Chapter Text
Mom had taken waaaaay too much time fussing over him and taking photos of him in his new uniform that morning.
Thankfully, Izuku didn't need to have Foresight to see that coming, so he had gotten up earlier and gone through the ritual and routine of First Day At High School; eating breakfast, and then going through the motions of a full photoshoot with his mom behind the camera.
He endured the fussiness of his mother (it was a shame dad wasn’t able to make it home; he was the only one in the family who knew how to tie a tie) and reluctantly disentangled himself from her too-tight hug so that he could race to the train station in time to make it to school.
Izuku ended up walking up to UA with little time to spare and went through the usual routine to get into UA, pulling out his student ID card as he walked up to the last layer of the UA Barrier.
The man who stood guard at the gate held up Izuku’s card to his lens-covered eyes, peering closely at it and inspecting the little plastic card, which had a dozen different ways of confirming its authenticity.
“Hmm, first day as a student here, Midoriya? Your face looks kinda familiar, you know? This thing looks real enough, anyway…” Snipe drawled with a playful hum in his voice. He pressed a knee-switch behind the little security booth he was in, and Izuku’s mouth curled into a smile as he stepped through the UA Barrier and took his student ID card back.
Even with his face hidden behind the gas mask of his hero costume, the so-called ‘Gunslinger Hero’ was broadcasting a grin plain as day.
“Oh, I’m sure it’ll come back to you eventually, Snipe-sensei,” his reply dripped with amused insincerity as he reassured his teacher, bumping his knuckles against Snipe’s offered fist. There was a joke in there somewhere about age and memory loss, but Izuku held back (saving it for a later time).
A chuckle came from Snipe, who reached out and ruffled Izuku’s hair before the teacher’s tone softened. “I’m sure it will, Midoriya. You have a good day, y’hear?”
“Yes, sensei,” Izuku laughed, before walking past and heading off into the depths of the campus.
He trembled lightly as he mentally prepared himself for today; his first day at UA!
Wait.
The thought stalled for a moment; he had spent at least three or four of his afternoons and evenings a week here for the past eleven months. More often five or six, now that he thought about it: Izuku’s usual routine had him racing here after school, to learn from the teachers of UA, or to do his physical training in the company of Mirio-senpai, or help out the other students as they went about their training, or do the monthly podcast with Mic-sensei about quirk analysis…
The legendary hero school had become a home away from home, he concluded with a smile.
His first day as a heroics course student, then! That was definitely new, and he had the uniform to prove it!
Gone was his black Aldera gakuran, the traditional style of school uniform exchanged for a more western-style gray blazer, under which was a white button-up shirt and a red tie. Green suit-style pants (as opposed to the t-shirt style pants in Izuku’s closet) and his chunky red shoes completed the new Midoriya look.
Reaching the first intersection after the UA Barrier gates, Izuku took a moment to enjoy the morning sun as he turned to the right, following the familiar path he had trodden so many times before.
Which was a mistake, in retrospect.
Izuku slowed to a stop as he caught sight of the support labs; the offices adjacent were where he had spent most of his time at UA as an ‘intern’ when he wasn’t training at the gyms. That meant he had been walking the wrong way; the support labs and the other student body classrooms were far away from each other for a number of reasons, and that was usually the amount of explosions that occurred on a good day, let alone the kind of ruckus that would happen during a bad one.
Sheepishly, the new but not new student reversed course, hoping to skitter past Snipe to head to the classrooms, praying that the teacher at the gates would be too busy with the other students to notice.
As he was just about to disappear from sight, he heard the hero call out: “Don’t get lost on your first day, Midoriya!”
Dammit.
= = = = =
S.Aizawa: Midoriya, the first day of the hero course is very important in the development of your classmates and to set the right tone for the rest of the year. I want you to play a passive role in all this, so don’t act out.
Midoriya.Izuku: Translation: You want to troll 1-A, don’t spoil your fun on day one?
S.Aizawa: I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.
= = = = =
Izuku slipped into the classroom block and began to climb the stairs; the dedicated homeroom for class 1-A would be on the fifth floor, just below the sixth (and top) floor which contained the teachers’ bullpen-style shared office and the various conference rooms. Below, on the fourth floor, were the support course classrooms (when they had common curriculum classes to do) while the third floor was reserved for the general course and the second floor had classrooms for the management course.
Finally, the ground floor was double-height, containing the traditional entrance space even though there was no ‘inside shoes’ policy at UA (instead it was lockers for personal storage) and also the sacred domain of Lunch Rush with the massive cafeteria at what some claimed was UA’s heart (or would it be more appropriate to say it was UA’s stomach… ?).
