MARATHON

Aizawa had a quandary. On one hand, logic dictated that he pushes his students to their absolute limits to better understand their Quirks and their mindsets.

On the other hand, sunset was ten minutes ago, most of his students had left hours ago, and Midoriya and Yaoyorozu were still running laps around the school. Well, Midoriya was cruising along on treads built into his feet, while Yaoyorozu rode the Segway she had made after her scooter ran out of gas, but Aizawa hardly cared about the semantics at this point.

For some godforsaken reason, Kirishima and Bakugo had stayed to watch. Then the butler had shown up. Aizawa had called up Nezu to lecture him on security, but the rodent could hardly refuse one of the school's top donors. So, Aizawa sat ramrod straight, on his best behavior for the butler, unable to sleep a wink and dreading the patrol he'd have in an hour. His coffee and jelly packs had run out ages ago, and his scarf twitched with the badly suppressed urge to strangle everyone around him.

"Kick his ass, Ponytail!" Bakugo shouted. "Show that robot that humanity won't take this one laying down. Don't let him win!"

"You are doing most spectacularly, Miss Yaoyorozu!" the butler called out as he elegantly waved a Yaoyorozu sign he had retrieved from his limo. "I have the utmost faith that you will put that rapscallion of a classmate in his place!"

"Go Midoriya!" Kirishima shouted. "You're the manliest ever!"

Bakugo whirled around. "The fuck? Why are you cheering for the robot?"

"Well, everyone else was cheering for Yaoyorozu-san. It wouldn't be manly to leave Midori-bro without any support." He turned back to the marathon and shouted, "You're also very manly Yaoyorozu!"

The butler gave him an affronted look. "Why, good sir, Miss Yaoyorozu is nothing of the kind. She is the epitome of elegance and grace and has nothing of the boorishness of man."

"Chillax, bro, manliness knows no gender."

Yaoyorozu's Segway sputtered to a stop. Running off it, Yaoyorozu tried to make a pair of rollerblades, but they came out missing their wheels. She gave a stoic grimace and continued running, despite how thin her Quirk had left her.

Stepping in, Aizawa called out, "Midoriya, how much longer can you keep that pace?"

"I currently have twelve hours and forty-seven minutes of battery life remaining. Once the sun rises, net power consumption will drop by eighty-six percent."

"Think you can match that, Yaoyorozu?"

She gave her classmate one last stubborn look before giving in. "No, Sensei. I'm exhausted."

"There's a time and a place to exceed your limits. Here, it'll do more harm than good."

As Yaoyorozu walked away, Bakugo stormed over. "You're humanity's last hope, and you're throwing in the towel? Get back out there and win!"

"For your information," Aizawa snapped, "The marathon results don't matter. Midoriya placed first by a wide margin."

When Bakugo lunged for Midoriya, Aizawa finally had his excuse to strangle someone.

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