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Aizawa never knew what to expect each year when it came time for him to give the lesson on quirk discrimination. Some years this has been the lesson where he had expelled the most students in one go. Other times he scheduled a class group therapy session as it had been such a shock to all of the students. More often though, it was a fifty/fifty split and Aizawa was forced to step in and break up fights.
He knew that for one of his students, Shinsou, this topic would hit close to home, so he planned to make sure everyone knew his zero tolerance policy for it.
So, with all that uncertainty of how it would go in mind, Aizawa had spent plenty of time prepping for it. None of that preparation could have prepared him for how the lesson would go.
“Alright, listen up 1A,” Aizawa called sharply as he entered, interrupting the conversations and pulling everyone’s attention immediately onto him, good, “Today’s topic is a big one, so I expect you all to be paying close attention. We will be doing an assignment on this topic, and added to that, due to it’s sensitive nature, I will be expelling anyone who has an issue with the topic on the spot, is that understood?”
He scanned the class, glad to find everyone intently aware and nodding at him. Good. Good. He was so glad he’d expelled the pervert week 1, his class had known from that point on that no, he would not go easy on them, and that a threat of expulsion was as real as he made it sound.
“Alright. The topic for the day is Quirk Discrimination,” Aizawa began, taking in the class’s reactions. Unsurprisingly, Shinsou flinched at the words. What was surprising though, was the way Midoriya, Bakugo, Shouji and Hagakure flinched along with him. Shouji and Hagakure’s reactions made sense, the two had mutation quirks and had likely experienced some level of discrimination, but Midoriya and Bakugo? That didn’t make sense. They had strong ‘heroic’ quirks, even with Izuku’s bone breaking problems. Why would either of them have experienced something bad enough to flinch like that? And why was Izuku actively shrinking in his seat while Bakugo periodically looked over his shoulder at the boy in concern. What was going on there? Aizawa would find out soon enough.
“Quirk discrimination usually breaks down into 4 main types. I will go through them briefly now, ranking them from most severe to least severe based on the percentage of the affected group that have committed suicide because of discrimination,” Aizawa continued, noting the gasps let out through the room, and at the same time picking up on how Shinsou immediately tugged at his blazer sleeves- he would have to check up on that- and how Bakugo and Midoriya both winced again. Seriously, what was going on with those two?
“Ranking as the most severe, is quirkless discrimination, where 70% of the quirkless population in your generation commits suicide before the age of 15,” Aizawa began, trying hard not the think of the red shoes on rooftops and the rare scribbled note- most left none at all, having no one to miss them.
“Fuck,” Bakugo hissed out, sounding absolutely destroyed by the words as he spun around in his chair to face Midoriya, who, in turn, just dropped his head and shrunk further into his seat. What was happening there? Did Midoriya know someone who was quirkless? But why was Bakugo so upset by it? Unless they had all been friends? Was this bringing up old memories? If they had lost a friend… fuck… Aizawa hated the lessons he had to give on the dangers of building collapses, but being a student and receiving that talk a year after Oboro’s death had nearly killed him. If that’s what they were going through… it would explain a lot but at the same time- well, Bakugo and Midoriya didn’t act like friends. Definitely not at the start of the year, although they had become closer with time and seemed to recover a bit from the toxicity that had reigned at that time. So why- Aizawa cleared his mind of the questions. Now was not the time.
“The next most severe is,” Aizawa only hesitated a moment, letting his eyes flick over to Shinsou, before continuing, “Quirks people see as villainous, with almost 40% commiting suicide by the age of 15. This is where I remind you all that no quirks are inherently villainous. It’s about what the individual uses the quirk for. Much like a weapon can be used to kill, it can also be used to protect. It’s important to understand that the weapon, or quirk, is not the evil aspect, rather the user.”
“What about Toga’s quirk? How can drinking blood not be evil?” Iida asked, and Aizawa took a moment to gage if the boy was asking a genuine question or if this was a subtle attack. He settled on the first option and opened his mouth to explain when a dangerously low voice that Aizawa didn’t immediately recognise answered instead.
