Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In this age of quirks no one believes in deities anymore, which is fine with Shouta Aizawa, who had become a kami entirely by accident barely a decade ago, by way of ‘saving’ one of the oldest kamis on the books from a mugging. Naturally, said kami had not needed the intervention, but had been rather impressed anyways and given him a cryptic blessing, which had turned out to be a gift of minor deity-hood. Though it had taken him years and Hizashi disastrously ruining an attempt at a cake to realize that.

All it really meant was that there were a few things it was unwise to wish for in his presence and quirked objects acted a little oddly, almost like they were semi-sentient, around him. Owning two such quirked objects was once again the result of saving someone from a mugging. This time an actual human, whose quirk is giving objects quirks of a sort for large amounts of money and who was in fact very grateful for the intervention as their mugger seemed the violent sort. They’d insisted that he bring them his two favorite objects so they could thank him properly and he’d been too curious to refuse. Said objects had been (and still are) his capture weapon and his epically comfortable, very yellow sleeping bag. Both objects had gained an internal extra dimension, which could be accessed or not at will.  At first the dimensions were just voids with stairs spiraling around the outside. He didn’t realize that the base state of the ‘quirks’ were simply that and not intended to do other things until a few months ago when he ran into the person again and they had asked how the dimensions were ‘holding up’.

Apparently, the voids were not supposed to be accessible to living things (other than him), be shapeable in any manner much less renovated to contain bookshelves and rooms with working appliances, to grow in size or hold up indefinitely without repairs. The quirks were not supposed to involve his sleeping bag becoming self-cleaning and his scarf sometimes acting on his thoughts alone and both items becoming self-repairing.

The construction of his scarf meant it wasn’t meant to hold stains to begin with, but the quirk user was insistent that the rest must be due to the voids’ attunement to Shouta, though they were at a loss as to how that could be. Nedzu theorized that it must be due to interaction with his budding deity-hood. The small, temporary voids somehow being transformed as his own kami home-dimension.

This means that his scarf is home to his entire library, which is often visited and frequently added to by Nedzu. Half the time he doesn’t even know when the chimera is in there until he pops out to scare the daylights out of someone.

It also means that the stairs in his sleeping bag is now an inner layer, the outer layer being rooms he dragged in real building materials and tools to construct and then dragged in real appliances and furniture to furnish them with. Appliances that mysteriously work simply by being plugged into the wall, which has no wiring in it. Shower and baths that drain into non-existent pipes in the floor. Taps and toilets that somehow have a supply of water. Windows that have outside views, but rarely of the same place twice in a row. Rooms with floors that curve down and around the double set of spiraling stairs around the inner void, yet are somehow perfectly flat when walked on.

(Yes, this does mean his house is inside a ‘perfectly ordinary’ obnoxious yellow sleeping bag that rarely leaves UA grounds.) The top room, which opens onto both stairs and overlooks the void, is a combination of easy storage for his class materials and coffee bar. The void itself is…interesting. Mostly it’s home to the many stray cats he’s taken in over his career, that also have easy access to all the rooms. (Cats are the only thing he’s seen able to traverse the void without side effects like falling to their demise.) There’s also the holographic loop of jumping sheep that exists about halfway down by the majority of the bedrooms.

Naturally, he doesn’t expect his students to not notice that his sleeping bag and scarf aren’t quite usual, but as long as they don’t ask about it, he doesn’t care. The few who do ask are given an eerie stare until they retract the question. None of his current class has asked questions, though they obviously have noticed and are curious, so he doesn’t think too much about it until the day he finds Mineta dead at the bottom of the void, suspiciously tied up with a long dead camera strapped to his forehead.

It’s more than a little disturbing, to be honest.

Doubtless, Mineta is- was a unrepentant pervert, but he’d still had potential and he wishes that the girls had formally made complaints to get rid of him rather than, well…yeeting him into the void with no way to stop himself. Given how smug they’ve been since…Monday, which coincidentally is the last time he saw Mineta in class, there’s no remorse on their end. Which is something he’ll have to address because murder is not something heroes to be should be carelessly doing and he really doesn’t want his house to become a repeat murder weapon. At least the void preserves things, so Mineta doesn’t stink, but urgh. He’s going to have to go to Nedzu to figure out how to deal with this disaster so it doesn’t end up with UA being charged with negligence and murder. Dammit, brutal problem children.

Nedzu’s solution is to transfer the body to his scarf and leave it at the bottom of Tokyo Tower. Which, okay, not the most legal thing he’s ever done, but Nedzu gets to explain why UA ‘lost’ the child mid-school day and has ‘no clue’ about how he ended up there in that condition.

His problem is homeroom.

He makes sure to make glowering eye contact with each remaining student before he clears his throat. “You will be having an extra class on the legalities surrounding causing deaths, intentionally or otherwise, as heroes as it has come to my attention that some of you either do not know them or do not think they apply to you. Also, girls. And anyone who may have helped them. I do not appreciate finding bodies in my house. Don’t do it again, problem children.”

There are several squeaks and blushes in reaction. Just the girls, then.

The boys are giving the girls confused glances, except for Bakugou whose looks are disturbingly pleased and respectful. And Kaminari, who looks a little pale as he stares at Mineta’s empty desk. And then Midoriya, who visibly makes the connection before giving the girls looks of slightly awed horror.

Shouta sighs. “Bakugou, no. Don’t even think about it.”

The boy flinches and looks disappointed before hunching his shoulders. “Yes, sensei.”

A gloved hand goes up.

“Hagakure?”

“Sensei, how many cats do you have? And can we visit them? They looked so cute.”

He pinches his nose. “I haven’t counted lately. No. And yes, they are cute.”

Midoriya visibly perks up and raises his hand.

“Problem child?”

“Aizawa sensei, you have cats? Do you have any quirked cats?”

Shouta gives him his most done stare, but the boy doesn’t flinch. Finally he asks, “Why? You want to adopt one?”

“Well, I was just wondering if you could bring one by the dorm, but can we?”

He really wants to say ‘no’, because he doesn’t want to reward anyone for murder, but the boys look as eager as his girls. “Fine. If all of you get an 85% or better in all of your classes for midterms, then I’ll bring the cats by the dorms and you all can pick one cat, not one cat for each of you, to live in the dorms.”

Most of the class cheers, while the few who average 65-70% groan but look determined. Problem children, all of them.

Nedzu pops out of his scarf. “There will be extra credit questions regarding the laws around murder and manslaughter and how they affect heroes and heroes in training. Good luck!”

Then he disappears back into the scarf.

Well, okay then. That’s acceptable motivation for them to actually learn the laws and why they should follow them. “Don’t get excited, problem children. Extra credit will only count for 5% of your score at most.”

“5%! Yes!” Kaminari cheers.

“Thanks, sensei!” Ashido agrees cheerfully. “And thank you, Principal Nedzu!”

Nedzu pops out again, just long enough to say, “You’re quite welcome, but do thank me by not inflicting more legal troubles on UA. Next time, I will not be lenient.”

“What he said.” Shouta iterates drily.

~

Shouta has honestly forgotten about the promise by the time midterms roll around. Until the day after the kids receive their scores and he has a class full expectant gazes focused on him. “Alright. What is it?”

Yaoyorozu delicately clears her throat. “We all got 85% or better in all our classes, Aizawa sensei. We are wondering when we can expect you to bring the cats by?”

Oh right. He had promised that.

“Tonight.” He says reluctantly. Hopefully the dorms will still be standing afterwards, because chaos and mayhem are usual when his problem children get excited.

That gets cheers from all of them. Even Bakugou grins triumphantly.

He clears his throat. “Make sure you keep your rabbit in its cage, Kouda. At least two of the cats are proficient at hunting things that size.”

There is a reason that Nedzu stays out of his sleeping bag.

Kouda’s eyes widen and he nods emphatically while whispering, “Yes, sensei.”

~

He drafts Hizashi and Nemuri into helping him gather the cats and get them out of his house, into the dorm. 23 cats are just a little much to handle on his own. Yes, it’s probably time to give some up for adoption. That doesn’t mean he has to like it.

Shouta pauses in the middle of pulling cats out of his sleeping bag as Hizashi and Nemuri hand them up and narrows his eyes at his kids. Then he shrugs. If his kids want to share the experience with half of 1B, that’s their problem. He hisses as Stinker bites his hand, dropping him onto the floor and reaching for the next cat. He can’t wait to hear Vlad whine about it later.

Once he’s done retrieving cats, he gives Nemuri and Hizashi a hand to get out, startling the kids who aren’t totally distracted by the cats. Which is like…three of the kids. Twenty three cats make a powerful distraction. Several of the cats are being chased down halls already, or in Stinker’s case, two of the 1B students are retreating from him as he attempts to bite them. At least the cat is an equal opportunity stinker.

“Shouta, that’s your creepy grin.” Hizashi complains.

“When Vlad whines about not having a cat for 1B, I’ll give him Stinker.”

Nemuri laughs. “I like how you think.”

Hizashi just shudders. “That cat is possessed.”

“No. I checked. He’s just that evil.” Shouta corrects.

~

All in all, he counts it a win when the evening ends in one slightly cracked window, one door halfway off its hinges, three dents in the wall, five spilled bowls, two broken glasses and Bakugou covered in flour and almost blowing up the building on accident because of it and instead taking an emergency shower.

“Time’s up.” He mutters.

Nemuri bounces to her feet and claps her hands. “Alright, children, it’s time for the kitties to go home now! Gather round!” After they do, most clutching cats, she says, “Alright. Fishbone and Sarah aren’t adoptable, because Shouta’s had them forever. Kouda, if you can ask the cats who aren’t interested in being adopted by the children to return to the sleeping bag?”

The kids reluctantly let go of the cats as Kouda talks to them. Unsurprisingly, over half of the cats are not interested in prolonged exposure to the kids’ level of rowdiness. Also unsurprisingly, Stinker isn’t one of the ones that leave. Instead he takes the chance to bite someone’s arm. Shouta picks him up and tosses him in the sleeping bag to a yowl of indignation. Whatever. It’s not like the cat will get hurt. That leaves nine cats to decide on.

One of the 1B kids raises her hand. Kendo, he thinks. “Aizawa sensei? Can we adopt a cat, too?”

“Yes, but Vlad will have to agree and ask me.”

“Oh. Thank you.” She subsides, giving his smile a sideways look.

Shouta regards the remaining cats dubiously. “Dumbass, Bubbles and Platter, go home.”

The kids look startled when the three cats give one last rub against and obey. Oh, right. They don’t know he’s a kami, so animals understand him. Well, no reason to tell them that.

“Sensei?” Midoriya gives him a pitiful look. “Are you sure we can’t adopt two cats?”

“Yeah, yeah!” Ashido agrees enthusiastically, followed by several others.

Two of the cats start meowing loudly, startling everyone.

“Um. They say they’re twins and they want to stay with us, but only if both of them can stay.” Kouda says.

He sighs in defeat. “Alright. Luce and Lucid can stay. The rest of you can go home.”

The other four cats get up and jump into the sleeping bag without protest, leaving the quirked twins behind, purring madly.

“Luce and Lucid have minor intelligence quirks, so you can talk to them and they will understand you. If they insistently try to tell you something and you can’t work it out, get Kouda to translate. They are not allowed on the table or kitchen counters. At all. Ever. If you ignore them, they will get upset, but that does not mean you can take them to class. Take turns keeping their litter box clean and feeding them, or designate someone. I don’t care. Just make sure their needs are taken care of. Aoyama, no feeding them cheese, even if they beg for it, which knowing them they will. Chocolate and coffee are also bad for cats. Now, go to bed and get some sleep.” He says, gathering up his sleeping bag. “1B kids, go back to your dorm and get some sleep before you get in trouble with Vlad.”

“We’ll walk them back.” Hizashi volunteers and Nemuri nods.

With that, because they are good kids when they aren’t being problem children, the kids give reluctant goodnights and go their separate ways. Shouta yawns and heads to his own flat once everyone has gone. Tomorrow’s soon enough to start deciding which cats to donate to which cat cafés.

~

Vlad, because Vlad can’t breathe without trying to compete with him, greets him the next morning with a demand for two cats for 1B.

Shouta stares at him for a long moment, then grins evilly. “Wait here.”

He climbs into his sleeping bag and returns a few minutes later with two cats in his arms. “Here. Stinker and Titan are willing to live in your dorm. Take good care of them.”

“Titan?” Vlad asks, accepting the cats.

“The little one. He’s quirked. He gets bigger if he’s startled or scared, but he’s a sweet cat.” A scaredy-cat, but sweet. Hero students are the obvious answer to a cat that will become the size of a bobcat and hiss at the scary thing if one so much as looks at him wrong. Obviously, the cat will never hurt them, but if they get used to the hissing, villains will look so much less intimidating.

“And Stinker?” Vlad asks suspiciously.

“Oh, he loves your kids.” He says honestly. Is it cruel to make 1B suffer for Vlad’s everything? Probably. Does he care? Not a bit. It’ll do them good to learn that life isn’t fair or nice before they graduate. Besides, Stinker is a good cat once he’s reached his biting quota for the day. Admittedly, it’s a large quota, but that’s Vlad’s problem.

“Right.” Vlad still looks suspicious, but disregards it in favor of leaving to carry the cats to the 1B dorm.

And if Shouta’s students take one look at his smile when he walks in for homeroom and collectively shudder? Well, a little fear won’t hurt them.

Chapter Text

Shouta stares out his window and ponders as he stares at the cityscape spread out below. The views from his windows tend to change every time one leaves a room, but they’re usually interesting. It makes him wonder, though. There’s that one bedroom with consistently depressing views. If he puts in a door and hauls in dirt, can he make a viable garden outside that room?

Nemuri’s been talking about sakura trees and bonsai lately. It couldn’t hurt to put in a few large bonsai and hardy perennials. Right?

Although there is the question of if it will get rain and sunlight. That could be a problem if it doesn’t. But so far his house dimension has adapted to his needs and wants, so there’s a decent probability that it will.

Can’t hurt to try, at least.

Not having to pay rent, taxes or utilities means trying will barely make a dent in his budget. (Truthfully, he spends most of his monthly budget on the kids, and still has money left over after groceries and household items on a regular basis.) If it doesn’t work out, he can turn it into an indoor…something. Solarium with artificial lighting? A spa? Maybe a cat play area.

Psyman butts his head up against Shouta’s ankle and mrows questioningly.

“You’re right. If making a garden doesn’t work, I’ll turn it into a play area for you guys.” He tells the cat. Psyman isn’t quirked, but he has a knack for knowing when one is mulling over decisions and inputting his kitty opinions on the matter.

The cat mrows in approval, then rubs against his ankle demandingly. A glance at the grandfather clock in the corner tells him why.

“Ah, that time again? Okay, okay, I’m coming.”

~

Taking out part of a wall and replacing it with a doorframe is easy enough, since he has tools and leftover supplies from his last project still stored in one of the extra rooms. Though there’s the matter of getting dirt (which Nedzu volunteered to supply, though who knows how he found out, because Shouta certainly doesn’t) and then there’s the matter of getting the dirt through the front door. Front sleeping bag? Whatever. He stares at the 15ft tower of dirt bags stacked outside the dorm on a small pallet and sighs. At this rate he’ll have to knock over the tower to start hauling bags and that’s sure to be a mess.

“Aizawa sensei?”

He blinks and looks over at Uraraka’s curious face.

“What are you doing?”

“Making a garden. If I can figure out how to get this dirt down without spilling it everywhere.”

“Oh! Can I help?”

Shouta blinks again. That’s a good idea. Why didn’t he think of that? Right, because he intended on keeping the kids out of his private domain. “Sure.”

Letting her float the pallet inside and down the stairs is worth the wide eyed stares of awe as she looks around. (How Nedzu knew the exact dimensions a pallet could be and still fit in his sleeping bag is something he really doesn’t want to know. As it is, it’s a good thing his sleeping bag is self-repairing.)

“Haven’t you seen all this before?” He asks, because yes, he knows what that camera was for.

“Yes! But only in passing! This is so cool, sensei. We thought the stairs were the outer part.”

“Hm. Interesting.” Proof once again that his house dimension works in some illogical ways, if a camera only caught the void and the stairs.

“Uh, sensei?”

He pauses halfway through the relevant room and looks back.

“I think we’ll have to flip the pallet sideways to get it inside there.”

Ah, right. And he’ll have to help so it doesn’t just go spinning out of control. He walks back to the stairs and helps her manhandle it to float at the right angle. It’s a good thing he made the doorframe wider than usual.

They manage to get it out into the nebulous garden space and Uraraka releases it so it lays sideways over the area. Hm. Good enough. He pulls out a knife and cuts the bindings to free the bags.

“Sensei, want some help? My aunt does landscaping and I know the basics, at least.”

Shouta looks at her in surprise. “Sure. You work on the inner area, I’ll work on the outer area. Pour the dirt two bags deep.”

“Okay. But are you sure it’s safe on the outer bit?”

“Well, I’m safe. You probably would be, but better not to find out differently the hard way. That’s why you’re on the inner part.”

She nods fervently and starts ripping bags open.

~

It turns out pretty well. Though he does send Uraraka up to find a rake while he tidies away the bags and breaks the pallet down.

She comes back more quickly than expected, trailing Yaoyorozu and Kouda behind her, all three of them carrying tools. “There were a bunch of tools sitting outside and Yaomomo and Kouda offered to carry the others.”

He raises a brow, because that’s a thin excuse at best. Nedzu must have left the tools.

At least she has the grace to blush.

“That’s fine. They can help you smooth out the dirt. I’m going to take these boards downstairs.”

When he comes back, the soil is reasonably smooth and Yaoyorozu has made three, neat stone benches to line the sides of the rather large space. A bit excessive, but convenient for him. They deserve some praise. “It looks nice.”

This nets him three pleased smiles and light blushes.

“Sensei? If I may ask, what do you intend to do with this garden?” Yaoyorozu inquires.

He shrugs. “Put in two or three bush sized potted bonsai for trees and the rest fill with easy care stuff. Flowers, probably.”

“Um. Catnip. And silvervine? If you want to put in a trellis.” Kouda suggests softly, signing even as he speaks.

“Good idea.” He agrees immediately, although he has no idea what either plant looks like.

“What kind of trees, sensei?” Yaoyorozu asks curiously.

“Sakura, probably.”

She nods. “It will be cheaper to just buy a two year old tree and then bonsai it, then. And may I suggest lavender and some bulbs for flowers?”

“Sounds good.” He honestly has no idea what to get to begin with. Suggestions are welcome.

Uraraka bounces on her toes excitedly. “Peonies, rosebushes and grass!”

He nods. “Alright then. I’ll go shopping for those, then.”

“We can help!” Uraraka volunteers. “You’ll need help carrying stuff anyways. Wait, does your car have enough space for everything?”

That’s a good point. And he’s not above making the kids do most of the work since they’re being nosy.

“We’ll take the bus.” He decides.

~

By the time they’re done shopping, the bus is half full of giant pots, potted plants, bags of bulbs and a couple bags holding a variety of seeds, along with special dirt for the bonsai pots. He’s also spent his entire budget along with half of next month’s on this singular shopping trip. At this price, the garden better work out.

Somehow, he gets half the class helping to carry stuff in, even though Uraraka is doing all the heavy lifting. He didn’t invite them. They just kind of joined in along the way, like the nosy brats they are. At least they work hard, and the garden is set up in record time. He shows them where to wash up, then goes upstairs to find them some snacks for their efforts.

Annnnd there’s the other half of the class and a few faces he doesn’t recognize. Bakugou and Satou have taken over the kitchen and the others are either peering out windows, poking at the furniture, laying on the furniture or playing with the cats.

Aoyama is trying to insist that Satou make blackberry cheesecake, even though Shouta’s dead certain he doesn’t have half the ingredients for that.

He sighs. “Problem children, why are you here?”

“Cats.” A deep voice answers from the floor behind a couch.

“Hitoshi?”

“Sensei, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that you have cats.” Hitoshi complains in answer.

Peering around the couch, he finally spots his protégé, sprawled on his back, covered in cats. Including one laying across Hitoshi’s throat, which does nothing to dim his blissful expression.

“Yes, I have cats. Nineteen, at the moment. Seventeen of which are variably adoptable.”

Hitoshi’s eyes widen.

“Really? They’re adoptable?” A pink haired girl squeals.

Shouta sighs again. “Yes, yes they are. But only if you get permission from your dorm supervisor and they have to ask.”

“I bet Power Loader sensei will say yes!” She enthuses as she scritches Methuselah’s chin, the long haired cat purring like a motor in response. Oh. This is Power Loader’s gremlin problem child. He almost didn’t recognize her without a wrench in her hand. The lack of soot on her face is a little confusing too.

There are running footsteps on the stairs and Midoriya skids into the room, eyes huge. “Sensei, sensei! It’s raining in the garden!”

Well, that answers that question.

“Good. Problem child, don’t run on the stairs. If you fall off, you’ll die.”

“Wait. What? But the cats are walking around in the center? See?” He points and sure enough. There’s Sarah sitting in the middle of the void, staring at them with a huffy expression at the commotion.

“Only cats can do that. Anything else just falls straight to the bottom.”

“What about the sheep?” Some kid he doesn’t know, asks.

“They’re holographic. No, I don’t know how that works. It just does.” He pinches his nose. “Bakugou, Satou, why are you in my kitchen?”

“Someone has to make sure the idiots don’t fucking poison themselves!” Bakugou yells back, ignoring the implication that he’s being extremely rude by not at least asking first. Par for the course, really.

“We thought everyone would want food after all that work, sensei.” Satou offers, cracking an egg one handed into a bowl.

“You’re not wrong, but why aren’t you using the dorm kitchen?”

“Yours is bigger. And we brought ingredients, so don’t say you’re fucking understocked.” Bakugou replies.

With another sigh, he gives up. “Fine. You can all stay for the meal. Then you will all leave. And stay out of my house unless I invite you.”

“Yes, Aizawa sensei!” Too many voices chorus obediently. Yeah, obedient. He’ll believe that when he sees it.

~

The 1H dorm is soon home to Methuselah (so named because the vet estimated he was 18yrs old when Shouta first took him in, over four years ago) and Cracker (because of his habit of begging for rice crackers and eating them with gusto). Both are nice, sensible cats who are smart enough to move out of the way if someone’s about to step on them, so they should do well with the little gremlins. Also, he likes Power Loader, who is smart enough to ask nicely and specify that he doesn’t want problem cats. Apparently stories of the 1B cats have already spread. Too bad for Vlad that he’s too stubborn to consider trying to give them back.

1C also lobbies for a cat, but Nakamura sensei is allergic so they’re out of luck, to Hitoshi’s open disappointment. Well, not that Hitoshi will be in 1C much longer, what with the sudden opening in 1A, but that’s a surprise for later.

Rueben and Mochi (both named by Mic when hungry) go next, to 3C. Then Cinnamon and MarcoPolo to 2G and Ceiling and Shiloh to 3H. Followed by Mirko to 2H, Psyman to 3F, Gordon to 2E, Endeavpurr to 1G and Cake to 3E. None of the other dorm supervisors are interested in the responsibility of a cat. In a matter of days, he’s gone from nineteen cats to six.

With some reservations, he donates the remaining cats (Dumbass, Bubbles, Platter and Omen) other than Fishbone and Sarah to the Pretty Paws cat café.

That done, he realizes that he’s forgotten the garden altogether in the flurry of adoptions and normal obligations. Feeling somewhat desolate with his house and void almost empty of cats, he walks down to see if the garden is still alive.

He walks out into the garden, then stops and stares, rubs his eyes and stares some more.

Far from being dead, the area looks like months have passed instead of five days.

There’s a lush grass carpet under his feet, the silvervine has covered half the trellis, bulbs and seeds have sprouted and grown strong, some things have even bloomed including the trees and undeniably, the area has grown. Beyond the extra few yards which inexplicably have dirt and plants of their own, there’s what appears to be a holographic forest. Probably. Maybe. Because he really doesn’t want to find out if that’s a real forest attached to his garden. Where would it be attached, anyways? He glares. No, it better be holographic, because he doesn’t want to search for stray cats lost in a strange forest.

At least the area is tidy. He looks down at Fishbone, who has followed him. “I suppose I’d better tell Nemuri to come have her cherry blossom viewing while she can, hm?”

In answer, Fishbone pounces with a yowl of triumph on a small bush sized plant, which has soft leaves with raggedy edges. Catnip, maybe, given the way the cat is now rolling around in it? He’ll have to ask Kouda.

Idly, he wonders if this accelerated growth cycle will continue, or if it will settle down and follow the proper seasons. He should probably buy a door to put in, just in case the garden gets bad weather. It’s lucky that the rain from before didn’t creep inside. Adding it to his never ending list of things to do, he lays down on the grass, sprawling out comfortably.

Time to take a nap.

Chapter Text

The most annoying part of being a kami is, Shouta has found, that if people wish for something to disappear while in earshot of him, it, well, does. Disappear, that is. Whether he hears the wish with his ears or not. He winces at the sound of a woman screaming, “I wish you’d just disappear, you raging-”

Then he winces again as she suddenly screams in straight up terror. Presumably because her wish has been strong enough that the other person actually did disappear, judging by his abrupt tiredness. The scream peters out into hysterical laughter that slowly changes to maniacal laughter. Oh, great. It’s not enough that she’s gone and wished someone to another location (Nedzu swears his math proves that they’re still alive, just elsewhere when this happens), but now she’s having a psychotic break. Sometimes he hates being a kami.

With a heartfelt sigh, he meanders over the rooftop and drops down beside her, startling her to wide-eyed silence. He asks gruffly, “You alright?”

Her eyes glimmer with tears. “N-No? I was having a fight with my boyfriend. That cheating jerk! And I wished he’d disappear and then he did, like I wished him away! But I didn’t. That’s not my quirk. I didn’t do that, right?”

“Well.” There’s no real right way to tell her this. “You did wish him away, because I heard your wish. Those kind get fulfilled without my input, really. But the good news is that he’s probably alive somewhere. You got anyone you can stay with tonight?”

She just stares at him, eyes impossibly wide, for a long moment, before shaking herself. “Uh…yeah. My sister. You fulfill wishes? That’s your quirk?”

“Only the disappearing kind. And no, it’s not a quirk, it’s something older.” Look, he’s not going to tell her he’s a kami, but he can’t straight up lie about it. And apparently that’s too close to telling her, because he can feel her belief washing away his tiredness.

“Oh.” She sounds disappointed. “I was hoping wishing for my cat to find a good home would work. I can’t keep her when I move out next week.”

He sighs again. “I’ll take the cat. What’s its name?”

Her face lights up with glee, and he has the sinking feeling that he’s made a mistake. “Her name is Dog, and she’s the bestest cat ever! Like wham. She’s the best combination of cat and dog you can think of. I know you’ll just love her!”

That’s…concerning.

Shouta just hopes it’s an actual cat and not a dog or some weird science experiment.

Surprisingly, it’s an actual cat (a Maine Coon by the looks of her), which comes when called and hops into a cat carrier when the woman points. The woman also provides a leash, cat toys, a small cat bed, food and water bowls and one of those fancy cat litter boxes designed to eradicate smell and managing to look a lot like a cat carrier itself, freshly empty and vinegared to take the smell out, stuffed haphazardly with the other things.

He nods at her repeated thanks, picks up the carrier (at which point the cat starts purring like this is grade A amusement) and the litterbox. Then he walks around a couple street corners, checking first to make sure he’s alone, before he stuffs both items into his scarf where they’ll be safe and out of the way while he finishes his patrol.

“So. New cat?”

Shouta will deny to his dying day that he jumps half a foot in the air from startlement when Nedzu suddenly pops his head out. It’s been some time since Nedzu has been bored enough or focused on his research enough to come along on patrol. Pretending that his heart isn’t racing, he replies dully, “Yes. Her name is Dog.”

“Hm! Interesting. Did you know she’s staring at me and purring?”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“It remains to be seen!” Nedzu says cheerfully and retreats back into the library dimension.

He grumbles and pulls himself up onto the nearest rooftop.

Great. Doubtless, he’ll find the cat loose in his library. The only question is if Nedzu will be petting said cat or dodging attempts at eating him or if he’ll just find them mutually ignoring each other. He’s seen all three of those results before, plus the one time Nedzu decided to try riding Titan in his large form and ended up hiding on the topmost shelf while Titan tried to figure out how to get to him. Nedzu is lucky that Titan wasn’t really hungry and that Shouta came in when he did, because a. he’s seen that cat pull off bigger feats of agility and b. Titan was already on the third from the top shelf when Shouta walked in. He thinks it’s the most relieved that he’s ever seen his boss look.

Well, whatever. He has a patrol to finish.

~

Shouta would like to iterate that kami powers can be annoying.

There’s a woman next to a patch of pansies, holding a tiny kitten in her dirt covered hands and regarding as if it’s a particularly unwanted slug. “What am I to do with you? I don’t want to hurt you but it would be convenient if you’d just…disappear.”

Oh, hell no! He thinks, even as he feels a small internal tug on his powers, reaching out a hand even though he knows it’s too late.

Then he blinks and looks down.

There is the kitten, safe in his hand.

What the…?

The woman blinks at her empty hands, then blinks at him and says, “If you wanted it, you could have just asked. No need to use your quirk. I wasn’t going to hurt it.”

“Yes, I heard.” He replies, sounding more tired than he is. There’s no real point in explaining what really happened, after all. And apparently he does have a bit of control over his kami power. Good to know. Nedzu is sure to be excited by the discovery.

“Oh, okay. As long as you know.” She shrugs and goes back to weeding.

He tucks the kitten into his capture scarf. This one will be named Pansy. Sarah will no doubt be thrilled to have another kitten to mother.

~

Shouta stares at Nedzu, who stares back and sips his tea calmly. He gives up and decides to ignore the mouse chimera standing on his kitchen counter.

No doubt Nedzu’s been through all the rooms once already. It’s obvious his boss is curious about his house and there are currently no chimera hunting cats in residence. There’s no reason not to let him satisfy his remaining curiosity before that changes.

Instead, he reaches into his capture scarf and pulls out Pansy, setting the kitten on the counter in front of Nedzu. “How do you feel about raising a cat of your own?”

“Intriguing! I assume it’s not too young to be away from its mother?”

“Oh, no, Pansy’s definitely that young. Her eyes aren’t even open yet. I have no idea where the mother cat is, though.”

“So she would need multiple bottle feedings per day?”

“And night.” He confirms. “If you don’t want her, I’ll put her with Sarah.”

“Oh, no, I’ll take her. Is she hungry?”               

Shouta eyes the little searching motions the kitten is doing. “Yes, but she needs a bath first. She was found in a pansy patch.”

“Ah.” Nedzu sets the remainder of his tea down. “Well, if you will show me how to make up a bottle for her and where the pet safe shampoo is, I’ll get to it.”

~

The next cat is a fearless stray that stares Shouta down until Shouta gives in and puts him in his library dimension. Getting him home isn’t a problem, but he keep giving Shouta glares of offense whenever he calls him by a name.

It gets to the point that he consults Kouda.

Kouda talks to the cat and looks surprised by the answer. He signs, ‘He says his name is Cat and he doesn’t appreciate you trying to give him other names.’

Shouta pinches his nose briefly. Of course. He has a cat named Dog, why shouldn’t he have a cat named Cat?

‘He also says that he doesn’t like the place that smells like bad things and fear.’

“You mean the vet?”

‘Yes, I think so.’

“Well, we won’t have to go back there very often. Probably.”

‘He wants to know why probably.’

“As long as he stays out of fights and doesn’t get sick, the only thing he needs to worry about are the annual vaccinations.”

‘Cat says he doesn’t like it, but he understands. Also, he wants to explore this new place. I think he means the dorm.’

Shouta sighs. “Fine. He can stay until curfew as long as he doesn’t fight with Luce and Lucid.”

~

Prissy is a show cat. At least he thinks she is as he frees her from the fancy, broken cat carrier he finds her in. She’s a very voluble cat, who is not shy about expressing her displeasure over having her fur ruffled in the process. She licks it down determinedly before she stops complaining.

Her collar, unfortunately, doesn’t have an address on the tag. Only her name: Princess Eurydice Queeny Betheseda. And honestly, there’s no way in heaven or hell that he’s calling her that. ‘Prissy’ fits well enough.

The vet agrees with him that she probably has an owner who is missing her right now (although he’d like to know who was so careless as to secure a cat carrier where it could be flung out of a car going around a sharp corner and give them a piece of his mind), and confirms that she is not fixed. They compromise with the owner’s probable wrath at finding their prized cat fixed by way of just giving her a shot to prevent heats. It will have to be repeated every few months, but that’s acceptable.

Well, better than potentially being sued for several thousand dollars’ worth of damages for the sin of spaying the cat.

~

Shouta would like to reiterate that kami powers are troublesome. He barely listens when he hears Ashido bewailing a pimple.

“I wish this zit would, like, delete itself.”

He almost misses the words.

Almost misses the small tug on his power.

He definitely does not miss the following shriek of joy, however.

“Holy shit! Holy shit, it worked!” She gets up and dances a little jig.

“Ashido.”

“Sensei?” She asks distractedly, but she sits down before he can reprimand her.

“Please don’t say things like that. You never know if you’re giving someone else a zit or not.” He says, suppressing a sigh.

Her mouth drops open and she stares at him wide eyed, but she doesn’t say anything, so he ignores the continued staring. Finally, she says tentatively, “Sensei?”

“Yes, Ashido?”

“You mean don’t say stuff like that around you, don’t you? Because I’ve said that a lot of times and it never worked before. And your house is, um, it shouldn’t be able to exist in your sleeping bag like that, right? Kaminari did some research and he said it shouldn’t, that quirked object dimensions are simpler than that. That’s true, right sensei?”

He stares at her unblinkingly, but she doesn’t back down. And the other problem children are now staring at him as well. Finally, he shrugs. “Yes.”

She gasps, steepling her hands in front of her mouth and visibly suppressing a squeal. (He appreciates the effort.)

“Is it a part of your quirk, sensei?” Midoriya asks, practically vibrating in his seat with curiosity.

“No. And that’s enough questions.” He knows, of course, that it won’t satisfy their curiosity or keep them from spinning theories, but he’d rather not hear the questions and theories, so cutting them off at the source is the logical thing to do.

Midoriya bites his lip. “Sorry, sensei.”

Shouta can practically see the questions breeding behind their eyes, but with Midoriya backing down, the others do too.

Good enough.

Chapter Text

Kids are troublesome. This is an ever present fact, but Shouta remembers it again as his entire class pauses on their walk to the mall to look at a hokora shrine and then turn on him with barely suppressed excitement to ask,

“Aizawa sensei, if we worship you at a shrine, would you gain more power?”

Shouta looks at the miniature, roadside shrine and sighs audibly. Of course his kids would figure out what he is, just from the few clues they have. “Please don’t.”

“But why?” Hagakure protests, flinging her hands out for emphasis and narrowly missing smacking three of her classmates.

He looks at the shrine again and yep, there’s definitely something supernatural possessing that shrine though he can’t tell its exact form. It seems to be listening for an answer. “Because I don’t want the local spirits or kami to come complaining that I’m trying to take over their street corner.”

“Awww!” Ashido complains half-heartedly.

“So it would give you power?” Midoriya half mumbles.

There are other mixed reactions, but Shouta’s not paying attention, because that supernatural presence abruptly takes form and trots over to him. He crouches down to greet it.

“Ohh! Kitty!”

“Where did it come from?”

“Is it lost?”

“Of course it goes right for sensei. Haha. He’s like a cat magnet!”

“He really is.”

“That’s not a cat.” Kouda whispers, pointing at its tails.

“Whoa! A cat with a quirk! That’s so cool!”

“Not quite.” Shouta says, obediently petting as the nekomata spirit butts against his hands.

*Your kittens are welcome to worship you at my shrine as long as they bring appropriate offerings for me too.*

“He says we’re welcome to worship at this shrine as long as we bring him offerings too.” Kouda whispers, signing as he speaks.

“Whoa, really? A cat god?”

“What kind of offerings?”

The nekomata spirit meows something that Shouta doesn’t understand.

“He says that high class cat treats are acceptable. But only the good ones.” Kouda translates.

“That’s so manly!”

“I don’t get it. Why the fuck would it want to share its shrine with sensei?” Bakugou growls.

*You are, after all, a guardian of all cats and kittens.*

“He says that sensei’s the guardian of cats and kittens. I think he means children, though.” Kouda says, eyes wide and a little spooked at the fact that he’s looking at a spirit and hearing it speak.

“So manly.” Kirishima says reverently.

“That makes sense!” Hagakure exclaims. “Sensei’s always looking after us and we know he rescues cats.”

There’s a jumble of mostly agreement from the kids, but Shouta is just trying to process. Apparently, he’s the guardian of cats and kids. He did not know that. Well, not on a spiritual level at least. Of course he knows he has responsibility for the school’s guardianship over his class and knows that he rescues any cat that needs it. He just… Hadn’t known it’s part of his kami domain. The things you learn…

*Can I come visit?*

“Visit?” He asks blankly.

The nekomata chirps and rubs its ear against questing fingers. *Not very many cats come here. It gets lonely sometimes. You have cats in your home. Can I visit? You can say ‘no’.*

“I- I guess I don’t mind? As long as you don’t cause any harm.”

*Please. I have better manners than that. Thank you. It’s pleasant to meet a new kami with such good manners.*

“You’re welcome. And thank you, I think.”

The nekomata just trills laughter.

“What’s he saying?” Sero demands.

