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"WAIT!" shouted Nana abruptly, as Izuku was talking to his (weirdo) teacher. "I know who that is! Quick, get ready to turn everything off!"
"Turn what off?" asked En. "We live in a formless mental void. We don't even have electricity."
"The quirk! That's Eraserhead!"
"Oh, yeah," said Yoichi, while everyone else (sans Second and Third) scrambled to grab onto the quirk. "I remember Eight meeting him, now! So, he's a teacher, huh?"
"How do all of you forget the one person who might be capable of one-shotting All for One?" demanded Nana.
"Doesn't his quirk not work on mutations?"
"Stop daydreaming and get over here, Yoichi!"
The quirkspace began to glow faintly, ominously red, and the ghosts pulled hard on the quirk, holding it temporarily out of Izuku's reach.
Then, the red glow abated and they dropped it back into place.
"Well, that was exhausting," said Banjo. "So, we'll have to be constantly ready for that, huh?"
"As long as he's around, yeah," said Nana.
"Why did we just do that, anyway?" asked En.
"So we can continue to masquerade as a normal, non-haunted quirk?"
"We could have just let him think he didn't have a quirk, or that the anxiety-"
"Super anxiety."
"-isn't part of it."
Yoichi gasped, as if scandalized. "You'd want us to lie to Izuku?"
"Okay, seriously, what is up with you and Nine?" asked En.
Despite not having a body, Yoichi began to visibly sweat. "Nothing, nothing at all. I just... think he's neat?"
"If you're going to lie to us, can you not do it with archaeomemes?" asked Nana.
"No, no, actually, I can get behind this," said En. "Would you say Izuku has... vibes?"
Yoichi nodded solemnly.
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"Young Midoriya!"
Izuku shrieked and jumped back from the sudden sound as All Might suddenly emerged from an otherwise innocuous bush.
Both of them froze, staring at each other.
"Are you..." said All Might, hesitantly, sounding much more like he did in his small form than usual, "alright?"
"I... think so?"
"That's good, then." All Might coughed slightly into his fist. "I was wondering if you had a few minutes."
"Of- of course!" said Izuku, immediately.
"Then allow me to lead the way!"
All Might led him through a door labeled 'staff only' and immediately deflated. "All the staff know about my condition," explained Mr. Yagi.
Izuku nodded. Then a thought occurred to him. "Mr. Yagi?"
"Yes, my boy?"
"Why, um, why don't you teach, um, as Mr. Yagi? Instead of as All Might? Wouldn't it save your time?"
Mr. Yagi stopped and scratched his head. "I hadn't really thought about it before," he admitted. "But part of the reason I took this job, other than wanting to help train the next generation of heroes, of course, is that I want to get people used to the idea that I am going to retire." He tugged on one of his bangs. "Also, ah, I'm not sure if my qualifications to teach are quite up to par without my reputation."
"I'm sure it would be fine! You're the best, after all!"
Mr. Yagi chuckled. "I'm glad you think so," he said. Then he reached behind him and opened a door. "In any case: my office."
"Wow," said Izuku, quietly, stepping in. "All Might's office..." Who knew when he'd get another opportunity like this again? He kept his eyes wide to drink in the details.
The rather sparse details. The office was rather bare. Which made sense, seeing as All Might was a brand-new teacher. It was sort of... disappointing, as thrilling as it was.
Mr. Yagi sat down behind the desk and gestured for Izuku to take one of the other chairs. It had a lot of cushioning. A lot a lot. Izuku sank down into the fluff as Mr. Yagi fiddled with a drawer on his desk. He got the drawer open, and pulled out a notebook. A notebook of the same brand Izuku liked to use, actually.
"Since your experiences with One for All are so different from mine, I thought it might be a good idea to do some research into past holders and take a leaf out of your notebook, as it were." He passed the notebook over to Izuku, who took it with shaking hands and a slightly open mouth.
"I'll treasure it," he declared, voice wobbling.
"Not so much that you don't use it, I hope," said Mr. Yagi. "As it is, it's only an overview. The earlier holders, especially, don't have many records associated with them. Consider it a starting point. I haven't had much time to work on it."
"I can't believe you found the time to write this at all," said Izuku, flipping through the pages. The information was sparse, but each holder had a basic profile, all the way back to the fourth. "I mean, between being a hero, training me, and preparing to be a teacher, I'm stunned nothing fell by the wayside!"
Mr. Yagi proceeded to turn a very interesting color.
"Uh, nothing fell by the wayside, right?"
"Why don't you take a few minutes to skim through. If anything jumps out at you right away, we can talk about it. And then I'll let you go get changed and go home, and we can discuss more later, after you've had more time with it."
"Okay!" said Izuku. He'd start with just the basic profiles. Name, date of birth, date of death, quirk... wait, those ages... "They all died young," he said, softly.
"Hero work is dangerous," said Mr. Yagi, hand going to his side.
"There's something else, isn't there?"
"Not something you need to worry about. I took care of it, years ago." The hand holding his side spasmed slightly.
"... Six years ago?" asked Izuku, aware he was pushing his luck. But this sounded both important and relevant.