Classrooms bustled as Izuku walked past them, each filled with the excited buzz of new students meeting their classmates for the first time or reuniting with last years’ friends; Mic-sensei had mentioned that UA tried to shuffle the classrooms around as little as possible between the years, since the heroics course didn’t sort their students into classes by their academic performance compared to other schools.
He reached the top and walked past the 1-B classroom and headed into 1-A.
Something gripped his heart as he was about to reach for the latch.
This was it.
He shook off his hesitation and pulled the door open. Izuku stepped inside… and was crestfallen as he immediately saw a confrontation brewing.
“Huh, so what you're saying is that you’re just some upper-class Soumei twit, aren’t you?” Bakugo had his feet on the desk, and Izuku didn’t need to have studied under Nezu to realize that Iida Tenya had taken issue with it, stickler for the rules that he was.
On one hand; he should intervene, or… something? Wouldn’t that be The Heroic Thing To Do?
On the other hand, he could just listen to what Eraserhead-sensei had told him to do, and leave him to deal with this… and not stick his neck out into a situation that involved Kacchan.
Wait, wasn’t he calling him Bakugo now? Izuku frowned; he hadn’t decided on whether or not he should change what he called Bakugo… err … Kacchan… err… Katsuki?
Katsuki.
Add to that, stepping in and trying to defuse the situation involving Katsuki would probably set it off just from his presence alone; already riled up, Katsuki was probably going to literally blow up at the idea of ‘Deku’ trying to boss him around… so he decided to go with option 2: make it Eraserhead’s problem.
Izuku turned away from the scene and tried to find his seat, pulling out his phone to find the email that had his enrollment details on it. It was already open in his tabs, so he popped it open, scrolled to the seating arrangements… and found that it was the seat directly behind Katsuki, almost directly in between him and Iida.
Well, time to shuffle off to a corner of the room and then tell Eraserhead what was happening.
Izuku made a quarter-turn to his left, moving as quietly as he could. He heard a snicker as he dipped past seat number 1: a blond boy with a large metallic belt wrapped around his waist, a glistening white gem the size of his face (synthetic diamond?) set into it; a support item for his quirk, if Izuku could have a guess. He suppressed the urge to ask the other student about his quirk, before his gaze was drawn to the next person in the column; a pink girl.
Not just pink- haired . The next student was almost entirely, head-to-toe, bubblegum pink. From the tips of her fluffy pink locks (which had a pair of yellow, zig-zaggy horns sticking out of them) to her pink skin to her pink fingernails, she was… very pink.
Izuku’s intrusive thoughts almost got “Hey, is your favorite color pink?” out of his mouth before common sense made his teeth clack firmly shut.
The sound drew her attention, and green irises met yellow set in black sclera, but their gaze was almost immediately broken when a pair of familiar faces, clearly positioned to catch the best view of the classroom drama unfolding, perked up at the sight of him.
“Midoriya!” They both blurted out, and immediately rushed him.
Izuku managed to strangle the instinctive urge to scream and run when he recognised that the one in front was Uraraka, the brown-haired girl with the zero gravity quirk, as she ran up to him. However, he lagged a moment before recognition dawned and he realized that the boy trailing half a step behind her was Kirishima, the hardening quirked boy who had made a drastic change to his hair.
“You dyed your hair red?” was all he managed to get out as the two got right up in his face, almost bowling over the pink girl.
Kirishima grinned, reaching up to play with a strand of fiery red hair now slicked up into spikes. “Y-yeah? I figured ‘new school, new me’, right? To be a hero that’s more manly!”
The red hair and the word ‘manly’ triggered a connection in Izuku’s hero trivia repository, and this time his inner hero fanboy was faster than his self control.
“... like Crimson Riot?”
Kirishima had a gleam in his eyes that told Izuku two things: Kirishima was one of His People, and that this was probably going to end in them being both gassed by Midnight-sensei.
“So you’re the guy that helped Eijiro out during the entrance exam, huh?” the pink-haired girl interrupted, breaking the incoming torrent of hero talk as she thrust a hand out and Izuku took it, funneled by social convention to grasp her hand.
“Ah, yes? Kirishima helped me out a lot as well! I’m Midoriya Izuku, it looks like we’re going to be classmates, so please look after me!” Izuku answered, following the formula for a formal greeting through rote familiarity.
And practice. Among other things, the last year had taught him to introduce himself to a lot of new people.
“Pleased to meet ya! I’m Ashido Mina, my quirk lets me make acid from my skin!” Ashido returned, shaking his hand firmly.
