls this sort of thing a logical ruse.”
There’s a torrent of exclamations, all along the lines of “Seriously?!”, “That’s not fair!” and “ Another Aizawa-sensei?!”
“Of course, there was a point to this. Would anyone like to guess what that point was?”
Izuku thinks over the circumstances while the rest of the class spout increasingly bizarre answers that are immediately shot down.
I knew I needed to leave early because I checked the schedule for the new class and I knew that UA was starting a new class because I was following Nedzu’s Twitter account and he tweeted about it. Also, Merritt-sensei intentionally arranged things so that anyone who didn’t would break school rules somehow.
But the UA main account didn’t tweet about it, nor did any of the staff. That means that you needed to check either the UA website or Nedzu’s Twitter. Nedzu’s Twitter has only 200-ish followers and the class’s information was on the official website, not the student portal.
Which means that you had to know where to find the news beforehand and regularly check that source, and Merritt-sensei wanted us to do that instead of just relying on Aizawa-sensei to tell us everything.
“Midoriya, what about you?”
“The point is that we learn to do our own research beforehand instead of relying on someone else to do it for us once we show up.” Izuku summarizes.
“Correct! You get a point, Midoriya.”
“Wait, really?” seems to be the general reaction of the class.
“Midoriya? Why do you think I tried to teach you that?”
Izuku doesn’t need to think about that. Merritt-sensei and Aizawa-sensei have very similar teaching styles. “Because we’ll need to do that when we’re heroes in the field.”
Merritt-sensei sighs. “Yes, indeed. A sensible hero does as much research as he can before it becomes necessary. Even then, any truly effective agency will have at least one twilight or underground hero attached to it, so that its daylight heroes can perform their roles with the assurance that they will have concise yet detailed information on their foes when they need it without having to gather it themself. An uninformed hero is a dead hero.”
“However, a hero who makes misguided assumptions on misguided information is also a dead hero. As such, this class will indeed be about analyzing Quirks and villains, but it will also be about applying and condensing that information, statistical analysis, extrapolation from limited data, countering your own assumptions and many other things that many overlook.”
Merritt-sensei smiles. “And for your first lesson, you will try to guess my Quirk without seeing me use it. Each student will be allowed one question- I will answer each question truthfully. The questions can be anything that is not inappropriate for a school setting or that only has my Quirk’s name as its answer.”
“ Any question you ask, rhetorical or not, counts as your question. You are not allowed to talk to each other. You will all be in this room for the duration of the lesson, however. Do not break school rules.” Merritt-sensei smiles. “And just remember: I’m the one who made these rules. Go.” Which means…he wants us to think outside the box.
Katsuki goes first. “What’s your main attack?”
“Hitting people with a long blunt object.” He never said that he wouldn’t answer evasively, only truthfully. Damn, this guy really is Aizawa-sensei, isn’t he?
No, wait, I need to analyze that! Hm…he specified long, so either he needs improvised weapons to be a certain length to use his Quirk on them, he needs the length for leverage while using a strength or growing Quirk or he has a specific weapon that isn’t improvised, like Snipe’s gun.
That’s probably good for now…I’ll wait for someone else to ask another question before making any more theories.
“What?!! That’s not a fucking answer!”
“It is. I do, in fact, use hitting people with a long blunt object as my main attack. And for all you know, I might need a long blunt object to use my Quirk, but be able to use it with any that meet the criteria. However, I could also not need it, and my choice could be for a completely different reason, so don’t get cocky.”
He hits a key on his laptop, and a photo of the class roster pops up on the smartboard at the back of the classroom. Merritt-sensei draws an X over Bakugou’s portrait in blue with his cursor. “Now, does anyone else want to go?”
“What kind of villains do you usually fight?” Uraraka asks.
“All sorts- murderers, smugglers, human traffickers, villains of passion, hardened crime lords.” We already knew he was an underground hero! That’s not helpful!
Uraraka’s portrait gets an X, and Jirou goes next. “What type of Quirk do you have?”
“Emitter.” Well, yeah, he doesn’t have any obvious mutations.
