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Chapter Text

Name: Quanxi ("light?" and "prosperous?" in Chinese)

Alias: The First Villain Hunter

Birthday: unknown

Age: unknown 

Sex: female

Gender: female

Height: 5ft 9in

Hair colour: Creamy white

Eye colour: Brown

Blood type: unknown

Quirk: Crossbow

Birthplace: China

Occupation: Private Villain Hunter (formerly), Teacher

Affiliation: Quanxi and her girlfriends, U.A. High School

Fighting Style: Armed and unarmed melee combat 

Chapter Text

U.A. High School, located in Musutafu City in the Shizuoka Prefecture of Japan, was well known as the Number One School for Pro Heroes. It had produced some of the greatest Heroes in the country, including All Might, Endeavour and Best Jeanist, all of whom made their way into the top ten in the National Hero Rankings. Many people who dream of becoming Pro Heroes also dream of achieving it there.

However, that was easier said than done.

One thing U.A. was also well known for was its extremely low acceptance rate; the vast majority of students who participated in its entrance exam didn’t make it in, leaving their dreams dashed.

Since it had a reputation for being a Hero school, the majority of its teachers and staff were Pro Heroes, experts in the heroic profession. However, the school had an extremely flexible curriculum and didn’t adhere to traditional school methods, which allowed the staff to teach however they liked. This also meant that changes to the school’s practices and procedures was a regular occurrence.

One such occasion of U.A implementing a drastic change took place on a dull, grey Tuesday during the spring holidays, a little over a month before the new school year. It’s Principal, Nezu, was a rather odd character; he was plainly a mouse with white fur, though in a certain lighting he could resemble a dog or even a small bear. Whatever he was, the adorable animal was dressed in a sharp suit vest and oversized shoes, and he only rose to about the average human’s knee. The cute facade, however, was, in the end, just a facade, for Nezu’s scarred right eye held a certain intensity and hinted at a dark past. He was sat in his office, making preparations for the staff meeting that would take place in a few weeks, and for the new school year. He had two rather big announcements to make to his colleagues.

The first one would definitely cause shock among them: All Might would be joining them as a teacher of the Hero Course. This was because, even though he was hiding this well from the public, the Symbol of Peace was on his last legs in his career, and would eventually be forced to retire. Due to debilitating injuries, All Might could now only keep his quirk active for three hours a day. The only way the man could justify staying out of the spotlight for prolonged periods of time was by teaching. Additionally, another reason All Might was taking a job at U.A. was to watch over his successor. This was something that Nezu would be keeping most of the teachers in the dark about, with a select few exceptions.

The second announcement, on the other hand, Nezu was less sure about how his colleagues would react. The principal had been deep in thought about this one for a while and, after some recent developments, he decided to finally put it into action. There was going to be a new subject that would be mandatory for Hero Course students and optional for those in other courses: Quirkless Combat Foundations.

After thoroughly research, Nezu had confirmed his already strong suspicion that many Pro Heroes had become too reliant on their quirks to suppress villainous activities, and without them there wasn’t much they could do. The recent Sludge Villain Incident was probably the best example of this. Several Pros were on the scene and, because their quirks weren’t ideal for the environment, they just stood there, unable to do anything until All Might arrived. If he hadn’t, the student that the sludge Villain was attacking would have suffocated.

Nezu felt that this measure needed to be taken now to prevent such incidents from becoming too common, and making sure future Heroes were prepared for these kinds of situations. However, setting up a new subject wasn’t the only problem, Nezu needed to hire someone who was perfectly suited to teach it. His colleagues already had their hands full with their own subjects so he couldn’t just slot it in with them.

Fortunately, Nezu already had the perfect candidate in mind, the only problem was she doesn’t live in Japan and contacting her would be a challenge. Even if he did manage to do that, there was no guarantee that she would accept, but Nezu was never one to back down from a challenge.

The warmest day since the end of winter so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, towering apartment blocks of China.  Windows that were once covered in frost stood gleaming in their sills and lawns that were once parched and covered in snow lay emerald green.  Deprived of their usual daylight hour pursuits, the inhabitants of China had retreated into the warmth of their apartments, windows thrown open to tempt in the cool evening breeze.  The only person who didn’t have her windows open was a woman who was lying flat on her back in bed, her body smothered by the weight of her four girlfriends.

She was a woman with an athletic build, creamy-white hair, and an eyepatch over her right eye.  The skin on her body was surprisingly smooth and lacked the thick, fibrotic tags of scarring that were expected from someone who’d been through many battles.  Her skin was covered in a sheen of sweat, and fully bared for her girlfriends to revel at (clothes had become a nuisance), her long hair was tousled, thick and curling in small waves at her gleaming temples, and her features, once slack with need, had returned to her usual poker face. Quanxi was especially closed off but she was effusive in other ways, and she had plenty of time to do so now that she was retired from the Villain Hunting scene.  

Unlike Professional Heroics, Villain Hunting wasn’t a professional supported by the government and it was extremely dangerous.  The people who took on this profession were usually bounty hunters, freelancers or radical vigilantes, and they would either capture or kill Villains for some kind of reward.  Additionally, they usually went after smaller threats than Pro Heroes because they had less resources and they were self-employed.  However, the profession came with many risks; Villain Hunting was illegal and those caught interfering with Pro Hero’s work were normally arrested.  Also, more often than not, Villain hunters were killed in action on a regular basis.  That didn’t, however, stop many governments from hiring them for off-the-books missions.

Quanxi was particularly well known in Villain Hunting world; she had earned the moniker of ‘The First Villain Hunter’ and was considered by many as the best in the world.  This must have been true if she’d lived to see retirement.  

She was currently enjoying the evening with her four girlfriends, the five of them were now relaxing in bed after a dirty, sordid intercourse.  Quanxi’s girlfriends were all unique characters.  Pingtsi was the most talkative and would fill people’s heads with useless facts. Cosmo only said the word ‘Halloween’ and looked a lot like a zombie. Long was scruffy and a bit dimwitted. Tsugihagi said nothing at all and creeped people out with her patchwork doll appearance.  Their personalities and appearances did not endear them to the neighbours, who were the sort of people who thought scruffiness ought to punishable by law, but as all the curtains were drawn, they were quite invisible to passers-by outside.

As Quanxi started blankly at the ceiling, she could feel her girlfriends’ hands on the pane of her stomach, the dips in her face and the meat of her thighs.  The tip of Long’s nose was cold when it dug into the nape of Quanxi’s neck as she breathed damply into her hair.  Quanxi tilted her head into the pillow despite herself; the touches were flattering in their exploration.  

Then, the relaxing post-coitus atmosphere was broken, as abruptly and completely as if someone had yelled in their ears, by the ringing of the landline phone in the hallway.  

“Excuse me, ladies.  I’ll go and see who that is,” said Quanxi apologetically, her voice lacking emotion.  She then got up, leaving her exhausted quartet of oddballs in the bedroom, and made her way into the hallway to where the phone was situated on top a set a draws.  

“Hello?” Quanxi spoke into the receiver, curious as to who was calling her at a time like this.  

“Hello Quanxi,” greeted a familiar voice on the other end of the line.  “I hope you’re doing well.”  

“Nezu. Why are you calling me?  I’d just finished a session with my women.”  

“I’m not surprised to hear that,” Nezu chuckled.  “Anyway, since you asked, I’m calling you because I want to make you an offer.”  

“What kind of offer?”  

“I’d like to offer you a job at U.A. Since you’re now retired from Villain Hunting, I assume you don’t have anything else to do.”
 
“Why me?” 

“Because I’m introducing a new subject at this school that focuses on quirkless combat; there has been rise in cases where Pros have been unable to effectively combat Villains due to not being able to use their quirks.”

“So you want me to teach the students not be reliant on their quirks.” 

“Exactly. You’re one of the best martial artists in the world so you’re more than ideal for the job.  The other teachers have their hands full with their own subjects.”

After a brief pause, Quanxi asked, “What would be in it for me?”  

“You’ll get a good income from this job and I’ll provide you and your companions good accommodation,” Nezu replied. “You can also make any other request you might have.”  

“Could you hold for a moment?” Quanxi asked, then she went back into the bedroom where her girlfriends were still laying on the queen-sized bed. “Ladies, tell me what you want.”

They all looked up at her eagerly.  

“Doughnuts!  I want one hundred doughnuts,” said Pingtsi.  

“Blood,” said Long.  

“Halloween!” Cosmo said as usual.  

Tsugihagi said nothing.  

Quanxi then walked out of the room and placed the receiver back over her ear.  Then she said, “I want my women to have guaranteed citizenship in Japan and access to basic education.”  

“We can certainly arrange that,” said Nezu politely.  

“Is there anything else I should know?” Quanxi asked.  

The line was silent for a moment before Nezu responded, “All Might is going to become a teacher as well this year.”  

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Quanxi asked after overcoming her momentary surprise.  “He doesn’t strike me as the type of person that would be a good classroom instructor.”  

“Well if that’s the case then he’ll just have to learn on the job,” said Nezu merrily.

“Then I accept your offer.”

Chapter Text

“Shall we get going, ladies?” said Quanxi, taking a drag of her cigarette as they finally emerged from the tube station and into the sunlit streets of Musutafu.  It had been a few hours since they’d arrived in Japan; how they had managed to get through the entire four hour flight with so few people staring, Quanxi could not quite understand.  She had been to Japan before several times during her Villain Hunting career, so she knew where she was going; old habits from those days die hard.  

Nezu had gotten them an apartment soon after Quanxi had accepted the job offer, once he’d sent her the address she’d located what area of the city it was in and planned the most convenient route.  The people on the train had stared more than those on the plane. Pingtsi, who had been in charge of looking after their money, didn’t understand the Japanese currency so she gave Quanxi the notes to buy their tickets. On the train, Pingtsi had gotten particularly excitable and babbled on about the different stations they stopped at. Cosmo had also gotten rather vocal during the train journey, causing her quirk to accidentally affect the people she tried to talk to. Long had gotten stuck in a ticket barrier on the tube and Pingtsi complained loudly that seats were uncomfortable and the trains were too slow.  

“I don’t know how these people manage this every day,” Pingtsi had said, as they climbed a broken-down escalator which lead them to the bustling streets lined with shops that they were currently making their way down.

The crowd was so huge that they blended in easily this time; all they had to do was stay close together, which the four oddballs accomplished by clinging to either Quanxi or each other.  Having memorised the route, Quanxi lead the way towards their new residence, her four girlfriends keeping close to her.  They passed book shops and music stores, takoyaki bars and cinemas, with Pingtsi stopping to look at and babble about them every few steps.  Quanxi was used to her doing this by now, so didn’t think anything of it.  

“LADY QUANXI!  LADY QUANXI!  OH MY GOODNESS, LOOK OVER THERE!” Pingtsi shouted for the nth time. Her was voice high-pitched, breathy and little-girlish (which annoyed pretty much anyone except Quanxi) and her eyes were alight with childlike wonder. Quanxi turned her head in the direction Pingtsi was pointing.  It was a modest, modern-looking restaurant. If Pingtsi hadn’t pointed it out, Quanxi wouldn’t have noticed it was there. The people hurrying by didn’t glance at it. Their eyes slid from the big book shop on one side to the record shop on the other as if they couldn’t see the restaurant at all. Quanxi supposed it was place that only regulars who were actively looking for it went to.

“CONVEYOR BELT SUSHI!  IT’S JAPAN’S FAMOUS CONVEYOR BELT SUSHI!” squealed Pingtsi, jumping up and down, shaking the arm that she was attached to.  Humming to herself quietly, Quanxi glanced at the other members of her entourage. Cosmo and Long were practically drooling as they stared at the sushi restaurant, even Tsugihagi’s sewn-up mouth, that was normally pressed into a thin line, had a slight upturn at the corners.

Well, they had been travelling for several hours now, what would be the harm of taking a short break?  They still had plenty of time to get to their new apartment.  

Quanxi allowed a small smile to appear on her normally neutral expression.  She then nodded, giving a quiet ‘uh huh’, and steered them inside.

For a place that sold a rather famous Japanese food, it was rather modest and dimly decorated.  A few old women were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sake.  One of them was smoking a rather long pipe that — instead of smoke — had bubbles coming out of the end. A little man with a top hat was talking to the old man behind the counter, who was quite bald and looked like a grumpy walnut. The low buzz of chatter stopped when they walked in. Everyone gave them some odd looks, some politely smiled and waved, and the man behind the counter gestured to one of the waiters to show them to a table.

“Welcome to…?”  

The waiter broke off, staring owlishly at them.  Quanxi was standing perfectly normally, as if there weren’t four women nuzzling into her shoulders and chest.  The waiter started to look more and more nervous the longer he gazed at them, particularly when his eyes landed on Cosmo.  She was resting her chin against Quanxi’s right shoulder, her exposed brain on the right side of her head was trailing down her face, and one of her eyeballs hanging out of its socket.  

She gave him a hearty grin, saying, “Halloween!”  

“Halloween…?” muttered the waiter, both confused and nervous.  

“Halloween!  Halloween!”  

Quanxi raised a hand to catch the waiter’s attention, then said, “Don’t mind her. She can only speak that word because she can’t turn her quirk off.”  

“Oh, r—right,” said the waiter, a bit relieved to see one of them could speak normally. “This way.”

Quanxi and her entourage were shown to table in the corner, the waiter left abruptly afterwards, wanting to get as far away as possible.  The chitchat of the restaurant started up again as normal, vying with the noise coming from the arcade next door.  Quanxi scanned the conveyor belt analytically whilst Pingtsi, Cosmo and Long stared hungrily at the small plates of sushi streaming past them.  Tsugihagi had flopped her head and arms onto the table, her unblinking eyes staring blankly into space.  

