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The first day of school is always a little nerve-wracking, no matter how many times Aizawa does it. Students are taking in his disheveled appearance and shockingly informal sleeping bag for the first time, so they have no way of knowing that the circles beneath his eyes are just a little darker or that his voice is a little higher than normal. However, he knows he has the skills necessary to teach these kids. He knows that he will do whatever it takes to help them grow. Logically, that is all he needs, and it carries him through the day with little hesitation.
But there’s always one moment where he actually lays eyes on all his students for the first time where part of him freezes up just a little. He’s read all their files before, of course, and already has some educated guesses about who will be continuing the year with him, and who will be out, at least of his homeroom. But actually seeing all those faces in person, staring up at him, trusting him, would be enough to stop even the bravest hero in their tracks. These are now his students. Their lives are in his hands. Anyone who ignores the weight of that fact is being flippant. Aizawa Shota is many things, but flippant isn’t one of them.
This year, there are more quiet personalities than the normal loud bold problem children who often flood the hero course, so the chatter cuts almost immediately as he shuffles into the room, sleeping bag in tow.
“3 seconds til quiet. At least we seem semi-aware that time is valuable. I am Aizawa Shota, and I will be your homeroom teacher this year…”
His voice trails off, caught on the vibrant blue hair in the front row. The student’s hair floats around their head in a way that hides their eyes, but something about their posture looks so familiar…
He shakes his head just slightly, regaining his train of thought. It’s just Ishikawa…Masahiro, whose quirk is the ability to produce and control neon gas (He’s currently mainly using its freezing properties, but Aizawa suspects he could use it for a lot more if he put his mind to it). His hair is the same vibrant blue you might see in a neon sign, and it glows as it floats around him. Now that Aizawa thinks about it, he remembers being impressed with how many rescue points Ishikawa managed to collect, even though the test this year, an obstacle course, really didn’t lend itself to them. It does raise a slight red flag- does he tend toward reckless kind of rescue? Aizawa usually has names and quirks memorized before even seeing students; after all, he expels some on the first day, and expelling students without any research is illogical. But in all his pouring over student files, he didn’t notice any resemblance when looking at Ishikawa. Odd.
The kids are all staring up at him, a range of concern to doubt across their faces. His sleeping bag tends to have that effect. He continues with his usual spiel. “You have made it into UA, something that takes considerable effort. Some of you may be patting yourselves on the back, but if you think the challenging part is over, there’s the door. ”
Several students shift awkwardly in their seats. He makes note of who, then keeps going. “Given the life-stakes nature of the hero role, your three years here will be full of hard work. I’m not one to waste time, so today we begin that work in earnest and see if you can cope. Get dressed in your gym clothes and head outside for a quirk aptitude test.”
No words or time wasted on fluffy get to know you business. Aizawa knows the students will get to know each other and bond as the year goes on and they face challenges together; he doesn’t care to waste time on “pass the orange around without using your hands!” and “human bingo”. As they head out to the field, he can already hear students talking under their breath about the unexpected move outside, what they might be required to do, what their quirks are…The uncertainty is enough to get even this quiet group talking. He spots Ishikawa with two other students, bouncing with excitement on the balls of his feet. For a moment, he almost seems to float off the ground…
Aizawa keeps moving, beginning to suspect his eyes are playing tricks on him.
The clouds are rolling in as they arrive at the field and circle around, leaving dark shadows across his nervous students’ expressions. The wind ruffles through them and attempts to whip Aziawa’s hair into his eyes as they all huddle close. He has half a mind to activate his quirk just to get it out of the way. But half the reason the style appeals to him is because he’s gotten good at seeing through it while not letting others see him. Scanning the crowd, he notes with some interest the groups that have formed.
Suzuki Marika stands twirling her long orange braids, whispering with Watanube Sumiko, Okada Noriko, and Masashi Fujita. Marika had scraped through the exam due to a clash with another student that cost her valuable seconds; the other three had done reasonably well. They have widely different quirks: lightning strike, spray paint, intoxication, and bloom respectively. Hopefully, they’ll be able to push each other even if their techniques are different.
