Aizawa's eyelids hung heavy as he gulped down the bitter, grainy dregs of his coffee cup. He knew it was irrational to ascribe his lack of sleep to a full roster, when the absence of a single student would hardly make a dent in the assignments and essays he has to look over, but he couldn't help but feel as bitter as the leftover coffee grounds stuck in his teeth that, even after a full two weeks, he had yet to expel a single student.

He heard the other teachers whispering. Aizawa's eyes narrowed. His coworkers usually had enough tact to keep the rumor mill far away from him, but the sheer novelty of him having a full roster had started a feeding frenzy among the more chatty of his colleagues. He heard the shuffle of money against the table as they laid wagers over him.

Hiding a scowl, Aizawa crushed the empty cup and made for the door. A yellow blur raced to intercept him. Aizawa hurried, but Hizashi sprinted to catch up.

"Forgot your jam pouch," Hizashi said.

Aizawa scolded himself for running. He had assumed the worst, the way he was whispering with Nemuri. Clearly a lack of sleep was catching up with him, if he was snapping at his only friend.

"Thanks."

"So, uh, you got a good batch of kids this year?"

Never mind, Aizawa was going to kill him.

"Oh, absolutely lovely," he said with a false smile. "They're all perfectly rational young adults, and they will make fine heroes. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to check on the bus."

As he left the room, he heard Hizashi whisper to Vlad King, "Put me down for him expelling someone today."

Aizawa scowled. As much as he would love to, it'd be much harder with All Might hovering over his shoulder. Anything short of murder wouldn't stick with Japan's finest there to sweep it all under the rug.

Having to check on the bus was a lie, but Aizawa went there anyways so Hizashi wouldn't call him out on it later. When he got there, Thirteen got off the phone and sighed.

"Something wrong?"

"All Might just canceled on us. He used up his time on the way to school."

And just like that, Aizawa's mood instantly improved. It must have shown on his face, because Thirteen asked, "Not a fan of him?"

"Not a fan of his teaching style. He's giving the students bad habits."

"He's new. If it goes too far, Nezu will straighten him out."

Aizawa wondered why he hadn't done it yet. Surely Nezu had overheard their conversation. And while he hadn't seen anything else objectionable from his lectures and training exercises, Toshinori had made a point of lurking around the building, even going so far as posing as a janitor to keep an eye on Aizawa's students, ready to dash in and object the moment Aizawa tries to expel anyone.

Toshinori's watchful gaze hardly stopped Aizawa. No, he simply hadn't found sufficient cause to expel anyone yet. Even grapes had kept himself reined in, though he could tell his presence bothered the girls around him. In a couple weeks, he could gently suggest they file harassment complaints.

The students were far too excited about the trip for Aizawa's taste as they clambered aboard the bus. He thought about threatening expulsion, but he knew it wouldn't work after his first 'logical ruse'. He'd have to expel one of them before the rest took him seriously. No matter. He might have his chance today.

In the middle of explaining the different zones of the USJ, he noticed the confused looks on the students' faces, and the way their eyes focused on something over his shoulder. He turned and saw a dark cloud hovering over the central fountain.

Villains. They weren't ready. He tried his phone. No signal. He told them to run. They balked, confused, or even eager to fight. Aizawa felt his heart clench. The villains had prepared, they cut off support, and the students weren't listening to him. If any of them survived, he'd expel them all.

He told them to run, again, as the warp villain came for them. Aizawa canceled their Quirk, but blasty boy and the crimson riot wannabe charged in, and the explosions made him blink. By the time he got his eyes open again, half of the students were gone.

Aizawa felt himself spiraling. The students could be dead already, warped thousands of feet into the air or into an active volcano. Even if they weren't, at best they were hostages. And there wasn't a thing he could do to save them. As his heart hammered and every breath felt too short to feed his burning lungs, he was in front of a collapsed building, fingers scraped bloody as he dug through the rubble around a limp hand, only to find the rest of Oboro missing when he had finally unearthed it.

A student asked him what to do. Aizawa shook himself, told Iida to make a run for it, and charged at the villains. Midoriya was right, pointing out that his talents lay in sneak attacks and quiet takedowns, but he couldn't dig for another body. He would save as many as he could, even if it killed him.

The villains were disorganized, rabble scraped up from alleyways and decrepit bars. Aizawa darted through them like a whirlwind, passing untouched by claws and clubs and whatever else they threw at him, freezing Quirks in rapid succession, and sweeping them up with his capture scarf. He drew villains into each others' attacks, slammed heads together, tripped and tangled them up. Within seconds, the villain attack fell into chaos, and Aizawa breathed a little easier.

Then the Nomu appeared. It was clearly their ace in the hole, their answer to All Might. Whatever Quirk it had, Aizawa could bring it down. He would kill it if he had to. Aizawa activated his Quirk and stared it down. The Nomu slammed into him like a freight train.

Holding his cracked ribs in place, Aizawa stood on shaky feet. He held a cough in the back of the throat, wondering if he'd hack up blood like Toshinori. He couldn't afford to fall here, not with half the class at his back. He had to hope Iida got the message out, that someone's on their way to save the students, because there's no saving him.

