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Shota Aizawa was an absolute wreck today. Why? Because only ten minutes ago, he had been told that the friend he had believed dead for the longest had been brought back from the dead by no other than the most powerful villain in Japan, and was brought to villainy himself. Oboro didn’t even recognize him or Hizashi.
But Oboro managed to start peeking through in the misty face that they had began to recognize as Kurogiri, the warpgate villain that had consistently been helping the League of Villains, getting them places to cause trouble, and then getting them out when it was over. It was truly a pain.
And now Kurogiri was caught, and was revealing more secrets than Shota ever wanted to know. Shota thought he was already done with his grieving, but the world didn’t seem to want to let him be done. Oboro was so clearly suffering, and it was hurting Shota to see. He wanted to help his friend, but had absolutely no clue on how to do that.
Although, in the time that Oboro managed to poke through in the misty figure, he gave enough information to give all of the heroes a huge lead as to where the League of Villains were, and enough of a hint as to what they were doing. It seemed to have taken up so much energy, however, and so the face of Shota’s friend disappeared into the mist once more, and Kurogiri passed out.
Now, Shota sat in Hizashi’s car, the blonde sitting in the driver’s seat, head leaned against the wheel, just in between his hands, which were clutched onto the wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white. They had been in the car for a long while, both really trying to process what happened in there.
Shota hadn’t even bothered with his seatbelt, instead just letting his seat recline back as far as it would go, his legs propped up onto the dashboard as he pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed shut. He was on the verge of crying, but he refused to let himself. Not here, not now. He had to be strong for Hizashi this time. Hizashi had already been so strong for him the first time they suffered through the loss of Oboro, and now it was his turn.
He just had to hope he really could play as the strong one this time.
“Yamada, if you need me to drive, just let me know,” Shota says as he brings the seat back up, placing his feet back on the floorboard once more. Hizashi just shakes his head, clearly trying to even his breathing out once more, stop the tears from pouring down his cheeks. “It’ll be a little dangerous if you drive with how emotional you are right now, especially since you’re crying, Mic.”
“No, no, I’m fine, see?” Hizashi turns to Shota with a shaky smile, tears obviously streaming down his cheeks. Shota can’t help but frown at the sight, so upset that his closest friend is this upset. Hizashi was breaking more and more by the second, and Shota knew that the man had to get home and rest sometime very soon.
“What I see is you falling apart. Switch seats,” Shota says, not offering room for argument. Hizashi and Shota both step out of the car, swapping sides, and then letting Hizashi take his needed break to cry things out, get out his emotions while he can, and then let Shota be the calm one for the moment. The underground hero was still processing everything, so he had some time to get them somewhere to rest. He had already gotten a lot of tears out when he was trying to talk to Oboro, after all.
So Shota finally started to get them out of the parking lot, and back to Hizashi’s apartment, where the two would just try to find comfort with each other, calm down, and then be ready to go and teach tomorrow. They had to make sure their students were doing alright too, and wouldn’t panic too much. All of the previous times that Shota had been gone from classes for a day or longer, he had gotten injured, and needed to spend some time in the hospital, or relax as much as he could to recover. And then Hizashi just hadn’t really ever missed a day of teaching in the time that Shota’s problem class had been in the school.
So the two watched some movies, made some hot chocolate, spent some time with Hizashi’s bird, and then made some dinner. Only when they had cleaned up everything did they finally go to bed. Shota stayed on the couch, and then Hizashi went to his bedroom. There was a point in the night where Hizashi woke Shota up to make sure he was still there, and to get a little bit of comfort once more.
By the time they were supposed to start getting ready for work, both were still pretty exhausted, but had managed to pull themselves up, and then start getting changed, and then do everything else they needed to. Hizashi didn’t really bother with his hair though, instead spending the time he usually spend to apply all of the gel and hairspray to instead get some coffee with Shota. Only when he was almost done with the mug did he put some more food in the feeder for his bird, and then got it some more water. He even tossed in another little bird toy, which the bird happily lunged at, biting at it while holding it in its left talon.
“Ready to go,” Shota asks, Hizashi nodding in response. They both make their way to the car, Hizashi getting to drive this time, and then start the drive to UA. It felt like any other morning, other than the fact that they were back to grieving over Oboro.
At least all of the students still seemed eager to get to class, probably not even fully aware that they were still in so much danger, despite still being students. Well, one of their classes had faced one villain attack after another, and had been forced to fight for their lives. Just thinking about all of the attacks made Shota grimace, his mind replacing the way it actually happened with completely different scenarios, showing how each of them could have died if they had taken just one other different move.
But they were fine. They’re fine, they’re fine, they’re fine. They’re all going to be sitting in class, waiting for him to start the lesson of the day, and get them ready to be full on heroes in the future. They had already proved so much to him on just how good their potential was, and just how well they could do on the field.
