Chapter Text
Aizawa internally groaned when Thirteen subtly hinted that All Might had already used up all of his time. That damned fool, can’t even prioritize teaching the students over his own need to help people. There was nothing logical about that man, and it was starting to grate at his nerves. He wasn’t sure he could last the entire year having to put up with the fool of a hero. It didn’t matter how good of a hero he was, the dumbass number one hero couldn’t teach to save his life. Aizawa didn’t want to know what had been going through Nezu’s brain when he had invited the fool to teach at U.A. especially the first years. Why the first years?
Whatever, there was nothing he could do about it now other than pick up the slack and maintain a closer eye on the students in order to gauge their potential and how their motivations changed as the year progressed.
Truthfully, he had been decently impressed by almost all of them. The only stragglers were Midoriya and Mineta. The former had proven himself not to be some prideful idiot who hadn’t bothered to train his powerful quirk, (something felt off there, it seemed like his control was like that of a child who had just manifested his quirk rather than some fool who thought a powerful quirk would be enough to make it easy, but Aizawa didn’t want to ponder the implications of that, so he had decided to put it off a mistake that he wouldn’t realize until it was thrown in his face later). The orb-haired child had potential, but only if someone was able to inspire him and convince him to tone down his… irrational tendencies. But he was shit at that, so Aizawa decided to push that off to a later date as well.
Sue him, he was tired as hell.
And right now? He was supposed to begin teaching his problem-class that rescue and safety was just as important as fighting villains.
With a heavy sigh, Eraserhead was about to turn back to the students and allow Thirteen to give the normal winding speech (which was the most important lesson that should have been drilled into every pro hero’s head until they had recurring dreams about it). Unfortunately some heroes missed the memo. A certain few heroes (new and old) came to mind, but that wasn’t the point here.
But just as he was about to face his students, he heard a strangled cry. He whipped around only to see Midoriya collapse onto the ground and seize in pain. The child who had broken his bones without making so much as a whimper in pain was screaming. If that wasn’t terrifying he didn’t know what was.
He rushed through the group of concerned students that had begun to circle around the Problem Child in order to try and figure out what was happening.
Midoriya was gripping his head, attempting to curl up and push his legs out simultaneously, as though he could either push away or shy away from the pain. He kept jerking around and digging his nails into his hair while the screams died down into wails and, after a few more moments, stopped completely. As soon as his voice petered out, he snapped into awareness like a stretched-out spring being released and froze, still lying on the ground with his hands in his hair.
Aizawa ordered the crowding students to stand by the entrance and give the poor kid some space. Dutifully, Iida directed them alongside Thirteen toward the door with only Bakugou protesting by yelling insults about him and “Deku.”
“Midoriya,” he breathed, “Are you alright?”
Midoriya blinked at him owlishly, “Y-yeah…”
He then sat up, still gripping his head with one hand and using the other to push himself up. Instantly, the resting hand flew to grip his ribs as though he were in pain. There was no reason for him to be in pain there, but Aizawa wasn’t willing to dismiss it as the kid being dramatic.
“A-aizawa-sensei…” he breathed out before something seemed to catch his eye and he froze again with a slightly audible gasp.
“Kid, you just had a seizure, right? Have you had one before?” he pressed his student gently for answers, wondering why it hadn’t been on his medical record.
The Problem Child’s gaze seemed transfixed by his hand, staring at it while rotating, flexing, and clenching it to inspect every part of it. That was an odd thing to do, and the weird feeling Aizawa had was only getting stronger with every insignificant odd thing he noted.
And it only got stranger.
Midoriya finally glanced up and realized where he was, “T-the USJ?”
“Yeah, Midoriya. We’re here on a field trip to learn abou-”
“Fuck! What the fuck?! How the fuck?” he whispered harshly, cutting off Aizawa.
“Kid?” the teacher grabbed his shoulder, suddenly a million times more concerned than he had been before, if that was even possible. Midoriya was cursing? About what? What was so strange about the field-trip he had been aware of? This made no sense, Aizawa was totally lost.
Aizawa opened his mouth to ask a question and, as if on cue, Midoriya’s eyes widened more than should be physically possible. He whipped his head around and saw a black vortex open in the middle of the plaza. What the hell? Villains, here?! Where the hell was All Might when you needed him?!