“Ah ha ha!  Look Lady Quanxi!  The sushi’s streaming past!” said Pingtsi excitedly.  She was ignored in favour of looking for what sushi Quanxi actually wanted.  

“Mhm, I want mackerel sushi,” Quanxi eventually settled on, reaching across and taking the particular plate off the conveyor belt.  

“Lady Quanxi, may I show off my knowledge of fish?” asked Pingtsi eagerly.  

“Mm… sure…” said Quanxi reluctantly, knowing the woman sitting next to her was going start filling her head with useless facts again.  

“Did you know that almost all whitefish tastes basically the same?  Supposedly, the only real difference between them is the texture and how oily they are!”  

“I didn’t need or want to know that,” said Quanxi coolly, popping the piece of raw fish in her mouth.  

“Eh heh heh!  I thought so!” Pingtsi laughed, used to Quanxi’s dispassionate tone.

Eventually, they finished eating and continued their way to their new accommodation.  Quanxi could guess that Pingtsi wished she had about eight more eyes.  Her head turned in every direction as they walked up the streets, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping.  They altered course every now and then according to Quanxi’s instructions.  

Eventually, Quanxi lost track of time.  She wondered how long they had been walking, it felt like an hour at least.  By the time they reached their destination, the sky had darkened and the street lamps were casting a misty glow.  They had ended up on a patch of unkept grass in the middle of a small square.  Inhaling the cool evening air deeply, Quanxi looked around.  The grimy, surrounding apartment buildings were not the most welcoming of places; some of them had cracked windows, glimmering dully from the light from the street lamps, paint was pealing from many of the doors and large dustbins lay outside several sets of front steps.  

“Where are we?” Pingtsi asked, but Quanxi said quietly, “In a minute.”  

Qunaxi scanned the buildings, looking at each of their numbers for the one she was looking for.  After a few minutes, she said, “Here we are,” and lead them towards building number twelve with a battered door, dirty walls and slightly grimy windows.  Nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a bit of cleaning.  Frankly, this wasn’t too bad, Quanxi had stayed in places far worse than this.  

They walked up the worn stone steps towards the door, its black paint shabby and scratched.  The large window allowed people outside a view into the lobby.  There was a large sliver handle and a panel with numbered buttons to each of the apartments.  Quanxi reached into the pocket of her jacket, pulling out the set of keys that Nezu had sent her, and inserted it into the keyhole.  She turned it with a loud, metallic click, and the door creaked open.

“Come on,” Quanxi said quietly, “but don’t go too far and don’t touch anything.”
 
They stepped over the threshold into the dim orange lighting of the lobby.  Quanxi could smell the damp, dust and a faint, sweetish, rotting smell; the place had the feeling of a derelict building.  She looked over her shoulder and saw her girlfriends filing in behind her, Long and Tsugihagi carrying their suitcase and messenger bag.  Quanxi heard the soft buzzing noise of the overhead lights and the lamps on the walls, casting an insubstantial light over the peeling paint and threadbare carpet of a long hallway ahead of them.  

“Our apartment’s upstairs. Nezu’s had it already furnished. We’ll get our stuff unpacked, then we’ll have dinner. And keep your voices down in the hall,” Quanxi added with an urgent whisper.  She then began to lead her girlfriends up the stairway until they reached the second floor.  They made their way down the hallway and Quanxi inserted the keys into the second door on the right, opening the way to their new residence.

A few weeks later, the U.A. teachers were called to the conference room for their meeting before the start of the school year.  Nezu had characteristically given them the very vague notice that would be discussing some changers that were being put in place.  He hadn't told them what those changes would be yet much to their chagrin, they could guess that he was doing this for his own amusement.  

"I'm sure you already know this" he stared "but this year we're going to making some changes and additions to our staff."  

"What sort of changes?" asked the R-Rated Hero: Midnight while leaning forward suggestively, her elbows propped on the table squeezing her chest, a playful smirk on her face.  

"If you let me finish, I'll be happy to tell you" he responded bluntly, causing her to huff in disappointment of failing to get a rise out of the rodent.

"We're adding two new teachers to our payroll this year and one of them is going to be teaching a new subject that I've had in mind for a while" he continued, "Quirkless Combat Foundations, it will be mandatory for Hero Course students and optional for those in the other courses.”  

Shota Aizawa, AKA the Erasure Hero: Eraserhead, adjusted himself in his chair.  He was hoping this meeting would be worth it considering it had interrupted the nap he'd been looking forward to; two new hires was surprising coming from Nezu especially since Aizawa himself was the one of the latest additions until now, though he couldn't say he was looking forward to it.

Despite the idea of putting quirkless combat into its own subject, rather than leaving it up to each individual teacher, being a decent idea, he couldn’t say he has the highest hopes for the new teacher.  There's no tell if they'd be up to snuff, U.A. students were hard to handle and if you can't be direct with them, the could develop in to heroes that shouldn't be out in the field.  

"Shouldn't that be taught by the homeroom teachers?" the Blood Hero: Vlad King inquired. "Turning it into its own course sounds nice in theory but it's not exactly something that can be some formulated pre-plan subject.  It's better on an individual level and plus, combat should be focused more on helping the students control their quirks."  

"That focus is precisely why we must teach the students combat where they don't rely on their quirks," said Nezu sternly which caused the other teachers to look more intrigued to his reasoning.  "Recent research I've done has confirmed that there's is a rising number of cases where Heroes have unable to effectively combat Villains due to not being able to use their quirks, for reasons ranging from it not being usable in the environment to having it suppressed, take the recent Sludge Villain Incident for example.  The students need to know how to not get into these kinds of situations by knowing how to effectively fight without their quirks in order to become not to reliant on them.”  

This explanation made the teachers think; they all realised Nezu had a very valid point.  Aizawa, for example, was someone who had the ability to erase people's quirks and quickly end the fight.  If a Hero got into that position, it would be over for them.  They couldn't let their students end up like that.

"As for the teacher..." Nezu continued, "she's perfectly qualified for this.  She also has experience teaching combat in her previous profession and even though she's retired now, her skills don’t appear to have dulled at all."  

"What is her former profession, may I ask?" Cementoss asked.  

"She was a Private Villain Hunter," Nezu answered plainly.  

The staff all looked taken aback.  Midnight’s eyebrows had disappeared into her flyaway hair and Cementoss’ mouth was as thin as Nezu had ever seen it.  Choosing a former Villain Hunter as a new teacher was a very unusual choice, especially since Pro Heroes were required to arrest them if they ever encountered one.  

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Aizawa asked. "Villain Hunters are far from the Hero type.”  

His years as an Underground Hero had exposed him to the extremely harsh reality of Villain Hunting and what it could do to people.  Lots of them were killed in action on a regular basis.  Those that survived longer had lost so many comrades so often that they didn't have any more tears to cry over them.  

"That is true, Aizawa,” said Nezu. “However, you cannot deny that ones that do survive are very good at their jobs, and the one I've hired famous among them.  She was the first person to take up the profession and, quite possibly, the best."  

Aizawa felt a great jolt in his guts as though he just missed a step going downstairs.  He couldn’t quite believe what Nezu was implying.  

“You’ve hired Quanxi?!” he exclaimed, his mouth half open, clearly stunned.  

"Who's that Eraser?" the Voice Hero: Present Mic asked eagerly.  It was a very rare sight for him to see his friend so stunned and he was clearly enjoying it.  

"She's an assassin from China and is known as the first person to take up the illegal profession of Villain Hunting.  Soon afterwards, many other mercenaries, freelancers and radical vigilantes followed suit," Aizawa explained.  

"Indeed," Nezu said. "I gave her the offer a week ago, which she accepted and has since made the move here from China. She'll be meeting you all at a later date. The second new teacher, on the other hand, is definitely more the Hero type and will be a beacon of hope for both students and teachers."  

Nezu paused for dramatic effect before adding, "All Might will be a new teacher this year."  

The uproar from the announcement was immediate, everyone voicing their thoughts at the same time, each individual comment became lost in the noise but it was Aizawa's monotone voice that cut through it with the simple question: "Why?"  

The Symbol of Peace may be a U.A. alumni but there had never been much connection between them. Yes, many students attended (or tried to attend) U.A. in the hopes of becoming the next All Might but he’d never, to Aizawa's personal knowledge, interacted with the school.  

"Having the Symbol of Peace at our school the upcoming year will be most beneficial, I believe.”  

Nezu's answer was vague, almost on the verge of dodging it completely.  Aizawa had no doubt that Nezu knew that he knew he was avoiding the question.  Aizawa let out a sigh when it became clear, after a brief staring contest between himself and the rodent, that the latter wasn't going to give any more information, for now at the very least, despite everyone having questions.

He was beginning to grind his teeth at the thought of the media presence that was going to come when this news became public. He just hoped it wouldn't interrupt his naps.

Chapter Text

There was a definite end-of-retirement gloom in the air when Quanxi awoke that morning. Heavy rain was splattering against the window as she got dressed in fitted, waist-high trousers and a tank top; something casual but easy to move in, just in case she had to spring into action.

Officially, Quanxi's first day at U.A. wouldn't be for another few weeks. She'd be just in time for the fresh batch of new first years but Nezu had given her the invitation to come early, get to know the layout of the school and, more importantly, meet the rest of the staff. She couldn’t say that she was particularly eager. On any other day, she'd just delay it by spending the day having sex with her girlfriends.

However this time was different, even though the rodent hadn't told her, she knew the real reason All Might had become a teacher at U.A.  He was becoming weaker and his time as the Symbol of Peace was coming to end. To his credit, he’d hidden this very well from the general public; Quanxi had only learned about it because of her old contacts and from Pingtsi’s quirk. When All Might would inevitably have to hang up his cape, it would change everything for the country. 

Quanxi motto was 'Ignorance is Bliss' and would usually prefer not to know about something like this. However, this is something she couldn’t afford to be ignorant about as it could have huge consequences for both her and her girlfriends. So she reluctantly accepted Nezu's invitation to meet the other teachers.

She, Long, Cosmo and Tsugihagi had just reached the hallway on their way to have breakfast, when Pingtsi burst through the front door, looking harassed.  

“Unbelievable,” she said, exasperated.  “What kind of neighbours are they? Blaming us just because we’re new here!”

Quanxi flattened herself against the wall as Pingtsi came clattering past with her cardigan on back-to-front, and hurtled out of sight, ranting as she went. When Quanxi and the others entered the kitchen/dining area, they saw Pingtsi pacing back and forth — “If all Japanese people are like this, I swear…!” — not seeming to notice how askew her night clothes were.  

Quanxi gazed dispassionately at the scene happening in front of her. Pingtsi had gotten into these kinds of rants before, and once she’d started, it was almost impossible to stop. There had been times when she’d worn herself out. Luckily, Quanxi knew how to deal with these.

Long, Cosmo and Tsugihagi seated themselves around the dining table whilst Quanxi went to make breakfast, completely unperturbed by how fast Pingtsi was talking.  

“…neighbours heard bangs and shouting, so they went and called those what-d’you-call-‘ems — please-men. The rest of you weren’t awake so I had to get over there—”

“Here you go, ladies,” said Quanxi, pushing three plates of cooked breakfast in front of Long, Cosmo and Tsugihagi.  Long wolfed it down with an animalistic hunger.  Cosmo took more time and care with hers than Long, but was still a messy eater.  Tsugihagi pulled the stitching on her mouth loose, before opening her jaw wide and inhaled the contents of the plate.  She then put the plate back down and calmly stitched her mouth back up as if nothing had happened.

“—it’s a real stroke of luck I heard what was going on,” said Pingtsi breathlessly.  “I had woken up in the middle of the night because I needed to pee, but you girls were asleep so I went to the main bathroom instead of the on-sweet and I heard the commotion going on — if this place’s owner is anything like Feng Wan, Lady Quanxi—”  

“What does Hada say happened?” Quanxi asked. She had been half listening to Pingtsi’s rant whilst making breakfast so she understood the gist of what she was going on about.  

Pingtsi rolled her eyes, “Says he heard an intruder in the yard. Says they were creeping towards the building, but they were ambushed by his dustbins.”  

“What did the dustbins do?” asked Quanxi, talking a sip of the coffee she’d just poured.  

“Made one hell of a noise and fired rubbish everywhere, as far as I can tell,” said Pingtsi.  “I took a look at him with my quirk. Apparently his quirk allows him to bring objects to life and give them certain commands. It seems his limit is up to four objects. Back in his glory days, it was originally seven, so he’s definitely gotten rusty—” Pingtsi broke off when she noticed the glare Quanxi was giving her, realising she’d gone on a tangent.  

“Sorry,” she apologised sheepishly, “anyway, apparently one of the dustbins was still rocketing around when the please-men turned up—”

Quanxi groaned, “And what about the intruder?”

“Lady Quanxi, you know Hada,” said Pingtsi, rolling her eyes again. “Someone creeping into his yard at the dead of night? More likely there’s a very shellshocked cat wandering around somewhere, covered in potato peelings. But if the Pro Heroes lot get their hands on Hada, he’s had it — think of his record — we’ve got to make sure he gets off on a minor charge, something that doesn’t raise any questions about his old job — what are exploding dustbins worth?”  

“Might be a caution,” said Quanxi, taking another sip of coffee, her brow furrowed. “Hada didn’t use his quirk on anything else or use any of his weapons, did he?  He didn’t actually attack anyone?”