“Uh. He invited himself to sensei’s house and then complimented him on having good manners.” Kouda translates uncertainly.

“Let’s go buy lots of fancy cat treats!” Ashido demands enthusiastically.

With one last rub against his hands, the nekomata turns and trots back to the shrine, its form dissolving back into invisibility halfway there. Well, that happened.

And he’s never going to be able to convince his students to not worship him at the shrine at least once. “Alright, problem children. Let’s go.”

“Yatta!”

~

Shouta follows the small sounds curiously and finds an extremely skinny cat on top of an open dumpster, chowing down on…rice? The cat gives him a wary look and tenses to run but doesn’t stop eating as he moves closer. On second look, the rice has chicken in it and the cat is nosing through the rice and pulling out chunks of chicken with almost savage movements. Understandable if it’s starving, which it looks like it is.

“I have plenty of food for you, if you’re willing to come home with me.” He offers.

The cat doesn’t stop eating, but relaxes a little. That’s probably as good as a yes.

“How about I call you ‘Rice’?”

It takes another fifteen minutes before the cat finishes finding all the chicken and a further twelve minutes to coax her into letting him pet her and pick her up to put her in his scarf with a handful of treats. He always keeps a sealed bag of treats on his person. It’s only logical when he could run into a needy stray cat at any time.

He makes sure to have food ready when he fishes her out of his library dimension at home. It’s best to keep promises if one wants cats to trust them, after all.

She definitely needs a bath and a visit to the vet, though. It’s something of a miracle that she doesn’t have fleas, but she’s probably picked up other things living on the streets, particularly given how poor of condition she’s in.

Rice doesn’t eat much, apparently having hit her limit, before she turns to him and demands pets. Yeah, this one has definitely had an owner before. She’s way too trusting to not have had one.

A large portion of community cats are stray cats, either lost, runaway or abandoned, so it’s not unusual. Technically all the cats he’s taken in over the years are strays except for the couple whose owners have directly given them to him. He honestly leaves feral cats alone unless they’re seriously injured, because they have no trust in humans and are plenty willing to use their very sharp claws to get their point across. Shouta may or may not have had to seek medical attention after taking a feral cat to the vet for treatment a few times in the past. Feral cats are generally released back onto the streets after they’ve healed up because their lack of human socialization makes them mostly unadoptable. It makes sense to let them live where they’re happy and keep the rodent population low while they’re at it.

“How about a bath, girl? Then I’ll introduce you to the other cats that live here. There’s Fishbone, Sarah, Dog, Cat and Prissy. At least Fishbone and Sarah will be happy to meet you. You can avoid the others if you don’t get along.”

She gives him a long and opinionated mrow, but lets him pick her up without fuss. Which is excellent. Some cats make a run for it when he mentions the word ‘bath’.

~

It bears repeating. Kids are troublesome. As Hitoshi, who has recently moved into the 1A dorm, is sitting in the common room on the couch with a suspicious pile of long purple fur cuddled in his lap. It’s a bit hard to tell, but Shouta is pretty sure that said pile of fur is a cat and it is not one of the school approved pets. He’d know. He’s the one who has to approve them for his dorm.

“Hitoshi. What?”

The boy flinches and hunches protectively over the purple creature. “His name is People Eater.”

“I wasn’t asking for his name.”

Hitoshi quite obviously knew that, but his stubborn expression doesn’t change. “He was in a box that said ‘Please Take Me’.”

“That explains how you found him. Why is he here?”

“When I told my parents, they said I could have a cat, but only when I’m there to take care of him, so he has to stay in the dorms with me. I’ll fill out the paperwork for him!”

Shouta sighs and pinches his nose. “Yes, yes, you will. I’ll go get it for you so we don’t continue to have a contraband animal in the dorm.”

The boy’s purple and grey eyes light up with relief. “Thank you, sensei!”

“Sure, kid. Make sure you take him to the vet and get his shots up to date.”

Hitoshi nods fervently. “I will, I promise.”

He chuckles and ruffles the kid’s wild hair. “Good. I’ll hold you to it.”

~

Shouta is watching his kids finish crossing the crosswalk as the light turns when something catches his eye. His capture scarf lashes out, low to the ground and pulls his target out of traffic just in time.

Kids are troublesome and apparently that includes fox kits.

The kit wrapped in his scarf is struggling and clearly panicking. *Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me! I was just curious! Inari will be mad if you kill me!*

“I’m not going to kill you.” He says in exasperation, then pauses and mentally kicks himself. Because if he can understand it, this is no normal fox. “You’re not a wild fox.”

The kit goes from struggling to merely trembling. *Of course I’m not! I’m a tenko! I belong to Inari’s shrine.”

He blinks and looks at the kids. “Did we pass an Inari shrine?”

“Yes, we did, sensei.” Midoriya, unsurprisingly, volunteers. “Does he belong to the shrine?”

“He does. Iida-”

*I’m a girl!*

Shouta represses a sigh. “Fine. She does. Iida, if you could take her back to the shrine, it would be appreciated.”

Iida looks apologetic. “I’m sorry, sensei. I wasn’t paying attention. I have no idea where the shrine is.”

“I can take her.” Midoriya offers.

He resists the urge to bang his head on a non-existent wall. Letting Midoriya go anywhere alone is just begging for a villain attack.

“I can go with him, sensei.” Tsu offers, apparently understanding the issue.

Tsu is a nice, sane and sensible girl. If anyone can keep Midoriya out of trouble, it’s her. “Alright. We’ll wait in that parking lot over there. Do not get lost. Do not get distracted. And by all that’s holy, do not get involved in a villain fight.”

“Yes, sensei!” Midoriya chirps, as if he’s not a repeat offender on all accounts.

Shouta disentangles the fox kit and hands her to Midoriya. Hopefully with his arms full, he’ll be less likely to attract the nearest villain. Tsu tugs the green haired space cadet back onto the crosswalk, so they are the first to cross as the crosswalk sign lights up.

“Alright, problem children. Let’s head to the parking lot so we’re not blocking traffic.” He gets the group moving and sends up a few prayers to whoever’s listening that Midoriya doesn’t end up in the middle of a disaster again. It probably won’t do any good, but it can’t hurt.

Chapter Text

The underground lab wasn’t that hard to find once they knew to look for it. That’s the worst part. It’s been running for years and the first whiff they gotten of it was less than a month ago. The raid had been successful, catching all parties and turning them over to the police. Now they are just cleaning up. Not the broken things, no, but freeing the experiments.

Most of the experiments are poor kids and homeless people. Kept thin and malnourished but not dangerously so. People who wouldn’t be missed enough for the police to make a fuss over finding them. But there are a few animals, too. Rats, dogs, cats, bunnies and even a lame fox with an amputated foot. (The fox isn’t one of Inari’s. He checked.)

Shouta is coaxing one of the kids out of her cage when there’s a yelp, following by hissing interspersed with pitiful yowling and curses.

Fortunately, the kid doesn’t look perturbed, just says as he hands her over to a policewoman, “That’s the quirked kitty.”

Oh hell.

“Hey, Eraser! You like cats, don’t you? Can you come help me with this one? Urgh. I might need stitches. I don’t know what’s wrong with this cat. It’s wagging its tail like mad.”

He walks over and sighs pointedly. “See, now that’s your first mistake. Cats don’t wag their tails when their happy. They lash them when they’re in a temper. And that is one very scared and angry cat. Probably doesn’t have much in the way of good experiences with humans. I’ll see what I can do. Go get that hand treated.”

“Oh. Thanks man!”

Shouta eyes the cat. Yes, that’s definitely a quirked animal. He looks like a fiber optic lamp, glowing red-yellow. A very skinny and possibly feral fiber optic lamp. Someone has been starving and hurting this gorgeous cat.

“How about we call you ‘Solar’? You’re bright like the sun.” He asks, pushing some of his kami power at the cat in hopes that it will get the cat to listen.

Solar pauses in his pacing to stare at him and gives the most pitiful mewl he’s heard since Rice last decided she was starving. Nice to know that works.

“Yes, that’s right. We’re here to save you and the others. Nobody will hurt you anymore.”

That just nets him another mewl and distrustful eyes.

“You can come home with me. I have several cats. There’s even a garden you can play in. Though most of the cats like hanging out in the void, so you might like that, too.”

The cat walks a few, hesitant steps closer, then stops.

“Do you like kids? There’s a bunch of kids I teach. I’m sure they’d love to visit and brush your fur whenever you want.”

Apparently the cat isn’t truly feral, because this seems to decide it and it trots over and lets him pick him up.

“Whoa. You’re like the cat speaker, Eraser! Hey, can you help me with this dog?” One of the other heroes asks.

He eyes the dog, which is slightly foaming at the mouth and lunging at the bars of the cage determinedly. “Maybe you should get someone who can tell use if it has rabies or not, first. I’m not putting my hands anywhere near that.”

“Oh, boo! Fine.”

In the end, two of the dogs are completely feral and have to be put down, while the third goes to a shelter to be adopted. The other three cats are friendlier than Solar, and a couple of the police officers adopt them, so he only goes home with Solar. Which is fine with him. This cat needs a little TLC and seeing the other cats from the lab might bring back bad memories.

Shouta puts Solar into his library dimension along with a handful of treats to keep him busy, rather than leaving him in his arms where he could be easily startled and run off. Which doesn’t help at all when he stops by the vet’s office to get the cat checked over on his way home. He narrowly manages to grab the cat in time to keep the vet from sporting deep claw marks.

“Sorry. He’s had some bad experiences.” He apologizes over the sound of hissing and yowling. “Hey, hey, calm down. It’s just the vet. Not one of those fake scientists that hurt you before. I bring all my cats here. He won’t hurt you.”

It takes a good ten minutes to calm Solar enough for him to let the vet check him over.

“Well, the good news is that he seems healthy other than being too thin. I’d have to take blood tests and stool samples to check for anything else, though. And I don’t think he’s going to cooperate with the former.”

Given that Solar is hissing again, obviously understanding the term ‘blood tests’, he has to agree. “Alright. I’ll take him home then. Thanks again for taking out the time.”

The vet waves it off. “Of course. It’s not like you don’t pay for the privilege of dropping in without an appointment.”

That’s true.

With a shrug, he tucks Solar back into his scarf and heads home.

~

His kids are plotting. They are not subtle in the slightest, no matter that they seem to believe otherwise. What they are plotting he doesn’t know and isn’t sure he wants to know. Teenagers get the weirdest notions.

The first indication that they’ve decided to act on their plotting comes when he wakes up from a nap to find the class suspiciously focused on studying. Mostly suspicious because it’s a free period and they shouldn’t even be in the classroom. He moves to get up and there’s a patter of paper hitting the floor. Curious, he scoops them up and sits at his desk to read them.

I wish for my bad grades to disappear. Yeah, not happening.

Good luck. Luck isn’t his domain.

I wish for plaque to always disappear from my teeth. For fuck’s sake, brush your teeth, kid.

I wish for the pain in my hands to be erased. Now that’s just concerning.

He looks up. “Are these supposed to be omamori? You realize that these probably won’t work, right?”

“But what if they do? Can’t you just bless them, just in case, sensei?” Ashido blurts out.

The pleading eyes from his entire class are a little hard to take. What do they think he is? A pushover?

“Please, sensei?” Bakugou, of all people, adds his plea to hers.

Shouta huffs. If it’s that important to them. “Fine. But only the ones I approve of. Kaminari, if your bad grades disappeared you’d have to take all your tests over again. Iida, see a dentist if you think you have plaque. Yaoyorozu, luck isn’t my domain. As for the rest of these…I’ll look at them.”

Their reactions to being called out vary from horror to embarrassment to disappointment. Worth it.

He shuffles through them slowly and only finds four that are both in his domain and possibly worthy of the ink taken to write them. Possibly. Shouta puts them with Midoriya’s and dumps the rest in the trash where they belong.

Now. How to ‘bless’ them?

After a moment’s thought, he covers the tiny pile with his hands and shoves a little bit of his kami power at them. “Midoriya, Bakugou, Aoyama, Tokoyami and Asui, you can come pick yours up.”

The rest of the class looks disappointed, but honestly he’s not sure theirs can match up with the level of disappointment he feels at how poorly thought out the majority of their wishes are. Has he somehow managed to neglect teaching them critical thinking? Because it certainly seems that way at the moment.

Midoriya dithers in front of his desk.

“What is it, Problem Child?”

“Sensei, what sort of offerings do you accept?”

Oh.

He considers. “Coffee is acceptable.”

Problem Child’s eyes light up in a disturbing way, but really, getting unexpected tributes of coffee is better than getting random, surprise ‘offerings’ as they try to figure out what could work.

~

The cat has a loofa sponge tied around her neck. Why? People are cruel.

He sighs and crouches down to pet her fur and untie the sponge before she strangles herself on it. After he sets it aside, she trots over to it and starts pawing at it, alternating that with looking at him and mewing pointedly.

“Seriously? That’s why you had it on? No. I am not putting that back on you. It’s a health hazard.”

She meawls loudly enough to make him twitch at the volume, but he’s used to Hizashi, so it’s a very tiny flinch.

“No. I am not going to be responsible for you killing yourself by way of loofa sponge.”

The cat has no collar and is dirty in the way of a pet that doesn’t know how to clean itself properly, which probably means she’s abandoned or lost or both. He could ask around and see if he can find her owner, but honestly, someone willing to tie a loofa around a cat’s neck and then let them outside doesn’t deserve to own a cat.

Shouta picks her up, grabbing the loofa and sticking it in the crook of his elbow, so that she doesn’t try escaping. “Alright. Home we go, Loofa. My shift is almost over anyways.”

She meows inquisitively.

“Yes, that’s your name, now.”

Loofa settles her head on the sponge and purrs, so apparently she’s okay with that. Weird cat that she is.

~

Shouta feels a bit of power leave and looks up to glare at the only other teacher in the room. “Nemuri, what did you do?”

“Don’t be like that, Shouta. I just wished for my nail polish to be gone.”

He gives her a deadpan stare. “I thought you learned your lesson about that last time.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I phrased it better! I wished for only my old nail polish to be gone.”

“Nemuri.”

“Shouta.”

“And what nail polish did you have on your nails this time?”

“My newest- …Oh. No!” She pulls a bottle of nail polish out of her desk and peers at it. “Aaaaa! I did it again! It’s all gone!”

“You’re welcome.” He says drily. “Next time use nail polish remover.”

She droops, face sulky. “Why is this so hard? Do you think if I phrase it like ‘only the polish on my nails’ that it’d work?”

“I don’t know. You’re welcome to try. But please, restock first and use your favorite nail polish when you do. Because I want to laugh at you.”

“You’re mean.” She sulks, sinking down in her seat and glaring at the empty nail polish bottle.

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t a compliment!”

“Yes it was.”

“No! Urgh. You’re impossible.”

“Fair.” He decides and returns to grading. Really, if his coworkers are going to break the ban for little things, they deserve to be laughed at. Nemuri and Hizashi doubly so. At least they’re smart enough not to break it for anything with real consequences. Well, except for that time that Vlad wished for all the coffee grounds to disappear to spite him, but he’s probably learned his lesson after Shouta’s retaliation for that. Probably.

Chapter Text

Shouta steps out of his sleeping bag and promptly knocks over a mug of steaming coffee sitting on the floor beside it. What the-?

His boss is watching him with bright eyes.

“Nedzu, what are you up to?”

“I heard you accept coffee as offerings. Did it work?”

He blinks at him, feeling so done with the fact that there’s coffee pooling on the floor, under his shoes and against his sleeping bag. Then he realizes that the nagging headache he’s had since he woke up is suddenly gone.

“Huh. Maybe it did? My headache’s gone, at least. But can everyone quit treating my sleeping bag as a shrine? I don’t want repeats of this.” He gestures at the mess.

“Of course! I’ll let the children and staff know.” Nedzu says chirpily.

Eyeing him suspiciously at the easy agreement, he finally decides that what Nedzu is plotting is a problem for future!Shouta. He sighs. “I’ll go get a mop.”

“Probably for the best.” Nedzu agrees cheerfully. “The last time a bot tried to clean your sleeping bag, its circuit’s fried.”

“So that’s why there was a huge grease stain on it for a week.”

“Oh, not at all. That’s what it was trying to clean. Your dimension apparently didn’t appreciate the interference.”

“One of Power Loader’s gremlins?”

“Indeed! As you presumed at the time.”

“Quit reading my mind.” He grumbles.

“Not your mind, your body language.” Nedzu corrects. “And going off the fact that you pranked Power Loader for a solid week after that incident. His students are now under threat of losing an entire letter grade if they cause anything to happen to your sleeping bag.”

Shouta thinks about that, then nods in satisfaction. “Good.”

~

He stares for a good five minutes before he pulls out his phone and calls his boss. “Nedzu, why is there a household shrine attached to the wall outside my classroom?”

“Oh, you noticed!”

“Yes, I noticed. And you didn’t answer my question.”

“Well, you didn’t want offerings left at your sleeping bag any more. This is the obvious solution.”

“‘Obvious’.” He repeats, because it’s not obvious to him at all. “…Fine. But no bunrei and kanjo, because I don’t want to splinch.”

“Why, Shouta, is that a Harry Potter reference? I didn’t know you were into pre-quirk literature.”

“It is and I’m not. Hizashi made me read it. In English. The splinching stuck with me vividly.”

“Understandable! Very well, no bunrei or kanjo. Though I will leave it to you to let your students know that.”

Shouta bites down on a growl, because Nedzu will definitely take that wrong. He’d only made that mistake once. Nedzu had congratulated him on his ‘attempt at sounding like an animal’ and had gone around with a grin on his face for the rest of the day. It had been terrifying.

Nedzu knows him too well, though. “Have you been practicing your growls, Shouta? You should. That one you made that one time was so cute.”

He hangs up on his boss. It had not been cute, he definitely had not practiced growling more intimidatingly for a week after that out of sheer offense, and it wasn’t a little horrifying that the rat considered being growled at ‘cute’. Not at all.

And he still had to deal with the topic of this…shrine.

Ugh.

~

His class looks way too excited.

He glares until they settle down. “Yes, there is a shrine in the hall. No, I won’t expel you for using it. Yes, I will make your life a living nightmare if you ever use bunrei or kanjo on me. I don’t want to splinch. Any other questions?"

Half his class looks like they’ve had a lightbulb moment, while the other half looks confused, apparently not knowing the term ‘splinch’. Meh. The other kids can explain it to them.

“Yes, Iida?”

“Aizawa sensei, I think that’s very reasonable! I think I speak for the class when I say that we’ll make sure not to do that!”

The half of the class that had their lightbulb moment are nodding along unreservedly, while the rest are doing so much more tentatively, obviously still confused.

Good enough, he supposes.

Ashido raises her hand.

“Ashido?”

“Do you like the shrine? We helped design it!”

Well, hell. What is he supposed to say to that?

“I did…notice…the design. Good job.”

The whole class beams at him like he’s made their day, so he supposes it was worth saying, even if it was an almost physical pain to do so.

“Moving on. Today you will be-”

~

Shouta looks up, from where he’s sitting on the common room couch, at Tokoyami and raises an eyebrow.

“Aizawa sensei, I wanted to thank you. The darkness was kind to me last night and I was able to sleep restfully.”

“I’m glad it helped. However, if you’ve been having nightmares about USJ-”

“Training camp.” Tokoyami corrects in an embarrassed tone.

“About training camp, the nightmares mean you have trauma still to work through. I’d like you to make an appointment with Hound Dog and have him set you up with at least short term counseling. Making the nightmares go away doesn’t remove the trauma, so if you don’t work through it, the nightmares will probably come back.”

“I see. That would be a grim future indeed.”

“Yeah! Fumi’s no fun when he doesn’t get enough sleep!” Dark Shadow pops out to say.

“I’ll make an appointment with Hound Dog sensei tomorrow.” Tokoyami continues.

“Good. Is there anything else?”

“No. Thanks again, sensei.” Tokoyami says earnestly and moves past the couch over to the dining room table where several of his classmates are gathered, doing homework.

Something like affection brushes over his heart. Tokoyami and Dark Shadow are a good kid. Kids? Whichever.

~

“Oh, so the great 1A class has started to worship their own god. Their own homeroom teacher, no less.” Shouta hears through the open door.

Oh. Vlad’s feral child. Great. He feels a headache coming on.

“Hey!” Kaminari protests.

“Uh, yeah. Sensei is a kami, so of course we’re going to worship him.” Jirou snarks.

“Monoma, don’t do this. Aizawa really is a kami, much as I hate to admit it and if you make certain wishes around-” Vlad says, sounding further away.

Monoma just talks over him though. “Ohh, those are some dark looks, 1A. I bet you wish that I’d just disappear, don’t you?”

Shouta facepalms as he feels a really strong tug on his kami powers. That idiot child.

“-they come true.” Vlad finishes lamely.

He gets up and peers out the door at Vlad. “Please tell me he at least has his phone on him?”

“He should, Aizawa sensei.” Kendo volunteers. “Um, why did Monoma disappear?”

Shouta huffs and goes back inside. Let his kids or Vlad explain.

“Aizawa’s the kami of Erasure.” Vlad explains. “Given Monoma’s poor wording, probably at least half of class A responded by wishing he’d disappear. Just…the rest of you, don’t say things like that in Aizawa’s hearing, okay? There’s a ban on it for a very good reason.”

Someone’s phone rings and a moment later, Vlad exclaims, “You’re in Hong Kong!? Monoma, what-? No, calm down. Monoma. Look-” Vlad’s voice fades out of his hearing, probably headed towards the Principal’s office to arrange transportation for the feral child to return to UA.

Maybe the kid would learn his lesson from this. … Nah, he definitely wouldn’t. Feral children aren’t tamed so easily.

~

“Thank you so much for finding him for me, Hero-san. Broccoli is such a good boy and normally so lazy, but he likes to chase butterflies. When he’s doing that he doesn’t pay attention to where he is and then he gets lost and wanders around until somebody can find him. He does this at least once a week.” The woman says as she takes the cat from him.

“Broccoli?” He doesn’t see it. The cat is a normal white Persian, not green or curly at all. Said cat turns its face towards him and (wow, that is a lumpy face) suddenly he can see it. “Why not Cauliflower?”

“Because I don’t like cauliflower and broccoli is as close as I could. Y’know?”

“Makes sense.” He acknowledges gruffly. “You know they have collars that have locators on them? You can just follow the map on the paired device and find him much faster. It’s a specialty item, but not that expensive.”

“I didn’t! Thank you! Do you know where I can order one?”

“Whichever local pet food store you have should be able to order it for you. They might even have one in stock if they’re a big store.”

“I’ll look there, then. Thanks again, Hero-san.”

“It’s Eraserhead. And you’re welcome. I need to get going.” He replies.

She waves at him and goes back into her house, Broccoli held protectively to her chest.

Shouta watches until she closes the door and then leaves. He has a patrol route to get to; he’s already running behind because he stopped to help the frantic civilian who’d been looking for her lost cat for hours before she ran into him. Fortunately it hadn’t taken that long to find the cat once he had started looking.

~

Shouta goes from feeling tired to feeling like he just drank a pot of strong coffee, but doesn’t bother wondering about it until Midoriya raises his hand and asks,

“Did we do something wrong, sensei? Your eyes are glowing. But it’s weird, because your hair isn’t floating like it usually does.”

“Nedzu, what did you do?” He mutters, because there’s no doubt the rat is behind this. Opening the classroom door, he steps out and looks at the wall shrine. There’s a slightly steaming foam cup with Esp. scribbled on the side sitting innocuously on the shrine. Espresso, then. Apparently it contains a bigger kick than normal coffee even as an offering. Well, no reason not to enjoy the flavor if he’s getting the rush anyways.

He snags it off the shrine and returns to class. And pointedly doesn’t answer Midoriya’s questioning looks. It’s not like the correlation is a very hard one to make. The boy’s probably figured it out already, anyways.

~

*Your dimension is a lot bigger and nicer than I was expecting.*

Shouta jumps a little, despite recognizing the rather distinct voice.

“How did you get in here?” He demands, turning around to locate the nekomata spirit.

*You don’t know? You gave me permission.*

“No, I mean, how did you find it?”

*Oh. All kami and spirit domains are connected to the spirit world. It just took me a while to find the path for yours. Yours is locked up pretty tight. I don’t think I could’ve gotten in without permission, so you don’t need to worry about that.*

“Oh.” He doesn’t know what to say to that. It’s a lot to digest. “I have a garden, too, if you want to play in it.”

*Intriguing!* The nekomata jumps up on the kitchen counter beside him. *Most spirits and kami don’t put so much work into their dimension as you have until they’re much older. I met a couple of your cats. They’re nice. I like the glowy one. Sola?*

“Solar.”

*Ah. Solar. You should keep him.*

“I had every intention of doing so, but what makes you say that?”

*He’s seen too much. He’ll probably become a nekomata if he lives long enough. Also, he thinks of you as his person. Like that other cat, Sora?, does.*

“Sarah. She, Solar and Fishbone are my permanent cats. The others I’ll eventually find homes for.”

*Oh, so that’s why your home has the stale smells of many other cats. You found homes for them.*

“Yes. It was fairly recent. I’d had most of them for a while. Do you, uh, eat?”

*Usually just the offerings. I don’t need to eat like you do, but I can in this form. I wouldn’t turn down some nice tuna, if you’ve got it.*

Shouta snorts and sets down his mug to open a cupboard. “As it happens, I do have some tuna. Though I’ll have to get out two or you’ll end up fighting Rice for it. She’s gained some weight now, but she’s perpetually ‘starving’. What’s your name?”

*Kitaro. It’s rude to ask a spirit that, by the way. You should ask what they want to be called. And don’t give out your real name carelessly. Some spirits will try to use that against you. What should I call you?*

He opens a can and sets it down in front of Kitaro. “Eraserhead or Aizawa. So you won’t try using my name against me?”

*Everybody needs friends. I wouldn’t mind being allies either. Although I probably won’t get much stronger than I am right now for a very long time. I probably shouldn’t tell you that.* Kitaro says casually as he starts eating enthusiastically.

Rice, as predicted, runs into the kitchen right then, complaining loudly that she’s starving and he needs to give her food too, so he sets down a second can for her.

If he thinks about it… “I don’t have many friends who aren’t allies.”

Kitaro stops eating to lift his head and stare at him for a long moment, then returns to eating. *Allies then. We’re about the same strength now, though you have a more active domain than I do.*

“Really? I would have thought you are stronger.”

*You’re a kami. That doesn’t really compare to mere spirits well, even if we’re worshiped. Being worshiped means I’m closer to being a kami than an average spirit, but it’s not the same. I’d have to gather a lot of worshipers in order to become a kami. You can do more with less power than I can. So even though you currently are weaker than me, you’re still more dangerous to mess with. Which makes us about the same.* Kitaro lifts his head and sits to begin cleaning his face. *Good tuna. It’s appreciated.*

Shouta shrugs. “Done already? And you’re welcome.”

The can is licked clean, which is a little surprising, but he supposes that it makes sense that a cat of his size could consume the tuna faster than the average cat. He tosses the empty can in the trash.

Kitaro jumps down from the counter. *If you don’t mind, I’m going to finish exploring your home. It’s fascinating.*

“Sure, go ahead.” It’s no skin off his nose to have one more cat wandering around. He sets his mug in the sink. “I’m going to bed, though. Have fun.”

*Sleep well.* Kitaro calls back as he trots out of sight.

He waits for Rice to finish and then puts the leftovers in the fridge, before turning out the light and heading to bed. It’s been an interesting day.

Chapter Text

Shouta stands in the middle of his garden, sucking on a jelly pouch absently, and wonders when and where and why his garden managed to acquire a pear orchard. He has a theory that these random pieces, the blackberries and the pear orchard, are the result of someone, somewhere lazily wishing that they’d disappear and his garden being interested in disappearing them from there to itself.

Either that, or it’s somehow nabbing small pieces of the spirit world from other places and he might have disgruntled ex-owners visiting him to try and reclaim them at some point. Though he’ll wait to worry about that until it happens, if it happens.

Although, with either option, there’s the disturbing factor of his garden being sentient enough to care, much less do something like this. Because apparently his dimension in general is sentient enough to fry bots. Or maybe electronics tend to fritz when they interact with…supernatural power, spiritual power, magic, or whatever one calls it. Although quirks seem to be able to safely interact with both, considering his dimensions and various tech quirks. Unless they can only interact with one or the other? No, wait. Electronics work in his dimensions, so it can’t be that.

Maybe he should just let Nedzu figure it out.

Tucking the now empty jelly packet into a pocket, he plucks some ripe blackberries and eats them as he strolls through the pear orchard, patting a trunk here and there. There’s some branches that should probably be removed, obviously broken. Although he’s not sure that’s safe, given that the trees are full of green fruit. He’ll have to ask the grounds maintenance manager, who is…a woman whose name he can’t remember. Wonderful. Well, Nedzu will know who she is.

And, huh, are trees supposed to have ants? Because several of them seem to. And is that…? Yeah, no. Worms that eat fruit are definitely pests. He plucks the worm off and grinds it into the grass with his shoe. Are there more of these? And what does he do to get rid of them, if so? More things to ask the grounds manager about.

Also, come to think on it, he hasn’t told Nedzu about the garden expanding itself. He wonders what the rat will make of this.

~

Shouta blinks and rubs his eyes. What the…?

He knows the kids worshiping him determinedly has made his spiritual vision a slight bit sharper, but this?

“Midoriya? Why are you suddenly being haunted by nine ghosts?”

The kid’s eyes go wide. “Nine? It should only be eight. Well, seven and a half.” Then he claps a hand over his mouth, looking panicked.

Oh, so he knew about it. Good, he’s not hallucinating, then. “Is there something you’d like to share with me, Midoriya?”

“Uh. Um. Well, it’s my quirk.”

“Would you like to explain that?”

“Not really!”

“Midoriya.”

“Eep! Uh, okay, but. It’s a secret. You can’t tell anyone!”

He nods his understanding. What follows is a tale that leaves his head reeling. The everliving fuck!? Shouta just… He doesn’t have words for how much this makes him want to take a nap and never wake up. What was All Might thinking? No, don’t answer that, obviously he wasn’t thinking. Which…par for the course, really. And he gets, he really does get why All Might thinks he needed to pass on the quirk. Particularly in light of the League of Villains and the Nomu, which are apparently connected to the very nemesis whom the quirk has been dedicated to fighting for the last couple centuries. He even gets why Midoriya was chosen. The kid is a born hero and smart as hell when he’s not being a star struck fanboy or facing Bakugou.

After a minute, he lifts his head from his hands. “You know, Problem Child, if I’d known you’ve only had your quirk for a short time, I wouldn’t have been so hard on you.”

“But you were right! I wasn’t using it right, and I still haven’t quite got it, and I am a liability when I get hurt that badly.”

“Yes. That’s true. But, kid. You should have had proper quirk counseling and extra gym time, dedicated to testing out what your quirk can safely do without breaking yourself. Which, Hizashi could have easily provided the former and I would’ve made sure you had the latter, if we’d known. Learning in an emergency situation as you seem to keep doing is probably the worst possible circumstance for learning.”

“Uh.” Midoriya scratches his nape nervously. “I didn’t really know you guys at the start of the year. And it is kind of a national secret. Even the HPSC doesn’t know.”

“Well, thank heaven for that.” He says half sarcastically but entirely serious. “That’s a secret that they should never get their hands on. But kid. You realize that you have to be the last user of your quirk, right?”

“Uh, no?”

“I’m going to be honest here, kid. All Might got exceedingly lucky when he picked you. How many people would you trust to have this quirk and not let it go to their head? Can you imagine if they figured out how to use your quirk properly and then, just…used it against people who aren’t villains?”

Midoriya apparently has some sort of experience with that kind of thing or a very good imagination, because he grimaces and shudders. “Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. So, no passing it on.”

“That’s what I said. Is there a reason your ghosts seem to be trying to talk to me? Because I can’t hear them. Unless they know JSL, I’m not going to be able to communicate with them.”

“Oh, right. Um. Probably because it’s hard for me to communicate with them? Like, I have to meditate and they can talk to me for a little bit, but only for like five seconds. And I can’t talk when I’m there. So… Sensei? You said there’s nine ghosts?”

“Mmn. One of them is more of a hazy impression than a spirit. Probably of whoever your power storage quirk belonged to first. Yagi is pretty fuzzy, but definitely there in spirit. Well, that’s pretty rude.” He observes as seven of the ghosts turn to look at the one who is glaring at him and that one signs ‘Fuck off.’

“Sensei?”

“Oh, one of your ghosts told me to fuck off. In sign language.”

Midoriya chokes and sputters in embarrassment, turning red.

The grumpy ghost huffs silently and uncrosses his arms again to sign, ‘Not you. Them.’

“Oh, not me. Apparently he said that to the other ghosts.”

“Why?” Midoriya looks confused.

“I’m guessing that he’s the only one who knows sign and he’s unwilling to translate.” Shouta offers.

‘Got it in one.’ Grumpy signs.

“Yep, that’s it.” He confirms.

“Oh. Is there something they need to tell me, though? Or do they just want to talk?” Midoriya asks, which is a good question.

Grumpy grimaces. ‘Tell him the quirk has reached s-i-n-g-u-l-a-r-i-t-y and he should be able to use our quirks. But we don’t know when or in what order. I’m not repeating the rest of their gossip.’

Shouta blinks slowly and then says, “He said to tell you the quirk has reached singularity and you should be able to use their quirks.”

Midoriya goes wide eyed again. “What?”

“And that’s all he’s willing to say.” He adds belatedly.

“So…um.” Midoriya ventures after a minute. “I’m going to get more quirks?”

“That’s how I’d interpret it.” Shouta admits. Because that’s not going to be a mess. Not at all. “You should let Yagi and Nedzu know. And I’d like to have your permission to tell Mic, because you’re going to need quirk counseling if you’re getting more quirks.”

The kid bites his lip and hesitates. Finally, he says, “Present Mic’s your boyfriend, right? Even though you don’t live together?”

Shouta raises his brows in surprise. That’s a pretty good deduction. Color him impressed. “Yeah, kid.”

“Then, uh. I mean. You can tell him. It would probably be better if he knew, right?”

He nods. “It helps to have a support system when dealing with new quirks. And Mic’s not a gossip.”

Midoriya nods jerkily. “Okay. Yeah, okay. He can know. I-I trust him. N-Not as m-much as I trust you, but, um. Yeah.”

Well, that’s a nice revelation. He gets the impression that Problem Child doesn’t trust many adults. Or people in general.

“I’ll tell him, then.” He replies casually. “He’ll want to set up times for your counselling sessions.”

“Okay. Thanks, sensei.”

“You’re welcome, Problem Child.”

~

Shouta would like to note that All Might is an idiot. Although berating him for it can and should wait until Shouta doesn’t feel like he’s dying, Hizashi.

It starts off innocuously enough. Until the wish happens.

“Yeah, sometimes I wish that my injuries would be erased. I miss being able to drink.” Yagi says in response to something someone said that Shouta wasn’t paying attention to.

Hizashi lunges halfway through the sentence to cover Yagi’s mouth, but is too far away to reach him before he finishes speaking.

Yagi looks bewildered as he removes Hizashi’s hand from his mouth. “Is it something I said.”

Shouta is too busy gritting his teeth against the harsh pull on his kami powers because Yagi meant that wish and his domain is Erasure, but is most certainly not healing nor time reversal. He tries to refuse the wish, because it’s not something he can grant, while Hizashi rants at Yagi that he ‘knew this could happen. You were warned! I know Nedzu warned you!’

“Aizawa, I’m very sorry. I take back my wish. I never meant to-” Oh. It’s Yagi. Apologizing for thinking that Nedzu’s warning was due to him being a very generous person and not a literal truth.

Which really doesn’t help. He doesn’t even notice when he falls out of his chair and curls up on the floor as he tries to fight the now-pain of an impossible wish determined to be fulfilled and not succeeding.

“Shouta.”

He opens his eyes. Where had Nedzu come from?

“Can you refuse the wish?”

“Trying.” He grits out. “Not working.”

“Then can you redirect it to another kami?”

That… Well, he doesn’t know, but it’s worth a shot. Instead of trying to stop the wish, he does the mental equivalent of getting his feet up under it and kicking it off over his head. And it…works. He relaxes with a sigh.

“Yagi. Never do that again.”

Yagi bows low. “Again, I am truly sorry. I never meant for that to happen and it’s entirely my fault for misunderstanding.”

Not going to argue that.

“I, too, bear some of the blame. It seems that my wording was rather ambiguous. I apologize for not clarifying.”

Shouta makes to say something deservedly sarcastic about that, but stops, eyes widening, when Yagi suddenly glows. “That was not me.”

“What did you see, Shouta?” Nedzu is asking.

“You didn’t see it? He glowed like a lightning bug for a moment.”

“Hm. Maybe your prayer was answered after all, Yagi. Chiyo, could you give Yagi a checkup?”

“I suppose.” She replies from where she’s hobbled over to look at Shouta, glass of wine in one hand. “But first, how are you feeling, Aizawa?”

He thinks about it. “The last time I felt this bad, I’d been stabbed twice and the knife for the second one had poison on it. But I’ll live. I’m already feeling better.”

“Well, that’s not concerning at all.” She snarks, but looks relieved. “I believe you should treat this like a case of severe quirk exhaustion.”

Great.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” He waves her off feebly. “Check on Yagi already. Make sure he didn’t get cursed for his idiocy.”

Yagi looks distinctly worried at that, clutching at his injured side instinctively.

