Chapter Text
Nezu hummed anxiously in his office. While he was glad Midoriya-kun had addressed the situation directly (and by extension completely obliterated the beginnings of his less-than-desirable theories about Midoriya, which he personally had no problems discarding as they were all horrible and made him want to rip his fur out), he did not ask to have his world-view shattered only to reveal something akin to his worst nightmares.
All Might had supposedly killed All For One years ago, but it seems that that damned man was still out there refusing to die like the cockroach he was.
All in all, Nezu was annoyed.
Yes, he was frustrated and he was frightened, but mostly he was annoyed. Normally, Nezu appreciated a challenge. He loved multi-tasking and fighting on multiple fronts at once, but because his knowledge was limited to one point of view, one source of biased information, he was no longer on the offensive.
It felt like he was the one in the defensive position, trying desperately to prepare for attacks on all sides. Sure, there had only been one front exposed so far—the debacle at the USJ—but there were clearly so many more moving pieces to come. And he could successfully defend against all of them, if given ample time and information.
But he didn’t have that.
And that was why he feared All for One. AFO controlled the underworld in such a way that Nezu had been unable to replicate—legally, at least. But even when considering his illegal ventures, his information networks were nowhere near as extensive or reliable, and every attempt to find useful information in order to aid the users of One for All backfired in the worst ways. It was as if All for One always knew exactly what Nezu was thinking.
But as much as that thought terrified him, it also was the reason this new development with Midoriya excited him. He was banking on the fact that only Midoriya was able to come back to the past. If that was the case, then he would have new thoughts, new information, and new ideas that All for One hadn’t even put into action yet. And for once, just once, Nezu would be able to dominate the playing field and break free from the mastermind’s grasp.
So yes, although Nezu was annoyed that he had been playing only on one chessboard while unknowingly competing on several, he was also very excited.
Because one of the pawns on his board had reached the other side without his or his opponent’s knowledge and simultaneously became the queen piece he had lost five years ago when All Might fought All for One. And now? He would make damn sure not to lose his second most valuable piece again.
Eventually, Aizawa had gotten his wits together and finished the conversation with Nezu who, frankly, looked almost as frazzled as he felt. Which meant that the principal probably felt even more overwhelmed than Eraserhead—a rare occurrence that never ended well. If anything, that left Aizawa wondering what it was that he wasn’t going to be clued in on. Because if that knowledge had that kind of effect on one of the most powerful and terrifying beings in Japan, he was frightened to learn the kind of ramifications it could hold.
And that just led his thoughts right back to Midoriya. Yes, Midoriya who apparently was in the know and likely had to deal with its effects first-hand if what Nezu had extrapolated was anywhere close to true.
He had gone home with his head spinning and tensions running high despite the time he had taken to cool off in Nezu’s office afterwards. In fact, Aizawa hadn’t even bothered trying to last the rest of the day at UA doing paperwork or anything of the sort like he normally would.
He just went home, took mild painkillers for his growing headache, and slept for eight hours straight for the first time in months.
But now he was awake again and left wondering how he could have fucked up so bad in the future. As he sat in the teacher’s lounge, Aizawa wondered how they were supposed to explain all of this to the rest of Class 1-A, much less the press and public. How could they possibly spin the turn of events so that it wasn’t made known that Midoriya had essentially single-handedly saved everyone’s lives just yesterday, despite only being a first year?
They couldn’t. So in reality, they were pretty much fucked.
He saw absolutely no way for this to end well, even if Midoriya brought back knowledge of future events. Not only would the butterfly effect probably work against them, but also the emotional toll all of this would have on not only Midoriya, but him and the rest of Class 1-A as well, was probably going to be severe.
But this was the hand that fate had dealt them, and so this was what they had to deal with.
With a heavy sigh, Aizawa stood up to make himself some coffee, the only good thing that would happen that morning. Especially considering the fact that Midoriya was supposed to meet with them again this morning to finish their discussion.
Of course, with his luck, Midoriya did not show despite the principal assuring him that he would the day before. He sat in the teacher’s lounge, dreading the meeting as time slowly crept forward, the tightness in his gut slowly becoming more and more unbearable. With everything that had been sprung on him, Aizawa couldn’t help but fear the worst as his student failed to show—images of all the things that could have happened to his student in the hours that he was at home flashed through his mind in vivid detail.
It was getting progressively more difficult to keep himself and his emotions in check, enough that the other teachers that had been flitting in and out of the teacher’s lounge intermittently all morning were commenting on his mood swing. They were unaware that they were still in his earshot, which most certainly did not help his spiraling mind which had decided to point out all the things that could have possibly led to their failure in the future, including a lack of perception and ignorance of simple details.
In fact, he had almost worked himself into an anxiety attack when Nezu had finally popped into the teacher’s lounge just a few minutes before homeroom would start. The sudden appearance dragged the hero from his spiralling thoughts.
“Ah, Aizawa-kun! There you are. I’m afraid that Midoriya opted to have this meeting after school instead, as his mother was holding him back from leaving so early. My apologies for not informing you sooner, although he notified me merely minutes ago,” Nezu assured before scuttling away into the vents.
Aizawa rubbed his eyes once more, sucking in a deep breath and internally chastising himself for getting so worked up. That was the opposite of logical.
Of course the kid’s mother would be protective and worried about her son after a villain attack during school hours.