“It’s that exact fucking question that made her a villain in the first place. People don’t just become villains, Iida. Something happens to cause it. There are so many ways she could have been a hero, so many ways to go about her quirk without causing harm, but people like you will say that enough until it’s the only things she can possibly believe and then what choice does she have!? Huh!?” A voice snarled, anger filled and furious. It took a moment for Aizawa to finally pinpointed the voice, landing on a furious boy with green hair, who now stood, glaring with all the anger of the world at Iida. Aizawa had never heard the boy this angry before- his voice changed and twisted viciously from its normal stated so much so that Aizawa hadn’t recognised it immediately.
“Never- and I mean never fucking talk about quirks like that. That is literally the entire point of this fucking class.”
“Midoriya? This language is very unlike you…” Iida seemed uncertain of his words, almost stumbling over them, but Izuku just glared harsher and sat down.
“See if I fucking care.”
“Alright, let’s leave the answering of questions to me from now on, understood?” Aizawa directed to the entire class as he rethought his theory. Maybe it wasn’t quirkless discrimination specifically that had brought up Midoriya’s reaction? But why had he and Bakugo reacted so strongly to it? Maybe Bakugo’s quirk could be seen as villainous, he supposed that the League of Villains had literally kidnapped the boy for his explosive and quote ‘villainous’ personality that was impacted by his quirk. But… no, Aizawa had just witnessed Izuku look over his shoulder to meet Shinsou’s gaze, and it was clear from that silent interaction who Izuku had done that for. That had been a seperate response. Interesting. Aizawa would have to work out what had caused that. Hopefully he would have his answer before the end of the lesson, but if not, he would make sure to get it within the week.
“Moving on, the third most severe form of quirk discrimination is mutation quirks, with just over 12% of that population committing suicide before the age of 18. I unfortunately could not find statistic from the exact age of 15 the way I could for the others, but still it is very close,” Again, Aizawa scanned the room, seeing the way Hagakure shifted almost imperceptibly, and Shouji actively looked away. They weren’t the only ones, Dark Shadow seemed to wrap herself protectively around Tokoyami, and Jirou was tugging nervously on her earphone jacks. Kouda looked about as anxious as he always did, but Aizawa was pretty sure he could see something more in that.
“The last population group I am going to talk about today, although definitely not the last type of quirk to experience discrimination, is quirks that are considered weak or useless, which have a rate of about 5% of their population committing suicide before the age of 15,” Aizawa continued. He was surprised at the way Kirishima shifted, looking more uncertain of himself then he had the entire time Aizawa had known the kid. That was odd, hardening was a pretty strong quirk? Maybe he knew someone… no that look was too uncertain of himself, that had to be personal… maybe it was guilt? No that didn’t seem at all like Kirishima. So, maybe he had been told his quirk was weak? He would have to keep an eye on that.
Aizawa decided that based on the reactions of his class, it would be best to start with a deep dive into weak quirks and build up towards the other forms.
About halfway through that segment of his talk, Kaminari started shifting nervously, and Ashido seemed to be throwing more and more concerned looks towards Kirishima oddly enough. Ojiro also didn’t look particularly happy either, and neither did Uraraka.
When he asked the class of they had any questions before he moved onto mutation quirks, Kaminari nervously raised his hand.
“If someone’s quirk was strong but had a really bad side effect that they were bullied about, would that be quirk discrimination?” He asked quietly, and Aizawa couldn’t help the way he softened at the question. The kid was asking about himself. Subtly sure, but he was.
“Yes Kaminari, that is an excellent example of quirk discrimination, especially in a form that can be easily, although unfairly and incorrectly, justified.”
“Shit, I’m sorry Denks, I never meant it like that, I swear,” Jirou murmured softly, looking devastated as she looked towards her friend who was sat, still fidgeting, beside her.
“It’s fine- I just- I didn’t know it was bad I guess? I thought it was true so I shouldn’t be upset by it. I guess this lets me see it in a new light. Means I can stand up for myself,” Kaminari admitted, his voice also quiet, but not so quiet that the silent class couldn’t all hear him.
“Kaminari, if anyone ever makes you uncomfortable or hurts you, you can stand up for yourself, regardless of how reasonable you think the statement is. That goes for all of you. Just because you believe someone when they insult you does not mean they should be allowed to insult you,” Aizawa said, carefully making sure the entire class took in his words. This was an important thing for them all to know. Just because they might have low self esteem did not mean other people had the right to make it even lower.