Quickly, both of them jumped to their feet, ready to fight.
Aizawa yelled back at Thirteen, “Get them out of here! There are villains here!”
He was suddenly glad that he had told them to wait by the entrance earlier, they had a better chance of escaping. But much to his frustration, the Problem Child remained by his side.
“Midoriya, go! Get out of here!” he hissed.
“No! I won’t leave you ag-” he cut himself off and shook his head. When he met his teacher’s eyes, it was clear that his intentions were unshakable.
Without another moment to spare, Eraserhead launched into action in hopes that his student wouldn’t be able to keep up and would give up. Unfortunately, Midoriya was already somehow one step ahead of him. He blinked in surprise when he noticed the green lightning that seemed to radiate off of the Problem Child.
Was that his quirk? What the fuck?
By the time he blinked and reopened his dry eyes, Midoriya had already made it to the plaza and taken out a large group of villains. He landed at the bottom of the steps and stared as the green-haired child moved through the crowd like it was a well-practiced dance. In only a few seconds, he had reached the center of the group with a path of knocked out and mildly injured villains in his wake. He seemed to be targeting a man in the center, the one that appeared to be the leader.
Then, a massive man that looked unnatural as hell shot toward his student. It was just as fast as All Might, but Aizawa couldn’t do anything to help because the villains finally identified him as a threat and began to circle him like predators.
Fighting through the group by using their quirks against each other, he did his best to ignore the sounds of an intense fight. Just as he slammed a woman’s face into the ground, the purple void from earlier appeared under some of the villain’s feet and they disappeared.
Now with fewer opponents, Eraserhead managed to knock out almost all of the villains in a matter of minutes. As soon as he was able to risk glancing away from the fight, he whipped his head around looking for his student, only to find him holding his ground against that monster. From the corner of his eye, a man clad in the purple mist appeared next to the leader and seemed to report something that made the leader angry.
Unfortunately, he had gotten distracted watching the villains interact and a villain charged him last minute. He whipped around, but he could tell that he had reacted too slow. Dammit!
A green blur flew past his face in an instant, knocking the villain aside before darting around and knocking all the villains who had apparently gotten back to their feet while Aizawa’s back had been turned.
Aizawa couldn’t do anything but gape as his student skillfully defeated every last villain in the area. The stuttering, anxious mess from day one was nowhere to be seen. Instead, this child almost looked like a monster with the crackling energy resided as an aura around him, making his eyes practically glow as he glowered.
All that happened in an instant, but the inhuman thing seemed to follow after Midoriya, stealing back his focus. But now, with all of his previous opponents down, Aizawa was able to focus on the leader.
He sprinted forward and slammed into the villain covered in hands.
The mist villain shouted out in surprise, “Shigaraki!”
Noting the name in the back of his mind, Aizawa tried to pin him. As soon as he nailed the villain on the ground, the black mist swirled around them and he could feel himself falling.
His first instinct was to tighten his grip on the villain, but that seemed to be a mistake without the leverage of gravity and the support of the ground beneath to keep him restrained. An awful sensation began to crawl up his wrist, and he activated his quirk on reflex. It stopped, but not after he felt blood beginning to run and the bruising grip of the villain’s fingers on his ravaged wrist.
The darkness disappeared, and they seemed to drop back onto the ground in the USJ, just on the far side of the plaza that they were out of the line of fire of any other fighting. As they fell, the villain tried to maneuver himself to land on top of Aizawa, but the hero quickly activated his capture weapon to restrain his movements.
Slamming the villain into the ground, he was able to knock him out and tie him up. After giving an extra hit to the pressure point in the neck for good measure, Eraserhead spared a glance toward the chaos of the plaza.
He couldn’t locate his student until—wait a minute, what the fuck were those?!
An unknown quirk, his first thought was a villain’s quirk (which made his heart race: it seemed very dangerous and versatile), began to surge up from the middle of the crowd of villains.
At first it appeared to be out of control, slamming around and generally having no pattern to it. But after a few moments, it began to shrink a bit and move in a more focused, intentional manner.
That realization finally snapped him out of his stupor and he ran over to try and save his inexperienced student from such a dangerous and unknown quirk. But when he made it close enough to see, he realized his assumptions were mistakes.
The black tendrils were coming from his student. His student with a strength enhancement quirk. Not whatever the fuck this was supposed to be.