“I’ll bet he leapt out of bed and started shooting everything he could reach through the window,” said Pingtsi, “but they’ll have a job proving it, there aren’t any casualties.”  

“And still the neighbours thought it was us at first,” Quanxi mused. “What did they… actually, you what?  I don’t want to know.”

Pingtsi shook her head, then she finally stopped her frantic pacing and sat down at the table.  

“Sorry about this, Lady Quanxi,” she said, more calmly, “bothering you so early and everything… but we’re the only people who can help get Hada off, and Hada’s supposed to be starting his new job today.  Why he had to choose last night…” 

“Never mind, Pingtsi,” said Quanxi. “Want to help yourself to some toast before I go?”  

“You saved me some!  Thank you!” Pingtsi squeaked.  

Quanxi took a piece of buttered toast (one of the few that Long hadn’t yet eaten) from what remained of the stack and transferred it into Pingtsi’s mouth.  

“Fanks,” she said in a muffled voice, and then the gaping maw of Pingtsi’s purple hair snatched it up, holding it whilst she chewed.  

Qunaxi looked into her mug of coffee, still mostly full.  The reflection of her own face, dark-brown and quavering, looked back. She could hear Pingtsi getting up from the table and disappearing into the bedroom. Within five minutes, when Quanxi looked up again, she was back in the kitchen/dining area, her cardigan on the right way now, dragging a comb through her now drooping hair. She must have deactivated her quirk so she could brush it.  

A ghost of a smile crossed Quanxi’s face. She had spent most of her life working in a trade where death was one of her constant companions. The longer you were a Villain Hunter, the more bodies piled up around you. The professionals who trained you bit the dust. Your peers bought it. The youngsters who came after you disappeared into the meat grinder. The dogs you raised kept dying dog’s deaths.

And all the while, you gave away little piece of your humanity with each job you took. Until all that was left was… what? Quanxi had wondered many times. That was until she decided it was a lot easier if she just stopped wondering about anything anymore.

Maybe her philosophy wasn’t that different from her old partner, Kishibe’s. Crazy or ignorant, what was the difference?

Watching ordinary scenes like the ones in front of her right now, made Quanxi appreciate that she’d made it to see retirement.  She was able to spend her days with her girls and enjoy a nice, quiet, boring little life.  One that was all hers.  

“Lady Quanxi,” Pingtsi’s voice cut through Quanxi’s thoughts, dragging her back into the present, “are you sure you’ll be alright going to U.A?”  

Qunaxi scoffed, “Of course I will. You just worry about looking after Hada while I’m gone.”  

It wasn’t like Quanxi to be sentimental towards the people from her old life. Hada was one of the few exceptions. Like her, he used to be a Villain Hunter and — also like her — one of the best. A third of the cells in Tartarus Prison were filled thanks to him (not that the Public Safety Commission would ever admit it). He made himself loads of enemies, though. Mainly the families of the people he’d either captured or killed, and Quanxi had heard that he’s been getting really paranoid in his old age. That he doesn’t trust anyone anymore. That he sees Villains everywhere.

“Did someone say Hada?” Long put in for the first time. “What’s he been up to now?”  

“He says someone tried to break into his apartment last night,” said Pingtsi, spreading marmalade onto another piece of toast.  

“Blood-Stained Hada?” said Long thoughtfully. “Isn’t he a nutter—”.  
“Lady Quanxi thinks very highly of Blood-Stained Hada,” said Pingtsi.  

Long gave up the argument upon hearing that.  Quanxi wasn’t so sure she thought highly of Hada as much as Pingtsi implied.  But they were birds of a feather.  Maybe that was why Nezu picked this place for her, she thought, and then drained her mug in a single, long swig.  

Quanxi had decided to brave using the bus to take her to U.A.  She bid her girlfriends farewell — telling them sternly not to get into any trouble whilst she was out — pulled a raincoat on, and headed to the local bus stop. As she stood under the bus stop’s rain-washed roof, she sent Nezu a quick text, telling him she was on her way. The rodent had given her no specific dress codes, so Quanxi was more than confident going in her casual, but practical, attire. The journey was very uncomfortable, owing to the fact that she was jammed in the back with a bunch of other people.  If there was something that never changed about public transport, it was that it was always crowded, slightly ominous, and always smelled. She was very relieved to get out at her destination, even though the rain was coming down harder than ever, and that she was getting soaked through her raincoat making her way across the busy streets towards U.A.

All Might, Japan’s number one Hero and the Symbol of Peace, was making his was down the deserted hallways of U.A. towards the conference room. However, instead of his trademark solid frame and explosive muscles, there walked a gaunt man who was nothing but skin and bones, with deep, dark circles around his sunken eye sockets. This was secret that he kept hidden from the wider world; he had an image to uphold, after all.

As he walked at a slow, steady pace, he gazed around the halls. The thick rain splattering the windows made it very difficult to see out of them. He hadn’t been back at U.A. in a while and it had changed quite a bit since his time as a student. It was very nerve-wracking being here, for several reasons.

Firstly, he was going to be meeting his new colleagues and didn’t want to make a bad first impression with them. The other reason, however, was the one that made him notice dimly that his legs seemed to be made of marshmallow. He was going to have to inform them about why he was really here: his time as the Symbol of Peace was coming to an end. That meant he would have to show them his true form, which would both be terrifying and humiliating, having to admit his weakness to them. It was something that had to be done though.

On the other hand, All Might was also a little excited. He had been informed that there was another new teacher starting this year as well. He was hoping that he would be able to bond with them on the common ground that they were both new to teaching. With this thought in mind, All Might perked up a bit and continued on his way—

WHAM — All Might collided with something both soft and firm with a thud, and stumbled backward in pain and surprise from the suddenness of the impact. He blinked a few times and eventually realised that what — or rather who — he’d walked into was another person.  

“I’m so sorry!  I wasn’t looking where I was going,” All Might apologised profusely, bowing deeply.  

“I could tell that, All Might,” replied a feminine voice, coldly.  

The woman’s statement caused All Might to look back up at her sharply.  He hadn’t told her who he was, and most people couldn’t distinguish his gaunt, skeletal form from the big, burly Hero everyone knew him as.  How did she know?  

As All Might’s thoughts raced in alarm, he got the chance to get a better look at the woman he’d bumped into.  She was rather beautiful, with her smooth features and creamy-white hair.  However, her face was unsettlingly impassive and her voice held no emotion when she’d spoken.  An eyepatch covered her right eye.  

By the time All Might had begun to ask, “How did you—?”, the woman cut him off before he could finish.  

“I already know you’ve been getting weaker over these past few years from some of my old contacts,” she stated. There was a brief pause before she added, “Also, Nezu told you would be new here as well.”  

“As well?”, All Might pondered for a moment.  Then a feeling of shock and utter mortification crept over him as he realised that the woman in front him was the other new teacher.

He’d definitely made a good impression by bumping into her, All Might thought sarcastically, his sunken cheeks heating up with embarrassment.

“Just so we don’t have to do introductions later,” said the woman, unperturbed by All Might’s embarrassment, “I’m Quanxi and I’m a former Private Villain Hunter.”  

All Might blinked; this surprised him even further. He’d encountered several Villain Hunters in the past — and arrested many. The Safety Commission considered Villain Hunting to be a forcible obstruction of justice. The vast majority of Heroes also looked down Villain Hunters, considering them as thuggish, bloodthirsty and troublemakers. But All Might had met enough of them to know this was who they needed to be. If they wanted to survive, they had to abandon common sense and ordinary decency. Villain Hunting was a profession that only those with nothing to loose would pursue.

One thing All Might also knew was that very few Villain Hunters lived to see retirement — unless they quit early into the job, of course.  With this thought in mind, All Might began to understand why Nezu had chosen this woman; she must have been exceptionally skilled to survive as long as she had.  

“Could you show me to the conference room?” asked Quanxi.  “The rodent didn’t bother to give me very precise directions.”  

“Oh. Sure, this way,” said All Might politely, grateful for having something to do rather than just standing around awkwardly. He lead the way down the hallway, Quanxi following close by.

In the conference room, Nezu was sat in his chair at the head of the U-shaped conference table. The other teachers were in their own respective chairs, each of them sporting looks of either excitement, uneasiness or boredom.  They were all waiting for the Symbol of Peace and the First Villain Hunter to arrive so they could get started with the meeting.  

Nezu had assured them that the latter would definitely turn up, having confirmed it with a short text message about fifteen minutes ago.  He was honestly a bit surprised by this; Quanxi wasn’t particularly known for her punctuality and had a history of delaying things by hours or even days when, what she dubbed, “more important business”, came up. Nezu managed to suppress a small chuckle at the thought of what it was.  

The rest of the staff’s minds were on their two new colleagues. They both came very different walks of life. It could even be said that they were like night and day. All Might was an inspirational Hero and was object of everyone’s admiration. He was the embodiment of a perfect Hero. However, having a glamorous career didn’t guarantee that he would be a good teacher, though.  In fact, from what they knew, All Might had practically no teaching experience to speak of. Quanxi, on the other hand, was a different kettle of fish entirely. She was famous for being one of the few long-lasting Villain Hunters, as well as for being ruthlessly pragmatic, and for having a lack of scruples that was foreign to most Heroes. However, she had plenty of experience in teaching people who to fight and, was considered by many, as possibly the best martial artist in the world. This made her perfectly qualified for the job.  

The door suddenly burst open, drawing all eyes towards the doorway. Standing there were two very different figures. One was a tall, bulking man whom everyone recognised instantly as the Number One Hero. Instead of his usual blue, red and white Hero costume, however, he was wearing a dress shirt, smart trousers and a tie. The other was a tall, lean and athletic woman dressed in black trousers and a tank top. Her creamy-white hair was tied back in a loose ponytail, and there was a patch over a right eye.

Chapter Text

“You’re surprisingly on time, Quanxi,” said Nezu.  

Quanxi shot him a glare. “If you were so eager for me to show up on time, you could have given me some more precise directions.  If I hadn’t bumped into All Might, I would have ended up searching the entire building.”  

“Now where’s the fun in that?” Nezu said, merrily.  

Quanxi rolled her eye. Instead of answering, she glanced around the room, eying up her new colleagues. For the most part, Quanxi was very informed about U.A. as a whole, having researched it with Pingtsi after she’d been offered the position at the school. She’d even went as far as seeing which Pro Heroes were teachers there; if Nezu had noticed her swiping through the teacher’s files — except All Might’s, which hadn’t even been written up yet — he hadn’t said anything. She could see that the rest of the teachers — presumably most or all of them, judging from the number of them there - are already there.  

“Ohhh, seems like All Might already got pretty comfortable with the other newbie~”.  

All Might flushed.

The teasing remark came from one of the women. Nemuri Kayama — AKA Midnight — her file had read. Nezu’s personal notes had listed her as entertaining, but overall eccentric to the point of mild annoyance. Overtly sexual in nature, but knows boundaries. Considering her U.A. teaching ID photo had shown the woman winking, blowing a kiss toward the camera, Quanxi imagined that Nezu’s notes were not that far off. Even now, Midnight was being flirtatious, leaning seductively forward as she pressed her elbows together at her chest, her eyes hooded and suggestive.  

Quanxi watched closely and noted that despite her body language and tone, it didn’t quite match her eyes.  She wondered just how much of it is for show - for teasing or getting reactions out of people - and how much of it was genuine. 

“I never imagined Japan’s greatest Hero would put the moves on her so fast,” a loud voice carried throughout the room. “Were you holding out on us?”  

All Might’s face went a deeper shade of red.

Hizashi Yamada — AKA Present Mic. Quanxi imagined that his loud voice could get too stimulating very quickly and almost wondered if there are precautions in place for students with sensory issues - either due to their own mental health or from their quirks. She imagined that it was something Nezu wouldn’t have much in place for, considering his own almost lack of concern for the safety of humans in general. But she spotted Recovery Girl — someone who she made a note of, she imagined that everyone saw the older woman a lot — took care of those types of issues.  

“That’s enough,” said a man with long, black hair and bloodshot eyes who was sat between the two. He seemed to care more about moving things along than sparing All Might from any further embarrassment. Quanxi’s eyebrows furrowed. If memory served her right, this was Shota Aizawa — AKA Eraserhead — an underground hero that Japanese Villain Hunters were warned about; he felt more directly with the criminal underworld and he could cancel out people’s powers by looking at them. It would be troublesome if any of them ran into him.

Quanxi’s attention turned back to the rest of the staff, her eye drifting to the other teachers.  None of them stuck out too much to her, but at least due to Nezu’s files, she knew who they were.  Deciding to get on with the meeting, Quanxi bowed formally with an even, if a bit unimpressed, look on her face. The others carefully looked her over as she did so.

“My name is Quanxi.  Ex-Villain Hunter, and I will be leading the new Quirkless Combat and Strategy Course.  I’m here because Nezu asked me.  I hope we can work together.”  

After finishing her introduction, Quanxi made her way to the only empty seat that was squished between Vlad King and Hound Dog, watching as All Might did his own introduction, which was lengthier than Quanxi’s, and tried to make himself appear smaller by hiding away in one of the corners of the room; something that was pointless considering his sheer size.

Hound Dog, to his credit, didn’t bother her and didn’t seem interested in small talk. Beyond a curious sniff and a firm nod, as if she’d passed some unspoken test with him, Hound Dog ultimately decided to leave her alone. She caught him once muttering under his breath about the smell of ashes, but she pulled out a small pack of cigarettes from her pocket, fiddling with it as if she’s in need of a smoke break. Hound Dog accepted the unspoken answer.

