Izuku spent his weekend stressing about everything he was going to face on Monday. He didn't tell his mother about it; other than the fact he was going to be working on an extracurricular project and would be out most afternoons until much later in the evening. No, he didn't know how long it was going to take. Yes, he would be careful going and coming home. Yes, he would call if he were going to be late. No, he wasn't going anywhere dangerous. At least he hoped UA didn't count as dangerous anymore. He hadn't heard anything about villain attacks on campus since the year All Might was teaching there. And since All Might had retired, a lot of things had changed.

Lemillion was looking like the person to take over the mantle, though. His quirk looked pretty similar to All Might's, and there were a lot of rumors circulating regarding his parentage. Nothing concrete, but people regarded it like an open secret. Lemillion was All Might's son, and that was that.

Izuku found it easier to focus on mainstream heroes because he was trying to avoid the forums. Part of him was afraid to open them up and find a message from Eraserhead saying they had found someone else. He wouldn't blame them if they had, but after everything he didn't want to hear it. All he had to do to see mainstream heroes was turn on the news. There were battles he could analyze online, trading theories back and forth with people in the comments sections. He had to be careful about what he put on public sites, but he smoothed over the guilt by ruthlessly pointing out the villains' weaknesses and limits.

He was in the middle of a comment when it struck him that this was the sort of thing he was going to be doing with the tests. He was supposed to create a scenario where a student's quirk would hinder more than help and they would be forced to fail or to go about things without their quirk. He was going to learn just how far the students could push their quirks, what their hard limits were, what could prevent them from acting, and he was going to exploit it in a custom scenario designed to make them fail.

Suddenly he wondered how many people Eraserhead had expelled. He said they needed a wakeup call, something to prove that their efforts were not enough, and he wanted Izuku, a middle school student in his first year, to deliver that blow to their egos. Because it would hurt more coming from him.

How much more would it hurt if they knew he was quirkless? Did he dare mention that?

For all the effort he'd put into analyzing heroes, he never really thought about what they could or would do if they were suddenly quirkless. Eraserhead could probably continue on as if nothing had happened. His fighting style was quirkless anyway, and his quirk just managed to eliminate an enemy quirk for a time. Sir Nighteye did a lot more analysis than active fighting, but if it came to it, he fought quirkless as well. That was why they were on his cork board.

Other people, though, their whole identity was centered around their quirks. All Might was one of the strongest people in the world, and his status as the Symbol of Peace was made possible by his quirk and the fact that he rarely lost a fight. Other than the fight he had told Izuku about, All Might had never lost a battle at all. Other heroes weren't as successful, but Izuku doubted someone like Endeavor or Mount Lady would still be able to perform the same duties as heroes without their quirks.

Maybe that was why Eraserhead was the teacher for Class 1-A, because he knew that everyone would encounter a situation where their quirk wouldn't work, and they would have to adapt. Whether or not they could was a sign of their potential as a hero.

Izuku couldn't help but think that all of the heroes who stood by while Kacchan was in danger probably wouldn't have passed Eraserhead's class if they'd been in it.

He never did finish writing his comment.

Monday came sooner than he'd been expecting it, in spite of the fact he hadn't done anything differently then he normally did. He packed an extra outfit into his school bag, intending to change out of his uniform before he got on the train. He brought along the shirt Hayashi had given him because he still needed that kind of distant moral support.

It was somehow more nerve-wracking going the second time, probably because Eraserhead knew about him this time and had almost certainly told Principal Nezu about him, too. The principal would have looked him up and realized he was quirkless because that was something that was more or less part of the public record. At the very least, the heroes would have access to it. And then they probably wouldn't want him to do the tests after all.

Even knowing it was illogical—Eraserhead had known he didn't have an analysis quirk or something like that and had asked him to make the tests anyway—he still couldn't make the pessimistic voices in his head shut up about how useless he was to them. Why would they have anything to do with a quirkless 13-year-old anyway?

He was approaching the gates again and his stomach churned violently. He tried to swallow down his nervousness, which was only making him more nauseous. The last thing he wanted was to throw up at the gates and have them decide he was far more of a liability than they were willing to work with. There were so many other people on the forums who could have done the same thing! There were even some students doing almost the same thing he was doing.