They had thought the same about Oboro.
No . It’s all fine. There’s no need to think the worst right now, not when there wasn’t anything that could be happening soon. No possible villain attacks that they had to be put through danger for.
Not unless they came to the school… which would not happen. Nezu had made sure security was heightened more and more with each attack that was put on their students, despite the fact that the villains had only gotten onto school grounds twice, and that was at the very beginning of the school year. It’s been heightened much more since then.
Nezu knows what he’s doing… his quirk makes him one of the smartest living beings out there and all… yeah… it’s fine.
“Eraser, you’re panicking,” Hizashi says, suddenly stopping the train of thought that Shota was getting stuck on. Hizashi’s hand squeezes Shota’s in an attempt of reassurance. The underground hero takes in a deep, shaking breath before turning to his friend and saying “Sorry, Mic. I’m fine, and thank you. Just have to go see the problem class.”
“Yeah, makes sense. Just don’t be too hard on them today. I know how much you worry for them,” Hizashi replies, giving Shota a soft, caring smile. The dark haired male can’t help but return it.
Hizashi and Shota eventually have to turn down different paths, making their way to their homeroom class slowly, trying to put themselves together just enough that their class wouldn’t be too worried.
But what Shota was seeing as he walked into class was ready to throw his whole day off.
Oboro was right there , talking to his students with such a wide smile, hand waving through the air as he talks to Ochako and Tenya.
Shota blinks hard, and Izuku is back in the place of where he saw Oboro. Izuku just seemed a little scraped up today, and had a bandage on his nose, just as Oboro always did. The wild hair definitely wasn’t helping Shota’s brain. He kept seeing Oboro in Izuku’s place. It felt like between each blink, they would swap out.
The man cleared his throat, hoping that silencing the class would stop the weirdness of Shota seeing Oboro instead of Izuku.
This isn’t his old class that he sat in to learn anymore. He’s teaching now, and this is a whole fifteen years later. Oboro can’t be here.
He takes in a deep breath, taking in the faces of all of his students. They all looked relatively fine, other than the fact that Izuku had a few injuries that hadn’t been there previously. Shota might have to question the kid about it later.
“Good morning,” Shota greets. He receives an echoed greeting from all twenty of his students, most of them pretty sleepy responses. The man honestly couldn’t blame them.
The underground hero held his eyes shut for a moment as he lets out the last of the breath he took in earlier, his bangs flying into the air for a brief moment, just a few centimeters off of his face, before falling back onto the bridge of his nose once more.
“I apologize for my absence yesterday, but there was something Present Mic and I had to deal with. If we seem a little out of sorts today, we do apologize in advance. There’s just some news we received that’s weighing on us quite heavily,” Shota explains to the class.
“Of course, sir! Take as much time as needed to recover! We do promise that we can be patient,” Tenya declares. Most of the class nods in agreement.
Shota scans the class once more, eyes resting on Izuku once more. It hurt so bad to keep seeing Oboro in the kid today. Both had such an outgoing, kind personality that brought people you never would have gotten along together, together… and they had gotten far until disaster.
He couldn’t help but think of the day he lost Oboro, and how his friends’ body was just covered in so much rubble, and how much blood poured out. There were so many injuries, too many. But Shota had to recover as quickly as possible for everyone. He knew that a part of being a hero was losing people around you that tried to follow your path, and then also risking your own life every day.
But Shota could never get over Oboro. Not when he hadn’t lost another friend, and had seen how his living friends were thriving in the career. What did Oboro do so wrong to be killed like that?
And then Oboro’s body was replaced by Izuku’s, the problem child’s lifeless body just sitting there in a pool of his own blood, still seeping through the wounds covering his body.
Shota quickly shakes his head, looking up at Izuku once more. But it’s too much. Shota can see the injuries on the kid, and how those bright green eyes just stare at him in return, seemingly a little confused.
He can’t take it
“Midoriya, out of the classroom,” Shota demands, most of the class suddenly being washed over with confusion, but nobody more than Izuku. “Go to my office, and I’ll meet you there.”
Izuku hesitates for a moment, but then quickly grabs his bag, and sprints across the room, trying to get out of the classroom before Shota seemed any more agitated than what he had shown them. The class watches with worry as Izuku shuts the door behind him, and then walks down the hallway, making his way to the homeroom teacher’s office.
Whispers immediately started around the classroom, most of the class worried about what was going to happen to their classmate, and if everything was alright. It was as Shota listened to the whispers going across the classroom, his head resting against the podium, that he finally started to realize just how stupid he felt for getting Izuku out of the classroom like that. The kid was probably extremely worried, ro maybe even scared. Shota had already threatened an expulsion at the beginning of the year, and his words still seemed to carry across to the kids to this day. The whispers of “Do you think Midoriya did something that’s getting him expelled” only proved it.
