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Shouta was glad that Nedzu’s salary had been sheared slightly in the recent years.
He was doubly glad he had asked for those funds to be sent into reconstruction costs, and the school had agreed.
He sighed, glaring at his two most problematic students, his eye twitching with every drop of water coming from the hole in the wall.
“So,” he began, seeing his students flinch slightly at his tone, “you decided to test the limits of Eri’s quirk. I get that.”
He took a deep breath through his nose.
“Why, exactly, was the only way to test this by blasting a hole in the wall, Izumi-kun?”
He finished with his trademark deadpan, raising an eyebrow as Kota shuffled from foot to foot under Shouta’s gaze, Eri trying her best to muffle her giggles in the high collar of her gym uniform.
“Aizawa-sensei…” Kota began, trying to wipe his perpetually-wet hands off on his pants, “respectfully, this is really all your fault.”
Shouta sighed as his headache lessened ever-so-slightly, groaning as he lowered himself into a chair in the lounge, his cane wobbling slightly.
His blond coworker snorted, checking over the twenty folders in front of him for the thousandth time as he talked.
“Y’know Aizawa, you should really be proud of your students for showing such initiative.” The man said, “training with their quirks before the year even starts.”
Shouta lazily flipped him off, and the man chuckled, opening one particularly well-weathered file once again. Shouta’s curiosity eventually won out over his detached persona, as it did frustratingly often these days, and he grunted, tilting his head towards the file the other man was browsing through.
“Hm?” The other man said, glancing up at the noise.
“Oh,” he continued, fluent in Shouta-speak by now, “Emiko Onaji. She got in on Edgeshot of all people’s recommendation, and her quirk just seems like a tricky one to get under control.
“Countless applications if mastered, certainly, but extremely precise and strenuous to maintain. I can see why she was put in my class, but I wonder if she’ll even be willing to listen to me, considering how easily my quirk comes to me…”
The man began to mumble to himself, leaning back in his seat and blowing his bangs out of his face. Shouta sighed, groaning as he slowly stood up; then he walked over and placed his hand on the other man’s shoulder.
“If I knew you were going to copy his mumbling,” Shouta began, a truly subtle note to his voice indicating he was teasing, “I’d never have recommended all the quirk training with Deku.”
The man chuckled, rolling his eyes fondly and reaching out to grab Shouta’s wrist, the skin contact sending a temporary small buzz through Shouta like it always did when his power got copied. The man reached up and rolled back his sleeve, revealing seven wristwatches lining his forearm, and pushed a button on one of them.
“Thanks for the top-off anyway,” Neito said, fixing his bangs and tossing a radiant smile towards Shouta. Shouta scoffed and began to make his way back over to his favorite chair.
“And,” Neito added, standing and gathering all of the incoming Class 1-A’s folders, “for teaming me up with Deku so much.”
Shouta rolled his eyes. “You did that yourself. You know that.”
“Still, I’m where I am today because of you and Kan-sensei.”
“You are his equal now, y’know.”
“Don’t think I’ll ever be able to shake the habit, respectfully.” Neito said, grinning. He stretched, his back popping, as Shouta settled into his chair again. As Neito began to head for the door, Shouta spoke quietly.
“You’ll do amazing, kid.” He said quietly. Neito stopped, not turning back. “I have faith in you. You’re really living up to your potential.”
Shouta heard Neito take a deep breath, then saw him nod to himself, exiting the lounge with purpose. In that moment, Shouta saw once again the transition from Neito Monoma, stuck-up and egotistical high school student, to Phantom Thief, respected underground hero and fledgling heroics teacher.
If Shouta had a small smile on his face as he settled down for a nap, that was nobody’s business but his own.
Kudo was nervous.
Well, nervous was a massive understatement, actually. Kudo felt like her heart was tap-dancing out of her chest while simultaneously tying her stomach up into knots, and she was breaking out into a cold sweat, trembling as she stood before the massive gates of the school. The building had been rebuilt an enormous number of times in the nine or so years since its first destruction, so it was even shinier and newer and richer than ever and ohgodwhatwassheevendoinghere-
She smacked her cheeks, tearing herself out of her thoughts in the way her therapist taught her, and took a deep breath. She shook out her hands, the comforting sound of her fingertips clacking together a soothing balm to her mind, and squeezed her eyes shut as she forced herself over the threshold, slowly opening her eyes after no alarm went off. She let out a breath she hadn’t known that she’d been holding, nodding to herself. First step of the day completed. The panic was definitely still there, but she continued to move her shaking feet forward. It wasn’t like this was her first time on the campus, but it all felt more real now that today was the beginning of classes.
She was proud of her progress as she made slow but consistent progress, nearly reaching the front door already. She tentatively wrapped her hand around the handle, taking another shaky deep breath.