Aoki Shingo, one of the recommended students due to his most impressive water-control quirk, who now stands silent, had been chatting with Murakami Eito, a shy but apparently eager pipsqueak. Watching the entrance exams, it had taken even Aizawa a while to notice him, sticking close to the ground and scampering past obstacles with his monkey-like abilities. He jumped into some really stupid situations, though, and Aizawa wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up getting expelled.
And front and center is Ishikawa, along with two other students, Maeda Rui and Kinoshita Denji. Maeda had used her electromagnetic pulses to both push her toward victory and eliminate physical obstacles, while Kinoshita used his slumber quirk on the fake villains in the course. Aizawa will have to ask him if he wants more opportunities to practice.
As he finishes scanning his students who fall silent quickly, Aizawa’s mind lingers on the glowing blue in the corner of his vision. No room for nonsense. Time to get the ball rolling.
“While your quirks make you unique, you’ve been taught from a young age to hold back with them, that they make things unfair. Quirks are naturally unfair; but avoiding them and their effect on your potential is a backward approach. You all had physical tests in middle school to test your limits, correct?”
All the students nod together silently and quickly, the way he likes it best.
“Today, we’ll be re-taking those tests, but including your quirk. Your ability to use your quirk to achieve your goals is at the heart of being a hero.”
Really, this test is about your ability to use all of yourself. Can you together use your body, mind, quirk, and even your classmates? Can you think creatively, remain calm, and get through these challenges? But so often, the hero students don’t see the whole. They’re stuck on their quirks. Time for him to see how stuck this group is.
“If you are unable to plus ultra in even the most basic of school tests, it raises the question of your ability to survive or succeed as a hero all together. Rationally, there is no point in wasting any more time at UA. Thus, the student who comes in last will be expelled.” Aizawa withdraws the expulsion paperwork from the pouch at his belt.
The wind hits the group with a scattering of leaves just as several students gasp. The circle around him breaks up as they back away.
“But we passed the entrance exam!” says Suzuki, her braids dropping abruptly and whipping away from her. “You can’t…” She (wisely) second-guesses the wisdom in talking back to the teacher with the expulsion paperwork and stops speaking.
Aizawa can’t help the dangerous grin that slips onto his face. Hizashi always tells him he enjoys this too much, but some of these students need a little bit of a scare. Better now than later…broken rubble sprawls across his mind unbidden and he shakes his head to clear it.
Time for a little demonstration. Rationality be damned, Ishikawa still catches his eye, so he turns to him.
“Ishikawa, what was your score on the ball throw when you were in middle school?”
“15 meters, sir!” Ishikawa says, jumping up and down a little, his nerves not entirely eliminating his excitement.
Not bad at all. But he could definitely do better than that. “Throw this. But use your quirk.”
Ishikawa pauses, uncertain. “Use my quirk…how?”
Aizawa raises an eyebrow and waits, ball extended in his hand.
Ishikawa stares for several more moments, frozen in thought. But then, he steps forward again, grabbing the ball. Pulling back, he throws the ball, aiming it high, and the air crystallizes behind it, pushing it forward. The ball lands far away, and Aizawa knows he should reach out and grab it, but his eyes are caught on the expression on Ishikawa’s face. It’s lit up with a pure joy and excitement that he simply can’t ignore. It’s the exact same face that Oboro made any time he was particularly showy with his quirk.
It’s like his student morphs before him. One moment, Ishikawa is there, icicles forming in his hair. The next, Oboro is looking at him, his joyful face turning to distrust.
“Well, are the signs there yet?” he asks, staring at his teacher.
Shota takes an unconscious step back. He can’t help it. What…who is this? What is happening?
Oboro steps forward, filling the gap. His eyebrows draw down mockingly behind Shota’s…no, his goggles. “You are going to expel me, right? The great Eraserhead. The one who can erase students’ futures, all because he KNOWS when they’re too self-destructive, too sacrificing. He can look into your soul and see your fate.”
It…it must be a quirk doing this. Surely. A villain attack, a latent quirk emerging, something. It’s a show of how stunned Shota is that it takes him two whole seconds to remember that if this is a quirk, he can do something about it.