"You okay, kid?" Eraserhead asked, looking at him like he was about to explode or something.

"Fine," Izuku lied. In truth, he was pretty sure he was going to explode. And then there would be pieces of him all over UA's front gate and he would have broken his promise to his mother to be careful, but how exactly was he supposed to predict that he was going to spontaneously combust going back to UA, and not from something nice like excitement.

"You don't look fine."

No, he probably didn't, and that probably wasn't the best way to go into a meeting. Izuku paused and drew on all the lessons from his martial arts classes about discipline. He collected the fragments of his scattered mind and, through sheer force of will, took several deep breaths to calm his stomach and his nerves. It didn't completely work, but he felt less like he was going to throw up when he opened his eyes, so he would take whatever he could get.

"I'll be okay," Izuku told him. And maybe if he said it enough, he'd start to believe it himself.

"Whatever you say." Eraserhead started leading him toward the building. "You know it's okay to be nervous, right? You're a kid. No one's going to hold it against you."

"I'll hold it against me," he muttered under his breath. Fortunately, Eraserhead didn't seem to hear him. Or, if he did, he didn't comment.

The route was different this time. It was after classes let out again, and they were taking more of the main halls this time, headed closer to what Izuku assumed was the center of the building. He didn't attend UA, but the trepidation of venturing through the halls towards the principal's office was familiar and anxiety-inducing. And most of the times he had been sent to the principal's office in his life, he wasn't actually in trouble. He hated to think what it might be like for someone who had actually done something wrong and deserved whatever punishment they were being marched to.

The door to the principal's office, like most doors Izuku had seen on campus, was large and intimidating. He wanted nothing to do with it, but that wasn't an option. There was a contract he needed to sign and a job he had decided to take on, and that was that.

Of course, when the door opened and he saw the principal of UA seated at his desk with a cup of tea, the anxiety Izuku had managed to push through suddenly flooded through his system again. He stepped mechanically into the room, followed closely by Eraserhead, and tried to scrape together enough presence of mind to not cause a scene that would get him kicked out or something.

"Ah, Midoriya, I presume?" Principal Nezu asked, setting down his cup of tea. "How are you today?"

"Fine." The word was little more than a squeak, but the mortification had already reached levels he could never come back from, so he accepted his fate as quite possibly the stupidest student Nezu had ever encountered.

"That's good. I've been reviewing some of your records and, from what I can tell you are an excellent student. And you have been applying yourself more in recent years." The dog, bear, mouse being offered him an expression that could be a smile. Or maybe it was just how he normally looked. "Please do sit. Would you like some tea?"

Izuku nodded, figuring it might be nice to have something in his hands to keep them from fidgeting too badly. He wasn't sure how well it would go over if he took out a notebook and started writing in it in front of Principal Nezu and Eraserhead.

A cup and saucer were slid gently across the desk to him, and he picked it up, sipping at the fragrant fruit tea it held. The slight bitterness was grounding to his senses, and he was grateful he had accepted the offer when it was made. He could also see why Nezu liked tea so much if it could help with his anxiety.

"Now," Nezu continued, "this is a bit of an irregular situation. UA has a particularly fluid teaching style, but this is the first time Aizawa has expressed the desire to pull in outside help, or even create such a unique test for his students. Do you understand why that is?"

Izuku cast his mind back to the conversation he'd had with the underground hero last week. "Because I understand their quirks without relying on a quirk myself?" he guessed. "And because he thought I was their age?"

Nezu chuckled. "That is perhaps the simplest way to put it, but it doesn't cover everything. Aizawa, if you would describe your class as you described them to me?"

Eraserhead sighed. "They don't respect authority figures more than what those people can do for them. They don't respect experience, which is more important than power, and they want to take these attitudes out into the field. They aren't ready for what they want to do. They think it's a game, and none of the things I've done, not even expelling several of their classmates, has really had much impact on the way they approach anything."

"The idea," Nezu picked up, "is to shock them. And while I could craft such a test, as could any number of analysts we might be able to call in, Aizawa believed that by forcing them to encounter a scenario created by someone they respect even less than they respect one another, it will force them to realize that experience and intelligence really are important tools for any would-be hero to know and use."

