Disclaimer: The only characters I own are the ones I made up myself; the plot is also my own, but the idea for Izuku's Quirk and how it works was inspired by HLine's fanfic "From Muddy Waters", a personal favorite of mine.

Roads Less Traveled

Yawning as he gathered up the paperwork that he'd been working on when Aizawa had finally let him go home for the night, Tenko stuffed it into the bag and slung the thing up onto his right shoulder. Making his way out of the apartment he'd saved up for, Tenko yawned again as he continued on his way to the campus. Humming as he walked the short way to the U.A. building itself, Tenko made a quick stop at the Teachers' Lounge to grab the sleeping bag that Aizawa always made him drag around – really, the only reason he'd even been hired as a Teaching Assistant in the first place was so the Pro could sleep even longer during the day; he'd complained to Sensei about it, but the man had only pointed out that he'd been the one who accepted the job offer, in the end – and then made his way into the 1-A classroom that he'd worked in for such a long time.

At least he'd be able to see Izuku again, since both Sensei's kid and Sensei himself had told him that that was where he was aiming to go.

Once he'd made it up to the door of classroom 1-A, Tenko rolled his eyes as he dragged the deadweight in behind him; looked like some of the kids were getting curious, though Izuku and Katsuki clearly already suspected what was going on. Of course, something like that was pretty much a given considering their close connection to Sensei – as his son and that son's best friend, respectively – so honestly Tenko had pretty much been expecting that kind of thing. Dumping Aizawa's slumbering form off behind his desk, Tenko grabbed the roll sheet for this latest class.

"All right, you bunch of low-level scrubs, time to take attendance," he said, letting his eyes rove over the forms of the Hero students he'd be working with for the foreseeable future.

Unless Aizawa ended up expelling them all; though Izuku would end up getting an earful from Sensei if something like that happened.

The sound of what seemed to be one of the desks rattling brought Tenko's attention back from where it had wandered while he'd been pretty much calling role by rote, his gaze snapping over to the girl who was practically vibrating in her seat.

"Ochako Uraraka," he said, prompting the loudest squee he'd heard in some time.

"You're the Rescue Specialist: Dust! You used to work as a sidekick with the Space Hero: Thirteen!" Uraraka exclaimed, rocking back and forth in her chair, the desk she was seated at clattering in time with her movements. "I didn't know you were going to be teaching us!"

Tenko forced himself not to roll his eyes. Great, a wild Fan Girl appears, he mused, turning his attention back to the task he was currently engaged in. "I'm not," he said, then finished taking role and made his way back behind Aizawa's desk to fetch the man's sleeping bag so he could finally take over.

"All right, settle down. As one of you was generous enough to point out, this is my assistant, Tenko Shimura. He'll be handling day-to-day business in class," Aizawa said, talking a bit louder than he liked to since the kids were starting to get a bit panicky with the way Aizawa looked kind of like a zombie when he first climbed out of his sleeping bag. "Put these on and follow me and Tenko out to the exercise field," he continued, ignoring the annoyed look Tenko shot him.

~MHA~

He'd heard from Dad that Tenko-nii was going to be working at U.A., but he hadn't thought to ask about anything else having to do with that kind of thing. His first thought had been something like Tenko-nii working in the library or something, since his adopted brother wasn't fond of most people at the best of times. Finding out that he worked as Aizawa-sensei's T.A. was more than a bit of a surprise, especially since he was still being his usual bored, snarky self. Still, given what Uncle Toshinori had said told him about Aizawa-sensei and how he acted, Izuku could see it working out.

It was still pretty strange, though, and as Izuku made his way down to the field where Aizawa-sensei had directed them to head for, he shook his head in amusement; leave it to Tenko to find someone else to get along with at U.A.

"A Quirk Assessment test?"

The clear disbelief in the voice of pretty much every one of his fellow students' tones brought Izuku's attention firmly back from where it'd clearly wandered, and as he looked out over the group gathered around him, he smiled. Really, this was all pretty normal as far as he was concerned: whenever Dad would get him a new Quirk, either from one of the Heros or Sidekicks he'd taken an interest in, or from the stockpile of Quirks he'd collected over the century and change he'd been alive, Izuku would end up undergoing the same kind of assessment once his new Quirk had settled in.

At least when he was given physical and more active Quirks, of course.

Of course, considering the nature of his particular Quirk – a mutation of Dad's that allowed him to actually copy Quirks rather than simply harvest them, pass them on, or both the way Dad did – this kind of assessment wouldn't really tell anyone much about his Quirk; that was probably why Aizawa-sensei didn't call on him.

