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It was honestly the quietest that class 1-A had been ever since they had gotten together for the first time. A few students were softly talking to each other but even Kaminari and Sero seemed burnt out as they idly talked about some forgettable video game that had come out recently.
Trauma did that to people.
Every student there had thought at least at one point that they were going to die at the USJ. Either alone in the different disaster zones or fighting at the entrance against the teleportation villain, death had been around every corner.
Even days later, sitting in class, surrounded by their very much living classmates, most were still on-edge from the memories.
The mood didn’t change much when Shinsou walked in, not that it was a problem. Just another kid weighed down by what had happened. He made a beeline for Midoriya, sitting backward in Bakugou’s chair like it was nothing.
“Do you have any info on Mr. Yagi's condition?”
Midoriya startled when Shinsou spoke as it was the loudest noise anyone had made since entering the classroom. It caught everyone else’s attention too.
“No one was telling you anything?” Midoriya asked softly but still incredulously. “We just almost watched our teacher die and UA gave you all nothing outside of the fact that he’s alive?”
“Stable. They said he was stable the day after but that can change in an instant with people in bad conditions. I never heard anything else. Did any of you?”
He called the last part to the rest of the class who in turn all shook their heads or mumbled some form of “no”.
“See?”
Midoriya swore in English under his breath, hands stimming as he started to get deep into his thoughts.
“We can figure out how to cuss out Nedzu later. But we need updates now.”
Before Midoiya could say anything, the door slid open again, this time introducing Mina who, rather than morose like the rest of them, seemed pumped and smiley.
“What’s up with everybody? Unless something happened and I didn’t get the memo, nobody died. So what’s up with the funeral atmosphere? I think surviving all of that is something to at least be happy about.”
When it seemed that Shinsou was going to snap at her, Midoriya grabbed his arm and frowned at him. At least as harshly as Midoriyaa could glare. Thankfully it was enough to calm the flashfire of anger that had welled up in Shinsou’s chest.
Midoriya spoke up. “I was just going to update everyone on Mr. Yagi-”
“Why would you have that info but not us?” Ashido asked, voicing the question everyone else had. “Like, it’s a bit too early in the year to be a teacher’s pet to that degree.”
Bakugou slammed the door open marching in. “Because Mr. Yagi is his godfather, dipshits. Don’t be fucking rude.”
Shinsou, as he slowly and casually got out of Bakugou’s seat, shot Bakugou an unamused expression that was returned with the crackle of explosions.
“Don’t be mean, Kaachan,” Midoriya mumbled, not having the heart to genuinely scold him.
Ashido practically ran up to his desk. “Oh my gosh, Midoriya, that must have been awful for you. Are you okay?”
You could hear Bakugou mumble, “Now you’ve done it,” as the tears freely welled up in Midoriya’s emerald eyes, falling in rivers down his cheeks as he hiccupped, futilely trying to shake off the emotion.
“Midoirya,” Uraraka gasped, forcing her way around the other students to kneel next to his desk. Shinsou followed her lead and jumped up to sit on his desk so he could casually touch his shoulder to let Midoriya know he was there. Even Bakugou, who looked moderately uncomfortable, turned around in his seat to look at him.
Midoriya tried to catch his breath in between tears and speak but was pushed to allow himself a moment before he needed to speak.
“D-dad’s still fine. He’s not coming in today because he didn’t have enough energy to be healed that far. His mouth is still wired shut from his broken jaw so he can’t really speak all that well but he took the time to give me another sign language lesson.”
Midoriya smiled, tears still dripping from his eyes.
“Sorry I’m such a cry baby.”
“Fuck anybody who says you aren’t allowed to cry about your dad almost dying,” Shinsou growled, tightening his hold on Midoriya’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry about it dude,” Kaminari called over the shoulder of Shinsou. “I cried too once the shock wore off. Did you see what those Amped up villains could do? They were horrifying. Ah, no offense Ashido.”
Ashido, the only one in the class who had ever experienced Amp firsthand didn’t seem that bothered. “None taken, I would have been horrified if I was a bystander during my attack so I can’t criticize. The worst I got out of it was learning I had dissolved all my clothes in public even if Mom and I were alone at that point. I do appreciate the dragon aesthetic though.”
She emphasized that point by running her finger along the new line of hard scales on down her nose and the spots on her cheeks.
“I like the changes with your horns,” Hagakure added, startling those who had overlooked her.
“Thanks. I feel a little less ridiculous than when I was toting around tiny useless horns. Amp could’ve been sold as a cosmetic if it didn’t make you go nuts and make your quirk a little crazy.”