Aizawa scanned the room once more, checking his students faces, and he landed on both Aoyama and Sato’s faces, both twisted in stunned shock. Oh. Sato had the exact same quirk drawback as Denki, and Aoyama had one just as bad, but neither had made that connection until Denki said it out loud. Fuck.
Aizawa allowed his students to stew on the knowledge for a few minutes, before answering a few more questions, ‘no Kirishima, your quirk is not weak, go take a look at Midoriya’s analysis of your quirk and find out just how insanely over powered it could be,’ and ‘yes Midoriya I know what’s in your analysis notebooks I have eyes everywhere’ (he had just happened to see Kirishima’s page a few weeks ago).
With all the self discoveries his class had made so far, he was a bit concerned about the discussion of mutation quirk discrimination considering exactly half the class had mutation quirks.
As he had painfully expected, there were tears at the end of this talk, although they weren’t from who he’d expected. Tokoyami, while clearly uncomfortable had remained stoically silent, and Shouji seemed happy that it was being talked about.
In fact, where Shouji and Tokoyami had already reached acceptance, all of the other students with mutation quirks were in varying levels of grief, having clearly just been kicked out of denial. Jirou, Hagakure and Sero were at anger, Jirou quietly ranting about how she had been treated in middle school, with Hagakure adding on how unfairly hard it was to be seen, not just physically. Sero just seemed to be stewing with a frown settling on his face. Kouda, Ojiro and Sato had all swiftly made it to sad acceptance, but Ashido and Asui… well Ashido was sobbing.
Kirishima was immediately by Ashido’s side, clearly talking in her ear quiet enough for nobody else to hear him. Then there was Asui who had desperately asked Aizawa if there was any way to prevent the discrimination occurring entirely… the worst part of that was how she’d been asking for her little siblings, not herself. Painfully, Aizawa did not have a solution for her, but fuck, he wished he did.
It took a while to work out what exactly was happening with Ashido, but when he finally worked it out he wanted to dump his head in bleach at the thought. She was only 15, and she was talking about how she’d been fetishised for her quirk for the last six years. Since she was nine. NINE. Kirishima was whispering angrily about how he thought he’d been the one at their school to go through more shit but was now considering waging war on the place- a sentiment Aizawa greatly agreed with, especially upon hearing what one of the teachers had done to Ashido. He sent a subtle message to Nedzu after that.
It was hard to continue after that, but there was a reason they had a full day dedicated to this class. He let the students take some time to recover, let them deal with this one step at a time before he added another layer.
When he did continue, he noticed the way Shinsou’s whole body was rigid and tense, as though waiting for someone to call him out on it. So, Aizawa decided he’d share his part.
“I used to fear I’d end up on this statistic,” Aizawa said, his voice flat, but immediately all attention was completely on him, multiple students asking if he was ok, if he was doing better now, and Aizawa raised his hands to calm them, “I said I used to, problem children. People called me a villain for stealing their quirks. It was stupid and illogical which you can see based on the fact that I actively take down villains, but it was common. Unfortunately, quirk discrimination has only increased in your generation, so it’s even more common for you. I expect that none of you ever increase the frequency of it. Understood?”
Bakugo flinched at that last part, and immediately Aizawa zeroed in on him, trying to work out what was going on there but the boy had swiftly returned to his normal annoyed expression, and Aizawa couldn’t quite work it out.
Slowly, painfully, Aizawa moved onto the last section. Quirkless discrimination. This one. This was the one that always went badly in a heroics class, and while nothing so far had been great, it hadn’t been bad in the direction he worried this would go.
As painfully expected, despite almost all of the students having clearly experienced some level of discrimination- in fact the only ones who hadn’t had a personally pained reaction (they had been empathetic but impersonal) were Momo, Iida and Todoroki. Yet, despite that portion of the room who had clearly struggled with the other issues, too many comments were made during this one, and Aizawa was getting mad.
The comments were quiet, barely audible most the time, but still Aizawa noticed them from all across the class throughout his speech.