Vlad, however, seemed to be trying his best to size her up.  He was taking up as much space as possible beside her.  Whenever he overstepped his boundaries, Quanxi firmly told him to stay in his seat, or threatened him with a raised fist.  As a whole, the man decided to spends most of the time waiting for Nezu to start the meeting by bothering her.  Quanxi evaded his questions for the most part, not interested in sharing anything personal and not seeing the point of answering most of it either.

“Quanxi,” said Vlad.  The lack of honorifics didn’t go unnoticed, but Quanxi looked up at Vlad to continue.  “What exactly do you have planned for your class?”  

“Nezu informed me that each individual teacher is free to create their own curriculum as well as teach and discipline as they see fit,” said Quanxi with a straight face.  “I suppose if you really want to see what I have planned then you will just have to watch and see.”  

“I have no doubt that a lot of us will,” said Vlad, eying her cautiously. “But you should at least inform us which of our classes are going to be there and when.  Nezu didn’t explain much other than it being mandatory for the Hero Course and elective for the others.”  

Quanxi sighed, leaning back in her seat a bit more casually, “Classes A and B, in each year, will be taught separately. This will give the respective teachers a break opportunity. If the classes are competitive or not, it won’t matter. They’ll learn pretty quickly that I don’t give a shit about what class they’re a part of outside of my own and that type of unnecessary drama won’t be tolerated.”  

Aizawa rolled his eyes, already regretting not bringing his sleeping bag.  It was a nice sentiment discouraging unnecessary competition, but he doubted that she will be able to get a hold of the students that fast.

Before Vlad could voice how any objections, Quanxi continued.  

“First years will be in my class twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, while second and third years will be once a week, Mondays and Wednesdays respectively.  I have already talked to Nezu about offering extra classes to those who need it or sign up for it on Fridays and Saturdays.  Those extra classes will be a mixed bunch and may mix the years up together, depending on whether many students need it or want it.”  

To Aizawa, that sounded pretty reasonable. The idea of already having a break twice a week for at least an hour was appealing in of itself — and potentially even more breaks depending on how many of his students ended up in the extra classes.  

Before anyone else could chime in, Nezu’s voice interrupted them in order to start the meeting.  

“Now that we’re all aquatinted,” said Nezu in a chipper voice, “let’s get started, shall we?”  

With a forced grin, Nezu got up from his chair, walked across the tabletop and settled himself into Aizawa grey wrap scarf, insisting that it was just warm and comfortable as Aizawa lightly protested.  Quanxi raised an eyebrow slightly at this.  However, considering no one seemed surprised by this, it meant that such a thing was a common occurrence within the staff.  

“Normally,” said Nezu, “we use this time to discuss the upcoming years and its students before we have to oversee the Entrance Exam.  But with both All Might’s and Quanxi’s addition to the staff, there are a few things to address first.  The first is in regards to All Might’s—”

POP!  

The Symbol of Peace was suddenly encompassed by a cloud of smoke.  When cloud dispersed, instead of the big, burly Hero was a skeletal shadow of a man, coughing blood into a napkin that he pulled from his pocket. He was clearly used to it, Quanxi noted.

The other teachers did a double take, looking at All Might as if he’d just grown two heads in stunned silence. Nezu didn’t go into too much detail of the injury All Might faced nor its age, but when All Might pulled up his shirt to display a glimpse of his missing torso, darkened with scars that twisted around it, the message was received. Quanxi bit her tongue. She stayed quiet as they gave minor details on All Mights limits.  She swallowed down the sense of foreboding, as if something is brewing under the surface. Once Nezu was done, everyone’s gaze flicked back to Quanxi.  

“I have another question,” said Vlad.  

“Yes?”  

“How do you intend to effectively teach the students quirkless combat?” asked Vlad, judgement in his voice.  “Since you aren't a Villain Hunter anymore, you must have to now do things differently.”  

“You are right about that," Quanxi admitted.  “I'm used to teaching people who won't hesitate to bash your head in.  Teaching a group of idealistic hero students is a whole different ball game."  

A few of the other teachers visibly shivered at the implication of her statement.  

“I had a long think about this whilst having a nice night with my women,” Quanxi continued.  “Then it hit me, light bulb went off inside my oxytocin muddled brain.  These students are most likely gonna have strong quirks and lots of potential, but in terms of actual combat skills, most of them are inexperienced and untested.  In fact, I'd argue that they themselves aren't aware of what they're truly capable of because they’ve never have experienced situations that really force them outside their comfort zones.  These days, as far as most people are concerned, it's always someone else that gets hurt or killed, not them.  So the first step is to change that naive thinking.”  

"So how do you intend to do that?" Vlad asked, still not fully convinced.  

“Simple,” said Quanxi coolly.  “There's not actually much of the teaching methods that I used as a Villain Hunter that I need to drastically change.  The first step is get the students to experience what a real fight is like.  They’ll have to treat every lesson as if I'm out for their heads.  Once they fully understand that, then we can focus more on combat techniques and tactics."  

“Will you even be able to actually hammer that into their heads quickly enough to teach them combat skills?" asked Snipe, his mask making his voice sound raspy.  

“Well, the fact is,” said Quanxi, “I'm the strongest villain hunter out there; anyone who can take down a powerhouse like me is a powerhouse too.  By the time I'm done with those kids, they’re gonna be some serious badasses. But until they're strong enough to make me beg for mercy, it’s open season on their asses." 

Silence followed her short but simple explanation.  

"Now then," Nezu said, breaking the silence, "let's talk about how we'll be structuring this year."

Quanxi was the first to admit that she didn't feel prepared to start the school year.  All of the paperwork she'd been given on the students was now outdated in her books, seeing that it was now a month old and she knew exactly how much teens could change in a few months.  Since she didn't watch the entrance exam and spend the day with her women, there would be no way for her to properly plan without seeing them in action first.  However, having looked over their files, Quanxi, Aizawa and Vlad all agreed that their first years were going to be a handful.  Having all three of them on the same page would certainly help them stay sane throughout the school year.  That being said, they now essentially had to scrap all the planning they’d done over the past two weeks and come up with something new, that integrated both their teaching styles and kept the students on the same page in quirk training as in combat training.  That meant she had three days to plan a whole year teaching.

Quanxi sighed, taking a sip of her iced coffee. It was bitter and cold, enough to invigorate her for the long walk from the gates to the academic building at UA, to meet her new class. Unfortunately for Quanxi, her first two periods are free, and she didn't even have to be at school this early.  Performance anxiety was a bitch and with the amount of work she has ahead of her, she needed every extra hour to be at least marginally prepared for the first week of school. Unfortunately for Aizawa and Vlad, their homeroom duties would keep them in classrooms for most of the day, unable to work with her on their combined lessons.

Quanxi entered the staff room and made her way to her desk, setting down the fresh iced coffee she’d snagged from Lunch Rush on the way up, and settled in to get started on her new lesson plans before she had to meet her class.  Aizawa arrived not long afterwards and seemed only marginally surprised to her.  

"Good morning, Aizawa,” said Quanxi curtly.  

"Quanxi,” he acknowledged, putting his own coffee on his desk.  He didn't say anything more, settling in, and Quanxi let the silence envelop the room, save for the sound of her typing and his pen.  

"So—" Aizawa's deep baritone vibrated through the empty room, startling Quanxi out of her train of thought.  Luckily, she was very good at hiding it.  

"Yes?" she asked, prompting him to continue.  

Aizawa opened his mouth again to say something, a small curl at the corner of his mouth, but he closed it again, reconsidering his words.  Quanxi tilted her head inquiringly.  

"I usually run the class through a fitness test the first day,” said Aizawa, “to gauge where everyone is with their quirks.  It's the most rational way to observe each of them under different direction, and also how they interact with others.  If you would meet me right after second period on the west training grounds."

"Understood,” said Quanxi, making a note in her schedule on her phone.  After a heartbeat, Aizawa spoke again.  

"How do quirks impact how you train people?"  

His question was unexpected.  Quanxi hadn't really anticipated him taking actual interest in her thought process, just that the end result would work in the best interest of the students.  

"In a general sense, or in my opinion?"  

"Your opinion,” Aizawa clarified.  “How are these kids' quirks going to change the way you teach them, even though you're teaching them not to rely on them?"  

Quanxi’s eyebrows furrowed.  He seemed genuinely interested in how she was approaching this.  But, of course, Quanxi thought, he was just making sure they could work together smoothly, considering her previous profession.  

"I only teach them the basics and the mindset of what a real fight is like,” Quanxi explained.  “A good foundation that they can mold and shape to be unique to them. I am not going to tell these kids how to fight. I'm going to help them figure that out themselves. So, quirks don't matter right now.”  No one had really asked her to explain her teaching methods like that, so she fumbled for the words a little.  

Aizawa nodded in understanding and perhaps agreement, but it was hard to tell behind his stoic expression.  

"I look forward to hearing your observations then,” he said.  

This was going to be Quanxi’s first introduction to Class 1-A, formal or not.  A small pit of anxiety settled in centre of her chest, forcing her to take a deep breath before returning to her separate paperwork in the quiet staff room.  But the quiet didn't last long, as the rest of the staff shuffled into the room.  Murmured greetings and small conversations floated through the air, and the muffled hubbub of the second and third year students roaming the hallways filtered through the door.  

And so it began.

Chapter Text

Quanxi's only real duty at U.A. on the first day was to attend Aizawa's tests, so, for the next two periods, she took the time to really read and annotate each students entry exam files.  As she went down the list, Quanxi quickly realised that Class 1-A was full of heavy hitters, and some extremely powerful and destructive quirks.  Even the stealth quirks and surveillance quirks in the class were some of the most interesting and useful quirks she'd come across in her lifetime.  The potential in that class was astounding.  Quanxi got so absorbed in her files that when she looked up again for another sip of coffee, she found it empty, and a ping on her phone told her to leave for the west field.  Quanxi would forever be grateful that the UA staff dress code was lenient.  Most teachers wore their hero costumes anyway, and if Midnight's hero costume was appropriate for teaching, then Quanxi wasn't too worried about getting scolded dressing more for function than professionalism.  Her leggings and tank top that she was wearing felt less out of place.  Aizawa was already at the west field when she arrived, and Class 1-A emerged from the changing rooms just as Quanxi came to a stop next to, but a step behind, Aizawa.  He turned his head slightly — acknowledging her presence, but saying nothing.  As they watched the class approach, Quanxi made some mental notes about how they were interacting with each other.  Aizawa got strait to the point to begin the lesson.  

“What?  A quirk assessment test?” exclaimed the class in shock.  

“But the orientation!  We’re gonna miss it?” cried a girl with brown hair and flushed cheeks.  Quanxi thought she was rather cute.  

“If you wanna make the big leagues, you can’t waste time on pointless ceremonies,” said Aizawa, silencing her protests.  “Here at U.A, we’re not tethered to traditions.  That means that I get to run my class however I see fit.”  

This just made the class look more nervous.  

Unconcerned, Aizawa reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.  

“You’ve been taking standardised tests most of your lives, but you never got to use your quirks in physical exams before.  The country’s still trying to pretend we’re all created equal by not letting those with the most power excel.  It’s not rational.  One day the Ministry of Education will learn.”  

As he was talking, some of the students looked from him to Quanxi, standing neutrally next to him.  Whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the class.

"Who's the woman?"  

"I dunno.  She's not wearing a hero costume...".

"Is she a teacher?"  

"Who cares?" a blonde boy growled.  

"Aren't you a little curious?" said a red-headed boy with a big, toothy smile.  

"No."  

"I've never seen her before, but she must be good..." A green haired boy mumbled to himself.  

"SHUT UP, DAMN NERD!" The blonde boy snapped, sending the green haired boy cowering.  

"That's enough," Aizawa's gravely reprimand instigated silence from the students. "This is Quanxi. She will be your primary combat teacher. She and I will be teaching in tandem in her classes to develop your skills. Now—"

After he’d briefly introduced her, Aizawa plowed right through to the rules and consequences of this fitness test. Quanxi tuned his voice out for a moment, to watch the students interact with each other and analyse their body language. When Aizawa announced that he would expel the student who came in last — dead serious and fairly menacing — she had to train her facial expression into neutrality to save herself from laughing.  Especially when half the kids freaked out and the other half toke it very seriously.  

Teenagers are so dramatic.  

But Quanxi did note who was talking to who and everyone's general reaction to possible expulsion.  Her notes only grew as the fitness assessment went on. Quanxi shuffled back and forth through files on her tablet and made more notes, in both green and red, strengths and weaknesses, questions, ideas and concerns, getting increasingly more concerned with the amount of red she was starting to see in some of the files of the students she had marked as ones with the most innate potential.  All the ones that were going to be the most difficult to teach.  

Quanxi sighed audibly.  

"Something up?" Aizawa's voice was only loud enough for her to hear, the students none the wiser as they competed for the best scores in each exercise.  

"No. Just watching my entire rough idea of a curriculum go up in flames... along with my free time." she grumbled, trying to think about how to approach such a diverse group on a subject they all had smattered knowledge of, and were all fiercely competitive with one another.  

She retrieved a cigarette from the box in her pocket before lighting it. Aizawa huffed and Quanxi saw the corner of his mouth peek above his capture scarf. A smile. His amusement gave her a small smile in turn.

"Welcome to U.A, where the only thing grander than the buildings, is the workload."  

"The high-stakes scare tactic was pretty effective."  

"It can reveal how these kids might react to perceived catastrophic news, and I think it's amusing to watch them squirm a little on the first day."  