Izuku bit down on the urge to jerk his hand away the moment she mentioned makes acid from my skin ; Ashido was a hero course student, which meant that she surely had control of her quirk to be here, and she wasn’t nearly as good as Midnight-sensei in hiding that mischievous streak dripping from her voice.
Instead, he raised the hand he was holding up to look at the pink skin more closely, which got a curious sound to come from her; clearly, she was expecting the instinctive withdrawing of the hand, not for her intended victim to pull her in.
“Oh, is your quirk an emitter that’s purely generative, or is it a mutation expressed in the pores on your skin that creates your acid? Does that affect how you can perform physical activity, if your sweat glands were mutated by your quirk, since that might cut into your body’s cooling? Actually, how much acid are we talking about here?”
Izuku’s other hand joined the one currently holding Mina's, using his thumb to stretch her skin a little and leaning in, trying to imagine two different sets of pores or anything that he could find as an outward expression of her quirk.
This was such a cool quirk!
“Do you create any acid in particular? Or can you create any liquid so long as it's acidic? I know the human stomach has hydrochloric acid, but is yours the same or is there some kind of chemical difference? Have you had it tested?”
… wait.
He was Doing It Again , wasn’t he?
Pulling away, he all but dropped Mina’s hand. “I, uh, I’m sorry… I really like quirks and quirk analysis, so sometimes I ramble and… well…?”
Mina blinked once, twice, before pointing with her other hand and shouting “... wait, I know you! ”
Eh?
“Green hair that’s ridiculously fluffy, rambles about quirks… you’re that green analyst kid from last year’s sports festival, right?” she gasped, before whipping around to turn towards Kirishima. “EIJIRO, I TOLD YOU ABOUT HIM, RIGHT!?”
Kirishima nodded. Uraraka tilted her head.
Izuku felt his cheeks heat. “Uh…”
“Whoa, I think he really is!” shouted a voice off to his right, coming from a floating female school uniform who was waving around a cellphone - one that had a photo of him a year ago, sitting between Mic-sensei and Eraserhead-sensei in the announcer’s booth of the sports festival.
… wow, that really was just a year ago.
Is this what it was like to feel old?
“Wait, he’s that Announcer-kun?” Another student (large build, short brown hair, smelled faintly of vanilla and sugar in a way that made him think ‘baking’) stuck his head into the conversation, studying Izuku’s face. “I thought he was supposed to be a second year student with an analysis quirk!”
Izuku felt a stab of annoyance at that. Just because I’m good at something doesn’t mean it’s a quirk.
“Well, if he was, he would be a third-year student by now, kero, so what’s he doing here?” questioned another student, tapping her chin thoughtfully as she stared at him.
“I wasn’t a second y-” Izuku began to try and explain, blush growing on his face as he tried to speak over the clamor.
A blond boy with a jagged black streak through his hair piped up, eyes excited. “Wait, were you, like, some kid that got lost in the crowd?”
“Yes!” Izuku agreed, doing his best imitation of Mic as he jabbed a pointer finger in the boy’s direction. “That’s exactly right.”
Sparks danced over his hair in response as his jaw dropped. “I was joking! ”
“Task failed successfully,” murmured one of the other students; a short-haired girl with fleshy-looking earphone jacks on long lines hanging off her ears.
= = = = =
Shouta finished arranging the jelly packs he stashed underneath his desk, a fresh batch that should last him most of the term before he needed a refill - it wasn’t like it was his only source of packets, either; he had picked All Might’s locker out of curiosity, found it empty, and had started using it as extra storage.
The Brats still hadn’t noticed him dropping down from the ceiling and behind the teacher’s desk in that god-awfully comfortable bright yellow sleeping bag that he had gotten from… was it New Zealand? Something like that. Or maybe he was mixing it up with that meme that Hisashi had sent him with that quirked kiwi bird with the laser eyes.
He sighed as he reached for his phone. This was going to bother him until he figured it out.
= = = = =
Izuku’s ears were red hot as he tried to squirm from the center of attention. The newly introduced Kaminari Denki had asked him for a favor about analyzing his quirk, while another boy - Aoyama Yuuga - had chipped in that he too was interested to see what kind of analysis that Izuku could do with his quirk and its backlash.
He squished the desire to jump straight into it then and there, and made it his priority to get out of this situation before everyone in the room - Katsuki excepted - tried to book in a quirk analysis session with him.
“Well, I just gotta go, and…” Izuku moved away, but the plan for a quick retreat to his desk to unpack his bag was interrupted as he almost ran into another student; he had a prominent scar over his left eye, bisected hair colors (looked natural, no fading at the roots) of red and white, and heterochromia in his intensely focused eyes.