"All right Midoriya, you're up," Aizawa-sensei said, though when he made his way over to the course, the Pro held out an arm to stop him. "Let's see how fast you can switch between your stockpiled Quirks. By the way, how many of a single type can you make use of at once?"

"Well, currently I can stock up three of the same type, though I can sometimes make it up to four, but that's only if I really push myself," he said, feeling the Erasure Hero's steady, assessing gaze on him; really, it reminded him more than a little of Dad.

Which was probably another reason why he and Aizawa-sensei got along so well, come to think of it.

"Hmm. Let's see how many times you can make it up to four, then," Aizawa-sensei said, nodding for him to start. "Make sure to let me know how many of the same type of Quirk you're using before you start each event."

Nodding, since he'd been honestly expecting this kind of thing – really, with as many strength enhancement Quirks as Dad had given him, physical challenges just weren't all that challenging, anymore – Izuku made his way over to the pitch. Before he could start preparing himself though, the sound of his new classmates talking drew his attention.

"Wait, what do you mean he can clone Quirks?" the nice girl he'd met just before the entrance exam asked, drawing his attention even as he saw Aizawa-sensei starting to glare at him.

"Yeah, Zuzu there just needs to sample someone's DNA and he can make his own copy of their Quirk," Kacchan said, and Izuku didn't quite like the way his childhood friend was grinning when the pair of them caught each other's gaze. "He could probably make copies by kissing people, but then he'd-"

A short-range teleportation Quirk had him at Kacchan's side before his second best friend after Tenko could say another word, and Izuku clapped both hands over his mouth before he could've gotten the next one out.

"What was he saying?" Tenya Iida asked, looking over at the pair of them as Izuku continued to try to wrestle Kacchan into submission.

"Nothing!" he shouted, feeling practically all the blood in his body rushing up to his cheeks. "He wasn't saying anything! Ignore him!"

"Midoriya, get to the course," Aizawa-sensei snapped.

"Right, sorry," he said, letting go of Kacchan and quickly making his way back over to the athletics field. "Tenko-nii, could you make sure that Kacchan behaves himself?"

Tenko scoffed. "Does he ever?"

"Bastards," Kacchan growled, but he was smirking when he said it so he couldn't have been that mad.

"Technically true in my case, but if Sensei heard you saying that about Izu-kun, he'd have your exploding ass," Tenko-nii deadpanned, giving Kacchan his usual unimpressed look.

Chuckling softly as he turned his attention to the course Aizawa-sensei was going to have him run, Izuku concentrated, slotting in his Quirks and turning to catch the ball that Aizawa-sensei tossed to him.

Once he'd finished with the last of the events that Aizawa-sensei wanted him to complete for his assessment, Izuku made his way back to Kacchan, Tenko-nii, and all of the rest of the students who'd been gathered in the field with him. Once Aizawa-sensei was finished putting them all through their paces, Tenko-nii helped Aizawa-sensei herd them all back into the school building so they could finish the rest of their day's classes. Waving to Tenko-nii as they all made their way back to the main U.A. campus, Izuku yelped as Kacchan grabbed him around the neck, grinding his knuckles into his scalp.

"Kacchan!"

"What, you thought you could just sic Mophead on me and get away with it?" Kacchan demanded, grinning as he ground his knuckles deeper into Izuku's head for a bit longer, before letting go of him and then shoving him just hard enough that he stumbled and then quickly got back to his feet.

Shoving Kacchan back as the pair of them fell into step with each other, Izuku turned to watch as Aizawa-sensei took his puffy, yellow sleeping bag off of Tenko-nii's right shoulder and climbed back into it. Pressing his knuckles against his mouth to muffle his laughter as Tenko-nii rolled his eyes and then grabbed Aizawa-sensei's sleeping bag to drag it back inside. Tenya Iida – who was a lot less laid-back than his older brother, which was still kind of funny whenever he thought about it – was lecturing Kacchan about making fun of Tenko-nii and Aizawa-sensei while they were making their way back into the school building.

Kacchan was ignoring him, of course, but it was still funny.

The rest of their morning classes weren't really all that interesting, since they were really just the same kinds of things that his tutors had covered before at home – though not as comprehensive as them, since Dad was scary intense about education – but the second half of the day started with the class that Uncle Toshi taught. He was in his Hero form, of course, so Izuku made sure to remind himself not to actually call him that during school hours. He'd done it a few times before, when he'd been an excited little kid, and even a few when he wasn't so little.

It'd been just as awkward every time.

Settling back down behind his desk, Izuku smiled as All Might burst into the room, his cape flapping in the wind created by his sudden entrance.