“What was your father’s Quirk’s name and official short description?” Yaoyorozu asks. Yes! Actually useful information!
Merritt-sensei’s lips quirk up. “Good, you’re asking better questions. My father’s Quirk was Refraction, described as “The user can separate and bend individual wavelengths of light within five feet of their body”.”
“What was your mother’s Quirk’s name and official short description?” Kirishima asks seconds later.
“My mother’s Quirk was Metalshifter, described as “The user can turn their body into metal, as well as being able to change its dimensions and properties while it is made of metal”.”
Okay, so light-related short-range manipulation emitter, plus a metal-related personal transformation. That might be anything from being able to turn into light to being able to turn his hands into metal weapons to being able to warp and/or purify metal nearby. That’s also assuming he doesn’t just have an unexpected mutation or skipped-generation Quirk, so I shouldn’t rule anything out completely.
“Is your Quirk more similar to your mother’s or your father’s?” Sero asks.
“It’s a mixture of both that doesn’t really resemble either that much.” Okay, I need to figure out something that doesn’t really resemble either Refraction or Metalshifter while being derived from both- kind of like Glycerin Sweat and Spark Hands combining into Explosion.
“What do you usually use your Quirk for when working as a hero?” Shouji asks while
“For stealth.” His Quirk might be darkness- or magnetism-related. Or some kind of camouflage or invisibility that’s toggleable, unlike Hagakure’s.
“How do you use your Quirk in combat?” Ojiro asks.
“I don’t.” Izuku chokes. That’s…even Aizawa-sensei’s Quirk levels the playing field by removing his opponent’s advantages and throwing them off. Bubble Girl still uses her Quirk as a weapon and distraction.
“What type of emitter is your Quirk?” Kaminari asks.
“Personal transformation.” Izuku, get a hold of yourself. It’s probably camouflage or invisibility, those would be personal transformations not usable in combat. But I only have one question…
“W-which one of the following is your Quirk: invisibility, c-camouflage or s-something e-else?” Izuku asks, hoping he hasn’t made a huge mistake.
“Camouflage.”
Everyone looks in shock at Izuku, who frankly feels just as shocked.
“How did you know?!” Tsu gasps, then claps a hand over her mouth.
Merritt-sensei tilts his head to the side. “Midoriya, would you be willing to explain your thought process?”
“I…okay.” Izuku takes a deep breath. “Y-you said it was a combination of a light-related short-range m-manipulation emitter and a m-metal-related p-personal transformation that resembled neither. Y-you use it for s-stealth, so the m-most likely o-options were d-darkness, m-magnetism, i-invisibility and c-camouflage. It’s a p-personal transformation that can’t be used in combat, so that rules out d-darkness a-and magnetism. S-so it’s either c-camouflage or invisibility, p-probably w-with s-some kind of l-limit that prevents y-you from using it in c-combat.”
“Seeing as you know the general gist of my Quirk, what do you think that limit is?”
Izuku thinks for a few seconds. “Either you can’t u-use it while m-moving, it takes a l-long time to camouflage y-yourself or you can’t mimic fine d-details that w-would hide you once they already know you’re t-there. P-probably multiple o-options.”
“Correct! I can change the color of my skin and hair, but it takes time to change color and I can only mimic rough patterns.” Merritt-sensei taps his fingers on the desk. “And that’s the end of the first lesson, since Midoriya already completed it. Congratulations, Midoriya. You get a point.”
Izuku feels a swell of pride and excitement, and this time Katsuki doesn’t puncture it.
“There is still half an hour left in the period.” Iida points out.
Merritt-sensei pulls a pile of duotangs out of his desk drawer and lays them out in neat rows. “Well, you’re not dismissed. Grab the duotang with your name on it and start doing the work until the bell rings.”
Izuku manages to complete four of the Quirk analysis worksheets before the bell rings. They’re actually quite interesting, asking him to do things like think of potential applications for Quirks that don’t seem that useful on the surface or predict someone’s Quirk based on the Quirks of their siblings.
And he’s never had such an entertaining class before. After all, they turned one of his hobbies into an actual class.