She snorts at them and tells Yagi, “Follow me, you big lunk.”

~

They return a bit over half an hour later. Shouta looks up from the table that he’s huddled against, a mug of coffee in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. “So?”

“What’s the verdict?” Ectoplasm asks.

“He has a stomach again. A healthy one.” Recovery Girl answers and hobbles over to the table to pour herself another glass of wine. “He should be able to put some weight back on again.”

“That’s good news!” Nedzu exclaims, smiling. Shouta knows the rat well enough to see the lingering anger under his cheerful tone. Yeah, almost killing Shouta is not the way to stay in Nedzu’s good books, even for someone as well-meaning as Yagi.

“I’ll admit, I’m rather excited.” Yagi says, smiling almost shyly. “And I’d like to thank the kami who did this, if I can discover which one did it. This is a true blessing.”

“Ah, then you should visit Sukunahikona’s shrine with a bottle of rice sake. I believe he is the most likely candidate for this occurrence.” Nedzu says brightly.

“But you should thank all the medicine gods, just in case.” Hizashi adds too sweetly.

Shouta rolls his eyes, but doesn’t say anything. His boyfriend’s mean is showing. Not that he’s surprised. Nothing can piss off Hizashi more than hurting Shouta or Nemuri.

Yagi gives Hizashi his iconic smile. “Thank you, Nedzu. And that is a very good idea, Yamada. I will certainly do both!”

Well, it’s not as if the man can’t afford it. And neglecting a kami who has personally blessed you is probably one of the stupidest things that Shouta can think of. There’s a reason he’s taken up giving offerings to Takamimusubi when he stops by one of the big shrines.

Chapter Text

“Where in the world did you get an old orchard of what looks like Kosui and Gold Nijisseiki pears?” Gina Ito asks, poking at a trunk curiously.

“That’s a question for the ages. The answer is ‘I don’t know’.” Shouta replies drily. “My dimension is apparently sentient enough to short circuit cleaning bots and kidnap orchards on whim.”

“Hm. Yes, I heard about the kami thing. Maybe you should ask it to deport the beetles and ants, if it can do that. I don’t see any more of those worms you mentioned, but either keep an eye out for them or ask your garden to deport those, too.”

That does seem like the sort of thing his garden can probably do. “I’ll try that.”

“Well, if that doesn’t work, tell me and I’ll get back to you with some of the less harmful pesticides. I’d hate to do that, though. I noticed a number of solitary bees on your flowers, which is a good sign. You should have no issues with future pollination. Also, you need to seriously thin the fruit on these trees or they’ll weaken from stress and fruit won’t be as good.”

“Um. Thin? And solitary bees?”

She laughs a little. “Okay, I can thin the fruit for you. It means picking off about half the current crop of fruit so the rest can get larger without stressing the tree. Stressed trees tend to not live very long and these are older trees to begin with, so that’s a concern. I can trim the dead wood off now and trim them properly in fall. What else? Oh, solitary bees pollinate just like honey bees, but they don’t make hives like honey bees and they’re generally not as aggressive, so you don’t have to worry about swarming or taking care of a hive. They look pretty similar, too, but they have more color variety than honey bees.”

“Oh.” He blinks a few times, processing that. “So trees need bees to make fruit, but I don’t need to worry about bringing in a hive to pollinate them, because I already have solitary bees?”

“Essentially correct! Good guess. Now, I know you said you get rain in here, but unless you also get winter, you won’t have fruit next year, because pears need a few hundred hours of chill to blossom out. Weird but true. Either way, though, they’re nice trees in generally excellent condition, so congratulations on your orchard.”

“Thanks…?”

“Your blackberries on the other hand, will be happy whether or not you get winter in here, so don’t worry about that. Fabulous bushes, by the way. Your sakura trees will also need chill hours, but the rest of your garden should be fine without it.” She says brightly, in a way that tells him exactly why she gets along with Nedzu. “Feel free to contact me any time you have questions. Your garden is really interesting. When do you want me to come trim out the dead wood?”

“Today?”

“No can do, but I have time on Wednesday after classes, if that’s okay?”

“That’s fine.”

“Good, good. I’ll stop by the dorm around 4pm, then.”

“Thanks.” He says, trying not to sound glum. There goes his afternoon nap for Wednesday.

She politely does not laugh in his face, but her smile says it all. “You’re quite welcome.”

~

“Whoa, this is cool! Where did you find a cat shaped fiber optic lamp, sensei?” Kaminari exclaims.

Shouta’s lips quirk in amusement. Solar is sitting beside him on the arm of the sofa (because while Solar loves being petted, he’s not a lap cat) and glowing yellow with a hint of green.

Kaminari reaches out to rub his hand over ‘the lamp’, then stops, eyes widening, as Solar flinches back. “Wait. That’s a cat? A real cat?”

“His name is Solar. He’s been abused, so keep your movements slow and let him sniff you before you try petting him.”

“Oh!” Kaminari holds out his hand with exaggerated stillness and lets Solar sniff at him until the cat rubs his face against his hand. Then he very slowly reaches to pet him. He looks delighted when, after a moment, Solar leans into the petting and starts purring in a raspy, off and on purr, like he’s not quite sure he’s enthused enough to purr.

All in all, Shouta counts it as progress.

“He’s so soft.” Kaminari half whispers in awe.

“Yes, he is.” Shouta agrees. Solar has one of the softest coats of fur that he’s ever encountered.

Half an hour later, he has Uraraka and Kouda crouched beside Kaminari, all petting Solar, much to the cat’s delight.

“Sensei? Can I adopt him? I’d take real good care of him, I promise.”

“Hm. Solar, Kaminari wants to know if he can adopt you.”

This is met with a long and loud meow of clear disapproval, and Solar jumps off the arm of the sofa into Shouta’s lap and then hides on the other side of him, eyeing the kids warily.

“Um. He says, ‘Never.’ He only trusts sensei to keep him safe, so he’s staying with him forever.” Kouda translates.

“Awww.” Kaminari says, looking mildly disappointed.

“Ah. I’m fine with that.” Shouta agrees, petting Solar soothingly. “I just thought I’d give him the option. Solar, it’s fine. He’s not going to take you away from me, he just wanted to know if he could. Since you said ‘no’, he won’t.”

Solar relaxes but doesn’t move.

Ashido sits down next to him and asks, “Sensei? Can I pet him?”

“If you make sure you don’t have acid on your hands.”

“I’ll be careful.” She agrees. “Where did you find him, sensei? He’s so pretty.”

“In an illegal lab as a test subject. They were starving him and he wouldn’t let anyone touch him.”

Ashido gasps and gentles her petting a little. “You poor kitty! No wonder you only trust sensei! You must’ve been so scared.”

Solar meows several times and Kouda looks surprised.

“He says it was a place of evil and he was very scared.” He says softly, hands gripping the armrest.

“It was. A place of evil, that is.” Shouta agrees, scritching at the base of Solar’s ears. After a moment, he stops and goes back to reading an essay. The problem with assigning essays is that he ends up having to read through all of them. At least Solar is willing to socialize. He’d been worried that he’d be too scared of others to try.

~

“Aizawa sensei! I wanted to thank you! My cape is back to its best sparkle now!” Aoyama declares grandly.

Ah, right. The kid had wanted a stain on his favorite cape erased.

“Sure, kid. Glad it worked.”

“Me too, Aizawa sensei. Me too. The stain was a thing of sadness. I was afraid I would have to get rid of my cape.”

“Well, keep track of how long it works on stains, will you? Nedzu will want the information.”

“Oui! I shall do that, Aizawa sensei!” Aoyama poses, then struts off.

Shouta hides his amusement in his capture scarf.

~

“Sensei, thank you for the…uh, you know.” Bakugou gestures.

“I am not, in fact, a mind reader, Bakugou.” Shouta says drolly.

“For the nightmares! Getting rid of them.” The kid meets his eyes briefly before studying the apparently suddenly fascinating floor.

“You’re welcome. I’m glad it worked. But I’m going to tell you what I told Tokoyami. The nightmares will come back if you don’t get therapy and work through what’s causing them.”

“I’m not fucking weak!” Bakugou glares at him, fists clenched.

“Kid, if you were weak, you’d be in a mental hospital. Needing therapy doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human. You trying to tell me you’re not human?”

“Wha-? No! I’m not a kami like you.” Bakugou pouts.

“Lucky you.” Shouta says with a sharp edge of sarcasm. “Now man up and make an appointment with Hound Dog.”

“Fine! I’ll have the best damned appointment ever.”

“Glad to hear it.” Cripes, this kid is easy to provoke. Ah, well. It’s for his own good.

~

Dammit all! The raid wasn’t supposed to involve hostages. Apparently the villains had decided to take up human trafficking as a sideline without anyone noticing. The hostages had been separated and while they’d practically tripped over the first two as they entered, they hadn’t seen the third until one of the villains had decided to take insurance with him as he escaped.

So now, here he is. On a rooftop across from a villain holding a little girl captive, with a knife to her throat. He can’t risk capturing him, because there’s no way to guarantee he won’t slit the girl’s throat before he can get her free. If there was…well, he’d take it.

Almost as if in answer to his thoughts, the villain looks away from him to leer down at the quietly sobbing girl. “I bet you wish you could just disappear, don’t you, girly? Too bad for-”

Shouta feels a faint tug at his power and shoves power at it.

The girl disappears from the villain’s arms between one word and the next.

“-you, that… What the fuck?”

Shouta shifts the sudden weight in his arms to one arm and lashes out with his capture scarf, wrapping up the villain before he can recover from his surprise. Kami, he loves stupid villains!

~

No one’s been able to pry the little girl off of Shouta since he rescued her, so he’s filling out his mission report by reaching around her. He finally finishes and sets the pen aside.

A detective he recognizes by sight, but not name, comes and sits at the desk. “We’ve got a hit on her. Her name is Michi Ogawa and she was reported missing a month ago, but her family had to move to a different district for work reasons about a week after the initial report, so it will take a while to contact them.”

“Oh, joy.” He says, deadpan.

“Quite. She seems pretty attached to you. Do you have an emergency foster license? I know about half of all heroes do.”

“I do. I’m a teacher at UA, so it’s a job requirement. How long do you think it will take you to contact them?”

“Oh, that’s great. Probably a day or two at most. Though it may be longer until they have the ability to come pick her up.”

He nods. “Alright. You have my phone number. Let me know when and I’ll have Nedzu let them in.”

~

“Aizawa sensei! Who is this?” Iida asks loudly. Which honestly is his normal volume.

Michi is craning her head, looking around, but she flinches at being noticed and hides her face in his sweatshirt again.

“This is Michi. She’ll be staying with me for a few days, until her family can come pick her up.”

“In your house or in the dorm? And, um, am I scaring her?”

“Yes, in my house. Try lowering your voice.”

Iida lowers his voice almost to a normal speaking tone. “Hi, Michi. I’m sorry if I scared you. You’ll like Aizawa sensei’s house. He has lots of cats.”

Michi peaks out at him. “Kitties?”

“Yes! Eight of them! And we have two more here in the dorm that you can visit any time you want!”

She looks up at Shouta and tugs at his sleeve. “I wanna see the kitties.”

“Alright.” He walks over to his sleeping bag, still lying by the common room couch and kicks it open before stepping in.

Michi gasps. “You have a sleeping bag house!?”

“I do.”

“You have kitties walking on air!” She exclaims, leaning away from him to peer at Sarah and Cat.

“Yes, but only the kitties can walk on air, so don’t try it.”

“I won’t.” She says and slips out of his arms to stand on her own. “Wow! You have lots and lots of stairs!”

“Yes, I do. Make sure you don’t run on them. If you slipped and fell it would hurt a lot.”

“Okay, Mr. Sensei.”

Mr. Sensei? Well, it could be worse.

Chapter Text

“Sensei!”

“Aizawa sensei! Look! Look!”

“We found another fox, Aizawa sensei!”

“This one is friendly, sensei! And it’s such a pretty color too!”

“Yeah, we think he might be a lost pet.”

Shouta turns at the sudden babble of voices calling for him. Another fox? Why does that seem-?

“Look, Aizawa sensei! Isn’t he cute!?”

He goes still as his eyes focus on the creature thrust practically in his face. A golden fox? No, that’s not- He can see the shroud of ‘other’ wrapping it tightly. “You’re no fox.”

*Oh, impressive! You can tell just by sight. I am a fox, though. A tenko, to be exact. I came to see what kind of minor kami would help my nephew out.*

“Aizawa sensei?” Ashido asks, eyes wide as she looks between him and the creature in her arms. “Should I-? Should I put him down? And, um, if he’s not a fox, what is he?”

Shouta narrows his eyes at the creature. “If that is all, what business do you have, playing with my students? And yes, Ashido, you should put him down.”

*I mean no harm to them. One’s students can say a great deal about one’s character with their behavior.* The fox says, gracefully regaining his feet as Ashido sets him down hastily and backs away.

Smart kid.

“I’d be more inclined to believe that if you’d asked for permission first.” He says bluntly, although the fox’s golden color makes him inclined to believe this is truly a tenko from legend and folklore, not a nogitsune. And if it’s a true tenko, not just a kit born to a tenko line like the other one obviously was… “Why don’t you change into a form that can speak so they can hear?”

*Okay, okay. I walked into that one, didn’t I?* There’s a moment of flux that he can mostly track and then there’s a (thankfully dressed) golden haired young man standing there, sporting fox ears and several tails.

Well, young is the wrong word, but he looks young.

“There.” The fox turns to the kids. “I mean you no harm. I swear it on my tails. I’m sorry if I scared you.”

The kids go wide eyed for a moment, then they look to him. “Aizawa sensei?”

He sighs. “Fine. Kids, stay here. Remember that people won’t believe you if you brag about petting a 9-tailed fox and coming out alive. You, come with me.”

“Rude. I do have a name, you know. And tenkos don’t hurt children.” The fox complains, but follows anyway.

“Tenkos aren’t the only 9-tailed foxes out there. And you haven’t given me a name to call you by.”

“Fair, I suppose. You can call me Akira. You haven’t given me anything to call you by, either.” The fox doesn’t sound particularly bothered by it.

“You can call me Eraserhead or Aizawa. Either works.” He opens the door to his teacher apartment.

The fox follows him inside, kicking off his shoes absently and looks around curiously. “So this is where you live? Curious. It doesn’t have any hint of domain to-”

Shouta tosses his scarf on the floor and says briefly, “Come in.” before stepping inside.

“-it. Oh.” A moment later Akira yelps and flinches back instead of entering.

He pats the wall of the library. “You can let him in this time.”

Akira tries again, then sucks in a sharp breath as he looks around. “This… This is impressive.”

Glancing around, he shrugs. It is in a way. Bookcase after bookcase lines the walls. There’s rooms of bookcases. Each bookcase a solid seven feet high because he’s tall enough to reach the top shelf with fair ease. Nedzu has imported a good half of the library or more at this point, though. The rest is just Shouta’s personal collection, along with whatever Hizashi and Nemuri have contributed. “There’s a bathroom if you need it and a kitchenette if you want tea. Don’t eat my boss if you come across him.”

“Your boss?”

“About yay high. Talking rat or chimera, not sure which. Always the most intelligent person in a room.”

The fox blinks at him in confusion for a moment, then nods. “You mean Nedzu, the principal of UA.”

“Yes.” He half expects Nedzu to pop out of the woodwork, despite knowing that he’s busy in his office. “So what were you curious about?”

“You have a library for your entryway? This is obviously your dimension, but I expected a single room or perhaps two.”

Okay, not the question he expected.

“No, this is all just library. I have cats, so I’m not inviting you into my home dimension.”

Akira turns from gawking at the library shelves to stare at him. “You have two dimensions? How does that work? You’re just a baby kami.”

“I know someone who can give objects quirks. Or their own dimensions, really. I have two quirked items, so yes, I have two dimensions.”

“Very clever!” The fox praises, looking back at the shelves of books. “Almost foxlike. And cats and foxes generally just ignore each other, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

“You haven’t met Cat.” He mutters in disagreement.

Fox ears swivel in his direction. “You have a cat named Cat?”

“He insisted. I have one named Dog, too.”

“Creative.” Akira says ironically.

“She came named.” He’s not taking the blame for Dog’s previous owner’s terrible taste in names.

“You have two cats, then?”

“Eight.”

There is a pause. “You must really like cats.”

His lips quirk up in amusement. “That isn’t a lot. I had 23 cats not that long ago.”

Akira finally turns to stare at him in mild horror.

After a long moment of silent staring directed at him, he shrugs. “Apparently my domain is Erasure and guardianship of kids and cats.”

“I guess that explains why you helped my nephew. He’s a kid.”

He shrugs again. “He needed help.”

The fox laughs. “Oh, I see. You’re kind. That’s why you smell of Takamimusubi’s power. You tried to help him with something, didn’t you?”

“I’m not kind.” Shouta grumbles at the slander. “He was being mugged. It’s literally my job to stop that kind of thing.”

More laughter tumbles out of Akira’s mouth. “Oh, that’s priceless! You know he didn’t really need your help, right?”

“I figured it out. Eventually.” He grouses.

“Well.” The fox makes a passable attempt at containing his mirth. “If it makes you feel better, the power smells more like you now than like him, so you’ve done a surprisingly decent job of converting it into your own.”

“No. That does not make me feel better.” Shouta says plainly. “I don’t actually want to be a kami. I could have happily gone my whole life without learning that a few aspects of folklore are actual fact.”

“A few?” Akira looks puzzled for a split second, cocking his head to the side. “Wait. Which aspects are you talking about?”

Shouta raises a brow. “Kamis, nekomata spirits and nekomatas and presumably bakeneko, tenko and presumably nogitsune.”

Akira goes over to a bookcase and pulls a book out, then turns and holds it out. “Humor me. What does this look like to you?”

“A book.”

“Nothing supernatural about it?”

He narrows his eyes suspiciously, but the book looks ordinary to him. “No?”

“Huh. I don’t know if that’s bad or good that you apparently can’t see weaker spirits. This is a Kyōrinrin.”

“Should I get rid of it, then?”

Akira lays his ears flat for a moment, a movement that looks an awful lot like a flinch. The book appears to shake in his hand. “It says it’s happy here and doesn’t plan to cause trouble.”

“Okay.” He honestly doesn’t care as long as it acts like a normal book and doesn’t cause mischief.

The book yanks itself out of Akira’s hand and floats up to smack him between the ears before floating back into the bookcase. Shouta has to wonder if that means it’s really a Kyōrinrin or it’s just the fox playing a prank.

“I probably deserved that.” The fox admits. “By the way, would it be okay if I came back sometimes to read in your library?”

“What?” What is it with supernatural creatures requesting access to his dimensions?

“I’ve never seen half these titles before. And I’ve read through everything but the little kids section of the local public libraries.” Akira enthuses.

“That tells me why you want to. It doesn’t tell me why I should let you.” He points out in a deliberately bland tone.

“Oh.” Akira blinks, then grins slyly. “I can put up wards around UA.”

Shouta just stares at him. Wards for what, exactly?

The sly smile dims to rueful. “Good wards. They’ll keep out any yokai weaker than me who don’t belong here. It should help protect your students.”

He supposes that it’s better than coming in to find his students playing with some unknown supernatural. “Agreed. Wards first.”

“That’s fair.” Akira tells him, looking faintly amused. “Always make sure the other party can’t put off their side of the bargain indefinitely.”

“Oh. So like dealing with the HPSC. Got it.” He mutters, then rolls his eyes when Akira bursts into laughter again.

~

Shouta blinks at the sight of Vlad’s feral child clapping and bowing in front of the shrine outside his classroom.

The boy turns, sees him and turns bright red before hurrying off.

What was that about? Whatever it had been about, it hadn’t tugged on his power at all. He eyes what looks like a large coffee cup for a moment and then snags it deftly before he walks into the classroom. Sipping it casually as he watches his class filter in, he’s startled into glancing down at it upon realizing that it’s raspberry iced coffee, heavy on the raspberry syrup. Nice and sweet, just how he likes it. Either the kid got lucky, or he bribed a teacher into telling him one of Shouta’s favorite varieties of coffee.

Maybe it’s a bribe to not ‘disappear’ him again?

In any case, Shouta expects it’s a one-time thing. It’s not. Worse, he starts seeing other members of 1B at the shrine, some leaving offerings of coffee, some not. It’s unclear if it’s just a parallel development or if they’re copying Monoma. Either way, it’s unsettling.

He can’t really complain, though. Either they’re not asking for anything or what they’re asking for doesn’t fall in his domain and thus doesn’t bother him with tugs at his power.

That doesn’t stop him from complaining at length to Hizashi and Nemuri and even Nedzu, though, when people from other classes start showing up sporadically as well. It’s annoying and completely unnecessary.

Even if it means that he doesn’t have to bring his own coffee most days. It’s not all good coffee, after all.

~

Shouta is sweating when he walks into the 1A dorm carrying his sleeping bag and all he wants is a cool shower and a long nap, but one look at the common room derails that. Shinsho is hovering over something or someone on the sofa, looking very freaked out. When he gets close enough to look, he sees that it’s Peep, who is the color of a dirty gray mop rather than his normal purple. Huh.

“Sensei? What do I do? Is he sick? Is he-”

“Go find Kouda. It’ll be easier just to ask.”

A blink later, Hitoshi is halfway up the first flight of stairs on the boys’ side.

Welp. Clearly he needs to up the kid’s training if he’s capable of moving that fast.

Less than five minutes later, the kid is back with Kouda close on his heels, looking worried.

“Peep, what’s wrong?” Kouda asks.

The cat mews tiredly several times.

Kouda abruptly looks like he’s trying not to laugh. “He says, ‘Purple is warm. It’s too hot to be purple.’”

“So, wait. Does- Does that mean that he can change color at will?” Hitoshi asks, still looking jittery.

Kouda asks.

“He says, ‘A few colors, but you like purple, so he’s been staying purple for you and he’ll turn back once he’s not dying of heat.’”

Shouta drops his sleeping bag and irritably wipes a trickle of sweat off the back of his neck and admits the cat has a point. Not to mention that this heat has to be harder with long fur adding to the temperature. “He can come in my house until the heat passes. So can any of the other cats suffering from heat. You should ask at the other dorms.”

“Thank you, sensei!” Hitoshi looks ready to cry in relief and gently scoops Peep up.

“I’ll ask. Shinsho can stay with Peep.” Kouda volunteers in a whisper.

“Ask fucking what?” An irritable voice demands as Hitoshi kicks the sleeping bag open and carefully steps inside. Bakugou looks like he wants to fall over, the heat obviously affecting him adversely.

“If any of the other cats are suffering from heat exhaustion.” Shouta explains. “They can stay in my house until the heat passes, if so.”

“I’m going with him so people actually listen to him.” Bakugou declares, palms smoking. “And afterwards, I’m going to stay in your house until the heat passes, too.”

Shouta doesn’t laugh, but it does take effort not to smirk at the kid. It’s not like he doesn’t have enough spare bedrooms to house the entire class and then some if they double up. “Sure, kid. You still have to go to classes, though.”

“Fucking fine.” Bakugou grumbles, but doesn’t look as if he expected anything different. He is a studious kid under all the explosions, so he probably didn’t.

“That offer extends to you and your rabbit too, Kouda. Just remember to keep him in his cage.”

Kouda smiles tentatively and whispers, “Thank you, sensei. I will.”

No, he’s not going soft. He just doesn’t want his kids to suffer from heat stroke. Letting them suffer would be illogical. Though he does wonder how long it will take the other kids to catch on.

~

Omake:

Mic: Hanging out in Shouta’s living room doing grading when Shinso comes in holding Peep like he’s fragile. “Oh hey there, little listener. What’s up?”

Hitoshi: “Yamada sensei?” Then ignores him to carefully place Peep on the couch and sit on the floor beside him, petting him gently. “The heat’s making Peep sick, so Aizawa sensei said I could bring him in here.”

Mic: “Oh yeah, that sounds like him. I bet he’ll check on the other cats too, to make sure they’re doing okay!”

Hitoshi: “No bet. Kouda’s literally doing that for him right now. Also, what are you doing here? You don’t live here. I mean you don’t, right?”

Mic: Cheerfully. “Avoiding the heat! Nah, I don’t live here. I just came here to grade, because the teachers’ lounge is hot. Boyfriend and best friend privilege and all that.”

Hitoshi: “Cool.” Decides it’s not worth the effort of expanding the conversation.

Peep: A couple hours later, turns purple again.

Chapter Text

“Aizawa sensei?”

Shouta looks up and sees Midoriya, who looks on the verge of an emotional breakdown. “Midoriya?”

“I, um, I wanted to thank you!”

“For what?”

“Oh. Um.” Midoriya looks briefly embarrassed. “Because of the omamori. It really worked! Recovery Girl says my scar tissue has been reduced by 20% and even some of ‘the mess I made of my bones’ has been reduced. My hands hurt so much less! I can hold pens and pencils without wanting to cry now! Thank you so, so much!”

He winces. “I’m glad to hear that, Problem Child. But in the future, tell me if you’re in that much pain and we’ll find work arounds that hurt less, okay? Being in pain just wears you out and is completely unnecessary.”

Midoriya looks down, apparently finding his toes suddenly interesting. “She, uh, Recovery Girl said there was nothing more she could do for me.”

“Ugh, save me from crotchety old ladies.” He pinches his nose. “Did you ask her what you could do to reduce the pain?”

“Uh. No? Was I supposed to? I didn’t think there was anything I could do if the pain cream wasn’t working well.”

“Yes, kid. Always ask that. She should have told you about compression gloves and compression sleeves, or even just liniment. Half fingered gloves are also good for keeping the joints comfortable while still being dexterous. I won’t lie. There’s a lot of pain you’re going to face in being a Pro Hero, but that means there’s quite a few methods of dealing with it as well. Next time you talk with Recovery Girl, tell her I said to discuss self-care options with you. She’ll be nicer about healing you if she sees that you’re not disregarding your well-being recklessly.”

“But-!” Midoriya bites his lip. “Okay, sensei. I don’t mean to be reckless. Really. It’s just that people would’ve died if I hadn’t jumped in.”

Oh boy.

“I know, kid, I know. Sometimes that’s what’s in the cards. I won’t argue that. But, Problem Child, what you can do and what I expect you to do is find better ways to turn a situation around than breaking yourself. You’ve definitely gotten better, but you’ve got a lot left to learn. Never forget you can always find new ways to be better. If you rely on old solutions, you’ll end up dead and/or crippled without being able to save someone.”

Midoriya hesitates, then whispers, “I know.”

He sighs. “Look, Problem Child. I don’t think you’re hearing what I’m trying to say. I don’t want you to get hurt. You’re smart, but you keep forgetting to apply that to fighting. It’s not okay to let yourself suffer. It’s illogical. It will hamper your career if you can’t get it out of your head that you’re an acceptable sacrifice. It hurts those around you if they see you hurting.”

“I don’t let them see.” Midoriya mumbles hastily.

“Yeah, that’s not a good thing, kid. You’re not alone. You don’t need to fight alone. You don’t need to keep your problems from your social support group and your allies. That’s what they’re there for and why every Pro needs someone to rely on. You can only handle so much alone before you break. That’s how humans are built. And what happens then?”

Midoriya scuffs his toes against the rug. “Then I become a liability?”

“Bingo. And what happens when a hero becomes a liability?”

“I die or the other heroes have to fight around me?”

“Oh, that too. But the correct answer is: other people die. Midoriya, kid, Problem Child. Listen to me when I tell you this is not a punishment, but I want you to make an appointment with Hound Dog and let him help you work through this hang up you’ve got about thinking you’re an acceptable sacrifice before it kills you or someone else. Do you know why I’ve expelled students in the past?”

“Um…Because they didn’t try hard enough?”

He nods. That’s certainly part of it. “Because I don’t want to see them dead. I don’t want to see you hurt or dead, kid. There’s enough of that in life without you adding to the statistics.”

Problem Child tilts his head curiously. “Oh. Does that mean you care, sensei?”

Shouta freezes, staring at him like he’s manifested a second head. “Of course, kid. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be a teacher.”

“Oh.” Midoriya says in a small voice and sniffles, blinking back sudden tears. “Thank you, sensei. I didn’t- That is. I think you’re the first one. So, thank you again. I’mgonnagonow.”

What!?

He blinks and Midoriya is a green blur scurrying out the door.

No really. What!?

~

Hound Dog makes a grumbling sound. “Hey, Eraser, have you been sending me students? I’ve gotten three from your class recently.”

“Yes.” He replies idly, not looking away from the lesson plan he’s making.

“Why are you sending me your strangest students? Yes, I agree they need therapy, but what did I do to you to deserve this pain?”

Shouta looks up with a frown. “What are you talking about? I haven’t sent you Todoroki or Aoyama or Iida yet.”

“Oh, come on. They can’t be stranger than Tokoyami, Bakugou and Midoriya.”

“Bet?”

“Sure. Tokoyami’s goth. Top that.”

“Todoroki is a conspiracy theorist with daddy issues.”

“Damn. I’ll give you that one. What about Bakugou? He’s got temper issues, a superiority complex, an inferiority complex and he’s a perfectionist.”

“Aoyama loves all things ‘sparkle’ and cheese. He claims it helps with his stomach issues, but I’m of the opinion that he’s just rabidly addicted to it.”

“Nah, I think Bakugou’s worse. Though ‘rabidly’ sounds interesting. What about Midoriya? He’s addicted to heroes and breaking his bones. Also has no self-esteem.”

“Lots of kids are hero fans and he’s been doing a lot better about not breaking bones lately. Iida’s addicted to rules, acts like a robot and can and has attempted murder when angry.”

Hound Dog stares at him for a long moment, then shakes his head. “Okay, I owe you a bag of coffee. Also, is that something you should be talking about?”

Shouta snickers. “The kids signed an NDA, not me. And it’s probably something you should know if I ever send him to you. It’s just fortunate that the police didn’t want to press charges because Stain was caught, so they came up with an alternative.”

“Uugghh. Send Iida to me. I assume the other two are Midoriya and Todoroki?”

“Got it in one.”

“Yeah, send Todoroki to me too. You know therapy is mandated after an event like that.” Hound Dog looks so very done.

“According to you. But fine. It’s your pain. I’ll send Iida and Todoroki to you for a month. After that it’s up to them.” He smirks at Hound Dog’s expression and turns back to his lesson plan.

~

Shouta hates home invasions. At least the home owners got out before getting help, so he doesn’t have to worry about their safety. No, he just has to navigate an unfamiliar environment and take down the hopefully not violent villain robbing their home. Indoor fights are the worst. Something always gets broken, much to civilian dismay, and as often as not unexpected random objects end up underfoot at the worst moments.

At least this pair of civilians are middle aged with no children at home, so there’s no legos or toy cars to watch out for. Those are the nastier, demonic and unfunny cousins of the proverbial banana peel and have landed more than one hero in the hospital with unnecessary injuries.

He sighs as the villain spots him and knocks over a glass vase that spills those flat glass stones that Hizashi calls ‘designer marbles’ from its innards. Great. Just what he wanted to contend with. Shouta stops just short of the mess and throws his capture scarf at the villain, who twists away desperately and dashes towards the window.

Only to scream as his feet go out from under him and he crashes headfirst into the window frame. Ouch. A pained moan reassures him that the idiot isn’t actually dead. Score one for the designer marbles. Now. If he can just drag the idiot out without killing himself on them.

Somehow he manages and snaps quirk cuffs on the guy and drags him outside where he calls in the capture. The home breaker is mostly unresponsive, which is both good and bad. Good because he’s not going to make a break for it. Bad because it might mean the concussion is dangerously serious.

“Eraserhead-san? Would it be possible for you to check and see if my cats are alright? I’m scared for them.”

He sighs again. The villain really isn’t a concern and the police will be here soon. “How many are there?”

“Four. Daisy, Marigold, Dew and Rain.”

Interesting naming scheme. He nods and walks back inside. There’s no sign of any cats. Probably they’re all hiding.

“Here, kitty, kitty.”

Nothing. Right. He’s a stranger. They’re not going to come out for him.

Shouta pushes a little power into his voice. “It’s safe to come out now. The intruder is gone and your person is worried about you. She wanted me to check on you and make sure you’re all alright.”

After a moment of silence, there’s a couple mews and two cats, one white and one orange come trotting out and rub up against his legs. Movement catches his eyes and he sees a smoky grey and a blue grey cat emerge out from under the sofa. The smoky grey looks like he wants to bolt and only takes a few tentative steps towards him before halting. The blue grey comes halfway before plopping his ass down and giving him a critical stare.

Well. Alright then.

He crouches and pets the friendly cats without breaking the staring contest with the judgmental blue grey cat. Spoiler. The cat wins. Shouta’s dry eye makes him blink first. The cat looks unbearably smug.

Riiight. He’s just going to go out and tell the civilian lady that her cats are just fine.

The police are outside, putting the villain in a police car and taking statements from the civilians. Shouta ambles over and nods amiably to the officer in charge. He can give his statement later.

“Ma’am? All four cats are just fine.”

She blinks and has the gall to look astonished. “Dew and Rain came out for you? I mean, Daisy and Marigold like people, but Dew is unbearably shy and Rain hates strangers.”

So why did she send him in to check on them? He pointedly doesn’t ask. Instead he shrugs. “Smart cats. I told them it was safe to come out and you’re worried about them. The grey ones didn’t come close. The white and orange ones were friendly.”

The woman looks blank for a second and then beams. “Thank you so much for checking on them! They’re like my babies, you know?”

He nods. “I have cats too, so I get it.”

“You do? How many? What colors are they? Are they registered breeds or strays? Do you have any kittens?”

The officer clears her throat.

Shouta smiles slightly. “Eight. Various. Yes, yes, no. I think the officer wants to finish taking your statement, though.”

“Eight! Oh wow! A fellow cat lover!” Then she seems to recall herself. “Oh. Yes. Sorry officer. Where was I?”

“You said you called and reported the break-in?” The officer prompts patiently.

He hides a smirk in his capture scarf, because at least the civilians are no longer his problem, and wanders away to remind the officers dealing with the villain to get him checked over by a doctor for the concussion. It will be a miracle if the guy remembers anything of the break-in with a concussion that bad. Hopefully he doesn’t need surgery for brain bleeds or anything. Shouta’s insurance tends to get pissy when the defense lawyers try to make out a villain’s idiocy to be his fault. Besides, in his opinion, the concussion alone is probably enough punishment for a failed, non-violent theft attempt.

Chapter Text

Shouta really isn’t paying attention to where he’s walking. He’s been this way many times and could successfully navigate it while 90% asleep if he had to. It’s only the startled and abruptly cut off cries of his kids that makes him stop and look around.

This is… Well, wherever this is, isn’t where he was a moment ago. The deep forest with a mere path leading into it from the meadow he is in, is clue enough to deduce that. And the sudden, cackling laughter from behind him makes him tense and pivot smoothly on one heel, hand going to his capture scarf.

It’s an enormous, middle-aged woman with heavy make-up and wrapped in a colorful kimono.

He sucks in a sharp breath. Of course, why wouldn’t other yokai exist? And why doesn’t this domain look like the red light district? “I’m not a patron of brothels.”

In response, she just giggles and makes a ‘come hither’ gesture.

Great. She wants to play. Either that or she’s flirting. He honestly doesn’t know which option is worse.

“How about ‘no’?”

She pouts, then cackles again.

Fuck. “Is that a threat?”

The kerakera onna giggles again and nods.

~

The class stares in concern at empty air where their sensei has just disappeared. They have no idea how to get him back.

Suddenly, Kouda speaks. “It’s still there. The place he went in. It’s just closed.”

“You, uh, you can see it?” Kaminari asks.

Kouda nods.

Surprisingly, Midoriya nods too. “Yeah, I can’t see it, but I can kind of feel it.”

Bakugou scoffs. “Rockface, show the idiot exactly where it is, so he can punch it.”

Midoriya makes a ‘do I really think this is a good idea’ face. “Um, yeah. I can do that.”

“Worth a shot.” Jiro says, fiddling with one earjack.

Kouda hesitantly traces a line in thin air, then steps aside.

~

The clearing fades into a red light district. Shouta is eyeing a nearby rooftop speculatively when something punches a large hole into the scene and Midoriya is on the other side, just poking his head in cautiously. At least he has the sense not to enter, although why exactly he was able to punch open a domain is a question Shouta sorely wants an answer to.

“Sensei?”

“I’m coming.” He turns his gaze back to the kerakera onna, who is pouting, and inclines his head. “Let’s not do this again. My students are worried.”

She blows her nose with a silk hankie, sudden tears dripping, but makes a waving off motion of surrender.

He determinedly steels himself against her tears and walks out through the slowly closing hole at a dignified pace. If he shoves Midoriya back away from the doorway while he does so, well, it’s because the boy has extremely limited self-preservation instincts and far too much curiosity for his own good.

“Sensei! We were so scared! What happened?” Ashido exclaims, throwing herself at him.

He grunts under the sudden weight of teenage girl and sighs. “It’s fine. She just wanted to play.”

“She? Was it another fox, sensei?”

Shouta sighs again.

These kids. They are going to be relentless until they get answers, aren’t they?

~

Getting the kids answers to his question really did nothing to solve the mystery. What Midoriya’s grumpy ghost signed at him was more useful.

‘Ninth likely felt the entry point because of OFA. We feel something different when we’re in your domain and the portal felt something like that, but not the same. We could see it too, just a bit, like with your domain. Probably because we are spirits of a sort.’