“Can we not,” Shinsou jumped in. “We’re talking about the drug the villains used to try to kill our teachers.”
“Well-”
For the final time that morning, the door slid open revealing a man who was a stranger to most of the class, causing them all to freeze. If going by appearances, between the scruffy hair falling into his eyes, the dark bruises under his eyes, and the thick striking scars visible on his face made him look villainous. It didn’t help that he was just wearing a tracksuit and something that looked very similar to Shinsou’s capture weapon.
The students were 1.4 seconds away from a fight before someone let the present catch up to him.
“Mr. Aizawa,” Midoriya asked in a clearer but not clear voice.
Their teacher’s eyes were drawn to the voice, visibly reacting to Midoiya’s blotchy face and red eyes.
“Midoriya, do you need to take a moment outside? You won't be punished for it and your classmates can get you caught up later. Even if you need to go home for the day.”
“Oh, thank you but I don’t need to, I’m fine enough.”
His smile must have been unconvincing because Mr. Aizawa frowned a little bit harder.
“Your father, hospitalized or not, would have my head if he heard you stayed in class when you weren’t doing well. Are you sure?”
Hitoshi spoke over Midoriya, shooting Mr. Aizawa a glare. “Are you using Midoriya’s selflessness to guilt him into taking care of himself? Smart, but Mr. Yagi would be ten times as pissed if he heard you forced Midoriya into leaving.”
Aizawa’s eye twitched almost imperceptibly as he stared Shinsou down with a tense look. His gaze didn’t waver until Shinsou slipped off his desk and actually into the seat.
“Anyway,” Aizawa mumbled, turning back to Midoriya. “If you need a moment at any point, tell me and you can either just go in the hall or to Recovery Girl’s office.”
Midoriya nodded, honestly a little confused at the accommodating treatment but not unhappy with it.
When Aizawa spoke next, you could hear a distinct change between his softer voice and his ‘I’m your teacher now shut up’ voice.
“As for the rest of you, take your seats and listen up. My name is Aizawa Shouta and I’m going to be your teacher until further notice when Mr. Yagi is well enough to return and he will return. ”
It was enough to relax the students into a moment of openness. A single hand shot up in the air and all Aizawa had to do was frown and Kaminari immediately brought it back down.
“Anyway, just as a warning. Present Mic guilt-tripped me into substituting. I have no idea how to teach children. The only time I usually interact with kids your age is dragging them back home to tell their moms about their shoplifting attempt or when I’m dragging them to a hospital for drug usage. So can I expect the class reps to keep an eye on everything?”
Iida practically shot out of his chair, single hand raised into the air despite the fact that everyone’s attention was already on him.
“Of course, sir! We will endeavor to be the best representation of the UA hero course!”
Aizawa nodded, moving behind the teacher’s desk. After a minute of messing around, he produced a stack of papers.
“As far as I’m aware, you have your first research project for hero studies to work on. The due date has been extended to Friday. You should have all of your sources by the end of today and a rough draft by Wednesday. You’ll be reviewing each other’s work on Thursday. Any questions?”
He immediately regretted asking that without stipulations.
“Are you a pro hero?”
“Is that a capture weapon?”
“Are you Shinsou’s father?”
The questions went to a screeching halt as everyone turned to Todoroki who was just calmly watching Aizawa, waiting for an answer. Even Mr. Aizawa seemed thrown off by the question as he said nothing for a moment.
“No, I am not Shinsou’s father. I am teaching him how to use his capture weapon-” he paused to nod at Kirishima who had asked that question. “-but we are not related.”
“He’s an underground hero,” Shinsou piped up, ignoring the look Aizawa shot him. “You wouldn’t find much on Eraserhead just through Google. Sorry Midoriya.”
Aizawa staunchly ignored Jiro’s mumble of, “Like the band?” in favor of continuing.
“I’m not one for the spotlight and my quirk works best if you don’t know what it is before I use it. I might not have my own action figures but my villain takedown numbers are higher than most of your teachers. You might’ve applied to UA picturing yourself as a public hero but some of you have the potential to be great underground heroes.”
“Uh,” Kirishima faltered. “You just met us, how do you know that? Has Shinsou been telling you everything?”
Aizawa huffed a laugh, allowing him to bring out his too-wide grin. “I know a lot of things I shouldn’t. Like Ashido is trying to incorporate breakdancing into her fighting style-” he hesitated to give her a moment to register the comment. “-and Tokoyami needs to work on communicating with Dark Shadow rather than trying to control them.”