His panic and confusion left him frozen to the spot as he watched his brand new student utilize the black tendrils to grab villains and slam them around or just immobilize them. Midoriya even began to use them to fling himself around, utilizing angular momentum to maximize his power and speed.
At one point, a villain managed to sever one of the tendrils from Midoriya, and Aizawa noticed how the teenager recoiled a bit in pain but continued to fight. Instead of trying to replace the tendril, he suddenly became enveloped in—green sparks?
Aizawa’s head was spinning as he tried to comprehend what the hell was going on. His student had some kind of secondary quirk that had nothing to do with the first, maybe a third quirk if the sparks meant anything, and seemed to be able to control his power perfectly. A far cry from the inexperienced and anxious child he had almost expelled on the first day.
In all, the fight took only a few minutes. Midoriya darted around with quirk-enhanced speed and used his momentum and the black tendrils to fling himself around in order to avoid the monster’s attacks. All while subduing and immobilizing the large crowd of villains.
Sure, the kid had lost focus or hadn’t been quite fast enough to dodge a few attacks, but he was handling himself like a pro-hero.
Something else was going on here, but that didn’t change the fact that he just witnessed Midoriya use one of the unoccupied black tendril and the monster’s own incredible momentum to swing it completely out of the USJ.
Aizawa stood there with his jaw on the floor as Midoriya stood, retained his hold on the villains, and panted from exhaustion.
Just a few moments later, All Might came bursting through the doors with a glare on his face. An expression which quickly morphed into pure surprise at the unexpected scene before him.
Eraserhead was tempted to laugh at the awe-struck expression, but if he was being honest, he felt the same way.
“M-Midoriya-shounen!” All Might called out in shock.
Midoriya just grit his teeth and shook his head. Aizawa walked closer and finally noticed the insane amount of sweat that was pouring down his face as well as how violently his arms were shaking from exertion. He immediately switched his leisurely walk into a sprint until he reached his student’s side.
All Might also did the same once he got over his shock, launching himself down the entire staircase in one bold leap.
“Midoriya,” Aizawa got out, breathlessly, “What the hell was that?”
All Might, in all of his late glory, continued, “Midoriya-shounen! What happened here? Aizawa-kun, what—”
Eraserhead glared at him fiercely to get him to shut up before he said something stupid. Just as the Symbol of Peace began to open his mouth, the cavalry arrived.
All of the available pro-heroes on campus stormed in dramatically, only to be met with the sea of defeated villains being restrained by one first year.
As the heroes started bickering in surprise and making their way towards the plaza, Aizawa noticed Midoriya materialize another black tendril that stretched back to the main leader villain. He had forgotten about the leader, he was a pro-hero and he had forgotten but his student had remembered. Fuck!
But that attention-grabbing motion also returned Aizawa’s attention back to his student. It was then that he realized just how exerted Midoriya was. His arms, still outstretched and gripping the tendrils tightly, were shaking so much that Aizawa began to worry about them giving out.
All Might, however, appeared to be completely blind to this as he blurted out shit about how amazing Midoriya had been.
Yes, Midoriya had been impressive, but couldn’t the number one hero tell that this child was mere seconds from completely blacking out?! Did he have no observational skills, or was he just trying to achieve some other goal here?
“All Might!” Eraserhead barked, “Shut the fuck up. Midoriya’s about to pass out on us, and your blabbering isn’t helping in the slightest. Go help the others apprehend the villains so this kid can let go. The sooner, the better. Now go be useful you absolute buffoon!”
Looking thoroughly scolded, All Might scurried away like a child that had just been been caught passing notes in class.
Focusing back on his student, Aizawa quickly assessed the rest of his condition. Aside from the obvious physical and quirk exhaustion, Midoriya was sporting very few injuries overall. The main things were a few nicks and cuts from villains who had gotten in a lucky shot or two, alongside a few bruises peeking out from under his uniform.
Then Midoriya began to sway on his feet, his eyes now half-lidded and his arms just barely fighting off going limp at his sides.
He softened his voice as he observed his colleagues and a few police officers cuffing the villains, “Hey, kid. You did good. Just hold on for a few more minutes and then you can rest.”
A nod.
“You did good...” he repeated, softer, as the adrenaline drained from his body and his mind finally caught up with him.
This could have gone so much worse.