Well, that is a reasonable explanation for Midoriya, at least. One for All is a weird enough quirk that it being able to sense something of the spirit world equating to making it able to interact with the spirit world to a degree is a solid possibility. Particularly since it is undeniably haunted.

It still leaves him with questions as to why Kouda could see it. Plus, now he is wondering if Kouda can command supernatural animals. And do Kappa count as animals? Because he really doesn’t want to deal with Kappa showing up to visit his student. The tanukis in first semester were bad enough.

Maybe he can ask Kitaro next time he sees him?

~

Shouta holds and absently pets the utterly relaxed brown tabby that has been thrust unceremoniously in his arms with the words, “Here, Tired-san, don’t let him run away. I have to deal with an emergency.”

The woman, or rather, the mother who thrust the cat into his arms turns around, pulls a blanket out of a diaper bag, spreads it on the ground, lifts her baby out of the stroller and lays it on the blanket, then starts undoing it’s clothes.

What.

A moment later, the nature of the ‘emergency’ makes itself known as the woman opens the baby’s diaper – and, oh, that’s a boy – and the smell of shit wafts out. He scrunches his nose in distaste and turns away from looking at the bare-assed, poopy baby and stares at the remarkably blasé cat in sympathy.

Honestly. Who takes their cat out on walks and entrusts it to perfect strangers on whim? Worse, this is probably a regular occurrence, based on the cat’s non-reaction. The cat doesn’t even have a collar on, much less a leash to prevent him from running away. And he thinks it’s pretty obvious that the woman doesn’t know he’s a hero and thinks he’s just some random, hungover guy. Does this woman not know the concept of ‘stranger danger’? He can only hope that she’s not so careless with her actual child.

After a couple minutes, she pokes his elbow and he turns around and lets her take her cat back.

“Thank you, Tired-sa- Oh. Is that supposed to be a hero costume? You should sue your designer.”

He sighs. “Thank you for the concern, but I work nights, so I don’t really need a flashy costume.”

She pauses to stare at him for a long moment, then nods. “That makes sense, Hero-san. Have a nice day.”

“Thanks. Same to you.” He returns the nod and continues down the park sidewalk in the direction he’d been going before she randomly drafted him. Well, at least he got to pet a cat.

~

“Aizawa sensei!”

The shout is the only warning he gets before he has an armful of sobbing teenage girl. Asui. Who is sobbing hard enough that he can’t understand what she’s saying at all. Gingerly, he rubs her back until her sobs taper off a little.

“Asui, what’s wrong? I didn’t catch any of that.” He asks when he thinks she’s finally calm enough to answer clearly enough to be understood.

She laughs waterily. “Sorry, Aizawa sensei.” She sniffles and wipes her face on his capture scarf. Ew. He’ll have to clean that off later if the scarf doesn’t do it itself. “I just wanted to say thank you so much!

“For what?”

“The omamori worked. It worked! My little cousin’s going to be alright. The big tumors and the ones that were in bad spots that they were afraid to operate on, they’re all gone. She has to do more chemotherapy, but the rest of the cancer is going slowly into remission. Thank you, thank you so, so much!”

“Oh.” Shouta blinks a little, because even after hearing Midoriya’s account, he had no idea that his power could do that much. Nedzu will be fascinated. “I’m glad to hear that and of course, you’re welcome.”

She sniffles again and hugs him a little harder. “Oh, but.”

“But?”

“I wanted to ask if I could get a new omamori for her? My cousin wanted to see it and pulled it out and it…crumbled to ash. She’s really upset about it. And, uh, I want some insurance against her cancer coming back.” Blunt as always, even if she sounds hesitant and slightly embarrassed about asking.

“I don’t mind.” He admits. If blessing another omamori is all it takes to give his student peace of mind, he’ll do it in a heartbeat. “I don’t know how long it will last, even just as a preventative, probably a year at most, given that’s the standard length for an omamori. So you’ll probably need a new one every year if you want ongoing protection for her.”

“You’d be willing to do that? It’s a lot to ask.” She asks seriously, leaning back to look him in the eye.

“I would. You can bring me coffee or something if it makes you feel better about it.”

Asui grins and kisses his cheek quickly. “Thank you, Aizawa sensei!”

He manages not to bluescreen over the unexpected affection and says gruffly, “Sure, kid. Bring me the omamori when you have time.”

“I will!” She replies cheerfully and practically bounces as she takes off in the direction of a small cluster of her classmates.

Shouta chuckles softly. Hizashi is going to be so jealous when he tells him about the hug and kiss. His boyfriend loves physical displays of affection, and Asui is definitely not on the demonstrative side normally. Come to think of it, Nemuri might be jealous too. She’s adores hugs and while she’s quite obviously Asui’s favorite teacher, Shouta’s the one who got hugged. He hides a smug smirk at the thought. His kids are the best.

~

Shouta yawns and walks into his garden with a large bowl in hand to pick blackberries, because Hizashi wants to make a blackberry pie. He is almost to the blackberry bushes when he belatedly notices that there’s something different. Blinking, he slowly pivots to take in the garden, the blackberry bushes, the orchard on the other side of them and…oh.

His garden has apparently appropriated part of a bamboo forest.

He stares dumbly at it. Given that his garden probably has to wait for someone to be rid of a piece of property in order to appropriate it, he has to wonder why anyone would do that. Generally bamboo forests are protected.

Even just seeing this rough, raggedy, asymmetrical triangle of approximately 20 by 25 by 30 ft patch of giant bamboo is somewhat concerning to him. Although, he supposes, it’s technically small enough that he shouldn’t worry unless further patches start showing up regularly. He’s still going to mention it to Nedzu, of course, so his boss can try and track down where it came from.

Curious now, he sets the bowl next to the blackberry bushes and goes over to wander through the giant bamboo, to see if there’s anything he needs to worry about immediately. The understory is mostly grass and ferns with a couple small trees and a few low growing plants that he doesn’t recognize offhand. There’s insects buzzing through the air and crawling around. Not a huge amount, just enough for him to notice with an analytical look. He’s definitely going to have to get Gina Ito in here again to check if any of them are harmful, because he knows only as much about garden and forest insects as she’s told him and no more.

Shouta also spots a couple rather wary birds and adds a mental note to ask Gina about those too. He knows nothing about birds, but he’s half certain that they gather food from larger areas than this patch of bamboo. The last thing he needs is dead birds.

Which. Now that he thinks of it, might be an actual concern, given that he has cats. And cats prey on birds. Dammit. Do bamboo forests need birds to thrive?

The ground under his feet is slightly moister than the orchard or garden boasts, but he has to wonder if he should worry that it’s too dry. Don’t bamboos need a lot of water? Or is that ferns? The ferns look healthy enough to him, but how is he to tell by anything other than the fact that they don’t look to be actively dying? And aren’t giant bamboo supposed to be taller? These only look to be about 23 meters. Or is it only certain varieties that get taller than that?

Yet another pair of questions for Gina.

He pokes at the bamboo in various places out of curiosity, but it doesn’t seem particularly unhealthy, so maybe he’s worrying over nothing. Giving up, he returns to the blackberry patch and starts picking blackberries. Best not to forget those unless he wants to deal with Hizashi’s complaining and/or teasing.

Chapter Text

“Well, everything’s healthy and I don’t see any harmful insects.” Gina says, squinting at one of the birds. “The soil is fine too. Could be a little damper, perhaps, but it doesn’t seem to be doing any serious harm. Can’t tell you much about the birds, though I think these are just random individual birds, not mated pairs. I guess you could ask the garden to send them back or bring in more so they can reproduce.”

Oh, right. He can do that.

“Thanks.” He says gruffly.

“No problem. It’s always fascinating to see what your garden is up to.” She reassures him with an amused smile.

When she’s gone, he sighs. “Look, either send the birds back or find a way to keep the cats from eating them and bring in mates for them. I don’t care.”

He waits a moment, but there’s no change. Oh, well.

“I’ll let you think about it, but I don’t want to be finding dead birds in my house.” He continues, before shrugging and wandering out again.

~

Hizashi brings the blackberry pie to the staff lounge on a half day as a reward, because just because the students aren’t in class doesn’t mean that the staff don’t have piles of schoolwork to mark, along with lesson plans to work on and several topics to have meetings on.

They eat lunch in the teacher’s lounge, just because they can. Lunch Rush also brings up vanilla icecream to go with the pie.

With or without the icecream, the pie is delicious. It’s a large pie, but people are quickly squabbling over the last piece. In the end, Hizashi gets it because he made the pie and he shares it with Shouta. A fair division if you ask him.

Perhaps it’s the time of day or the workload, but he’s not the only one who needs a nap afterwards. Everyone finds comfortable places to relax into. Some in their chairs, a couple on the floor, Nemuri and Recovery Girl on the couch, him in his sleeping bag and Hizashi draped over top of him. It’s really only meant to be a 15 minute break, but when he opens his eyes, several hours have passed and everyone is still asleep, including Nedzu.

Weird.

It’s another twenty minutes before anyone else stirs. He braces for complaints about how chairs are not meant to be slept in.

“Wow. That’s the most restful sleep I’ve gotten in forever.” Nemuri comments on a yawn.

“Me too.” Snipe replies, stretching. “I’m all full of energy now and raring to go.”

“I’m quite refreshed as well.” All Might says with a smile, standing to his full height and stretching as best he can, given the ceiling in the way. Which is most of the way, given that this is UA and built large enough to accommodate even those with larger mutation quirks.

“I haven’t slept this well since Hatsume joined my class.” Power Loader says around his own yawn. “I even had nice dreams.”

“I haven’t had dreams that nice in years.” Shuzenji agrees, smiling faintly.

Nedzu and Hizashi are the last to stir. Frankly, the others just quietly go about grading papers and working on lesson plans for a couple hours while they wait for them to wake. Meetings can wait.

Hizashi stirs first, moving around in his sleep, poking knees and elbows into Shouta uncomfortably until he gets fed up and dumps him off, which wakes him completely.

“Huh? Wha-? Shouta? How long did I sleep for?”

“Five hours.”

Green eyes stare at him blankly, before blinking and filling with embarrassment. “Oh, wow. Sorry about that. I guess I needed more sleep than I thought.”

Shouta’s been thinking about that, though. The entire staff falling asleep for hours on the job isn’t exactly ordinary, even if they got a good rest out of it. “Either that or it’s because you ate an extra half slice of the pie.”

“I agree.” Nedzu says in a thoughtful tone. And when had the rat woken? “I imagine I slept longer as well because my body weight is much lower than the rest of you. The lack of nightmares was particularly enjoyable.”

“The pie?” Snipe asks. “What the dickens was in the pie?”

“Blackberries from my garden.” Shouta answers, sitting up and shedding the sleeping bag.

“Indeed! Exactly that. Folklore cautions against food from a kami’s realm and it appears that there is some truth to the matter.” Nedzu agrees. “It was excellent pie, however.”

There’s general agreement to that.

“This has possibilities.” Hound Dog says.

“That it does.” Chiyo agrees. “Perhaps in gummies or an energy bar? Those would make it easy to administer to stubborn students.”

Shouta blinks.

“I don’t think students would accept gummies from me.” Hound Dog replies thoughtfully. “Maybe fruit leather?”

“Do I get a say in this?” He asks drily.

Hound Dog and Recovery Girl trade glances.

“I’m sure UA could arrange payment for the berries.” Chiyo offers. “Hound Dog should get priority on them, though, since a sleep free of unwelcome dreams is a boon to any troubled mind.”

“As long as I get some for pies.” Hizashi puts his two cents in.

He sighs and blinks, losing the staring contest with Nedzu. “Fine. I’ll sell UA the excess berries. Just don’t hand them out like they’re candy. They’re a seasonal fruit and I have no idea what my garden is doing with seasons.”

“Fair points.” Nedzu says brightly. “We should also test how long they have this effect for after being processed. I’ll get Lunch Rush right on with testing different those out. Is 7,000 yen per liter acceptable, Shouta-kun?”

“Sure, just get me some liter baskets.” He agrees with a shrug, tilting his head to allow better access as Hizashi’s nimble fingers dig into his hair to start braiding it. Not his favorite hair style, but styling hair grounds Hizashi and a braid is pretty inoffensive as far as hair styles go.

“I’ll draw up a contract, then. The baskets will be included.”

They’d better be. He’s not paying for baskets, even for 7,000 yen a liter. Still, his dimension have saved him a pretty penny over the years, but this is the first time it’s brought in extra income. A surprise, but at least a pleasant one.

~

There are gloves protruding from the sides of the couch, one to either side, floating mid-air. A step closer and he can see a girl’s uniform splayed out over the length of it. He squints. Lately he’s been able to vaguely see Hagakure if he squints.

The girl is staring at the ceiling with what appears to be a dead expression.

“Hagakure.”

She jolts at the sound of his voice but doesn’t break off staring at the ceiling. “Sensei? Do you ever feel like you’re invisible some days?”

Oh no. Feelings.

“Sure. But it doesn’t bother me like it bothers you.”

At that, she actually looks at him. “Why doesn’t it bother you?”

“Being invisible is really useful for an underground hero.” He shrugs.

“Nobody ever sees me, though.”

“I can see you.” He tells her bluntly, then adds thoughtfully, “If I squint.”

“You can!?” She sits up in excitement. “What do I look like?”

Uh. “Kind of fuzzy, really. And female.”

She sighs and droops. “You can quit squinting. You look like you’re really angry about something.”

“I’m not.” He replies, but obediently stops squinting. “Sorry. Female looks are kind of something I’m bad at judging.”

“It’s okay.” She sounds dejected.

“It’s not. But Hagakure? You know why being invisible doesn’t bother me?”

“No.”

“Because my friends see me. And your friends, they see you too. Not your body, but for who you are.”

After a long moment of silence, she gives a tiny giggle. “Thanks, Sensei. I didn’t know you could be inspirational.”

He mock shudders. “Perish the thought. I leave inspiration to Mic.”

This time he gets an actual laugh.

~

Shouta is strolling down the sidewalk in a neighborhood where the roofs aren’t suitable for traveling over and the streets are lined with trees when a sudden weight drops on his head, followed by a squall and desperately scrambling claws digging into his temples, cheekbones and ears. He’s already prying it off of him by the time it clicks that it’s a cat. Given how startled it sounded, it probably fell out of the tree rather than pounced on him.

“Calm down.” He orders, pushing some kami power into his voice as he struggles not to hurt the cat or drop it while simultaneously trying not to get his arms more scratched up.

The cat startles and goes still, staring at him.

Now that he can get a good look at it, it’s obvious that the cat doesn’t have a home. It’s a little thin, which no cat in this neighborhood with an owner can claim. It also looks like its medium length, brown fur could use a brush run through it.

He sighs, checks its ribs for obvious breaks and stuffs the creature inside his scarf. It’ll definitely need a vet visit to make sure the fall did it no harm. “I guess I’ll call you Timber.”

~

It is later the same night on a rooftop when a desperate, small time criminal somehow gets his hands on a curious cat and flings it directly, claws first, into Shouta’s face, yelling “Yeet!” and makes a break for it.

Shouta’s too busy dealing with a terrified cat to chase after him. Claws stripe his cheeks and crisscross the earlier, throbbing scratches and it’s only by the grace of good luck that he has his goggles on and doesn’t lose an eye before he can pry the poor cat off.

Honestly, he’s in enough pain that he drops the orange tabby. Surprisingly, it doesn’t run off. Instead it stares at him hostilely until he doesn’t reach for it and it decides that he’s safe after all and rubs its head against his ankles. After a couple minutes, it occurs to him to offer it treats and it starts purring like a rusty motor.

“I guess your name is Yeet.” He murmurs, scritching its ears and back.

Yeet has several scars and his fur is a bit dull, if well cared for. He’s also way too skinny to have an owner. After a few minutes, he puts Yeet in the library with Timber and hopes they get along well enough to not have a cat fight.

The criminal is long gone. This patrol is something else. Two cats to the head and he let an incompetent criminal get away. Nemuri is going to tease him for weeks. Chiyo will scold him. Hizashi will laugh himself sick. And Nedzu will smile and offer him tea. Herbal tea. Undoubtedly something nasty like chamomile.

He’s definitely going to have to stop by the vet before he goes home.

~

The vet fusses and cleans his scratches and bandages the deeper ones, which is most of them, before he lets him go. At least Chiyo will be happy he let a professional treat them before coming to her.

Both cats are relatively healthy. Fortunately there are no broken bones and any bruising is minor. Though the vet sends him home with nutritional supplements to feed Yeet for the next month, because he’s so underweight.

Both are previously owned cats, judging by the fact that they’re both neutered already.

Timber even has a microchip. So maybe he’s just a lost cat.

Or so he thinks until he tries to look up the owner’s address and the system registers him as deceased in a villain attack on his neighborhood. A neighborhood a good two miles from the one he found him in. Apparently the man’s house was damaged enough to let Timber escape or someone deliberately let him out. And he’s not calling him by that fancy ass, pretentious name his previous owner used, so Timber it is. The vet just smirks at him while reassigning the microchip registration and changing the name. He doesn’t know what’s so amusing. Timber is a perfectly respectable name for a cat who falls out of trees.

~

Kaminari is busy eating Mighty Smash cereal and contemplating how much he hates math because he sucks at it when Aizawa sensei wanders into the common room. He chokes.

“Holy crap, sensei! What happened to you!?” He looks like he’s been through battle training gone wrong. The man has bandages swathing both sides of his face as well as a few visible lines of scratches.

Aizawa gives him a tired look. “Cats. Timber fell out of a tree and landed on my head. Some asshole threw Yeet in my face.”

Damn. Apparently cats can be tiny demons with those claws if they’re upset enough, because that doesn’t look like the kind of bandages one uses for shallow scratches. Then he perks up.

“You have new cats, sensei? Are they nice?”

His teacher sighs. “Timber is pretty calm when he’s not startled awake. He’s the brown one. Yeet is very curious and friendly, which is probably how he ended up close enough to be thrown in the first place. He’s an orange tabby. You can meet them after school is out for the day.”

“Thanks, sensei! Oh, but shouldn’t you see Recovery Girl for those-” He gestures. “Y’know, the bandages?”

“I intend to.” Aizawa sensei grumbles and starts making himself coffee.

Huh. He must not be feeling too bad if he can drink coffee like normal.

Chapter Text

 “You wanted to see me?” Shouta asks, ignoring the door opening and closing on its own.

“Ah yes! We seem to have a problem. Worship at your shrine seems to have spread amongst the students beyond the hero course. We have several cases of student grades being erased entirely in Gen Ed, Management and Support, with a single 1B student as well.” Nedzu explains.

“Those idiots.” Shouta says in exasperation. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“I’d like you to hang up a list of Dos and Don’ts on the wall beside the shrine, feel free to use the laminator.” Nedzu says cheerfully. “Please include your domains, a list of inappropriate wishes and a list of appropriate requests.”

Shouta sighs. “Okay. Is that all?”

“Yes, actually.” Nedzu agrees.

He nods. “I’m leaving then.”

~

So now he’s staring at a computer document.

List of Aizawa Shrine Dos and Don’ts

Known Domains:

Protection of Children and Cats, Erasure

Do Not:

Do NOT sacrifice cats to me. Blood sacrifices are never okay.

Do NOT wish for your bad grades to disappear because they will and then you WILL have to retake those tests or redo that missing work.

Do NOT wish for your zits to disappear. I don’t know if you’re giving them to others or not, but this is not acceptable. For Takamimusubi’s sake, practice proper hygiene and quit eating greasy foods and excess sugar if you don’t want zits.

Do NOT wish for your plaque to disappear. Brush your teeth regularly and see a dentist.

Do NOT wish for your nail polish to disappear. It will, but so will the rest of your unused polish. Just ask Midnight, she’s tried it.

Do NOT wish for a troublesome animal or person to disappear because that might actually happen and then you’d be responsible for it. I refuse to take responsibility if your annoying younger sibling ends up in China. It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened.

Do NOT wish for all the coffee to disappear. I WILL retaliate and you WON’T enjoy it.

Do NOT wish for healing. Healing is NOT my domain.

Do NOT wish for injuries to disappear. I repeat, healing is NOT my domain and I will be VERY, VERY UNHAPPY with whoever makes this mistake.

Do NOT use my sleeping bag as a shrine. I do NOT appreciate it.

Do NOT EVER use bunrei or kanjo on me. I will be VERY UNHAPPY if I splinch. Both of me WILL hunt you down and make you REGRET doing so.

Do:

DO contact me if you have a cat that needs a home.

DO bring it to my attention if you or someone you know is being abused.

DO contact me if you want to adopt a cat.

Feel free to bring me omamori requests, but be aware that I will only bless the ones that
1. Are in my domain AND
2. I approve of.
So consider carefully. Don’t waste my time.

DO see a therapist if you have nightmares. They WILL come back if you don’t deal with the issue that is causing them.

DO use the wall shrine to leave offerings on.

Acceptable Offerings:

Coffee

Chocolate covered coffee beans

Coffee flavored snacks

Salty licorice

LunchRush Foods brand Nutritional jelly packets. Any flavor besides coconut. I will not accept coconut jelly packets.

Shouta stares at it a moment longer, but he really can’t think of anything else to add, so he hits Print and selects the largest size paper for this before heading to the copy room to pick up the print outs. He can use the laminator while he’s at it.

Ten minutes later, he borrows a few tacks from Snipe and heads off to post the list. This better be enough. Because damn, people are stupid and illogical.

~

Shouta grumbles as he picks blackberries. He’s been picking for an hour and he has nine out of ten quart baskets filled, but he also has bunch of pinpricks from various thorns. The bushes are denser than he remembers them being. He pauses to pop a berry in his mouth. Mmn, the berries are so good, though!

Slightly less annoyed, he drops a few more berries in the tenth basket, completely filling it. Putting it in the picnic basket with the other baskets, he straightens up with a groan before bending to pick up the larger basket.

He’s getting paid for this, but damn. Maybe he can bribe one of the kids to do this for him in the future. His contract for the berries doesn’t specify that he has to be the one to pick them; just that his garden has to provide them.

~

“Aizawa sensei, can I-?”

“If you’re going to ask to adopt another cat, No.” Shouta cuts him off.

Shinso pouts. “Rude. But not what I was going to ask.”

Shouta gives him a look. “Fine. What were you going to ask?”

“Can we do a cat show for-?” Shinso begins.

“No.”

“Will you just let me finish? Ugh. Can we do a cat show for the Culture festival? We can let the other students know about it ahead of time and warn them that only cats that are good with multiple people are welcome. Of course we can have a few of the dorm cats there to fill out numbers, but they wouldn’t be part of the cats being judged.” Shinso says earnestly. “We’d make sure everyone got a participation ribbon even if they don’t come in the top 3.”

This sounds like the kind of chaos Nedzu would adore. “I’ll allow it, but you have to let Nedzu’s cat enter, too.”

Shinso’s purple eyes widen. “Nedzu has a cat?”

“He does. And I would like to be spared the drama that will happen if his cat is not allowed to participate.” Shouta says bluntly.

“Would his cat be required to get a winner’s ribbon?” Shinso asks cautiously.

“Of course not. He wouldn’t put that kind of pressure on his students. Just tell him that the cat has to be dropped off ahead of time and the name of the owner has to be redacted until after the judging, so the judges won’t be influenced. Do you have judges in mind?” Shouta clarifies.

“We were thinking Power Loader, a couple of the 3^rd year Management teachers who are known to like cats and one of the Gen Ed teachers who loves cats.” Shinso offers.

“Not Power Loader. He’s a homeroom teacher, so he’d be biased. Ask Lunch Rush. I’m sure he’d enjoy taking a break to do that.” Shouta suggests.

Shinso nods. “Okay. Do you think I could enter Peep? Or would he count as a dorm cat?”

“Hm.” He considers it a moment. “How about staff and hero course students can enter their personal cats, but the owners names have to be redacted until after the judging?”

“We could just redact all the owner names until the judging is over.” Shinso proposes.

“That’d work. I’d also suggest judging more than one category, so you have more winner’s ribbons to give out.” Shouta adds. “And make sure you have food, water and treats on hand for the cats, as well as providing cages so people can view the cats before judging. Maybe cordon off the area and put Quiet Please signs up around the area.”

“Okay, I’m going to need to write this down.” Shinso says and rummages in his book bag for a moment before ripping a piece of paper out of a binder and fishing a pen out of a pocket. “So. 1. Lunch Rush, not Power Loader to avoid favoritism. 2. All owner names redacted until after judging to prevent bias. 3. Staff, including Nedzu, can participate. 4. Hero students can participate with personal cats. 5. Food, water, treats and show cages on hand for the cats. 6. Cordon off the area with Quiet signs. 7. Judge more than one category so there’s more winners’ ribbons to hand out. Did I miss anything?”

“I don’t think so, though you may want to list the things you told me to begin with.” Shouta offers.

“Oh, right. 8. Social cats only. 9. Ask judges if they’re willing to participate in judging. 10. Have Kouda on hand. 11. Participation ribbons for all. 12. Dorm cats will not be judged, but may be brought to bring up numbers. Um. I think that’s all?” Shinso says uncertainly.

“You’ll want an enclosed booth to block out more sound and sights that could scare the cats.” Shouta points out.

“Right. 12. Enclosed booth to keep the cats calmer. Thanks, Aizawa sensei!” Shinso jots down excitedly.

“Don’t mention it. Now I’m going back to my nap.” He grumbles.

“Totally understandable! Bye.” Shinso says, stuffing the paper and pen in his bag and then trotting off.

“Brat.” Shouta mutters fondly.

~

“Aizawa sensei-?”

“No.” Shouta says reflexively. Which is probably a bad habit. Oops.

Midoriya is undeterred by his interruption. “The shrine sign says ‘Known Domains’. Does that mean you have more domains than that?”

“I don’t know. So far, other than Kitaro straight up telling me the bit about kids and cats, everything we know about my…” He gestures. “Entirely accidental divinity has been because of trial and error. More error than anything. The god who ‘blessed’ me didn’t bother to even tell me what he’d done, much less how it would manifest.”

“Oh. Um. If it’s accidental, is divinity something we should worry about accidentally obtaining?” Midoriya asks worriedly.

“Not unless you coincidentally ‘save’-” He makes air quotes. “-an elder god. And I can’t tell you how not to do that, because they look like ordinary people.”

“Er. Good to know.” Midoriya says meekly, then gets that gleam back in his eye. “Do you mind if we experiment to find out if you have other domains?”

“No.” Definitely a bad habit. He needs to use his words more. Dammit.

“No, you don’t mind? Or no, you don’t want us to?” Midoriya clarifies.

“The latter.”

Midoriya just nods, but his answer gets a few disappointed whines from other students. And the gleam in Shinso’s eyes is not reassuring.

~

“Shouta! Why didn’t you put down ‘Sleep’ under your domains?” Nedzu asks.

He frowns. “Sleep isn’t my domain.”

Hizashi laughs. “Come on, Shouta! That pie put all the teachers to sleep! You can’t possibly think it’s not actually your domain.”

“I agree. It takes quite a lot to knock out someone my size.” All Might puts his unwanted two yen in.

“I’m afraid I have to disagree with you, Shouta. Your realm wouldn’t have affected the berries that way unless somehow sleep is a domain of yours.” Nedzu adds calmly.

Shouta scowls at him. “You’re as bad as the kids.”

Nedzu just laughs. “You’re literally selling UA empirical evidence, Shouta. Don’t be stubborn.”

“Yeah, Shou, don’t be stubborn!” Hizashi repeats with a shit eating grin.

“I hate you.” He says flatly.

“No you don’t. You love us! We all know you’re just a giant softy, Shou.” Hizashi, the traitor, replies.

Then Vlad speaks up. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Logic is a domain of yours, too. Goodness knows, you’re always going on about ‘logical’ or ‘illogical’ to justify things.”

“Ugh. Don’t curse me like that.” Shouta groans. The last thing he wants is another domain, whether it be sleep or logic and logic somehow sounds worse, since it’s a maybe and not a probably.

Vlad just laughs at him. The bastard.

He decides to ignore the lot of them.

When he comes to class the next morning, SLEEP is written boldly in marker under Known Domains with a smiley face scribbled under it, making it clear that this is Midnight’s work. Figures. She would like him having that domain. In fine point marker under Do is scrawled: DO wish for sweet dreams. Bitch. Ugh. Now people are going to do that! This is what he gets for being friends with her. Why did he ever think that was a good idea? Oh yeah. Hizashi had wanted him to. This is what he gets for listening to his boyfriend. He can’t stand it when Hizashi is sad at him, even when he knows it’s fake.

Chapter Text

Honestly, Shouta doesn’t know why his students are already planning for the cultural festival, this week is internships and most of them seem to have made better choices than their first time around or at least equal choices. He is a bit worried about Midoriya going with Sir Nighteye, though. The man has the skillset Midoriya wants, but he tends to get caught up in his own self-importance and way of doing things to the point that he ignores the comfort of those around him. If Midoriya ends up in that tickle machine this week, Shouta’s going to have some strong words for the man.

Speaking of Nighteye, though, Shouta’s been called in for a raid, along with a number of other heroes and their interns, among which there are several UA students. He bites his tongue rather than rip into Rock Lock’s skepticism about his students’ skills. The rest of the meeting goes fairly well. Unfortunately, despite Nighteye’s best efforts, they’re still lacking a bit in the information department. Even more unfortunately, there’s the wellbeing of a little girl on the line, so they can’t afford to wait until they have more information.

The raid is a shit show. One of the Shie Hassaikai has a quirk that allows him to warp the building itself, separating heroes willy-nilly until Shouta gets a visual on him. Another manages to get the jump on Shouta and use his quirk to slow him to a standstill.

But they manage.

Togata rescues the girl, only to be shot with a quirk removal bullet, the permanent kind. Sir Nighteye fails to dodge and becomes a casualty. Midoriya ends up with the girl on his back fighting the souped-up leader of the Shie Hassaikai, who can kill with a touch, while the girl’s quirk undoes the damage his quirk is doing to him while being used at 100%.

It’s worst thing Shouta has witnessed during this raid and it takes him far too long to get a clear visual on Overhaul after Tamaki rescues him from Kurono and let Midoriya take him down with one blow. Somehow Overhaul separates himself from his men, or maybe the little girl’s quirk does, Shouta’s not sure, because he just kind of collapses after Overhaul is defeated.

What he is sure of, is that a. he has a headache from overusing his quirk and b. Midoriya’s been de-aged approximately five or six months, because he no longer has scarred up hands and arms from summer camp and the sports festival. Explaining that to Mrs. Midoriya is going to be oh, so much fun. Not.

And now it turns out that the girl’s, Eri’s, quirk is not only dangerous, but she has no control of it. So Shouta (read: the only one who can stop her quirk) is now her guardian. What the hell?

Neither Midoriya or Togata are in a good place after Nighteye’s death and he wants to revive the man and kill him all over again after Midoriya admits that he said Midoriya wasn’t worthy of All Might’s quirk. The self-involved little prick. He basically wasted Midoriya’s internship with how he went about it even after he made Midoriya ‘earn’ it. Who the hell told him it was okay to use his quirk on one of Shouta’s students!?

As for Togata, he’s not only dealing with the death of his mentor, he’s dealing with the loss of his quirk. He’s still smiley, but his smiles are stressed and only half-genuine now. Shouta’s going to have to mention to Nedzu that the boy needs therapy. There’s a possibility Eri can rewind Togata to get his quirk back, but for now: therapy.

While Eri recovers, Shouta takes the time to install railings on both of his stairs, not about to trust a small child to not hurt themselves by forgetting the edge or tripping. Hizashi and Power Loader help him with the work. He also installs an ironwork mesh over the bottom half of the open wall in the top room. No need to have an accidental Mineta repeat.

Which honestly? Is probably the first time Power Loader has been invited to his sleeping bag abode.

It had only been okay with the other child because she was only there a few days and spent most of it following Shouta around like a sad kitten when she wasn’t entertaining herself petting cats. She’d also hugged the walls when going up and down the stairs, because the edge scared her.

~

The day before he’s due to bring Eri home with him, Shouta, Hizashi and Nemuri are informed that Kurogiri might, might be their long thought dead friend Oboro. Nedzu covers his and Hizashi’s classes so they can go see him that day.

Shouta doesn’t know what he’s supposed to feel about this as they walk through the prison to the visiting rooms. On the one hand, Kurogiri is a villain who targeted his kids and Shouta’s not sure he can forgive that. On the other, though, if Kurogiri is Oboro, then…well, he doesn’t know. He’s cautiously happy at the possibility, but he’s also long-since finished grieving for his friend. He’s not sure that-

Hizashi grabs his hand. “I’m so nervous.”

He squeezes the hand in his. “We’ll work it out. Working yourself up isn’t going to help the situation.”

“I know you’re right, but…” Hizashi replies sheepishly.

“Sirs? We’re here.” The cop says, opening a door.

Inside is Kurogiri.

Hizashi and he stare awkwardly, but Kurogiri greets them casually. “Hello, Eraserhead, Present Mic.”

Right. “Do you consent to this?” Shouta asks.

“Consent?” Kurogiri somehow manages to look puzzled despite his face being made of mist.

“You’re in police custody, but you still have rights.” Shouta clarifies.

“Oh. Then yes, I consent. I confess myself to be rather curious as to if the speculation is right.” Kurogiri says easily.

Shouta nods and without further warning, activates his quirk.

As it turns out, Kurogiri is Oboro, who struggles to push through the brainwashing to talk to them.

When Shouta lets his quirk lapse to blink, Hizashi turns to him with an intent expression. “I wish the brainwashing on Oboro would be erased.”

“Hizashi.” Shouta chides, feeling a sharp tug of power.

“Oh, whoa! That’s amazing!” Oboro’s voice says, and the purple mist thins until they can see his face. “I have no idea what the hell just happened, but thank you. So what’s been up with you guys?”

Hizashi beams. “Well, we’re teachers at UA now. I teach English for the hero course and Shouta is 1A’s homeroom teacher. This year, UA transferred to a dorm system and Shouta’s super attached to his class. Oh! We’ve been dating since not long after graduation and Shouta’s about to adopt a little girl.”

“I’m just her guardian. I’m not adopting her.” Shouta grumbles.

“You tell yourself that. Maybe you’ll believe it if you say it enough times.” Hizashi tells him, making him grumble wordlessly.

“That’s super cool! Shouta as a dad! Also, I totally told you that you’d be a good teacher, Shouta. How about you, Hizashi?” Oboro exclaims.

“Oh, I have my own radio show now. I don’t live with Shouta, though, so unfortunately I’m not going to be Eri’s second dad. Nemuri’s also teaching at UA now. She teaches Art History. And Nedzu is the principal now.” Hizashi enthuses.

Shouta represses a snort. Hizashi’s a sunshine person and he visits often. Eri is definitely going to latch onto him as a parental figure.

“I knew about Nedzu, but that’s awesome!” Oboro matches his energy.

“Sirs? You have one minute left.” The policeman warns them.

Oboro spends that minute telling them about Shigaraki, warning them that he’s beyond help, due to how AFO raised him. That kind of brainwashing is far more insidious than the kind Oboro had. It’s not something Shouta’s power can undo. If they tried, he’d probably end up with the mentality of a five year old, which is undue cruelty by any definition.

So, Oboro’s still in prison, but now there’s a chance that he’ll be put in a villain rehabilitation program once they’re sure the brainwashing is gone. And isn’t that a punch in the gut?

~

Shouta looks at the list of needed items in his hand and sighs, wondering why he is the one taking it to Nedzu instead of the class rep.

Item request:
70 cages for cat show
50 puzzle bowls
Plexiglas enclosed obstacle course for cats
10 bags NyaKat kibble
15 lg containers of cat treats
15 litter boxes
20 bags of cat litter, unscented
70 water bowls, not metal
Lg enclosed tent to house cat show
70 pillars to rest cages on

He walks through the open office door.

“Ah, Shouta! What brings you here?” Nedzu asks brightly, not looking away from the computer and typing twice as fast as Shouta can.

Shouta lays the list on the desk.

Nedzu pauses to take a look. “Oh, I see. For culture festival? A cat show?”

“Yes. Staff are allowed to enter their cats but owner names will be redacted until after most of the judging takes place. Dorm cats can’t compete, but they can be brought. They have already obtained 53 reservations and expect more. Yaoyorozu is making the award ribbons, but I’d rather not have her be a production line for the rest. Here’s the judging categories.” Shouta explains, slapping down another list.

Judging categories:
best grooming
best color  
friendliest cat
least friendly cat
best in breed – for each of the purebred cat breeds
oldest cat
youngest cat
shyest cat
boldest cat
longest claws
shortest claws
most toes – polydactal cats only
most useful quirk – quirked cats only
most visually appealing quirk – quirked cats only
most entertaining quirk – quirked cats only
fastest obstacle course run
finds the most treats in shortest time in a puzzle dish

“I see. That seems reasonable. Why are you presenting this instead of your class’ representative? Are you entering any of your cats?” Nedzu asks.

“I have no idea. Yes, the adoptable ones and maybe Prissy.” Shouta admits.

Nedzu nods absently. “Well, this is a lovely, creative idea. I wish them luck and the items will be delivered within a week.”

“Thanks.” He acknowledges.