There was a long pause. "Yes," said All Might, finally. "A villain with a longevity quirk. He... had a history with the first user."
Izuku got the feeling that was an understatement. It also seemed unlikely that the only application of the villain's quirk was longevity, given what he'd done to All Might. But the subject was clearly making All Might uncomfortable, so he dropped it in favor of burying his nose in the notebook again.
(Social fumbles aside, this was the most secure Izuku had felt for... a while.)
"The sixth user had a smoke quirk?"
"Yes, it seems so. Although it doesn't seem to have been actual smoke, but a biological compound."
"I wonder if that has anything to do with all the steam you release when you deflate. Actually..." he flipped back through the quirk. "I wonder if you're using Float, too, subconsciously, when you jump."
"What?"
"I- I mean," said Izuku, "I noticed, when, um, when I grabbed your ankle and also in videos of you- Your hang time is kind of messed up? You're in the air for longer than you should be, but it isn't, like, consistent? Plus, you can change direction mid-air, which I thought was because you were shooting out blasts of air pressure with your quirk, but with me on your ankle, you definitely didn't do that. There was- there was a forum I was on where some people thought your quirk tapped into magnetic fields, somehow, but that doesn't make any sense, because you'd expect a lot more electronic interference and that similar locations would produce similar results, given the Earth's magnetic field, but they don't. But subconscious, low-level use of a telekinesis-based flying quirk would explain everything. If we take into account what you said about my anxiety after the entrance exam, then that's minor expressions of three out of four of the quirks listed here, not counting the base stockpile and enhancement quirk. Do you think the unknown quirks of the second and third users might have partially manifested for you as well? Have you experienced anything else that's atypical for a strength enhancement quirk?"
Mr. Yagi stared at Izuku.
Oh, no, he'd gone too far.
"Nothing immediately comes to mind, my boy," he said, faintly. "But... magnets? Really?"
"I told you it didn't make any sense."
Mr. Yagi rubbed his chin. "There might be something, but... it's too unclear to say either way. I'll keep an eye out. It's just... a lot to take in. I thought One for All was done surprising me."
"When has it surprised you before?"
"Oh, under the influence of certain mental quirks, you can wind up hallucinating the previous users."
"Hallucinating?"
"Yes. But being under the influence of a mental quirk is always the larger issue, so..."
"Mr. Yagi," said Izuku. "That's really the kind of thing you should let people know about up front."
"I- is it?"
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The ghosts all stared at Nana.
"Hey, don't blame this on me! None of us explained that kind of stuff before passing One for All on."
"In our defense," said En, half raising a hand, "we were usually dying when we passed it on."
"More importantly," said Hikage, "do you think Ninth is right about the quirks?"
"It would make sense," mused Yoichi. "Although then we'd have to wonder why Blackwhip didn't manifest similarly."
"Is it too much for me to get someone to use my quirk? My extremely awesome quirk, that has no downsides?"
"It is powered almost exclusively by rage."
"No downsides."
"You-"
"No. Downsides."
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Aizawa passed him an envelope labeled 'quirk counseling' along with the standard schedule and orientation packet he was handing to everyone else. It didn't look like any of his class mates had noticed, though, for which Izuku was grateful. He didn't want to be known as a weirdo who didn't know what his own quirk was.
He heavily suspected he was tapping into Danger Sense, somehow, but he didn't know how, and the fourth user of One for All had lived so long ago there weren't any records of him. Not easily and publicly available. Everything Mr. Yagi had written in his notebook (that Izuku had probably stayed up way too late reading... and texting Mr. Yagi about it... and comparing it to his notes... and texting Mr. Yagi about that... and reviewing old All Might compilations and theory threads... and having Mr. Yagi threaten to call his mom if he didn't go to sleep...) about the fourth user had been retrieved from the journals Mr. Yagi's mentor had passed down, according to one of the source notes in the margin.
(Mr. Yagi had really neat, small handwriting, which Izuku wouldn't have ever expected from his large, dramatic signatures as All Might, and his notes were meticulous and carefully cited. If Izuku didn't know better, he would have thought it belonged to a secretary.)
But despite Izuku's suspicions, he didn't actually know. He didn't know it's range, what it defined as danger, whether or not it 'ranked' dangers, how to distinguish it from normal anxiety, or- Well. Anything, really. And he would really like to.
He opened the envelope quietly. Inside was a handwritten note instructing him to pick one of three schedules for quirk counseling and return it to Aizawa by the end of the day. The other pages were printed, with times and possible locations. Options for both before and after the school day.
Izuku felt his eyes tearing up. This was easily the nicest thing a teacher had ever done for him... Although he was nervous about being alone with Aizawa. Some of his other teachers, when they asked him to stay after class it was... not good.
Nothing bad happened, not like in movies or TV shows or the awareness videos the school had shown sometimes. The teachers didn't hurt him, really, didn't do anything to him, other than talk or yell, mostly, but it still wasn't good.
Maybe he could ask Mr. Yagi or Recovery Girl to sit in... But he already felt bad, taking up so much of their time.