Izuku felt a small thrill of pride that they had thought of him for this job. That Eraserhead had specifically reached out to him for his expertise. Though it was weird to think he had any sort of expertise in quirk analysis. He had been able to figure out how their quirks could work or what sort of things might accentuate or neutralize certain powers, but he had never considered that these thoughts were the indication of skill or ability in that field. Yes, it was useful, even necessary for him to understand quirks when he didn't have one of his own to bring to a fight, but there was still something homemade and juvenile about his skill. He had to learn a lot of the things he knew now through observation and copious mistakes.

A thought occurred to him. "Will I have to meet them, then?" Izuku asked. "The students?"

"Yes." Eraserhead glanced over at him. "I know you said you didn't want to, but I think they need to know what they are up against. They will underestimate you and the test by association, but that's what we're looking for here. To expose them to their bias and prove that their power and their ability is something that can be countered by anyone."

"Yes," Nezu continued. "And think how much more shocking it would be for them to learn that not only were they defeated by a test created by their junior, but that same young student is quirkless."

For an instant, Izuku's vision whited out, some bizarre concoction of emotions churning in his gut. Anxiety mixed with a general sort of fear, a deep sense of impending dread, and the tearing sensation of indignation. The result of all this was anger and loss squished together like the worst sort of onigiri ever. It made him both hot and cold at the same time, and it was perhaps only luck that kept him from dropping his teacup.

"What?" Eraserhead demanded. Fortunately (or unfortunately, Izuku couldn't decide), his attention was on Nezu and not him.

"Oh, yes," Nezu said, chuckling to himself. "Midoriya Izuku is registered as quirkless. A bit of a rarity in the younger generation, of course, but no less fascinating. Your achievements so far, those online courses you have been pursuing so doggedly, it truly is wonderful to see such dedication in one so young."

Eraserhead turned to look at him and Izuku wasn't sure if he wanted to sink through the floor or stick up his chin and insist that they take him seriously, so he did nothing but stare back.

"That's why," the underground hero said, staring at him as though it was the first time he'd seen him. "That's why you said you had to work so much harder to be on the same level. Most of the people I know who say things like that have a mental quirk, and I'd already ruled that out."

Izuku nodded and wondered if now would be the time they told him they decided not to work with him. He had dealt with people like that before, classmates who shoved all the work for group projects onto him, then took all the credit. Or new students coming into the school and learning three things immediately: don't cross Bakugou, the boys bathroom on the third floor doesn't have a smoke alarm, and Midoriya is quirkless. Even knowing that Principal Nezu would have this information, he still felt something like betrayal being so exposed.

"Don't tell them that," he pleaded, wishing he had the confidence to make it a demand. "Don't tell the students I'm quirkless."

"I think that can be arranged," Nezu said, putting down his now empty cup of tea. "After all, that might give up the game if we were to tell them that before they enter the test."

"Don't tell them at all."

Eraserhead looked at him and Izuku wasn't sure if it was pity or understanding in his eyes. "They'll probably ask and avoiding the question would be a lot more suspicious than answering truthfully."

It was true. If the students were as bad as Eraserhead and Nezu said they were, refusing to tell them what his quirk was would only lead them to the conclusion that the test was unfair because he had some sort of intelligence quirk. Of course, they might not believe it anyway. It was far easier for people to believe that someone else had done the work he had accomplished than to give him any credit for his own work. He hated that bias more than anything else.

"Fine," he bit out. "But only if they ask."

Nezu produced a thin packet of paper from his desk. "Perfect. Now, if you would sign this please so we have on record the work you'll be doing for us?"

Izuku tried not to show his surprise that they still intended to have a record of what he was doing. Although, paper could easily be misplaced, or they could just be holding onto it if he did a terrible job of it. He took his time going through the contract, which was filled with a lot of technical terms and legal speak he didn't really understand the point of. It was tedious and he had to go back and reread sections to make sure he understood what he was agreeing to, but neither Nezu nor Eraserhead said anything about how long he was taking.

When he got to the end, he reached for the pen that had been provided with the contract and signed his name on the indicated line.

"Wonderful," Nezu said, clapping his paws together. "Now, would you prefer to start today, or do you need to head home before it gets too late?"

