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By the time Aizawa returned, Nezu had gathered plenty of minor, but still particularly relevant details about all of Midoriya’s counterparts. Of course, there was still much left to be discovered, but Nezu had a feeling that there would be plenty of time to accomplish his goals. It was a struggle to reign in his… less than respectful tendency to pry, but he had to remind himself that assessing the extent to which each posed a threat to the safety of UA was the top priority as the principal of this school.
Especially considering the recent events and current circumstances.
Reluctantly, Nezu pulled himself out of his office chair and trotted toward the door. Aizawa wasn’t lying when he mentioned that dreadful meeting he had scheduled with the Hero Commission. He gave a small nod toward one of his favorite members of the staff at UA and trotted away with as close to a frown as he could manage.
He was sure that Eraserhead would be able to manage until he got back, but he still wanted to gather as much information as possible.
Maybe he would check back in with them on the way to his meeting...
Aizawa gave a heavy sigh as he returned to the—frankly—comically large office filled with problem children. As soon as he stepped into the room, Nezu plopped out of his chair and started toward the door. He was only given a nod of acknowledgement that also served as a silent confirmation that the situation was decently low-risk and that he had permission to handle it however he saw fit.
The tired hero rubbed at his eyes as he silently held out the spare uniform to Piper. It didn’t escape his notice how a few of Midoriya’s counterparts seemed to notice his presence at suspiciously different times, nor was he ignorant to their reactions.
Although Nezu had given him the all-clear, something in his gut was telling him that not everything was as it seemed. But regardless of his overactive instincts, it was getting late and he had to figure out where they would stay. His first thought was the 1-A dorms, but that would require informing his homeroom class of the situation.
Yeah, he had the feeling that his batch of problem children would be all over these chaotic children and somehow make a disaster of it. But the only other reasonable alternative would be another dorm on campus, and he didn’t particularly feel like explaining it to classes that he wasn’t in charge of. Plus, it was important to consider how Midoriya—well, all eight of the Midoriyas—felt about it. Chances were that they would all be more comfortable in a familiar environment.
He gave another sigh as he zoned back into the conversation he had been pointedly ignoring up to this point. As expected, Midoriya seemed to have pulled a notebook out of nowhere and was taking notes in his characteristic, over-enthusiastic manner.
“As much as I hate to interrupt… whatever this is,” he drawled unenthusiastically, “There are a few more things we need to get sorted before it gets too late.”
Midoriya flinched in surprise, quickly slamming his notebook shut, “R-right! S-s-sorry sensei!”
At that, Deku raised a single eyebrow while Izuku deflated significantly. Honestly, their individual reactions to every little detail were very interesting. Aizawa couldn’t help but wonder what types of things Nezu was able to pick up on that he was too tired to piece together himself.
He cleared his throat, cursing the fact that he had forgotten to bring coffee with him while supervising at the gym, which led to him missing his coffee for longer than he had originally anticipated. Cursed his short-sightedness.
“Our first order of business is sharing any information that you might find immediately relevant, such as dietary needs, allergies, and things of that sort. Normally extra clothing would be included on that list, but I’m sure I could request Yaoyorozu to assist in this situation, given the short-notice and frankly ridiculous circumstances.”
A few of them gave non-committal noises in response, which irked Aizawa to no end, but he decided to simply take that as none of them had any major issues and move on. He wanted to sleep, dammit!
“Fine, then if there are no issues there, the next order of business would be lodgings-” the tired hero was cut off by the self-proclaimed Problem Child .
“I don’t mind finding my own place to sleep for the night, it’s not really an issue,” he admitted.
Eraserhead raised an eyebrow skeptically, “And where, exactly, would that be?”
He winced internally, hoping he wouldn’t have to give many details about his plans. If Shou knew it was a trash dump then his plans would be ruined, “Well, Dagobah served me well, so I’m sure it would be fine now.”
The current Midoriya winced, “Well uh, the Dagobah beach is actually uh… clean now, so…”
The older Viridian whipped around, “What?! Are you serious?! It was a total mess! Who in their right minds would get that damned pile of shit clean?!” Midoriya scratched his head sheepishly, making Viridian gawk, “Are you fucking with me?! Don’t tell me you cleared all that garbage?! That was my potential home you ruined!”
Aizawa’s eyes flashed red as he activated his quirk, “What do you mean pile of shit? Don’t tell me you were planning on living in a trash dump.”
He just turned to look at his pseudo-brother and blinked owlishly in response, “Well, yeah? Sort of? I don’t really see what the problem is. All it takes is a little—well, okay, a lot of bleach and some determination and it’s livable. It lasted me for months, I still don’t understand why it’s such a big deal to you people!”
They all just looked at him with varying degrees of incredulity, as Aizawa let out the heaviest sigh he had ever breathed.