He picked one of the after school schedules. He was already staying late on the other days to work with Mr. Yagi, and if something did go wrong, he wanted to have the night to recover before he had to face Aizawa again in class.
He put it to the side, so he'd remember to give it to Aizawa before he left, then looked over the class schedule. Homeroom, Math, Hero Art History, History, and English in the morning. At least this morning. The history classes alternated with something called Heroics-Applied Science and Hero Law and Ethics. Afternoons, meanwhile, were entirely occupied by Hero Basic Training.
And every class would be taught by a pro hero. He wondered if it would be rude to ask for their autographs...
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Shouta grunted as Hizashi flopped down onto the couch next to him on the couch in the staff breakroom. "What a morning! I just love seeing all those bright little faces at the beginning of the year. Anyone have a favorite first year yet?"
Shouta kicked Hizashi through his sleeping bag. Sadly, this had no effect on the man.
"I think mine might be the little green guy. He's the only one who was actually paying attention, and you know how rare that is, when everyone is anticipating their first heroics lesson. The rest of us just pale in comparison."
Shouta attempted to kick Hizashi again, this time for an entirely different reason. Midoriya was already All Might's favorite (probably)- he did not need more pull with the staff.
"I know who my least favorite is," said Kan. "Kid's certainly dedicated and competitive, but I wouldn't be surprised if he threatened his middle school teachers into giving him those glowing reviews. His personality needs a lot of work. How did you get Nezu to saddle me with Bakugo, anyway, Eraser?"
"I had nothing to do with it."
"Don't give me that, I was going to have Monoma. At least he's a team player."
"You're being illogical," said Shouta, zipping his sleeping bag closed over his face.
"How about you, Nemuri?" asked Hizashi, cutting off Vlad King vs Eraserhead round five hundred.
"It's hard to choose! They're all so cute and eager! Full of the passion of youth! I think they're all my favorite."
"You always say that..."
The door opened and closed.
"All Might! What about you? Any favorites yet?"
Yagi coughed. "I've only had the one class of third years so far. Don't you think that's rather... premature?"
What an incredible nonanswer.
"How did that first class of yours go, anyway? They didn't sour you to the whole idea of teaching, did they?"
"Not at all! The students were wonderful. The third years are very advanced, aren't they? For some of them, I wouldn't be shocked to see that skill level on an active sidekick."
"What can I say? We start them off right," crowed Hizashi.
"They did seem a little surprised by the scenario, however."
"So was I, t'be honest," said Snipe, who was in charge of the third years.
"Ah, was it no good...?"
"It was fine. Lesson plan was a bit rough around the edges, but you and Nezu'll be goin' over that later. But... quirk traffickin' doesn't quite seem like your thing."
"Ah, well, set-pieces," he said, using the slightly derisive underground slang for large-scale spotlight hero battles, "may be what I'm known for, but before my injury, the majority of my battles and investigations weren't publicized."
"Shield laws?" asked Nemuri.
"Generally, yes, but some of the investigations were tied to others, so we were using the organized crime secrecy laws to keep those under wraps. Simply put, my popularity isn't the only reason I keep the number one spot despite Endeavor having more completed cases than me on paper."
Shouta had known there was more to All Might than 'punchy, over-the-top, eyestrain-causing, bombastic muscle guy,' but part of his stupid, illogical brain was annoyed at Yagi for pummeling that image into imaginary dust, anyway. It seemed like the man's only two flaws were horrible interpersonal skills when not using his public persona, and his vast suite of health issues, the latter of which all heroes who operated long enough picked up.
Oh, and a possible inclination towards bribery.
Made it hard to dislike him, which Shouta wanted to do, because he was loud, flashy, and gave him headaches, literal and metaphorical. He ignored the fact that Hizashi was the same way, and had forcibly become Shouta's best friend. Clearly, there was no connection here.
"By the way, why is young Aizawa completely zipped in like that?"
"Nap time," said Hizashi, solemnly.
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"Sir?" said Iida, raising his hand.
"Yes, young man?" boomed All Might.
"There are nineteen of us. How are we handling the odd person out?"
"Excellent question! In other exercises, we may handle it differently, but for today, one of you will be working alone! Occasionally, a hero may find themselves isolated when they originally expected help. However, for better balance, I have also arranged it so the odd hero out will be taking part in the last battle, so you'll have more time to strategize!"
But the other team would also have more time to strategize, Izuku noted. He really hoped it wouldn't be him... not that he wanted to force it on any if his classmates! He just didn't want yet another handicap on the first day of training.
All Might walked around with the box of ballots, pausing for each student to take one. He reached Izuku and held the box out to him with a wink. Izuku smiled back, reached in, and grabbed one.
A chill ran up his back and he froze, fingers wrapped tightly around the little ball. Something told him this was definitely the cursed, single-person ballot. Could he let it go? Would it be considered cheating if he picked a new one?
But All Might was already walking away. Every part of his body tense, Izuku turned his hand over and forced his fingers apart.
J.
The tenth character of the Latin alphabet. For the tenth, last, team.
He watched as everyone else started to pair up, and All Might looked at him apologetically.
Izuku approximated a smile. Plus ultra, right?