“Okay,” she mumbled to herself, nodding, “make dad proud. Easy-peasy.”
She tried to convince herself it really would be easy as she yanked the door opened quickly, forcing herself to practically bolt inside.
It was real.
It was UA.
It was her Hero Academia.
She took her first steps down the hall.
Keisuke didn’t think he was nervous.
Honest, he didn’t! He had always sweated a lot, and his heart always got that kind of shaky feeling whenever he went anywhere new, but he just used it as determination to fuel himself to keep going. That’s what he had always told himself, repeating Deku’s words in his mind.
“While it’s important to stop and think,” the Number 1 Hero had said at some talk show or another while Keisuke was in middle school, “true heroes can take whatever normally makes you hesitate, all of that fear and self-doubt, and turn it into strength that pushes you forward! It sounds cliché, I know, but I believe what I’ve always believed!”
“Anyone can be a hero,” Keisuke muttered to himself, nodding firmly. Sure, his quirk had activated accidentally, and the metal of the doorknob was now creeping up his wrist, but he clamped down on the spreading, pulling the door open.
He took his first steps down the hall.
Zurui was not nervous.
Her breathing was calm, her stance steady as she walked up to the polished, shiny building. She touched the doorknob, ignoring the millions of thoughts immediately flooding her head with practiced ease.
She had a mission here, and the resolve to make sure nothing would get in her way.
She tugged open the door.
She began to step down the hall.
When Kudo slid aside the truly massive door, she wasn’t sure what exactly she was expecting to find.
However, it certainly was not the chaos that greeted her.
A bright line of blue dashed around the classroom, almost too fast for her eyes to follow, barely avoiding the desks as it slid across the floor, covered in what looked like an oil slick.
A boy in a Stetson hat attempted repeatedly to wrap what looked like some kind of rope around the blur, but he consistently misjudged the distance, the rope falling behind the blur onto the slippery floor. A smaller boy was crouched on top of one of the desks, flicking some form of white liquid off of his fingers and all over the desk. Pro Hero Kamui Woods stood in the corner, also attempting to wrangle whatever was sliding around with his wooden branches, though they seemed to be moving slower than the Number Eight Hero was capable of.
Many of the people already in the room were shouting, lining the edges of the room away from the oil and trying to get the blue line to stop moving, but what stood out to Kudo most was the only ocean of calm in the sea of destruction.
A man sat at the front of the classroom, feet propped up on the teacher’s desk and hands occupied by thumbing through what looked like a tabloid of some kind. The headline boldly proclaimed that Deku and Freezerburn were breaking up, and the man was highlighting some of the words inside. He had artfully tousled blond bangs, gentle blue eyes, and was wearing what appeared to be a full tuxedo, with long tails trailing off behind him.
“Um, sir?” Kudo asked, having inched over closer to the solitude of the desk.
“Hm?” The man looked up at her, seemingly bored. Kudo didn’t know what to say, so she hesitantly pointed toward the 15 or so excited students.
The man raised an eyebrow at her, then flicked his tabloid slightly, sniffing and pointedly turning his attention away from her, back to the paper. Kudo looked around nervously. It was a clear dismissal.
The bell rang, shrilly cutting through the chaos, but not diminishing it. Many pairs of eyes turned towards the man with his feet up, but he gave no indication he had even heard, chuckling to himself softly as he highlighted another line.
“We could use a little help, here!” Shouted a boy with a modified version of the uniform. He appeared to be wearing shorts, and Kudo could see why. His calves were huge and boxy, starting out enormous just under his knee and tapering to a point at his feet.
Kudo turned to the blond man, expecting a response, but he gave no indication he had even heard the boy. Kudo huffed, turning back towards the chaos. It appeared all of the stragglers had appeared, and the room was packed with people trying to stay away from the center of the room, where the blur was still racing about, somehow seeming even faster.
Everyone nervously looked around. Nobody was doing much, mostly muttering or shouting among themselves and steering clear, aside from the boy with the rope and Kamui Woods. Kudo would have loved to freak out and fangirl over one of THE Top Ten being in her classroom, but she was unfortunately a bit preoccupied. Her heart racing, she edged her way along the edge of the room, sidling up to the Pro hero.
“Sorry about this, Mr. Woods,” she began, reaching towards him, “But you’re really the only way I can use my quirk properly.”
Kamui turned towards her, seemingly about to speak, but Kudo touched his arm and funneled her quirk into him before he could get a word out.
The effect was instantaneous.
Kamui’s arm veritably exploded, the bough of a maple erupting from his skin and immediately occupying the classroom. The branches snaked their way into the central area, the leaves and wood groaning and snapping as the blue streak crashed into them, eventually letting out an “oof” as he was tangled up and stopped, revealing himself to be a teenage boy in the UA uniform with tough, cobalt-blue skin and thicker shoes.