It was silent for half a beat before Dark shadow burst forward, reaching past Koda and Iida to get close to Mr. Aizawa who had come back around the desk.
“I like this guy,” they decided, looping their ‘arm’ around Aizawa’s shoulder despite the face he made.
Tokoyami hissed something at Dark Shadow, causing them to do their version of a pout before retreating but not before growling something intelligible back.
Before anyone could ask about it, Aizawa started talking again.
“Just get to work. I can lead you to some credible sites if you’re stuck on that part but otherwise you should start writing.”
The students easily did as they were told, even with a little grumbling and complaints, pulling out their laptops and whatever they had come up with before everything happened.
Aizawa, calm and calculated as always, paused and turned to address the class again.
“I forgot to mention. Apex will be out today because of certain issues. So I’m going to be teaching that class too.”
Startling everyone, Shinsou huffed out a laugh, his smile almost sinister.
“Just so you know, Eraserhead never gives anything 100 percent in a fight. Good luck everyone.”
“Bakugou.”
The aforementioned student startled a bit before glaring at the substitute teacher. The man hadn’t done anything but talk and stare blankly at everyone since training had started.
So Bakugou might not have been paying attention. So what? He wasn’t an idiot, he already knew how to subdue an opponent and this guy just. kept. talking. So of course Bakugou was allowed to gripe a bit about it being boring.
“What,” he snapped back, crossing his arms in defiance.
From the slight twitch of his eye, at the very least, Shinsou could see that Bakugou fucked up.
“If you think this is arbitrary to you, then you obviously can take me down, very easily. Right?”
Objectively, Bakugou knew he was being baited. If they were fighting at full strength, a pro would probably be able to overcome him easily. But even so, this guy didn’t know what Bakugou could do and thus he had the element of surprise.
“Fine. But I’m not holding back.”
“Considering this is training, I would expect you to know to use non-lethal force,” Aizawa droned, eyebrows pinching a bit.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s just get on with it,” Bakugou barked.
Mr. Aizawa grumbled something about whether Bakugou would be talking to Apex in the same way but still gestured for Bakugou to get in the ring while the rest of the class retreated to their spectator seats.
He didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry. Practically meandering his way into the ring. The frustration on Bakugou’s face while watching this slow procession was palatable.
If Bakugou could hear Midoriya’s mumbling, he’d probably rethink his actions as Midoriya correctly guessed that Mr. Aizawa was trying to rile Bakugou up before the fight so that he’d make more mistakes.
But instead, he just kept stewing in his own emotions.
“Your goal here is to subdue your opponent,” Aizawa called to Bakugou. “Normally moving your opponent out of bounds is acceptable but not with today’s lesson. Use your capture tape if you need to.”
Bakugou opened his mouth to retaliate but was cut off by a buzzer sounding off and a semi-grainy recording of Present Mic’s voice shouting, “Begin!”
Surprisingly fast for a first-year hero-hopeful, Bakugou got over his surprise and launched himself forward, explosions sending him flying.
Mr. Aizawa, even as other students ducked and covered their ears, didn’t even flinch. He casually watched the student get closer as if he didn’t have 140 pounds of rage and nitroglycerin hurtling towards him.
What happened next was too fast for most of the class to catch. The expectation was for Aizawa to whip out his capture weapon and try to slow him down or change his direction. Shinsou would probably do it like that so what could possibly be different?
A sharp flash of red light and Bakugou dropped like a rock. Rolling with the momentum, he managed to scramble to his feet but he was obviously a little disoriented which left him wide open to Aizawa’s next move.
Aizawa’s capture weapon, which must have been lighter than Shinsou’s considering how flowy it was, rose from his shoulders. Long locks of ash-black hair joined in rising up, revealing glowing red eyes and a stern but unbothered expression.
Before Bakugou could react, Aizawa with both hands on a seemingly random spot on the length of woven alloy, snapped the cloth in just a way that it looped around Bakugou’s torso and immediately tightened, trapping his arms to his body.
Apparently the strand around one of his forearms was not tight enough as he managed to yank an arm free just enough to aim his palm at Aizawa. It was silent as the students held their breaths and no explosions went off.
Bakugou barely got out half a confused swear before he was yanked to the ground, his free arm re-pinned, and a thick combat boot resting on his back.
The effect of Mr. Aizawa’s quirk must have dropped when his hair did because Bakugou immediately started cracking explosions just large enough to hear but not enough to do damage to his own body.