Another second, and his hair is floating in a mirror of Oboro’s. Unfortunately, activating his quirk doesn’t change the scene in front of him. His friend continues to advance on him, but the way the kid talks makes him sound like a stranger. “Oh, wait. Do you not want to give me up?” He’s beginning to levitate, the wind bringing clouds beneath him. His face is twisted in disgust in a way that Shota has never seen before. Certainly not directed at HIM. “You don’t want to fill out the paperwork, can’t bear to pass me on to a different homeroom teacher. You think YOU can fix me. Just teach the sacrificialness out of me, keep me on a leash, make sure I’m not our particular brand of dumbingo stupid?”
The clouds are wrapping around Shota now. The moisture soaks its way into his boots, his scarf, his hair. He feels heavy, stuck in place.
“Or do you genuinely not see the threat I am to myself? You, who’re supposed to be so smart, such a brilliant judge of character. Because if you’re not going to expel me, the very reason for your system, it’s because of one of those options.”
“I…” Shota pushes the words out of his throat, trying to get them past the lump there. “I never said I was smart.”
Oboro sighs dramatically, pausing in his advances. “You sure act like it. You sit here and make yourself a god. Determining that YOU know whether a student has what it takes for failure or success. You decide every year that there are students who have what it takes…or don’t. And me, apparently I didn’t have what it took.”
“YOU’RE WRONG.” The words aren’t stuck anymore. How dare anyone EVER imply that Oboro Shirikumo didn’t have what it took to be a hero?
“But I’m the reason you have this system, right? You couldn’t handle watching one of your students die, not like me.” The shaking of Tasomiya Ward is around them in a second, and Shota’s choking on the dust and the smell of blood, clutching onto his scarf for some kind of grounding. He can’t blink, he won’t blink, blinking would mean dislodging the liquid in his eyes…“Every time you expel a student, you’re trying to prevent my death. But you can’t bring yourself to save me from myself?”
“Face it, Sho. Even though you ribbed me and Zashi for being the sentimental ones, you were secretly the biggest sap of all of us. I’m the reason why you have this tradition. Keep it, and acknowledge I was weak, a failure. Or get rid of it, and know that when I or your other students die, you bear the responsibility.”
Shota can’t listen to this anymore. Oboro is so close; he’s right in his grasp! If he couldn’t save him then, surely he can save him now. He lets the tears fall as he tries to reach out with his capture weapon, tries to pull his friend in close…but he’s gone in a wisp of clouds and a thunder of collapsing rubble.
-0-
Shota wakes up with a grunt, clutching his scarf closer to his chest. A faint moonlit glow covers the faculty dorm lounge, catching the white papers that litter the floor around him in haphazard piles. His neck has an awful crick in it from the uncomfortable way he’d been sleeping with his head propped on the couch’s arm, but that’s not the reason for the twinge of pain he feels pulling back to reality.
A quick glance at the clock confirms that it’s an ungodly 5 in the morning. Groaning, Shota pulls a hand down his face. He’d been patrolling til midnight, worked on grading afterward, and had obviously fallen asleep. And he needs to be up in an hour for class.
They’re almost a month into the beginning of the school year, which at first is always an adventure of hellish proportions in terms of sleep schedule as he’s getting back into a rhythm. And apparently this year, part of the hell is Ishikawa reimagined as Oboro constantly invading his dreams. Ishikawa has potential, but he also has some uncanny similarities to someone that Shota prefers not to think about for long periods of time, and he just can’t decide whether those similarities merit an expulsion. But what would that expulsion be for? To keep Ishikawa safe?
To keep you safe? the twisted version of Oboro who haunts his dreams whispers.
The front door to the dorms creaks open, and Hizashi tip-toes in, wearing those idiotic sunglasses even at 5 in the morning. Right, his AM show just finished.
“Sho? Whatcha doing up?” He can be surprisingly quiet in the wee hours of the morning.
Sighing, Shota stands, cracking his back, looking for an appropriate answer. “Grading.” Short, sweet, rational.
He can practically hear Hizashi’s raised eyebrows. Maybe not that rational. “Okay, grading that turned into sleeping. You got me.”
Hizashi huffs a laugh under his breath. “Has it ever occurred to you that you grade better when you’re awake, and you sleep better when you’re in your bed? Multi-tasking doesn’t really work with this one.”
Shota raises an eyebrow in return. “And how long have you been up?”