Izuku glanced at his phone, then took a longer second look to verify that it was, in fact, half past six. "I didn't realize it had gotten so late!"

"Yes, but then it was an extensive contract to go over. I trust since you signed that everything meets with your approval?"

He nodded, not sure what else to say to that. "I'm sorry for taking up so much of your time."

"Nonsense!" Nezu waved a paw dismissively. "If anything, it's admirable to see such attention to the more minor details in one so young. But by your exclamation, I assume you need to return home?"

"Yes. I wasn't entirely sure how long this would take, but my mother would be upset if I took too much longer to start heading home."

"Then I suppose we shall see you soon. Thank you for agreeing to work with the school on this."

Izuku nodded, then stood and bowed to both of them. "Thank you for this opportunity."

Eraserhead stood as well. "I'll walk you out, kid."

They didn't talk about anything on the way to the gate, and Izuku was grateful for that. He wasn't sure he was in the right headspace to carry on a conversation and embarrassing himself in front of Eraserhead again was the last thing he wanted to do.

"I'll see you tomorrow?" the hero asked as they arrived at the gate.

"Yes. I'll come as soon as I can." Izuku was already planning to pack an extra set of clothes to change into tomorrow. And as many escape routes as he needed to get out of Aldera without Bakugou following him. The last thing he needed was to fall victim to an explosion before he arrived at UA. That was definitely something Eraserhead would notice.

"Until tomorrow then, Midoriya." Then Eraserhead turned around and started heading back to the school while Izuku stepped off of school grounds headed toward the train station. And if he had a small breakdown sitting alone in the back of the train, he was the only one who needed to know that.

Shouta didn't know what to make of the kid. It wasn't actually that much of a surprise that he was quirkless but hearing it from Nezu had put the last frustrating piece of that puzzle into place. And maybe it was unfair to expose the kid like that, but it was all the more important to know considering this was who he was entrusting his students' futures to.

On the forums, easybeinggreen was a careful person. He had been jumping into more conversations lately, but there were more conversations talking about him than to him. Most of the conversations he had involved himself in were done through private messages, commenting on a topic to one of the main posters or asking clarifying questions.

Shouta had been part of a few conversations about the kid before they knew much about him. There were a few people who suggested an analysis or intelligence quirk before, but people in the community with those types of quirks were the first to debunk that, pointing to things the kid would have noticed if his quirk tended in those directions. That did bring about a new level to the discussion about who was teaching this kid to think like someone with an analysis quirk. No one in the underground community owned up to it, but now that made a bit more sense. The kid was teaching himself.

Nezu was already looking into ways to snap the kid up once he finished middle school. Knowing Midoriya was quirkless also put some of the things Nezu said since they started talking about him into context as well. Like how he was wondering if they would be able to open up a recommendation spot for him considering Endeavor's son and the Yaoyorozu girl were both going to be in the same year, as well as a few other promising candidates.

Suddenly that fifth slot he was talking about made more sense.

The kid himself was clearly a bundle of nerves, but that was probably also because he was quirkless. If Shouta was remembering the statistics correctly, the chance of having a quirkless child within the last 20 years had dropped to something like 0.01 percent, and that number only got smaller if both parents had quirks. Midoriya Izuku had been screwed over by the genetic lottery as the one person in ten thousand to not have some sort of power. And the rest of the world would have just reinforced the idea that he was lesser because of it until the kid started to believe it.

That was what made his determination to be a hero so fantastic. He knew the odds were stacked against him, he knew how many people would be pushing back against even the idea of him being able to do anything remotely related to hero work, and he was pushing forward anyway. He had more drive than Shouta's last three classes combined, and one of those had been actively attacked by villains throughout the year.

The one good thing that came out of that particular year was that most of those not suited for hero work realized it for themselves before Shouta had expelled too many people. He had two students left by the end of that year, and he was fairly certain both of them were only hanging on to say they survived him, as they transferred out of the hero program at the beginning of the next year.

"What's got you smiling like that, Shou?" Hizashi asked carefully.

Shouta didn't let on that he was surprised by his friend's sudden appearance. "What do you mean?"

"You've got your 'Someone's about to be expelled' smile on." Hizashi frowned. "You haven't expelled another class, have you?"

