"Hey Mr. Aizawa, who's that?" Kirishima asked brightly.
"What do you mean?" he grumbled back.
The last few hours the whole class had been running amock in the new dorm building. They were supposed to be furnishing their rooms but somehow they had all ended up in the common room anyway. When he had entered the he'd been assaulted by noise.
And all he wanted was to get a coffee.
Standing in the kitchen now he really didn't want to entertain Krimishima's questions. At least not before he'd had his coffee.
"The girl in the picture. You know, the picture you put up in the common room."
He really didn't want to answer that question.
"Yeah, is she another student?" Denki joined in the conversation.
"Maybe she's his secret love child," Todoroki said in a stage whisper to Midoryia.
Todoroki didn't know how close he was with that assumption. Aizawa clenched the counter tighter. The coffee machine gave a beep and started dripping.
"No way. Do you see Mr. Aizawa with a woman?"
Mina whispered loudly.
He should make a lesson on covert missions. 1A was atrocious at being subtle.
"No! Why did you have to say that! Now I can't get the picture out of my head!" Denki whined.
Another beep and Aizawa took the coffee mug.
"I can hear you," he growled.
"Sooo...Can you tell us who that girl is?" Mina asked.
Aizawa took a calming breath. He'd thought that the previous class was bad but this year was that times 4, literally.
"Ok, I will tell you on the condition that you don't interrupt me and that you won't bother me for the rest of the day."
They settled in the living room. Class 1A was strewn across the two couches and the floor while he was sitting on the singular armchair next to the door.
From the opposite wall Sasaki was staring back at him.
In the picture she looked dead. Her eyes had no shine and her face was expressionless. It reminded him of her corspe staring straight up at the sky.
He didn't have any other pictures of her. Sasaki didn't like being photographed. In all the pictures the other students took her face was never in frame.
"Are you gonna start now or what?" Bakugo growled.
"Yes, I'm going to start now," he said before taking a deep breath.
"That's Sasaki Hinata. She was a student in my previous class."
"Do you have pictures of all your former students lying around?" Denki budded in.
Mina hit him in the arm.
"Shh! Were not supposed to interrupt."
"She was an incredible fighter and had a very analytic mind. She was the best students in that class even with all the drawbacks of her quirk. A quirk that didn't give her more than slightly above average coordination and strenght. She could look at a situation and figure out how to deal with it in seconds. Sasaki didn't need strenght or a powerful quirk all she needed was her brain. In some ways she already acted like a professional."
Too professional he thought. She acted like an adult more than she acted like a child. Even later after the internship Sasaki would still take on an adult role, though she dropped many of the formalities.
He braced himself for the more emotional parts.
"She was brave and selfless. She tried to have something in common with all her friends. Sasaki wasn't good at expressing her emotions but she cared a lot. She had many secrets. Sasaki carried a large burden that she never told anyone about. You could see how it was taking a toll on her but she always tried to accomodate everyone despite it."
"Was? What happened to her, Mr. Aizawa," Midoriya asked carefully.
Aizawa looked at the picture again. Her dead eyes looked back. He really didn't want to tell this part.
"This year you have been attacked more than any class in UA's history. And you were always lucky. In all the cases you got away with just a few scrapes and bruises. But you should remember that you aren't immortal, you won't be lucky every time. Some things are out of your control and some day one of you will get hurt. Some day one of you will die. Heroism is one of the jobs with the highest mortality rates. One day you have to realize that that applies to you too."
Class 1A was watching him with increasingly somber experessions.
"Your situation is unusual. Like I said, there has never been a class that has been targeted by villains like this. But even without the League of Villains Hero School is dangerous."
Some of the brighter students seemed to realize where he was going. Momo's eyes widened, she gasped. He just needed to continue now.
"Even I didn't really realize that. I had to learn the hard way that even normal activities are dangerous. Two years ago in the final exams the students were tasked to evacuate 20 people from a city while teachers posing as villains attacked them. Sasaki went into one of the buildings to rescue a civilian. Because of a fight near the building the ground was shaking. The buildings were rigged to collapse to make the exam more realistic. But the collapse was supposed to be controled. We were too negligent and Sasaki suffered for that. She was crushed by the building and died."
The class burst out into shouts and chatter. Aizawa couldn't really hear them. He stood up and mechanically walked towards the door.
"Sorry that I asked, Mr. Aizawa," Kirishima called out. The regret was evident in both his face and his voice.
"Yes, sorry Mr. Aizawa. If I had known what happened I wouldn't have asked," Midoriya added. He was looking down in shame.
Aizawa didn't feel good enough to answer. He didn't have the energy.
"I think we should leave Mr. Aizawa alone for some time," Yaoyorouzo softly said.
He didn't hear the rest of their conversation. Instead he headed upstairs to his own room.
Talking about Sasaki always left him drained. Her potential had been wasted because of his own negligence, her life cruelly cut short just as it was starting to get better. Sometimes she screamed at him in his dreams, sometimes she cried.
Aizawa didn't like remembering her like that. He liked to remember the good days. Her jokes and dry comments, her joy at even the simplest things.
Her joy and happiness had been taken from her too early. He vowed to protect Class 1A better than he had protected her. They should keep their happiness and childhood as long as they were able to even if he knew that it wouldn't long.
He vowed that he would not fail them like he had failed Sasaki. He vowed that he would not let them die like he had let Sasaki die.