~

In the end, Shouta brings Dog, Cat, Prissy, Rice, Loofa, Timber and Yeet to the cat show and receives ‘Adoptable’ tags for all of them other than Prissy. Cat is unphased, watching the people and cats with curious intelligence. Dog is calmly breadloafing. Prissy is utterly calm, currently curled up and napping peacefully, a contrast to all the yowling the last couple weeks, whatever that was about. Rice is visibly unhappy, ears laid back and flinching with every sharp noise. Loofa is lying down, ears back and eyes wide, claws dug into her precious sponge. Timber and Yeet look conflicted, ears alternating between being laid flat and perking in interest, flinching at the louder noises but friendly if someone approaches.

Eri is thrilled by seeing even more cats and keeps drifting between cages as new contestants are brought in, Midoriya trailing her around and chatting with her to help her stay calm. Togata’s supposed to stop by later and take her around to the more interesting booths, but Shouta’s been stationed here to make sure no one starts trouble around the cats.

So far he’s seen a variety of cats: ordinary mixed breeds (most of them), Japanese Bobtails, American Shorthairs, Scottish Folds, Munchkins, Russian Blues and more. Loofa’s a Turkish Angora; Prissy and Dog are Maine Coons.

Most of the cats are a little nervous, but Kouda has met each new arrival and talked to each cat, which keeps most of them fairly calm. It probably helps that this show is only for more social cats and that they’ve cordoned off the area. Honestly, though, he wouldn’t have brought Rice if not for the fact he’s hoping she’ll find a forever home. Unlike the animal shelter or the vet, he doesn’t have a lot of easy ways to find homes for his cats, despite the ease of dispensing all the dorm cats last time.

An hour in, Shouta blinks and rubs his eyes. No, he’s not seeing things. He walks up to the new arrivals and asks, “You’re Gentle and La Brava, aren’t you?”

An ‘oh shit’ expression plasters itself on their faces, but recovers, “Indeed. We’re here for the cat show.”

Gentle holds up a cat carrier as evidence.

Shouta nods. “Look. Don’t cause trouble at the festival and no one will bother you. This time. If I run into you elsewhere or if you cause trouble, I won’t hesitate to arrest you.”

“You’re welcome to try.” Gentle says genially. But he looks relieved.

He flashes his quirk, just to get rid of the relief.

“Oh dear. You’re Eraserhead, aren’t you?” Gentle asks faintly.

“I’m glad we understand each other.” Shouta says, feeling a little smug. His quirk is a hard counter to quirks like Gentle’s and La Brava’s. On the other hand, he can’t risk a ruckus so close to Eri and all the cats. That could turn bad in a hurry.

Speaking of Eri, Midoriya has left her with Yaoyorozu and is hurrying over. “Sensei? You’re letting them stay?”

“They come in peace, so I’ll give them a pass this time.” He says, pulling out his phone to let Nedzu and the other teachers know to leave them alone unless they cause trouble. Who knows how they found out about the cat show not being student exclusive, but it’s better than them attempting to cause trouble at the festival.

Chapter Text

It turns out that one of the third years recognizes Gentle and La Brava a couple hours in and starts a fuss, only to be stopped by Vlad, who thankfully had checked the teachers’ chat messages earlier, telling them that the two are allowed to be there. Gentle and La Brava are pleasantly surprised at a teacher stepping in to allow them to stay, but decide that they’ve been there long enough and come back to pick up their cat.

Their cat, a bossy brown tabby American Bobtail has actually won best in color, best of breed and boldest cat winner’s ribbons, along with several participation ribbons. Gentle looks proud and La Brava coos at the cat, telling him he’s a good boy and did so well.

They depart peacefully and Shouta is glad to see them go.

~

“Princess Eurydice! You’re alive! Oh my kami, baby you’re alive!” A woman’s voice wails.

Shouta blinks and turns around to find one of the spectators, a short, dark haired woman, on her knees, babbling tearfully to Prissy, her fingers stuck through the bars of the cage.

Prissy is on her feet, meowing and rubbing against the fingers insistently.

Huh. Maybe this is Prissy’s owner?

He walks over. “Excuse me? Do you know my cat?”

The woman nods, still crying. “Princess Eurydice Queeny Betheseda. She’s my best show cat. Somehow her cage hit the down button on the window and then fell out and I didn’t notice until I was home. I thought she was gone forever!”

“Hm. Do you have paperwork to prove it?” He asks.

“Yes! I, um, don’t have it on me, but I can bring it by UA tomorrow if you’re willing to meet me.” She says instantly.

He nods. “I’m one of the staff, so that works fine.”

“Thank you! Thank you so much for saving my baby! I really thought she was dead.” She blubbers.

“Her cage probably saved her life. It was totally trashed. Took me awhile to get it open.” He admits. “Is eleven o’clock okay?”

“Actually, could we do it in the afternoon? Say around four pm?” She suggests. “I’m meeting some customers wanting to buy kittens during the morning and early afternoon.”

“That’s fine.” He agrees. “Bring a carrier. I don’t have one.”

“Can do!” She says, smiling through the tears that are finally, thankfully slowing down.

~

Shouta finally remembers to show Eri the garden. Huh, the pears have fruited. They look ripe. Eri found out at the culture festival that she loves candied apples, but maybe she’d like other fruit as well. He looks down at her where she’s seated on the grass, running her hands over the grass, feeling its texture and generally looking amazed.

“Eri? Would you like to taste a pear? They’re sweet like apples, but a little different flavor.” He asks.

She looks up at him wide-eyed. “Can I?”

“Of course.” He says and saunters over and picks one for her. Asian pears aren’t soft when ripe like European pears, but they do have a much nicer texture. “Here you go.”

Eri gets up and runs over to him and takes the fruit reverently. She looks up at him for some reason, then nods and bites into the pear. “Mmmn! They’re nummy!”

“Then you can have one whenever you like.” He says easily, and then notices that his garden has kidnapped a pair of decrepit trees. They must be extremely old, at the end of their lifespan to look so large and half dead. “Hey, Eri. How would you like to practice your quirk? See those trees over there? They’re so old that they’re almost dead, so it won’t hurt them to rewind them.”

She looks, then asks in a small voice. “But what if I can’t turn off my quirk on time and they disappear?”

“Then I’ll turn it off before the trees disappear. Promise.” He reassures her.

Honestly, he doesn’t think the trees will die. His garden will probably revitalize them on its own, but it can’t hurt to give it a hand. Worst case, he doesn’t react in time and he’s out a couple trees of some variety that he doesn’t even know.

“O-Okay.” She says tentatively. “Can I finish my pear first?”

“Of course you can. The trees are in no hurry.” He says, a little amused, but glad that she’s asking for things.

When she’s full, she hands the pear back to him and he eats the last few bites while walking over to the mystery trees. She places both hands on the trunk of the nearer one and her horn begins to glow. It’s fascinating seeing the tree be rewound and he almost forgets to stop her quirk until she calls out in a panicky tone, “I can’t stop it!”

He flashes his quirk and she steps away from the now much younger and healthier tree. She moves to the next one and repeats the process. When the tree is healthy again, he asks, “Do you need me to stop it again?”

She scrunches her face in concentration. “I think… I got it!” Eri exclaims happily as her horn stops glowing on its own.

“Excellent job, Eri. I’m really proud of you! You’re getting the hang of your quirk so fast.” He praises, aware that little kids need more positive reinforcement than teenagers.

“Really?” She asks, turning to him with a hopeful expression.

“Absolutely. You should be proud of yourself. You just saved those trees from dying.” Shouta reassures her, wondering if they’re shade trees or fruit trees. He’ll have to bring Gina in to identify them.

She breaks into a beaming grin. “Yeah!”

And there’s Hizashi’s influence already, he muses in affection.

~

Prissy’s owner shows up with the full paperwork for a registered purebred cat.

A little unnecessary in his opinion, given Prissy’s reaction to her, but he had asked. He leads her to 1A’s classroom, where Eri and Prissy are waiting. Mostly because fishing Prissy out of the sleeping bag would give her the wrong idea if she saw it.

The cat gets into the cat carrier without being prompted and her owner thanks him again and takes her away.

Eri looks a little sad, but brightens up when he tells her, “I find cats pretty regularly. There will always be new cats. And Prissy wasn’t mine to begin with. Sometimes I need to give cats away to other homes, but Sarah and Fishbone and Solar are permanent cats.”

“Perma’ent?” She asks.

“It means that they’re my forever cats.” He explains.

“Ohhh! Why?” She says.

“Well, because Fishbone and Sarah were my first cats. And Solar’s like you. Bad people used him to test things. So he’s scared of most adults.” Shouta tells her.

“Not you, though. Right?” Eri clarifies.

“No, not me. I helped rescue him, so he likes me. He told Kouda that he wants to stay with me always.” He admits.

“Me too!” Eri exclaims.

He smiles, because that means she’s willing to trust him. “When you’re grown up, you’ll get your own house.”

She shakes her head. “No. I don’t want to.”

Shouta chuckles. “Well, you’ll have years and years to change your mind.”

“I won’t!” She says stoutly.

She will, but he can see he won’t win this argument and trying will just upset her.

~

“Hm. These are very nice mulberries, but they could do with a dressing.” Gina remarks.

“A what?” He asks, confused by why mulberries need to be dressed. Are they cold sensitive or something?

“A fertilizer mulch.” She clarifies.

“Oh.” That’s doable.

“The soil they’re in doesn’t look like it has much nutrition left. And malnourished mulberries taste rather disgusting.” She explains.

Ah. Well that wouldn’t be good. “Can you recommend a brand?”

“Sure. I’ll write it down for you upstairs.” She replies easily. “I’m surprised anyone wanted to get rid of these trees, though. They’re quite nice.”

“Eri rewound them with her quirk. They were the saddest looking living trees I’d ever seen. Very old.” He tells her.

“Ahh that would do it. Quirks are bullshit.” She agrees.

~

Shouta orders a couple bags of the fertilizer that Gina recommends and gets Uraraka to float them down to his garden when they arrive. Then they follow Gina’s instructions on how to spread it, careful to not get it too close to the trunks.

Eri helps and ends up with dirt all over her clothes and face, even some in her hair. She’s happy though, and that’s what counts.

The ‘sky’ starts to mist as they finish up spreading the fertilizer and they hurry back inside. The precipitation turns into a fine patter of rain shortly after.

Giving Eri a shower and bath afterwards is a lot wet and a little muddy, but she chatters happily while splashing in the tub, asking all kinds of questions about trees and flowers that he mostly gives vague answers to, because he doesn’t really know much about gardening.

True to form, when he checks the garden a few days later, it looks like months have passed for the mulberry trees and the limbs are heavy with hanging fruit. They honestly look like elongated blackberries and when he tries one, the flavor isn’t all that dissimilar. Sweeter perhaps. And a little tarter. Overall, he can see himself enjoying them.

Apparently Eri noticed him coming into the garden, because she runs into the garden a moment later and runs over to grab onto his leg, then stops and ‘oooh’s at the trees.

“‘Zawa? Can I try one of those?” She asks, pointing upwards.

“Sure.” He says and picks one for her.

“Mmn! They’re not as good as apples and pears, but they’re really good! Like the ones on the bushes!” She exclaims. “More!”

And that is how Shouta ends up feeding Eri a breakfast of fresh picked mulberries. She’s a chatterbox the rest of the day. Eventually he resorts to feeding her blackberries to get her to sleep when night rolls around.

~

A girl Shouta thinks is from the second year management course, probably, is standing in front of him with a notepad and paper and an avid expression.

“Aizawa sensei? Is it true that you claim to be a kami?” She asks.

Nope, not dealing with this.

“I wish you would disappear.” He says blandly, pushing his power at her. There’s a moment where his power seems confused and then she disappears.

Two hours later, she’s back. “Aizawa sensei! What’s your quirk?”

“Erasure.” He says and sighs. “I can erase someone’s quirk temporarily by looking at them with my quirk activated.”

“So the teleportation isn’t a side effect of your quirk?” She persists.

“Definitely not.” He agrees.

“So you really are a kami?” She asks.

“Unfortunately.” He gives her a dead eyed stare, but unfortunately, she’s not unnerved by it.

She blinks a few times. “That’s not the response I expected.”

“It’s a pain in the ass.” He complains. “I didn’t ask to become one. I wasn’t even consulted.”

“So how does being a kami work?” She inquires.

He blinks at her slowly. “I made a list. Consult that for answers.”

Apparently deciding that she’s pushed her luck enough, she nods and walks away.

~

“Shou, read this!” Hizashi exclaims and shoves the school newsletter into his hands.

Kami or Crock?

Yesterday, I confronted Aizawa sensei, teacher of class 1A on whether or not he truly believed he is a kami.
Aizawa’s quirk is Erasure, a quirk that erases other quirks temporarily when used. There are no secondary teleportation related effects. Now, you may wonder what teleportation has to do with anything.
When I confronted Aizawa, his reaction was to wish aloud that I would be erased! A moment later, I found myself in Yokohama, an hour train ride from UA. Consider me convinced! The man truly is a living kami.
Upon approaching Aizawa a second time, I received a more friendly response. He explained his quirk to me and confirmed that the teleportation is not a side effect of his quirk. When asked if he really is a kami, his response was, “Unfortunately.” He then complained about how inconvenient it is to be one and directed further questions to his list of rules for the Aizawa wall shrine located next to 1A.
Being curious, I did just that. For those of you equally curious, I have included the list below.

Shouta sighs deeply and hands it back. “I knew she was trouble.”

Hizashi laughs. “Congratulations! You’ve successfully convinced one of the influencers of UA that you’re a genuine kami.”

“Ugh. Shut up.” Shouta whines. Don’t students have better things to do than bother him?

Chapter Text

Shouta looks at Eri’s berry stained clothes that he just washed and sighs. He knows how to get out bloodstains, but do berry stains actually come out? He treats the stains with stain remover again and runs them through a second time, with the same result.

He sighs again. Well, at this point, he has two options. He can try erasing the stains with his kami power or he can let Eri have fun staining the rest of the material with what is either mulberries or blackberries. Oooorrr, he could call Nemuri and ask her if she knows of another method for removing the stains.

Getting out his phone, he calls Nemuri, glad that his dimension allows for cell phone connections. “Hey, Nem. Eri’s clothes are berry stained. How do I get that out?”

“Hello, Shou, nice of you to ask how I’m doing. Also, I don’t know. Blackberries, right?” Nemuri replies, sounding slightly exasperated.

“Or mulberries. Or both. My garden kidnapped a couple mulberry trees and Eri likes both those and the blackberries.” He corrects.

“Ok. Your garden is so weird.” She comments. Well, that’s undeniable. “Give me a minute to look it up on my computer.”

What is more like ten minutes later, she speaks into the phone again. “This site says you can try using the juice of the unripe berries or dip it into boiling milk to remove the stains. That’s for mulberries. What I found on blackberries was using lemon juice or some arcane recipe for combining various things if that doesn’t work, call me back if you want it.”

“Okay, thanks.” He says. “Bye.”

“Bye, Shou.” She replies before hanging up on him.

He ponders. He doesn’t have lemon juice or milk or unripe berries and he’s not sure he wants to deal with some arcane concoction if it’s weirded Nemuri out. That leaves him with the first two options. Maybe he should ask Eri?

Yeah, he can do that.

It takes him a few minutes to find her feeding Cat fresh catnip in the garden. “Hey Eri, I have a question.” He holds up a berry stained dress. “I can’t get these stains out. Should I try using my power to erase them? Or do you want to paint the rest of the stained clothes, so they’re all one color?”

She looks at him owl eyed for a long moment, then says hesitantly, “Paint.”

“Okay.” He tosses the dress at her, getting an annoyed yowl from Cat when it lands on him, and walks over to the mulberries. Mostly because they don’t have thorns to avoid. After getting a large handful, he sets them in a pile next to Eri. “Squish the berries into the rest of the dress. I’ll go get the other clothes.”

Eri nods solemnly and picks up a berry and squashes it into the fabric.

In the end, he finishes up the staining, because Eri gets tired and bored of it and also misses spots. When he’s done, he tosses the clothes back in the washer and gives them an extra rinse cycle. They come out more or less the same color, although they’re clearly going to be play clothes because the pigment didn’t dye evenly, leading to a mottled effect.

Though Eri promptly dubs them ‘berry eating clothes’ when he tells her that she has to be wearing one of the freshly dyed clothes if she’s playing outside or eating berries. He has the feeling that she’s going to be wanting to wear them a lot. Nemuri and Hizashi might object, but he sees no harm in it.

~

Shouta stares at the new list tacked beside the list of shrine rules in utter disgust.

Nedzu’s Offering Tips

1. Espresso adds more of a kick to your prayer.
2. Please pay attention to the shrine rules. They are there for good reasons.
3. Proximity matters. If you’re off of UA grounds when you pray, the prayer may not be answered.
4. Belief matters. Stronger belief equals stronger prayers.
5. Strength of intent matters. The more strongly you wish for something, the more power goes towards answering it.
6. You do not need to be asking for something to pray or leaving offerings.
7. Try not to annoy Aizawa with your requests. He’s already prone to be grumpy and he DOES have the power to expel you.
8. Yes, these things have been scientifically tested.

Does he want to know how Nedzu has tested these things out? No, no, he does not. Damned chimera! This is going to end up in the UA Newsletter too, isn’t it?

Ugh. He doesn’t have words to express how much this makes him want to curl up and sleep for a decade or however long it takes for this to go away. Alas, he has Eri to take care of, hellions to herd and Hizashi and Nemuri to worry about.

Deciding that today is not his day, he continues on into the classroom, pleased when the chatter cuts off abruptly and the students scramble to get in their desks. Four seconds. Not bad.

~

“Since ‘Zawa is my daddy, does that make you my mommy, Yama’?” Shouta hears Eri ask.

Hizashi chokes and gives Shouta a ‘Help!’ look.

Unfortunately for Hizashi, Shouta thinks the assumption is hilarious. Plus, even though they don’t live together, they are basically married. And Eri will probably grow out of considering them her parents instead of her guardians.

“Yes, he is.” He tells Eri.

Eri looks contemplative. “My mommy gave me away. Can I call you mama instead?”

“Su-Sure thing.” Hizashi chokes out, giving Shouta a scolding look before turning back to Eri.

Yup. Hilarious.

~

“Shouta Aizawa, please come to the principal’s office.” The hall speakers blare.

He winces at the noise and turns towards Nedzu’s office. Most likely Nedzu just wants to ask or tell him something in private.

Yawning, a few minutes later he enters Nedzu’s office and then asks, “What is it?”

“Straight to the point, as always.” Nedzu says and offers the receiver of the phone on his desk. “You have a phone call.”

Raising an eyebrow, he takes the phone and raises it to his ear. “Hello? This is Shouta Aizawa.”

“Hi. This is Princess Eurydice’s owner. The vet tells me she’s a couple weeks pregnant. Do you have any idea who the sire is?” She asks.

“So that’s what all the yowling was about.” He mutters. “Yes, I do. My quirked cat, Solar. I have no idea what breed he is. My apologies, I got her a shot to prevent pregnancies, but I must’ve forgotten to make an appointment to renew the shot.”

“Hm. What quirk does he have?” She asks curiously.

“His fur glows like a fiber optic lamp.”

“I see. Half breed kittens shouldn’t be a problem, I can always sell them as pets, but would you be willing to take any quirked kittens?” She says.

He raises a brow again. Most breeders would jump at the chance to incorporate a quirk like Solar’s into the breeding line, because quirked animals can be sold at ridiculous prices. “Sure. I can do that.”

“Thanks. I just don’t have any way to guarantee a quirked animal would be sold to good people.” She explains.

“Ah. That’s logical.” He agrees. The trafficking of quirked animals is unfortunately a high risk.

“I’ll bring them by if there are any at the six week mark.” She tells him.

“Fair enough.” He accepts.

“Well, that’s all I called about, so goodbye.” She says abruptly and hangs up.

Shouta just hands the phone back to Nedzu. “How likely are cats to inherit the parent’s quirk?”

“83%.” Nedzu replies promptly.

He sighs. So there definitely will be at least one or two quirked kittens. Good to know. “Let me know when she shows up in…four months, I guess.”

“But of course!” Nedzu replies cheerfully.

“Was there anything you needed me for?” He probes.

“Just the phone call. Feel free to go back to whatever you were doing.” Nedzu says.

Shouta nods and leaves, unsurprised when the door opens for him on its own.

~

Shouta winces as, with a crack of thunder, the sky opens up with literal sheets of rain, soaking him near-instantly. Distant screams prove that he’s not the only one caught out in the sudden rain. Oh well. At least he knows that Eri is safely inside.

Eri is not safe inside.

Apparently, 1A had decided that playing outdoors today was the thing to do, because the half of the class that is downstairs when Shouta arrives have wet hair and new outfits on. Eri also has wet hair and a new outfit, presumably courtesy of Yaoyorozu.

A nearby flash of lightning lights up the common room with a rumbling boom following a split second later and Eri squeaks in fear.

“I’m going to take a hot shower and change. One of you bring Eri.” He says briskly. Shouta would bring her himself, but he’s sopping wet.

Naturally, when he gets out of the shower twenty minutes later and gets dry clothes on, he finds the entire class in his living room, petting cats or entertaining Eri. Kouda’s rabbit is in a cage on the kitchen counter and Luce, Lucid and Peep are mingling with the other cats.

“I said one of you.” He complains tiredly.

“But thunder is scary and we think lightning almost hit the dorm.” Ashido says earnestly, to nods all around.

“Fine. You can stay overnight. But you’re still going to school tomorrow, regardless of the weather.” He acquiesces.

“Yay!” A good three-quarters of the class cheers. Oh great, his kids are hyper. They don’t seem to have brought their homework though, so he has no qualms about giving them blackberries for dessert tonight. At least it will guarantee the little gremlins don’t run around all night driving him crazy.

~

Shouta steps out his front ‘door’ in the morning, toast in his mouth and a cup of coffee in his hand and promptly falls out of a tree headfirst. Only hero reflexes allow him to drop the mug and use his capture scarf to stop himself less than six inches from hitting the ground headfirst.

What the hell!? Why is his sleeping bag in a tree!? If this is a joke, it’s not funny.

He grumbles about his lost toast and coffee and climbs back into the tree and retrieves his sleeping bag. Where is this anyways? Pausing, he looks around and sees UA’s main building in the distance. Okay, weirdly far to go for a joke, but at least still on campus.

Mysteriously dry sleeping bag over his shoulder, he trudges towards the main building.

~

When he walks into the teachers’ lounge, Hizashi forgets to control his quirk. “SHOUTA! YOU’re alive!”

“Yes?” He asks in confusion. “Obviously.”

“Holy shit!” Snipe says.

“Thank God, you’re okay!” Yagi says heartily.

“Shouta.” Nemuri says in a choked up tone. “I have some bad news. A tornado hit 1A’s dorm last night and there were no survivors. The building was leveled.”

He blinks. “Oh. That explains why my sleeping bag was in a tree.”

“How are you taking this so calmly!?” Thirteen demands.

“Well,” He says slowly. “The entire class decided that they were terrified of the storm and brought themselves and all the animals into my house last night. They’re cooking breakfast right now.”

Thirteen and Yagi burst into tears. Of relief, Shouta presumes.

“However, I did fall out of a tree and waste my breakfast and coffee, so I’m going to need coffee and some toast.” He continues. Throwing his sleeping bag down beside the couch, he meanders into the kitchenette and helps himself to a clean mug and the better part of the existing pot of coffee. There. Much better. “So, was 1A’s dorm the only casualty?”

“Nah.” Hizashi replies, sounding a little choked up. “A couple of the gyms and part of one of the training cities got taken out too.”

“Cementoss will be earning his paycheck.” Shouta comments. He notices belatedly that all of his co-workers have red eyes. Huh. They really thought we were all dead. Guess it’s a good thing the kids decided to play scaredy-cat last night.

Chapter Text

After a minute or so, his coworkers turn to chatter about the storm damages. Apparently the buildings Hizashi had mentioned are only the ones that got destroyed, not the extent of the damage. 1B lost their roof and windows and several other dorms have damage to varying degrees. Honestly, it’s a miracle that the tornado only hit 1A’s dorm and largely spared 1B’s, given that they are- were right across from each other. Come to think of it…

“Is 1B under the impression that 1A is dead?” He asks.

Vlad jolts and digs out his phone.

Shouta sighs and pulls out his own. “Add me to your class chat. They’ll take it better coming from me.”

His fellow teacher pauses before nodding.

__

Clan 1B chat

BloodSensei has added ShoutaAizawa to chat.

ShoutaAizawa: It has come to my attention that people may be under the impression that 1A is dead or missing.

FistTaisho: You mean…?

ShoutaAizawa: Yes, 1A is safe in my sleeping bag and having breakfast with Eri at the moment. No one was comfortable with the storm, so I let them stay over last night.

VineMaiden: Thank God!

CopyTigger: Figures that 1A can’t even get themselves killed properly.

BloodSensei: MONOMA! What the fuck?

ShoutaAizawa: Monoma, I know you dislike my class. I don’t know why, nor do I care. But there are lines
you DO NOT CROSS. And you just crossed one. Heroes don’t say things like that. EVER.

CopyTigger: … My apologies, Aizawa sensei. That was insensitive of me.

ShoutaAizawa: It was more than insensitive. Just…whatever. Don’t do it again.

BloodSensei: Monoma, you’re suspended for the next three days. And I’m making you do mandatory appointments with Hound Dog for the rest of the year.

CopyTigger: … Understood.

IronIron: Oh, come on! That’s not fair!

BloodSensei: …

ShoutaAizawa: The fact that you don’t understand why what he said was so bad
makes me question if you deserve to be a hero, Tetsutetsu.

IronIron: What!? HEY!

BladeHopper: Yeah, what’s so bad about it? It’s not any worse than he normally says.

ShoutaAizawa: … Vlad.

BloodSensei: I see we’ll be having an extra, early section on sensitivity training. Also, Tetsutetsu and Kamakiri, you will also be seeing Hound Dog for the foreseeable future.

ShoutaAizawa: Acceptable.

ShoutaAizawa: Also. Don’t view therapy as punishment. Almost all pros, without
exception, have therapists. They’re there to help you work through problems not to ‘fix’ you.

BloodSensei: That is correct. However, the reason I’m sending you to therapy is that your attitudes could very well lead to you letting people die. I don’t think I need to explain why that is bad. Do I?

FistTaisho: No, sensei.

VineMaiden: No, sensei. Their callousness is unbecoming of a hero.

Spook: Mmn.

CopyTigger: I stand corrected. I do need to learn to filter better.

IronIron: I don’t see how, but if you say so.

BladeHopper: Same.

DarkBlack: Seems pretty clear to me.

GlassesBeast: No, sensei. I can see where the attitudes could be detrimental

(13 other responses in more or less the same line)

VineMaiden: Oh! Aizawa sensei, I apologize, but I must clarify. When I said ‘thank God’, I was not referring to you but the Christian God.

ShoutaAizawa: Appreciated.

VineMaiden: But I also want to thank you for allowing 1A to stay over last night when they expressed their concerns about the storm, because doing so saved their lives. I am very grateful for that.

ShoutaAizawa: You’re welcome.

Mycelium: Yes, thanks for that! But also:

Mycelium: Aizawa sensei, have you considered adding mushrooms to your garden? They are a vital part of most ecosystems and I’d be happy to give advice.

ShoutaAizawa has left chat.

Mycelium: And spores! If you need some.

Mycelium: Oh, he left. Boo.

__

Shouta grumbles and puts his phone away, picking up his now cooler coffee. “Vlad, why is your class so weird?”

Vlad huffs, then sighs. “I ask myself that every day. Not that yours are any better.”

“Fair. And a few of mine could use the sensitivity training too, so we’ll move it up for both classes.” He agrees.

“Good. Monoma will complain less that way. There. Screenshots sent to Nedzu.” Vlad replies and puts his phone away.

A moment later, Shouta’s phone rings. With a sigh, he pulls it out and answers. “Yes?”

“Good to hear your voice, Shouta. Can I assume from the comments that 1A is alive and well?” Nedzu asks brightly.

“Yeah. Eating breakfast with Eri.” He confirms.

“Ah, good! I admit, I feared the worst.” Nedzu admits.

“You know that you could’ve just called to find out earlier.” Shouta grumps.

“I admit. That did not occur to me. Or anyone else, it appears.” Nedzu says in a serious tone.

“Well, it should have.” He says in exasperation. Really, why did no one just call?

“You are right. I should’ve assumed that at least you and Eri would be alright in your realm. That a mere tornado wouldn’t damage your realm.” Nedzu says a little too brightly, which conveys his sarcasm very well. “Now that we have empirical evidence of that, in the future that will be my first response!”

Shouta groans. Okay, the chimera has a point, but. “Glad to hear it.”

“Excellent. Now, I agree to moving up the sensitivity training, but we’ll need to endeavor to make it more comprehensive than in previous years. I’m sure you and Vlad will be up to helping Hizashi with that.” Nedzu moves on in a chipper tone.

Making eye contact with Vlad, he relays, “Nedzu wants us to help Hizashi make the sensitivity training more in-depth, but he has approved moving it up.”

“Can do.” Vlad says easily.

“WhAT!?” Hizashi squawks. “We’re doing what now?”

“Moving up the sensitivity training because my class said some very insensitive things to Aizawa just now.” Vlad explains.

“What kind of insensitive?” Hizashi inquires, serious now.

Vlad winces. “This is a direct quote: ‘Figures that 1A can’t even get themselves killed properly.’”

Hizashi closes his eyes and takes a deep breath then letting it out slowly, repeating this several times before he opens his eyes again. “I see. I knew 1B had a problem with 1A’s ‘fame’,” He makes air quotes. “But I didn’t realize it was this bad. I’ll break out the material for the sensitivity training and we can start working on it today. It’ll probably take a couple weeks to overhaul it.”

“Acceptable.” Nedzu says on the other end of the phone. “I’m giving you permission to bring in outsiders to help, if needed.”

“I’ll let them know.” Shouta acknowledges.

He hears a clink of porcelain. “Now, you should know, there is some concern that this was not a natural tornado due to the fact that it only touched down on UA grounds and only 1A’s dorm was destroyed. Naturally, we’re glad that no other dorms were targeted, however…”

Shouta closes his eyes and breathes out through his nose for a moment. “Thanks for letting me know. Keep me updated on what you find.”

“Of course. Now, I need to get in contact with some others so I’ll let you go.” Nedzu says.

“Goodbye, Nedzu.” He says and hangs up. Shouta looks at Hizashi and Vlad. “He says we can bring in guest speakers to help. We’ve got-” He glances at the clock. “Fifty three minutes before homeroom to brainstorm.”

“Other staff or?” Hizashi asks.

“Both.” He clarifies.

“In that case,” Yagi cuts in. “Would you like me to see if some of the other top ten heroes would be willing to help out?”

“Let’s put a pin in that for now.” Hizashi replies. “But it’s a good idea.”

“Yeah. I think some professionals in the mental health field might be more important.” Vlad adds.

“Or some rescue heroes.” Thirteen offers. “There are a lot of things you don’t ever say to victims.”

Shouta listens as the other teachers chime in with suggestions and sips his coffee. This is going to take a while.

~

Iida, predictably, is the first one to emerge and he stops, looking around in confusion. “Sensei? Why are we in the teachers’ lounge?”

“Because there no longer is a 1A dorm.” Shouta says bluntly.

“What!?” Iida gasps.

“Tornado.” He explains.

The boy’s eyes widen dramatically. “I need to tell the class!”

Iida turns around and marches back into the sleeping bag. Two minutes later, he reemerges, followed by the entire class and Eri.

“Sensei? Is it true that a tornado destroyed our dorm?” Ashido demands to know.

“Sure is, listeners.” Hizashi answers for him. “We all thought you were dead until Shou here showed up this morning. There was that little left of it.”

“Holy shit!” Kaminari exclaims.

Most of the class turns a little green as that sinks in.

Midoriya bursts into tears. “My limited All Might merch!”

“That’s not what you should be worried about, nerd! You should be worried about someone finding your stalker diaries!” Bakugou scolds.

The tears slow, but don’t stop. “No, Kacchan, you don’t understand! I brought my hero notebooks with me last night, because I wanted to go through and check my older ones for accuracy, but some of that merch only ten or a hundred were ever made! I can’t replace that!”

Yagi clears his throat. “I’m sure I have at least one of whatever you lost, young Midoriya. I’d be happy to replace your collection.”

Predictably, Midoriya cries harder.

Bakugou scoffs. “And are you going to replace my collection too?”

“I’d be happy to, young Bakugou.” Yagi says like an idiot.

“And if he doesn’t have it, I’d be happy to spend Endeavor’s money on getting you a new one.” Todoroki offers, fishing a credit card out of who knows where and holding it up for inspection.

“This is nice and all.” Sero says awkwardly. “But maybe we should go to class?”

Iida immediately starts herding the class out of the teacher’s lounge, leaving behind a confused looking Eri.

“‘Zawa? Why is Deku sad?” She asks in concern.

“How do I say this? The big storm last night killed the dorm and ruined all of the class’ things, so Midoriya was upset about losing some things he really, really likes.” He explains.

“But Yagi-san said he’d give them back, right? So why is he still sad?” Eri wonders.

Nemuri coos.

Hizashi clears his throat. “Not all tears are sad tears, Eri. Those were happy tears.”

“Oh. I thought tears were for being sad.” She says in confusion.

“Not if you’re Midoriya. Midoriya cries over lots of stuff. The only things I haven’t seen him cry over are fights and broken bones.” Hizashi says lightly.

“That’s God’s own truth.” Snipe agrees.

Shouta shoots Snipe a look. He barely knows Midoriya, so he doesn’t get an opinion.

Snipe at least has the grace to look a little sorry.

“Oh. Why though?” Eri asks, obviously still confused.

“That’s a question only young Midoriya can answer, I’m afraid.” Yagi replies.

“Don’t be scared! I’ll be your hero!” Eri proclaims.

Because, of course, that’s what she latches onto, Shouta thinks fondly.

~

Shouta picks up his desk phone when it starts ringing with some obnoxious tune Hizashi no doubt programmed in. “Hello?”

“Heeey, is this Eraser?” An unfortunately familiar voice asks.

“Hawks. What do you want?” He asks impatiently.

“You know your kids are putting out some wild rumors on the internet?”

“1A kids or UA students in general?” He demands.

“Oh, you know, mostly UA students in general.” Hawks says vaguely.

Just mostly? Someone’s getting detention.

“What rumors?” He asks, resigned to dealing with this pest.

“Really interesting ones actually. They’re claiming that you’re a kami and have posted a list of ‘shrine rules’ and even added a few ‘eyewitness’ accounts of you saving 1A from a tornado by putting them in your sleeping bag.”

Shouta can hear the air quotes. He sighs. “It’s not a rumor.”

“Oh, no, it very much is!” Hawks contradicts.

“That’s not what I meant.” He says in exasperation.

“You’re saying there’s some truth to the rumors?” Hawks asks alertly.

“Who’s asking? Hawks or the commission?” Shouta inquires bluntly.

“Mostly me, but the HPSC will want to poke its nose in if it’s true. They do want to know if it’s true. If, and I mean if, it’s true, then I can help you spin it so they leave you alone.” Hawks wheedles.

He pinches his nose for a moment. It’s not against the law for a kami to be a hero and the HPSC’s interest will probably end once they find out that he can’t just erase people, only deport them from his vicinity. “Tell you what. If you say yes to All Might’s proposition when he contacts you and get Miruko to say yes too, then I’ll answer your questions.”

“Deal!” Hawks says instantly. “Uh, hey. I’m not agreeing to some threesome or something, right?”

“Ew. Get your mind out of the gutter. UA is having to revamp sensitivity training for the first year hero course.” Shouta explains, disgusted.

“Wait. Sensitivity training? And you want Miruko?” Hawks asks in confusion.

“Because 1A has a kid with an attitude a lot like hers, but without the restraint to not insult everyone he comes across. We think he’ll take it better from her than anyone else.” He elaborates.

“Oh! The Bakugo kid? Understandable. Okay, I’ll talk her into it. She thinks he’s ‘scrappy’, so she’ll probably say yes.” Hawk acquiesces. “See you tomorrow!”

“Not-” Shouta stops as the dial tone cuts him off. Great. Just who he didn’t want to see.

Chapter Text

Shouta doesn’t know how Hawks got in. The wards don’t allow anyone in unless they belong here. Particularly flyers or teleporters. So either he contacted Nedzu and was let in the normal way or he flew in and Nedzu knew and personally informed the wards (the fox taught him how to set up connections to Nedzu and the teachers so they can allow or ban people) and the security system. Whatever the case, Nedzu definitely allowed it. Damn it.

He finds him outside his classroom, staring at the shrine lists with pinning eyes. Strange, he didn’t know Hawks’ eyes could do that. Crossing his arms, he clears his throat, clearly startling Hawks, who has been ignoring the excitement of the students passing by.

“Hey, Eraser. How’s it going?” Hawks tries.

“Annoyingly. A bird got in.” He replies brutally.

Hawks puts a hand over his heart dramatically. “I’m hurt. Truly hurt. I need to ask if the things on this list are for real.”

“They are.” He admits slowly.

The blond goes still for a moment. “Would you mind if I prayed to you, then?”

Eyes narrowing in suspicion, he doesn’t reply with his first thought, which is ‘yes, I very much mind’. “Why?”

“Because of that thing with the grades going missing. The commission has a lot of contracts with me that I was more or less coerced into signing and I’d very much like if all my contracts with them would be erased permanently.” Hawks says bluntly.

Hawks is scarily sincere, evidenced by the sharp tug at Shouta’s power.

Fuck the commission, is a good enough reason for him to shove a lot of power at the request.

