The rest of the tests weren't as noteworthy as the ball throw and the grip strength test. Izuku couldn't really figure out a way to circumvent the whole system they used to measure results or supplement his physical abilities with his Quirk during them, so he'd ended up doing them like normal for the most part. The class came to the end of their tests and grouped up once again in front of Aizawa, Izuku stood towards the back and Uraraka having made her way to his side once again, which he tried not to be too flustered by.

"I've got your scores all tallied up. I'm not gonna go through it all individually, so just find your score and think about what you did to deserve it," Aizawa said, tapping the screen of his device.

A hologram popped up out of the device. That must've been why it looked so weird, it was made by UA. Izuku couldn't help but feel like that was another fault of the school, that they had the budget and the resources to make these incredible technologies and then they didn't share them with anyone else. Seriously, holograms?

Izuku couldn't get hung up on that now, though. He needed to find his place on this leaderboard. He tracked down the list and saw himself at 14th place. Good, he was safe. That wasn't the position that Mineta was in, however, as he was at the bottom of the list. Izuku looked over at him and noticed as the ponytail girl a few steps away from him breathed a mostly unseen and unheard sigh of relief. Izuku wondered just what Mineta had done to make this girl so uncomfortable around him and relieved to see him go. But, Aizawa spoke up once again.

"Also, nobody's being expelled. That was just a logical ruse to get you to do your best on these tests," Aizawa said.

"Are you kidding me?" Izuku groaned.

There had been a brief, collective sound of joy from the class, but that all vanished when Izuku spoke. It was like he was a black hole, sucking all the energy from the class in a few simple words. He looked Aizawa in the eye again, and saw the slight smirk the teacher had been wearing fade into a small frown at being talked to in that tone again.

"Do you have something to say, Midoriya?" Aizawa asked.

"Yeah. What the hell?! That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!" Izuku shouted. "A logical ruse? No, you just lied to us for no good reason!" he continued.

"The reason was to—"

"—scare the crap out of kids and make them fail?"

"As heroes, you'll—"

"We're not heroes," Izuku said. "We're kids, we were in middle school a few weeks ago. If you really wanted to get us riled up, say that the top scorers get a reward or something."

"Staying in this class is the reward," Aizawa cut in. Izuku could see that the man was getting genuinely annoyed now, but still pressed on.

"Not much of a reward, then. Something like a commendation at the next school ceremony, or hell, even just bragging rights would do it for most kids I know, but not the threat of immediate expulsion. We all earned our place, so what gives you the right to rip that away from us?" Izuku ranted. He felt his heart hammering in his chest, and his face warming up as his breathing got quicker to account for his quick words.

"You've spoken about unfairness, but the world really is cruel, even more so to people who aren't prepared for it," Aizawa said.

"So your response is to be even more cruel? Nothing gets better unless you make it better. The world is gonna come at us with all it's got, so give us a shield! Don't stab us from behind and say you're helping!" Izuku yelled. He could feel the tiniest pricking of tears in the corners of his eyes.

"I'm not going to let someone go through years of training if they can't handle—"

"—high school orientation?"

Both Izuku and Aizawa were silent. They stared at each other for a few moments, the class keeping their distance from the two of them. Izuku didn't know when he'd taken those steps, but he was now directly in front of Aizawa, face to face with his teacher. That also meant that Uraraka was no longer at his side, which was slightly disheartening, but Izuku could deal with fighting this alone. He'd done it before.

"We're supposed to be listening to our principal welcome us to school. What if any one of us had needed to set up a schedule with a guidance counsellor, or wanted to meet our peers, or do something else than be talked down to by a 30 year old man who takes joy out of bullying children? No, you wanted to make a point that ultimately serves to lessen the amount of people who could do good as heroes," Izuku said, his voice lower and more restrained now that he was closer to Aizawa.

Aizawa was silent for a few moments. He looked Izuku in the eye with a tiredness that made him unsure if it was wise to argue any further. Izuku knew that it wasn't smart to argue with a teacher in the first place, but he felt he had good reasons and solid points to make, and he'd been so ready for unfairness that he'd just leapt right into it. The expression on Aizawa's face was challenging that belief, that confidence that Izuku had had in his correctness in resisting. Aizawa faced the rest of the class without addressing Izuku.