“Well, I believe finding alternative lodgings won’t be necessary, Viridian-san,” Nezu’s voice interrupted out of nowhere.
Almost all of the Midoriyas flinched while his older, quirkless vigilante-self chuckled, “So you are the same little cryptid in this universe as well. I was beginning to wonder...”
“Nezu, what do you want?” Aizawa groaned, internally wondering if this blasted day was ever going to end.
After the unfairly short walk to the UA dorms, Aizawa promised himself that he would skip patrol for the night and let himself sleep for a full eight hours for once in his miserable, tired existence. Nezu had essentially given him free reign to do whatever he felt like, which was an unspoken agreement when he left, but apparently he felt the need to tell the underground hero verbally.
Personally, Aizawa thought that he had just wanted to study their reactions to his stalker-ish habits, but there were probably at least three other reasons that he wouldn’t even begin to consider.
Nezu was just like that. All of the time.
Apparently, the rat had even noticed that Piper had still been injured—which should have been obvious, given the hospital gown, but to be fair he had been a bit distracted by the literal seven other Midoriyas standing before him. So the principal had told Midoriya— their Midoriya —to take Piper to the infirmary to be treated and to change into the spare uniform.
Aizawa himself had decided to wait until they got back before explaining his plans any further, but the absentminded chatter between the strangers seemed to aggravate him to no end. He just wanted to sleep for once, was that too much to ask?
Luckily for his patience, Midoriya had seemed to notice his bad mood and returned fairly quickly. Actually, it seemed that all of them had picked up on his bad mood—barring the ninja-Midoriya whose bubbly personality was really starting to grate on his nerves—yet most of them reacted in different ways that had his mind spinning and his heart aching.
It was clear that several of them didn’t trust him at all. And he only just realized that Midoriya, his Midoriya , also showed several reactions with his counterparts despite having verbally affirmed his trust in Eraserhead in the past. He thought that all of his students would be willing to trust him, but maybe...
Maybe he was wrong.
It just upset him that it took seeing completely different versions of his student to begin to realize it.
Of course, he kept this realization to himself and hid his emotions behind his tired poker face in order to get this disaster over with and settled as fast as humanly possible.
“Alright, now that that is dealt with, I think it would be best if you stayed in the dorms with my homeroom class. This means that we’ll have to explain the situation, but it should be fine,” he awkwardly gripped his neck, wondering if it really was the best decision.
Eraserhead had to remind himself that these kids stuck together like glue and would probably do almost anything to help a classmate. Especially if that classmate was Midoriya in particular—regardless of whether it was a different version of him, it was still him in the end, and that would be enough for them.
Or so he hoped.
Besides, the Midoriya’s alternate selves should be at least somewhat familiar with his class, so it should all work out. On that note, he could also ask Yaoyorozu to make changes of clothes for them too, if they needed them.
So, he sent a text to Iida and Yaoyorozu telling them to gather the class in the common room for a quick meeting, making sure to let them know that it wasn’t an emergency and that Midoriya was with him.
And so here he was, reluctantly standing by the entrance to Heights Alliance, wondering if there was a better option than this because he really didn’t want to deal with nineteen nosy teenagers. He just had to remind himself that they were all far more mature than they were given credit for—or at least, when the situation called for it. There was no restraint in their immaturity when it came to the peaceful moments, but he could hardly blame them for wanting to forget about their troubles, if only for a little while.
He heaved one last sigh and turned to address the Problem Children awkwardly hovering behind him, “Stay out here for a minute until I come back to get you. I’m going to explain the situation before bringing you inside, just to keep them from asking a million questions before I have the chance to explain.”
Without waiting for their response, he trudged inside and was met with the worried faces of eighteen teenagers and Bakugou’s usual expression.
Even Iida was strangely silent, though Aizawa had noticed the way that his class became more and more sullen in serious moments as the year progressed. Normally he would have purposefully put students in tight spots so that they would learn better habits and take heroics more seriously while they still had UA acting as a safety net. But with this class? If anything, he should force them to relax more often.
But he knew that something bad was coming—it had been obvious for a long time if you were looking close enough—and there was no way he could risk slacking on their training, even if they were only first years.
But that wasn’t the point here. His nineteen students were all staring at him, their undivided attention such a juxtapose from even just a few months ago. It appeared that he wouldn’t have to get their attention like he normally would, at the very least.
Small mercies.
“Alright, class. As you might have guessed, there was a little accident not too long ago,” Aizawa quickly followed up his statement rather than giving a dramatic pause like he normally would, because he knew that Iida, Uraraka, or even Ashido wouldn’t hesitate to interrupt him, “It’s nothing major, so stop with the long faces.”