“Wow, I- Uh. I didn’t mean that to be my prayer, but your eyes just glowed without your hair lifting, so I’m guessing that wasn’t you using your quirk.” Hawks says in amazement. “Do you-? Do you think it worked over such a long distance?”

“Most likely. I actually did have an annoying student from 1B get teleported to China because multiple people wished hard that he’d disappear.” He says, then adds, “But that’s not the only reason you came, is it?”

“No.” Hawks shakes his head and shivers his wings as if he’s trying to shake off a daze. “I’m sorry. I probably just put a huge target on you.”

Shouta raises a brow. “The HPSC isn’t stupid enough to piss Nedzu off that much. He’s very protective of his employees and students. Trust me, Nedzu would know who’s behind it. Also, if I’m right, this means that they no longer have to fund your advertising or ‘fix’ your image, so you have work ahead of you.”

“Ah, shit. I didn’t think about those contracts. But I’ll be fine. Also, I need more to give the HPSC about you than disappearing contracts.” Hawks tells him.

“Follow me.” Shouta decides to give up some of his privacy in favor of giving Hawks a bit of leeway in this mess. He leads the way to his sleeping bag, opens it up and steps inside before calling up, “Just step inside. You’re allowed in this time.”

Hawks hesitates, then does so. “Holy shit. What the hell?”

“Welcome to my home realm.” He says drily.

“How in hell did you manage to put a building inside a sleeping bag!?” Hawks asks a little breathlessly.

“Well, it originally was just a sleeping bag, then someone thanked me by giving it a quirked dimension space complete with the stairs. I just kind of added on.” He explains easily.

“How did you build spiraling rooms? Don’t things slide all the time?” Hawks asks, peering out through the ironwork.

“No. Don’t ask me the physics behind this dimension. I have no idea how it works. Forgive the mess. The dorm got demolished by a tornado, so my class is temporarily living here.” He says. “Come on, I’ll show you the garden.”

Hawks follows him as he leads the way down the stairs, making little sounds as he sees things.

As Hawks steps into the garden, Shouta makes a sweeping gesture. “Pick your poison. There’s blackberries, mulberries and pears.” Then as an afterthought, he adds, “The blackberries will make you sleepy.”

The blond gives him an incredulous look. “And what do the others do?”

“Y’know? I don’t actually know if they do anything. I haven’t seen any side effects from eating them, at least.” He says, contemplating the question for a moment before dismissing it as unimportant.

Red feathers move off Hawks’ wings and investigate the entire garden. Hawks himself wanders over to the mulberries and picks one. He stares at it suspiciously for a long minute before popping it in his mouth and making a noise of delight. “These are good.”

“I know.” Shouta acknowledges.

Hawks eventually starts polite chitchat about hero work in between eating berries and Shouta plays along. Neither of them pay attention to the passing time until Shouta’s phone alarm goes off.

“Well, we should go. I’ve got class in five minutes.” Shouta says.

“Oh.” Hawks’ tone is disappointed. “Yeah, probably. I want to ask All Might some questions and maybe Nedzu as well.”

Shouta nods. At least Hawks isn’t fighting him on leaving. Given the winged hero’s newfound love of mulberries, he’d thought he might get at least a little. He pauses to pick up his lesson materials off the entryway counter before leading the way out.

Once out, Hawks gives a little bow and thanks him for allowing him to see his house, before taking himself off to bother All Might or Nedzu.

~

“Aizawa sensei? Can we get mochi?” Uraraka asks in a wheedling tone.

He sighs, but doesn’t bother to take a step back despite her invading his space. “I’m not the one who compiled the grocery list this time. We’re getting whatever Nedzu or his secretary ordered. It should be delivered in-” Shouta glances at the clock. “Half an hour, approximately.”

“Aww!” She pouts. “Well, next time can we get mochi?”

“Sure.” He suspects that she’s only asking because she thinks that this won’t go on her bill because the kids are staying in his house. She certainly hasn’t asked before. In truth, there’s a flat fee that includes meals and such, but in light of her financial situation, Nedzu had reduced that amount for her family. They’d considered a scholarship, but her grades aren’t quite good enough to qualify. Well, if his kid wants mochi that bad, he’ll make sure she gets it. Goodness knows hero students get enough exercise to burn off a few extra calories.

She cheers and rejoins the rest of the gremlins in the living room. Most of them are busy with study groups. Bakugou insulting his squad. Iida lecturing on Math, arms busy chopping, narrowly missing several people. Yaoyorozu explaining some chemistry problem. Shinso is sitting with Peep in his arms, answering signed and whispered questions from Kouda and excitable questions from Dark Shadow, who is stretched away from Tokoyami, who in turn is ignoring this.

“Aww, they’re so cute.” He turns his head to see Hizashi has entered and come up beside him. “Too bad about Mineta, though."

Ah, right. He hasn’t told Hizashi about that.

“We don’t talk about that.” He says, sipping his coffee.

“Shou, I know his death hurt you, but keeping things inside isn’t good for you.” Hizashi chides quietly.

He represses a snort. Yes, that had hurt a little, because he hates it when his students die and that had dug up old trauma, but… “Hizashi, it mostly hurt my feelings to find him dead in my house with a camera strapped to his head.”

Hizashi gawks at him. “WHAT!?”

Shouta winces at the volume. “Yeah, the girls wanted to know what’s in my sleeping bag back then and so they sacrificed Mineta. I’m not sure if they meant to kill him or not, but none of them regretted it, which says a lot about him.”

Mouth agape, Hizashi just stares at him in disbelief for a couple minutes. Finally, he closes his mouth and asks, “Did they see anything?”

“Just the stairs and the void, apparently the rooms don’t show up on camera.” He answers idly.

“I trust you made them regret it?” Hizashi asks.

“Oh yes. They won’t be breaking that law again anytime in the near future.” Shouta assures him darkly.

Hizashi’s lips twitch up into a smile. “I hesitate to think about what that means for the far future.”

“Right? They’ll have to deal with the consequences on their own by that time, though, so it won’t be a ‘me problem’.” He agrees. His class really has a few issues with considering murder okay. At least Iida hadn’t succeeded in his attempt. Hopefully the therapy will help him gain perspective on the fact that life never proceeds quite like one expects it to and therefore people need to be adaptable and accepting of things they don’t like. Sad as it is, Shouta’s pretty sure that the boy had somehow been under the impression that killing Stain would ‘fix’ his brother’s situation.

Shouta gets it. Grief can be brutal. But if someone can’t handle their grief properly, they shouldn’t be a hero in the first place. Heroics is not the place for grief deranged individuals. Nedzu had forced him and Hizashi into therapy for a reason.

Heroics, unfortunately, is not all sunshine and rabid fans. People die despite heroes. Sometimes people die because of heroes. People undergo terrible things that heroes can’t prevent, only intervene with if they can. The point is, there’s a lot of reasons for grief in hero work and those who can’t work through it or around it, don’t last very long as heroes.

Hizashi chuckles, drawing him back to the present. “That is so on-brand for you.”

He sips his coffee and doesn’t reply. They both know he’d still help them if asked even after graduation, if only to point them to a good lawyer to represent them.

~

He answers his phone. “Hello?”

“Eraser! Did you know your power can erase bank accounts!?” Hawks asks excitedly.

“It has erased both print and digital records before, so I would assume so.” He agrees.

“Well, apparently a joint bank account counts as a contract. Fortunately, the bank noticed immediately and the banker who handles my account knew how much was in it, so they helped me set up a personal account and returned the money to that account.” Hawks tells him. “They even set me up with automatic payment option from the HPSC account they normally pay me from. So hopefully no one will notice the change any time soon.”

“Lucky chicken.” He says, mildly amused.

Hawks squawks. “I’m not a chicken! I’m a hawk! Hawks eat chickens.”

“Lucky chicken lover.” Shouta amends, now truly amused.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.” Hawks says in a grumbling tone. “But seriously. Thank you so much. I hadn’t even considered the bank account.”

“You’re welcome.” He states amiably. “How did you get this number?”

“Nedzu gave it to me. Said I might need it.” Hawks replies promptly.

“Hm. Let’s hope you don’t.” He says after a moment of thought.

“What does that mean?” Hawks asks in puzzlement.

“Let’s hope you don’t find out.” Shouta tells him cryptically. The only reason Nedzu would think Hawks might need his number is if the HPSC decides to go after Hawks for getting rid of the contracts that tie him to their whims. The HPSC knows about his sleeping bag, but they don’t know about his scarf and he’d like it to stay that way, thank you very much. He can shelter Hawks for a bit if needed, but hopefully the commission won’t resort to that. They might yank his license, but even tha- His thoughts stall. “Also, it’s quite possible your hero license was erased too. Might want to check that before you get hauled in for illegal quirk use.”

There’s silence from the other end of the line, then Hawks says tightly, “Thanks, Eraser. I gotta go now.”

“Bye.” He says, but Hawks has already hung up. Yeeaaahhh. That was probably a nasty surprise.

Chapter Text

Ashido is sitting on one of the couches crying, hair looking like a poof of pink frizz several shades lighter than normal.

“Ashido?” He asks in concern.

She looks up and lunges at him, wailing, “Sennnnseiiiii! I used the guest hair care products your bedrooms have in the bath, but now my hair looks like this! It’s awful and I don’t know what to do! I don’t have my specialized hair care products.”

He pats her back awkwardly. “Okay. Make a list of the hair care products you need and anything else along that line. Then go around and ask your classmates if they need some too. I’ll ask Nedzu to make an emergency order.”

“Orrr we could make it an outing and just everyone buy what they need.” She says in a wheedling tone, slightly ruined by the still teary sound of her voice.

“You really want to wait until the weekend to fix your hair?” He asks drily.

“Nevermind. List it is.” She says, shaking her head emphatically no. Letting go of him, she asks, “What are we writing the list on?”

“Paper.” He says drily, but goes into the kitchen and retrieves a notepad from a bottom drawer and comes back to hand it to her. “Here. Make sure you and everyone else writes down exactly what you need or want.”

“Got it!” She grins and hurries off to find her classmates.

~

“Today I have an update on the tornado that smashed through 1A’s dorm a couple days ago.” Nedzu starts. “The good news is that it doesn’t seem to have been purposely aimed at UA. Apparently it started on the other side of Musutafu and flattened a couple buildings on the outskirts before lifting up and over Musutafu as a whole before dropping down on the other side. Fortunately, the buildings were warehouses and unoccupied at the time.

“It is uncertain at this time if the tornado lifted up of its own accord or not. Apparently there is a family of strong weather manipulators who live in direct line of its original course, and it is possible that they intervened long enough to spare Musutafu before the storm got out of their range and dropped back down just outside of UA’s wall. Also uncertain is if this storm was a natural occurrence or some malice pointed at Musutafu or a specific person.

“In the latter case, that means that it could happen again and likely quite soon. The family of weather manipulators are going to be questioned as to their possible involvement and insights on the matter. In the former case, a repeat is unlikely but still within the realm of possibility. Any questions or comments?” Nedzu finishes, opening the floor to discussion.

Shouta contemplates the UA wards and if he knows how to tweak them to repel tornadoes.

“I’m not sure if that’s good news or not.” Nemuri comments.

All Might grimaces. “We should come back to this when more is known about the situation.”

“Agreed.” Thirteen seconds. “I’m not sure what measures we could even take at this point. While in theory my quirk could stop a tornado, the one that ripped through 1A was too fast moving for me to get in place in time, even had we known it was coming.”

“Nedzu, have we gotten any feedback from the architects you contacted to see if they know how to make the dorms more storm proof?” Hizashi asks.

“Not yet, unfortunately.” Nedzu replies. “Shouta, do you have any insights on the tornado matter?”

Shouta blinks, pulled out of his thoughts. “I could set the wards to repel tornadoes. Unfortunately, that would simply make them bounce in another direction unpredictably and most likely devastate civilian homes.”

Everyone winces at that.

“I think-” He continues. “That I could probably set the wards to simply dissipate winds over a certain speed, but I think it will take me some time to figure out how and incorporate them into the base of the wards without causing the reflection problem for our neighbors.”

“Excellent! Take as much time as you need. As much as I’d prefer to rush the process, that’s probably the worst thing we could do.” Nedzu says, looking pleased.

Shouta nods in understanding.

“Do you know why it’s taking the architects so long to get back to us?” Cementoss asks.

“I believe it is because they’re having to locate western housing plans from overseas, specifically designed to deal with tornados. Most likely from the US, as that is the country that has the most tornados in the entire world. They even have an area dubbed Tornado Alley. Due to the low occurrence of tornadoes in Japan, that sort of architecture has never really been researched or taught.” Nedzu explains.

“That makes sense.” Snipe agrees. There is general agreement and then Nedzu ends the meeting, promising updates when he has them.

~

Shouta doesn’t realize how far the internet rumors have spread until a criminal grins triumphantly and says, “I wish that I would be erased.”

From life? Is Shouta’s first thought. Is this guy suicidal?

Then there’s a tug on his kami powers and the criminal goes still and suddenly drops into a boneless heap.

What the-?

He approaches and bends down to check the guy’s pulse. After a couple more tries, he concludes that the guy is a. dead and b. wished himself to death with Shouta’s power and c. those internet rumors Hawks had mentioned are apparently circulating a lot more than he thought. Sighing, he stands up and calls his boyfriend.

“Shouta? What’s wrong?” Hizashi asks, sounding sleepy.

“Theoretically, if a villain just wished himself to death in an attempt using my kami powers against me, am I a murderer?” He asks.

“Shouta.” Hizashi says in a serious tone, suddenly sounding a lot more awake. “That doesn’t sound theoretical.”

“It’s not. But do you have an answer?” He persists, because he really needs an answer.

“In theory, there’s no laws against it, so you’re not at fault. Legally. In practice, they could decide that you’re responsible and arrest you, but again, there’s no current law against it so they would at most be able to give you an official reprimand and required time off hero work.” Hizashi explains.

“Well, I’m going to end my shift early, because I can’t be on duty if I can’t control this.” He says practically. “I’m going to call in to my agency and turn this guy over to the police.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Hizashi says lightly, tone a bit worried. “I’ll text Nedzu and let him know.”

“Thanks. Later.” Shouta states and hangs up. Hopefully Nedzu will help him find a solution for this, but in the meantime he needs to call the police and then his agency.

~

To his immense luck, Tsukauchi is at the station, called in to interrogate some villain, so when the police officer who takes his statement laughs in his face and he requests that True Man verify his words, all it takes is a short ride to the local precinct to have Tsukauchi do exactly that. It’s much more efficient than Shouta was expecting the process to be. So it’s only a couple hours before he makes it back to UA.

Nedzu is waiting for him in the teacher’s lounge, looking uncharacteristically tired. “We need to talk.”

“Yes.” He agrees. “Can we do it in my home?”

“Of course. Unless you’ve acquired another cat with the same interests and abilities as Titan.” Nedzu agrees.

“No. That one is one of a kind.” He tells him.

“I must confess that I am relieved by that.” Nedzu says, following him into his sleeping bag.

Shouta leads him to his living room, only to find Shinso sprawled out on one of the couches looking like eyebags incarnate. “Insomnia?”

Shinso nods tiredly.

He huffs out a breath. “Kid, go eat some blackberries and then go to sleep. You need all the sleep you can get at your age.”

“I highly doubt that eating berries is going to stop my insomnia in its tracks.” Shinso sasses.

“You’d be surprised.” Nedzu replies, startling the boy into sitting up. “There are warnings about eating things growing in a kami’s domain for a reason.”

The boy looks back and forth between them a few times, then gets up, muttering “Blackberries, right.” and hurrying out of the room.

“Have a seat.” Shouta offers, sitting on one of the couches.

Nedzu sits on another one. “Now. Straight to the point. What happened?”

Shouta explains.

“Hm. And what went through your mind when he wished that?” Nedzu queries.

He blinks. Surely it can’t be that simple, can it? “I think my thoughts were along the lines of wondering if he meant erased from life and if he was suicidal.”

“There we go.” Nedzu looks pleased. “It’s already been established that your power responds to your thoughts even when others are using it. So now all you have to do is get in the habit of thinking a less lethal response, because he certainly won’t be the last criminal to try and make use of an apparent weak spot to escape.”

Well. He can do that. Shouta’s not sure it’ll work, but he can definitely try.

“Like what?”

“Like where you want them to reappear. Even a very short distance away should be enough to fulfil the wish slash prayer.” Nedzu elaborates.

“So ‘two feet to the left’?” He asks, a little sarcastically.

“Exactly that. In fact, that’s a very good idea. They would be caught off guard and you’d know exactly where they’d reappear and be able to adjust accordingly.” Nedzu praises.

“Huh. Okay.”

Then, because Nedzu is a demon of despair who likes to toss people in the deep end, he says, “I wish to be erased.”

Two feet to the left! Shouta thinks with a note of hysteria.

Nedzu disappears and reappears with a soft pop of displaced air, exactly two feet to the left of his prior position. “Very good! Also, that was an extremely strange sensation. Not bad, just…strange. Congratulations. You’re safe to go back out on patrols, though I would recommend not doing so for at least a couple of weeks while you internalize the response. After all, it would not do to have more accidents and accidentally being responsible for a death automatically sidelines you until your therapist gives the all clear.”

He nods, having expected that much, at least. “I’m still adding a caveat to my list, because I’d rather not get practice on the students.”

“Reasonable. In fact, I would prefer that. Now go get some sleep. I’ll see myself out.” Nedzu agrees, getting up.

“Good night.” He says and heads towards his own bedroom, already planning out his wording for the shrine list addition.

In the morning, he adds Do NOT wish to erase yourself. The last person who did dropped dead instantly. to the list.

Hopefully that’s enough to scare the students off of doing so.

~

The garden is dim when they enter, as close to full dark as it gets, but they’re expecting the lighting and each of them are carrying a flashlight and under Yaomomo’s arm is a thick book. They take seats on the benches and thick grass.

“Hello, garden.” Ochako begins, patting the grass. “So we’ve been thinking about how to repay Aizawa sensei and Yaomomo said-”

“I can afford to buy more trees for his garden, that is: you. And I’m sure Nedzu would be happy to have them delivered to the school. We looked up mulberries when you got the two latest trees and discovered that they come in different colors and flavors, so we thought we might get you the other colors so you have a complete set, however, we need dirt to plant them in. Buying dirt isn’t a problem, however, Ochako said-”

“You’re perfectly capable of acquiring your own dirt, but given the mulch that had to be added to the mulberries, you obviously don’t know much about choosing good soil. So Shouto bought a book on soil basics and we decided to take turns reading it to you. Also, I think I should tell you that a good place to look for good topsoil is building sites, because contractors remove topsoil in order to put down a solid foundation.” Ochako finishes.

The garden’s ‘sky’ gradually starts lightening.

“Oh! You like the idea! Great!” Mina says excitedly.

Katsuki, who looks like the Grim Reaper decided he’s too ornery to take, makes grabby hands towards Yaomomo. “Just give me the fucking book so I can read and go back to bed.”

Yaomomo passes the book to Kyouka, who passes it to Kirishima, who passes it to Katsuki, who opens the book and glares at it like it turned his favorite All Might collector’s item into a chew toy and then clears his throat. “Chapter One.”

“You’re supposed to start at the prologue, Kacchan.” Izuku objects.

“Yeah, Kacchan.” Denki adds mischievously.

“Fucking fine.” Katsuki flips a few pages. “Prologue.”

~

A few minutes after his alarm has gone off and he’s taken a quick shower and dressed for the day, Shouta is distracted by an odd feeling tug on his power. It doesn’t feel like someone is trying to use it or pray to him. No, it feels like…it wants him to follow?

Deciding ‘why not?’, he follows the tug to the room that looks out on his garden. Is there something his garden wants him to see? Curious, he continues into the garden and stops short at the sight of the entire class asleep in a roughly circular grouping, lying on benches, the grass and each other. Sato lying flat on his back with a thick book open face down on his chest. The only exception is Bakugou, who apparently made a break for the door before succumbing a few feet away, one arm outstretched in front of him.

Oh. That’s adorable. He pulls out his phone and snaps a few pictures to send to Hizashi and Nemuri before deciding he should wake them to either get breakfast or sleep in an actual bed.

“Good morning, Problem Class.” He says in a normal tone. Then more loudly adds mendaciously, “You have five minutes until class starts.”

It’s a lie, of course. Today is the weekend, so there’s no school.

That has Iida stirring in alarm and once he blinks the sleep out of his eyes, he’s on his feet, arms chopping, chivvying his classmates awake and to their rooms to get ready for the day.

Shouta hides a smirk and wonders how long it’ll take them to realize that today isn’t a school day. Once they’re gone, he glances around and picks up the discarded book. Soil Basics 101.

“Huh. Were they teaching you soil care?” He wonders. “Thanks for letting me know where they were. Good job.”

A warm breeze ruffles the plants and his hair, leaving him to ponder if that’s a response or not. Well, he’ll just assume it is. For now he has breakfast to start.

Chapter Text

Shouta blinks at the sight of a stranger standing in his kitchen, looking into the fridge. The intruder seems to sense him and shuts the door, turning around. Oh. This…person is not exactly a stranger. They’ve met before. “Takamimusubi.”

The god looks pleased. “So you figured out who I am.”

“Yes. But I’m sure you knew that.” Shouta replies drily.

“Oh yes. Your prayers are quite entertaining. Not that you need to pray to me of course. I heard a rumor, so I decided to check up on you. You’ve done quite well at converting my blessing into power for yourself. Much better than I expected you to at this stage. And your realms are quite fascinating too. The one with the library is one of the larger personal libraries I’ve seen. And for this one: Just fascinating. It never occurred to anyone before that modern luxuries could be incorporated into a spirit realm. Perhaps it’s because you were born in the modern era. Also, the quirks that make up the original framework of both realms seem to have the interesting effect of locking your realms up tight against unauthorized entry, given that they’re meant to be entirely self-contained.” Takamimusubi rambles. “The security is admirable and will keep you and yours safer.”

Which honestly is informative, even if Shouta didn’t ask to begin with.

“If that’s the case, how did you get in?” He asks, genuinely curious as to if it’s simply a power scale thing or something else.

Takamimusubi smirks. “I’d think that would be obvious. You haven’t finished converting my power to your own, so the instinctual wards automatically let me in. When you’re older, I’m sure you’ll be able to change that, if it bothers you.”

Shouta shrugs. It’s a bit unnerving, but it honestly doesn’t bother him much. He’d have liked warning of course, but Takamimusubi is one of the original creator gods and proportionately powerful. And it’s not like supernatural beings are good at warning people. “It’s fine. Maybe knock first next time, so know you’re coming.”

“Oh, how rude of me. Yes, of course I can warn you. You probably assumed I was a threat to the young humans sleeping in your realm. Are you willing to show me more of your realm?” Takamimusubi’s response is shockingly polite.

Again, he shrugs. “I’m not going to show you the bedrooms, but we can walk through the upper rooms and my garden. I don’t have anything to hide, but it’s pretty basic. No grand palace or anything.”

He turns around and finds Eri in the doorway, rubbing her eyes sleepily. “Zawa? Who’s that?”

“His name is Takamimusubi.” He says, a little worried. At least she’s dressed.

“That’s a long name.” She comments and comes closer and hugs Shouta’s legs.

“It is.” He agrees, ignoring Takamimusubi’s thoughtful look. “Why are you up so early?”

“Bad dream.” She whimpers at the reminder.

Oh, no. He picks her up and puts her on his hip. She just wants to be held after a nightmare. “I’m going to show Takamimusubi the garden. Want to help?”

She nods into his chest. “Want mulberries.”

“Sure, we can get some mulberries.”

~

Takamimusubi wanders around the garden curiously, nodding to himself occasionally, but generally looking pleased. Then he jolts and turns around abruptly.

Shouta follows his gaze to several acres of freshly turned soil that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago. Oh dear.

The elder kami strides over to the new dirt and walks out onto it, ignoring that his feet sink into the soil with each step. Then he pauses and gazes over it for a bit before finally clapping his hands together abruptly.

Plant life erupts from the ground, water makes itself pathways, birds of species Shouta are sure don’t exist start flitting about and there’s a slightly intensified hum of insects. A field of wildflowers, a couple wide streams, a pool of clear water and is that an entire orchard of…pink? Mandarin oranges? Why pink? Cow-like things with antlers grazing on the wildflowers. A cliff-wall full of colorful orchids behind the pool. And a patch of ancient looking forest. Why? For the cow-deer to hide in maybe? And is that a rice paddy? The most confusing thing is the bare patch before all the greenery starts.

Shouta blinks from his thoughts as Takamimusubi turns around looking satisfied and walks over to where they are standing.

“That’s better. In regard of your little one, nothing is poisonous or particularly dangerous.” Takamimusubi tells him.

“Thank you. But are they safe to eat? Are those pink mandarins? What do they do?” Shouta replies.

Takamimusubi smiles at him. “Perfectly safe. The citrus merely encourages vigor to start new beginnings. The rice is harmless. The animals give milk and meat, etcetera. The forest and meadow have a few things you may find interesting, but I’ll let you discover those in your own time. The orchids have their own properties.”

Then he winks and disappears. Somehow Shouta just knows that he’s gone, having finished his visit.

He lets out a long breath. Well. That was something.

~

Kouda and Midoriya are the first up. Well, that’s normal…for Midoriya. What’s not normal is the spooked looks on their faces.

“Sensei.” Kouda whispers. “There was something here. In your house. I don’t know what it was, but it was powerful.”

Midoriya nods along. “It woke us up just by being here. I would’ve checked it out, but Kouda convinced me not to.”

Shouta nods. “Good decision. And that ‘something’ was Takamimusubi visiting. He’s gone now. He just wanted to snoop around and see what I’ve done with the place.”

“Tak- Takamimusubi? Like the kami Takamimusubi?” Midoriya clarifies.

“Yes. He’s the one who made me a kami.” Shouta explains, portioning out cat food for the cats meowing piteously at his feet, like they’re going to starve to death if he takes one more second. He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of them when the elder kami was here.

“Oh. Did he-? Did he do anything while he was here?” Kouda asks softly.

“Yes. You can check out the changes to the garden after breakfast. Just don’t be late for class.” He says flatly.

“Mister went clap and there was trees and flowers suddenly.” Eri tells them. “They grew like woosh! It was cool. And there were birdies and big brown and black animals chewing on the flowers.”

“Wow! That sounds really awesome, Eri!” Midoriya enthuses. Though his smile is still a little strained, it looks like his curiosity is starting to override it.

“Here, you little menaces.” Shouta says, bending to place the eight bowls in a row.

Fishbone mmrps and rubs against his leg before diving in, but the others are at their bowls instantly, apparently ravenous.

~

Shouta doesn’t make it to class before he’s stopped by a crying female student carrying an open box with a heavily pregnant orange tabby. “Aizawa sensei?”

He pauses. “Yes? What can I do for you?”

“Your sign says to come to you if we know of a cat in need of a new home. Can you take Mikan? Dad says he’s going to kill her for getting pregnant by our neighbor’s cat because Tama’s got a quirk and he doesn’t think animals should have quirks if I don’t get rid of her before she gives birth. Please? I promise she’s a really good cat! She doesn’t scratch or bite or anything like that.” She blurts.

He holds out his hand for the cat to sniff.

She sniffs and then nose bumps his fingers dismissively.

“Yeah, I’ll take her.” He says, dropping his hand.

“Thanks!” The girl shoves the box into his arms. Then she turns and runs off in the other direction. Understandable, really. She’s probably going to be late to class.

Shouta looks down at the box. “Let’s get you situated, then.”

He walks back to the teachers’ lounge and ignores the questions he gets in favor of going inside his home and setting her box in the kitchen, filling a food bowl and putting it and a bowl of water next to her box. Then he takes a moment to jot down her name and that of the kittens’ sire. Mikan (orange tabby, unquirked) x Tama (?, quirked, quirk unknown). Maybe he can find out what the cat’s quirk is later. Either that or he can just wait until the kittens express a quirk and he knows for sure.

Dimly, he hears the bell ring and realizes that he’s late to class. He looks down at Mikan and pushes a little power into his voice. “Don’t wander outside of the house, but if you want to spend some time outside there’s a garden downstairs.”

Mikan gives him an absolutely startled look.

“There are litter boxes scattered throughout the house, but I’m sure you can find them on your own.” He adds. “I’ll be back later. There are also a bunch of kids living here temporarily.”

She meows back and he assumes she understands, so he leaves again for class.

~

“Two things. There is a new cat. Her name is Mikan. Do Not pick her up unless she asks you to. She is heavily pregnant, so make sure you get Kouda to show you how to do so safely before you pick her up.” Shouta says. “Any questions? No? Good. Besides that, today we are starting a unit on Sensitivity Training. Normally this is held at the beginning of third semester, but it has to come to the teachers’ attention that some members of the hero course lack tact entirely and thus require the unit earlier and a more thorough version of it than normal.”

Everyone turns to look at Bakugou and Todoroki, obviously pegging them as the culprits.

“Hah!? Why are you extras looking at me like that?” Bakugou blusters, though the tip of his ears turn red. Probably because he’s more self-aware than he comes off as.

Shouta sighs. “I did not say it was anyone in this class, although, yes, a few of you desperately need the unit. Moving on, this unit will replace Art History for the next three weeks. We will be having various guest speakers come in and talk about what they know or their experiences. I expect you to take this opportunity seriously and pay attention and learn as much as you possibly can. All of you have things you can learn from this. This is a vital part of heroics that isn’t often addressed directly unless a hero screws up and then their reputation is on the line. One insensitive comment to the wrong person at the wrong time can ruin your career.”

Thank Takamimusubi that he’s not teaching most of the unit; Hizashi is because his expertise is in PR. Though most of the staff, him included, are going to be acting as guest speakers.

~

Shouta knows that neither Nedzu, nor the UA Newsletter posted the update of his list, primarily because leaving it as is offered a convenient way to take criminals off guard. What he didn’t factor in, though, is the students themselves taking pictures an posting them online.

Thus he is caught off guard when a villain says, “I wish I could disappear.”

What? is his only response until after the villain abruptly disappears. The tug on his power felt different this time and he blinks a few times, at a loss for a moment before he realizes that he can ‘see’ a trace of his power and it’s not leading away from him, per se. Instead, it vanishes into something that after a moment’s thought, he realizes is a spiritual domain seen by its boundary only. It’s odd because he normally can’t see his own power at work, so either it’s a new ability or it’s being powered by the domain itself to make it visible to him.

Tentatively, he knocks on the domain boundary, surprised when it opens a portal without hesitation.

He steps into a wide grassy meadow, with a river running through it not too far away. And the criminal he was after is running towards him frantically, chased by what appears to be a tribe of kappas. What the hell?

The criminal reaches him and drops to his knees, grabbing onto Shouta’s pants. He begs in a trembling voice, “Please, arrest me! I won’t fight! Just save me from those things!”

The kappas draw up short a few feet away, alternating between glares at the criminal and wary glances at Shouta.

“You’re Aizawa, the erasure kami, right?” The leader asks. “That human used violence against one of ours.”

“I didn’t mean to! I didn’t see them until too late! I was just running away!” The criminal protests.

“My apologies, he was running away from me and I didn’t react in time.” Shouta apologizes. “Is the harm done permanent or crippling?”

“He knocked her over and spilled her water! She could die!” The leader informs him indignantly.

“If I refill her water, would that settle his debt?” He asks logically.

The kappas all look surprised, whispering among themselves. The leader looks him over and says slowly, “You would do that?”

“Of course. It’s my fault he’s here in the first place.” Shouta points out.

“Then that will do.” The leader agrees.

The other kappas stay to guard the terrified criminal, while Shouta follows the leader to the river, where a female kappa is crouched down, shaking and shivering. It takes but a minute to pull out the collapsible bowl he carries, fill it with water and gently tip her head straight, so he can refill the indentation in her head with river water. Then he shakes off the bowl to rid it of excess water, collapses it and replaces it in his belt pack.

“Th-Thank you.” The female kappa says shakily.

Shouta nods and looks at the leader.

“I am satisfied. Now you can take that human away. Quickly, please.” The leader says.

He goes back to where the trembling criminal is still on his knees, pulls him to his feet and wraps him in his capture scarf before marching him over to the almost invisible portal and back into the mortal world. Behind him, the other kappas head back towards the river.

Nedzu is going to have a heyday with this incident. Shouta sighs. It’s just been a crazy day overall. Makes sense that tonight is crazy too.

Chapter Text

“Aizawa sensei!” Ashido’s eyes are huge and gleaming with excitement. “Your forest is bigger on the inside than on the outside! Like Iida walked around it and it only took him ten minutes, but Midoriya and Kaminari went through it and it took them an hour to come out the other side. And get this! There’s foxes and bunnies and maybe some other things in there, but also a ton of glowing mushrooms. Midoriya said there must be at least twenty varieties and Kaminari said that the path they followed was edged with one of the taller varieties! Do you think they’re edible!?”

Those foxes better not eat his cats.

He gives her a dead-eyed look. “I know they’re edible. That doesn’t mean that they won’t do weird things to you, like give you hallucinations or make you break out in zits.”

“Awww!” She pouts. “Hallucinations could be fun.”

“Hallucinations are usually anything but fun. You want to risk hallucinating a flashback to the USJ incident or summer camp?” He asks.

“Nope! Nevermind! Not trying the glowing mushrooms!” She says hastily.

“Good decision.” He says dully. “I’ll try to get Komori over here soon and see if she can identify them.”

“Yeah! She knows lots about mushrooms! I bet she’ll know!” Ashido perks up visibly. “Let me just go borrow her real quick.”

“Not- And she’s gone.” He sighs. Because look, it’s great that Takamimusubi approves of his actions and realm enough to give him a gift, but did he really have to add a forest? What is he even going to use a forest for? Presumably something to do with agriculture, given the elder kami's domain, but it’s not like Shouta knows anything about agriculture. He only knows the proper definition because he looked it up this morning!

Anyways, Vlad is going to throw a fit about Ashido kidnapping one of his students this close to curfew.

~

Komori’s cross shaped pupils are blown wide with excitement when Ashido drags her back fifteen minutes later and she has a book on glowing mushrooms in one hand: Mysteriously Luminescent Mycelium of the World.

Well, at least she came prepared.

“Aizawa sensei, you have shrooms!?” She asks as Ashido tows her through the room.

“So I’m told.” He says blandly, unwilling to have this conversation.

Fortunately Ashido doesn’t stop to let her chat.

~

UA hero course teacher’s chat:

Bloodpack: Aizawa, Komori tells me that your
garden has acquired a forest?

SleepingBag: ‘Acquired’ is one word for it. Takamimusubi showed up.

SleepingBag: Yes, the kami. He, uh, created some things.

SleepingBag: Any of you interested in any of the following:
Foxes, rabbits, picking rice, pink citrus, glowing mushrooms,
birds that might not exist, orchids, fish ponds, wildflowers
or cow-deer things? Oh. And a forest that takes an hour to
walk through on a path but ten minutes to walk around.

SleepingBag: Also, overexcited students. I have twenty to spare.

Loudspeaker: Not 21?

SleepingBag: You can’t have Eri. She’s mine.

Loudspeaker: Damn. I guess I’ll just have to
let her show me the new additions.

ShinyFur: All of those sound fascinating. I’ll
have to come take a look.

SleepingBag: Any of you curious enough to want a look at the forest can visit.

SleepingBag: Be aware that there is a new, pregnant cat in residence
and if you upset her I’ll have your guts for garters.

Loudspeaker: Shouta! Look at you using English
phrases in Japanese! I’m so proud.

SleepingBag: It’s because you and Yagi are contagious. Like bad colds.

Loudspeaker: Rude. But understandable.

MightyLoud: Ahahaha! Good one, Aizawa! But
truly it does sound fascinating! I’d like to try one
of the pink citrus if you think it’s safe.

SleepingBag: I’ve been assured that the only side effect of the fruit is
extra vigor to put towards new beginnings. Also, that the rice
is harmless and nothing is poisonous. However, it was
hinted that some of the other things may have ‘interesting’ results.

5starChef: In that case, I’d like samples of the
oranges. And of the mushrooms that have harmless
side effects once you determine what they do.

SleepingBag: I’ll have the students pick you some.
How many baskets do you want?

5starChef: I’ll have an aide run over a couple boxes to fill.

SleepingBag: Got it.

Kisskiss: See if you can whip me up some gummies
from those. That would be great for patients with
 low stamina.

5starChef: Sure thing.

SpaceCase: Orchids! Pleasepleaseplease can I
have one? I love orchids.

SleepingBag: Let me make sure they aren’t endangered species
that will die if I touch them first.

SpaceCase: Okaaaaaay. It’ll be hard, but I’ll wait.

SpaceCase: Patiently.

Chloroform: Sure, we all believe that 13.

SpaceCase: It’s true! I won’t even break in and steal any!

Loudspeaker: … Should I be concerned?

SleepingBag: My house won’t let you in unless I ask it to,
so good luck breaking in.

SpaceCase: I said I wasn’t going to!

Sharpshooter: Whoa! Hold your horses a little and calm down.

MightyLoud: Actually, there are a lot of different types
of orchids. Literally thousands. It might be best to call in
an orchid expert to identify them. You’ve been getting
advice from UA’s groundskeeper, right, Aizawa?

SleepingBag: Yes.

MightyLoud: I’m fairly certain that the average
groundskeeper, while very knowledgeable on gardening
in general, knows nothing about orchids.

SleepingBag: Fair Point.

ShinyFur: I’ll arrange one.

SleepingBag: Thanks.