"I am here!" All Might exclaimed, the familiar catch-phrase bringing a wider smile to the faces of everyone in class. "Coming through the door like a hero!"

Naturally, Uncle Toshi was the one teaching them combat, since that was generally what One For All was best-suited for, but as he dressed in the costume that Mom had helped him to make, Izuku found himself wondering just who Uncle Toshi had chosen as the latest successor. Uncle Toshi hadn't told him any of what he might have been planning, if he was actually planning anything at all. Dad had teased Uncle Toshi a lot about the way he tended to leap into things without thinking.

It was something that Granny Nana and Grandpa Sora had both been trying to knock out of him, but Izuku didn't quite know if it was working yet.

Laughter from right next to him brought Izuku's attention firmly back to where he was and what he was doing at the moment.

"Well, I guess I know who your favorite heroes are," the nice girl that had been talking to Kacchan said, smiling at him in a way that kind of made him think that she'd have been laughing at him if that wasn't rude.

"Yeah," he said, grinning back.

It was true, after all; the costume he'd designed and Mom had helped him to make did look like a cross between All Might and the Hero identity that Dad had adopted for himself: the long, flowing white coat that he wore in his guise as Sensei had been shortened to fall just to the small of his back, though it was still as blazingly white as the one Dad wore. From the waist down, he wore All Might's dark-blue with bright yellow boots, and on his chest he had the red of All Might's Silver Age costume, though the symbol he had on was the red cross like the pair that Dad wore on the front of his costume's shoulders, though his was within a white circle to make it stand out from the red of his costume's top, and rather than being on his chest like All Might, his own symbol was on his collar.

The helmet that he was wearing – again, in contrast to the full, face-concealing helmet that Dad wore to separate his work as Sensei from the work he did as Councilman Midoriya – was the same, blazing white as the jacket he wore in homage to his father's Hero identity, but it had only the polarized visor that protected his eyes, and even that was retractable. Mounted proudly on the front of his helmet, in homage to Uncle Toshi just as the parts of the costume under his jacket were, were a pair of golden projections styled like All Might's hair.

Fixing his helmet in place, then fixing the visor into place so that making his way out into the bright sunlight wouldn't be such a shock to his eyes after the dark hallway they were going to be passing through, Izuku fell into step with Ochako as they all made their way into the hallway he'd just been thinking about. Chuckling as he caught sight of Uncle Toshi in his Hero form – he reminded himself again to call him All Might, since he didn't want to embarrass the both of them in front of the whole class – grinning at them, hands on his hips as he stood before them all.

"They say that clothes make the Pros young ladies and gentlemen, and behold you are the proof!" Uncle Toshi- er, All Might exclaimed, grinning as widely and brightly as Izuku had ever seen him do; at least in the powered-up form that One For All granted him.

There were still times that Izuku wondered how that kind of thing actually worked; sure, One For All had been created when Dad had passed Stockpile on to Uncle Shiro and the Quirk had merged with Chosen Inheritance, and the sole function of Stockpile was to grow in strength over time, and even more than that when it was passed on to the next chosen bearer-

"Wake up, nerd."

The feel of Kacchan's knuckles grinding into his scalp brought Izuku's attention firmly back to what they were all gathered here to do in the first place, but he still ended up yelping; Kacchan was not gentle when he thought Izuku needed to pay attention to him. "Kacchan!"

"All Might's just finished assigning the teams, and you're on mine," Kacchan said, grinning in that way that always made him look like he was about to try to bite someone's face off, but somehow happy about it; Kacchan was weird, but Izuku couldn't help but respect his drive, his determination, and his skill. "So that means you extras are fucked," Kacchan continued, face-eating grin now turned on the rest of their classmates.

Once again, Izuku felt like all the blood in his body had rushed right to his face. "Kacchan, you shouldn't go around calling people extras; it's rude."

Kacchan scoffed. "Whatever you say, Zuzu. Just don't go into another Quirk-fugue before we find out whose asses we're kicking today."

Sighing, knowing that it wouldn't do any good to try teaching Kacchan manners when pretty much no one else had managed to, Izuku turned his attention to what they were going to be doing. Apparently, he and Kacchan were going to be the Villains for this particular exercise – something Kacchan wasn't exactly happy about, but at least Izuku didn't end up having to talk him down the way he sometimes did when his old friend was really riled – and they were going to be facing off against one of the two recommended students in 1-A, and a… vertically-challenged student with purple hair that…

Was that even hair? It seemed like something a mutation-type Quirk would cause, but maybe his lack of height had been caused by the same kind of-