“Ah, I’m sorry, uh…”
= = = = =
Putting his phone away (it was both; the laser kiwi meme and the sleeping bag originated from New Zealand), Shouta listened to the ruckus die down a little more as Izuku extracted himself from the social situation.
It was nice to see how he was growing; Izuku a year ago would have simply run from the room.
Anyway: Time to make his introduction.
= = = = =
Shoto cocked his head to one side, before recognizing that the boy in front of him was prompting an introduction.
“Todoroki, Todoroki Shoto. And you are Midoriya Izuku, I heard.”
Shoto had been prepared for a number of reactions, and the dawning recognition on his face was familiar whenever people tapped into the Hero industry heard his family name.
“Wait, Todoroki-san… are you-”
Shoto braced himself for the familiar question: are you Endeavour’s son?
“-related to a Todoroki Fuyumi, by any chance?”
Wait what .
Shoto blinked like a possum being lit up by the world’s brightest torch. He rallied, forming an unfamiliar answer.
“Yes... she’s my older sister…”
“Oh? Wow! Hey, Katsuki, this is Todoroki-sensei’s younger brother!”
Ah. The penny dropped for the youngest Todoroki. Fuyumi-nee had mentioned that she had started her first ‘real’ teaching role in Musutafu.
“Haaaaah, you’re calling me Katsuki now? What the hell happened to ‘Kacch-”
Hmm… but what was it that she had said, two years ago?
“... I thought she was teaching kindergarteners…?” Shoto murmured out loud.
The sleeveless student with arm mutations let out a quiet snort behind him.
‘Katsuki’ immediately whipped around to face Todoroki and began screaming “WHO’RE YOU CALLING A KINDERGARTENER, YOU HALF-AND-HALF BAST-”
= = = = =
Right. There was his cue.
“If you don’t want to be called a kindergartener, stop acting like one.”
The entire class jumped in surprise as a much deeper adult voice cut into the brewing confrontation.
One by one, heads turned from the commotion towards the source of the voice.
Shouta put on his best Eraserhead expression as he sat at his desk, staring down the whole room with judging, half-lidded eyes.
“Wait, when did he get in here?”
“Is he a hobo that snuck in or something?”
From the corner of his eye, Shouta notice Izuku suppressed a giggle as he felt his eyebrow twitch.
“That table is on the other side of the room from the door…” a boy with purple globes on his head whispered “was he underneath it the whole time?”
“No way, dude,” another voice hissed back, a student with a messy mop of black hair that had large elbows.
Midoriya’s eyes glanced up at the ceiling panels, already guessing it out, the clever kid.
“Get in your seats,” Shouta commanded, and the students obeyed almost without conscious effort.
= = = = =
Everyone hurried to find their place, rushing to their seats. Izuku followed the flow, squeezing past a boy with a bird-head mutation and a shadow that writhed in unnatural ways. He reached his seat and sat down behind Katsuki.
“Before anyone tries, we don’t do ‘stand bow sit’ at UA,” Aizawa began, and Izuku caught Iida’s thighs stall, trying to stand up and sit back down at the same time. It didn’t look very comfortable.
“Firstly; I am Aizawa Shouta. I am the teacher for Heroic Law at UA, as well as your homeroom teacher. Secondly: it took you four seconds to be quiet. That’s not good, but it’s not horrible either. I expect improvement as the year continues… if you make it that far,” he drawled, stepping out of the sleeping bag and tapping a control on the lectern.
The characters for ‘Aizawa Shouta’ and then ‘Eraserhead’ appeared on the hybrid whiteboard/screen behind him, and almost immediately a ripple of recognition swept through the room. Around him, students sucked in breaths in violent gasps as if a mantle of dread had been draped over them.
Eraserhead: excessive expulsion?
Izuku could almost feel the tingle of recognition from the other students around him, when that name had ended up splashed across headlines on the hero news cycle last year, after an entire class failed to show up at the nationally televised UA Sports Festival… and then the reason was given.
A lot of time over the past year had been spent trying to connect the grumpy but ultimately kind man who had spent day after day of his free time to teach him so much, to the hero who had unapologetically and brutally expelled an entire class of hero potentials.
“It seems like some of you have done your due diligence, so I’m not going to leave you in suspense: Yes, I am that Eraserhead. Yes, I am the teacher that expelled most of his class last year,” their teacher listed off, “and yes, I will do it again this year if I see it fit to do so.”
This time, the classroom’s response was far from subdued horror. They exploded into noises of indignation and terror. Uraraka clapped her hands over her mouth. Kirishima’s jaw dropped. Some began to shout.