ShinyFur: And an ornithologist. And an agriculturist.
For the cow-deer things. Do you need a mycelium
expert or does Komori have that covered?

SleepingBag: I’ll let you know when she’s done camping in my forest.

Bloodpack: She is not!

SleepingBag: Vlad. Convince HER of that. She got Yaoyorozu
to make her a tent and she’s moved in already.

Bloodpack: When did she have time!? She’s here
at breakfast.

SleepingBag: I believe she convinced Yanagi and Uraraka to help in
the dead of the night. When they SHOULD have been sleeping. Do
something about her. She’s not my student. She shouldn’t be my
problem.

SleepingBag: Also, I told Komori we aren’t feeding her, so she went to
the dorm for breakfast

Bloodpack: … I’ll speak to her.

ShinyFur: Weekends are acceptable. School nights are not.
If she has spare time between finishing homework and
curfew, that’s also fine.

Bloodpack: I’ll let her know.

Clawhand: Extdra vigor? Send some my way.

Clawhand: As much as possible. ASAP.

Clawhand: I’m about to die of Hatsume-induced exxhjaustion.

SleepingBag: Completely understandable. I’ll send Bakugou
with a basket of them.

Clawhand: The explosive one? Why???

SleepingBag: Hatsume pisses him off so he won’t stick around.

SleepingBag: If I sent Iida, he’d stay to lecture her loudly.

SleepingBag: If I sent Shinso, he’d antagonize her for fun or end up
discussing Persona Chords upgrades or both.

SleepingBag: If I sent any of the others, she’d draw them
into her experiments and Shuzenji will kill us both when
one of my students ends up in the infirmary. AGAIN.

Clawhand: Ftarie enough.

Clawhand: Fair* Even I couldn’t understand that one.

Chloroform: Hey, Majima. Do you think you could figure
out how to combine Shouta’s sleepy berries with my sleeping
gas to create a stable mixture to use in smoke boobs?

Loudspeaker: Boobs? What are smoke boobs?

Chloroform: Oh for-! I mean smoke bombs. Stupid autocorrect.

Chloroform: Anyways, Midoriya asked me about it and I thought it was a
good ranged option. He said they might even work on people
who aren’t attracted to me.

Clawhand: If Lunch Rush can make me an extract, I’ll try. You’ll
have to give me gas samples to test, though.

5starChef: Can do. I have some left from the last batch, so I
won’t need to get more from Aizawa.

Chloroform: I’ll drop by the lab this afternoon.

~

Shouta sighs and puts his phone away. While he’s glad for Nemuri and hope it works, the kids are so excited over the new additions to the garden that they’re giving him a headache.

“Iida.” He interrupts the boy’s chopping rant at Bakugou, who looks like he’s about ready to stop washing dishes to blow Iida up. “Go up to the teacher’s lounge. There should be a couple empty boxes I need you to retrieve. If there’s not, then wait until Lunch Rush’s aide shows up with them.”

“Yes, sensei!” He says and speeds off.

… That boy is lucky his house likes to self-repair or he’d be fixing the floor where he damaged it in his enthusiasm.

“Cripes. What crawled up his ass last night and died?” Shinso drawls. “He wasn’t even making sense.”

“You’re fucking telling me.” Bakugou gripes back. “If he didn’t fucking break every dish he tries to wash or dry because he can’t stop that fucking stupid chopping I’d make him do the dishes.”

Kaminari giggles.

“Kaminari, what did you do?” Shouta asks.

“Put purple mushrooms in his omelette.” The boy admits with a grin.

“Kaminari!” Shouta says repressively.

The grin falters. “Oops?”

Shouta sighs and pinches his nose. “None of you and I mean NONE of you are to experiment on your classmates with the mushrooms. While we know they aren’t poisonous, that doesn’t mean they don’t have side-effects that could be dangerous to your health.”

“What about on ourselves?” Sero asks curiously.

“If you get permission and supervision from Recovery Girl, then sure.” Shouta says saccharinely.

It makes his entire class shudder in horror. Whether from his tone or at the thought of explaining themselves to Shuzenji, well, that’s the question, he supposes. Either should be a good deterrent. Well. For most of the class. The saner half at least.

“Aizawa sensei! I’m back!” Iida skids into the room, loses hold of the commercial fruit boxes and promptly falls flat on his butt.

There are yelps as people duck and bat the empty boxes away.

Iida just blinks at him dazedly. “Sensei, I feel weird.”

He draws in a deep breath, holds it for a moment and then lets it out slowly. “Kaminari, Sero, take Iida to Recovery Girl and explain to her what happened.”

“Aww, man!” Kaminari whines, but comes over and starts tugging Iida to his feet.

Sero grumbles but comes over to help.

In the end they can’t manage to wrangle him to his feet, so Shouji comes over and picks Iida up. “I’ll carry him to Recovery Girl’s office, sensei. But Kaminari gets to explain what he did.”

“Fair.” Kaminari says, looking crestfallen.

“Fine. But before you go, come back here for Homeroom. We’ll be picking oranges instead of study period.” He agrees.

“Yes, sensei.” Shouji acknowledges.

“You mean ‘pinkus’.” Kaminari says and laughs at his own joke.

Shouta gives him a flat stare that makes him jolt and follow Shouji out of the room. Then he looks around at the others. “By ‘we’, I mean you. You will be filling the boxes with the mandarins. Yes, the pink ones. You all have way too much energy this morning and it’s giving me a headache. When they’re full, Sato and Midoriya can take them down to Lunch Rush.”

“Hah!? What about me?” Bakugou demands, aggressively washing a dish.

“You’ll be taking a basket of them to Power Loader. Don’t let Hatsume or one of the others distract you and come straight back.” Shouta tells him.

Bakugou nods. “Got it.”

~

His phone rings.

“Incoming.” Hawks says over the rush of wind tearing at the speaker.

“I’ll let Nedzu know. How far out are you?” Shouta asks. There’s only one reason Hawks would need to tell him that.

“Half a minute.”

“Shit. Hawks, this is important. Stay outside the walls for two minutes before flying in. It takes a bit to stand down the defenses.”

“Gotcha.” Hawks sounds breathless.

Shouta sends a hurried text to Nedzu, who instantly replies with a smiley face.

Good. That’s covered.

He puts the phone back to his ear. “How far behind you are they?”

“Ahaha. Um. Maybe five minutes? They put the bastard in a chopper. And they’ve got eyes in the sky. So in theory they can track me even though I got rid of all the trackers.” Hawks says, very much not amused given his shaky tone.

“Which bastard?” Shouta asks. He has to assume it’s the HPSC and they’ve got a warrant to search his house, but a tracking quirk could make his alternative unreliable.

“They got me with him when I was young. I didn’t even remember. But his quirk enforces verbal contracts. Made me promise not to go independent of the commission. Commission uses him to enforce contracts that they don’t want a paper trail for. He finally figured out which contract was missing and reported it. Bastard is plenty pissed your power managed to erase it.” Hawks explains.

“But there’s no tracking quirk in pursuit?” Shouta clarifies.

“No. The one they have refused. She likes me because I saved her sister once. She’ll quit if they try to force her. And they can’t afford that.” Hawks tells him.

“Excellent. I’ll meet you at the front of the building.” He says, taking the elevator downstairs.

A soft ping alerts him to a message. He checks.

“Ah, Nedzu says you’re cleared to fly in.” He informs Hawks.

“Great! I’ll be there in about twenty seconds.” The sound of wind picks up again.

“You can wait in the lobby. I’m about 40 seconds from there.” He instructs. The elevators aren’t in the lobby, so it is a short walk even though the elevators are fast. He can hear the sound of approaching rotors from here, so they’re going to have to be fast. He breaks into a jog.

“I’m in.” Hawks says. “But they’re right behind me.”

“I hear.” Shouta agrees. Then puts his phone away, because Hawks is within earshot now. “Hawks.” He warns and then sends out his capture weapon, seeing his look of startled betrayal as it wraps around him. Then he disappears into the library. “Stay put until I say you can come out.”

Given that Hawks doesn’t pop right out again, he apparently agrees.

He coils the scarf back around his neck where it belongs. Another soft ping makes him check the new message. Yeah, yeah. Makes sense to meet them at the gate. He takes his time complying. No need to rush this and appear guilty off the bat.

Chapter Text

The HPSC goon is waiting impatiently for him at the front gate. Everyone else is apparently staying in the helicopter, so Hawks’ prediction of ‘no tracker’ seems like it’s spot on.

“Eraserhead.” The man says, tone mostly neutral with only a hint of condemnation. “Where is Hawks?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.” Shouta says easily. “Follow me.”

The man follows. “I have a warrant to search your extradimensional house.”

“Okay.” He says neutrally. With the kids there, he’d like to refuse, but the law wouldn’t be on his side. “My class is currently living with me. Don’t harass them.”

“Why?” The man demands.

“Hm? Oh, a tornado took out their dorm the week before last. None of them were hurt, but we’re looking into more tornado resistant structures before rebuilding, so they’re stuck with me at the moment.”  He explains.

The man frowns. “I wasn’t aware that the Mustafu tornado did any damage to UA.”

“Well, it’s not something to bruit about. But it did take down a couple buildings. Unfortunately one of them was the dorm. The parents are aware, of course.” He shares, mostly to make the man less suspicious.

He leads the man to the teachers’ lounge and his sleeping bag. Making an ushering gesture, he says, “You can enter this once.”

The HPSC goon gives the sleeping bag a wary look, then steps inside.

Immediately, Shouta hears Bakugou yelling, “Who the hell are you!?”

Stepping inside himself, Shouta opens his mouth only to close it when the man answers, “Gin'yūshijin.”

“Gin'yūshijin is with the HPSC.” Shouta explains hastily. “He’s looking for Hawks.”

“Why the fucking hell would Hawks be here?” Bakugou asks aggressively.

“Well, that is the question, isn’t it?” Shouta replies blandly.

“This fucking extra better have a good reason for thinking that if he’s got the gall to invade our home!” Bakugou huffs, but takes a step back.

“I’m sure he does.” Shouta says equivocally. “Is Iida around?”

“Yeah. Recovery Girl said he can’t go back to classes today, but Glasses can’t sit the hell still. He’s in the living room last I saw. I got to get to class.” Bakugou says and walks out of the house.

“What happened to your student?” Gin'yūshijin asks.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but one of my other students thought it would be a funny prank to put unidentified mushrooms in Iida’s meal. Fortunately not toxic, but it does have a few side effects.” Shouta grits his teeth as he explains. Kaminari’s definition of ‘fun’ could definitely use some work. As could Sero’s and Ashido’s.

“I see.” Gin'yūshijin follows him as he walks through the kitchen, only pausing briefly when his gaze lands on Mikan in her box.

Fortunately Iida is still in the living room.

“Iida.”

“Aizawa sensei! What are you doing here?” Iida asks in his usual loud voice.

“He’s with the HPSC. He wants a tour. Take him up and down the stairs, but make sure you show him each room. I’m taking a nap.” He orders and flops onto the other sofa.

Gin'yūshijin gives him an incredulous look, but Iida is already on his feet.

“Of course, Aizawa sensei! Should I show him the garden too?” Iida asks.

“Sure. He’ll probably want to walk through the forest, so make sure you do that.” He says lazily and shuts his eyes. Shouta had been getting ready to nap when Hawks called, so at least now he has a chance.

~

“Aizawa sensei! We’re finished!” Iida’s voice wakes him.

He sits up. “Hm. Okay.” Both Iida and Gin'yūshijin look tired. “How about you take a nap? I don’t want Recovery Girl on my case because you overdid it.”

“Yes, Aizawa sensei!” Iida takes himself off.

Shouta stands and then asks faux curiously, “What’s your quirk?”

Gin'yūshijin gives him a searching look. “I can enforce verbal contracts.”

“Hm. I don’t know what you want with Hawks.” He lies. “But let me make something clear to you. If I find out that you or anyone else at the HPSC tries to force him into a contract that he doesn’t want, I will make sure you regret it. Personally.”

Light flashes between them. So his quirk’s activation is involuntary? Fascinating. At least, Nedzu will think so.

“You mean that.” The man’s eyes widen in sudden panic. “You can’t use your quirk on me!”

“I wouldn’t need my quirk.” He agrees equably, not least because he’s pretty sure his quirk wouldn’t do anything along the lines of erasing Gin'yūshijin’s contracts, just suppress them until he blinked.

The panic in Gin’yūshijin’s eyes deepens and he seems at a loss for words.

“I’m sure you want to talk to Nedzu and get permission to search the rest of campus.” Shouta changes the subject.

“Oh. Er. Yes.” Gin’yūshijin says weakly.

Shouta nods. “Follow me. Otherwise you might get lost. UA can be a bit of a maze if you don’t know where you’re going.”

~

“Thank you, Aizawa.” Nedzu says with a smile. “You may return to your duties now.”

Shouta nods and heads back to the teachers’ lounge. He may as well check in on Hawks now that his house has been searched.

Behind him, as the door closes, he hears, “Ah, Gin’yūshijin. I admit I am curious as to what business the HPSC has with one of my teachers and why you wanted to do that before coming to my off-”

He has no doubt that Nedzu will add his own subtle threat. A smirk twists Shouta’s lips. The HPSC really hadn’t thought it through when they sent Gin’yūshijin after Hawks, had they?

~

Shouta walks into the library and then through a couple other rooms inside before he comes across Hawks enthusiastically petting an ecstatic Akira in fox form. “Akira, what are you doing here?”

Akira rolls out from under Hawks’ hand. *I found out where this realm is connected to the spirit world, so now I don’t need to bother you every time I visit!*

“Okay. But why are you pretending to be an animal?” He asks.

The fox shapeshifts into human. “Spoilsport. I was enjoying the attention. He’s really good at scritches!”

Hawks jerks back in shock. “Oh! I thought you were a quirked animal. I’m so sorry!”

“Why?” Akira asks in confusion. “It’s not like you forced me to do anything.”

“I- Just- You’re human, so I shouldn’t have treated you like that.” Hawks stumbles over the explanation.

“I’m not human. I’m a tenko.” Akira corrects. “And I enjoyed it, so don’t worry about it. You asked first.”

The bird boy bites his lower lip. “Um. Okay. If you’re sure. Wait. Nine tailed foxes are real!? Then what else is real!?”

Shouta snorts. “Presumably most of ‘myth’ is. Anyways, I came to tell you that Gin’yūshijin is searching the rest of UA now that he’s searched my house, but you should probably stay in here until he’s gone.”

Hawks gives a lazy salute, staring at Akira. “Got it.”

“Oh!” Akira remembers. “Inari said to tell you that your garden has her blessing. I presume you know what that means.”

“I suppose that means she felt the creation of rice and foxes.” Shouta mutters. “I’m pretty sure my garden doesn’t need her blessing, but thanks, I guess.”

Akira shrugs. “I’ll tell her you said thanks.”

“I assume you’ve found the kitchenette and bathroom, Hawks. I’ll bring you supper in a couple hours or come get you whenever Gin’yūshijin has left. Whichever comes first.” Shouta says. “Akira, are you staying?”

“Sure. Gotta keep the human company, right? But I’ll leave when I get hungry, so don’t worry about feeding me.” Akira replies.

“Okay.” Shouta says and turns around and walks out. He needs to get some grading done while the kids are still away.

~

“Hello?” Shouta picks up the phone.

“Just a heads’ up.” Nedzu’s secretary says, “I’m transferring a call from the Commission President to your line.”

“Thanks.” He says and hangs up. A moment later the phone rings again.

“Eraserhead, I want you to know that I’m so pissed at you.” She says immediately.

He shrugs, then remembers she can’t see him. “That’s fine, as long as you don’t try to send me on kill missions or suicide missions or mess with my students. Not that I think you will. I think you’re smarter than that. I’m pretty sure Nedzu is already annoyed with you. Maybe try to keep the human rights violations to a minimum for a while.”

There is a long silence.

Finally she replies, “I reserve the right to send you on missions that your quirk is suited to.”

“Of course.” He replies easily. “No long term ones, though. I have a ward now.”

“Understood.” She says crisply, sounding like she’s gritting her teeth. And hangs up, apparently by bashing the receiver into the phone.

Well, that happened. The Commission must be truly thwarted by his threat to Gin’yūshijin if she’s bothered to call to express her frustration with him. He wonders idly just how many contracts they stand to lose if he keeps his promise. Between Nedzu’s protection, All Might being associated with UA and uncertainty over if he’s even truly killable by humans, there’s not much they can safely do to him. No one wants a vengeful kami after them.

At worst, they might suspend him indefinitely from patrols over that one criminal’s death, but everyone would know they’re just being petty since he’s already been cleared for patrols and that’s not a good look on them. Better to appear untouched by his actions.

~

Unseen Thief or the Power of the Erasure Kami Spreading?

Several building sites across Japan have reported topsoil displaced by making room for foundations disappearing after the foreman on site wished idly that it would ‘just disappear’. While convenient for them, because the companies in question no longer need to pay to remove the dirt, it has stirred some concerns of whether there is an invisible dirt thief on the loose.
Others have claimed that this is obviously the work of the alleged, newly known kami at UA, whose power is (reportedly) known to work involuntarily in his presence if someone makes a wish that falls under his domain of Erasure. They claim this has to be the case, because a thief would not have two separate quirks, one to hide themselves with and one to steal several tons of dirt in a moment in broad daylight. Those who oppose this claim, though, point out that UA’s alleged kami’s power is known to be most powerful within close proximity and there are no sightings of him at these places.
It’s a mystery, dear reader.
Further investigations are ongoing, but police admit that they’ll be surprised if they find any further leads on the case, given how instantly and how cleanly the dirt was removed. Leaving you and I, dear readers, to our own speculations on the matter.
 – Okai Shima

~

Sharpshooter: Why does Nedzu’s smile look like someone messed with
his tea supply again?

SleepingBag: Oh, that’s because the HPSC decided to search my house and UA in
general for Hawks.

Sharpshooter: Whoa, little dogie! Hawks is missing?

SleepingBag: If he is, it’s probably deliberate on his part.

Sharpshooter: Why would they think WE have him, though?

ShinyFur: That’s a good question, isn’t it?

ShinyFur: I’m sure it has nothing to do with UA’s reputation for being
strictly against human rights violations. Or Hawks’ recent visit.

Sharpshooter: Gadzooks! Are we bringing a lawsuit against the HPSC on
Hawks’ behalf?

ShinyFur: Of course not. There’s no ‘evidence’ on either side to create a
lawsuit with.

SleepingBag: I doubt ALL the evidence was erased. At least on their end. But yes,
quite.

Sharpshooter: Why do you suddenly sound more menacing than Nedzu’s
expression?

SleepingBag: I have no idea.

Sharpshooter: …That wasn’t a denial.

SleepingBag: :-)

ShinyFur: ;-}

Sharpshooter: Zounds. I take it back, okay? Please stop. You’re scaring me.

Loudspeaker: Shouta, what did you do?

SleepingBag: Nothing that can be proved.

Chloroform: You should be asking what Nedzu did.

Loudspeaker: I’m not that dumb, Nem.

ShinyFur: Nothing that can be legally construed as a threat.

SpaceCase: Great quasar. I just read up. Nedzu, Aizawa, aren’t you concerned that
the HPSC will retaliate?

Nedzu: I’d welcome the challenge. Unfortunately, I don’t think Madame President
is up to giving me one.

SleepingBag: No.

Sharpshooter: Y’all are terrifying.

SpaceCase: Seconded.

Loudspeaker: Thirded.

Chloroform: Fourthed.

Clawhand: Fifthed. Aizawa, can you send one of your kids over with blackberries?
Hatsume is refusing to sleep nights again and I need my sleep or I’m going to lose
my mind.

SleepingBag: Sure. They should be done with homework soon. They’re trying to be
quiet and not wake up Iida, but it’ll be time to make dinner soon. I’ll be sending
Midoriya, so make sure you meet him at the door so Hatsume doesn’t get ahold
of him.

Clawhand: Thanks. Will do.

Chapter Text

Keigo doesn’t expect Eraserhead to lead him back into his personal residence again after retrieving him from the library. He really doesn’t expect to be led to a dining room with two open place settings. Already eating at the table are Eraser’s explosive kid, one of his bigger students, his bone breaking student and a little white haired girl with one horn. It looks like the other kids are eating in the living room instead.

Eraser takes the seat next to the little girl and invites, “Have a seat.”

He does and says, “Itadakimasu.” and digs into the food politely.

His eyes widen. After chewing and swallowing, he asks, “What is this? This is almost as good as chicken!”

The explosive blond grunts. “Rabbit soup. Sensei’s garden has a bunch of wild ones and he said you were coming for dinner, so I caught one.”

The green one grimaces. “He means he blew its head off. Aizawa sensei made him clean it up.”

“The foxes will appreciate it.” The blond says shortly. “There’s more if you want it, Birdy.”

Birdy? Keigo can feel his eyes light up with appreciation. “Hell yeah! This is awesome.”

The explosive blond looks smug. Did he make it too? Or just catch the rabbit?

He almost misses the way the little girl leans forward, practically vibrating with excitement until she works up the courage to say, “You have wings!”

“I do!” He sends a tiny feather to tickle her nose, which makes her sneeze and giggle.

“No quirks while eating.” Eraser scolds, then adds, “I don’t suppose you’ve met, but sitting with us is Eri – my ward, Bakugou – who cooked the meal, Sato – who made dessert and helped with the cooking and Midoriya – who saved Eri in the battle with Overhaul.”

“Midoriya? Isn’t that a little on the nose?” Hawks asks and winks at Eri. “Hi Eri, nice to meet you. I’m Hawks.”

“Haha, yeah.” Midoriya says sheepishly. “Dad took Mom’s last name when they got married.”

Ah, that would explain it.

“Hi Hawks.” Eri says shyly, still giggling although for some reason she’s not smiling. “Are you a hero too?”

“Yup. The number three hero. Dunno if that’ll go up or down in the next rankings though. There’s some people who really aren’t happy with me right now.” He admits.

“Why not?” She asks.

Eraser shoots him a warning look. Geez.

“I can’t really talk about that.” He says. “Let’s just say I wasn’t happy, so I did something and they didn’t like it at all.”

“But being happy is a good thing!” She protests, frowning.

Keigo shoots Eraser a ‘help!’ look.

“Some people don’t like it when other people are happy, Eri. Like Overhaul didn’t want you to be happy.” Midoriya comes to his rescue.

“Oh. So they’re bad people?” Eri asks.

“Yes.” Eraser agrees, startling Keigo. The commission isn’t really that bad, is it? But he supposes that a little girl coming from an abusive situation wouldn’t understand the subtleties of his situation. Not that he could explain them to her in the first place. Eraser would probably murder him if he tried. He obviously doesn’t want to explain the situation to his kids and Keigo can respect that.

“But Hawks is okay now?” She clarifies. “They can’t hurt him anymore?”

“Exactly!” Keigo lies and adds a truth, “I’m really happy now.”

“Good!” She says with a firm nod.

Aww, she’s precious!

~

“Shooouuu! Do you know what Nem did? She’s such a bitch. Just because she has a little hangover! As soon as I got here, I hadn’t even said anything yet, and she goes, “I hope your voice disappears to Shou’s realm.” Can you-?”

The sound of Hizashi’s admittedly a bit loud voice cuts off mid-sentence even as his mouth keeps moving. After a moment he stops, looking startled.

Shouta sighs. “Hizashi, I love you, but you are an idiot.”

“He is.” Nemuri agrees vindictively, ignoring Hizashi’s glare. She laughs, then clutches her head in pain.

“Don’t be a bitch, Nem. Reverse it.” He scolds. “It’s not Hizashi who chose to drink himself under the table on a school night. I thought we were past this.”

“No, no, I like him like this.” She refuses with a pout. “He’s quiet. And my date ditched me because I’m ‘too untraditional’. I’m plenty traditional!”

Not this again. Where does Nemuri find these guys? Her dates always either ditch her because she’s ‘not modest’ or she ditches them because they think she’s a piece of ass without a brain.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Nem, but it’s not Hizashi’s fault.” He points out gently.

She pouts. “But I’ve got a migraine and he always makes those worse.”

He thinks about it. Zashi’s only got one class today, he thinks. It’s 1B and Shouta’s perfectly willing to inflict Nedzu on them as a substitute teacher. “Fine, but only for today. And you get to inform Nedzu why he’s covering Hizashi’s class today.”

“Fair.” She acknowledges and pulls out her phone to send a text.

Fortunately, Zashi doesn’t look put out at his decision. Instead, he signs, *Hey, do you think my voice is really in your realm right now? I wanna test it out!*

“Go ahead.” He says in amusement. Nedzu will be interested in the results, at the very least.

~

Mina pauses and looks around at her friends as she climbs the staircase. “Did anyone else just hear Yamada sensei’s voice say ‘believe it’?”

“Yeah, what the fuck?” Blasty says.

“I did.” Sero agrees.

“Me too!” Kirishima also agrees.

Kaminari just nods. “Yeah, that was weird. It was like surround sound.”

“Huh.” Mina shakes her head. She starts walking again. Weird things in Aizawa sensei’s realm are kinda the norm.

~

Ochako pauses, startled to find Yamada sensei working on papers at the kitchen table.

“Hey, listener. What’s up?” He asks.

“Um. Why are you here?” She wonders.

“Haha, well about that. I may have said something really stupid to say within Shouta’s hearing and gotten my voice disappeared outside of this realm.” He laughs at himself.

She wonders exactly what you’d have to say to end up with that result.

“Don’t worry, though. It’s only for today and then I’ll be out of your hair.” He reassures her.

Touching her hair in confusion, she asks, “My hair?”

“Oops! Sorry, that’s an English phrase. Means I won’t be in your vicinity bothering you anymore.” He corrects himself.

“Oh. You aren’t a bother, Yamada sensei. Besides, you’re Aizawa sensei’s boyfriend. You shouldn’t feel like you have to stay away just because we’re here.” She tells him.

“Aww, that’s sweet of you, listener! I’ll keep it in mind! You’d better get going, though, or you’ll be late for classes.” He reminds her.

Ochako looks at the clock on the wall and eeps and hurries towards the entryway. She doesn’t want to be late! Aizawa sensei’s disappointed looks are the worst.

~

The mycologist shows up bright and early on Saturday morning and the first thing he asks is, “Can I take samples to study in the lab?”

“Sure.” Shouta says easily and leads him to the sleeping bag. The man looks confused until Shouta walks into it and disappears.

A few minutes later, Shouta sticks his head back out and asks, “Are you coming in or not?”

The man startles. “I, uh, I’ll come in. I’m just confused at how there’s mushrooms in a sleeping bag?”

Ah. “It’s a quirked dimension. Someone I saved from a mugging made it for me. There’s an entire house and garden inside.”

“Damn. That must be one powerful quirk user.” The mycologist observes in appropriate awe and gingerly steps towards the sleeping bag. Shouta doesn’t bother correcting him. He doesn’t say anything else as Shouta leads him down the stairs, but he does peek curiously into rooms as they pass by.

Shouta leads him to the forest, then says, “There’s a kitchen if you need food and bathrooms if you need to use one. The pink mandarins you saw are edible and safe, but the blackberries will put you to sleep. Oh, and one of the 1B students is a mushroom enthusiast, so she’ll probably join you later on. She’s been studying them for a while.”

The mycologist nods. “That’s fine. It’s always nice to meet fellow mushroom enthusiasts. I’m sure her observations will be useful.”

~

The man doesn’t emerge until suppertime when Komori basically drags him out for sustenance. Sato gives up his seat at the table to go join his friends and Bakugou gives him a weirded-out look and leaves the table with his meal, after he pops his hands aggressively at something Midoriya says and the mycologist observes, “I wonder if we could introduce your quirk gene to mushrooms and make explosive mushrooms.”

Komori promptly steals the open place at the table and joins the animated discussion on quirk genes in mushrooms that the mycologist and Midoriya are holding.

The mycologist takes Komori up on her offer of staying overnight in her tent and the next day follows a similar pattern, only with breakfast added. After Sunday supper, the mycologist takes his leave, saying, “I believe I’ve gotten enough samples and pictures and general observations about of the species in your forest. Komori pointed out a couple in your field, too. I will get back to you after lab testing is finished, but I was only able to identify two of the mushrooms as existing species, so these will cause a stir in the world of mycology. Thank you for giving me this opportunity.”

Shouta nods. “Good to know. Thanks for taking the time to come.”

~

“Aizawa sensei? Did I do something wrong?” Ojiro asks.

“No. Why?” Shouta asks.

“You keep frowning at me in Heroics class.” Ojiro clarifies.

“I didn’t realize that.” Shouta tells him.

“Okay, but why are you frowning at me? Am I doing something wrong?” Ojiro sounds anxious.

“No. I’m just concerned about your costume. Does it have any protection from blades or guns? You want to be spotlight, right? It’s more common for daytime villains to use their quirks than weapons, but there are blade and gun quirks. Also, Hizashi has mentioned that your costume is a little on the bland side if you want to climb the charts quickly.” Shouta lists out his concerns.

“I- What? I think it’s just a normal hero costume? And I’m not really flashy anyways, so I’m not really expecting to be super popular. But what should I do about those things?” Ojiro asks in confusion.

“Well, you can talk to Hizashi about appearance. As for the weapons’ protection, there are quirked fabrics made to resist blades and bullets and other things. It’s expensive, but worthwhile. As far as I know, all the hero teachers here at UA use these fabrics in their costumes. There are also specially designed unquirked fabrics that are generally a bit cheaper and offer similar protections, though they may not be as comfortable to move in. Not a lot cheaper, but definitely worth the investment straight out of school once you outgrow your UA provided costume. While you’re here at UA, you can simply request that Support upgrade your costume.” Shouta offers.

Ojiro frowns. “I’ll look into that, then. Thanks, sensei. Um, do you think-?”

“Hm?”

“I think you should probably tell the entire class that. I’m not sure any of us knew that about fabrics.” Ojiro suggests.

“Ah. Will do.” He makes a mental note to add it to homeroom some time this week. It’s usually something that’s gone over in second year, but given how much danger this class has gone through, he should have thought about this months ago.

~

Shouta stares at Okai Shima, the reporter who has been apparently speculating on whether his garden is kidnapping dirt or not and bites back a sigh. Why did Nedzu think this was a good idea again?

He dreads the article Shima is going to write after this interview. Good press his foot. Reporters are a plague upon humanity. And that’s the nicest thing he can say about them.

Chapter Text

Shima: So, Eraserhead, do you have anything to do with the dirt that’s been going missing from job sites across Japan recently?

Aizawa: Maybe? Not directly, though.

Shima: So you think it might be a function of your domain?

Aizawa: You could say that.

Shima: Can you elaborate please?

Aizawa: (deep sigh) Well, I have this garden on UA property. It started off normal but kind of became its own little dimension?

Shima: Is that a question or a statement?

Aizawa: A statement. I’m just a little confused about the garden because it doesn’t follow normal garden rules.

Shima: How so?

Aizawa: (another deep sigh) As I said, it started off normal. It was an excavated area so there was no topsoil, so I added dirt and a few seeds and plants. And then new patches of plants in their own soil started showing up. I don’t know why.

 Shima: That sounds amazing. Can you tell us a little more about your garden?

Aizawa: Sure. It has blackberries, pears, mulberries and a part of a bamboo forest as well as a holographic forest.

Shima: Wow, that’s a lot of variety.

Aizawa: That’s just the stuff it’s had show up without warning. There’s a couple sakura trees too.

Shima: This is fascinating, but can you tell us why you think your garden might be involved with the disappearing dirt?

Aizawa: Because the other day I was in the garden with a guest when suddenly a bunch of dirt showed up. It was flat, though, so I don’t know for sure if that’s where the garden got it. Nedzu’s theory is that it listens for people saying they’d like things it wants to disappear or be erased and then takes that as permission.

Shima: Do you disagree?

Aizawa: Not really. It’s just disturbing that it has that much autonomy.

Shima: Do you think your garden would give the dirt back?

Aizawa: Probably not. There’s stuff growing on it. An orchard, rice field and forest, among other things.

Shima: I- How do I phrase this? I can’t see someone wishing to get rid of an entire rice field, a forest and an orchard so conveniently.

Aizawa: Oh, no. That definitely was not something it decided to take.

Shima: What do you mean?

Aizawa: My guest wasn’t human.

Shima: You mean?

Aizawa: Takamimusubi. The kami. I don’t know why he decided I needed all that, but I wasn’t exactly going to argue with him.

Shima: … This is going to sound invasive, but I confess myself intensely curious about this garden of yours. Would you mind if I visited it?

Aizawa: No offense, but I don’t like reporters, so it’s a bad idea.

Shima: Can you clarify?

Aizawa: I’ve already told you my garden sometimes acts on its own. I’d hate to see what it would do to someone I really didn’t want there.

Shima: Oh?

Aizawa: You might end up in China like that one idiot. Or you might end up somewhere random in the spirit world like that other idiot and then I’d have to try to track you down and rescue you. Trust me, you don’t want to end up in the spirit world. The residents don’t like humans very much. And many of them are very capable of harming or killing humans.

Shima: I- I see. I guess that would be a bad idea, then. Would you mind if I asked what grows in the orchard?

Aizawa: (reaches into a belt pocket and pulls out a pink mandarin and hands it over) These.

Shima: Pink? Are they-? Are they edible?

Aizawa: Yes. Takamimusubi specifically told me that they’re harmless.

Shima: That was nice of him. Can I keep this?

Aizawa: Yeah. (another deep sigh) Are we done yet?

Shima: Oh! Of course. I’ll let you get back to your duties.

Aizawa: (grunts) Yeah. I need to check on the hellions and make sure they haven’t burned down my house yet.

And there you have it, dear readers. Eraserhead’s answer to the question of the disappearing topsoil on construction sites and a glimpse into his life as an alleged kami and a teacher.
PS: The pink mandarin was literally the best citrus fruit I’ve ever had, hands down.
-Okai Shima

~

“I think I’ll just vanish!” The villain, some two bit thug who was shaking down an innocent passerby, says.

Shouta blinks as there’s a tug on his power. How is ‘vanish’ a part of his domain? …Oh. He squints at the now hazy villain. “Huh. I think you managed to turn yourself into a ghost temporarily.”

He is 97% sure it’s temporary. His scarf has some divine power, though, so maybe he can turn this idiot into the police after all? The ‘ghost’ is flailing, apparently having tried to move without legs and finding it impossible. Trying to use his quirk goes just about as well as if Shouta had Erasure activated.

Throwing his capture scarf, he grunts in approval when it wraps around the ‘ghost’ just the same as if he was tangible. “Bad news for you. You’re still going to the police station. Hopefully your ghosthood will have worn off by then.”

The ‘ghost’ starts screaming, going by the open mouth.

“Can’t hear you. Not sorry.” He informs the idiot and starts dragging him towards the police station, ignoring the gaping civilian he’d rescued. No, wait. Pausing, he turns to the civilian. “Are you hurt? And are you willing to come to the police station to file a witness report?”

“Uh. Ah. I’m not hurt.” The woman says, clutching her purse. “I’ll- I’ll follow you. Um. And talk to an officer, right? I’m not supposed to do the actual filing myself, am I?”

“No. Sorry, that was bad phrasing.” He admits. “It’s a few blocks. I’d just call for a police car to pick him up, but I don’t think they have anything that would hold him right now.”

She nods. “That makes sense. I can’t even see him right now.”

Interesting. Nedzu will want to know that.

~

“Eraser? What are you doing here?” The front desk officer asks, perplexed. “Also, what is your scarf wrapped around?”

“Turning in a small time thug who used my abilities to turn himself into a ghost.” He says drily. “Oh, and this woman was the person he was trying to mug, so take her testimony, okay? I’ll just see this guy to a cell and then try to figure out how to turn him back.”

“Ah. Eraser, your kami powers get weirder by the day.” The officer shakes his head. “Go on back. You know where the cells are.”

He tows the villain back to where the cells are and gets the guard to open a cell for him and drags the vainly struggling ‘ghost’ into it. Unfortunately, the ‘ghost’ doesn’t turn back conveniently. Hmmn.

Shouta activates Erasure and suddenly the ‘ghost’ is human again. “Well, good to know that works. Enjoy jail.”

The guard comes in with a pair of handcuffs and he’s able to retrieve his scarf.

It’s good that he has practice at tuning people out, though, because the criminal is cursing him out at the top of his lungs as he leaves.

Later, he adds a caveat to the Do Not list. Do Not wish that you will vanish. The last person who did ended up as a temporary ghost and very much did not enjoy the experience. Turns out you can’t use your quirk when you’re a ghost.

~

UA teacher’s chat

ShinyFur: I don’t have time for a meeting, so I’ll update you here.

ShinyFur: Turns out the tornado is the work of a five year old. They are now in quirk counseling. The family of weather quirk users DID actually lift the tornado over Musutafu and it simply traveled beyond their range just shy of UA’s borders.

ShinyFur: The architects have finally gotten back to us with information on how to make buildings more tornado resistant.

ShinyFur: Cementoss, I imagine you’ll want practice before building the dorm, so start with the gym and other damaged buildings.

Brick: Email me the plans.

ShinyFur: Done.

ShinyFur: Any questions?

Loudspeaker: I thought the dorms were priority?

ShinyFur: 1A is safely housed at the moment, so making sure the new dorm isn’t defective takes priority. Also, the students have been competing for gym time given that we have one less gym to work with and it’s becoming a problem.

Loudspeaker: Understood.

Bloodpack: Are the other dorms going to be rebuilt as well?