That got a microscopic laugh out of Quanxi, secretly glad her co-worker had a similar sense of humour to hers. He smiled a little wider at the lilt of her voice, before refocusing on the class, to reveal that he wasn’t actually going to expel the student who came in last. The student’s reactions were a mix of collective shock and indignation at his lies.

Quanxi hid her amusement at their all-or-nothing attitude. 

Ah, youth…

With class dismissed, Quanxi and Aizawa walked back to the academic building together, discussing how class went.  

"Are all classes like that?  Was your year like that?"  

Aizawa laughed.  "No, not all classes are like that.  This one is especially interesting, in my opinion."  

"And by interesting you mean...?" Quanxi picked up where he left off, trying to encourage him to continue but the only real response she got was a quirk of his eyebrow and a grin that were becoming all too synonymous with something akin to the feeling of waking up after a night’s sleep that leaves you more tired than when you went to bed.  

"We are always going to have a lot of work to do, aren't we?" she said, mostly to herself but Aizawa stopped for a moment.  

"Now you're getting it," he grinned, before turning down the hallway towards the classrooms.

Quanxi sighed, watching Aizawa stride away, before facing the stress of going up the stairs to the staff room. Namely, all of her curriculum work and other paperwork she needed to get done today.  At least she didn’t actually have class today. Her first class with was tomorrow with 1-A, second period. The first day of class was usually pretty easy to judge, and sometimes even the first three days could be faked, but after witnessing what this class could do, Quanxi had already decided she needed to accelerate any of her plans, as these kids were going to learn very fast. However, to her, this was nowhere near as stressful as Villain Hunting.  The main thing she had to worry about back then was making sure she survived the next day.  

Quanxi entered the staff room quietly, her mind already creating calendars and timelines for the upcoming year.  Co-teaching with Aizawa and Vlad would mean that most of the work Quanxi had done, in the past few weeks to map out each student’s projected growth, as well as half of her curriculum, would either have to be scrapped or heavily modified.

Quanxi's mood soured with every step, now calculating in the behavior and power she saw during Aizawa's test. She would have to change the rest of her ideas to take into account where these students were starting from.  
At least she got along well enough with Aizawa.

The lunch bell resonated throughout the large building as Quanxi continued her prep work for her classes with 1-A and 1-B, as well as the general studies course she was teaching. Her phone pinged again as she pulled out her bento. Yet another message from Pingtsi about some useless fact she'd searched up on the internet. Quanxi looked at her calendar to see when she would be able to have some free time with them, luckily she had one in two days, while 1-A would be doing rescue training off campus with Aizawa, All Might & Thirteen. Her phone pinged again, a message from Long this time, she chose to ignore it for now and focus on her work, adeptly tossing her phone into her bag.  She was secretly looking forward to having time with her women with a bottle of tequila soda or a glass of wine.  

Quanxi shifted in her chair, twirling her tablet pen in her hand while staring at her lesson breakdowns.  

"My basic week breakdown is four days combat training.  Fitting all the basics of close combat is going to be a major challenge... I'll split the week maybe?  Two days classwork, two days practical?  Two days of practical learning doesn't feel like enough..." she mumbled to herself, chewing on her bottom lip.  "Maybe one day classwork, three days practical?  I can always teach as they practice, classwork might not be necessary until later..."

She tapped away at her computer, sinking deeper into her work. Writing, deleting, planning, changing plans. She'd barely made any headway before the warning bell chimed the ending of the lunch period.

She sighed in frustration.  

"Having trouble with something?" a loud, chipper voice chimed from her blind right side. She could still sense him though.  

"Hello, Yamada,” she said curtly.  “Just trying to figure out how to map out this year."

"Ah, the age old question." Present Mic swung down into Aizawa's chair, twirling it to sit backwards, his hands and chest resting on the back. "You have quite the challenge ahead of you.  What do you have so far?"  

She turned her computer screen to show Present Mic what she had written so far.  All it said was:

Teach the little gremlins how to fight, I guess.  I don't fucking know.

And nothing else.  

She had written it in a separate document out of frustration but she got the feeling the voice hero looking at her expectantly would get it. Mic roared with laughter, his guffaws bouncing off the staff room walls.  He didn’t need his quirk to be the loudest in the room. And suddenly nothing.  A grey capture scarf wrapped around the head and neck, cutting Mic off.  Even as Mic turned red from lack of oxygen, the cloth didn't let up as Aizawa shuffled his way across the room.  Quanxi's neutral expression hid her internal amusement.  

"Indoor voices, Mic," Aizawa scolded softly, letting his friend breathe finally.  

"SO — urk — rude," Mic coughed out between gasps of air. He seemed fine and only mildly annoyed, rubbing his nose.

Aizawa was wholly unconcerned about his friend, choosing instead to make eye contact with the woman sitting in the chair adjacent in silent greeting.  Her usual dispassionate expression on her face, a dead-fish look in her brown eyes.  There was, however, a familiar weariness in the set of her face that Aizawa knew all too well, as it looked back at him in every mirror.  Her eyebrows raised slightly, returning the greeting.

Quanxi analysed Aizawa's eyes in turn. There was something deep and sad in them that was only balanced by the humor that made them shine with mischief. Despite the redness and the bags under his eyes that said much about the quality and quantity of his sleep, a cunning and sharpness lurked in the darkness of his tired face. Something the eye patched woman had seen in a fair few villain hunters and pro heroes over the years.

"I was helping Quanxi here with her lesson planning." Mic's voice broke the moment, gesturing towards the woman's tilted screen, still displaying the fruits of her labor.  

"Wait, no—" Quanxi started, reaching for her computer to save whatever scrap of professionalism she had but it was too late.  His eyes shifted to her screen, then back onto her, unreadable.  

“It's not incorrect.  A pretty solid plan, actually, and it's more than you usually have planned, Mic.” Aizawa quirked an eyebrow as he glanced sidelong at his friend. A grin ghosted across his face.  Mic was about to protest when the warning bell went off, signalling the end of the break.

"Now if you'll excuse us, we have a meeting about teaching 'these gremlins' how to fight.  Besides, don't you have a class to teach?" Aizawa shooed his protesting friend away, before dropping into his chair.  

"We do?" Quanxi asked. She wasn't fastidious about time keeping but the results of her Chinese training never completely wore off.  

"No, I just wanted him to leave." Aizawa deadpanned. "It's probably a good idea though. Do you have the time?"  

"Sure.  I teach general studies during last period but I'm free now."  

"Excellent. Sorry for dragging you into the extraction of a certain blonde individual."  

"That sounds like a practiced line."  

"Years of it,” Aizawa replied, the weight of all of the apologies for his boisterous friend heavy in his voice. "Anyway, back to it. You have a good start there,” he added, poking fun at Quanxi's joke document.  She closed the it revealing a plethora of both typed and hand written maps and plans, all centred around the next four months.  

"I have a few ideas, but I want to do my own assessment before deciding how to proceed." She didn't look at him as she spoke, flipping from one map to another, trying to refocus on her work.  "I'm more concerned about giving them enough time to work through the theories in practice, not just in the classroom."

Quanxi sighed, pushing some of her creamy-white hair behind her ear, where it had escaped from.  Aizawa watched her move, following her hand through her hair, her delicate fingers circling her ear.  Her profile was fairly striking. A strong pointed nose and a set jaw, chewing on her bottom lip as she thought. There was no scarring on her, which was quite unusual; he assumed most villain hunters didn't go without scars. Aizawa wonder if that was possibly due to her quirk. He stayed silent as his eye followed her hand back to the keyboard of her laptop. He refocused on the screen and on Quanxi how was waiting for his opinion.

"You did all this in four periods?"  

He scanned the documents, each lesson had an appropriate goal and methodology attached to it.  The flow of each map was different, all lessons ranging from eastern styles, wrestling, boxing and weapon wielding to self-defence, strategy and diversion tactics.  

"Some of these lessons I have already, but a lot of them will have to be changed to accommodate the students' growth,” said Quanxi as she continued to think out loud, not really listening to Aizawa's question.  To catch the thought, she pulled out a pad of paper and a pen from the depths of her bag, writing a note to herself. She didn't catch the way Aizawa’s eyebrows rose, the way his mouth quirked into a smile, impressed, before he trained his expression back into focused neutrality due to her eyepatch covering her blind right eye.  

"You're more prepared than most teachers here.  The students will dictate where you start, in any case.  No use worrying about it until you can get to know them," Aizawa said leaning back in his chair.  "As for the time issue, remember they will be practicing your skills in classes me and Vlad lead, and you will be there to correct and advise as necessary.  And no doubt that many of these students will be practicing and perfecting things outside of school as well.  They have an all-consuming need to fulfil their dream of being a hero.  They'll do anything to keep getting better."  

"If I saw anything today it's that they are obsessively motivated," said Quanxi bluntly. 

Midoriya was especially terrifying, willing to break his body at an alarming rate to get where he wants to be in his abilities.  

Aizawa huffed out laugh. "It's our job to broaden their horizons to what it means to be a hero.  To challenge them so they are sure this is something they want to risk their lives for. We have to show them the methodology and calculation behind being a hero so they are fully aware that the desire to make the world better alone isn't enough."

"That's a very realistic way of thinking,”  said Quanxi, a few moments passed without either of them speaking.  

"You have a good start.  Wait until you get a better read on the students. Then decide how to proceed,” said Aizawa after a moment, his eyes closed and nearly turned away from his one-eyed colleague.  

"Thank you, Aizawa," said Quanxi after a tense heartbeat from both of them.  She hadn't expected feedback, much less positive feedback. "So how do you want to share information? Meetings alone?" She asked after a moment.  

"No, that's so much work and time and we are both too busy for that." He stopped, his eyebrows knitted together slightly, thinking.  

"Give me your U.A. access name."  

"What?"  

"Your remote access name.  I can set up a secure server for us to dump notes, plans, concerns and feedback at any time." Quanxi explained, tapping away in on her computer.  

"You can do that?" Aizawa finally cracked an eye, the red rim of his eyelids stark against the dark of his eyes.

Quanxi stopped for a moment, faintly taken by surprise by Aizawa's comment. "Did you not know that? How have you gotten anything done with your crazy schedule?"  

"I have a sleeping bag here for a reason, Quanxi," said Aizawa. His expression soured, as he closed his eyes again. He could feel the heat rising in his cheeks, the rush of embarrassment forcing him to shrink away from the conversation.  

Quanxi returned to typing, finalising access codes and sending them to her colleague.  His computer pinged and he very pointedly ignored it.  The bell rang, signalling the end of the period.  

"Ah, I need to get to class. It's gonna take me ages to get all the way to general studies," said Quanxi, closing her computer, before gathering up her paperwork and tucking everything into her bag. "See you tomorrow, Aizawa."  

He hummed in response, his eyes still closed.

Chapter Text

It should be illegal for anyone to be that loud and that optimistic this early in the morning, Quanxi thought as she observed the two blonde-haired men who shone brighter than the sun, unlike the rest of the staff who were still bleary eyed. 

Quanxi sighed inwardly, returning to her assessment ideas.  There was no shortage of variables in Class 1-A and 1-B, and individually assessing each of them fully would take ages.  But how to pick the most important traits to shorten the assessment? 

She stared blankly at her screen, letting her mind wander instead the prospect of when she would spend time with her girlfriends.  Quanxi's phone pinged, drawing her out of her mental list making of all the tasks ahead of her.  It was yet another text from Pingtsi, this time reminding her to drink some water and wishing her good luck.  She smiled, trying to refocus again.  But her phone pinged again, another text from her Pingsti.  A quick tap and a glance returns the sour look to Quanxi's face.  

Cheeky asshole.

The text read: Don't let the kids bully you! Even if they call you horrible names you can't cry!

"So dour so early, Quanxi!  Cheer UPPPP!  YEAHHH!"  shouted Present Mic with all his usual enthusiasm.

"Good morning to you too, Mic," said Quanxi dispassionately.  The voice hero plopped down into the empty chair next to her, again.  

"Your enthusiasm for the day is astounding,” he quipped and swivelled in the chair, letting his head roll to keep his eyes on her.  

"I'm not a morning person.”

"You're not stressed about teaching?"  

"Well, I didn't say that." 

That earned her a laugh.  When the warning bell tolled, Mic got up, albeit at human pace, rather than the speed of sound.  

"You'll do fine. The first few days are pretty forgiving, even here,” he remarked, “and you're in good hands.  Eraser’ll give you a hand, if you need it.  He might not seem like the type, but he's a big softie once you get to know him."  

Quanxi's eyebrow quirked in skepticism, earning another chortle from her co-worker.  

"Come on! We're gonna be late!"  

He urged Quanxi out of her chair, refusing to explain himself, and shooed her out of the door, before giving her a hearty smack on the back and leaving her standing alone in the hallway amongst the hurrying students.

The door to the 1-A classroom is intimidating, in a lot of ways when she eventually got there. Not only was it physically massive, but it was the last step before she could officially call herself a teacher at U.A.  She could already hear the class chattering through the door.

"Bakugou!  Please seat yourself and take your feet off the desk!  It's disrespectful!  The teacher will be here any moment!"  

"Who put you in charge anyway, Four-Eyes?"

"Come now, Bakugou!  We must set an example for others!  Following directions is key to teamwork!"  

"Ida, you are also standing."  

THUMP.  Snickering.  More chairs scraping and chatting freely.  

Quanxi opened the door silently. The scene inside was near chaos.  

Teenagers.  

She observed from the doorway for a moment before making eye contact with the cute, brown-haired girl, who then attempted to wrangle her classmates into some kind of order, looking very flustered.  