The classroom was abruptly quiet other than the rustling of the leaves and Kudo’s panting of exertion from using her quirk so rapidly. Then a beep sounded. All eyes turned towards the front of the room, the man standing and stretching, his sleeve rolled up to reveal a march of wristwatches, as he tossed his tabloid on to the desk.
“Almost five whole minutes,” the man said, clicking his tongue softly.
He walked in front of his desk, leaning back against it and addressing the class, seemingly unbothered by the half of a tree invading the classroom.
“Honoka-kun, five points extra credit. Nagenawa-kun and Onaji-kun, three points.” He said, nodding to Kudo on the first statement, then to the boy with the rope and Kamui Woods.
“Um,” called a voice, breaking the stunned silence of the classroom.
The blue boy tangled up in the branches awkwardly spoke up, “C-can someone help me get untangled?”
The blond man scoffed, rolling up his other sleeve. Several voices in the classroom let out a gasp as Deku’s signature Blackwhip escaped from the boy’s skin, wrapping around the blue boy and gently extricating him. The man shot a significant glance at the blue boy and set him down next to himself before letting the black tendrils of energy fade. Soon, a new energy began to coalesce around him, surrounding his hands and hair with purple-ish smoke. The same smoke began to appear around the floor, and Kudo watched with her jaw dropped as the tree began to sink into it. After most of the branches had disappeared through the portals, the blonde man let it fade before starting up the Blackwhip again, setting desks back into place and neatly arranging name placards on top of each. The blond man stood casually the whole time, almost bored as he easily corrected all of the chaos and made the classroom spotless in less than fifteen seconds.
“Now,” he said, the rest of the class watching silently as he turned, walking towards the chalkboard. He picked up a piece of chalk and rolled it in his hand thoughtfully, turning back to address the class once again. “Who can tell me what you all did right?”
The students all stood silently, still nervously eyeing one another. The man waited a few seconds, then dramatically sighed, pointing at the boy in the cowboy hat.
“Nagenawa-kun,” he said.
The boy started, then gulped nervously, hesitantly speaking up.
“W-we saved the boy without harming him?” He said in heavily-accented Japanese, the statement coming out like a question.
The man nodded, turning and writing ‘minimal harm’ on the board. After contemplating for a bit, he wrote ‘danger assessment’, ‘attempted backup’, and ‘prioritize the rescue’ on the board. Underneath the last statement, he wrote ‘Honoka, Nagenawa, Onaji’ in smaller print.
“Right,” he said, turning back and tapping the board. “Now what did you do wrong?”
Again there was silence, but this time the man didn’t interrupt. Her heart racing, Kudo gently raised her hand.
“Honoka-kun,” the man said, nodding to her.
“U-Um,” Kudo began, trying to keep her breathing even as every eye in the room turned to her. She felt her pulse quicken, but the man at the front nodded slightly, encouraging her.
“W-We didn’t really, um, talk to each other?” She hazarded eventually, her voice catching. The man grinned.
“Gold star!” He said, writing ‘lack of COMMUNICATION’ on the crowded board. He then continued down the list like he had previously, adding ‘lack of reassurance’, ‘hesitation’, ‘quirk assumption’, and ‘reliance on authority’ to the board. He then set the chalk down, dusting his hands off and turning to address the class once again.
He cocked an eyebrow at the silent classroom. “The desks aren’t just for show, y’know,” he said, grinning cockily at them.
There was a beat, and then a scramble as they all rushed to find their places. Kudo gulped as she found her desk at position number one, but slid into it, nonetheless. She looked back up to find the man studying them all again.
“Hm,” he said noncommittally, another beep sounding as he pushed a button on one of his watches. “Fifty-seven seconds,” he noted idly, turning again and underlining the ‘lack of COMMUNICATION’. He turned back around to them.
“If you’re expecting to be heroes,” the man began, walking around to the front of his desk again and leaning back against it, folding his arms, “you have to work together.”
He scanned his eyes over the twenty students.
“This includes deepening the bonds with people you know, and forming new ones quickly with people you don’t.
“Honoka-kun.”
Kudo squeaked slightly, looking up anxiously at her teacher(?).
“It was a smart idea, but not the safest one,” he continued, nodding seriously at her, “If you had talked with Onaji-kun a bit more before attempting the plan, perhaps she could have offered some insight to you.”
He paused, apparently expecting her to say something. She considered her words carefully before slowly speaking up.
“I-I don’t know w-who Onaji is,” she began, “b-but I’ve studied Mr. Woods’ quirk intensely. I, um, I knew that my plan w-would work, and I wanted to help as soon, as soon as possible.” She said, nervously fidgeting with her fingertips.