"You can all go. There are syllabi on your desks in the classroom, so make sure to read them thoroughly before tomorrow. You're dismissed," Aizawa said.

Izuku sighed. He turned to walk away, seeing that Uraraka was standing still, waiting for him so that they could walk together, and that totally didn't do anything to Izuku's stomach. He tried his best to smile at her, which earned him one in return, and Izuku found it just a little bit easier to force that smile at the sight of it. He took a step forward, but a strong, rigid hand came down on his shoulder to force him to the spot.

"Not you. I want to talk with you," Aizawa said from behind Izuku, sending a chill down his spine.

"Okay," Izuku said, silently shooting Uraraka a look that was hopefully apologetic.

Uraraka stayed for a second, looking at Izuku with a puzzled look in her eyes, but quickly seemed to get it, as she nodded with slightly wider eyes than normal. She waved to him, still with that bright, dizzying smile on her face, and turned to leave. Izuku felt the corners of his mouth stretch as he smiled involuntarily, but that smile quickly formed into a frown when he turned around and looked Aizawa in the eye again, seeing his tired eyes peering into his own, the grey irises holding an intelligence that Izuku hadn't seen before.

"Do you want to tell me what's gotten you so riled up?" Aizawa asked, narrowing his eyes at Izuku.

"Yeah. My teacher's more interested in playing mind games than doing his job," Izuku shot back.

"I'm doing my job. If you want to be the best you can be, this is important. Would you rather go into the school year not knowing your limits? Be totally unprepared for what this school will throw at you?" Aizawa asked again.

"I thought that was what the entrance exam was for. Everyone in this class passed that test. They know what they're capable of, because they had to prove it barely a month ago," Izuku said.

"The entrance exam is flawed. It can allow people with no technique, coasting along on their natural power to get in, and this is how I determine if that's the case," Aizawa explained.

"The entrance exam is flawed. I agree. It targets those with non-physical, unobtrusive Quirks like invisibility, or telepathy, or powering other people up, and then the rules make them unable to effectively use those powers to become heroes. How does invisibility help someone destroy a robot? Enhanced senses won't tear a metal limb to shreds. Mind control, though rare, would be invaluable for heroes to have on their side, and yet that's completely neutralised by the nature of the exam. You wouldn't pass that exam, so why expect others with esoteric Quirks, or just Quirks that aren't immediately and obviously destructive, to pass?" Izuku ranted.

"Kid, I get it. I really do. I know it's unfair, and I know that my response to that unfairness comes off as just more unnecessary cruelty, but I've been a teacher for five years, and my way has worked every time. You'd think I'd know what I'm doing by now," Aizawa said slowly.

"Yeah," Izuku said, his will to argue fizzling out at last. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You didn't do anything wrong," Aizawa immediately replied.

Izuku looked back at Aizawa's face, and nothing about it had changed. Nothing about his tone had changed either, so that told Izuku that Aizawa was either always genuine, or never was. Riding on the small bit of hope that he'd gotten from the teacher's statement, Izuku chose to believe that, while Aizawa absolutely had and probably would lie again to his students, it was probably not wise to doubt the intention and meaning behind his words.

"What do you mean? You're not mad at me or anything? I don't have detention?" Izuku asked in quick bursts of breath.

"No. You thought something was unfair and didn't hesitate to call it out and fight it. Even if there were miscommunications, and even if they were intentional on my part, you still stood up for who you could, and that's what being a hero is all about," Aizawa said.

Izuku was silent. He had to be so that he didn't cry. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. This was the first teacher that Izuku had ever had that believed he had a shot. Aizawa was the first to say that he could be a hero. Not even All Might, the man that Izuku had looked up to the most, had said it. Izuku breathed deeply, rooted to the spot.

"Go home, kid. You'll need the rest for tomorrow," Aizawa said, passing him.

Izuku shook himself out of his stupor. He wiped his eyes, because even if he hadn't exactly shed tears, he'd still come close. While he walked over to the changing rooms, Izuku wondered if he could hope for the other teachers to be as understanding as Aizawa. Sure, he'd been a little rough at first, but Izuku could see that there was a man who wanted the kids put under his care to be the best they could be. He was just doing what he knew had worked before. Izuku couldn't fault him for that. Izuku entered the changing rooms and put his regular school uniform back on, before collecting his things and beginning to head back to the classroom to grab his syllabus on his way home.