As such, he reluctantly flushed all his previous thoughts out of his mind and began to make his way to the 1-A classroom, wondering if all the tension and dread he had for this meeting with his student was really merited.
Only time will tell.
And with that, he stepped into his homeroom period and breathed as nineteen soft, worried faces stared at him. The room became silent almost immediately after he entered, the way he had always hoped his students would do to conserve class time, but for some reason this sudden development only made his heart sink.
This was not a change he wanted to happen because of trauma, but there was no going back now. As such, he began his announcements for homeroom, deciding to forgo the dramatics that he usually used to train his students out of being gullible.
Everything seemed to be getting better—the class visibly brightened and grew excited at the prospect of proving themselves at the Sports Festival—but he couldn’t ignore the way several glances were shot toward Midoriya’s empty seat. Aizawa wondered when the kid would get to class, if only to stop the way it felt like he was getting stabbed in the heart every time he saw one of his students clearly afraid of the implications of an empty seat.
That reminded him, Aizawa had no idea how much of the USJ his class had actually seen. It was odd, now that he thought about it. Nobody had debriefed him on the USJ, not even Nezu. He had been swiftly carted away for medical attention, despite his superficial injuries, alongside Midoriya.
He hadn’t once seen whether his kids had even made it out of the USJ grounds before the villains attacked. But what really bothered him was the fact that nobody had told him anything. Was that intentional, or was Aizawa just fucking up by forgetting to ask?
The self-doubt was starting to get very irrational and annoying, but luckily for him, Midoriya chose that exact moment to finally arrive for homeroom, panting and with apologies immediately rolling off his tongue.
Aizawa did his best to simply brush him off, well-aware that Nezu probably excused his tardiness, and repeated his announcements for the day. Midoriya was bobbing his head in acknowledgement as he awkwardly shuffled to his seat, clearly noticing but putting up a valiant effort to ignore the variety of stares from his classmates.
Of course, there was one stare that he couldn’t brush aside.
Bakugou glared daggers into him, even turning around in his seat right in front of Aizawa just to glower at his classmate. But the way he went about it really rubbed the pro hero the wrong way, it was a feeling that he couldn’t quite explain, but it was very real and proved to be an issue almost immediately.
The blonde hero-in-training apparently could no longer hold it all in the moment that his teacher stopped talking, deciding to immediately yell at the poor (time traveling) student about who knows what for who knows why.
“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT, BACK THERE AT THE USJ? JUMPING IN TO SAVE THE DAY LIKE YOU DID BEFORE? YOU’RE STILL LOOKING DOWN ON EVERYONE THE SAME WAY YOU ALWAYS DO! I BET YOU WERE AS USELESS AS YOU WERE THE LAST TIME, DEKU YOU BASTARD!” Bakugou shouted, jumping up from his seat to lean over Midoriya menacingly, getting all up in his face and holding his palm in an awkward position for a reason that Aizawa couldn’t figure out, “AND WHAT THE FUCK’S UP WITH YOUR ‘QUIRK,’ HAH? DID YOU LIKE IT AS YOU SAT BACK AND LIED TO ME FOR YEARS, YOU SON OF A BITCH?!”
Aizawa saw the way that Midoriya’s eyes were practically screaming for help, so he finally intervened (despite being curious about what Bakugou was screaming about), cursing himself for not seeing this exactly for what it was sooner. He activated his quirk and trapped Bakugou in his capture weapon, reminiscent of the way he had done so on the first day, during the fitness tests.
He glowered, pushing all of the anger directed toward himself because he hadn’t addressed this issue despite noticing, into his glare, “Bakugou. I will not tell you again. You are not allowed to attack your classmates. I gave you a chance on the first day, and you wasted it by going over-kill on Midoriya during your battle training with All Might. And now you’ve attacked him again.”
The way Bakugou’s eyes widened and he slightly trembled (in shock? Fear? Aizawa wasn’t sure) pulled the teacher right in the heartstrings. But he had a job to do, and Midoriya didn’t deserve this kind of bullshit, even if his expression had resignation and boredom all over it. So he tightened his grip and forced his mouth into a grimace instead of a snarl.
“Stay after class at the end of the day. You too, Midoriya,” he finished, wondering how the hell he was going to sort this mess out.
And wondering why Bakugou was yelling about lying and quirks and to Midoriya.
Clearly something was going on—beyond Midoriya’s time travel bullshit—but Aizawa wasn’t sure if he wanted to know anymore, despite his increasingly burning curiosity. Something told him that ignorance was bliss in this case. However, he refused to take the easy route, especially since his students would be on the line, possibly paying the price of his mistakes.
But Midoriya’s circumstances weren’t the only strange thing here. The way that Bakugou had looked surprised when he was getting reprimanded and the way there was no anger, only confusion, when he was told to stay after school was worrying.
And if the pinched expression on Kirishima’s face and the slight frown on Todoroki’s lips (which was a lot of expression in comparison to what he’d shown since the first day of school) were anything to go by, this outburst and the way he handled it as a teacher would have repercussions far beyond just a normal disciplinary infraction.
He knew that he would handle this to the best of his ability, as he always had and always would. But part of him still wondered if he was doing the right thing anymore.
Aizawa supposed, as he strolled out of the classroom and shot a text to the other teachers about the issue with a warning that they shouldn’t interact with each other during their classes, that he would find out later that afternoon.