“Sit. Down.”
Another menacing, red-eyed glare, and the class settled down - in less than four seconds, this time.
“This shouldn’t be a surprise to you; like any school, teachers can recommend a student for expulsion if they are deemed unsuitable to continue. UA, as Japan’s premier hero school, has high standards and high expectations, and I - along with any teacher here - have the power to expel you if we decide that a student has zero potential in the Heroics course.”
“Why!?” A voice cried out. Izuku turned to see that Uraraka had stood up. “That’s so unfair! We gave up so much to be here!”
“What’s more unfair is sending substandard heroes out to the world and telling people you’re there to help.” Aizawa’s answer was sharp and merciless, his eyes settling on the source of the outburst. The girl flinched as if Aizawa had also thrown a knife. “You are being trained to be heroes, and that means we expect you to save lives . That will often involve putting yourself into harm’s way , into situations where people are at risk of injury and death.”
“If you can’t deal with the pressure of expulsion hanging over your heads, how can we, as your teachers and as citizens of Japan, expect you to deal with lives being on the line? That danger is something you will have to accept every day you put on your hero costumes, and it’s your job to make sure every civilian, hero and villain gets out of that situation alive .”
Again, the veteran hero’s gaze swept over the room, challenging anyone to contradict him.
“The teachers and I are here to make sure you become heroes that will have successful careers and eventually see retirement. We are not here to cater to childhood fantasies and send you and helpless civilians to early graves as a result of negligence - yours or ours. If you think that all there is to hero work is looking cool and showing off your quirk, go to the main office and ask for transfer papers; there are thousands of other students who would gladly take your place and take this seriously.”
A black sleeved arm came up, pointing at the far wall at the back of the class.
“Moving on; you’ll all find a gym uniform in your lockers, ordered by your seat numbers, they will match your requested set in the student intake forms. As long as whatever remains of the last pair gets handed in, UA will not ask questions nor charge you for replacements. Statistically - once we remove certain outliers currently in the Third Year - a hero course student will require three replacement sets of gym uniforms per semester, so we make them in bulk and don’t particularly care about them getting damaged or destroyed. They are still school property being loaned to you, so don’t try to sell them on TradeBay or anything. If you don’t know or have already forgotten your seat numbers, figure it out: you should still have your enrollment emails.”
Izuku kept his grin to himself as he felt a fresh wave of nervousness wash over the room.
“I’ll see you all at Training Ground Alpha. If you don’t know where it is, consider that your first homework assignment. If you want to remain in this class, be there in thirty minutes with your gym uniforms on, starting… now.”
And with that, Aizawa stood up, and opened the window. He sat on the ledge as a concerned murmur rippled throughout the room. What was his next move?
He surveyed the class again, and let out a huff.
“Still in your seats? I wouldn’t be wasting my time, if I were you. Oh, and because I’m contractually obligated to say it: Welcome to UA, I hope you enjoy your stay here,” Aizawa deadpan growled, then like a scuba diver he tipped himself backwards and out the third-floor window, vanishing from sight.
Izuku was already up and heading to locker 18 as the other students rushed for the windows, trying to see what had become of their teacher.
= = = = =
AnalystInGreen: Sensei, that was mean.
YEAAAAH!!!: What did Shouta do this time?
AnalystInGreen: Jumped out the window.
YEAAAAH!!!: Typical.
YEAAAAH!!!: Shouta, aren’t you meant to be at the welcoming ceremony?
AizawaShota: Aren’t you meant to be hosting the welcoming ceremony?
Midnightie: Boys, boys, you’re both pretty.
Midnightie: But Hizashi, you just missed your cue.
YEAAAAH!!!: Oh shit gtg
SwearJarBot has deducted ¥100 from YEAAAAH’s next paycheck. Reason: Swearing.
DiggyDiggyHole: Aaaaaand its back again. Goddammit, bossrat.
SwearJarBot has deducted ¥100 from DiggyDiggyHole’s next paycheck. Reason: Swearing.
RatGod: … it wasn’t me this time.
Midnightie: then who was it? Also: shit
SwearJarBot has deducted ¥100 from Midnightie’s next paycheck. Reason: Swearing.
AnalystInGreen: oh shit
SwearJarBot has deducted ¥100 from AnalystInGreen’s next paycheck. Reason: Swearing.
AnalystInGreen: … I’m still getting paid?
SwearJarBot has been banned from Green Bean Appreciation Association by DiggyDiggyHole! Reason: yeet
AnalystInGreen: wait, who named the server that?