That plan was thrown off the rails, however, when he ran into a rake thin form when rounding a corner. He looked up as he stumbled backward, taken by surprise when that skeletal form was shockingly solid. The person hadn't moved one bit, but Izuku, who had done some weight training, was pushed away. Looking up had the opposite effect of satisfying Izuku's curiosity, however, as he saw the slim, haunted face of All Might's true form.

He'd only seen it once. They'd been on a rooftop in the city after All Might had saved Izuku from a villain. The hero had run out of time and shifted back to his true form, a gaunt old man who couldn't hurt a fly, and that wasn't because he looked kind. He had almost no muscle mass at all. He'd gone on to explain to Izuku how he'd gotten hurt by a villain a few years back and had wasted away from the after-effects of multiple surgeries to save his life, and that this was the end result. A shell of the man he used to be, with that shell only able to be All Might for a few hours a day. All Might had then gone on to answer Izuku's question, the reason they'd been up there. He'd broken Izuku's heart, telling him that he couldn't be a hero with the power he had. Izuku had stopped idolising All Might so fervently after that. He still did, of course, but now it was like everyone else's praise; it was of the ideal, and not the man himself.

The man that was in front of him right then and there.

"Midoriya! Funny running into you! This must be your first day!" All Might said, his tone taking on an artificial quality to it that made Izuku's skin crawl.

"What do you want?" Izuku asked, keeping his own tone as neutral as possible.

"Why do you assume I want something? I was simply walking through my old school campus and—"

"Don't even pretend. You're All Might. Why would you just be hanging out when you could be saving lives? I wonder if it's because your time limit is—" Izuku said, a small smirk appearing on his face.

"Alright, that's quite enough, Young Midoriya. I see your point," All Might said, his eyes darting around to see if there was anyone around to hear Izuku spill his secrets.

"So, what do you want?" Izuku asked again.

"To talk to you. I oversaw your first impromptu class with Aizawa," All Might said in a serious voice.

"Oh, what? Don't tell me you want me to use my Quirk less," Izuku said. He felt sick just thinking about it, and saying it made his neutral expression fall into a frown.

"No! I wanted to congratulate you on your performance. It takes precision to do the things you did. With your Quirk, it would only be natural to simply bulldoze through obstacles and miss the finer details," All Might said, and Izuku felt his fists clench without making them.

"Are you saying that I can be lazy with this power?" Izuku asked, his voice shaking with his fists.

"No, not at all! Letting your Quirk simply work is just more likely to benefit you than it is to cause you harm or stress, that's all!" All Might said, as if that was better.

Izuku's hands, even though they were covered by gloves, felt sticky. A face, almost forgotten, left behind by the years that had passed, flashed in his mind. His kindergarten teacher, Nikko, appeared to Izuku. The stickiness of his hands was precisely the way her blood had felt as it ran over his fingers, Nikko's body crumbling into chunks before his very eyes. Izuku felt himself gag, and had to blink away the false image of red that took over his vision.

He ran. Izuku simply ran. He didn't pick up a syllabus. He didn't stop to answer any questions as he raced past people in the halls, and he didn't stop to catch his breath, or let his tired legs rest, until he was far away from All Might. He must have Decimated his gloves somewhere along the line, because the air that blew when he got outside to the front gate alleviated the itching he felt in them. He stopped for a short while, simply standing in the wind, letting himself be refreshed by it.

Today had been hectic. First, he'd almost panicked in the classroom with Mineta, then he'd picked a fight with a teacher on the first day, then he'd almost gotten attacked by Bakugo as he'd showed off his power to everyone, and then had picked another fight with his teacher, but that part had sort of ended okay. All Might was a bummer for sure, and he didn't feel like he'd enjoy his time at UA very much if he knew that All Might was stalking the halls wanting to talk to him, but he could manage that. Everything else was a problem, though. This had not been a good first impression of UA, nor to Aizawa and his teaching style.

It would get better, though.

It had to, right?