"That's enough." Quanxi didn't raise her voice at all. But there was a power behind her words that made the whole class stop and return to their seats. She walked in calmly, towards her podium.

"Welcome to combat training, Class 1-A. I am Quanxi, your close combat and weapons trainer. Welcome to Quirkless Combat Foundations."  

The class hushed and now she had their rapt attention.  Even the blonde boy in seat seventeen, Katsuki Bakugo, was silent.  

"I am here to teach you the foundation of movement, how to read movement, and countermeasures. Though this is a PE class and we will be doing practical training, we will also have time here, to go over theory and ethics."  

Quanxi's eye swept across the room, checking in with the class to make sure she still has their attention.  

"We will meet here on Monday and Tuesday and meet in Gym Alpha for all of our other classes. Aizawa will join us on those days, as an observer and secondary instructor.  Expect to see a lot of both of us.  Now let’s go over what I will be expecting of you in this class."  

Shuffling her papers, the class waited anxiously to see what this new teacher, who didn't go by a hero name, would say.  Sometimes pausing for dramatic effect is so worth it.  

This was going to be very satisfying.  

She watched them, every seat waiting anxiously for her to continue.  Even Bakugo stopped looking out the window.

"As the of this subject name suggests, I will not tolerate quirk use in this class."  

The class exploded.  Complaints and groans ripped through the group, the most notably shared question being, "Why not?"  

"Quiet, please," said Quanxi — unfazed by the commotion — with enough authority that she didn't have to raise her voice.  "I am not here to teach you how to master your quirk. That is Aizawa's job. I'm not here to train you how to be a good hero. That is All Might's job. I'm here to teach you how to move. How to train your reflexes to react faster than your brain can decide what to do. I'm here to teach you how to take down a villain four times your size."  

"Why would I do that without my quirk?"

Seat seventeen. Of course.  

"Because, Bakugo, you won't always be in a position where your quirk won't cause astronomical collateral damage or death. What would you do then?" Quanxi asked, but, after a few moments, didn't get an answer and the boy deflated a little but was clearly seething underneath.  A few snickers rolled through the class, but no one outright laughed. That would probably earn them certain death during break.

A boy with a tail in the front row raised his hand.  

"Yes, Ojiro?" 

"What about physical quirks?  Like mine and Shoji's?"  

"I will leave physical quirks like yours, up to you.  Shoji on the other hand, cannot activate his, but is absolutely allowed to use all of his present limbs."  

Quanxi stepped out from behind the podium to pass out the overview of the class before continuing.

"More details about quirk restrictions in my class are on page two, but know that the punishment for this is to sit out of a week of training and doing classwork instead.  So weigh your options.  Multiple infractions will get you detention.  You will find the grading breakdown and expectations as well and my office hours and such.  Homework isn't something I believe in."  

Everyone around her started to brighten.

"That being said, I am required to give you something." 

The cheers turned to groans of dismay.  

"Write letters to the Minister of Education, then. Take it up with the government,” she waved them off, returning to the front of the class. "It will be assigned at the end of each class.  Now, I cannot actually start teaching you all until I do assessments, which we will start tomorrow."

Quanxi hopped up onto the podium and crossed her legs in one graceful motion.  

"Any questions?" she asked.  

A pink hand shot up from seat two, front and centre.  

"Yes, Ashido?"  

"How come you aren't wearing a hero costume?  Everyone else does."  

Quanxi was almost taken aback by the girls forwardness.  Kids these days are different.  She hadn't meant personal questions but that clearly hadn't come across to the girl.  

"I'm not a pro hero so it isn't necessary,” she replied.  

"HUH?!" The entire class exclaimed in surprise.  

"Then what do you do?" A tentative question from seat eighteen, Midoriya.  But before she could answer, a scoff cut her off.  

"Who cares?  She's clearly irrelevant.  Not even a hero.  So clearly she sucks,” growled Bakugo, nearly snapping at the distressed boy behind him.  

"K-kacchan! You can't say that!" Midoriya spluttered.  

"SHUT UP DEKU!" Bakugo barked, his hands raised with small explosions popping in his palms.  But the next thing anyone saw was Bakugo being knocked backwards out of his chair and onto the floor, with an uncharacteristic yelp.  The blonde firecracker nearly exploded back up, roaring indignantly, a large white chalk eraser mark on his face.  Quanxi brushed her hands off.

"H-How—"A baffled murmur rippled through the class, along with some stifled giggles.  

Quanxi shot Bakugo a glare and said, "Act like that again in my class, Bakugo and you will earn yourself a one way ticket to an extended stay in Present Mic's detention.  Another infraction and you will be joining General studies."  

The giggles came to an abrupt halt at her threat, every single kid clamming up fast.  Quanxi was not even sure she could do that, but as long as they believed she could... it was as close to death these kids can get safely.  An end to their dreams.  

It worked.  The boy slunk back into his chair, still visibly seething, but quiet as a mouse.  

"I used to be a villain hunter," said Quanxi calmly, returning to the question that had been asked.  She had thought long and hard about whether she wanted to tell her students about her old job.  But there was little information on the internet about it, much less on her specifically.  Telling them who she was wouldn't hurt.  

"They are people who take it upon themselves to hunt down villains and unlike heroes, they aren't supported by the law or the government.  Because of that, villain hunting is considered a forcible obstruction of justice.  Normally, any villain hunters that are caught by the police or heroes are arrested — if they even survive to be arrested, that is.  Most people who take it up are freelancers and bounty hunters and receive high rewards for the villains they capture or kill.  It's a lot more dangerous than hero work and most of them die more often than not.  I'm known as the 'First Villain Hunter' and I was able to live to see retirement after several decades doing the job," she explained, sending the class into silence at her frankness on the grim reality of villain hunting.

"Does anyone have any other questions?" Quanxi asked, a few hands went up. "Yes, Asui?"  

"Will we get to see your quirk in class?" asked a frog-like girl.  She was also rather cute.  

Quanxi thought for a moment.  She hadn't really thought about that.  

"Not in my class.  I cannot vouch for Aizawa's trainings that I will be involved in though."  

"Can you explain it to us then?" Asui asked.  

"I will just say this: I rarely use my quirk but whenever I have, none of my enemies have lived to tell the tale."  

Her comment sent a shudder through the class.  

"Can you at least tell us its name?" asked Midoriya.  

Quanxi thought for a moment.  She eventually decided to test the class's deductive abilities by dangling a small piece information like a treat to be earned.  Maybe it will just be a brain teaser for them to figure out.  

"It's called Crossbow."

Chapter Text

"So, what do you think of class 1-A?"  asked Midnight, twirling in her chair next to Quanxi's desk as she approached.  

"I'm not sure yet.  There are a few who stand out but they are all in that class for a reason,” said Quanxi, placing her folio on her desk before slumping down into her chair.

"No opinions whatsoever?"  Midnight stopped twirling, turning her attention to Quanxi fully.  

"You teach them, don't you?"  

"I teach them politics.  Most of them are half asleep in my class, if they're listening at all.  They aren't exactly talkative in my class,” she pouted.  Quanxi held up her hands in playful defeat.  

"Ask Aizawa if you're curious, he's seen class 1-A in action more than I.  Besides, I wasn't at the entrance exam,” she said, dodging the question.  

"No, I would also like to know your opinion of 1-A,” said deep, baritone voice behind her, a shadow cast over her desk from the over head lights.  Midnight's eyes smugly sparkled at the support, leaning in closer to Quanxi.  

"I can't imagine I saw anything you haven't already.  I'm used to teaching villain hunters, not idealistic hero students,” said Quanxi as he sat down in the chair the other side of her.  Even though she couldn't see him, she could feel his stare on her as she sat frozen on thought.  She had made some assumptions about 1A already but she learned early in life that assumptions were rarely precise.  She sighed audibly, surrendering to the prodding of her colleagues.

"Very well then, I am very interested in Katsuki Bakugo, as well as Izuku Midoriya. There is real dangerous power behind both of them, that could shift the entire course of their lives.  I'm also interested in working with Fumikage Tokoyami. The girls in the class are going to be powerhouses too.  Momo Yaoyorozu is going to be one of the best strategic minds in the coming years. Shoto Todoroki has potential to follow his father to the top ranks, of course, but many of them do, including Tenya Ida and Eijirou Kirishima,” Quanxi mused, at first just to placate her two colleagues but then it morphed into thinking out loud about what she had seen in class earlier and in Aizawa's own physical assessment the day before.  

"Obvious hard hitters aside, I think Ochako Uraraka has potential and Tsuyu Asui. Toru Hagakure is going to be a very valuable intelligence asset, as is Kyoka Jiro."  

"What about Kaminari?" asked Aizawa.  

"The jury is still out with him. I'm doing combat assessments tomorrow at the gym, so ask me tomorrow afternoon, when I get to go toe to toe with each of them." 

That certainly caught Aizawa's attention.  Until now, he had been just trying to get her to talk to Midnight but her comments had now caught his interest.  He turned from his desk, where he had been very keen on a nap, to face Quanxi.  

"You're doing what?”  

"A combat assessment?  Similar to the one you did?" Quanxi looked at him, confused at his question and the look in his eye that she couldn't pinpoint.  He didn't clarify his question, clearly waiting for her to explain herself.  

"Wait, are you going to do individual assessments?" Midnight was the one to ask the question, her disbelief obvious in her voice.  

"How else am I going to get individual information?" asked Quanxi, genuinely confused by her new colleagues’ expressions, which where somewhere between admiration and sympathy.  She had thought long and hard about how to find out where each of the students were on the learning scale, so that she could effectively teach them and the files on their abilities were at least a month old already, providing little to no help in the planning process.  Teens changed very fast these days.  Even comparing some of the results from Aizawa's assessment and the Entrance Exam results, the clear difference between then and now could clearly be seen.  

They were learning faster than she thought.  

Even with their accelerated learning taken into account, Quanxi couldn't be sure that the plan she made two days ago was still going to be effective tomorrow.  Planning was starting to seem quite useless to her.  

"Eraser just did an assessment, you can't use that information?” asked Midnight.  

"Not really,” Quanxi replied.  ‘Sure, it's a good backbone for me to build off, by exemplifying strengths and weaknesses but I need much more nuanced information than that, and I can really only get that by putting them up against my own skill set."  

"So, you're going to fight them?  Each and every one?" said Midnight in disbelief.  

"It's not going to be much of a 'fight' as it is going to be an ass-whopping for these kids,” Aizawa interjected, before Quanxi got a chance to answer. “I've heard someone say that if the entirety of humanity came together and held a bare-knuckle fighting tournament, Quanxi would come first place."  

His confidence in her abilities was at least comforting, knowing she met the bare minimum and could easily best a teenager.  

"It's called a sparring match, I'm sure you've been in a few,” said Quanxi sarcastically.  "I'm a combat teacher.  How else am I going to teach?" 
She held Aizawa's gaze in challenge but the hero said nothing.  Quanxi wasn't sure if the look in his eyes was disapproval or curiosity or something else entirely.  The bell for lunch interrupted the tense moment between the two, saving Midnight from a very uncomfortable moment.

Quanxi glanced at her schedule for the rest of the day.  Another check in with the headmaster and then her General Studies class.  Vetting their teachers was clearly a big part of that school, and as much as Quanxi would have loved to play hookey and not go to that meeting to work on her lesson plans, she would rather not know what Nezu would do to humans that disobeyed his orders.  Cute, but probably lethal, given the chance.  How the commission bribed him into running one of their best schools would always be one of the great mysteries of the hero era. 
When the bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch break, Quanxi was already at her desk, writing down her own observations from her earlier encounter with 1-A.  Each student had an encrypted folder for her to track their progress, make plans and express concerns without others having access.  Secrecy was a thing that Quanxi was very good at and she learned early in her time as a villain hunter that the Hero Comission didn't always use the information funneled to them for safety purposes, as they publicly stated.  Aizawa lumbered in, dragging his feet the final five meters of the staff room.  As he slumped into his own chair next to Quanxi, she noticed the deeper circles around his eyes and the wheels of his brain turning behind the vacant expression on his face.  She knew that look.  It's one her girlfriends had described to her, one she would wear every night as a villain hunter.  Calculating potential risk, assessing threats, constant vigilance.  It was not a look Quanxi was expecting to see in the eyes of one of the teachers at one of the most secure locations in the country.

"Are you alright?" 
Aizawa didn't need to say anything for Quanxi to read his body language.  The man was tired.  Present Mic may have said that he took naps during every lunch period but the bags under his eyes and the way he slouched into his chair next to her told a different story.  He was burning the candle at both ends.  She'd seen and felt that type of exhaustion before and as other teachers started to file in, complaining about their new workload, Quanxi takes a deep breath to talk to her colleague, sitting idly in the chair next to her.  
"Aizawa, would you mind if I asked your opinion?"  
He quirked an eyebrow but turned his chair in her direction, giving her his full attention.  She handed him her tablet, with her tentative teaching plan laid out.  She watched the reflection of her work in his eyes as he scanned her documents, flipping though each page.  His expression was blank, hiding any visible judgement.  Quanxi watched him carefully, trying to glean anything from his body language.  
"Why do you want my opinion?" asked Aizawa.  His question took her by surprise as she retrieved her tablet from him.  Her pause let him elaborate.  
"You're more capable than most of the teachers I've seen float through here.  That you whipped out numerous possible plans for the next 4 months, with detailed goals in under 3 days is a testament to that,” Aizawa stated, not as an opinion but as a solid fact. 

