To be in UA was intimidating enough, let alone sitting in front of its principal and a pro hero. There was another man sitting with us too, a scraggly, sickly looking man with floppy blonde hair. I figured he must be important if he was in on this conversation. I stood awkwardly in the doorway as Mora chattered on, most people giving her enthusiastic attention. A man, who I could only assume was Eraserhead, sat in full black clothing, a binding cloth acting as a scarf. He looked disheveled and tired, like he hadn't slept in days but, oddly enough... he was quite handsome despite it. He looked a bit older than me, by no more than 5 years or so. Long black hair bounced as he nodded his chin towards me, everyone in the room jerking their heads towards me.
"Ko!" Mora chimed, leaping across the room to hug me, binding my arms to my side in her sudden embrace. To the others, it would look like she was extremely excited to see me, not being able to wait for me to reciprocate. In reality, it was an unspoken gesture of her mistrust while still loving me regardless of what I've done. I kissed the top of her head before she could move away, her beaming as always. "Ko, this is Mister Aizawa, Principal Nezu" She skipped back to the couches where the men all rose to greet me.
Nezu bowed respectfully, I followed suit, rising to meet Eraserhead but, being met with the sickly man, cheerily holding a hand out to me.
"It's nice to meet you kid!" He grinned ear to ear, he had a familiar charisma to him that I couldn't quite put my finger on. As I moved to connect with him, A hand fell between us. My eyes trailed up to meet with Aizawa, who's eyes glowed red and hair was standing on end.
"I-I'm sorry." I recoiled, clasping my hands to my chest. "I wouldn't use my quirk without permission, or unless I really had to. I would never -" I caught Mora's eye as I stammered, knowing that I have before. "I've learned to control myself." As I finished Aizawa's hair fell, marking his quirk's end. Mora gave my shoulder a comforting pat as we all sat, Mora and I on the couch across from the men.
"Mister A's a bit protective huh? He likes to act tough but, you know he really cares." Mora whispered to me as we settled. "Also, you know that's All Might, right?" I whipped my head to her, an eyebrow cocked.
How did I not remember the fight a few months back? I must have been too deep in the emotion swaps to recall.
Before I could correct myself, All Might spoke up.
"Ah, okay! So, Mora told us all about you... and your quirk." He began, a careful sweetness to his tone, clearly trying to figure out how to navigate the topic. "You can swap emotions with people, right?"
"Yeah." I agreed, continuing after flicking a wary eye to Aizawa, who's hands were knitted together, elbows on his knees, and staring down at the coffee table between us. "I can swap emotions with anyone I touch, but I can turn it on and off. I have to swap for an emotion I have, so if I want to give someone an angry emotion, I either have to get genuinely angry myself first or take it from someone else." I explained simply, adding "There's a bit more to it but, y'know." I chuckled awkwardly at the end, not wanting to ramble.
"She was the peacekeeper back home, I bet we wouldn't have all gotten along so well without her!" Mora chimed, beaming as always. It was kind of her to say, I had promised to never use my quirk on her again after she and my parent realized I was using her chronic happiness to spread it around the house. Not one of my proudest moments. I gave her a guilty yet thankful smile. I wanted nothing more than to make it up to her.
" And that's exactly why you're here." Nezu spoke up, sipping on a cup of tea I could of sworn wasn't around before. "You, would be a wonderful asset here at UA, I know you're a licensed therapist too? And you seem to have an opening in your career." He stated to my confusion, how did he know all of this? Especially my job loss... I decided not to look a gifted horse in the mouth.
"You could not only help maintain the mental health of our students, without using your quirk of course, but you could also be vital to the cooperation of not only our possibly adversaries but even some of our less than amicable students." He tilted his head, his disposition too upbeat for his words. "Despite their heroic dreams, some students need more extreme measures to keep them in check, it would be nice to use less barbaric methods!"
"Oh! Like when Katsuki, the guy with the explosion quirk that won the Sports Festival? He had to be restrained because he was so mad!" Mora explained, a smacking sound coming from Aizawa, his palm making contact with his forehead in exasperation. "He always yells about how much he wants to kill everyone but, he doesn't really mean it! He's a big softie when it comes down to it." She nodded to herself with finality.
"Exactly!" All Might chimed in. "Young Bakugou has a good heart, he just needs to work on his people skills~!" He said with a flourish that I was sure would look more impressive in his old form but, it made me chuckle nonetheless. "That's why we're actually going to have him helping us today."
"Helping us?" I questioned, looking between him and Nezu but, someone else spoke up instead, and surprisingly, it wasn't Mora either.
"We need to test your skills to ensure you're up to par with our students. You don't have any lethality to your quirk so you're already at quite the disadvantage but, paired with me you'll have a much better chance as long as you have some fighting knowledge under your belt. Miss Kento here told me your family trained you all from quite young?" Aizawa spoke in a monotone focus, nodding slightly to Mora on his last sentence.
"Oh, yeah! And how we kind of have stronger physical endurance than the average person? Dad used to say we had thick skin, both emotionally and physically. Ko can totally hold her own, right raincloud?" She boasted, bouncing in her seat.
"We'll see about that." Aizawa rose from his seat, heading for the door. The rest of us rose, ready to follow suit.