“Quirkless people struggle to find jobs let alone get into highschool or University.” “because they’re useless?”
“Many won’t get admitted into hospitals for serious injuries or illnesses.” “well it would be a waste of resources…” “they will just get injured again anyway” “fragile”
“They get bullied, beat up, and even suicide baited on the regular.” “Look I’m not quirkist but-”
Bakugo interrupted that one before they could even finish.
“Yes you fucking are! Yes you fucking are quirkist, because you were just about to fucking excuse suicide baiting a quirkless person you fucking monster! That’s fucking quirkist and you fucking know it!”
“Kachaan-” Izuku’s voice was quiet, pleading, almost desperate, but Bakugo didn’t respond at all, just continuing to scream at the whole class.
“Bakugo, please sit down.”
“No! NO! I WON’T! I WON’T FUCKING SIT DOWN! NOT AGAIN! MY BEST FUCKING FRIEND ALMOST LISTENED TO THOSE FUCKING SUICIDE BAITS! I WILL NOT SIT DOWN AND FUCKING LET IT HAPPEN TO ANYONE ELSE!”
“KACHAAN!” Izuku yelled, snapping the boy out of the scream.
“I won’t ‘zuku. Not again. I won’t. I won’t.”
“Kachaan, stop. Please. Just… stop,” Izuku begged, and fuck, he was crying. Ok, there was definitely a lot going on here. Izuku and Bakugo had almost lost a quirkless friend to suicide baiting. That… that explained a lot. It explained Izuku’s fierce and immediate protectiveness of Shinsou. It explained why Izuku had once told Aizawa how inspiring the fact that he fought almost quirkless was. It explained why the two boys’ friendship had been so broken at the start of the year because no one coped well with nearly loosing a friend in that way. It explained Bakugo’s constant anger- grief. It explained just about everything. Except… it didn’t explain the look Bakugo was giving Izuku right now. It didn’t explain the expression of complete guilt costing the boy’s face.
“I can’t stop. I won’t let them be like me ‘zuku. I won’t let them treat you like a Deku.”
And fuck if the last piece of the puzzle didn’t just fall in suddenly revealing so many more missing pieces. Midoriya had been the quirkless friend. Bakugo had been the one to suicide bait him. Midoriya’s hero name was not a shortened form of Dekiru. Midoriya’s hero name was an insult. Midoriya’s hero name meant Useless. The cause of Midoriya’s stutter, anxiety, jumpiness, ability to dodge in fights, all of that became clear and fuck, why hadn’t Aizawa worked it out, why hadn’t Aizawa connected the dots? He even had the shoes… why did he have the shoes?
Because the problem with this answer was that Midoriya Izuku was not quirkless. Midoriya had an insanely powerful quirk with a strength matching All Might or his nemesis All For One who could transfer quirks. Who wanted All Might’s quirk… All Might’s quirk called One For All. A parallel to the villain with the quirk that allowed transfers of quirks. It was impossible and yet… the way All Might treated Midoriya, the fact that Midoriya had worked with all of All Might’s friends… fuck.
“I need to talk to All Might,” Aizawa snarled under his breath, anger filling him, because how dare the man not tell him such vital information about one of his students- about why the villains were so firmly after his class because fuck that made sense.
“Wait Sensei- it’s fine, I’m fine, we’re fine, right Kachaan? We’re fine,” Izuku insisted as though his words were final and undeniable. Bakugo hesitated, looking between the two with desperation before he seemed to snap.
“All Might told Izuku his dreams were unrealistic and left him on a roof, then gave him a destructive quirk after he ran into a fight to save me with the self sacrificial ideology of a suicidal person!” Bakugo spilled the words out too fast, as though he had been holding them in for too long, and the betrayed look on Izuku’s face clearly showed the reason except… why would Izuku hide this from Aizawa- who the kid seemed to trust, unless…
“Did All Might tell you to keep that a secret?” Aizawa asked, his voice dangerously low but he couldn’t help it. Not with the pure amount of rage he was trying to avoid showing in front of his class. Izuku nodded, and that was almost enough for Aizawa’s dams holding back the face to break, but he held them there steady and spoke as calmly as he could, “No one, absolutely no one should make you keep a secret that puts you in danger Midoriya. Understood? You tell me these things. You tell me so I can help. So I can protect you. That’s my job. I am your homeroom teacher. I am your Sensei. Not All Might. Understood?”