"Leave yourself room to change it up though.  These kids are probably going to give both of us a run for our money."  He grumbled, sighing. "Don't forget that they are first years, too.  You're going to follow this class up the years, so you'll have plenty of time to build upon what you teach them now."  Quanxi said nothing, pushing her hair behind her ears in thought.  
I could break things up a little more, let them explore some of their own ideas…  
She returns to her tablet, the wheels in her head turning.  
"What is the assessment you have planned for tomorrow?" asked Aizawa, his voice was suddenly much closer, sending a shiver down her neck.  His voice was low and clear through the hubbub of the staff room.  His interest took her by surprise.  
I really have to stop being surprised by his questions. He is as invested in my teaching as I am in his.  
"I'm not sure yet, to be honest.  Every thing I usually use isn't meant for such a large group,” Quanxi sighed, turning her mind back to the current problem.  Aizawa said nothing, but didn't turn away either.  He was waiting for her to continue.  
"Any ideas would be welcome, Aizawa,” Quanxi quipped, feeling the intensity of his gaze and bristling against it.  She hadn't been observed this closely since her time as a villain hunter and even then it hadn't lasted long, as she proved to her superiors she was more than capable of making decisions without input.  
"You don't need my opinion, Quanxi.  Nezu hired you for your specific skill set,” Aizawa retorted, turning back to his own computer.  Quanxi would have spay something back, if she hadn't caught the corners of his mouth turning up into a small grin.  He was joking.  
Reading his humor may be more of a learning curve than I initially thought.  
Quanxi turned back to her own work as well, hopeful that this year may not actually be so bad.

At nine-thirty that morning, Quanxi was exercising outside Gym Alpha, getting her body prepared for her first lesson with Class 1-A.  It was a clear, breezy day and the grass rippled under her feet as she ran across the smooth lawns towards the concrete path on the opposite side of the campus to the main building.

"Awfully active for this early, Quanxi,” said Aizawa, as he approached down the path.  In his hands were two cans of canned coffee and his files were tucked under his arm.  He heaved a giant yawn as he handed Quanxi one of the cans, which she took it gratefully.  She had grabbed a cup of shitty coffee in the staff room but upon tasting it, opted to leave the mug on her desk instead of taking it with her.  

"Thank you, Aizawa.  I owe you,” said Quanxi, cracking open the can. It was a cold coffee but with milk and sugar. Not her favourite, but one couldn't be picky at this point.  She took a sip, grimacing; it was as sweet as she remembered canned coffee being.  Which was too sweet.  

"I didn't take you for a black coffee drinker."  Aizawa remarked, cracking open his own can.  

"I don't like sweets.  Your choice isn't that surprising,” said Quanxi, eyeing the can of coffee in his hand.  The drink seemed small in his long fingers, Quanxi even glanced at her can to make sure that his was the same size and sure enough it was.  

"Would you like to trade?" Aizawa offered, his eyebrows raising in question.  

"No, I need the sugar, to be honest."  

"Not much sleep last night?" he asked, although he already knew the answer from her face.  Her one eye was slightly bloodshot and her skin was paler than usual, making the flush of exertion in her cheeks more pronounced.  

"You could say that," said Quanxi, leading the way into Gym Alpha.  She didn't see him grin at her comment as he followed behind.  He wouldn't be if he knew why she hadn't gotten much sleep.

"So, what's your plan?"  Aizawa asked, glancing at the clock.  There was ten minutes before Class 1-A was scheduled to show up.  

"Each student will have 4 minutes to try and land a hit,” said Quanxi in a matter-of-fact tone.  

"On?"  Aizawa looked around.  The dummies hadn't been set up, there were no targets and no bots from the entrance exam.  

"Me?" Quanxi wasn't really sure what he was asking.  It seemed the most logical decision, since the numbers that the bots developed didn't mean anything to her.  She had tried to puzzle it out earlier, since each student file had that information, but PSI never meant anything to her.  

"Is that a good idea?" asked Aizawa, his eyebrows knitting together in concern, taking a sip from his can.  She shot him a challenging look that had him raising his free hand in defense. "Let me rephrase: Why do it personally when these kids easily wrecked some of the best equipment that UA has in the entrance exam?"  

"It's the most efficient way for me to gather intel,” Quanxi admitted.  “I don't do well with the numbers that the bots spit at me."  

"Are you recording this then?"  

"I can record it?"  

"For someone who taught me that we have a private server, it's surprising that you don't know.  Yes, you can record it.  Let me see your tablet."  

Quanxi handed him her device and he quickly tapped away at the screen. Seconds later, three flying bots descend from the rafters of the gym, positioning themselves in a triangle around the main space of the gym. He handed Quanxi back her tablet, with the three feeds up on her screen.

"Press the big red button and each of them will start recording,” Aizawa explained.  “It should save directly to your UA cloud, to do with what you will, as long as you're on UA grounds.  Privacy and all that.”  

"Thank you."  

Aizawa paused, contemplating his next question. "Out of curiosity, Quanxi, how were you planning on documenting the assessment?"  

"On paper, but mostly in my head.  I didn't know I could set cameras up in here and honestly, even though I do now, I'm to sure they'll be able to keep up with me."  

Quanxi didn't look up from her tablet, tapping away to secure the folder the footage from each bot would go.  She yet again missed the expression on Aizawa's face, though this time instead of humor it was more akin to amazement.  His silence made her look up.  She had grown to expect some type of quip from the man.  

"What?  Do you think four minutes isn't long enough?  I was thinking about running the assessment for the full double period but I thought it would be good to cut the second half short so that they could rest and I could talk them through some other things we are going to be doing." 

Quanxi looked at him quizzically, expressing a concern that had kept her up the night previous but he quickly dispelled the thought.  

"No, no.  Just... Memorizing all of that information, while accepting new input and extrapolating strengths and weaknesses is quite impressive,” Aizawa clarified and she could see him fighting a smile on his face.  He covered it well, but she didn't miss the upturn of his barely visible lips.

The compliment, though unexpected, made Quanxi feel a little more comfortable in her decision, as well as more confident in her position as the new teacher at UA.  Before Quanxi had a chance to respond, the door to the gym opened and Class 1-A filed in, timidly at first, until Ida strode purposefully forward, giving confidence to the other students to spread out as they entered.

"Good morning everyone.  Welcome to your first real day at UA,” said Quanxi. “Today we are going to be doing combat assessments. Most of you have dabbled in some kind of hand to hand training; eastern, western, it doesn't matter. This assessment will establish the baseline where all of you will be starting." 

Quanxi's voice was soft but commanding, carrying across the gym and bouncing off the walls.  Aizawa noticed the subtle change in her presence, from a fairly friendly co-worker to an authority figure.  The change was so smooth that if he hadn't been ready for it, it might have missed it.  

"You will each have four minutes to land a hit on me,” Quanxi continued, pacing in front of the pack of nervous but excited students. “You will be outfitted with a pair of gloves that will leave a mark on my clothes, as evidence that you made forceful contact.  I will remind you that you are not allowed to use your quirks.  Any quirk use will earn you a time out for three days, and a second use in one day will earn you detention.  Is that understood?" 

The class was silent in response, until Quanxi stopped pacing, waiting for something.  

"Y-Yes, ma’am!" a mottled chorus of voices finally piped up.  Quanxi nodded, satisfied.  

"Let’s get started then, shall we?”  Quanxi turned to a blonde boy who was wearing a rather chunky belt. “Aoyama, you are up first. Everyone else, take a seat in the bleachers until your name is called." 

The rest of the class obeyed, making their way over to the bleachers where Aizawa had situated himself.  Aoyama stood on the gym floor, nervous and jumpy and frightened of being left behind with his intimidating new teacher.

Quanxi stripped off her shirt to reveal a black tank top.  

“Come at me,” she said.  “Use any moves you like, apart from your quirk.  Your time starts… now!”

“Oui, madamoiselle.”  

Despite his nerves, Aoyama assumed a fighting stance. Then he cried, “Yaaah!” and charged. Quanxi dodged without the slightest effort and sent Aoyama tumbling across the floor.  

“Yikes!  Oh!”  

“Again.”  

“Oui.”  Aoyama scrambled to his feet and confronted Quanxi a second time.  Then a third, then a fourth, but he was always on the ground in the blink of an eye.  When his four minutes were up, Aoyama was lying on the floor, shaking from the impact of Quanxi blows.  

“Y-you’re amazing… I can’t get near you…” 

“Head to the bleachers, Aoyama,” said Quanxi.  “Ashido, you’re up next.”  

“Yes, ma’am!” said Ashido, excitedly.  She darted out of her seat and onto the gym floor. Quanxi watched Aoyama pick himself up and stagger his way over to the bleachers, her face expressionless.

The same outcome happened with Ashido. Then with Asui, and then with Ida. No how many rounds the students went with her, none of them could land a hit, let alone touch, Quanxi.  As she had expected, they were just kids.  

"You all did better than I thought you would,” said Quanxi. “But I suppose that’s to be expected, considering I’m tired.”  

The exhausted, battered and bruised class groaned in response, nursing various slaps from their teacher.  A string of curses was cut off from Bakugo, as the rest of the class erupted into chatter about what they saw each other doing.  

"Miss Quanxi, that was amazing!" exclaimed a very tired Ashido, fanning herself.  

"Alright, there's one more thing we're going to do today,” she said, causing the first years to gulp. "All of you are going to come at me at once."

"HUH?!" the first years exclaimed in shock.  Even Aizawa looked shocked.  He wasn't sure if it was a good idea to do that.  But he decided to hold his tongue and go with his colleague's judgement.  

All the students walked onto the gym floor, in front of Quanxi and got into fighting positions.  They started feeling a bit more optimistic as they felt together, they had a better chance against her than they did individually. Quanxi returned in kind and sank into a crouch, staring them down. 

Before the students knew it, their teacher vanished from sight. A dark shadow darted across the gym, not even sound giving it away.  The only sign of Quanxi’s movements was a series of dark footprints, barely noticeable, across the floors and walls.  Sound followed only after, amid the tempest of wind that slammed into everyone and everything in the vicinity.  

"如果我用剑的话你们都会死" said Quanxi behind them, standing up straight, slowly turning her head so her good eye was looking at them.  The contest had been settled with the first move. The next second, it was as if they had been hit by a freight train. The class stood dumbly, as if not even realising they’d been hit, before toppling belatedly to the ground, groaning and wheezing on the floor. Some of the students had been punched so hard that vomit had erupted from their mouths.  

"I wasn't sure I would be able pull of that off as well as I did.  Considering I didn't much sleep last night,” said Quanxi to herself, affectless as ever.  

Aizawa's eyes were wide with shock, realising he had clearly underestimated Quanxi’s skill.  He had not expected her to move so fast that the impact of her strikes were delayed.

Quanxi decided to give the class a few minutes to pick themselves — or each other, if they couldn’t support their own weight — back up.  Some of them looked like they would need to head to infirmary, given the way they were practically sagging against their classmates’s shoulders.

"Alright, class,” said Quanxi.  “If your injuries continue having problems, head to the infirmary.  We can dissect our one-on-one sparring matches later.  Your homework will be to analyze your own performance.  I will be sending you each a video of your own match, and I would like you to all write a list of things that you can see that you did wrong, or where your openings are.  I expect a full response next time we meet in this gym.  You are dismissed."  

“Yes, ma’am.  Thank you very much,” the class chorused hoarsely before shuffling out of the gym.

"It might be...prudent to have a few sparring round between us.  So we are informed on how the other functions in combat," Aizawa murmured once they were alone.  Teaching in tandem meant being on the same page at all times, working towards the same result.  Understanding each other was a big part of that.  He was also very impressed with her show of skill.  

"Right. Of course,” Quanxi replied.  Before she could make to leave, Aizawa asked her another question.  

"What did you say before the impact finally hit them?"  

"Hmm?  Oh, I said: “If I had used a sword, you would all be dead" in Chinese,” she replied before leaving, "I will look forward to a future sparring match between us."

Chapter Text

Quanxi was looking forward to her day off, she could spend some quality time with her women without having to think about work for a while.  The five of them shared a long history during her final years as a Villain Hunter and her retirement so when she told them they'd be moving to Japan so she could teach at UA, the four oddballs wasted no time sending her lists of things they wanted to do there and physical therapy places for when she needed to wind down after a long day of physical activity and paperwork.  Class 1A was scheduled to do search and rescue drills with All Might, Aizawa and Thirteen this afternoon, so Quanxi left campus early to get back to her apartment and get started with them.

As opened the door, she could hear Pingtsi before she saw the mouthed ponytail bouncing towards her.

"Lady Quanxi!"

"It's been a little while girls.  How ar-umph!" Quanxi was cut off in a hug.

"I'm so sorry we couldn't meet up with you earlier! You must have been so lonely there!" Pingtsi smothered her mistress in apologies as the others arrived in the hallway and began returning the same affections.  It always made Quanxi feel warm and fuzzy inside even though she didn't show it.  She had missed her women a lot in the few days they had been apart.  She stiffly returned the hugs as tight as she could.

"I've missed you all too.  No apologies needed.  UA has thrown a few curve balls at me already so I've been swamped."

The group broke away, dragging Quanxi towards the living area.

"Yeah?  You mean aside from the All Might announcement?" Pingtsi eagerly asked, eyes lighting up with curiosity.

"Yeah.  I'm working with Eraserhead pretty closely now, so we're teaching combat together, instead of complete separation between physical combat and quirk training.  So I had to scrap a lot of the work I had done in the weeks coming up to the school year." Quanxi explained, reflecting on the last two weeks.

"Eraserhead, huh?  You've gotta tell me some facts about him if you learn any!  There's no information on that guy!" Pingtsi squeaked excitedly.