The man nodded down to her. “That’s a good instinct for a hero to have,” he began, “and it’s why you’re able to gain access to this prestigious academy in the first place. However, there are still many skills you need to learn before you can become proper heroes, and hopefully this little incident has proven this to you. For instance, if you’d spoken to her a bit,” he said, walking towards the back of the room, stopping by the desk Kamui Woods was sitting at, “you’d know that this isn’t Kamui Woods.”
“Aw,” Kamui whined, in a voice that was decidedly not his. He flipped up his mask, revealing a girlish face, soft lines surrounding rosy cheeks and deep black eyes.
Kudo blinked in shock.
“Now I won’t be able to practice with him for the rest of the school day,” the girl-who-was-not-Kamui-Woods said, pouting in an adorable way that just didn’t fit with her wooden arms and bigger stature.
“You’ll have plenty of chances,” the blond man assured her, walking back to the front of the room.
“Assuming things about how a specific quirk works is dangerous,” he said, nodding to Kudo again, “and our number-one aim as heroes is to lessen the danger to every party involved in an incident.”
He then turned, and again, went up to the board. Under all of the previously written text, he then wrote ‘ICEBREAKERS’ in extremely large letters. Several of the students groaned, and the man turned back to them with a condescending smirk.
“That’s why you’re all going to learn each other’s capabilities as quickly as possible,” he continued. “I could think of at least twenty-eight ways one of you could have used your quirks, or even just your environment, to make the situation less dangerous.” He said, walking up to the plain-looking boy in the seat next to Kudo.
“Sutiru-kun, did you think of getting in the way of Sensha-kun?” He asked, nodding towards the blue student.
Sutiru scoffed, checking his fingernails. “Just because he’d stop doesn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt,” he said, looking defiantly up towards the blond man, who nodded.
“True,” he mused, Sutiru looking shocked he’d agreed with him, “but that does mean you did think of the idea. Why did you not share it with your classmates, and see if one of them had a quirk or idea that could help?”
Sutiru blushed then, sinking down slightly into his chair. He mumbled something that sounded like “I’m not here for friends”, and the teacher barked out a laugh.
“I said that once too, y’know,” he said, walking back and resting once again in front of his desk.
“Too bad,” he said, shrugging at the glare Sutiru sent his way. “I’m the teacher. What I say, goes.” He smirked at the class once again.
“Right,” he said, clapping his hands, “Here’s how this works. Turn to your seat partners all around you, and take ten minutes or so to introduce yourself. Talk about whatever, I don’t really care, but sharing at least the basics of what you can do is probably a good idea. For instance, greetings class! My name is Phantom Thief, but you can call me Monoma-sensei. I have quite the mind for quirk analysis, and I excel at team organization and planning.”
He smiled at them then, Kudo glad to have a name to put to the face, even though she’d never heard of the hero before.
Monoma nodded towards somebody, and Kudo turned to see who was speaking up. A girl sitting in the row behind her spoke, her skin made of multicolored panels and almost seeming to glow.
“Excuse me, sensei,” she spoke up, confusion in her voice, “but you didn’t talk about your quirk.”
Kudo nodded, turning back to Monoma. He was smirking again.
“Oh?” He asked, cocking his head to the side, “did I mention you needed to share your quirk, Watanabe-kun?”
The girl, Watanabe, hesitated for a moment, then closed her mouth, confusion etching itself about her features. “B-But..”
“I know,” Monoma said, cutting her off gently, “that for a lot of your lives; ‘what you can do’, and ‘what your quirk is’, have meant the same thing.”
He looked out over all of them, a sparkle in his eye that Kudo couldn’t quite place, and continued after his point had sunk in.
“However, I already know you all have amazing quirks,” he continued, walking up to Watanabe and holding his hand out. He leaned down and whispered something to her, and she nodded slowly. He rested his hand on hers, smiling at her. He then stood up again, pressing another button on one of the watches. “It’s your skills other than those quirks that I will be aiming to vault to greater heights. Quirks are tools, yes…” He said, returning to the front.
He looked out at them, holding up a glass paperweight in front of him.
“But so is every other skill in your arsenal.”
As the class watched, the paperweight began to vibrate, eventually melting as if it were hot and forming itself into a handful of glass marbles in Monoma’s hand.
Watanabe gasped, and all eyes turned towards her.
“T-That’s my quirk!” She shouted; her eyes wide. “B-But I’ve never been able to make more than two at a time!
Monoma raised an eyebrow at her, nodding, and setting the marbles down in a dish on his desk.
“Ten minutes,” he said, sitting back down and picking his tabloid up again.
He looked up at them.
“Impress each other.”