The rest of the students couldn’t hear what was said as Aizawa got off of him and coaxed him to sit up while he untied the bindings. It left them all switching between staring at each other and at the spot where Bakugou just lost a match in less than a minute.
Midoriya, being himself, must have been dying for his journals as he was mumbling a mile a minute, eyes locked on the arena but not really seeing past the images conjured in his head.
When Mr. Aizawa and Bakugou finally came back, it took all the self-preservation the class had to not start shouting every question on their minds. Thanks to Aizawa’s patented ‘shut up and listen’ stare, they were silent when he started speaking.
“Now that you’ve had a demonstration, I supposed I should explain my quirk.”
His lips curled back in a smile that was just a bit too wide with eyes that just didn’t quite express enough emotion. This combined with the fight that just happened was enough to make several students shiver.
“My quirk’s name is Erasure.”
“Wait, that guy is Apex? I thought he was Eraserhead!” Kirishima hissed as the whole country watched in horror as Apex/Eraserhead/Aizawa faced off against the monster of a man throwing what must have been a dozen quirks at him.
“It must be a secret identity,” Todoroki mumbled, eyes unfocusing as he tried to process what was going on.
Midoriya glanced over to the rest of their group as they all were fixated on the screen, watching their teacher pummel and get pummeled in turn, slowly growing weaker and weaker. Even though he just got out of the League's capture, he couldn’t help but feel terrified for them.
Shinsou had a death grip on his arm, breathing too quickly and heavily to be good for him. What Midoriya really wanted to do was drag them all closer but he couldn’t move, frozen as he watched Apex throw a final punch, his arm bugling with unnatural muscle.
There was a moment of silence from the crowd, everyone watching the screen in fear as the dust settled.
Despite everything, Aizawa was left standing, a breathless moment passing before he raised his fist to the sky in victory. The crowd around the students and numerous crowds around Japan roared in celebration. Friends hugging friends, families pulling each other close, even strangers looked to each other for support if they were alone.
Strangely, out of everyone, the clearest voice Midoriya could hear was Shinsou’s.
Watching uncommon tears running down the poor guy’s face, Midoriya made a split-second decision. He grabbed the closest classmate, who happened to be Shoto, and pulled both him and Shinsou into a hug.
They both seemed a bit stunned but even though they weren’t hugging back, he could feel them physically relax. It took only a second for the other students to notice the group hug and join in. Everyone on the rescue squad, including Bakugou who was dragged over, joined in on the hug.
It was a nice moment but was interrupted by a sudden silence washing over the crowd.
The students looked up in a mixture of horror and awe as Apex, battered and bloodied to hell, raised his head and turned to the closest news camera. He raised a single hand and pointed at what felt like directly at every person watching.
“You’re next.”
Everything must have come crashing down on him because suddenly, his knees buckled and Shinsou fell limp to his knees.
They ended up having to stand around for a while as the police struggled to contain the chaos. No cars were getting in easily and so Midoriya couldn’t be taken to the hospital quite yet. Though he insisted there were more important emergencies than him.
“I said I had a man-crush on Apex in front of him.”
Kirishima startled them all so badly that Todoroki’s shirt started smoking and Iida’s engines revved once. Despite the dirty looks he was being shot, Kirishima was unaware, just looking mortified at the idea of being called out for a man crush.
“Dunce Face made a joke about if Eraserhead showered or not,” Bakugou mumbled. “I bet he’s losing his shit right now whining about how he insulted Apex.”
Shinsou, despite very obviously not being alright, choked out a laugh, grinding wildly at Bakugou’s bad imitation of Kaminari’s voice. When they all looked over at him, he made a split-second decision.
“I swear, you all are blind. A long and dark-haired man with stubble and a cold and rough personality comes into class, the exact same height as Apex, knows us all by name without calling role, catches Kamniari before he can even start ‘chain tasering’ us without prior knowledge, easily kicks our asses during training...Did you really not notice or was I not the only one being polite by not spilling?”
Watching most of them look at him in horror was almost worth trying to simultaneously suppress laughter and tears. But to his surprise, Midoriya joined in.
“Yeah, he even has similar speech patterns. His dialect is clearly a mixture of speaking patterns from Okinawa and Ehime.”
“What the heck guys,” Kirishima blurted out, laughing nervously. “Was it that easy to tell or you have you been stalking this poor guy for a while?”
Midoriya in all his comedic glory looked Kirishima dead in the eye and said, “No comment.”
There was a moment where it felt like everyone was holding their breath, all staring at the two like they were aliens fresh from Venus.
Then Bakugou spoke for all of them.
“What the fuck?”