ShinyFur: Unfortunately the board is unwilling to be convinced on this matter, so not at this time.

SleepingBag: How long will rebuilding take?

ShinyFur: By my estimate, two and a half weeks. But there will need to be time for the electricians to properly wire each building, so it might stretch out for a month or so.

SleepingBag: Sigh. Okay. I need groceries ordered in today. The kids made a list… Sent.

ShinyFur: Received. Any other questions?

Chloroform: Nope, I’m good.

MightyLoud: No, I think I’ve got it.

Clawhand: Not a question, but I’ll need time to add quirk proofing to individual rooms and please remind the electricians to wire like the dorms are carrying 5x the load of electricity because of Kaminari. It’ll cut down on fixing things.

ShinyFur: Very valid points. I’ll arrange it. Anyone else?

Kisskiss: Aizawa, your sleeping bag is a tripping hazard. Move it to the spare bedroom in the teachers’ dorm before someone hurts themselves.

SleepingBag: Salute.gif

SleepingBag: That’s fine. I’m getting tired of the kids traipsing through the lounge anyways.

ShinyFur: Alright. Well, I’m out of time, so if anyone else has questions, ping me and I’ll get back to you when I can.

~

Illinois, USA

Kei Smith cringes as his father hits him again. The bruises from last time are still yellow. Screw this! It’s time to activate his last resort. He mutters under his breath, “I wish I would disappear to Eraserhead.”

He puts as much belief into it as he’s able. Which is a lot, given how scared he is of his dad at the moment. A moment later, he feels a nauseating tug and disappears.

Left behind, his father stares at the spot his son had just disappeared from and shakes his head, “What the fuck? I’m too drunk for this.”

Wobbling, he makes it to his bed before passing out.

~

Shouta is in the middle of talking in homeroom when there’s a tug on his powers so harsh that it nearly sends him to his knees. He steadies himself with the podium reflexively. Then there’s a faint red glow in front of him and a whole ass child appears, looks around, throws himself at Shouta’s leg and starts babbling in English.

“Eraserhead! It worked! It worked! … …. … it worked!”

Yeah, no, he needs Hizashi here. Experimentally, he wiggles his leg, but the child just tightens his grip.

UA teachers’ chat

SleepingBag: We have a situation. Hizashi, I need you in 1A NOW.

ShinyFur: What happened?

SleepingBag: Fuck if I know. Strong tug on my kami power followed by a boy babbling in English appearing.

ShinyFur: Oh my.

Loudspeaker: On my way.

Reassured, Shouta puts his phone away and looks down at the child, who might be a couple years younger than his students or might not given that Europeans don’t age in quite the same manner as Asians. This one looks part Asian around the eyes, though.

“Kid. Kid! Calm down.” It’s probably a stretch that the kid knows Japanese, but he can try.

The kid stops babbling and looks up at him like a curious kitten. “Eraserhead …?”

“Um. I can try, Aizawa sensei?” Kaminari suggests, hand raised.

“Go ahead. My English is abysmal.” Shouta tells him.

Kaminari gets up and comes over to crouch down next to the kid. “What’s your name?”

“Kei Smith.”

“Eraserhead … understand English. … … … …, okay?”

“… understand.”

“Tell him Hizashi is on his way.”

“Present Mic … … … …. … … English ….” Kaminari says seriously.

“Okay. … … … not speak Japanese.” The kid apparently apologizes.

“Can you get him to let go of my leg?” Shouta asks.

Kaminari asks, but Shouta doesn’t understand any of it.

The kid, Kei? looks sheepish and lets go of his leg and moves to a kneeling position. “… Eraserhead.”

“He says he’s sorry.” Kaminari interprets.

Shouta nods in acknowledgement.

Now they just have to wait for Hizashi to show up.

Chapter Text

“So, what have we learned?” Nedzu calls the emergency staff meeting to a start.

Kaminari is watching Kei Smith nap in the infirmary at the moment, so they don’t have to worry about him for a bit. Though ‘a bit’ is probably key here, given Kaminari’s propensity for ‘fun ideas’.

“Kei – the kid says he’d like to be called Kei – says that his father beats him when he’s drunk and he’s been coming home drunk more often lately and hitting him harder. He’s afraid that one of these days his dad will kill him on accident. He hasn’t told anyone his dad is abusive before, because the teachers in his school don’t really like him and think his bruises are from picking fights with other kids.” Hizashi reports. “I don’t know if that’s true or just his perception. He did say it’s rare for his dad to hit him where the bruises show, so they may simply have not realized anything was going on.”

“I see. That’s unfortunate. Shuzenji, what kind of shape is he in?”

“He’s thin, but not malnourished other than a vitamin C deficiency that can be corrected easily by adding citrus to his diet. He doesn’t have any scars. His bruises on the other hand… There’s adult sized hand shaped and fist shaped bruises all over his torso, both old ones from a couple weeks ago and brand new ones that are still forming. I documented them before healing him partway. Unfortunately, it’s very clear that he’s being abused regularly and the bruises are concerningly deep. He may not be wrong in thinking his dad will eventually kill him on accident.” She recounts grimly.

“Fuck. That’s not good.” Yagi observes. “In that case, we can definitely take emergency custody until a better living situation is sorted out. There was a case where a kid with a powerful teleportation quirk stress teleported to Chad and the heroes there took custody when it came to light he was being abused and later he went to live with his godfather in Egypt. So there’s precedent for this.”

“Excellent. I thought so, but the American system does vary from ours a bit.” Nedzu says. “Does he know who his relatives are?”

Hizashi frowns. “I’m not sure if he knows anything about his extended family, but I can ask. He did mention that his mom died when he was young.”

Snipe clears his throat. “Do we know how he knew about Aizawa?”

“Yes.” Hizashi looks entertained at Shouta’s expense for a moment. “Apparently people have been sharing the internet rumors on international sites and the one Kei found them on has a translation function. His mom was Japanese, so he paid more attention to them than he might have otherwise.”

Shouta groans. “That damned list. When I said ‘come to me if you or someone you know is being abused’, this is not what I meant.”

Nedzu laughs a little. “I believe it only worked because Kei is clever and the situation fell within two of your domains: Erasure and Guardian of Children. Primarily the latter.”

“If you’re trying to be reassuring, it’s not working.” Shouta complains. “I’m not putting this on the list. It’ll just encourage more kids to try it.”

“That’s probably valid.” Ectoplasm admits. “Who’s going to take care of the kid for now?”

“I think that Aizawa-” Nedzu begins.

“No.” Shouta says flatly. “For one, I don’t speak English very well, so I wouldn’t be able to meet his needs. For two, I have twenty students and Eri currently occupying all of my spare bedrooms and they take priority. For three, even if I wanted to, the HPSC is currently peeved at me and would not allow it.”

“Hmmn.” Nedzu thinks for a moment. “That’s true.”

“The only problem with you not taking care of him personally is that he is currently very attached to you.” Hizashi adds.

Shouta gives him an exasperated look. “You take care of him. Just tell him you’re my boyfriend, which has the added value of being actually true. Plus, you’re literally the English teacher. So you’ll understand him best of anyone.”

Hizashi huffs. “Okay. I don’t mind taking in the little listener for a few weeks, but I think you underestimate his attachment. He talks about you a lot.”

He sighs. “Fine. He can visit. He just can’t stay with me. I have enough on my plate.”

“I’m satisfied with that.” Shuzenji agrees. “Those pink citrus should be a good answer to his dietary issues. Yamada, I’ll give you a diet plan so he can gain some needed weight.”

“Sounds good.” Hizashi says.

~

“Sensei? Should I make a few outfits for that kid who showed up in class?” Yaoyorozu asks.

“No.” He says immediately. “Hizashi has it covered.”

She frowns. “But I want to help. I feel useless doing nothing.”

“Yaoyorozu…” He frowns at her in turn. “You do realize that just because your quirk is making things, it doesn’t automatically make you useless if you don’t need to use it? It’s great to be as kind and generous as you are, but don’t let people take advantage of you. You are not an item dispenser.”

Great. Now she looks like she wants to cry.

“Oh, okay, Aizawa sensei. I don’t think it would be taking advantage if I offer, though.”

Oh boy.

“Then learn to take a ‘no’ when someone turns you down. And learn to say ‘no’ when someone is taking you for granted. A hero who gives too much of themselves will burn out early or die young because they didn’t know when to stop. I don’t want that for any of my students and all of you need to learn that you’re not the only heroes out there and there are other resources people can rely on. You and Midoriya in particular.” He says brutally, unable to come up with a different way to get her to listen to reason. “Sure, if the kid needed an outfit right this second I’d be happy to take you up on your offer. But the fact is that he doesn’t. Hizashi has plenty of money and I’m sure he’s looking forward to taking the kid shopping for necessities. He loves shopping, the heathen.”

She blinks a few times, then beams at him. “Okay. Thank you, Aizawa sensei!”

What is she thanking him for? Telling her the truth? He doesn’t ask, though, because he really doesn’t think he wants to know the answer.

~

Even Hizashi underestimated how much Kei is attached to Shouta. When he wakes up and Shouta isn’t there, he proceeds to have a panic attack so bad that he almost passes out multiple times. And he doesn’t entirely calm down until Hizashi resorts to texting Shouta to come. When he shows up, out of breath because he’d run from the gym where he’d been training with Shinso, the kid throws himself at him hard enough to rock his balance for a moment before wrapping thin arms around him tightly and crying into Shouta’s shirt.

It takes a while to get why he panicked out of the kid, but they finally discover that because Shouta ‘saved’ him, he got scared when he woke up and couldn’t see him in the vicinity.

“This is going to be a problem, isn’t it?” Shouta mutters.

Hizashi, damn him, only nods seriously. “I think so. And it’s not like I can just have you come running every time. Or move him in with you. Or move both of us in with you. You just don’t have the room. Too bad we can’t just attach my apartment to your sleeping bag. That would be too convenient, y’know? I guess we’ll just have to settle for me calling you and giving him my phone so he can hear you when he panics.”

Actually. Maybe they can. His realms have done equally weird things. Like his windows overlooking places that are nowhere near UA. Why his windows have views in the first place is another mystery that he doesn’t care to delve into.

“Let me talk to someone. It might take a few days to get ahold of him, though. The phone’s a good idea, though.” He says thoughtfully, gingerly patting Kei’s back.

His boyfriend’s eyes widen behind his glasses. “You don’t think…?”

“Maybe. I have to ask if it’s possible first.” He emphasizes.

“I meant it as a poor joke, but if you can, that would be amazing!” Hizashi grins. “And it would make it so much easier for me to hassle you on off hours.”

Shouta gives him the glower that deserves, even though in reality he wouldn’t mind at all. Hizashi is, after all, the only other person besides Eri who has access to his bedroom. He definitely wouldn’t mind more cuddling.

~

“Ping me if Akira shows up.” He instructs his library.

It’s a week later before he experiences a small, persistent tug on his powers and follows it into his library where he finds Akira sitting against a bookshelf and reading.

Akira looks up in surprise. “Aizawa? It’s rare for you to come in here, isn’t it?”

“Hm. I have a question for you.” He says.

“Oh? And what is that?” Akira asks in open curiosity.

“I need to know if it’s possible to make doors like the ones to my realms, only between my realm and a specific place.” He explains.

“Well.” Akira says slowly, “It’s certainly possible. I haven’t done anything like that in a couple hundred years, but I do know the theory. But why do you want to know?”

Shouta sighs, even though he expected the question. “A child figured out how to use my domains to show up and, while he’s staying with Present Mic, the child has severe panic attacks when he can’t find me. I don’t have extra rooms at the moment to move him into, but I thought there might be a way he can visit more easily.”

“I see.” Akira tilts his head. “You do realize that I’ll need to walk you through making your first ‘door’?”

Yeah, Akira is a hands on type of teacher. He knows that much from being taught how to make the UA wards. “I do. I’ll allow you in this once.”

Akira grins at him. “Do I get to see all of it or only the spot you want to put the door?”

He grimaces. “You can see the public rooms and the garden, but the bedrooms are off limits. I have students living there.”

The tenko wrinkles his nose in amusement. “Understood. I won’t intrude on your kits.”

“Do I need to make a physical door or not for this to work?” Shouta asks, because if he needs to make a physical door, then he needs time to do that first.

“That depends. Technically you don’t need a door or entryway to focus a ‘door’ on, but it can be easier to make a stable one with a physical representation to tie it to. I definitely recommend using an existing doorframe in the place that you’re connecting it to, but it’s probably fine without one on your home realm’s side. It also depends on how temporary you want this ‘door’ to be and if you want more than just the boy to be able to use it. If you want to keep it there more than a few weeks I’d recommend a physical doorway to tie it to. That’ll let you tie in more specifics of who’s allowed through and when.” Akira explains.

Shouta considers. “It wouldn’t be a bad thing to have it more permanent. Present Mic is a close friend and we don’t always have enough time to visit regularly.”

Akira nods. “Then you probably want a physical door to tie it to.”

“Hm, okay. It’ll probably take me until Sunday to get that done.” He calculates.

“You could just use an existing door.” Akira offers.

“I’d rather not end up with my class ending up in Present Mic’s home on accident.” He admits.

“Ahh, okay then. Do you want me to stop by Sunday or Monday to walk you through setting up the door?” He asks.

“Sunday afternoon should be fine.” He decides. “Is an archway or a doorway with an actual door better for this?”

“Depends on the door you’re attaching it to. It helps if they’re the same kind.” Akira says. “It’s not necessary, but it does make it easier. It doesn’t really matter which kind is used, though.”

“Ah. I’ll ask Present Mic where he’d prefer the door, then. I think he has both kinds.” Shouta tells him.

Akira shrugs. “That works.”

Chapter Text

“So, it is possible?” Hizashi asks.

Shouta nods. “Apparently, but I need to install a door of the same type for it to work best, so what door do you want to hook it up to?”

“Hmmn. I’m thinking maybe the closet door? The one with cockatoos all over it? For ease of access for Kei,” Hizashi offers consideringly.

He considers that. “I don’t know. It’s a good idea for short term. I like the idea of easy access for the kid. But I’m not sure it is good for long term. It’s still going to be there after the kid is gone and I don’t really want to walk through your guest room every time I want to go see you.”

“Oh, I see your point. That would be really awkward if I had a guest over,” Hizashi agrees. “And you said you’d have to install the same type of door. Do you even know how to install sliding doors?”

“No.” All the doors in his house are western style.

“So that leaves my closet out too,” Hizashi concludes. “The front door gets too much traffic. Or wait, does this mean the door will always open to your place or only when I intend to go there?”

“The latter, I think, given the way my front door works, but I don’t know what it would do if you didn’t have intention one way or the other,” he answers.

Hizashi nods. “Then a door I don’t use very much. Not the closets, because sliding doors. Not the front doors, bedrooms or bathrooms because they’re frequently used. What else…? Oh! I know! The patio door!”

Ah, yes, Hizashi’s fancy ass patio door. Glass with wide wooden cross slats and two narrow windows, likewise with horizontal wooden slats, bracketing it. It opens onto wide cement stairs and a poorly maintained Zen garden. Needless to say, Hizashi usually only goes out there when he remembers that he needs to weed it, which is about three times a year.

“That’d work,” he agrees. No doubt expensive, but it’s not like he can’t afford it. The narrow side partitions are going to be the difficult thing to install. “Where did you get it?”

“Himura Door Emporium. It’s a Krosswood door,” Hizashi reels off from memory.

“Yours opens inwards, right? Then mine should open outwards.”

“Right,” Hizashi affirms.

Looks like he has a door to track down.

~

In the end, he doesn’t end up with the same door. It’s the same type, wooden with narrow side windows, but the bottom panel is wooden with a square top window divided into nine smaller squares, both for the door and the side windows, though the side windows’ glass is rectangular divided into three squares. It’s as close as he’s going to get if he doesn’t want to wait a month for the specific door to be imported, though.

Installing it is a bit of a hassle, but nothing he can’t handle. He installs it in the entry area, just because.

Akira, when he invites him in, looks around curiously and looks like he’s intending to go further into the house before he clears his throat pointedly and points at the new door. “Door first, explore later.”

“Right, right,” Akira says and moves over to the door. “Nice door. Okay, first, form the intention to create a doorway and then anchor it to this door. Yes, like that. You learn quickly. Next form a connection from this door to the specific door you want it to open to. Um, no, not like that. Like- Ah, there you go. Now open the door and we go through to the other side to complete the connection.”

Shouta raises a brow, but opens the door and steps through, followed by Akira, who promptly gets distracted by looking around. Hizashi’s living room is interesting, but… He clears his throat pointedly.

The fox twitches, then pretends he wasn’t just distracted and focuses on the door. “So, this side is both simpler and harder. First, you need to make the intention for it to connect to your door properly, but only when there’s intention. You also need the intention for it to open to its normal place when there is no intention to go to your realm. And you need them all at the same time.”

Complex but doable.

“Mmn. No- Yes, like that. Now lock that in and make it intended to be permanent. There you go. And done! Now, do I get to see the rest of your house?” Akira asks impatiently.

Shouta huffs in amusement. “Sure.”

He leads the fox back into his house and into the kitchen. “This is the kitchen and that’s Mikan.”

Akira coos and crouches down to pet the cat, who is days from giving birth. “Can I have one of the kittens?”

“To eat or as a pet?” He double checks.

“Don’t be offensive. I haven’t eaten a cat in centuries. Of course as a pet,” Akira replies mildly.

“Then sure.” It’s no skin off his nose to have a guaranteed owner for one of the kittens.

~

Akira seems fascinated with the way the individual rooms all open onto the stairs, spiraling down at the same level, while also interconnecting and the floors all being level to walk on, with no slope or steps down. He doesn’t gush or anything; he’s just visibly curious about it.

He also greets all the kids they meet on the way down in a friendly way.

Overall, he’s pretty chill about his excitement until they go through the room that opens into the garden and steps through the door. He stops dead, eyes widening.

“When you said ‘garden’, I thought you meant a few planter boxes, not an actual section of the spirit world. When was Takamimusubi here to make this?”

“A few weeks ago. This part of the garden was already here and he seemed approving, but then the garden imported a bunch of dirt all of a sudden and he…decided to make the rest. You can have any of the fruit or berries you want, but I’d avoid the mushrooms. We haven’t determined what they do, yet,” he advises.

The kitsune gives him a startled look.

Deciding not to ask, he says, “I’ll be in my office. Or around. Come find me when you’re done exploring the garden.”

“Alright,” Akira says, still giving him that odd, startled look.

First, he needs to go inform Hizashi and Kei that the door connection is installed now.

~

It’s dinner time by the time someone remembers Akira.

“Aizawa sensei?” Uraraka asks. “Did Akira go home?”

Did he? No. Did he get lost in the forest? Surely not.

“Someone go check on him. He should still be in the garden,” he directs.

“Okay!” Uraraka chirps and scurries off.

She comes back, not ten minutes later, carrying Akira in fox form, clearly asleep.

“He was by the blackberries,” she explains.

“Ah. Oops.”

“Did you forget to warn him?” she asks.

Shouta ignores that, because yes, he did forget. “Put him on one of the couches and get yourself some food.”

Uraraka gives him a lazy salute and does just that.

Akira wakes up halfway through dinner, shifts back and looks a little befuddled when he’s handed a plate of food.

“You good there?” Shouta asks, slightly concerned because he doesn’t know how the blackberries will affect a magical creature.

“Yes. I just don’t remember leaving your garden,” Akira confesses.

Shinso snorts. “Let me guess. You ate the blackberries.”

“I did, yes. I had permission.”

“What I meant was that you could take some home with you,” Shouta corrects, “But I should have warned you about the blackberries. They put people to sleep. No one has reported any negative side effects, but let me know if you experience any.”

“Oh. Okay. I feel fine, but I’ll let you know if that changes. Do any of the other fruits do anything?” Akira inquires.

“Well, the mandarins help with new beginnings, but other than that, we don’t know of any side effects,” Shouta admits.

Akira stares at him for a moment, then snorts. “Yeah, okay. Fair enough. I would like a box or basket of the fruits and rice, if you don’t mind. I did get a look around before I decided to sample anything. Amazing garden.”

Shouta shrugs. “We’ll find you something to put it in, but you can pick it yourself.”

“We still have the broken-down boxes the groceries came in,” Sero volunteers. “I can tape one together for him.”

“Good idea, listener!” Hizashi agrees. “Thank you for showing Aizawa how to do the connected doors thing. The kiddo is really excited about it! He spent like an hour running back and forth between the houses.”

“Did he really?” Shouta asks. Honestly, he’d just texted Hizashi, because his boyfriend had been shopping for Kei.

“Well, yes, I timed it. But mostly he was stuck on the fact that on my side the door can open to the back yard or here. He kept trying out both options. It was hilarious!” Hizashi tells him. “Eri thought it was pretty cool, so she joined him doing that for a while.”

Shouta smiles slightly, picturing it. How cute.

“Yeah, Bakugou and Sato came and got us. Everyone had to check out the door,” Shinso agrees. “Tokoyami was disappointed that it looks like a regular door instead of a torii.”

“I was not the only one,” Tokoyami rejoins, face feathers ruffling in embarrassment.

“We all agreed,” Sero points out. “A torii would’ve been cooler.”

Akira snickers. “Toriis are best for anchoring bits of the spirit realm to, so it would’ve worked, but it’s better if you have a torii on the other side as well. Like to like.”

“You are not turning my patio door into a torii,” Hizashi objects.

“Spoilsport,” Shinso accuses with a smirk.

“And happy to be one,” Hizashi replies, unfazed.

“If you ruin a door I just spent over a million yen on, you’ll be paying for a new one,” Shouta promises, though vaguely amused at the thought of torii ‘doorways’ in their respective houses.

“We won’t ruin it,” Yaoyorozu promises.

Well, it’s not like he thought they would. It’s just good to cover all the bases when it comes to children.

~

He had not covered all the bases, is all he can think the next morning when he starts to leave for classes in the morning and abruptly backtracks to stare at what he had caught out of the corner of his eye.

There, likely still tacky from how fresh it is, neatly surrounding his expensive wooden door and its little side pieces is a freshly painted red torii on his wall.

Granted, they hadn’t ruined the door. But seriously? Brats.

After a moment, he rolls his eyes and resumes his journey to the teachers’ lounge. The first thing he’s going to tell the hellions this morning is, “Detention for all of you.”

~

Tuesday afternoon, Shouta comes home to find Mikan has given birth to three kittens, all a bit on the large side. One is an orange tabby like its mother, another is orange with brown paws and a splotch of brown on its face and the other one is brown with one orange ear.

They all seem healthy, so he doesn’t need to worry about vet appointments until they’re old enough to get their shots. He can have them tested for a quirk then, too.

Then the kids all show up in a rush to dump everything school for an hour or two, notice the kittens and immediately gather round and start cooing and touching the kittens gently. There’s a lot of jostling and people getting banged with bookbags and Mikan is starting to flip her tail in annoyance.

“Alright, you lot. Go change and then take turns. No more than two people at a time, so you don’t overwhelm the cat. Most cats do not like their babies being touched at this stage,” he shoos them off gruffly.

There’s a lot of ‘aww’s and exclamations of dismay, but they obey.

“Sorry, Mikan. I know they’re a lot, but they mean well,” he apologizes to the cat.

“MerOW!” Mikan opines and sets to grooming her kittens vigorously.

Yeah, that went over about as well as expected.

Chapter Text

Shouta barely sees the flash of blond hair before the person it belongs to plows into him. He hisses in pain as half his mug of coffee ends up soaking the front of his top.

The kid reels back, cursing in English. Then he actually gets a look at Shouta and immediately starts apologizing in Japanese. "I'm so sorry, Aizawa sensei! I wasn't looking where I was going!"

He sighs, because he shouldn't have been caught so off guard either. Unfortunately, it seems to be the last straw for the pastry dangling from his mouth, because it promptly breaks off and hits the ground with a pitiful thud. Shouta chews and swallows the bite left in his mouth and then says in understandable annoyance to the still apologizing kid, "Monoma, go away." Go bother someone who wants to hear it, he thinks sharply.

Too late, he realizes that he put power into that command.

Monoma visibly jolts just before he vanishes.

Shouta stares at the spot Monoma had been in for a moment, before swearing, "Shit." 

Vlad is going to be annoyed.

With a sigh, Shouta turns around and goes to find a replacement shirt.

"Aizawa, do you happen to know why Monoma called to tell me he'll be missing classes because he's currently in Hokkaido?" Yup, definitely annoyed.

Shouta sighs. "In my defense, he ruined my breakfast and spilled half of my coffee on me and then wouldn't shut up. Also, I didn't mean to."

Vlad grimaces. "That's valid."

Well, at least he understands how petty Shouta can get over wasted coffee. Granted, probably only because he's been a target of that spite in the past, but at least he's capable of learning.

Plus, it's not like this is the first time someone has run afoul of Shouta's power having a mind of its own.

~

"Oh, Shooouutaaaa! Where are yoouuuu?" Nemuri carols.

A thought crosses his mind and he shouts back, "Nemuri, keep your shirt on! I've got kids living here!"

Nemuri locates him easily enough and strolls into the room looking pouty. "You're no fun."

He rolls his eyes at her. "Oh yes, I'm a spoilsport for making you behave professionally enough to not get fired over parental outcry and indecency charges. My heart bleeds for you."

She huffs and flops on the nearest chair, ignoring Iida nearlly startling out of the chair onto the floor at suddenly finding himself with a lapful of teacher. "You're such a sarcastic little shit."

"Midnight sensei! This is inappropriate!" Iida squawks.

In response, she pats a chopping arm. "How many times have I told you to call me Auntie Nem, Tenya?"

"Midnight sensei, please get off my lap!" Iida ignores her.

"Oh, pooh!" She gets up. "Do me a favor and take the baskets I left in the kitchen down to the garden, Tenya, and fill them up with berries?"

Iida bolts upright. "Right away!"

She takes the vacated seat with a pleased hum.

"Why do you suddenly want berries?" he asks curiously.

"My agency scheduled an interview with an annoying reporter, so I thought I'd offer him blackberry tarts." She smirks. "It's hardly my fault if they just so happen to get too sleepy to continue the interview."

Shouta snorts. He may just steal that idea. "I'd say help yourself, but you've already conned Iida into doing it for you."

"Not like you care," she accuses accurately.

Bakugou stalks into the room and glares at Nemuri. "I hope you like stems and leaves in your berries. Glasses can't pick worth shit."

"You could supervise him," she suggests.

"Hell, no! Do I look gullible to you, old hag?" he demands.

Nemuri mouths the insult in astonishment.

Deciding to cut out the drama, Shouta clarifies, "He calls his mom that, too."

Mood instantly switching, she jumps up and smothers Bakugou in a hug, ignoring his surprised flailing. "That's so sweet of you! I had no idea that you think of me as a second mom!"

"What? Who said that!? Get off of me!" He manages to extricate himself and promptly flees, stomping and muttering, "Like hell I'm calling her that!"

Shouta regards a way-too-pleased-with-herself Nemuri and then starts laughing. No doubt Bakugou will come up with another insulting nickname, but it's the first time he's seen someone successfully dissuade him from using one they dislike.

~

There is, it seems, one major problem with granting a 14-year-old boy access to a garden. 

Hizashi's shriek of terror shakes the entire house.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Hizashi is only a couple rooms away, so it's easy to reach him and shut him up with a quirk powered glare. "Hizashi! What the hell?"

Kei peeks up from where he's cowering on the floor, hands over his ears. "I...know...he is scared..." He holds up a stag beetle in demonstration.

Shouta sighs. "Put it back."

His English isn't good, but he's capable of saying that much.

To his credit, the boy jumps up and runs in the direction of the garden.

He blinks. "For fucks' sake, Hizashi. Did you even warn him that you're terrified of bugs?"

"Sorry, sorry," Hizashi gasps, getting ahold of himself finally. "I didn't think it would be an issue."

Shouta shakes his head. "You'll have to explain it to him now. You're lucky that you didn't burst his eardrums. I'm surprised that he could even hear me."

Hizashi shudders and looks guilty. "I know. He dropped as soon as I started screaming, so most of it went over his head."

"Make sure he has a check up for it anyways," Shouta cautions.

"You're right," Hizashi agrees.

Right about then, Problem Child and several others come crowding into the room, tensed for trouble. "What happened? Is Yamada sensei okay?"

"It's all okay, listeners. Kei just showed me a giant bug. I forgot to warn him that I don't like bugs," Hizashi reassures them.

The hellions look at Shouta for confirmation.

"He's terrified of anything bug-like, including spiders and beetles. If you use that against him, I'll make you run the hell course for a week straight. I'd appreciate it if you'd take care of any bug life that he finds in his vicinity," he explains. "I'd prefer a lack of property damage."

"You're so cruel to me, Shou!" Hizashi complains dramatically.

"Yes, sensei."

"Okay, Aizawa sensei!"

"Yes, sir. We've got it."

Several kids exclaim, overlapping Hizashi and each other.

"What do you mean 'cruel', Yamada sensei? He just threatened us on your behalf. That's sweet!" Ashido contradicts.

He is not sweet. Shouta decides to ignore his reputation being maligned.

"You're right, listener, Shou is sweet. But he just called me out on property damage," Hizashi bemoans.

"If you don't want to be called out, don't try to bring my house down around our ears," Shouta tells his boyfriend heartlessly.

"Shou!" Hizashi gasps, clutching his heart, then drops the dramatics. "Okay, that's fair. I really am sorry."

"You're forgiven," Shouta relents, ignoring the 'aww's from the kids. Proper communication is vital in relationships.

~

Mina finishes praying at the shrine, which has its usual crowds around it and then some.

"Praying for love?" a slightly pretty woman next to her in a kimono with her long, dark hair pulled back in a traditional updo asks as they follow the flow of the crowd. She reminds Mina a bit of the depictions of Benzaiten she's seen.

"Of a sort," she admits. It's not hard to guess what a teenage girl praying at Benzaiten's shrine would be thinking on.

"Oh?" the woman prompts.

"Well, obviously I want to fall in love, but I was praying that my classmates and I would recognize true love when it comes along and that all of us would have that opportunity," she explains.

"That's generous of you," the woman comments with a lovely smile.

She shakes her head. "Not really. They're all family to me. They're like the siblings I never had. It'd feel weird to leave them out of my prayers, y'know? And our teacher is like an extra dad. The kind that we never knew we needed until we met him."

"Sounds like you think a lot of this teacher of yours. Is he the blond man over there, waving at you?" the woman asks.

Mina looks around and spots Yamada sensei waiting for them. "No, that's our other teacher, his boyfriend. They're really sweet together, though. It's like: relationship goal. They tease each other a lot, but they also talk stuff through even though normally Aizawa sensei acts like he's allergic to talking nicely."

"So what are they like individually?" the woman asks with another smile.

"Oh! Yamada sensei is super upbeat, outgoing and kind of a drama king. A real people person and even nicer than he acts.

"Aizawa sensei is, uh, he acts kind of mean when he's pushing us to be better, but it's because he really cares. He's kinda quiet and grumpy and loves cats, naps, coffee and kids. Not necessarily in that order. Right now my class is staying with him because our dorm got demolished and he makes sure we have what we need. Like, I need special hair products or these curls turn into frizz and change color. When I showed him, he's all: 'Make a list of exactly what you need and get everyone else to do the same. I'll see to it that you get it ASAP.'" She imitates his gruff voice badly. "He could've made me wait for a shopping trip or for my parents to get me more, y'know? I totally didn't expect him to realize it was an emergency. He looks like he just rolled out of bed most days!"

They've gotten to Yamada sensei finally and he grins at her. "You talking about Shou? It's a secret, but he actually knows how to dress fashionably. He just thinks fashion is a personal insult."

The woman laughs. "Your boyfriend seems like an impressive man."

"That's right, listener! He's very impressive!" Yamada sensei gives Mina a curious glance. "Are you ready to go? The other two went back to the car."

The stranger chuckles. "It was nice to meet you, dear. It's good to hear that you have the kind of teachers that you need. I'm sure Benzaiten will grant your request. And you, young man, I'm convinced that you and your boyfriend's relationship will continue to flourish."

"That's sweet of you, listener!" Yamada sensei answers.

"It was nice to meet you too!" Mina tells her.

The dark-haired woman smiles and disappears into the crowd.

Yamada sensei stares after her. "Is it just me? Or is there something special about that woman?"

"Huh." It is kind of weird that they ended up talking about Aizawa sensei. "What? Like a reporter?"

"No, just..." He trails off and then shakes himself. "I guess I'm just imagining things."

Mina's not so sure about that, but she also didn't notice anything unusual about the ordinary, motherly woman. Not that it apparently matters what she discerns, since she hadn't noticed that a friendly fox was actually a tenko kitsune and she'd never have pegged Aizawa sensei for anything besides human if not for his sleeping bag house and his blatant use of it to store uniforms and papers.

"Maybe you shouldn't second guess yourself," she suggests with an impish smile.

He grins back. "You're right. I'll tell Shouta about it and see what he thinks."

Then he takes her arm and pulls her out of the way of a mob of chattering middle schoolers barging through the crowds.

"Careful there. I don't want to lose you," he cautions.

"Thanks, sensei! They're a little scary," she confides.

"Large cohesive groups heading towards you often are," he tells her. "It's part of why Shouta prefers being an underground hero, but you get used to it over time. What with reporters and all."

"Haha, yeah," she agrees and decides to keep hanging onto him as they walk back to the van they came in. Just to be safe.

Really though, if Aizawa sensei is their second dad, Yamada sensei is either the fun uncle or the second mom, so she does feel safe with him.

~

"Zawa! Zawa! Look, look! I'm 'Mada!" Eri brandishes an ice cream cone with the ice cream covered in silver sprinkles. Since when do they have sprinkles? Nevermind. It's probably Sato's fault. It does look like a microphone if one squints. Mostly. "I even have a Mic phone!"

"I see that," he replies, amused.

She brings it up to her mouth, eyes sparkling. "Hello, listeners big and small! Welcome to Put Your Hands Up Raid! Can I get a Yeah to start us off with? Good job, listeners! Be sure to call in your requests! Nothing sexy or depress, though, cuz this is Kid's Night and we're here to have fun!"

This is cute as hell.

And no, he doesn't miss Bakugou recording it with a shit-eating grin.

He'll ask for a copy later.

"Great job, Eri!" he congratulates.

"Yeah!" She beams. Well, for a given value of 'can't smile'.

Then she notices her ice cream starting to drip and takes a bite out of her 'Mic phone'.  So much for that.

Once she's done swallowing, she adds, "This is Mic 'Mada, signing off on Put Your Hands Up Raid! Be real, listeners! And eat your ice cream!"

He's definitely teasing Hizashi about being Mic 'Mada.

With difficulty, he doesn't laugh at Eri's antics, but Bakugou has less restraint if the boy's wheezing is anything to go by. Possibly because he was the gremlin to put the idea in her head in the first place and provide her with the 'Mic phone'.

~

Shouta isn't sure why his house pings him until he follows the ping to find Hizashi and the three girls he took to Benzaiten's shrine are back. They had decided that Hizashi going with them was probably a safer choice than Shouta stepping foot on another kami's territory, especially one as powerful as Benzaiten. Jiro and Hagakure seem normal, more or less, but there is something different about Hizashi and Ashido. They seem...different somehow. 

He squints, but he can't see anything different. He flares his quirk, but that doesn't change anything either.

"Shouta?" Hizashi asks, obviously surprised at Shouta's use of his quirk.

"Just what did the two of you encounter?" he demands in response to Hizashi's questioning look.

Ashido's expression changes to excitement. "You were right, Yamada sensei!"

"Oh," Hizashi says. "Ashido met a nice lady. I thought that there was something unusual about her, but I don't know what."

"She kinda reminded me of depictions of Benzaiten when I first met her," Ashido volunteers. "But really, she was just like a slightly nosy neighborhood mom, y'know?"

Shouta groans. Why are kamis so eccentric? "Of course she was. Did she say anything specific?"

Hizashi gets a funny look on his face. "She said that she was sure Ashido's request would be granted and that our relationship would 'continue to flourish'."

"She said Benzaiten would grant it," Ashido corrects.

"And what did you wish for?" he asks, dreading the answer. Sometimes an unanswered prayer is leagues safer than an answered one.

"Oh!" Ashido bites her lip for a moment in recollection. "I asked that everyone in the class would get a chance at true love and that we'd recognized it when it came along."

Shouta relaxes. At least it's not something bad that attracted the goddess' attention to Ashido. Though he has to wonder why Ashido and not the other two. "Did you girls get separated?"

"Yes. Hagakure and Jiro managed to stay together, but the crowds were large today," Hizashi answers for them.

"Ashido said that she had a longer prayer to make," Hagakure defends. "So we just went ahead when we got separated."

"The crowd was getting louder when we finished, so Mic sensei sent us back to the van to wait," Jiro adds.

Well, Jiro of all people would be sensitive to noise levels.

"It was fine," Ashido reassures him. "The middle schooler mob was scary, but I was with Yamada sensei by then. Crowds don't bother me. Besides, that lady pointed out Yamada sensei waiting for me."

"They were busy talking about you understanding fashion by the time they got to me," Hizashi offers cheerfully.

Shouta scoffs. "Lies and slander."

"Nope!" Ashido looks smug. "We know the truth. She said you're 'an impressive man', sensei. I think she likes you!"

"I think so, too," Hizashi agrees with a smirk.

"Yay?" he replies blandly, amused at their disappointment at his lack of reaction to their provocation. Serves them right.