"Not yet."

"'Yet?' Shouta!" Hizashi started gesturing wildly. "What did they do?"

Shouta snorted. "Bold of you to assume they need to do something to get expelled." He dropped onto his couch and waited for one of his cats to wander onto his lap. "It's more what they haven't done."

Hizashi took the armchair he had dragged into Shouta's apartment for himself. "And what's that?"

"Enough."

The silence stretched between them for a bit, building with energy as Hizashi worked himself up. "WHAT?"

Shouta sighed. "I've met a kid younger than all those in my class who has more drive than all of them combined. He wants to be a hero, and he's working toward it as hard as he can. My students could learn something from him."

"Is that who you met at the gate? The middle schooler?"

"That's him." He wasn't particularly surprised Hizashi knew about that, even though he wasn't anywhere near the gate and Shouta typically didn't talk too much about the things he was going to do before he did them. The man normally inserted himself wherever there was room, and Shouta didn't really have any inclination to make him leave. This disinclination had directly led to a number of waggled eyebrows from Nemuri, but nothing was going to make him own up to something that wasn't happening.

"Are you training him then?" Hizashi asked. "You normally wait until the students are here before you start training them. Nemuri said something about 'making sure they can't get away', I believe."

Shouta frowned. "Nemuri says a lot of things. That doesn't make them true. And no, he's not here for me to train him. He's here because I asked him to do a job for me."

Hizashi blinked and Shouta could feel the questions he hadn't asked yet bubbling up because he was not the sort of person to ask a middle schooler to do a job for him. Unless it was cat-sitting, and there were any number of people on campus to ask about that.

"Shouta?"

It was a remarkably effective way of asking all his questions at once, but Shouta wasn't about to fall for it. People didn't realize that someone as loud and attention-grabbing as Hizashi could be so subtly manipulative, but he had lived in the same circles as him long enough to understand the ways the Voice hero managed to drag information out of people without them realizing they were being used. Shouta had fallen victim to his tricks before, but he refused to be caught the same way twice. When Hizashi managed to control his voice so carefully, he was lulling people into a false sense of calm, making them drop their guard and share things they normally wouldn't. Useful out in the field, effective in getting someone to admit to something they had done around campus, but ultimately still manipulative.

"Yes?"

Hizashi pouted, which was part two of the attempted manipulation. "You know what I want to know."

"I do, but as it doesn't concern you or any of your classes, I don't see why you need that information." And really the fewer people knew about the tests the better. There was bound to be a lot of complaining to happen once the students failed. Shouta didn't even intend to tell Kan until after the tests had been given, so Hizashi really didn't need to know.

"Fine." He was still pouting, but it was more playful than hurt. "Keep your secrets."

"I'll tell you when it's done, alright?" Shouta offered.

"This is something that's going to make or break your class, isn't it? That kid is part of some logical ruse you've set up to test them." Shouta's silence must have been answer enough as Hizashi's eyes widened. "They don't stand a chance, do they? If that kid is as determined as you say—"

"He is."

"They don't stand a chance."

Shouta sighed again and let himself relax fully into his sofa cushions. "That's the whole point here. If they want any more chances, they have to earn it. And I won't be the one testing them, so they can't claim I set them up for failure."

"Shouta, this could ruin them."

"Or make them into the heroes they should be." Mint, a small calico cat Shouta had picked up off the streets when she was just a kitten, hopped up into his lap and rubbed against his stomach until he started petting her. "They need a push of some kind, and I found the right person to give it to them. This is why the teaching methods here are open and subject to change. We're in charge of turning these students into heroes, people who will go out there like we have and save people. I can't in good conscience say that any of the students in my class are prepared for that. But Midoriya, he understands the level of work that needs to go into preparing for that future and he's already putting the effort in. Has been for years. At the end of this, I'll either have a class that's finally decided to get off their asses, or I won't have a class at all."

"And Nezu's okay with this?"

Shouta laughed. "Nezu loved the idea. I'm almost certain he wants to make sure this happens every year."

Hizashi arched one eyebrow at him. "High praise. I hope your students can rise to the occasion."

Shouta buried his fingers in Mint's fur and let her purring calm him down. "Honestly, me too."

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