“Aizawa-sensei, are you sure you should be in the classroom right now,” Momo asks, worry and concern pouring through her every word. Shota very softly shakes his head, and then says “Ectoplasm will be here to start your first period. Be ready for it, and I’ll be back when it’s time to go over heroics. Behave today, everyone.”
And then he walks off, practically running down the hall as he heads to his office. When he opens the door, Izuku seems to have just sat himself down, jumping when he hears the door slam open. Those eyes seem so so scared and confused, but overall scared. Izuku was practically shaking like a leaf, despite clearly trying to hide it as he curled up on himself.
And then there was Oboro again, back with that scared face he held when he realized just how big the villain attack was going to be during one of their internships.
Shota wasn’t going to be able to hold himself together.
“Take off the damn bandage,” Shota snaps, hoping that that would somehow stop all of this craziness. He had to stop seeing Oboro. If he didn’t, who knew what kind of impulsive decision he would make?
Izuku slowly reaches up to his face to take the bandage off, his expression adding in a bit of concern as he starts to take it off. He winces as he does so, the bandage clearly newly put onto his face.
Shota can’t help but wince himself at the small gesture that it hurt. But Izuku had it off, and folded the stick parts onto the cotton, and then slipped the used bandage into the side pocket of his backpack, that way he would throw it away later. Taking the bandage off only revealed a cut across the bridge of his nose, deeper than the other scrapes and bruises he must have gotten just yesterday. These all definitely weren’t there the day before.
The underground hero, finally starting to come to his senses, pulls Izuku into a tight hug, catching the teenager by surprise. Shota mumbles his apologies to the kid before backing up a little, looking over the injuries the kid had received.
“What happened yesterday,” Shota asks, lightly tapping the injury on Izuku’s nose. The boy’s face scrunches up a little as he says “I could ask the same about you,” and then answers Shota’s question, saying “We were just training with 1-B yesterday while you were gone, and then Monoma just got a little wild with Yaoyorozu’s quirk. Made a knife at some point, and it scratched across my face. Startled me, and then I fell off the building we were standing on. But uh, it wasn’t too high, cause there was another roof just a foot down, and I landed on that.”
“Kid, you have to swear to me that you’ll be more careful. I can’t handle losing you, not after I’ve already deemed you and all of your classmates worthy of getting through this hero course, and managing to be successful heroes,” Shota replies, his face melting into one of concern as he walks over to his desk, pulling out his small first aid kit.
“I know, and I promise I’m trying. I generally do better, but we were all just worried about you yesterday,” Izuku says. When Shota turns to look at the kid once more, he can clearly see that Izuku is disappointed in himself. “I just keep getting myself injured… I know that I should be able to do better, and nobody else really got hurt… but I did… Aizawa-sensei, do you ever think that you judged wrong about me? That you should have kicked me out on the first day?”
“I definitely thought I should have on the first day, but only on the first day. It was only then that I seriously considered it. Sometimes, when you just get too headstrong on something, and cause some sort of problem, I consider it, but not seriously. You’re a major part of my class, and I don’t know what the class would do without you,” Shota explains, starting to rummage through the first aid kit. “I know my class was devastated when we lost someone… some of still are to this day about it. And kid… I’ll be honest with you right now… you remind me a lot about the friend I lost fifteen years ago. I’m going to do my best to get you going in your hero career, but I need for you to watch out for yourself.”
“I know… I should probably analyze the situations around me a little better. I usually have a plan when I go in… but then it kinda falls apart at some point, and then I just… act . I just do whatever, and it’s probably what leads to me getting injured.”
“If you need help with on-the-spot planning, you just have to let me know. I can help you with that, that way we avoid-” Shota taps the injury on Izuku’s nose “-these.”
“Alright… yeah, I would like some help with that. I’m uh, not in trouble though, am I?”
“No… I just reacted with what was going on with me. I’m probably going to need to take a bit longer of a break, visit Hound Dog for a little while. Go ahead and put a bandage back on, and I’m sorry for how I acted. Just let me know when and if you need help for anything at all. As your teacher, it’s my job to keep you alive, and make sure you make it onto a successful path in heroics. And kid, do feel free to call out my bullshit today, and maybe tomorrow. Just please , visit Recovery Girl and get that nose healed. It doesn’t look like you visited her at all.”
“I would… but I don’t think she’ll be happy to see me.”
“Then I’m escorting you myself,” Shota replies, gently grabbing Izuku’s hand, and then taking the kid to go and see Recovery Girl. He’s just glad that he’s going to get to be there for all of these kids, and try to get them to places he’s never gone before in heroics. He wants to make sure that they never have to go through the same pain he did.