Iida’s sheepish face was amusing, but time was wasting and he would much rather sleep, thanks.
“We are unsure of the details behind it, but it is most likely the effects of some kind of quirk. It doesn’t appear to be harmful, but it is a handful to deal with.”
Yaoyorozu hesitantly raised her hand, but Eraserhead just kept going.
“ So , I request that you take this seriously and help in any way possible,” he finally paused, still debating about the best way to break the news.
But in his silence, the class couldn’t hold it in anymore and finally burst out with questions so fast that he couldn’t catch a single one. Instead, he decided to lock eyes with Kirishima and, when his gaze was returned, gave him a soft nod.
Using his quirk to get them to shut up, Aizawa sighed, “As there is no tactful way to put this, I’ll just go blunt. Seven different versions of Midoriya from what we assume to be different universes randomly appeared in the middle of Kirishima and Midoriya’s supervised workout. Until we can figure out how to fix it and send them all back, we are going to accommodate them here.”
Luckily, this silence was only met with dumbfounded reactions, so the tired teacher pushed on, “Yaoyorozu, could you make them a change of clothes or two until we can buy suitable replacements? Iida, sort out their placements in the space dorm rooms. Kirishima, show them around and make sure they’re comfortable since they already saw you earlier. The rest of you? Don’t overwhelm them and refrain from making any stupid remarks, even if they say stupid things to you. They are all still Midoriya, treat them as you would treat him.”
The silence in the common room was palpable, and the disbelief that hung in the air could practically be cut with a knife.
With a simple, “Get to it,” Aizawa turned around and shuffled back out the front door to grab the Midoriyas. Kirishima wordlessly followed him, but he could practically feel Bakugou’s scathing glare on his back as he left.
Class 1-A stood in silent shock as Aizawa shuffled out the door, with Kirishima in tow. Although they had been through a lot, it still caught them off-guard to be in the situation they were apparently in now. For most of them, despite the incredible amount of trust they had in their sensei, they couldn’t help but hold doubts.
Midoriya from other universes? That was just insane.
But sure enough, merely a minute after they all watched their teacher leave, several strange-looking Midoriya all awkwardly made their way through the door and entered the common room.
Aizawa just droned a tired, “Well, get to it,” before leaving them behind with the most awkward situation any of them had ever been in before. And seeing as they all had been forced to interact with Monoma at the summer camp, that meant something.
Someone let out an awkward cough, but nobody was really sure who did it. (It was probably Hagakure, since nobody could see her anyway.)
Surprisingly, the one who broke the silence was in fact Bakugou, with all his sass and lack of tact, “I don’t see what the big fucking deal is here. It’s just more stupid Dekus here to annoy the fuck out of us. I’m going to sleep, deal with the extras already.”
After Bakugou’s outburst, the class broke out of their stupor and began showering Midoriya’s counterparts in attention and kindness. Yet, in the middle of the chaotic meet-and-greet, their Midoriya took in a slow, deep breath and slipped out of the common room unnoticed.
Bakugou stood in the shadows, having waited to see what Deku’s reaction would be. He let himself blend into the silence, watching with puzzlement as Midoriya slunk away from the boisterous group without anyone so much as sparing him a glance.
Something was going on here that wasn’t what it seemed, and he didn’t like it one bit.
Midoriya just stared at his friends tiredly, doing his best to hide his disappointment from the realization that Kacchan was going right back to treating him like dirt. He had thought that they had been making progress, but apparently this event was enough to erase all of his efforts. He was so ashamed that he couldn’t even bring himself to meet his counterpart’s eyes either. They had probably all managed to help their Kacchans become so much better than he ever could, so he couldn’t help but feel so inadequate.
Hearing all of their circumstances and choices earlier probably didn’t help with that feeling either. Despite all of them being so fascinating, he knew that they had all handled their circumstances much better than him. After all, a few of them were still quirkless or had useless quirks and held their own in the heroics course! Sure, one of them was a time traveller, but the rest of them? They made it there with their own hard work and effort.
But him? No, he was so clearly a failure. He had to rely on All Might to get anywhere near his dream of heroics. Sure, one was in general studies with an analysis quirk, but that version of him didn’t seem to even want to be a hero, so that wasn’t relevant.
Part of him wanted to ask his other selves so much more about their lives and their quirks, but the rest of him knew that it would only make him realize just how pointless and pathetic his efforts have been.
Several of them had gotten so fed up with how things were that they didn’t stop and wait for anyone else’s approval, instead choosing to take matters into their own hands and becoming vigilantes. He knew that it wasn’t legal and was a questionable decision morally, but at least they had done something.
All Midoriya had gotten from his choices was broken bones and false hope. He could feel his heart sink deeper and deeper as he let himself get drawn into his own head.