“Now ya got me. I lost count after the thirty hour mark.” Hizashi raises his hands in surrender.
They stand there in uncomfortable silence for a moment or two.
“Nightmares?” Hizashi finally asks.
“Nothing that makes sleep better,” Shota says, bending down to start gathering up his papers. He doesn’t have the energy for this to be an extended conversation.
“Must be pretty desperate times if it’s something that’s making you avoid sleep. I haven’t heard your little listeners talking about you taking a nap or your sleeping bag once after the first day..”
Untying his hair, Shouta lets it fall over his eyes. “Decided to take the more upstanding, professional route this year.” He ignores Hizashi’s snort and keeps piling papers up. Ishikawa’s untidy scrawl jumps out at him from a page. His hands, so steady when pulling in a villain or comforting a student, betray him, and the paper slips from his fingers, landing at Hizashi’s feet.
Hizashi looks down at it, and understanding steals across his face along with the moonlight. It’s that look that reminds Shota he isn’t the only one having nightmares. He gathers his courage and speaks.
“Does the Ishikawa kid get to you too?
Hizashi roughs up his hair so harshly he manages to pull a few strands loose from their rigid, gelled position, leaving them sticking out at all angles. “He’s a good kid. and might even be an English genius. But every time I see him, he reminds me of Oboro.”
Shota shivers, just slightly, and glances out at the moon again. “It’s bringing everything back. I…I’ve been getting these dreams.”
Hizashi gets hungry whenever he gets back from hosting, so it is unsurprised to hear him start rummaging around the staff kitchen. (It also doesn’t hurt that he knows sharing things face to face has never been Shota’s strong suit. Shota’s definitely not struck by a rush of gratitude.)
“I’m not crazy for expelling students. Right?”
A bark of laughter comes from the refrigerator as Hizashi gets out some eggs. “With that maniacal look you get when you watch the little listeners’ faces? I’m not giving commentary on that.” He pauses, thoughtful. “Though we all know you do it for the best reasons. Even Nezu has your back on that one.”
“I thought so too. But tonight, Ishikawa became Oboro in front of me. He told me that expelling students is proof I thought he was weak. And then he died in front of me. Again.”
Hizashi whistles long and low. “That’s…pretty rough, Sho. Even by my standards. So that’s why you look like you haven’t slept in millenia.”
“Wait, what’s your standard?”
Hizashi shrugged. “Ya know, re-living high school, him picking up that stray cat, seeing him alive again only for him to die as I try to save him…the normal stuff.”
Right. Happy reminders about why they BOTH go to therapy.
“But walk this through with me, man. You don’t think the students you expel are weak. They just need some more training. It’s why you shake them up a little and then they get re-enrolled.”
Shouta tries to hide the shaking in his voice with a cough, but it doesn’t fully work. “I’d be lying if I said I don’t look into the eyes of every kid I expel with him in mind. And I never thought he was weak. He was competent and confident. Everyone thought so. What if I miss something?” What if another student dies and it's all my fault again?
The lounge fills with silence, except for the sound of the eggs crackling on the stove. Shota hears the clinking of Hizashi’s boots as he approaches. A warm hand rests on his shoulder.
“Shota. We’ve been over this. Oboro’s death wasn’t your fault.”
Hizashi’s lost a graduated student or two over the years. He would know. Shota sits there and tries to absorb the words like he does his morning cup of coffee. It doesn’t really work, but at least the effort’s there.
Hizashi settles down on the couch next to him. “Besides, Oboro would be so proud of you teaching. Forget every expulsion being an insult to his memory; every successful hero student you’ve taught, even Ishikawa, is living in his honor.”
It’s a new thought. Ishikawa isn’t Oboro 2.0, reincarnated and doomed to a fate that Shota will constantly try and fail to fix. He reminds him so much of his friend, but he has the chance to become everything Oboro couldn’t. The thought fills him with a peace that settles around his shoulders where the clouds were weighing.
“I think Ishikawa’s going to make a great hero someday,” Shota muses to himself.
Hizashi shoves his shoulder. “In part because he has a great teacher.”
Shota hopes this is true. He hopes, even if the cost is heavy in his own mind, that he is making a future where heroes live.