He bound the Nomu's limbs, once, twice, looping it over and over until the creature was mummified. The Nomu tore itself free. Aizawa rolled and dodged, holding that creature's attention as long as possible. It got a hand around its leg. He twisted as the Nomu slammed him against the ground. He took the blows on his shoulders, protecting his head and back. Bones snapped in his leg, and a shoulder popped out of its socket. Aizawa clung to consciousness like a drowning man, caught in the riptide of the Nomu's fury.

The villains' leader loomed over Aizawa, grinning behind the hand covering his face. They watched as the Nomu grabbed his skull, almost tenderly, and slammed his face into the ground. Aizawa's nose snapped, his skull twinged painfully, and he coughed a spatter of blood onto the ground.

The Nomu raised Aizawa's head up. In that moment, Aizawa knew he was about to die. His vision blurred, and he could barely make out the dusty blue smear of the villain's hair, with pinpricks of delighted red eyes sneering down at him. Aizawa braced himself, apologizing to Hizashi and Nemuri, and wondering what he would tell Oboro when he finally saw him again.

The Nomu's grip slipped. Too shocked to hold himself up, Aizawa hit the ground painfully. He scrambled to lean up despite his broken bones. Once he blinked the blurriness away, he saw Midoriya, one arm shattered, the other unbroken and outstretched in a punch, wonder at using his Quirk without blowback morphing into confusion and horror as the Nomu turned its beady-eyed gaze on him.

Before Aizawa could tell him to run, Tsuyu's tongue deftly wrapped around him. The appendage dug painfully into Aizawa's ribs, but Tsuyu shouldered him without aggravating his injuries.

"I got you, Aizawa-sensei."

"You… should've run," he wheezed.

Tsuyu blinked at him. "We're heroes. Why wouldn't I save you?"

Aizawa tried to tell her to drop him, that she wasn't a hero yet and it was his responsibility to make sure she lived long enough to graduate. He saw a hand reaching for Tsuyu, saw wisps of blue hair and hateful red eyes. His eyes burned. He felt droplets of blood trickling around his eyelids. He activated his Quirk anyways. Flecks of Tsuyu's skin flaked away, peeling like chipped concrete, but the spiderweb of cracks and decaying flesh halted around the villain's fingertips.

"Wow, you really are hardcore," the villain said. "Heroes like you piss me off the most. Nomu, kill him."

The Nomu turned towards him. Before it could lunge, ice sprung up around its feet. Bakugo came screaming in, blasting a fistful of nitroglycerin directly into the creature's exposed brain. Scorched flesh sloughed off the Nomu, and the tissue underneath knit itself back together. It yanked its foot out of the ice and charged at Aizawa again.

Aizawa twisted himself, keeping Tsuyu out of the line of fire. The Nomu was a foot away from him when a star-spangled blur rocketed into its side. Despite being out of time, All Might tore into the Nomu with all the strength the pillar of peace could muster. The villains came close to taking him down, trapping him with the warp quirk, but some timely tape around the warp villain distracted him long enough for All Might to free himself.

Aizawa didn't see how it ended. Tsuyu brought him up the steps, with more students taking his legs as they went along. They laid him out front while police cars and ambulances poured into U.A.'s campus.

Vision blurring, Aizawa watched the entrance. Cops sprinted in, dragging villains in cuffs to armored vehicles, while the medics hurried in with stretchers and blood transfusions. A few of the students were wheeled out on stretchers, but none of them were in body bags.

As they wheeled Aizawa into an ambulance, Toshinori clambered in next to him, groaning and clutching his side. Aizawa, blinking back fatigue and darkness, said in a hoarse voice, "How many?"

"Made it?"

Aizawa braced himself. Toshinori smiled gently and said, "They're all fine, Aizawa. A bit banged up, but they're fine."

Aizawa's breathing hitched. He tried to sit up, but the medic next to him forced him back down and stuck an IV in him. As the room faded, Toshinori said, "Thank you, for saving them. I won't let this happen again."

The doctors told him he would have to wait weeks before starting work again. Aizawa yanked out the IVs, undid the straps and braces holding him in bed, and walked two miles to the U.A. campus. His face hurt with every step he took, and he could barely see out of the cocoon of bandages the doctor had wrapped him in, but Toshinori's insistence that the students were fine played on a constant loop in his head.

It wasn't possible. They weren't ready, they didn't listen, just like Oboro. He had to see. He couldn't let himself stop walking until he saw the students.

Nezu evidently knew him well enough to not bother with a substitute. Aizawa strode through the door, a few minutes late, and took in the rows of desks. The students were all tense and nervous, sporting bruises, scars, and casts, but all twenty were still there.

Aizawa refused to cry over it. He had only done his job, and if he had done it better, none of them would have been in danger. If the bandages around his eyes were a bit damp, he would chalk it up to the doctors forgetting to change them. He doesn't waste time telling them how glad he is that they're all okay, or how proud he is that they held their own against hardened criminals, and instead started them all on preparing for the Sports Festival.

He could expel Bakugo and Kirishima for disobeying orders and endangering everyone as a result, but for now, he didn't want to see any empty desks.