Midoriya- and the rest of the class as well- nodded frantically, and Aizawa blinked, only then realising he had been using his quirk. He took a breath, softening slightly, if only for the benefit of the students.
“It’s my job to protect you. I can’t do that if you don’t tell me things. That goes for all of you. I had no idea until today just how many of you have experienced discrimination, I had no idea how many of you still experience discrimination. So, if any of you are in danger, ever no matter how small the danger or how big the secret or how embarrassing the story or anything. If you are in danger, you come straight to me. Understood?”
The class nodded silently, and Aizawa really thought that would be the end of it. Right up until Todoroki’s hand raised slowly, achingly slowly, with all the nerves of someone about to tell Aizawa something he wouldn’t like.
“Todoroki?” Aizawa asked quietly, accepting that this was another one he would need to take on.
“My father got my older brother killed in a training not accident and regularly hurts me in training.”
“Thank you for telling me that Todoroki. I will make sure he never lays a hand on you or anyone else ever again. You can trust me on that,” Aizawa replied evenly, adding another thing to his mental list of tasks.
First, he was going to get Hound Dog to come talk to his apparently very traumatised class, then he was going to beat down All Might until the man fucking begs for mercy, then he had every intention of doing the exact same to the number 2 hero, as well as get custody of at least one of his students- Midoriya’s mother was also a bit of a worry since she had not reported anything about Midoriya’s clearly bad mental state. A kid didn’t just get suicide baited. A kid didn’t just almost commit suicide and not have any signs for a family to at least be concerned about.
Then, he would have to break down every wall the three- because Bakugo was in this as well- students had up. Oh and he had at least two schools to burn down, Ashido’s and the problem duo’s.
Aizawa was about to leave to get the first task- Hound Dog- completed when Uraraka spoke up.
“My family doesn’t have enough money to get me all the food I need, they try hard but I often go days without eating, even with UA’s scholarship.”
“I will organise with lunch rush to get you free food before and after school as well as at lunch,” Aizawa said resolutely.
“If any of you guys ever need money, ask me, I have more then enough to go around, ok?” Yaoyorozu offered, “Also we are all going out to a cafe for some nice tea or hot chocolates after school, I’m paying, this is nonnegotiable.”
“Does anyone else have anything they want to say?” Aizawa asked evenly, carefully scanning each face to see if they were hiding anything. Everyone shook their heads and Aizawa was willing to believe them, “Ok, I am going to go get Hound Dog, we are having group therapy and I’m officially signing you all up for weekly therapy sessions, I don’t know why you aren’t already going considering the villain attacks. Any questions?”
Tentatively, Kirishima raised his hand.
“Yes, Kirishima?”
“I already go to therapy outside of school, do I still go inside if school?”
“For now I will get you to do both, since Hound Dog is a pro and therefore might have more experience with some things and the school will pay for it, but if he releases you to just go to your other therapist then that will be fine,” Aizawa decided. Yeah, that would work.
“Thank you Aizawa-Sensei.”
Aizawa gave them all one of his rare not-scary smiles, before slipping out of the room, leaving Yaoyorozu in charge- because while he trusted Iida, Midoriya was still mad at him and the class tended to band around Midoriya a tad too much.
With the door shut, Aizawa let his rage bubble up. How dare anyone hurt his kids. All those people who had hurt his kids because of their mutations or their quote ‘weak’ or villainous’ quirks, or because they were quirkless once. Or in Todoroki’s case because his father wanted him to be the best at any cost. All those people would burn if Aizawa had anything to say about it, and damn it, Aizawa had plenty to say.
Once he’d filled Hound Dog in on the situation and the hero had agreed to join his students for the rest of the day, Aizawa stormed towards Nedzu’s office.
He didn’t miss Hound Dog’s call after him of ‘Don’t murder anyone!’ but he’d never been the best at listening to his therapist’s advice. If All Might tried to argue there hadn’t been anything wrong in what he did… well Japan needed a new number 1 hero anyway.