"One thing you should know about him is that he's not nearly as annoying as some of the other staff." Quanxi deadpanned, very seriously, which earned her a hearty laugh from the smaller woman.  The latter then went on to talk about the building that the Rabbit Hero: Mirko had for training, apparently had state of the art weight gym, the dojo, dance studio, and AI training grounds.

"And here I thought UA had top of the line..." Quanxi murmured to herself, her poker face expression on full display.

"I know right!" Pingtsi said, grinning.

"Well, lets get started, shall we?" Quanxi said, catching all four of her companions attention.  "You know the rules, 80% percent effort.  Lets begin."

They had just finished and Quanxi was getting dressed when her phone started ringing but it was the bark of her emergency bell bouncing off the walls instead of her normal ringtone. Her stomach dropped. Something happened at UA.

"I have to go, something bad happened at UA. I'll take a cab."

She hastily said to her girlfriends who were peeling themselves off of the bed.  Before they could ask any more questions, Quanxi was out the door in a flash, tugging her jacket on and only her wallet, phone and keys in tow.  It took ten minutes to for the cab to drive from her apartment to UA.  She arrived with the emergency services vehicles.

"Kayama!" Quanxi called, rushing over to her colleague.

"Quanxi. Excellent." Kayama looked relieved to see her but her face was still tight with worry and stress.

"What happened?" Quanxi immediately switched into work mode.

"We don't know. It was organized,” Kayama said. “They had someone with a warp quirk but we can't figure out how they got past security. We need to get the kids to safety and secure the perimeter. Keep reporters out and keep them away from the exiting vehicles."

Quanxi quickly got to work soon afterwards.  She was very good at being politely menacing, as she stood guard around USJ, shooing away interested parties and directing outside authorities to the appropriate people.  She caught a glimpse on of the exiting ambulances, with a very worried Present Mic climbing in the back before the doors closed.

"Aizawa got beat up the worst, aside from Thirteen and Midoriya,” Kayama said behind her. “They're both headed to the hospital, even with Recovery Girl's assistance."

"He held off that monster I saw get hauled out of here?"

The sheer speed he would need to fend off all those Villains and still have the stamina to go up against that thing to defend three students was astounding (even by Quanxi's standards). One of which was clearly determined to get himself killed. Midoriya was obviously going to be the most trouble, with half of the other students just a stones throw behind him. But without their quick thinking things could have gone very differently.   They could have all been slaughtered and this would be a very different clean up. She could have been walking up to a bloodbath, which wasn't anything new for her. This was supposed to be one of the most secure locations in the country, second only to the Hero Public Safety Commission Head Office in Tokyo.

"Come on. We have a security meeting to go to."

Quanxi sighed.

"Let's see if Ectoplasm and Cementoss want Thai food.  We're going to be here a while,” she suggested, joining Kayama on their way back to the main buildings.

"Ohh, maybe we can get Nezu to pay for it." Kayama linked arms with the other woman and they trudged toward their impending overtime.  Kayama joked around to her apathetic colleague to stave off the implications of a group of villains breaking in unnoticed.

"...that being said, the students will stay home tomorrow while we install the security measures you have all just been briefed on.  Quanxi, may I ask you to take these packets to Aizawa and Yamada tomorrow?"

Nezu saying her name was what tuned Quanxi back into the meeting that definitely didn't need to be 3 hours but somehow was.  The eye-patched woman was spacing out a little, still nibbling on the remnants of the Thai take out that Nezu was coerced into ordering for the grouchy teachers. Cementoss looked like he might actually be asleep.

"Yes, sir,” she said reflexively, not even processing what she'd just agreed to.

"Excellent. There will be temporary verifications in there for their use until they can be verified for the bio scans." The headmaster hopped off the table back onto his chair.  "You're all free to go!"

A collective groan of relief rippled through the tired staff.  They all shuffled around in relative silence, gathering their belongings and heading out.  Quanxi checked her phone, knowing the obscene amount of missed calls and texts waiting for her.  She sighed, putting her phone back on her desk without opening any of the messages while she put her jacket on.

"Looks like someone's worried about you." Kayama cocked an eyebrow, giving Quanxi a suggestive look. Quanxi blankly stared at her, unamused.  And maybe she could have gotten her new friend to back down, if Pingtsi hadn't decided to call for the umpteenth time at that very moment. She picked her phone up as quickly as she could, silencing it and ignoring the incessant buzzing in her pocket, but not fast enough for Kayama to miss the caller ID.

"Chatterbox, huh?  Cute nickname. I'll leave you to it!" Kayama skipped off, suddenly revived and in good spirits, considering she had groaned the most about how late it was getting when the meeting ended.  Her phone started vibrating again.

May as well get this over with then.

She braced herself for yelling.

"LADY QUANXI, FINALLY I'VE BEEN GOING INSANE.  ARE YOU ALRIG—"

"Pingtsi, please calm down. I'm fine."

"Calm—CALM DOWN??  YOU'VE IGNORED ALL OF MY PHONE CALLS AND TEXTS FOR 3 HOURS!  HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BE CALM?" Her voice cracked and she could hear her take a deep breath and release it.

"Are you done?" Quanxi deadpanned.  After spending years with her, her over reactions were nothing new to her.  Frankly, this one impressed her.  Usually she could go for ages before she would even take a breath.  That didn't make them any less annoying, though.

"No, when are you coming home?"

"Fairly soon, the meeting ran on longer than necessary."

"Everything good?" There was worry in Pingtsi's question, but not outward.

"For now,” she responded, her voice slightly pinched.  She could feel a small headache coming on.

"How ya holdin' up though?"

"I'm..." Quanxi paused.  She hadn't thought about how this would affect her and her own work life, other than imposing some very annoying extra security measures.  But with Aizawa down for God knows how long, if she has to pick up his slack then things could get really hectic.  "Okay, I think.  Things are gonna get more hectic though."

"Okay. If you say so, Lady Quanxi." Pingtsi paused. "You will take some time off for us, right?" Pingtsi asked, unusually politely.

"Yes, Pingtsi. I will make sure to tell you,” Quanxi calmly reassured her companion.

"Thank you!  I guess I'll call you later."

Quanxi bid her farewell before hanging up and putting her phone on her desk as she puts her jacket on.  She looked at the folders Nezu had given her to deliver to Yamada and Aizawa and glances at the clock.  8:17pm.  The folders were going to have to wait until tomorrow. Picking up the folders and her phone, everything got slipped in her bag as she left the staff room.  By the time Quanxi got home, the weight and exhaustion of the day had sunk into her bones.  She collapsed onto the sofa, sinking into the plush new pillows and releasing a deep breath.  But she only relaxed for a minute.

"Being an adult sucks,” she said aloud to her four girlfriends that had come to welcome her back, their presence comforting.  She trudged into the kitchen to make a late dinner, picking out some music from her phone to play on her stereo and to sent Yamada a text message about how to go about dropping off those folders. 

Yamada somehow established that Quanxi was to meet him at the hospital where Aizawa was recovering to drop all of it off.  How he did that with barely any say from her was quite impressive.  Quanxi stopped for a moment, considering her options.  Sure, Yamada literally lived on the other side of the city and the hospital was nearly a dead middle between them but Quanxi wasn't sure that she should show up at someone’s hospital bed without their approval.  But she could meet Yamada at the hospital without going to see Aizawa.  They agreed to meet there at 10am.  Besides, just because the kids wouldn't be in school, didn't mean that Quanxi didn't have work to do and the best place to do that is at UA anyway, so Quanxi prepared for a normal day at school.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Quanxi woke up to the sound of her alarm.  She lazily reached out from under the covers to turn off the offending noise before clambering out of bed and opening her wardrobe to pull out whatever top and trousers her hands grabbed.  It helped when your almost your whole wardrobe is black, grey and blue. Packing up the last of her things, said her farewells to her women and headed to UA before meeting Yamada at the hospital.   Another day in her normal life.  Quanxi wasn't the only one in the staff room that morning either.  Most of the UA staff was in the building, getting one thing or another done.  She spotted Cementoss out the window, reinforcing the outer walls, as well as Hound Dog, a second year history teacher and UA's guidance councillor, sniffing around for weaknesses, she assumed.  It can be hard to understand him when he got excited or angry and it looked like he was either one of those, or both, by the way Ishiyama had to stop his own work only to struggle to reign in his co-worker.

The staff here certainly is a varied collection...

Quanxi kept a close eye on the time, to make sure she wasn't late meeting with Yamada.  As the time for her to leave approached, she started wrapping up her last task.  She decided to take her tablet but leave her laptop, to do some work on the train.  She uploaded her newest documents to the 1-A server she shared with Aizawa before closing her computer.  She glanced at Aizawa's desk for a moment, before snagging something off of it and slipping it into the file with his name on it, then the file in her bag before heading out.

"Quanxi, over here!"

Quanxi could hear Yamada before she could see him, though his very tall hair didn't follow too long after.  The man was holding three cups, all three precariously grasped in one hand so that he could wave to the eye-patched woman with a free hand, before presenting one of the cups to her.

"Good morning Yamada." She took the cup gratefully, relieved that it was black coffee and not something like the colorful energy drink she saw in another, trading him for the file with his name on it.

"It contains your temporary access code and consent forms and procedures for registering in the new security system.  And this" — she handed over the bag with Aizawa's file — "is for Aizawa."

Yamada peeked in the bag, curious at first but when he realised what it was a relived look spread across his face.

"I have a meeting I need to get to, so I can't stay."

Yamada's face fell for a moment but he quickly recovered.

"Too bad.  That's alright.  I'll see you tomorrow, then!"

The two parted ways, Quanxi heading back to the station and Yamada entering the building behind him to check on his friend.

"AIZAWA!"

"This is a hospital Yamada, keep it down." Aizawa criticised his friend's entrance through a bandaged face.

"I come bearing the gift of my company—"

"I politely decline." Aizawa deadpanned.

"And other things."

"Still declining.  Did you bring my laptop?  I have work to do."

"Things not from me.  And no, it must have slipped my mind." Yamada replied, being entirely too dramatic about it.  Aizawa wasn't surprised; his friend had always looked out for his health and Aizawa definitely had a penchant for putting himself last.  He let the matter go without further comment.

"If Kayama sent you with another dildo I will sue." He refocused the subject and Yamada laughed at the memory.  Aizawa looked even more perturbed by his friends presence than before.

'Maybe I shouldn't let the laptop thing go if he's going to be like this.'

"No, it's not, I promise.  That will probably come with her bouquet of flowers later.  I also have good coffee." Yamada said, closing the door behind him and entering anyway.

"Flowers?  Oh god, the poor nurses..." Aizawa made a mental note to try and intercept that delivery later. "So if it's not from either of you. Who?"

"Quanxi, actually.  Nezu sent the lovely lady to deliver your security protocols and stuff for the new systems they're putting in."

Now that was a surprise.  Aizawa watched his friend extended the bag in his direction.  When he lifted it out the bag it felt oddly heavy.  Upon opening, he felt a smile tugging on his lips and even threatened to bring color to his cheeks, under all the bandages.  His tablet was tucked inside and on it a post it note with smooth, staccato handwriting.

Don't work too hard.

And Don't tell Yamada.

—QUANXI

In that moment he was grateful for the excessive use of them, hiding his expression from Yamada, who would surely make fun of him.  Aizawa pulled out some of the papers behind the tablet, glancing at them as if giving them a once over, before putting the materials on top of the tablet and closing the file again, to make sure Yamada didn't see what Quanxi had added to his paperwork.

"She's a real workaholic, just like you!  You two would be so cute together," Yamada's comment make Aizawa pout a little at his friend.

I am not a workaholic.

"Yes you are, don't give me that."  It's like Yamada could read his mind.

"How would you know anyway?"

"She was going to come up but got called to a meeting as she arrived and couldn't stay."

Aizawa didn't expect to be a tad disappointed by that.  She had gone through all the trouble of hauling his file out here and considering his tablet was also in the bag, he could assume she was just at UA, undoubtedly working.

She took the time to deliver all that stuff to her injured co-worker, even though they didn't know each other that well and neither of them had exactly been friendly or forthcoming about themselves, at least not enough to give her cause for this.

"And how is my angel?" Aizawa asked, changing the subject.

"I checked in on her this morning and last night and she still hates me so everything is hunky dory." Yamada let the subject of Quanxi lapse. "I snagged a picture for you though!"

The photo Yamada showed him was a very disgruntled white cat, visibly trying to escape Yamada's grip, as he held the cat near his face.  The photo earned a chuckle from Aizawa.

"I should go.  Work to do, and you should rest."

"I'm fine, Yamada."

Yamada gave his friend a withering look and the bandaged man quickly clammed up.

"Thank you, is what I meant."

Yamada gave him a smug smile before packing up his stuff.

"I'll see you back at UA, Sho. Feel better!"

The man bounced out of the room, nearly knocking into the nurse entering at the same time.  Aizawa sighed, watching his friend apologize profusely to the poor startled man.  When he's finally alone again, he pulled out his tablet and got to work.  He had a lot of uploading to do to catch up to Quanxi's work.  The woman was diligent to say the least and organized.  A folder for each student, with subject notes, observations and grades all separated.  Sections for feedback, areas of improvement and successes, each already had some notes in a familiar handwriting.  Scrolling past the student profiles and the academic calendar that outlined her unit timeline, he saw two more sections, one with her name on it and one with his.  He opened the one with his name and it revealed nothing but a single typed note that read:

This is your private planning space. Use it how you like.

—QUANXI

He started there, creating his own system and uploading his various documents late into the night.